by mike Evans
“You killed him!” Yassa said.
“I only wounded him. Come on, we need to put him down before he heals.”
“What do you mean heal? Ellie didn’t say anything to anyone about those things healing!”
“Just move would you, Yassa? Christ, we can give you a proper education when our asses aren’t on the line.”
He nodded, and the two walked up slowly, making sure that it was in no way a trick, or that he wasn’t nearly as bad as he appeared to be. Clary pulled out a knife, but Yassa already had a hatchet. “I got this one, Clary. I missed, I’ll clean it up.”
Clary shrugged and Yassa walked up to the boy, who was trying with all that he had to get up off the ground. He was spitting blood that no longer looked red, but now had a blackened tint to it. He looked down at the boy, thinking how horrible it was that these things were capable of not only passing on this hate, this disease, but that once infected, they changed so quickly, with so little time before it took them completely over.
Tony screamed, spraying blood on his face even worse, but Yassa did not back up so much as one step. He brought down his hatchet, aiming perfectly for his skull with such force that he only left the handle sticking out of his head.
The one-armed Al was making no noise on the ground; in all the commotion, no one had seen him ripping flesh from his arm, which had been covered by a long sleeve shirt to start.
“Al... Al, are you all right, man? Are you okay? Fuck, are you alive?” Yassa called.
Al did not respond with words. Yassa watched him for a moment, waiting to see if he needed to be put down too. He nudged him with his foot. He wasn’t getting his hand or face close enough to need to worry about himself.
Al’s eyes shot open, and he gripped onto Yassa’s foot, pulling him over him and throwing him to the ground. Yassa tried to get up, underestimating the speed and power of even a new member of the dead society. Yassa tried backing up, but Al took hold of his ankle, pulling him back and kicking him in the side, sending him spinning around.
Clary came running and could see Joey with his baseball bat. He held up a hand for him to stop his approach, but there was no stopping him for anything, and he knew that. He brought out a pistol, kicking Al in the knee cap and making him fall to the ground. When he tried to push up, he kicked at his only remaining arm as he pulled his forty-five caliber from his holster and fired a single shot that echoed across the valley. Al’s brains covered the cement next to Yassa.
Yassa rolled away, pointing behind him and trying to pull his pistol, but couldn’t get it from where he’d tucked it into the rear of his pants.
“Christ, Yassa, relax, it wasn’t that close. I wouldn’t have shot if I didn’t know what I was doing,” Clary said.
He could hear a snarling coming from behind him and Joey’s war cry that never had gotten quieter. He spun slowly, seeing a snarling Turned in front of him. It broke his heart to see Lou in that state. The fact that he could have gone off on his own and maybe made a go of it, maybe survived, and definitely had had the chance that he wouldn’t be here dead and ready to eat him, tore at Clary’s chest.
Lou crouched, getting low and ready to make a jump towards Clary. Joey screamed, not caring about his wrist, covering the ground like no one had seen the boy move before. He brought the bat down into Lou’s spine, breaking it, screaming again and crying, unable to control his rage.
“Mr. Lou, you don’t hurt Mr. Clary! You don’t hurt him! You weren't supposed to be a zombie, Mr. Lou.”
Lou flipped to his back, jumping back up. His face was all but unrecognizable and he screamed towards Joey, who winced as he squeezed the bat’s grip even harder. He brought it down once, twice, and a third time in a row into Lou’s skull. A dent was visible from where Clary stood, and a single line of blood, slow at first, became heavy and made its way down Lou’s nose, the only part that had not been scraped to hell and not yet had made him look like a monster. Lou took two steps forward and Joey took one last swing, burying one of the forged spikes into his skull through his ear. Lou opened his mouth one last time for a steady stream of black, bloody sludge to make its way out before reaching out once, falling to his knees, and then the ground.
Joey let go of the bat, which stuck straight up into the air. He fell to his knees, his lip quivered, and he began crawling over to Lou and laying his head on his chest, holding him. “You weren’t supposed to be one of them, Mr. Lou. You and I were friends. We were going to be friends forever… What are we gonna do without ya? What are we gonna do, Mr. Lou?”
Clary holstered his pistol, looking around. He knew those shots fired were going to do nothing to help him and the others stay off the dead’s radar. He knelt down next to Joey, rubbing his back, knowing that he needed to be delicate or that there was an absolutely good chance that he would be losing his shit in a way like he’d never seen before.
Clary whispered, “Look, I know that this isn’t easy… I know it sucks. But we need to go. I don’t know what we have to deal with here, but there’s going to be company coming. I know your hurt, and you did a great job. I’m sorry you had to be the one to save me, but I appreciate you saving my life. You are a great kid, Joey. But we need to go. We need to get out of here, and we need to do it now.”
Joey got up, patting Lou’s side. He began walking away and then turned back. Clary snapped a little harder than he meant at him. “Joey, we need to go now!”
