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  Rise

  Rise

  Midpoint

  Rise

  Gareth Wood

  Published by Permuted Press at Smashwords.

  Copyright 2005, 2012 Gareth Wood.

  www.PermutedPress.com

  Cover art by Zach McCain.

  Acknowledgements

  This book was mainly written between May of 2004 and 2005. The entries were for the most part written on the days they are labeled. I would come home from work and sit down at my computer and write the entry, looking up the weather online for whatever part of the province the characters were in. It took me a year to write, and then once I was finished it took another four or five months to polish and repair.

  It was never my intention to publish this book, just to have a hobby to indulge in and make the writing available online for free to anyone who wanted to read it. So there are pdf versions of this book floating around out there, the raw and unfinished ‘full of typos’ versions, with events more unorganised and plot holes abundant. This is the better version, cleaned up by an editor who knows what she is doing and with characters more developed and plot holes closed more firmly.

  My intent in writing this was to answer a question; what would happen if characters in zombie movies behaved as if they were intelligent, rather than like idiots with automatic weapons? After seeing a couple of really stupid characters in zombie movies do things that got them killed, things that they should not have done if they had even a little understanding of the situation they were in, I wanted to explore what would happen to characters of normal intelligence who actually learned from the experience of being dropped into a zombie apocalypse.

  A novel such as this cannot be achieved without help. Many thanks go out to my wife Stephanie for her help and support, my daughter Kirin, my editor Felicia for convincing me that something that needed changing would make the book better (and it really did), and to the following people for listening to me talk about zombies for so very long: Jude Harrison, Rosemary Stegman, Jim Martin, Bruce Walters, James Cyr, Ian Racine, Allison Walters, Brian Backs, Marquita Milliken, Leaha Maisonneuve, Gaerwen Herben, Rosa Sudar, Paul Cote, Alejandro Colucci for the amazing cover art of El Despertar de los Muertos, Vicente Garcia and Dolmen, Jacob Kier and Permuted Press for following up on an email several years old, and to every one of you that purchased and hopefully enjoyed this book. The sequel won’t be far behind.

  May 13, 2004

  This journal is my sister Sarah’s idea. She thought it might be good for me, and I decided to give it a shot. So I’ll be writing this on and off, on my laptop. I probably won’t last more than a few weeks though.

  So I work for a financial institution doing stock analysis. I’m in my thirties, I go to the gym a few times a week, and I have a great house in Calgary’s North West, up by Nose Hill Park. I used to practice judo, I’m single after breaking up with Nancy a few months back, and have a cat named Fuzz whose sole purpose in life seems to be killing my plants.

  The news tonight had some story out of Africa. There was civil unrest in the Central African Republic. It was worse than the Iraq story, that’s why it made CNN. Some sort of rioting in whatever the capital was, hundreds of casualties, and no one sure who's in charge there now. Why is it that the news just reports tragedies? Couldn't we see something nice once in a while?

  I may call my sister to see if she wants to go have dinner, it's been awhile, and I have something for her birthday. Got her tickets to the Aerosmith show, since I know she loves them. It's getting late, so I will write more tomorrow.

  May 14

  It's cold and blustery out there. I love that word, blustery. It makes me think of rain and wind and shit like that, which is exactly how it looks like it's going to be outside here in about ten minutes. Better let the cat in.

  There’s more news out of Africa this morning. Apparently the civil unrest (nobody wants to call it civil war yet) has spread into Chad and Cameroon. Both those nations are saying that refugees from the Republic are flooding into the border villages and causing chaos. The Red Cross is trying to organize a relief mission or something.

  I’m going over to see Sarah tomorrow for dinner. I am giving her the tickets to the Aerosmith concert, so she'll be happy. Her condo might be sold too; she said so yesterday on the phone. Oh yeah, and the Flames lost last night. Figures. They always choke when it matters.

  May 15

  Dinner is in a few hours. I'll stop and pick up some steak at Glenmore Landing, and we'll barbeque it. They have the best steak there. Maybe some Greek salad too, and a few snacks for after.

  The crisis in Africa has spread a bit more today. It looks like the whole area is in chaos now. The World Health Organization is saying that there is a virus or disease or something spreading with the refugees. Hopefully it is not some new variant on Ebola. The US shut down its embassy in Cameroon this afternoon and told its people to leave the Republic and Chad as well. The governments there are insisting that the refugees are just that, and that there is no 'civil unrest' or virus. Figures that the governments would try to cover something like this up. I bet that it was a new version of Ebola. I even talked to Sarah about it when she called me. She had heard that there was rioting in Egypt, but the story vanished from the website that had posted it before I got there.

  May 17

  I was so hung over yesterday I decided not to write anything. After dinner with Sarah, I gave her the tickets to Aerosmith and we went out to Cowboys and got plastered. For a five-foot-six 25 year old, it’s kind of frightening that she can out-drink me. So I spent most of the day lounging around the house wishing my head would just burst so I could get some decent rest. Didn't see much TV, but the Flames lost another one.

