by T. W. Brown
With that, the man set down four more similar weapons and scurried off in his hop-skip sort of dance towards the small pack of zombies that had been following him. Ken and Erin could only watch as he danced around from one to the other, swinging the femur club. It was a brutal and violent demonstration, but neither he nor Erin could deny the apparent power of the weapons.
After every single one of the zombies had been taken down, the man bounded back to them. He stopped at the gate and made a bow, sweeping the long, tattered coat he wore aside as if it were a magnificent cape.
“What can you trade?” the man asked as he stood up holding out the used weapon to Ken.
“Ummm…” Ken was still awestruck by the display. The weapon had pulverized the heads of the undead with a single blow, and this frail looking man had swung it like it was nothing.
“Hand it over.” Erin stepped forward. “I want to check it out for myself.”
“Ah, the lady speaks.” The man handed her the femur-club and then skipped back to his cart singing a song about rags and bones that Ken actually found to be sort of catchy.
Erin holstered her pistol and then hefted the weapon, stepping clear to swing it around a bit. She used it with a single hand and then with both as if taking a practice swing while stepping up to bat. Meanwhile, the old man had tossed his tarp aside and was dragging something from the back. Ken was only partially surprised as the man hauled a zombie out. From the looks, it had been a girl in her early teens which probably accounted for how easily she had fit in the cart. It was bound and gagged.
“Shall I cut the bonds and let you try for yourself?” the man cackled, giving Erin a salacious wink.
Erin glanced at Ken who shrugged and nodded. The man hooted with glee as Erin gave consent. He started to bend down to cut the twine binding her wrists and ankles when he suddenly froze.
“Sneaky eyes in the bush.” The man popped up and turned, placing his tattered sneakered foot on the zombie girl’s chest. “Come out, come out, wherever you are!” he sing-songed.
There was a pause, and finally, Jason emerged from a nearby hedge. The man did not seem perturbed in the slightest. He simply waved and returned his attention to Erin.
“So, are you ready?”
Erin gave Ken one more look and then climbed over the gate and out onto the road. Ken noticed that the man had adjusted his position so that he was out of range if Erin suddenly decided to swing at him. Ken conceded that, while the man might appear just a bit crazy, he was apparently no fool.
“Okay,” Erin said tightly as she re-gripped the weapon and choked back on it.
The man cut the final bonds around the zombie girl’s wrists and then gave the gag a tug, pulling it free from the zombie’s mouth. He scurried around behind his cart, leaving Erin and the zombie to their grim business.
The zombie took a moment to gain its feet, then it turned in the direction of the cart. It began in slow, awkward steps away from Erin. Ken watched as Erin hurried around to get between the monster and the cart. The zombie refocused its attention on Erin and altered its course.
“Kill it already,” Ken urged.
Erin shot him a nasty look and then swung. The resin-coated and spiked skull struck the head with a nasty sound that was part shattering bone and part bursting melon.
“Holy crap!” Erin exclaimed, pointing to the nearly headless body that crumpled to the ground at her feet.
If Ken had come across this body without having seen the demonstration, he would have believed that it had suffered a shotgun blast at close range.
“We’ll take all of these that you have,” Erin exclaimed as she toed the corpse at her feet.
After a transaction that included some canned food, a blanket, two tubes of toothpaste and a pair of sunglasses that were dangling from the visor of Juanita’s car, the man handed over six of the oddly crafted weapons. As he pedaled away, he called out over his shoulder, “Peace, dudes. And remember…keep Portland weird!”
16
Normal?
“Get your head down!” Jason yelled.
Gabriel ducked and slid on his belly as he’d been shown. He skidded to a halt and looked up through the cloud of dust he had kicked up with his tiny body. Jason was looking down at him with a stern expression.
“You’re out!” Jason held up the ball and winked.
“Jeez, Jason!” Erin snapped. “You could cut the kid some slack. Maybe take it easy on him.”
Gabriel rolled over on his back and sat up. Wiping the dust from his hands, he did his best impression of Ken’s stern face. “The easy way gets ya killed.” Coming from a six-year-old, it was not a spot on impersonation, but everybody knew instantly who he was imitating.
