Rise by Gareth Wood Page A

offices of Can-Pro.
     

July 26
     
     
    We drove into Prince George yesterday from the north, aiming for the industrial park. It was pretty easy to find, though the numbers of the walking dead increased the closer we got to the city. We passed most of them without trouble. They pursued for a while, and are probably still on our trail somewhere, but we made several turns in this largely uninhabited area, and found a warehouse on the outer rim of the area that we can operate from. It has steel doors front and back, concrete pre-cast walls, and two large rolling bay doors. One of these doors was open, so we drove in and stopped, and then sat and waited for several minutes to see if there were any zombies inside. When nothing came to dinner we got out and rolled the door down by hand. It was very dark inside, but we all had flashlights now, and searched the place carefully, opening all doors after knocking loudly first. All we found was empty offices, and it looked like whoever had been here left quickly. Molding cups of coffee were sitting around, and a box half filled with petrified donuts was still on the table in what I took to be a staff lunch room. There was a large front reception area with tinted windows, and the light there was bright enough that we could turn off the flashlights. There was a Coke cooler there too, and we pried it open to find maybe fifty cans of soda and juice. They should still be good, so we loaded them into the vehicles. We found a Yellow Pages and checked Can-Pro’s address, about 18 blocks away. We left the vehicles behind with Michael, Darren, and Sarah, and then Dave, Jessica and I all set out to retrieve the information we needed. Michael cried a little when Jess kissed him goodbye, but we all told him we’d be careful, and I promised I wouldn’t let anything happen to his mom.
    The plan was that we’d stealth our way towards the address we had, and Dave would be our guide since he’d been there before. Once inside, we’d locate the plans for the shopping center and see if the sewer maps were helpful. From there, we’d sneak into the storm sewers and creep under the buildings, hopefully coming up under the grocery store and into its mechanical room.
    No plan survives contact with the Enemy, the old saying goes. That was as true for us as any military commander. We made it about three blocks before we ran into some undead. We were being as careful as we could, staying hidden in alleys, crouching and moving in ditches when we had to go in the open, and trying to keep big solid objects between us and open spaces. Jess was crossing a street ahead of me, with Dave covering and me about to follow her, when three walking dead literally burst out of a window about forty feet ahead of her. We had talked about just such an event, and Jess instantly moved at ninety degrees to her right, into the open street, and crouched down. Dave opened fire with the shotgun at the lead walker, and his shot took it in the chest, knocking it back and down. I took aim and shot the second one with the carbine, but it didn’t penetrate, just bounced off the high point of the skull. I took a step forward and fired again, this time hitting the same zombie in the neck. It fell over as a glob of flesh and bone blew out the far side, and then Jess shot the last one, right into the left eye socket. Its head simply vanished in the back, and it toppled over like a falling tree. The first one was getting up, and Jess was backing off now, towards me, and I took a second to check around us. There was nothing moving close by, but a look down the side street showed about half a dozen things walking towards us in the heat. The shimmer off the pavement distorted them, almost making them look alive. I turned back as Dave shot the first one again, closer range this time, and the blast destroyed its skull quite messily. The three of us regrouped in the center of the street, back-to-back, and had a quick look around. We spotted a few