by TW Brown
I emerged at the edge of a large field. I could see houses on the other side. Even more encouraging was a car parked in the driveway of the house right across the street from this wide-open expanse of grassland.
And goats.
The first bleating sound from one of the animals caused me to pee just a little. I don’t think I’d ever looked a goat in the eyes. Maybe back in grade school on some field trip, but it hadn’t made that big of an impression. This horned creature bent down and nibbled on a patch of grass as I approached. I didn’t see any sign that it might be a zombie goat, but I almost reconsidered when that horned head rose and I saw the eyes. The pupils in a goat’s eyes are creepy. No wonder people equate them with Satan.
“Nice goaty-goat,” I sing-songed.
I had no idea if goats were mean. I made an effort to give it a wide berth, but once I encountered a half-dozen more of them spread out across this field, I knew I would have no choice but to come into close proximity with a few of them. Fortunately, they appeared far more interested in the grass than me. I reached the other side of the field and climbed the fence.
The tightness in my shoulders and the budding headache told me that I had tensed up a great deal. That made me laugh again. Here I was, all alone in the middle of the zombie apocalypse, about to die from the infection, and I’d been traumatized walking past a small herd of goats.
“Evan Berry…action hero!” I crowed softly.
This was basically a dead-end road. There was a house beyond some trees to my left. If I couldn’t find what I needed here at this first home, then I would consider ducking in and checking that place out. I really hoped that I found keys to the little Audi parked in the driveway of this place. I felt like I’d paid my dues when it came to searching. So far, I’d found a few perfectly good vehicles and had not been able to use any of them. It was time that I caught an actual break.
I reached the front door and froze. “Aww, screw this nonsense,” I growled.
Staring out at me from the window just to the right of the door was a small child. She looked to be around ten or eleven. Honestly, I was guessing. At a certain point, kids all looked basically the same age: young. This one was doing that creepy zombie-kid thing where it just stared at me. It wasn’t even slapping on the window.
I considered just passing on this place. Maybe the house beyond those trees or one of the other ones up the road from here would be an easier target. Or…maybe it would be even worse. This was the freaking zombie apocalypse; if I was expecting things to get easy, then I was fooling myself.
I walked up the pathway to the front door, the entire time, I had my eyes locked on that kid staring out at me. Her filmed over, blackshot eyes reciprocated.
My hand gripped the front door and gave it an experimental turn. Damn…locked. There was an additional door with decorative windows on the top half that was right beside the garage. I’d glanced in when I passed it and saw that it did indeed open to the garage. I’d already tried that one and that would be where I would attempt my break-in if it came to that.
But first, I decided that I would at least go around back and see if the back was open before I started breaking windows. There was a little rock trail that looked like it was supposed to mimic a creek or something, so I followed that. When I reached the backyard, I was looking out across another massive, open field. Across the way was another gorgeous home. A minivan sat parked in front of it and I glanced back at this residence.
“You’ve got to be kidding,” I breathed.
The zombie child inside had made its way to the sliding glass back door and was standing there…once again staring out at me. I decided that I would take a pass. I still didn’t know what the deal was with the child versions of the undead, but the fact that this one knew enough to come to the back of the house where I’d headed told me that there was something very different going on with them.
I started across the field. I refused to look back even though I was certain I heard a tiny hand slapping on glass.
I was almost halfway across when I spotted the first dark figures emerging from the trees to my left. There were five of them. I gauged the distance between them and the other side of the field. Seeing that it looked as if they would possibly cut me off if I didn’t pick up the pace, I broke into a jog.
There were some trees off to my right, and it figured that a handful of the undead just so happen to be simply standing around. It was as if they’d all decided to just hang out in the shade. Once more I had a spoofing reel play in my head as to the conversations that zombies might be having, but I shoved it aside and changed my jog into a sprint.
As I got closer, a new sense of dread and uncertainty arose in my gut. This house was almost like all the others. I say almost because it is fancy and well outside of any price range that I could have ever hoped to acquire.
The differences were subtle, but, at the same time, very obvious. For one, this one had a reinforced fence that ran all the way around it. A detached building off to the side had the door open, but that wasn’t where my attention was drawn. On top of it was a recent addition in the form of what could only be described as an encased turret—almost in the shape of a chess set rook.
I was just reaching the far side of this field and would soon be at the fence that bordered the house. That was when what looked like a bed sheet unfurled from the top of the turret.
IF YOU TRY TO ENTER WE WILL KILL YOU.
Okay, that seemed pretty basic and easy to understand. My only problem was that the zombies that had come through the trees on my left were now directly behind me and had cut off my retreat. Also, their numbers had quadrupled.
The ones up ahead and under the tree still just looked to be standing there. And then I realized that they were all staring up into the trees they were under. That was when I noticed movement in the branches.
I was already making up my mind to break right and follow the fence until I was past the visible property border of the house I’d hoped to target when a voice called out.
“Hey, mister!” a man rasped. “Can I get a little help here?”
