by T. W. Brown
Billy.
The spark sent images that made Emily-zombie pause. She would let this one go…as long as it went away. If it left her and the others be, she would not steal its warmth.
“Do you know this zombie?” the smaller source made noises that brought all of the attention to it.
“I did. She was part of our group when we still lived up in the cabin.” The larger source made noises again, and drew the attention back to it.
Emily-zombie made a mewling noise and turned. The others of her group turned and followed. She would lead them away. For some reason that was far beyond her ability to fathom, Emily-zombie wanted this group of living beings to escape. As she stumbled back towards where she knew the large ones would be emerging, she scooped up a brick and came to a halt at a large piece of octagon-shaped metal.
As soon as the large ones came into view, she raised the brick in the air and brought it down on the flat piece of metal. The loud noise caused the approaching group to turn in her direction. This would take them past those sources of warmth…
Billy.
…but at a distance that they would not likely spot those sources that she felt suddenly compelled to help.
Billy.
Emily-zombie turned and moved on once the large ones had fallen in and altered their course. Every once in a while, she would smack the brick she held in her hand down on something in order to create more noise and ensure that the large ones continued to follow. Somewhere along the line, the reason faded and the brick dropped from Emily-zombie’s hand.
Leading her group off at an angle away from the large ones, Emily-zombie turned her face towards the orb that was almost gone from the sky. It would be dark soon and they made their way to an open field with grass so tall that the group of zombie children vanished from sight.
***
Vix sat against the tree, opened the pack beside her and rummaged until she produced one of the few remaining tins of food that they had scavenged at the last house they’d dared to venture inside. Pulling out the multi-purpose Swiss Army knife, she said a silent prayer that the contents not be creamed corn and opened the lid.
“Green beans,” she said with an agreeable sigh.
Plucking them one at a time, she ate the entire contents of the can slowly, washing it down with lukewarm water from her canteen. Leaving nothing to waste, she sipped at the liquid in the can until it was completely empty.
She glanced skyward and noted the position of the sun. It was still a good ways until dark, perhaps she should scout around for a suitable place to sleep. Being alone, she was certainly not going to chance staying in a position where some zombie could just wander up and take a bite out of her. Also, if there was a settlement of some sort nearby, there might be patrols.
Walking through the trees, she eventually found a spot that looked like it might support her. She could climb up and secure herself in place with a length of rope that would keep her from falling and breaking her neck.
Satisfied, she went back to sit at the base of her tree. The problem now was that she was entirely alone with her thoughts. Had she misjudged? Could it be that she was so conditioned by the gloomy stories she’d read that she held out no hope for humanity.
The more she sat there, the more she thought that using zombie limbs to make a sign was actually quite ingenious. There was no rule saying that just because somebody did something that either she hadn’t, or wouldn’t think of, that it meant a person or group of people were evil.
It was just that she had been so sure of herself. She had believed that she could passively guide this pair of youngsters to do what she wanted and that they would simply give in when she put her foot down.
“Now you are all by your lonesome,” she sing-songed in a nasally twang that she felt did an absolutely horrible job of impersonating those American country singers. Maybe it was her British dialect; perhaps it did not lend itself to the honky-tonk sound.
She barked out a laugh as she realized how quickly her thoughts had drifted to such trivial things. She glanced at the sky again and was startled to realize that the sun had moved a good ways towards the horizon. Before long, night would fall and she would be alone.
“The Queen’s balls,” Vix swore as she got up and slung her pack over her shoulder.
Maybe Gemma was correct. Just maybe this place was nothing to be afraid of at all. Would it be so terrible if they were able to settle down in a secure place…a fort of all things?
She’d seen some of those massive mobs of the undead and seriously doubted that any regular fence could keep them out if they numbered in the thousands. A fortress was not too far off from her original idea of securing the palace. If it had a proper moat, the zombies would never be a threat again.
Emerging from the trees, Vix had to take a few moments to orient herself. Gemma and Harold had headed towards the A13. Once she spied what had to be the highway, she set out. A few singles and small groups of zombies could be seen scattered in various directions, but none of them seemed to be close enough to notice or pay her any mind.
When she reached the A13, Vix scanned for signs that would lead her to the fort. If the people there had gone so far as to make one, surely there would be others. Keeping the sun on her right, she crossed the several lanes and headed for a large wooden sign that definitely looked to be of primitive construction. Sure enough, there was a sign of identical wording and design as the one that she and the others had spied. Approaching slowly, Vix noticed something else that made her gut churn.
At the base of the sign were two bicycles. One of them, Harold’s, was blood splattered. A small voice wanted to scream “I told you so!” but she was too upset to pay it any mind. Breaking into a jog, Vix ran to the pair of bicycles.
The area showed definite signs of a struggle. There was one particularly large dark stain on the ground that she did not need to touch or see up close to know it for what it was as flies buzzed in and around it. She could smell the lingering coppery scent of blood.
