Dawnland (Book 1): Pockets of the Dead Read online

  One morning, Huck, Zeke and Eliza were out in the boat on Lake Lure when they heard screams. It was foggy so they couldn’t see the shore. Zeke began to row toward it. They heard more screams and gargling moans. At first they thought a boat had capsized and people were drowning, but then Eliza shrieked and pointed to the shore.

  Several dozen people were fighting. It was the biggest fight Huck had ever seen next to his brother’s wedding reception. The fog still hid most of the action from view, but there was blood—lots of it. People were running into the water, being chased by others, screaming and drowning and biting and dying.

  Zeke rowed faster toward the mess, wanting to get to shore to help his parents. Eliza started yelling at him to turn around. She wanted to go to a small island where they had camped several summers ago, the island where she lost her virginity, until the fighting stopped. The water grew red with blood from all the victims. Huck wrestled with Zeke to turn around.

  A hand and arm floated by the boat, and then a head and a shoe. Eliza screamed, which startled Zeke so much that he almost dropped his oar. People were swimming toward them, calling out for help. Huck and Eliza convinced Zeke to row away from the people and to the island far in the middle of the lake. When Huck and Eliza got off the boat, Zeke took it and rowed to the mainland, saying he had to rescue his parents.

  They didn’t see him for days. Huck tried to find another way off the island, but he couldn’t. I could tell he felt guilty about that, the way he described all the carnage he witnessed from the safety of the island and how people tried to swim to them, but never could make it. They were either too injured or caught by an undead wader. He seemed most angry about not taking his rifle with him on the boat, a mistake, he said, he would never make again.

  Zeke did return, but not with his parents. He had rescued a woman named Zora, her husband John, and Zora’s sister, Boa, who was sixteen. They had been staying in one of the cabins. When Huck asked about Zeke’s parents, Zeke couldn’t answer him, and Huck knew they were dead.

  Shortly after Zeke returned, an elderly couple, Archie and Easter, showed up with their twelve year old grandson Mike. They told a horrible story of how their daughter and son-in-law had turned undead and almost killed them. It broke my heart to think of such a young boy without parents. To have witnessed their destruction must have been devastating, especially when they came after him.

  The group spent weeks there fishing and eating wild raspberries, until they realized they would not be able to last much longer. Both Huck and Zeke volunteered to go and find another spot to spend the winter. It had quieted down enough where they thought they were relatively safe. Huck and Zeke agreed they both would go in opposite directions and come back when they found safety or in a month, whichever was sooner.

  “It’ll take me a couple of weeks to get back and forth,” Huck said when he was done telling me about his group.

  “A couple of weeks?” My stomach lurched. I was hoping it would be a couple of days. The mountains weren’t that far, but the roads could be blocked by all sorts of things and Huck wasn’t zero-proof. The thought of losing him terrified me.

  “It might take longer depending on what I run into, how fast I can travel and how long it takes me to convince them to leave—three weeks tops.”

  I had to go with him. I had to make sure nothing attacked him. I had to make sure he came back. He was my seed, my love, my only friend. “I want to go with you.” By the look on his face I knew the answer was no.

  “You wouldn’t make it,” he said. “We can’t take a car, the roads are blocked. I can’t ride you on my bike with the supplies I’ll need to bring back, food and first aid. You’d have to drive your own bike, and I doubt you know how.”

  “You are right, I can’t,” I said. “We could take bicycles.”

  He sneered. “You want us to get back before winter?”

  It seemed obvious that he would only let me go if I told him my secret. I thought about what that would mean, a long journey with Huck to the cold mountains. I hated the cold. Huck would keep me warm, but his flesh wasn’t enough. I didn’t really know him that well. What if it turned out he had a girlfriend and didn’t want to help me procreate the earth? What if he was just leading me on to get his friends a safe place to live?

  It would be stupid of me to jeopardize all of the things I had already built in the village on a lustful whim. I would let him make the journey by himself and figure out what to do when he got back—if he came back, and if he didn’t I would go and find my friends. I would use Stan to repopulate the earth.

