The Rising Dead Read Free

woods ever since.

    Matt blinked awake, gripping his ax before he was fully conscious. He wasn’t sure what had woken him up—the state park was quiet. He heard some crackling twigs, an owl calling, and then a human moan. It was a sound of pleasure. He tried to sleep, but he couldn’t, because even though the lovers were trying to keep their moans and giggles quiet, they might as well have been screaming. Long after they went to sleep, he was awake, missing Janey and wondering again why he’d been brought back from the dead.
    In the morning he spotted the couple. She was a shapely blonde with small tattoos on her shoulders. He was a lean, young man with a classic army hair cut. Mattwasn’t intentionally spying on his neighbors at the camp. He was keeping an eye out for rangers and cops, just as he had done everyday for the last few weeks.
    Hours later Matt was lying on a boulder letting the afternoon sun burn his face while the wind whooshed through the aspens, sounding like water rushing in a stream. He liked Colorado, but winter was coming, and without gear he couldn’t continue at the park. Over the sound of the trees he heard the blonde laughing. She had been at the campgrounds for only a day, but Matt knew the sound of her laughter.
    The warm rock was not only comfortable, it was a fine perch for viewing the road into the park. Matt sat up and continued his surveillance. A moment later, the woman’s laughs became shrieks. Rolling off the boulder, he ran toward the screams and found her backing away from two small brown bears that were staring intently at the sandwich in her hands. She lobbed the sandwich, but they kept coming as if they believed she had more food. The bears were maybe a year old, just teenagers really, but they were still strong enough to cause damage. Next she threw her water bottle at them. It was all she had left. The half-empty bottle bounced off the larger bear. It sniffed the plastic and swatted it. The rolling bottle became a toy as the bears batted it back and forth. When one of them chomped down on it, the game was over and they continued advancing.
    Matt leapt in, waving his arms and the ax at the bears. They looked at him with curiosity, and the smaller one backed up. When he threw a rock and hit the larger one, it growled at him, but as Matt advanced with more rocks, both of the young bears slowly retreated. There was a quick stop to tussle over the sandwich before they trotted into the woods. The woman had gathered more rocks, but they were unneeded. Because she wastrying to help even though she was shaking from fear, Matt took her rocks and threw them after the bears anyway. It seemed the right thing to do.
    “Oh, thanks! You saved my life!” She grabbed him with a big hug. “I’m Cheryl.”
    “I’m Matt. I don’t think they were out to kill you. They’ve been scrounging around the garbage containers so long that they think that’s what bears do. Maybe we scared them off for a bit.”
    When her husband, Jeff, returned from the river with a couple of trout, Matt found he had a new friend. Pan-fried trout and beer for lunch was a treat compared to the way Matt had been eating. He had a bit of money, but there were no stores out here. The animals weren’t the only ones foraging for food. While they ate, Cheryl told Jeff she wanted to move on in the morning. He tried to coax her into staying, but she was more interested in finding some indoor plumbing. When Matt asked for a ride, they couldn’t have been happier to help him. He offered to sit in the back of the camper, but Cheryl laughed at that idea, so Matt pulled a baseball cap down over his head and slouched until they crossed the Colorado border.
    Cheryl was a looker. Her wide-set blue eyes gave her face a doll-like quality, but her toned and curvy body was all grown up. A few exuberant curls framed her face, while the rest of her fine blond hair was pulled back in a ponytail. When she told Matt that she was a dance