Her head was drawn up to the sign by a snapping sound. Throwing her hands to her mouth, Vix took several steps back and felt the tears fill her eyes at what she saw. Harold’s face peered down at her with dead, black bloodshot eyes. His mouth opened and closed, teeth coming together in a clacking sound on the metal spike that had been driven through the back of his throat when his head had been nailed to the sign.
Vix dropped to her knees and felt the tears pour from her eyes. She wanted to scream. She wanted to rage. She wanted to go back in time and slap Harold and Gemma for being so stupid. Gemma had said that she read too many books and that was why she had such a bleak outlook on people. No, she remembered what society had been like before the zombies.
Before the zombies came, she had watched the news every night and been shocked, often to the point of disgust, at the ability of people to be so inhumane to one another. She had seen all the stories—murder, rape, assaults—and those stories only took on an even darker cast when committed against children or the elderly.
When all of this had begun, she knew that the first to die would be those who sought to help. It would be the police, the medics, and then good citizens who would try to help those in need. So what did that leave?
And while she was certain that not every good and decent person had been killed, she knew that the numbers were heavily loaded in the wrong direction. The world was being left to people who could do things like what had apparently been done to Harold. And only heaven knew what had become of poor Gemma…a young, sweet girl who was still so naïve when it came to the ways of the world; a girl who was just now coming into her own.
The desire to reach out and help was swelling in Vix, but it was shattered by the hammer of reality. She was one middle-aged woman. Alone. She was no action hero like the type in some of her stories. She was a nurse from a small community in the UK that many folks had probably never heard of before. She had been just a normal person in real life, and that was all that she was now. I
f she made any attempt to try and rescue Gemma, she would end up suffering with the girl…or worse. And yes, she thought bitterly, there was worse.
She had no choice but to sneak away. It might haunt her for however much of her life that she still had left, but it was the only real choice that she had available.
Looking off in the direction that she believed the fort to be, Vix wiped the tears that had begun to spill from her eyes as the futility of her situation sunk in deep and spread its roots. Perhaps it would have been better to die early on and avoid all of this insanity. And when it came down to it, that was exactly what this all was in the end: Insanity.
What was she fighting so hard for? And now that she was alone, what chance did she have to survive more than a few days…weeks at most? The one thing that the zombie apocalypse had taught her was that it was a terrible thing to be truly alone.
She had thought back to when this had all been words on a page. She remembered thinking that it would be so grand if the world was gone and she could have some peace and quiet without all of the day-to-day stupidity. She had been wrong.
“I’m am sorry, Gemma,” Vix whispered as she turned to walk away. She paused at the base of the sick and twisted sign and looked up at Harold’s dead face. “I am so sorry, Harold.”
Vix vanished into the tall grass, her soft weeping carried away on the breeze.
***
He had no time to slow up. He had already committed to running down the stairs. And even if he had wanted to stop, Tigah had bounded past and hit the sand with the joyful exuberance that only a dog can muster.
Juan looked both directions and sighed with relief to find the entire strip of sand totally empty of any signs of people. Tigah woofed happily and Juan was struck by just how wonderful it must be to not have a care in the world.
He took three steps onto the sand when a voice called out that made him whip around with the rifle. “Juan! What the hell is going on? It sounds like a freaking war zone!”
Shielding his eyes did little to improve his vision. All Juan saw was a black shape in the tower about twenty yards up the beach. He told himself that it would not have mattered if he had been able to make out a face. He would have drawn a blank with the name.
“It’s a damn slaughter,” Juan hollered back. “And we’re on the losing end. Get out of here any way that you can!”
Juan didn’t wait for any further questions. He made a run for one of the dozen or so boats still tied up to the long dock. He found one that looked big enough for him and Tigah, unclipped the lanyard and unwound the line that had been tied off to an algae-slicked pier stanchion.
“Let’s go, fella,” Juan called.
The huge black dog bounded and hopped, clearly having the time of his life. Reaching the water, Tigah did what any Newfoundland would do, he plunged in and sent a wave at Juan that had him soaked from head to toe before he could think to protect himself.
Sputtering and coughing, Juan wiped his eyes to find the dog looking at him with tongue lolling and what sure as hell looked to him like a smile. Juan smacked the side of the boat and called for the dog. It took two tries and almost capsized the boat, but at last the two were in. Juan used one of the oars that had been lying at the bottom of the craft and shoved away from the dock. Paddling as hard as he could to get some distance from the shore, Juan ignored the multiple shouts directed at him. His responsibility to the people of that island was done. The only person that he felt any sort of responsibility or allegiance to was Mackenzie.
He knew where she would be provided that she had done exactly as they had planned. As he paddled, all he could do was trust that she would be there.
The sounds of gunfire caused him to look back. Several figures were out on the beach now. He could not tell who was on what side, but it did not take long for an obvious victor to emerge. And when the ones that were left began lobbing explosives into the towers, he had no doubts any longer. The island had fallen.