  “When are you going?” I asked.

  “Now,” he said.

  “Now? You haven’t had breakfast.”

  It didn’t occur to me that he would want to leave so soon. It made me feel less and less important to him. I was alone. I had nobody. He had a family and he wanted to bring them here. Would I feel like the outsider? He wasn’t giving me much of a chance to get to know him. He picked up a picture I had brought from my apartment of my family.

  “Look, I really don’t want to go get the others. I’d much rather stay here with you, but I actually believe what you said about rebuilding humanity. Unfortunately there are only a few of us, but it’s a start. Without them, we don’t have much of anything.” He put down the picture and grabbed his shirt from a chair.

  “I know, but I just thought that maybe we could spend some more time to get the place ready for them.” I watched as he slid his shirt over his muscled chest. I watched every inch of it disappear from view.

  “They are freezing and hungry. They could care less about a fixed-up place.” There was sympathy in his eyes, and I was sure it was for me. I looked away so that he wouldn’t see the tears, but it was too late.

  “Oh no,” he said, sitting down next to me again. “I didn’t mean to make you do that. Again. Come here.” He brought me into his arms. “Maybe we could clear out a few apartments. I can help you find some keys.”

  I couldn’t talk for fear of starting to bawl. I was suddenly so sad about everything, about all of the devastation, about the end of the world. I didn’t want it to end, not like this.

  “Come on, let’s have breakfast,” Huck said. “One more day won’t matter.”

  Immediately I felt better. One more day wouldn’t matter. He’d see his friends soon enough. I vowed never to cry again.

  Chapter 8: Frozen

  November 19th

  700 Oval Park Place

  Pizza Adamo

  Haverlyn Village

  Once we were at Pizza Adamo’s, Huck started a fire in the pizza oven while I went to the food storage adjacent to the cubbies which held my collection from the pockets of the dead. The storage was clean and quiet, with plain white walls, gleaming floors and an overabundance of canned tomatoes. Hunting through the variety of tomatoes, I found several cans of black beans, corn, and pineapples and brought them out for Huck.

  Huck looked at the assortment of cans. “Perfect.” He had gathered some flour, olive oil and other ingredients and set up on the counter in front of the pizza oven. “I’m going to make you the finest breakfast pizza you ever had.”

  “Where’d you learn how to make pizza?” I asked as he handed me a can opener and tapped the black beans.

  “Not pizza. Mexican food. I’m making this up here. I worked in a Mexican restaurant when I was in Oaxaca. From cook to busboy to waiter, I did it all.” He tied his bandana around his head to keep the hair out of his eyes and started mixing the flour into a dough. Cooking made Huck appear less rugged and more handsome at the same time. I averted my attention to the tool in my hand when Huck caught me staring at him. “I can’t say I was a very good cook, but I learned enough from the family. I make a wicked Mancha Manteles.”

  “Mancha what?” I pressed the tooth of the can opener into the black beans, clamped the jaw shut and began twisting. It had been ages since I used a manual can opener and I became frustrated when the tooth slipped from the metal ridge.


  “Mancha Manteles. It means tablecloth stainer.” Huck kept kneading the dough while he watched me tangle with the can opener. He seemed to be enjoying my struggle. “It’s a stew of meat and fruit. Turkey, pork, pineapple, apple, banana, almonds, cinnamon, chili peppers and chorizo.”

  “It sounds delicious. Will you make it for me some time?” I opened the black beans and scooted it toward Huck just as he produced two cans of tomato sauce and pushed them toward me.

  “Sure, I’m going to have to kill me a turkey first. There are plenty of wild ones out there.” Thinking of killing must have made him think of his gun, because he wiped off his hands, and moved it from where it was resting on a table to the counter next to his newly formed pizza.

  “Are you expecting a turkey to waddle in here?” I nodded toward his weapon as I opened my second can of tomato sauce and slid both across the counter. He seemed surprised that I had opened both already. I dusted my hands together and reached for the corn.