That caused the zombies gathered below to suddenly start reaching up into the tree. For whatever reason, they’d stayed put, just basically standing there doing nothing; but it wasn’t until the man in the tree spoke that they started reaching. I was sort of bummed that they hadn’t been doing so from the beginning. Had I seen that, I would’ve probably jumped to the conclusion that somebody was trapped up in that tree. Maybe I wouldn’t have continued my approach. But I doubted it.
I still had a fence between me and the zombies gathered around the tree, so I didn’t see the harm in at least taking a closer look as long as I didn’t dawdle. The zombies that had come through the trees behind me were making their slow and continuous march in my direction.
What I saw was absolutely disgusting and pathetic. The best I could guess, that poor fella had been up in that tree for a long time. Days.
“Them sumbitches in that house over there chased me off and right towards a bunch of zombies. I figured I could get up in this tree and they’d eventually lose interest.” He was becoming more difficult to hear. His voice was ragged and raw sounding; and the zombies beneath him were starting to kick up quite a racket.
I considered the scene. Glancing back, I saw three people now on the roof of that house that warned me off. One of those people was a child that came up to about waist height. I thought back to my incident with Brandon Cook. I’d had a bad feeling in my gut about him almost from the moment that we’d met. He turned out to be a real piece of garbage as far as humans are concerned. Trusting strangers was not going to be easy. If that child was theirs, then they were probably being even more protective and would not hesitate to end anybody foolish enough to ignore the warning.
I returned my attention to the man in the tree. You only get one chance to make a first impression. Unfortunately for this guy, he’d been up in a tree for who knows how long. He was filthy and
bedraggled. Not to put too fine a point on it, but he looked like a scum bag.
I changed course and headed away, making my path up the street from the warning sign, the family with at least one child, and the man in the tree that began to hurl obscenities at me. Fortunately for me, his voice was drowned out after just a moment.
Maybe it wasn’t the right thing to do. The problem I faced at the moment was that my time was limited. I didn’t have forever—not that anybody did in a world where the dead walked. I just wanted a vehicle so that I could make this one final run for some supplies that would benefit my Chewie. Also, I’d gathered at least a few notes on what I’d witnessed with the child zombies.
Luck taunted me from the field just one house away from the one I’d left behind. The car sitting in the driveway was an older model Jeep Cherokee. It looked to be in fine shape. It struck me as strange that this house and the rest I could see up this street all appeared to be a bit older and more…lived in, I guess was the term I was looking for.
That house at the end of the street looked like it might belong in Better Homes & Gardens or something. These houses just looked like…well…houses. Nothing rundown, but certainly not as fancy.
I cut across the lawn and stopped at the series of five windows that sat just to the right of the door. There was a bench on the patio that I climbed up on so I could get a better look inside. I was momentarily grateful for the shades that at least partially obscured my view.
I almost fell over and busted my ass. Scrambling back from what I’d just seen, I looked back towards the direction of the house that had warned me away, and then over to the tree where that man was trapped.
Steeling myself for what I now knew was inside, I climbed back up and looked in. When I was in high school, I’d gone through a phase where I’d been fascinated with reading about the likes of Charles Manson and Ted Bundy. I don’t know why. What I do know is that, even reading about it and knowing that what I was reading was based on something that actually happened…it just did not seem real. No human being could commit the acts that were described in the pages of those books.
Yet, what I saw inside this house had not been done by zombies. The bodies inside had been brutally murdered. Butchered in a way that would make even the most stalwart horror fan shake their head in disbelief if they saw it enacted on screen.
Tied to one recliner chair was a man. The attacker had used fishhooks through the eyelids to keep them pried open. He was lashed to the recliner with wire that had obviously cut deep into his flesh. My guess was that he’d struggled a great deal. Considering what was laid out, I had to assume he’d been made to watch as his wife and two sons were murdered in ways worthy of torture-porn movies like Saw or Hostel.
The wife had been opened up surgically on the dinner table where both sons had been tied to chairs. Only one of the boys still had his head. I was about to give up and move on to the next house when I spotted them.
Tossed casually on the island counter that sat at the entrance to the kitchen was a jumble of keys attached to a large rope monkey fist that acted as the key ring. I glanced over at the Jeep Cherokee and decided that, while it would no doubt be unpleasant, this was the opportunity I’d been waiting for.
I made the decision to go around to the back of the house and break in on that side. While there was very little zombie activity in my immediate area, I saw no sense in bringing them down on me. As I walked around the house, I had to wonder. Had it been that man in the tree that had committed this horrendous act? The family up the road? Or just some random passer-by getting a sick thrill?
I’d often doubted what I saw in the typical zombie tales when it came to how people behaved. Surely we were not that bad of a species. But then I realized that it was illustrated clearly in our history. Genocide. Slavery. Human trafficking. Murder. Rape.
For such a supposedly evolved being, we were capable of some very nasty things. I wondered briefly if maybe this whole zombie apocalypse thing wasn’t for the best. As soon as that thought crossed my mind, I scolded myself. How on earth could anybody consider themselves a good and decent person and think that an extinction-level event was okay?