“Yeah,” Jason agreed, reaching down a hand to give the boy some help up.
The boy accepted it and walked back to the piece of wood that had been designated as home plate. Picking up the plastic bat—one of the treasures that Jason had brought back several weeks ago when he’d made what had been the last solo run anyone from the compound would ever make again—he brought it to his shoulder and nodded for Erin to pitch him another. Their little baseball play time went on for another hour before everybody agreed that they were all hungry and would set it aside until the next opportunity arose.
Jason, Cherry, Erin, Linda Bauer, and Sandra Ellison were hot and sweaty from their hours out in the hot summer sun. Yet, none of them minded the heat in the least. It was a welcome change to the extended spring they’d just seen pass. Spring in the Pacific Northwest was often a chilly, wet, and windy time. This year had been no different, and it was made worse by the fact that the world had ceased to exist as they’d known it.
There had been many miserable nights where everybody was huddled in as close as possible for warmth. This past week of sunshine had not only improved everybody’s spirits, but it had brought young Gabriel out of his shell. He’d been Jason’s shadow all week; following him when he went out to work on the barricade, and even dragging along his own small shovel to help them dig the trench that would encircle both properties.
They entered the barn to discover Juanita and two newcomers, Gene and Rachel Fellman, in the act of setting the two long picnic tables for the evening meal. These were just two of the newest members to join their growing community. The Fellman’s had come in the middle of the night just a few days ago. They’d been on the move from what they simply referred to as the Hellscape. That was Portland.
With fires still burning out of control, many set by warring factions of the countless gangs that had spawned with the end of any actual law and order in place, the few people who were more set on survival versus preying on others were abandoning the remains of the Rose City. When the Fellman’s arrived, it had been Gene by himself who had approached the fire. After hearing some of the horrific tales about how things had so rapidly decayed in the city, it was no surprise that the man had made his wife hide before he approached the barn and the small group gathered around the fire that night.
“Hell, if it weren’t for seeing the women, I woulda kept on going and never given you guys a second thought,” Gene admitted to Jason that next day.
However, with the slight influx of people, the demands for essentials rose as well. That meant more trips out to some of the outlying areas. Most recently, they had been taking the long (long at least by the new world standards) trip to Happy Valley. They had discovered a large trailer park and huge housing development right beside each other.
That first trip in, they were able to confirm that both locations were apparently abandoned. The manufactured home community had been at least halfway destroyed by fires, and the housing development was crawling with undead, but both appeared void of any living resistance, and thus, an ideal target.
That was a lesson they had learned after clearing out that first small community that Jason had pin-pointed. Once it was stripped, they had looked for a new location. They had simply rolled into another similar development, only to have
a hidden gunman open fire. The truck had taken a few hits, but nothing that put the vehicle out of action.
Juanita had asked why they were hitting places so far from home one evening when Jason and Erin had returned from a run to Carver where they had loaded up a treasure trove of canned goods from a small roadside restaurant.
“If we hit all of the places close by first, then we will be screwed when the gasoline runs dry or starts to go bad. We need to hit the farthest places we dare right now and work our way in,” Jason explained.
Today, Ken and a brother and sister that had joined the group the same day that the Rag and Bone man had first come by, were out on a run to Happy Valley. They were expected back any time now since it was a standing rule that nobody be out after dark. That was when the “Crazies” ran wild.
The Crazies were not any specific group. This was simply the term that had been adopted for the singles and small groups of wanna-be bandits and, for lack of a better term, vandals. These singles and small packs of feral humans were solely intent upon setting fires, hurting others not in their little clique, and general mischief.
It was the consensus that the Rag and Bone man somehow fell afoul of the Crazies. He was discovered by Erin and a few of the others on a run. His cart and bicycle had been pounded into a nearly unrecognizable hunk of twisted metal. His body looked to have suffered the same fate. In addition to a ferocious beating, he was hung from one of the massive and now useless power line tower structures that cut through the countryside.
Just as Jason was finishing with his meal—the idea of breakfast, lunch, and dinner were no longer applicable since they ate whatever was available and at sporadic times throughout the day—the sound of an approaching vehicle made him leave the relatively cool shade of the barn and step outside.
