by Brown, TW
The drive was faster than he recalled from the last time. He wondered if that had anything to do with the fact that it was a clear night and the moon was painting the landscape in a soft bluish-white. Despite the power grid being down and out, or perhaps because of it, the light of the moon seemed brighter than ever and gave off plenty of illumination for him to drive by.
When he arrived at the small residential area, he instantly felt his senses ratchet up a few degrees. It was like that rush of adrenaline that he got when he was about to commit a robbery or speak in front of a group of people. His mouth went dry and he suddenly had to pee.
Pulling up to the next home that showed signs of having been inhabited, Jason climbed out and did a visual sweep of the area. He’d passed a few zombies on his way in and knew that they would turn and come after the truck, but they were far enough back that he knew they would be a while before arriving—if they did not get distracted by something else first.
He had shown Ken how noise could be used in their favor when dealing with the undead. He’d gone out to a field and gotten the attention of a lone walker. After a few minutes Jason had ducked down in the tall grass and Ken had (not entirely willingly) popped up, clapping his hands a few times. Sure enough, the zombie had stopped and turned in the direction of this new stimulus. They had traded off several times until both Jason and even Ken had to admit that sound was a draw for the zombie. Neither of them could guess a good reason, but it had been proven in fairly convincing style.
That was where the new “secret weapon” came into play. Jason had put some gravel in a few soda cans. Those had gone in his knapsack with his tools. As he approached the house, he noticed the smears on the windows before he got that first whiff of the undead. As he tried the front door, he was momentarily distracted by the sound of breaking glass from someplace close by. That was why he was turned just slightly when he opened the front door and was taken by surprise by the dead hand that grabbed at his wrist.
***
Ken sat next to the fire, knife in hand as he whittled away at a piece of wood. It wasn’t until just a moment ago that he realized that he’d been fashioning a small boat from the piece of pine that he’d been shaving away at with his big knife.
His gaze went to the barn where Juanita and Gabriel were asleep by now. He had been bothered a bit by something that Jason had said earlier about how this so-called zombie apocalypse was nothing like the books and movies. As a cop, how many times had he laughed at the shows on television that oversimplified and magically always solved every crime that came their way; often times with a dramatic shootout.
Real life and that as depicted by the entertainment industry were seldom in sync with one another. Still, if this place was hit by a group of bad guys, his people wouldn’t stand a chance. It was simple mathematics: two men, one woman, and a child did not equal a gang or a small army of people who had checked their conscience at the door.
He looked in the direction that he knew Erin’s place to be. Perhaps there was something to be said for joining forces. The only thing he would be even the slightest bit bothered by was the hours and days of hard work that he, Jason, and Juanita had put into the outer defense of the place. Already, the trench was complete along the front of the property. They had the entire front section of fence reinforced. Jason had even suggested that they allow the dirt to act as an additional barricade and so they had a good berm that would do well to keep the zombies from even reaching their trench for the most part.
He didn’t really relish the idea of leaving this place. Maybe they could go out and look for any other pockets of survivors. Of course, he crushed that idea before it had any time to gain traction. Strangers were an unknown, and these days, that was a bad thing.
Getting up, Ken set the boat down and started out on a foot patrol of the property. It certainly seemed bigger at night than it did by day when you could pretty much see from one fence to the other on all four sides.
He was walking along down the side of the property that bordered Erin West and her people when he thought that he heard crying. Instantly alert and drawing his machete, Ken froze in place. Had it been a baby cry zombie? He wasn’t sure. It had been scarcely audible.
Pausing at the fence, Ken looked around and even lifted his nose to the air. He didn’t smell anything that might be a zombie. With even more caution, he ducked through the fence to the other side.
He would take a few steps, pause, and then take a few more. The West property was bigger than where they lived, and part of it was some sort of Christmas tree farm. That area bordered the two, so Ken found himself weaving through neat rows of well-shaped, triangular pines that would probably never see their potential realized.
“Hello?” he whispered.
If he had taken a single step even a fraction of a second sooner, he would not have heard the tiniest inhale of somebody sipping in a breath. Turning slightly, Ken oriented himself in the general direction of the sound and then froze in place. It was his experience that a person in hiding had a much different perspective on time versus the person waiting. Sure enough, his patience was rewarded just moments later when a soft rustling and the snap of a few twigs alerted him to the location of the person who had been trying to hide.
“I am not going to hurt you, whoever you are,” Ken spoke softly, calling on his years of training. “It’s Ken Simpson from the farm next door. The um…damn, I don’t know those people’s last names. Umm, Rose’s sister’s place. I am the one who drove Erin back here.”
“Oh, thank God,” a female voice hissed.
“Cherry?” Ken managed just as a dark figure poked out from behind a nearby pine tree.
“Mr. Simpson,” the woman gasped, rushing forward once it was clear that the man speaking was who he claimed to be. “You have to help us.”
“Have to help you what?” In his mind, he heard Jason grousing about the boredom that was their zombie apocalypse.