Joey jumped when he screamed; it wasn’t something that he was used to hearing from him. He knelt next to Lou, pulling his keys for the medical building off him. He held them up to Clary, who instantly felt about three inches tall. He sighed holding his hand out for the keys. Joey dropped them in his hand and gave him a long hug that both of them needed.
Yassa said, “We’re leaving, right?”
Clary nodded, whirling his arm to let Kya and Ellie know it was time to go. They both looked as white as ghosts, seeing Lou, the boy they’d been trying to save, and Al all lying on the ground. Ellie felt like her heart was going to break. It’d been too much, too soon over the day. She just wanted to sleep until the pain went away. Joey climbed in with Clary and the others, not saying anything.
Ellie and Kya got back in and she started to drive up past Lou. They tried not to look, but it would have been wrong not to. They owed it to his memory to at least give him the decency to remember him. He’d given his life for their group. He didn’t have any reason to go after a complete stranger. After the dead had taken over everything, he had stuck to his medical oath to put others before himself and to save those that could not save themselves.
They took the rest of the drive slowly, driving somberly. Joey and Clary sat in the backseat. He was trying to comfort the boy, but had nothing he could say that was going to make anything better. He thought of Aslin, McQuaig, Aliyah, and now Lou, all baking in the warm sun, never to be buried, never put to rest. He patted Joey’s shoulder as he felt the sleeve on his shirt growing warm from his tears. “We are going to find something good; some reason besides just surviving to exist. It isn’t enough. We are going to take it back, Joey. We’ll do it on our own or with thousands by our sides.”
Joey nodded his head, looking up at him. Yassa and the others were all looking at Clary, and the idea did not strike them as horrible. Each one of them was vulnerable and upset, heartbroken from the loss of their parents. Jon pulled to a stop, hitting the security gates, and the two Humvees drove through, ready to begin the battle against the dead.
Part Two
Chapter 1
Two days after leaving.
Shaun pulled to the top of a hill, looking at the city in front of him. He’d seen a sign for it, but had already forgotten what it was. He knew that he was on the right path, because he had none. He figured that he’d go east, not because it’d be easier, but because it would be more difficult. He wanted no companions. But he did want to try to find those who were willing to learn how to kill the dead. He had already decided that those in the w
armer states would have it easier anyways, so he went out of his way to make sure that he would travel to the states that got horrible weather, temps, and even snow.
Shaun watched the dead making their way around the town. He used his distance finder to see that he was just shy of a thousand yards on the hill. He saw an overgrown cornfield in the distance and thought that he could park at the end of that and hopefully put some corn stalks on it to blend it in.
He drove slowly going back down the hill so as not to catch the attention of anything nearby. He tucked the truck back into the corn, not worrying about smashing the stalks. They were already brittle and mostly blown over from the intense Iowa winds. They needed to be harvested months ago. Shaun let down the tailgate, making a shooters bench in the back to aim off of. He pulled out a can of preloaded magazines, placing them in order.
He rested the gun, cracking his neck and nestling down into his position. He took slow, deep breaths, looking around the town. There was no shortage of dead in the town, but he saw something which actually left him even the least bit hopeful. There had been someone alive here at some point, because whoever was still trying to make a go of this town had boards up over the windows. Shaun had yet to find anyone who he could pass his knowledge on to. He hoped that once the loss of Aslin and McQuaig had lessened, that they would upload the videos to the world, so they could see how you can kill these things. With every bullet spent, he felt even more like he was doing the right thing. There was no negotiating, there was no middle ground with the dead; it was kill or be killed, and he was fine with that.
Shaun put on his hearing protection, the last step before he sent lead across the few hundred yards to where they roamed slowly, not excited by anything. Shaun lined up a man with a badge on his shirt that said United States Postal Service, Phil.
“Sorry about this, Phil.”
Shaun squeezed the trigger slowly until the gun roared across the valley. The echoes sent the town into a frenzy. The dead looked everywhere for what was intruding on their silence, but the small valley that the town sat in made it impossible. Shaun fired through an entire magazine before taking a break. A lone tear made its way down his cheek as flashbacks of Aslin giving himself and Patrick lessons on how to turn the high-powered rifle into a killing machine poured through his head. Aslin had been patient and caring, and wanted to pass on everything in his power to the boys, and anyone else intelligent enough to realize what they could learn from him.
Shaun pulled back the release, taking a break and letting the dead try to settle before he began again. He didn’t want to overdo it on the barrel of his rifle either. His ears were ringing, even with the ear protection in. The smoke slowly began to fill up the truck. Shaun coughed and decided that it would be smart to be able to breathe. He rolled down the back two windows, looking at the cornstalks and thinking how, a year ago, you would not have been able to convince him this was his life for anything in the world.
He lay back down, getting one more magazine loaded, when he just barely heard cornstalks no longer lazily swaying in the wind. He pulled out the earplugs, trying to tell himself that his ears were simply playing tricks on him. Shaun listened for a second and tried to figure out what it was he was hearing. The corn sounded like it was being hit with a baseball bat repeatedly. Shaun realized finally that wasn’t the case at all; it was the dead, and they were sprinting for the truck. They were sprinting for him!
