Kody Boye - Sunrise

“What else could it be?” Dakota asked. “It’s obviously not a zombie.”

“Tell it to that thing,” Rose said.

“It hasn’t attacked us yet.”

“That doesn’t mean anything.”

“Dakota’s right,” Kevin said. “It means us no harm.”

Rose opened her mouth to speak, but stopped abruptly. At first Dakota wasn’t sure what for, but a moment later, he understood. Kevin’s skin had gone completely pale—some strange, pearlescent shade across his sun-weathered face—while his eyes had lightened to an odd shade of yellow. His fingers trembled and his teeth began to chatter as he stared at the creature as if the devil had come to Earth.

“Kevin?” Jamie asked.

“I’m…ok,” the older man said.

The humanoid tilted its head.

Light from the far window illuminated its eyes just enough to make the twin coals sparkle.

A short moment later, Kevin burst into tears.

“No!” he wailed, taking a few steps back. “It’s not…it can’t… NO! NO NO NO!”

“What the hell is wrong with you!” Dakota cried.

“Get him out of here!” Jamie called. “Someone get him the fuck out of here!”

Dakota grabbed Kevin’s arm and tore him out of the room.

When he looked back to see what was going on, the humanoid was gone.

“What the fuck was that about?” Rose asked as Jamie secured the last box of canned goods into the back of the truck.

“I don’t know,” Dakota replied, wiping a drop of snow from his forehead. “He wouldn’t stop ranting. I couldn’t make out what he was saying.” Dakota sighed, waiting for Jamie to walk around the truck to join them. When he did, Dakota offered a slight smile. “Everything tucked in?”

“Everything’s tucked in,” Jamie nodded. “I’m not sure if we should keep going though, at least not today.”

“Why?”

“Because of Kevin.”

“Fuck him,” Rose said. “I had my moment with him earlier too, but at least I didn’t break down and start screaming.”

“Wait,” Jamie said, raising a hand. “Moment?”

“He started crying. I wouldn’t call it hysterically, but it was close enough. At least he wasn’t wailing like he did back there.”

“What do you propose we do then? Keep going and leave him in the truck?”

“That’s exactly what I’m proposing, Jamie. We can’t let one person jeopardize everyone else.”

“She’s right,” Dakota said. “As much as I hate to admit it, we’re running low on food. We’re feeding ten people, J. We have to keep going.”

Jamie sighed. “We’ll keep going then,” he said.

The day progressed with a flush of cold and a light snowfall. By the time they returned home, darkness had fallen and the snowfall had turned into an all-out blizzard.

“Get in!” Jamie called, frantically gesturing Rose and Dakota into the house. “Go! Go!”

“What about the food?” Dakota called back.

“It’ll be fine! Just go!”

Dakota and Rose burst into the house.

Steve lifted his head from the couch and stared in alarm at their sudden appearance. “Everything all right?” he asked.

“Blizzard,” Rose shivered, stepping aside as Jamie came through the door.

“Were you asleep?” Dakota asked.

“Yeah,” Steve said.

“Where’s everyone else?”

“Erik’s at Kevin’s place watching the kids. Ian’s over at Erik’s. I don’t know where Desmond is. Probably in the house somewhere.”

“I’m right here,” the boy said, stepping out of the far hallway.

Dakota waved in acknowledgement, stripped out of his coat and hung it on the rack, then crossed into the living room and settled down into the recliner. “It’s cold in here.”

“Tell me about it,” Steve said.

“Do we have anything to light a fire with?”

Jamie snorted. “Not unless you want to break down a desk and use it for wood, which I prefer you wouldn’t.”

“Maybe we should get everyone together in one house. You know, to keep everyone warm.”

“I think we’ll well enough,” Rose said, rubbing her arms together. “I’m not keen on walking through the snow to get back to Kevin’s place though. You mind if I bunk up here?”

“Feel free,” Jamie said.

“Desmond can sleep with me tonight,” Steve said. “You ok with that, bud?”

“I’m fine with it.”

“It’s been a rough day,” Jamie said. “All I know is that I’m cold and ready for bed.”

“Me too,” Dakota sighed.

Outside, the storm raged on.

It sounded like nails across a chalkboard. Sometimes the sound would be faint and without any clear definition, then it would rise to a shrieking pitch and tear its way through the house. Several times, it sounded as though something exploded in the distance, as the sound would echo throughout the woodwork like a colossal giant’s groan.

Snug between an extra blanket and Jamie, Dakota opened his eyes and tried not to look at the snow outside.

“Moon really makes it glow,” Jamie whispered. “Doesn’t it?”

“Yeah,” Dakota said.

He didn’t add an afterthought to his reply. Instead, he closed his eyes and scooted back against Jamie, sighing when he felt the man’s arm loop around his stomach.

“You think this is the end?” Dakota asked.

“Of what?” Jamie replied.

“Them. The undead.”

“I don’t know, Dakota. I don’t know.”

She was a queen of ice, of thorns and sickles and frost. Early the next morning, Dakota rose with Jamie and walked out on the balcony to find her making her way across the side of the house, toward the road that lay slicked with ice and a fresh coat of snow. Some might have described her as Christ-like, given the ornament of frost across her head and the way her curls had captured the ice, but others would have simply described her as sad, an automatous work of biology fueled only by its need to eat. One foot forward, one foot over, she continued along her way as though nothing would stop her, content in her search for salvation.

“Look at it,” Dakota said, shivering in the breeze that stirred the flakes at their feet. “She’s still going.”

Jamie said, “Why wouldn’t she be?”

“I don’t know,” he frowned. “I thought…”

What, though? Just what had he thought? That the snow would take them away, turn them into icicles that would explode with any slight disturbance, freeze them in place and destroy whatever was inside them entirely?

I should’ve known better.

“Thought what?” Jamie asked.

“I thought this would end them. The snow.”

“You know what?” Jamie said, “I did too. Some little part of me hoped that the cold weather and all the snow would stop them from moving, maybe even get into their bones and break them when the moisture expanded as it turned to ice.”

Dakota sighed. He stepped back into the master bedroom and waited until Jamie was inside before closing the twin glass doors behind them. “Are we awake for the day?”

“We might as well be,” Jamie said, reaching for a pair of jeans at the end of the bed. “Did you want to go back to bed?”

“No point,” Dakota said.

Because I’ll just have nightmares about the new Christ if I do.

What they thought would be a short burst of snow soon turned into a steady flurry of ice and sleet. Like a mountain lion just roused from sleep, the wind hissed and roared across the hills and reverberated throughout the wooden frames of the houses, rattling the sleepy occupants. At times the wind would be so strong that the houses would shake, quivering in the shadows of the mountains before them, while at other it would be so soft and subtle that it would sound like nothing more than a lone kitten’s hiss.