  Today I caught the news while I was at work. I fired up the CNN site and read about the CDC declaring that western Africa is now a Hot Zone. All of it. Holy shit! The U.S. airlines are not flying to any of the affected countries now, and Canadian air carriers are following suit. Apparently there is a virus that surfaced in the Republic that causes its victims to become irrational and violent, and is highly communicable. The World Health Organization is making a counter-claim that the disease just kills its victims. No mention of making them crazy. Either way, the stock market is down, tourism to Africa is drying up, and South Africa has sealed its borders, as has Egypt.

  No one has mentioned yet if there have been any cases of this virus or disease in the US or Canada, but there was a story on local news earlier about a mass shooting in New York. A gang war, they said. I think I need to go shopping now. Bottled water and some canned food might be a good idea, and I am overdue for a good grocery run. These stories of germs and diseases always make me nervous.

  May 19, 5:30 a.m.

  Things have really gone for shit. I'm leaving town. I went to Superstore right after my last entry on the 17th, and it was a zoo. I managed to get out of there with two flats of bottled water (48 bottles total) and three cases of canned soups, plus some other assorted things that'll probably come in handy. The lines were insane, and store security had to separate two people who actually got into a fight over the last case of bottled water. If people in Canada are reacting like this to a disease spreading in Africa, maybe there is more going on than I am aware of.

  Yesterday I spent most of the time I was at work surfing the CNN and CBC websites seeing what was going on in African countries. I hardly think I did any work at all. Most of western Africa is in chaos now. Egypt tried sealing its borders, but it didn't work. The 'West Africa virus' has spread there now too, and people are catching it. There was a report late yesterday after I got home that said a plane from Cairo had crashed in southern France. No word on size or survivors or anything.

  It hit Mexico very early this morning. Not sure how it got posted thi
s fast, but a video from Mexico showed a large crowd of rioters approaching an army position in Mexico City, the army shooting at them with little effect, and the camera crew running once the army had been overrun. The video was grainy and cut off pretty quick. The US sealed its borders last night.

  I called in sick today, leaving a message at the office since it’s early and nobody is there, and I'm taking off. I went to the Safeway at Market Mall last night and bought what water and canned food I could. I filled up one of those big 40 liter water jugs and it's in the back of my truck right now. I've got a bag of clothes and things packed and ready to go, as well as some camping supplies and maps and a few books, too. My laptop and solar charger are going into the backpack I picked up last summer, the one with all the pockets. I'm going to head up to the cabin by Jasper and wait there until this blows over. I figure I can get a new job once this is done. If this doesn’t blow over, then being a stock analyst won’t be of much use. I called Sarah and told her she should come too. I'm going to swing by there this morning to get her. She should be off at 6 a.m., and be home from the paramedic station by 6:30.

  I just saw on CNN that there are outbreaks of the virus in France and Spain. Definitely time to leave. I really don't want to be here if this virus comes to Calgary somehow. I doubt it will, but what happens if it does? The good news is the weather is great for travel right now. The bad news is this weekend it could snow again. But we'll be in the mountains by then, safe in our cabin.

  Friday May 21, about 11 p.m.

  I never made it to Jasper. I'm amazed that I am still alive. I'll try to piece together what happened since I updated this journal last.

  The virus, or whatever it is, hit Vancouver and Toronto early Wednesday morning, and within hours it had spread. While I was fighting traffic heading to Sarah's place, the CDC in the States released a report that got airtime on every radio and TV station in the world. I recall it almost word for word, and it went like this: “The unburied dead are returning to a semblance of life and attacking the living. It has been confirmed that the bodies of the recently deceased, when exposed to this agent, will reactivate and act in a homicidal and cannibalistic manner.” Even writing it now I find it hard to credit, but it's true. I've already seen it myself.

  The report claimed that the disease, virus, or whatever it is attacks the brain, altering the cells. The body shuts down within hours, and the victim dies. Then the brain starts up again with its altered cells, and the creature that was once alive gets up and tries to kill any living thing it can reach. The report claimed that virus victims are nearly immune to injury, except for severe cranial trauma. I know what that means—it means you have to destroy the brain. Shit, if only I had a gun!

  I got to Sarah's place about ten minutes to 7, in time to hear the last of the report. Sarah's place is a condo in Varsity. As I was getting out of the car I heard a jet plane flying overhead, but it was way too loud, since the airport is in the north east of the city, not near Varsity at all. I looked up and a large passenger jet, coming from the west, flew by so close to the ground that I could see the faces of people in the windows as it passed by. A few seconds later I heard it crash somewhere on the University grounds, and I could see the fireball over the tops of the houses on the street. I just stood there for a few seconds while the ground shook, completely unable to process what I had just seen. Sarah came outside and grabbed my shoulders, and I snapped back to reality. I realised I could hear sirens and car horns honking, and probably every car alarm in 5 kilometers was going off as well. We went inside.