Shaun flipped on the safety, realizing it was time to get out of Dodge and to do it now if he wanted to live another day. When the sound was so close that it sounded like a train, he realized what he needed to do. Shaun jumped to pull up the tailgate and shut it down. He got the windows up so nothing would be able to get through—at least until they broke it.
Shaun looked at his supplies in the rear of the truck, trying to make a play at what a good plan of attack would be. He took one of the gas cans, pulling off the top, and got back behind the wheel. He kept the can next to him, starting the Humvee and putting it in gear. Instead of driving out of the corn, he took the truck straight for fifty yards. The dead that had found him were confused when he passed them, and they turned around, sprinting after his truck. As Shaun was driving, he held out the gas can from the window, sending it splashing across the dried corn. The five-gallon tank was soon empty and the side of the truck reeked of fuel.
The dead were screaming. He wasn’t sure if it was because he hadn’t seen these things run flat out in a while, or they were faster than the ones in the city, which made little sense to him. Shaun slammed on the gas and drove hard and away from the straight line of the dead that were coming for him. So far, he’d been able to count a dozen, but knew that they were quite possibly everywhere in the corn that had not been flattened by the wind and his truck.
An arm came through the window, gripping onto his seat belt. He’d not had time to put it on, and the Humvee was bouncing violently up and down. Shaun pulled his knife, slicing through the restraint, and sent the dead tumbling under the truck. The bouncing truck went up even higher once, and a feeling of joy spread through him. He started watching the plants going by him, wondering where the hell he was.
The Turned began jumping onto the hood. Shaun did his best to try to shake them, but they were clinging to it, punching holes in the metal to keep their grip.
Shaun set the machine gun on the dash, hitting full auto, and unloaded a magazine, sending it left to right. Blood sprayed back onto the windshield, making visibility drop to an all-time low, but the thudding and pounding stopped.
He pulled out an emergency flare gun from beneath his seat, praying his idea would work. He checked it, feeling there was a flare, and pointed it in the distance where he’d come from. He thought he’d over shot at first. “Oh, come on. Come on, you son of a bitch, just do one thing for me—just one thing!”
Shaun looked into his rearview mirror, seeing black smoke growing until the dried and brittle corn erupted in a great ball of fire. He hit the horn, bouncing up and down in his seat. He punched the truck’s gas, not caring about the pain from the ride. When he saw the edge of the crops, he aimed straight for them. He saw the edge of a hill and braked hard.
Shaun took a deep breath looking at the land in front of him. It appeared to be more of a cliff than a hill. He put the truck in park for a moment while he switched out empty magazines. The fire spread quickly, and the pieces from the corn stalks started to float down onto his Humvee. Shaun could feel the heat from it twenty yards away. “Jesus, that was close.”
The Turned began to race from the fire, unable to scream from the smoke and hot air inhalation that had swollen their throats shut. Their hair and skin had melted off. They were naked, and all parts imaginable had been burnt beyond recognition, and their skin was bubbling. They saw Shaun and came straight for him, ignorant to the fact that they wouldn’t be able to swallow anything, even if it was liquid. Shaun aimed down on the dead and began firing in succession, not stopping until each of their smoldering bodies was on the ground. Smoke slowly wafted up into the air. He drove slowly thinking that he might see more, but did not.
Shaun drove back around to where he could see the town. The dead had flocked to the fire, unknowing the effects it was going to have on them. He smiled, watching them enter. When they did not come out, he had decided that it might be better than the blood they had spent so much time baiting them with. He drove towards the town slowly, looking around and driving the outskirts until he was confident that the dead had all gone to the fire. He watched through his scope as some of them began to exit. Their limbs at this point had burnt so badly that they’d fallen off.
He drove down Main Street. The dead were everywhere from his first two magazines spent on them; he counted sixty, give or take a few. Doors began to open slowly, just enough to see from them. Shaun stopped, keeping his rifle down but with a pistol resting in his lap.
A teen came out first, holding up his hands; they all did. They’d heard the guns, and they had never been
able to perform such a feat in the last year, let alone in one day. The teen waved, trying to look friendly and not scared shitless. He shook his shaggy red hair from his face and nodded, looking at Shaun like he was an alien. “You aren’t a soldier; you’re too young to be. What are you... Who are you?” he asked.
“I’m the stranger that just removed the dead from your town. Not saying there aren’t some that are still alive up there, but if you get them before they heal, you’ll be able to put them out of their misery, and save yourselves some.”
The boy’s dad came out next. “Damn it, Benjamin, I told you not to go outside without asking. What the hell makes you think that it is safe, boy?”
“Uh, you heard those gunshots earlier, I know you did. Will you look around?” the kid said back.
The dad did as asked and saw what the boy in the truck had done for them. He smiled, unable to keep the grin off his face. He shook his head, speechless and unsure what to do or say. He put his hands up in the air doing a silent victory.
