You asked for it; you got it! Here is the Epilogue from Wake the Dead, hot off the presses...*Warning* Contains spoilers and strong language!
Wake
the
Dead
Epilogue
“Park
it over there,” Nick said from the back of the van as Alex gazed through the windshield
and eased the vehicle to a stop. The parking lot was littered with corpses and
they would soon enough need to move those bodies—especially before they started
to reek in this heat, Alex understood, wincing at the familiar and awful smell that would begin to permeate the air.
This
was their third trip back to the hardware store today. It was starting to get
cooler and the sun dipped slightly in the sky, leaning westward. Bryan, Nick,
Liz and Selina all took turns removing supplies from the back of the van as
Alex removed the tools from the front seat.
He
watched as Shadow burst right past him as soon as he opened the front door and
watched after the wolf as it went about marking its territory and generally
sniffing around.
He
remembered Jerry and his family suddenly and hoped that they had gotten home safely.
“Penny
for your thoughts,” Nick said as he took the bag of tools from Alex.
“Just
thinking about Jerry and his family, you know…Just hope that they’re okay.” Alex
found himself staring at the scene around him, taking in the odd fact that the
zombies had simply fallen over dead without warning, Nick following his line of
sight. “Kind of weird that they all just keeled over, eh?”
“Weird,
sure. But we don’t know the first thing about these things,” he said, slapping Alex
on the back. “Hopefully, they starved to death.”
“That
makes the most sense,” called the sweet and soothing voice of Selina. Alex peered
over Nick’s shoulder to the see the beautiful vision standing with a 2x4
propped over her shoulder.
“I
guess,” Alex said. “But shouldn’t we be piling up these bodies and burnin’ ‘em?
Or something?”
“You
know the plan, Alex,” called another voice. Bryan stared at him with hands on
hips. The man was clearly exhausted from the exercise today, sweat pouring
profusely down his forehead and his unbuttoned shirt was soaked with sweat. Oddly
enough, he had a cigarette hanging from his lips, which seemed to Alex as
counterproductive with regards to the workout. But, what the hell, he thought,
it was a strange new world and he couldn’t blame folks for doing what they had
to in order to get by…even for just one minute.
I sure do, Alex
admitted, climbing back into the van. This new world had its share of
challenges. Alex chuckled to himself at the absurdity of that understatement.
Suddenly
Liz was at the side of the door, which startled him. Once Alex regained his
composure, he stared back at her again.
“Sorry,
didn’t mean to…never mind. Nick wants that fence up first, and then we’ll worry
about the bodies, right?”
“I
know, and I’ve made my arguments against, so…whatever. We’ll do it his way.”
“You
know the stench is gonna be just as bad if we burn them than as if we let them
sit out here for another day, right? Probably worse?”
“Can’t
wait,” Alex said a bit too sharply as he started the engine and pulled the van
away from the staging area.
“That
was a dick move,” he mumbled as he drove the van away. The vehicle came to a
rest under a tree he had visited a few times this day, and kicked the same
zombie corpse that sat against the tree’s base as he had each and every time
before.
It was
dressed in medieval garb, soiled and stained, and had a name tag on the front,
which seemed totally out of place on the zombie corpse.
The name-tag read: Fred.
“Screw
you, Fred,” Alex said, running a hand through his black locks, trying in vain
to wipe the moisture away. It had become a running joke for the day to ‘kick Fred’
as they passed it simply to get out some frustration. He smiled and shook his
head at their juvenile behavior and picked up his pace down the hill to join
the others. Alex wanted to get things done in a hurry.
The
others were assembling the framework for the repairs, Kelly joining them and assisting
them to get it done both quickly and accurately. Between him and Kelly, they
had drawn up a plan mid-day and it took about twenty minutes.
And
now they were executing that plan. Alex watched Shadow, as he hammered in a
nail, the wolf growling uncharacteristically and biting at the legs of one of
the zombies.
And then
it twitched.
“What
the f—?” he mumbled and stopped mid-curse.
Gotta be the heat messin’ with me, he reflected,
as he finished assembling his part of the frame. He stopped his toiling for a few
long minutes, sipped water from his canteen and then felt the soft and reassuring
touch of what he had come to know as Selina’s on his shoulders, rubbing them
gently. He immediately relaxed under her touch.
He could
not believe the calming effect that this wonderful woman had on him. It was
intoxicating to say the least.
“You
okay,” she asked him, slapping his rear-end playfully.
“I
guess. Think I’m seein’ things, though.”
“Why
don’t you take a break, Alex? Seriously. You need it.” He was about to argue
when she planted a kiss on him, stopping his protests before they escaped his lips.
She kept that kiss there for a good long while, further soothing him.
“Fine
then. I’ll go clean my gun,” he said, playfully pushing her away. “It’s in the
van. I’ll be back in a bit.”
“Yeah,go!
Get outta here,” Nick called playfully in the distance, taking a long swig of water.
“You stayed your hour.”
Alex
thought again of how lucky he was to have found Selina in this apocalyptic setting
into which they had been unceremoniously cast. He smirked as he recalled that
when they first met, he had no intentions of becoming intimate with her at all,
and as a matter of fact, he remembered that for a brief instant, he thought
long and hard about leaving her up there on that rooftop. Funny how things
change, he supposed, as he reached for the door handle.
Suddenly,
his heart skipped a beat and the hairs on the back of his neck stood on end. He
swallowed hard and he felt sick to his stomach as he slowly cast his gaze down
to the base of the tree.
Fred
was gone.
Alex
found himself running down the hill as fast as his tired legs could carry him.
“What’s
wrong!?” Selina called, racing up to meet him. “Are you all right?!” Alex
slammed into her and almost knocked her over, catching her and holding her at
arm’s length just as he caught sight of the others standing in a semi-circle
around him.
“What,
man?!” Nick said, striding up to stand right next to Alex.
“It’s
Fred. He’s not there anymore!”
“What
the hell are you talking about, man?” asked Bryan incredulously, lighting
another cigarette and taking a long drag.
‘I
mean, the dead zombie that was sitting there under the goddamn tree isn’t there
anymore. That’s what I mean!”
Nick
and the others ran past him and Selina pulled him in closer, hugging him tightly.
“It’s gonna be okay, Alex,” she whispered to him in an unconvincing tone.
The
others ran back down the hill again quickly, Nick barking orders and the group
responding in kind.
“Pull
the van inside the gate, man. I don’t know what the hell is going on here, but
it ain’t good.”
“Right.
I’m on it.” Alex called Shadow to him and Alex saw Nick speaking with Alexis
and Hannah, who showed up with sandwiches for the group, and all Alex heard was
the tail end of their conversation before they all turned and made their way
back to the castle gates.
As Alex
got shadow into the van and drove off around the corner to the front gates,
Nick’s words kept repeating in his head: “Seems like the dead ain’t dead after
all.”
All Artwork and covers of my works by William J. Kenney & Carlos Cara
All maps, names and content copyright Ashenclaw Studios 2014 unless otherwise noted.