  Sarah had packed a suitcase and a backpack, and we tossed those in the Explorer as we talked about the news report. She told me that outbreaks of the virus had been reported in Vancouver, Toronto, Seattle, San Francisco, Lisbon, London, Tokyo, and New York City, that both Canada and the US had declared states of emergency, and that the States were probably going to declare martial law within the hour. She had seen reports on the TV of groups of armed civilians, police, and military personnel in the US going on hunts for the infected, and I remembered something I had seen in a movie, one of those Romero gore-fests, where hillbilly hunters with beer cans and shotguns rounded up zombies, and once again I wished I had a gun.

  Sarah and I watched CNN in horror as video from New York showed what looked like a group of people dragging someone from their car on a bridge, and killing him and then eating him. The video cut off right then, and the shocked faces of the anchorman and sports guy were left to talk. They didn't know what to say, so they repeated the CDC report. A military officer came on to assure the American people that the president was safe, and that steps were being taken to ensure the security of that great nation, blah blah blah.

  That doesn't help us much here...

  Sarah and I loaded what we could into the Explorer and decided to make one last run into the condo for anything useful. We took her digital camera, her stun gun, the baseball bat I leave there for when I play ball with her and her neighbors, canned food, candles and a lighter, and a few more bottles of water that were in the fridge. I think we were both kind of in shock, but it didn't feel that way at the time. We left her condo locked and set the alarm, like we'd be back later.

  I got us northbound onto Crowchild Trail at 7:43 a.m., and it was already a parking lot. We crawled for ten more minutes until I realised that there was nobody at all going southbound. There was a concrete divider between the north and southbound lanes though, and even my Explorer wasn't getting over that, but there was one of those big 18-wheeler tow trucks three cars back behind me. I stopped the truck, hopped out and walked back to the tow truck. It took only a minute to convince the driver to push a few concrete blocks aside, and he started to turn his truck as I walked back to the Explorer. Then I heard the most awful noise I have ever heard in my life. I turned to look back south as I heard this awful groaning wailing moan. From the Shaganappi overpass there came dozens of people on foot, walking, limping, or shuffling like drunks towards the traffic jam. I thought at first that some of them were injured, and then the people on foot started attacking the people in the cars, pulling the doors open and mauling the drivers and passengers. I could see a few of the attackers looked like they'd been burned badly, and I remembered the jet. I could still see the smoke from where it had crashed on the University grounds.

  The road turned into chaos. People started abandoning their cars and running to get away from the infected (that's what I was sure they were now), and it looked like Mr. Tow Truck Driver was going to bail as well, but I waved him on and he took the hint. He slid up against a barrier, and shifted down, pushing the concrete out into the southbound lane. Once he had a clear access he took off, roaring away to the north. I hopped back in the Explorer just as the nearest infected were attacking cars about five back from us. I slipped into reverse, rammed backwards into a cheap Toyota that was trying to get into the gap too, and turned into the southbound lanes. It was clear sailing then, and I saw several other cars behind me with the same idea, including the Toyota I had hit. It was really weird driving the wrong way up Crowchild, but with no oncoming traffic I wasn't worried.

  My plan at this point was to just get us to the city limit. I guess I figured that by then traffic would clear up. It didn't. Up around Arbour Lake, a few kilometers from where we had turned into them, I was still in the southbound lanes, but traffic was at a standstill there too. I checked to make sure Sarah was still buckled in and went cross country there, right into the ditch. The Explorer handled that pretty well, and I got us around as many of the cars as I could. About that time I ran over something in the ditch, a bottle or can or something, and blew my passenger front tire. The Explorer swerved, and the airbags deployed as we came to a sudden jarring halt, nose first into the ditch. The truck’s engine was stalled, so I started it again and tried to back us away from the ditch. Once we were up on the shoulder I straightened us out and stopped. We had to fix that tire. We couldn't get far without it. Fortunately I carry a spare in the back, so
I jumped out and grabbed the baseball bat. I could hear sirens, and I paused for a second to look at the city. Smoke from several fires was visible to the south. I could see downtown in the distance, and there was more smoke there, but I couldn't tell where it was coming from. Crowchild at this point was chaos. Many cars and trucks were all trying to get out of the city here, and the road was crowded, but it appeared the cars were at least moving steadily. I opened the back and started moving supplies aside to get at the spare, and within a few minutes I had it and the jack out and started to change the tire. Then it started to rain.

  How has this happened so quickly? Was the virus already here before the plane crashed? Were the reanimated dead already walking about in Calgary when I got up this morning? How were people getting infected all over the world? I have the feeling I might have left things a little too late.

  Once the flat tire was in the back and we were down off the jack we reloaded the supplies and got back on the road. I turned on the radio to see if I could get a signal, and I did easily. Several stations were playing music! One station had an announcer on who was trying to explain that it was best if citizens returned to their homes and locked the doors and allowed the police to deal with the emergency. I kept scanning, and found a station where the DJ, one of the morning show regulars, was telling people what the situation was. He didn't know much, but he did know that the plane that crashed at the University was from Vancouver, and apparently had a bunch of infected on board. Many of them were killed when it crashed, but enough got out to attack rescuers, students, and workers at a new construction site on campus. He claimed that many of those attacked and killed were now zombies, attacking the living and making more of the living dead. He was the first one I heard use the term ‘zombie’.