The shadow wrapped itself around me, blacking out the world.
Part II
Chapter 15
Two Months
I celebrated my two-month anniversary in the camp with a hot breakfast cooked outside the front of the lodge—fried rabbit and the last of the beans, cooked on the camping stoves. I’d tried the generator, which had worked, but it was also extremely noisy. I didn’t need the attention it might bring.
The rabbit was delicious, if a little small. It was the first real protein I’d had for weeks. I don’t count the jerky or the protein bars. I let out a little moan of pleasure as I sank my teeth into the succulent meat. I smiled, realizing how much like one of my zombie friends I must sound.
The flame on one of the stoves sputtered. I turned them both off—I was running low on gas. It was a sign that my situation was becoming more tenuous by the day—one of many.
I’d settled into a nice rhythm, spending my days reading or performing little maintenance tasks around the camp. Or hunting zombies. It had been several weeks since I’d seen a helicopter, and apart from the occasional zombie that wandered conveniently through the camp, no one had happened upon my little sanctuary.
A cloud passed overhead, and I shivered. The days were getting cooler as the summer drew to a close. I’d been lucky. The weather had been warm and dry, but winter would be here before I knew it. I had shelter, but when the temperatures dropped, I’d need heat, and that meant either lighting the fire in the lodge or running the generator. Neither of those options appealed to me, but before I had to make that choice, I needed to get some food. There were still some cardboard-flavored protein bars and a couple of cans of soup but not much else.
As I finished the meal, my confidence ebbed away. The shadow reprimanded me for ignoring the long-term practicalities of living in the camp. I needed to act, or I’d have to resort to eating the flesh of my subjects.
I dug out the hand-drawn map I’d found and laid it out on the ground. If it was right, Sally’s Home Comforts was about six miles away, most of that on the highway.
I figured a couple of hours to get there, an hour or so looking for supplies. Depending on how much stuff I brought with me, it would take two or three more hours to get back. I knew it was a long shot—the chance of a stash of supplies lasting this long without being raided was virtually nil, but it was the only option I had.
Six hours away from the camp. The idea made me nervous. I’d be out in the open for much of the journey, exposed and vulnerable. Who knew what I’d find when I got there? There was still food in the lodge. I could wait a couple more days. Maybe I should find another subject before I left. I thought of my snare hanging in the workshop, and the shadow stirred.
I call it a snare in the absence of a better name, but it was much more than that. Since my first successful capture, I’d made some improvements to my zombie-wrangling weapon of choice.
I’d found a thicker, stronger pole to use as the handle. I’d refined the noose itself to be more secure and easier to maneuver and tighten. And I’d added three blades taken from a couple of pairs of shears I’d found in the workshop. Two stuck out either side of the noose. They were short but enough to inflict some serious damage if required. The third blade was bigger and heavier and was attached to the opposite end of the pole. It had taken a while to get it properly secured, but with some creative metalwork I’d managed to bolt it into place. The snare was an effective tool. It was ideal for my purpose.
I took a deep breath and promised the shadow that I’d let it out to play again, after we had our supplies. I walked around the camp’s perimeter before I left. That was a legitimate job, not procrastination. As always, I’d checked it as soon as I’d woken up, but that was just to make sure nothing had stumbled into the camp while I was sleeping. I still needed to perform my daily maintenance.
The perimeter was a mismatched collection of wire, string, rope, and fishing line that I’d hung with cans and strips of metal to act as an early warning system. The lines were at about chest height. It meant humans could easily crawl under them—because experience had taught me that putting the wire at ankle height meant getting woken up by every skunk, rabbit, and raccoon that came wandering through. Once I’d adjusted the height of the trip wires, my nights had been largely undisturbed. The only exception being three deer that turned up a couple of weeks earlier. If I’d kept the rifle nearer at hand, I might have been eating venison for weeks.
Satisfied the perimeter was still intact, and unable to think of any more reasons to delay, I grabbed my backpack, checked I had enough food and water, and set off toward Sally’s Home Comforts.
I knew the first part of the route well—out the main camp entrance, along the trail to the logging road that would lead me to the highway. I kept to the grass verge, under the shelter of the trees. The sun wasn’t as strong these days, and walking down the middle of the road would have made the journey easier, but I wanted to limit how much time I spent in the open.
About a mile later, I stopped to take a drink of water and check the map. If its creators were right, a few minutes down the road, a shortcut through the forest would take me directly to the highway. It was labeled Salvation Alley.
I’d used the map a couple of times in the past, and it was surprisingly accurate. Sure enough, ten minutes later, I found a handwritten sign nailed to a tree declaring the nearby path to be Salvation Alley. From here, the journey would be pretty straightforward—follow the trail for half a mile to the highway then three or four miles south to Sally’s Home Comforts. Easy.
The trail was rough and uneven. Although the forest hadn’t grown over it completely, it was littered with debris left there by winter storms and the natural decay of the forest. The obstacles slowed me down, but they may have also saved my life.