He had no idea who these people were, and he would probably never know why they had done what they had done. A part of him screamed that this was karma for all the crap that he had done in his life. Who had he thought he was trying to live happily ever after? What had he ever done to deserve such a safe and secure place to call home while so many others out there suffered and struggled?
Juan rowed hard to get as far away from the beach of Sauvie Island as possible and to the other side of the Columbia River. That would put him in Washington State; that had been the fallback point he and Mackenzie settled on. There was a massive park or wildlife preserve according to the wooden signs that he had seen the one time he had actually gone over and checked the place out.
Tigah began woofing and Juan looked around to see what had the dog so excited. Apparently he had been paddling hard, or maybe he had been daydreaming, because the shore was only about ten or twenty yards away. His heart leapt when he was able to make out two boats beached on the shore. The occupants had taken the time to drag them onto the beach and at least partway into the tall grass. The bodies of three downed zombies told him why they had only partially hidden the boats.
The moment that his boat ground into the sandy shore, Juan jumped out. Tigah followed, running around until something made the normally hyper dog come to a halt and lower his front end. A low growl escaped the animal’s muzzle and Juan was momentarily shocked. He could not ever recall hearing the dog growl; not even playfully.
“Easy, boy,” Juan breathed.
He pulled his sword free and started towards the trees and tall grass where he saw obvious signs that somebody had passed. It was not that Juan was any sort of outdoor tracker, but the path was noticeably new and very wide, like they had gone in four or five across.
He had just slipped under the shadows of the trees when he heard a scream. He and Tigah acted almost in unison as the pair took off at a run.
Juan could feel his pulse in his temples and his heart threatened to burst through his chest. This entire time, he had been able to shove down the possibility that Mackenzie was lost. That scream had taken the thought he had not dared to give any purchase to and slammed it into the front of his mind.
Breaking into the first clearing, Juan saw several zombies lumbering towards an opening on the other side. That made his decision all the easier. Apparently it did the same for Tigah. The big dog leapt forward and barreled over the closest zombie it could find.
Juan wanted to call the dog off, but his first priority was Mackenzie, He had to trust that the animal knew what it was doing. And so, with sword in one hand—its three-foot blade catching a hint of the sun—and a knife in the other, Juan advanced. He did not go out of his way and kept his attack focused on the zombies that were within easy reach.
On a few occasions, Juan would simply shove the undead aside. His main concern was to reach the source of what were now shrieks of terror mixed with the voices of women shouting and the ever present moans, groans, and cries of the undead.
Juan ducked under one fallen tree and tripped over the body of a little girl and the defunct corpse of a zombie that still had the screwdriver sticking out from its temple. He scrambled up and was knocked over again as Tigah galloped past. The screams were close and they had changed. In the midst of the fear were the distinct sounds of pain that could only be made by a person being torn apart and eaten alive.
Just as Juan regained his feet, he heard the yelp of a dog. Cursing, Juan sprinted the remaining distance to a very small clearing. The scene before him was bedlam.
Some of the children had managed to climb into the lower branches of the nearby trees. Five women, a few looking to be in their early teens, had formed a circle, backs to one another as the undead came at them. Juan figured there to be close to fifty of the monsters, but hanging back and peering out from the bushes and from behind a few of the trees were another dozen of the undead…children!
Tigah was in the midst of the main pack of zombies, his dark fur looked matted and soaked in places. J
uan wanted to feel sadness, he could see one flap of fur peeled back and knew that dogs suffered the same fate as humans when bitten by the undead, but his eyes quickly returned to the circle of five. Mackenzie was facing away from him, but he knew her instantly even with protective gear that included a motorcycle helmet with face shield.
Glancing to his left, a pair of the zombie children had emerged slightly from their cover to regard his arrival. Juan actually took a step back as he felt like he was being studied by these nightmarish horrors. To him, zombie children were perhaps the most frightening thing in the world…with the exception of the living kind anyways.
He was a bit surprised as the tiny undead seemed to be more intent on watching him than on attacking. However, the moment he turned to face them and brought his sword to bear, both let out a mewling groan and came with arms extended and mouths open to show blood stained teeth.
“Juan! Behind you!” a voice yelled.
Juan recognized the voice, but he was so taken aback by the seemingly instant transformation of the zombie children from observers to attackers that he could not devote the resources to sort out who it was that had screamed. Then something slammed into his back and sent him sprawling on the ground.
***
Glenn looked over his shoulder. The herd was still on his tail. He managed to keep them about ten or twenty yards from him at all times. He had started off walking backwards until he bumped into a zombie that had seemed to appear out of nowhere.
That little encounter had come damn close to ending him as he shoved it away and tripped over his own two feet in the process. By the time he had recovered and made it to his feet, the leading edge of the herd was less than a dozen feet away. In fact, a couple in the lead probably saved his ass when they tripped and fell. That caused a bit of a domino effect as several more stumbled over the downed pair.