  “Being with you makes me forget what’s out there,” Huck said. The grooves on the sides of his mouth deepened. “But we can’t, for a moment, think we are safe.” He spread the tomato sauce on the pizza. I watched the thick red liquid cover the cream colored dough, entranced by the movement of the silver hued spatula through the red goo. It reminded me of one thing, and it wasn’t food. I turned away in disgust.

  “Hey, I’m sorry,” Huck said. “I didn’t mean to make you sick.” I turned back around and bumped into Huck’s chest.

  “It’s not you.” I pressed into his chest. His arms covered my back, pressing my body further into his.

  “Why don’t you find some keys, like you said you wanted to,” Huck murmured in my ear. “I can finish making the pizza.” I nodded, still resting my head against Huck’s chest. He smoothed my hair and pressed his cheek against it. “You better go now before my appetite for something else grows.”

  I felt movement in his trousers before I pushed away in embarrassed excitement. “You’re right.” I disappeared back into the storage area, this time stopping in front of the cubbies.

  I couldn’t force myself to search through the keys yet. Instead, I closed my eyes and remembered Huck’s touch as I listened to him in the kitchen. His soft humming mixed with the clink of utensils sent me into the kitchen of my youth where my father would often prepare our meals. My father cooked simple, steak and potatoes, pork chops and applesauce, but always with love as an extra ingredient. By the sound of Huck’s humming, he had some warmth in his soul as well.

  After I started to smell the pizza cooking, I realized I must have been day-dreaming for quite some time. Turning to the cubbies, I searched through the baggies that I had catalogued with local addresses. I found a set that was right across the green from us, above an art gallery, and put them in my pocket.

  When I came out, Huck had covered a table with a white cloth, added place settings for two, and had lit the candle. I stared at the candle dreamily. A slow smile crept up on my face. No guy had ever made such an effort to please my stomach, and it growled loudly in appreciation.

  “You hungry?” Huck asked. He was standing next to me with our oh-so-good-smelling breakfast pizza.

  “Yea,” I said, gazing at Huck’s creation.

  He put the pizza down on a table and ushered me into a chair. From there, we ate and talked and laughed and became serious and talked and laughed again. It was the best breakfast I had had in months and the best company as well. When we were done, we cleaned up our mess and headed out the door.

  Once outside, I showed Huck the keys I had found and motioned across the green in the direction of the apartment. He took my hand with the keys wrapped around it and stuck it and my hand in his pocket. We continued across the green together, Huck with his rifle across his shoulders and me with my hand in his pocket. It reminded me of how I cleared out all the pockets of the dead, how their most personal possessions were in those pockets, and how Huck’s most personal possession was now my hand.

  November 19th

  215 Oval Park Place

  Haverlyn Village

  When we reached the top of the stairs to the apartment, Huck aimed his rifle at the door and I unlocked it. Suddenly, a big dog rushed out from the apartment and started barking at us, which made me scream. Huck fired at it, but missed, which made me scream even louder. The dog started to howl and wag its tail. It was nothing but skin and bones, but somehow it had survived for months in the apartment all by himself. I bent down to pet it, and Huck scratched it behind its ears.

  “It’s friendly,” I said to Huck.

  “It’s hungry,” Huck said.

  The dog started to dig into the neighbor’s door. That’s when I heard a voice, and it wasn’t Huck’s. It was soft and quiet; but there was no mistaking it. A man was speaking to us from behind the neighbor’s apartment door. I knelt down and clamped on the dog’s muzzle. He struggled with me, but I tightened my grip and he remained silent.

  “Go away. Your dog is scaring my cat.” The voice sounded tired, old, and very annoyed.

  Huck raised his gun and aimed it toward the door.

  “Put that thing down.” I pressed on the barrel to lower it. It felt cold and deadly.

  “Go away,” said the man from behind the door—like I was going to listen to him.

  The dog suddenly coughed and whined and dropped to the floor. It had barked its last breath.