“They came last night,” the woman said in a hoarse whisper. “They killed Bryan and Jimmy. Then, they just walked into the house and started killing people…but only the men. They…they…” And then the woman burst into tears.
Ken wrapped an arm around the young woman and led her back towards the fence. She started to pull away, but he kept his grip firm.
“We can’t leave them…we can’t leave Erin and the others,” Cherry cried.
“We aren’t leaving them,” Ken promised. “But if we are going to help them, we need more than just you empty-handed and me with a machete and this pistol. We need more firepower and a couple more bodies. Plus, you need to give me the details…as much as you can. I need to know exactly how many there are and anything else that you can provide me with before we go back there.”
Cherry seemed to stall, but at last her head dropped and she nodded, huddling in close to Ken as he led her back to the barn. He would need to get Juanita up. For one, she would be better suited to dealing more directly with this woman who was on the verge of hysterics; but also, she had proven that she could handle herself when it came down to the nitty-gritty.
“Damn you, convict,” Ken cursed as he walked away from where Juanita was putting a blanket around Cherry’s shoulders and whispering to her that things were going to be okay.
The dumbass had gone and jinxed everything with his big mouth. It looked like he was about to get his wish. Things were about to get real exciting. He glanced at the horizon and saw the first hints of dawn.
Hmm, he thought, shouldn’t Jason be back by now?
15
Rag and Bone
Jason yanked back and pulled the child zombie with him. The child had no more coordination than a regular zombie and ended up sprawled on its side. Hurrying over, Jason brought his boot down on its back and cleaved into the skull with an adrenaline-fueled hack that ended up completely chopping through the entire right side of the creature’s head. A resurgent wave of stench rolled up as brain matter spilled out onto the pavement of the entry walkwa
y.
Jason was no doctor, but he was pretty sure that the oozing jelly-like stuff that he could see as a darker pool leaking from the skull was not normal. He had no time to really consider this, though, as the sounds of footsteps heading towards him caused him to spin in a hurry. He spotted two more figures limping his direction from the open front door. One of them was another child, and it had paused in the doorway while the other larger zombie continued forward. It stepped out from the shadows of the house and into the silvery light provided by the moon and stars to reveal itself as what was most likely the father of the house.
This man was probably the one to bring the zombie infection home Jason surmised as he allowed the walker to come into range of his machete. He was wearing nothing more than boxer shorts and had a bandaged left arm. He had not really paid it any notice until just now, but the child that he had cleaved the side of its head off looked to have her throat ripped out.
As soon as he cut down the father, that seemed to activate the second child zombie. Jason filed away that fact to consider later. There was absolutely no denying that the children zombies, at least the really young ones, were acting different from the so-called normal zombies. At the moment, he had his hands full.
The chorus of moans coming from all directions at once sent a chill down his spine. Where had they all come from? he wondered. The last time he’d come to this area, it had seemed almost completely deserted. He considered his options and decided that he had come this far. How bad could it be, after all?
He backed up and returned to the street. He actually breathed a sigh of relief. It had sounded worse than it actually looked. Yes, there were zombies coming up the street and headed his direction. Having only the light of the moon to act as his primary source of illumination, he guessed there to be somewhere in the area of twenty or so. They were spread out, and thus, it was no problem for him to rush to meet them and take them down before going inside the house.
As he moved around, taking the singles out first and then working on the pairs and the lone trio, Jason had to be at least a little impressed with himself. In all his reading, he could not recall many situations where the people in the stories were not running for their lives at the first sign of a zombie. Of course, if these were the sprinters from that most recent Dawn of the Dead remake, or the infected from 28 Days Later (and not the one with Sandra Bullock), then he would be a lot more hesitant about taking on almost two dozen of the walking dead.
Once the last one was down and he took a good look around to ensure that there were no more coming, Jason returned to the house and went inside. The lingering stink of the undead still hung in the air, forcing Jason to cover his mouth and nose with his sleeve for a moment out of sheer reflex.
From the entry hall, he turned right towards an open kitchen area with a breakfast bar on the far side. The curtains were open, a shaft of ambient light wafting in and spilling across the floral centerpiece that sat in the center of the dining room table. Jason took a step into the kitchen and tripped over something big that he had not seen in the pools of dark shadows that hid the floor.
The moan that came as he was rolling over and struggling to his feet let him know that he’d just found another member of the household. He’d been pulling out the flashlight from a pouch at his side and heard it make a nasty cracking sound as it hit the floor and bounced.
Something clutched at his foot and Jason kicked as hard as possible to free himself. Scooting back, he quickly found his back up against the door to the oven. His vision was well acclimated and he was able to make out the shadow of a head that had risen up from the floor. Reaching into his pocket, Jason grabbed the only other light source that he possessed; a disposable lighter. Thumbing the wheel, Jason squinted initially, but then he saw her.
It had to be the lady of the house. She appeared to have suffered the worst of the attacks by the looks of things. Even in the flickering light of the tiny flame, he could see the numerous smaller bites on her arms and face. It still did not explain fully why she was on her belly and crawling. From what he saw, she had both legs.