I was in sight of the highway when I heard a low droning sound. I crouched down and searched the sky for the noise’s origin then realized it was coming from the road. A few moments later, four zombies wandered into view. Their feet dragged across the road’s surface, scuffing out an irregular rhythm to accompany their monotone voices. Three more zombies appeared right behind them, and within minutes the road was a river of the living dead.
There were dozens of them. Men, women, children. Old, young. Black, white, Asian. Some were relatively intact; others sported serious damage—missing limbs or gaping gunshot wounds. The stench of death and decay wafted through the trees, and the droning sound just kept swelling along with their numbers.
If I hadn’t been slowed down by the rough terrain, I’d have walked straight into them. Images of being caught on the road streamed through my head. I’d seen swarms a couple of times before—from the relative safety of a building. I’d also seen what happens to people caught in their path. It doesn’t take long for a group of zombies to overwhelm their victims. One moment they’re running for their lives, a few short seconds later, they disappear beneath the tearing, biting dead.
This swarm was at least three times the size of any I’d seen before. I wanted to run or at least retreat farther down the trail, but I was afraid of attracting their attention. One or two zombies I can handle. Well over a hundred? No.
Something cracked off to my right, and I turned to see a group of zombies pushing through the forest toward me. The swarm’s growth had forced some of them off the road. They moved slowly, hampered by the undergrowth. None of them had seen me yet, but I didn’t have much time before they did. I backed down the trail and then froze as another zombie stepped out of the trees and onto the path ahead of me. He cut directly across the trail, stumbling on a downed tree in the process. Another zombie, a teenager by the look of it, followed right behind him.
I dropped as low to the ground as possible, scanning the area around me for cover. The closest thing I could see to safety was a fir tree with a couple of branches low enough for me to climb up. I hesitated, trying to work out whether climbing the tree would be choosing the frying pan or the fire.
Chapter 16
A View from Above
I put the tree trunk between me and the zombies in the forest. The lowest branch was still a foot or so above my outstretched arms. I jumped, caught the branch, and hung there, legs swinging for a couple of seconds before my hands slipped. I dropped back to the ground. Picking a point nearer the trunk, I tried again. As soon as I was hanging from the branch, I started pulling myself up.
My feet fought for purchase on the trunk. After several heart-stopping seconds, I managed to roll myself onto the branch. The climb quickly became easier from there. I clambered up a couple more levels, high enough that I was well out of reach but not so far away that I couldn’t see what was happening or tell if I’d been spotted. Not that I knew what I’d do if I had been.
I sat on the branch as the stench of the dead grew stronger. Another zombie stepped onto the trail—a woman with a deep split in the side of her head. Most of her clothes had been torn away to reveal the rotting, blue-gray flesh beneath. She moved painfully slowly across the path without looking up. As she passed beneath me, two more zombies stumbled into view. These were younger, fresher, and they moved more quickly than the woman. One of them stumbled into the tree I was in. He let out a low-pitched moan and moved away.
The third zombie slowed then stopped. He was right beneath me and so close, the smell was almost overpowering. Part of his leg had been torn away, leaving the muscle beneath exposed. Rot had set in, and the wound was a festering mass of decay. The creature let out a low moan and rocked left and right. The smell caught in my throat, and I started to gag. The reflex was so strong, I had to place my hand over my mouth. Every breath I took just made it worse.
The zombie turned his head toward the road and moaned again. He took an uneven step forward, away from the tree. I held my breath, closed my eyes. Every ounce of my concentration was focused on not throwing up. I held on as long as I could. My lungs burned.
Finally, I let out the breath and opened my eyes. The zombie was moving along the path to rejoin the rest of the swarm. The smell lingered, but it was less intense, bearable. I took shallow breaths and watched as the zombies filed past beneath me.
The swarm was huge. It took over half an hour for the bulk of it to pass by. Even then, there were still a handful of stragglers trailing behind—the zombies with more extreme injuries. I sat in the tree, watching them crawl past, until I was as sure as I could be that it was safe. Then I dropped down to ground level and made my way out to the road.
The highway was wide and straight, and I could still see the swarm’s tail end off to my right. They were far enough away that I doubted they’d see me, but I was glad I was heading in the other direction.
I moved under cover of the trees and had a drink of water, trying to wash the taste of decay from my mouth. A subtle rottenness still hung in the air. Here and there, scraps of clothing and spatters of dark fluid marked the swarm’s passing. The water helped a little, but there was no shaking the remnants of terror still clinging to my mind. I had to get moving.
Taking one last look at the swarm, I tightened my backpack and turned south.
Chapter 17
Remains
Sally’s Home Comforts was located at the bottom of a shallow valley and turned out to be a gas station and a combined restaurant and general store. Apart from a few broken windows, the restaurant and store were relatively intact, but someone had driven a semi into the gas station. The resultant fire had burned itself out but not before it had gutted the building. The concrete around the station was scorched, the heat so intense it had melted the canopy above the pumps into a twisted lump of blackened metal. The husk of the truck’s cab was wedged inside the station itself.