  “We’re not going to hurt you, old man,” Huck said.

  “I’ve seen you,” the man said. “I saw you riding around yesterday, burning those things, causing all that commotion.”

  “I’m not going to give up,” I said. “I’ll stay out here until you open the door.” I rapped on it with my knuckles.

  “Fine,” the man said.

  When I didn’t hear anything, I was afraid he wasn’t going to let us in. I knocked again and twisted the door knob, rattling it at the same time. He was going to come out and say hello to me whether he liked it or not. There was another human around and with Huck leaving, I desperately wanted the company.

  “Come on, Hella, he’s scared,” Huck said.

  “I am not scared,” the man said. “Now get away.”

  “No,” I said. “I am not leaving until you open this door.” I rattled the knob again. I was channeling the ghost of Christmas future and wanted to show the man what was yet to come. I was going to get into that apartment if it killed me.

  “What’s with you, Hella?” Huck asked.

  “You were going to shoot him,” I whispered.

  “I was not,” Huck whispered back.

  The door opened and an elderly man appeared in it. His skin was light brown, and wrinkles dappled his forehead and mouth. His hair was cut close to his scalp and showed patches of gray and his long beard was all white. “Well, come in and stop creating such a racket out there.”

  “You don’t have to worry about the undead things,” I said hoping he would appreciate that fact.

  “Yes, I know.” The man still sounded irritated. “Do you have to burn the bodies right outside my window? All that black smoke kept me coughing for hours and put down that gun. You most certainly don’t need it in here.”

  Huck and I entered the room. Huck rested his gun by the front door as the man closed and locked it. He must have had solar, because the living room was dimly lit by a lamp near a big armchair. The windows were covered with heavy red curtains that looked like they’d been hanging for years.

  An open laptop rested on a desk near some bookshelves filled with books. From where I stood, the screen revealed a picture of the hallway outside. It wasn’t a picture, it was a webcam. He had a webcam outside the door.

  “What are you looking at?” the man asked sharply, walked to his desk, and flipped his laptop closed.

  “Would you relax, dude. You’re making me nervous,” Huck said. He wasn’t very far away from his gun.

  “You’re making me nervous,” the man said, emphasizing the word me. “And my name
is Leyton, not dude.”

  “You don’t have to be afraid.” I clasped my hands together in some sort of offering.

  “Afraid? You think I am afraid? This is annoyed.” Leyton thumped his chest. “Not afraid.”

  “How have you been able to survive?” Huck asked. Huck was absorbing everything around us, the stack of empty boxes in the corner, the opened dinner on the table, and the basket of packaged batteries.

  “None of your business,” Leyton said.

  Leyton began calling for his cat, whose name was apparently Snowball. While he was looking for his cat, I stepped closer to his bookshelves to read the titles of the books. They were all academic books, science books, psychology books. Several framed degrees rested in front of the books on the shelf.

  “What are you doing?” Leyton asked. He held a very fluffy white cat, who was purring in his arms.

  “Your degrees, what are they in?” I asked. I read the name on one of them, Leyton Dubal, it sounded French.

  “Psychology,” he said with a sense of pride. His head was shaking back and forth ever so slightly. He put his free hand on his chin to stabilize it.

  “I was working on my degree in sociology before all this,” I said. “You have some really interesting books here, you mind if I borrow some once in a while?”

  “What makes you think you are coming back here once you leave?” Leyton said. He put his cat on top of the back of a chair and stroked her fur. The cat began to purr. It was the loudest purr I had ever heard. The three of us stood listening to the cat purr, shifting from foot to foot. I glared at Huck, he shrugged his shoulders. I turned back to Leyton.

  “Please, Leyton,” I said.

  Leyton stared at my chin which was the closest he had come to making eye contact. His eyes were a warm brown to match his skin and they held a sorrow that looked like it had been there forever.

  “You can be my patient,” Leyton finally said. He opened a calendar on his desk. “Thursdays at 2:00 would work for me. And please call me Professor, I don’t like you using my first name.”