Using the same weapon that had killed off the rest of the woman’s family, Jason ended her time on this earth once and for all with a single swing. Getting up, he dusted himself off and started to work on getting as much as he could from this house that they would be able to use.
When he went down the hallway to the master bedroom, he found the answer to the mystery of the mother. Amidst the carnage and splattered blood that were just more dark stains in the limited light shining through the window, was a wheelchair. That was also when he noticed that the widths on the doorways and halls were a bit wider than what you might normally expect.
“That had to suck,” Jason said with a shiver. He could not even imagine the horror that poor woman must have endured as her husband and children attacked her.
He went methodically through the house and then out to the garage. That last part was made easier when he discovered a flashlight and an unopened package of batteries in one of the drawers in the kitchen.
Things stayed surprisingly quiet after that first run-in. He went through two more houses, both abandoned. By the time he finished, it was a bit later than he had expected as the first rays of the dawn were spilling across the dew-soaked lawns. On the plus side, he had the truck’s cargo area loaded to the point where he’d had to resort to using the passenger’s side of the cab. Even better, the third house still had plenty of supplies to come back for. As he had been making one final walkthrough of that third house, he had discovered a can of spray paint. That had prompted him to go outside and spray a giant ‘X’ on the front of the houses that were now empty of anything that he considered useful.
As he started up the pickup and headed back to their homestead, he actually felt pretty good. One of the things that he’d found in his search was a room apparently belonging to a boy about the same age as Gabriel. He had scooped clothes and toys by the Hefty bagful and tossed them into the truck. Sure, it had taken up the room of valuable resources, but he would make more of these trips. It would be nice to see the child actually have a reason to smile. Besides, what kid didn’t love getting a bunch of toys?
***
Ken stopped crawling and once again listened for any sounds that might indicate there were people up and about. His best guess had him with another hour or so before dawn. He wanted to try and get a look at the West compound. He would not do anything until the convict returned or he felt certain that the man was gone for good.
He seriously doubted that the man would bail on them, but being out and alone in this hell was not exactly a good thing. Perhaps it was time to visit the idea of making these supply runs as a group. Even if that meant bringing the kid and having him stay in the cab, it might be a much better idea than just going it alone. Not that he was fond of the convict; but right now, manpower was at a premium, and the guy had shown that he was not adverse to putting in a hard day’s work. Truth be told, the man had a pretty healthy construction background which made him worth his weight in gold. Ken, while good with basic tools and such, was not necessarily well-versed in some of the finer points of building.
He moved forward just a bit more and was finally able to get a much better view of the house. Unfortunately, that did him almost no good whatsoever. Sure, the sky was clear and the moon was bright, but the house was dark and there did not seem to be anybody moving around. Ken waited for several minutes, but nothing changed.
At last, he gave up and returned back to the place he was slowly beginning to think of as home. Once he felt that he’d gotten far enough into the woods, he stood up and walked the rest of the way. It was as he was climbing through the barbed wire that separated the two properties that Ken paused. He slowly stood and took in the view. The rising sun was just starting to paint the sky in reds and purples. Along with it, the snow-capped peak of Mt. Hood stood majestically.
Ken had grown up and lived his entire life in the state of Oregon. He had
simply become accustomed to the beauty. He had never seen the big deal when tourists or friends from abroad would visit and make such a fuss about something that he saw practically every single day. As he looked at the splendor of the mountain, he thought that maybe he was seeing how amazing it was for the very first time in his life.
In that moment, a number of things struck him. He’d lived most of his life not really appreciating all that he had; especially when it came to the “simple” things.
He’d loved his wife, but he hadn’t realized how much, or how she cared for him until she’d died. And that was the simple one. However, Jason was currently gone, out trying to break into places and bring back food. The power was out which meant that everything needed to be cooked over flame…that meant chopping wood. Doing it for a day or two when camping was one thing, and even then, it was no big deal to stop at a store on the way and grab some bundles of kindling, or maybe even some well-seasoned firewood before heading into the camp grounds. Nowadays, it was all going to have to be done by somebody here.
He walked across the open field to the house and spotted a dust cloud in the distance. He shaded his eyes even though the sun wasn’t yet bright enough to really be an issue, and was relieved to see the familiar outline of his truck rumbling towards the entry gate. Breaking into a bit of a jog, he met Juanita as she came out of the barn with Cherry.
“It’s Jason,” Ken answered her unasked question. He noticed Cherry slump in relief.
By the time the truck came to a stop in front of the barn, Ken had sent both women back inside. He explained that it would be best for him to give the rundown of what was going on without a bunch of extra emotion. In truth, he wanted to talk to Jason and get the man’s input on what they should do. He hated the fact that he was actually uncertain for one of the few times in his life. Yet, he was having a difficult time reconciling the idea of getting involved. A part of him—in truth, a really big part—did not want to get involved. He wanted to shore up their own defenses and prepare for what he considered to be the inevitable attack.