I walked slowly across the road to the wreckage of the gas station. The concrete apron around the pumps was buckled and broken as though the tanks beneath had exploded. A ragged sheet of metal about ten feet long had torn through the ground. It looked like the fin of some sort of mechanical shark cutting through the earth. The truck was a twisted, charred mess. I smelled burned metal and rubber.
The building’s supports had given way when the truck had slammed through the front wall, and the concrete roof had collapsed. The top of the cab was folded into a V-shape. The windshield had shattered, and the resultant fragments crunched under my feet as I examined the interior of the building. The inferno had destroyed anything that might have been of use. The general store would be a better bet.
Metal creaked. There was movement inside the cab, and then a zombie’s face appeared in the space between the crushed roof and the front of the truck. He let out a low, paper-thin groan. The thing’s skin had been burned to a thick black crust. The opening was far too small for him to get through, but that didn’t stop him from trying. He pressed his head into the gap. The roof’s sharp edges dug into his cheeks, and a chunk flaked away. He made a high-pitched keening sound as though in pain. The cab doors were buckled, and there was no way for him to get out or for me to get in. Ignoring the shadow’s disappointment, I moved on.
The fire had left black stains along the store’s walls, but somehow most of the building had remained standing. The windows were also intact, but they were smeared with thick smudges of dry, black blood.
I circled the entire building. There was a large parking area out back. It was littered with chunks of rock and discarded car parts that I didn’t recognize. A few meager patches of grass had managed to take hold, but otherwise, it was just a broad expanse of gray concrete.
A couple of abandoned cars stood near the building. One of them was empty, but I could see someone moving inside the other. The shadow urged me to investigate, but I ignored it and continued around to the front of the store.
There had been zombies there at some point. I could see signs of their passing—a hat, a couple of mismatched shoes. There were marks on the concrete, scattered patches of blood mostly, but no bodies. If there’d been anyone inside the building trying to survive, they hadn’t taken down any of the zombies.
The front door was undamaged, but there was more blood, mostly smeared across the glass. I almost kicked it open without thinking, but I stopped myself. I pushed the door, and it opened. Surprised, I stepped into the small hallway that lay beyond. The air was dry and musty, with the familiar stench of death underlying the more mundane odors. I waited in the gloom, letting my eyes adjust.
A door lay ahead of me—plain, blue, and closed. A STAFF ONLY sign sat at about head height. It was slightly crooked. The restaurant was on my right. It was the type of roadside diner I’d seen in movies and on TV a dozen times but never actually been inside.
The general store was on my left, and the name was overstating its scale. It was small enough that having more than seven or eight customers at one time would upset a fire marshal. Three narrow aisles ran the length of the room. A small counter with a till on it sat next to the door. I didn’t care about the size of the store. What I cared about was that the shelves that lined the aisles were still virtually untouched.
Half of them were filled with pointless knickknacks—mementos aimed at the stream of tourists that rolled through the mountains during the summer. But the rest held an array of food items chosen for their durability and convenience. There were cans of soup and chili, boxes of protein and energy bars, packets of noodles, and bags of the ever-present jerky. Combined, it was more than enough to last me through the winter and beyond. I just needed to get it back to the camp. There was even a pile of small propane bottles that would fit my stoves.
On foot, it would take me ten or more trips to get everything transported to the camp. And that was assuming I didn’t run into a swarm. I could leave the camp and move into Sally’s, but it was far more exposed. There was no way to set up the kind of perimeter I’d grown used to
. More importantly, I’d need to find a new place for the shadow to work. So, moving wasn’t an option, but I couldn’t just ignore the supplies. I’d need to find some way to cut down the number of trips. I thought of the quad bikes. I could probably ride one, and there was plenty of room to carry supplies on the back. Even having to stick to the roads instead of using Salvation Alley, it would make things a lot quicker.
I walked out of the store and crossed the hallway into the restaurant. It, too, was mostly undisturbed. There were six tables and four booths. All of them were neatly laid out with knives, spoons, forks, napkins, menus, and condiments. The menu was small and basic, but the descriptions of the Early Riser Breakfast and Classic Blueberry Pancakes left my mouth watering and my stomach rumbling. I chewed on an energy bar as I walked around the rest of the room, but my stomach wasn’t fooled.
A narrow service counter ran along the left-hand side of the room, with four stools lined up in front of it. Another worktop held a small coffee maker and space for the person working the counter to prepare some food. A doorway led into the kitchen, and when I saw it, I realized why the menu was so limited. It was tiny. There was barely enough space for one person to work in, and the fridge, stove, and microwave oven were equally compact.
There were more supplies in the kitchen, mostly the raw materials for making the specials. When I opened the fridge, I was greeted by a wave of rancid air filled with the stench of rotting meat and vegetables. I thought I saw a tub of blueberries just before I gagged and quickly swung the door shut.
The possibilities of the restaurant exhausted, I headed back out to the hallway and the STAFF ONLY door.
Serial Killer Z [Book 1] Page 8
