Free The Reanimation of Edward Schuett by Derek J. Goodman Page B

the world was continuing on just fine, no end in sight. And it sure as hell looks like it will continue that way for a long time.”
    Edward shook his head, not understanding how anyone could miss the severity of what had happened. The world had changed drastically and into something he couldn’t recognize. An untold number of people throughout the world had died. He had no idea how someone could look at an event in history like that and not think it was the apocalypse. But he didn’t think he was going to convince this woman, and whether she was talking to him civilly or not right now he still didn’t think it would be a good idea to get into an argument with her while she was still holding a rifle in hand.
    “Okay, so it wasn’t the end of the world. What do you call it, then?”
    “We call it the Uprising, but I’ve never thought that was a very good term for it. Uprising implies they were downtrodden or something like that, like they were slaves that fought back. They weren’t. They were just people. They died, they got back up, they ate people. Those that they didn’t finish eating got back up, too.”
    Edward felt a shiver at the matter-of-fact way she described it. “How is that even possible? Dead people getting up and walking. Was it magic or something?”
    “Don’t be a moron. I don’t know, I guess there were probably some people that thought that at the time. Some people still do. Lot’s of people thought God was punishing everybody. Couple of religions sprung up because of it. It was a virus though. The Animator Virus.”
    “So, it was like a plague? How did it start?”
    “Don’t know. Occasionally you’ll hear new studies or news reports about it. Government keeps saying new things every so often. Most people don’t even bother with official explanations. Some nutjobs have got all kinds of conspiracy theories. But, I don’t know, I guess most people just don’t care.”
    “Don’t care? Jesus Christ, what the hell is wrong people in this time? How could anyone not care?”
    “Easy. It was over fifty years ago. It’s history. Most people are too busy trying to pay their bills or get married and have kids or things like that. They can’t be bothered with wondering about some mysteries that are half a century old. It’s like…um, I don’t know, I’m not so good with history. It’s like people in your time would have acted about things that happened during World War I, maybe. The thing with the Nazis.”
    “I think you may be thinking of World War II.”
    “Maybe. But it’s something in the past that happened, it affected things, but it’s the past. Where the zeds come from is less important to daily life than the simple fact that they exist.”
    Edward sighed. “Alright. So you don’t know where this Animator Virus came from, but it made the dead come back to life and try to eat people. The first I remember of this thing, it was starting somewhere around Chicago. Is that right?”
    Rae squinted her eyes and looked up at the sky in thought. “Yeah, I guess that sounds familiar. Somewhere around there. Spread quickly, because people die and then rise so quickly after a bite.”
    “Right, that much I was able to figure out from my memories. So what happened after that?”
    “Spread across the whole country, then the world. I don’t know a whole lot about the ways different places fought against it. Most of that is military history, and while I guess I’ve always enjoyed that I never had much time for it. There are a few things everybody knows about: the Korean Nuclear Pact, the Battle of Atlanta, the Greater and Lesser Texas Purges. Mostly what I know is the things my parents told me. They lived through it, told me about all the local stuff that happened, taught me how to fight against it if it ever happened again. The zeds are still out there, as I guess you of course know, and they still bite. It could always happen again. My parents were sure it would.”
    “And me? Are you