I reached the back door and gave it a try out of reflexive habit. The door opened, and I was instantly driven back by the smell. This was not the stench of the undead. What I was hit full-force with was the smell of actual death. The rank and bitter smell of feces mixed with the lingering coppery smell of blood and a fetid hint of decay.
That was also when I heard the buzzing sound. At first, I thought that maybe I’d been struck just a little bit dizzy. It wasn’t long before I wished that to be the case.
As I ventured inside, taking a deep breath first and holding it so that I would not breathe too much of that smell into my lungs, I could see the bodies a bit more clearly.
The open cavity of the mother was rippling with movement as maggots writhed inside her splayed torso. Flies buzzed in the air everywhere in numbers I’d never been witness to in my life. In places, they almost created a grayish curtain that swished and undulated. I realized that I was standing flat-footed now, just at the edge of the kitchen where it opened to the dining room. My body had shut down at the shock of what I was witnessing.
Deciding that I just wanted to get out of here, I swiped the keys and exited in a hurry. I made it to the back porch and had just congratulated myself on how I’d handled the situation when I doubled over and vomited all over the back patio. I barely had time to toss my bag aside to avoid being sick all over it. The fit was so violent that it drove me to my knees.
I had just taken a second to wipe my mouth when I heard the crunch of feet on gravel. I’d followed that fake stream made of rocks, and now it seemed that someone or ones had followed me. The dragging sound told me what it was before I saw or smelled the zombie that rounded the corner.
She was the poster of a soccer mom. Her hair was cut short, and even in death, it seemed to be gelled in place. Only now, dried blood was her product. At some point she must’ve buried her face in the belly of a victim because she didn’t just have a smear across her lips. Her face looked like she’d just been hit in the head with a rancid blackberry pie. There were even dried chunks of meaty bits on her cheeks and chin.
I was still a little weak in the knees as I stood and drew my axe. I shoved her back so that I could get a clean shot and then ended her with a swift stroke. Her body crumpled and I stepped back so that I could catch my breath and gather myself before I finally got into a vehicle and headed for my ultimate destination.
I rounded the house and returned to the front yard to discover that about a dozen or so zombies had apparently picked up on me at some point and were now trudging up the driveway. I hurried to the Jeep and was thankful that the keys had the logo emblazoned on them.
I tossed my bag into the front seat and hopped in just as the closest of the undead reached me. Its hands slapped impotently on the window as it attempted to get at me. I gave it a wave as I slid the key into the ignition, then I made a gulping noise in my throat. Already, the Jeep Cherokee was surrounded.
I said a silent prayer and turned the key. The thrum of the engine almost made me want to cry in relief. Instead, I settled for a whoop of joy and punched the overhead enthusiastically.
I popped the vehicle into reverse and slowly began to back out of the driveway. Zombies fell to the ground and I could not help but wince as the vehicle lifted and fell as it rolled over the downed bodies. I was really hoping that I didn’t blow out another tire.
When I finally reached the road and cranked the wheel around to facilitate my departure, a new rush of adrenaline dumped into my system. I now knew where my latest undead arrivals had come from. The end of the road was clogged with more zombies than I could count.
I fumbled for my bag and pulled out the map that I’d used to highlight the route I needed to take to reach the Happy Valley Veterinary Clinic. Since I knew that the way behind me was not only a dead end, but also being guard
ed by people who had banners stating their intent to kill, and the exit to this road was clogged with more zombies than I was willing to try and drive through, my only option was to allow this four-wheel-drive vehicle to be put through the paces.
I was mostly clear of the zombies in the driveway. That being the case, I goosed the accelerator, heaved the steering wheel to the right, and bounced my way across the massive open lawn of the house across the street from the murder scene I’d just left behind. As I drove through the grass, I felt a surge of hope starting to bloom in my gut. It was either that…or gas.
I reached the far side of the yard and had to swerve just a bit to avoid a sapling that looked like it might not just fold over if I tried to drive through it. The last thing I needed at the moment was to damage this vehicle. Glancing in the side view mirror, I could see a seething wall of the undead coming my direction from up the road.
My problem now was that the route I’d traced required me to turn left at the tee-intersection of Ridgecrest Court and Ridgecrest Road. The zombies coming up Ridgecrest Road forced me to turn right. Once I had all four wheels on the road and had cleared the yard that I cut through, I cruised ahead a good distance and then slowed to do some manual recalculating.
Once I had the first couple of stages committed to memory, I took off again. Glancing in the rearview, I slowed when I noticed that a group of the zombies were branching off to the left towards a large, white house. I hoped that I hadn’t just led that mob to the doorstep of some poor unfortunate.
“Still no damn tracers,” I muttered.
It was good news in that it was starting to actually look like I might be able to make this run. Granted, a million things could happen between now and the moment that I pulled up to the gates where Carl and the others remained—hopefully safe and sound.
I remembered something from one of my earlier attempts to obtain a vehicle and turned on the radio. I recalled it being somewhere towards the end of the AM dial, so I clicked it until a static-filled voice finally came through the speakers.