Sure enough, Ken’s truck was heading their way. It was kicking up a great deal of dust, and it took Jason a minute to realize that it was weaving as it came up the road. The added dust was coming from the tires hitting the gravel and dirt that bordered the country road on both sides. Jason broke into a run. He knew that all it would take was for the tires to go just a bit too far on one side or the other and that pickup would be dropping into that deep ditch that ran along either side of the road.
“What is it?” Juanita asked as his jog shifted into a sprint and he dashed past the garden where a few of the community’s residents were working.
“Ken’s back, and something is wrong!” Jason called over his shoulder.
His voice obviously carried, because the sounds of tools being dropped and other people rushing after him came an instant later. By the time he reached the gate, the pickup had actually rolled to a slow crawl. Jason saw Ken alone in the cab. There was no sign of the brother and sister that had accompanied him. He suddenly felt guilty that he could not recall their names. He reached the gate and vaulted over.
The door to the truck opened and Ken fell out, hitting the ground hard and then sliding into the ditch. As Jason reached the man, he searched for, but saw no signs of blood. That was a relief until he reached Ken and rolled him over onto his back. He was almost blue. Putting a hand to the man’s face, he felt little to no breath, and he was not even sure it was breathing he did feel as much as it might be from the gentle summer breeze.
Leaning down, he searched the man’s throat for a pulse and did not find one. He unzipped the man’s jacket and then tore open his shirt. Using his fingers to find the bottom of the ribcage where the xiphoid process would be, he gave it a good four fingers of space and then placed his palm on the man’s chest and began compressions.
After the first series of ten compressions, he leaned down to place his ear on the man’s chest. Still nothing. By now, Juanita and some of the others arrived. Jason looked up at the woman.
“I need your help. I could do it, but…” His voice trailed off and he flushed. “Look, after I give the next compressions, I want you to give him two breaths.”
With that, Jason returned to his task. He wished that he actually knew how to perform CPR properly. He would have to wing it and hope that it worked. As he finished his next series of compressions, Juanita tilted Ken’s head back, plugged his nose, and opened his mouth with her thumb before leaning down and administering two full breaths. They did this for three more tries and Jason once again listened to the man’s chest. He thought he might have felt or heard something, but he couldn’t be sure.
He went through the ten compressions again and just as Juanita finished the second breath, Ken moaned. Unfortunately, that had the effect of causing everybody to scramble or jump back in fear. After all, the man was nothing close to normal flesh tone with his blue tint. When Ken muttered an obscenity, everybody instantly relaxed.
“Ken said a naughty word,” Gabriel whispered, causing everybody to let loose with a little nervous laughter as the tension had not yet fully subsided.
“Yes he did,” Erin agreed. “We can punish him later.”
“Later?” Ken moaned. “Feels like somebody hit me in the chest with a baseball bat.” He shielded his eyes and squinted up at Jason. “Was that you, convict?”
Jason nodded. “Umm, yeah. Juanita and I gave you CPR…I think.”
“Well, thank you. I imagine that you saved my life,” he managed around a few winces and groans, his voice a barely audible whisper.
“You’re welcome,” Jason said with a nod.
“That don’t mean we’re gonna be drinkin’ buddies or anything,” the man added after Juanita had accepted a canteen that somebody offered and given Ken a sip.
“Never thought that it would.”
Jason rose to his feet and moved back a few steps. He had a few people step in and give him a hand picking up the man and moving him to the rear of the truck. He was briefly aware and only a little disappointed at the apparently meager amount of goods that had been scavenged and loaded into the truck. Barely enough to make it worth the precious amount of gas that had been used. Not to mention the fact that Ken had returned without the brother and sister.
Once they got to the barn and got Ken situated and comfortable, the man related the story of what had happened and why he had come back alone.
***
Ken pulled up to the duplex and shut off the truck. Turning to the pair beside him, he made a point to take a breath before speaking. These two were acting like this was a damned field trip. That was a good way to end up dead…or worse.
“Okay, see the gray house?” He pointed and the pair both nodded enthusiastically. “That is our first target. We go in and make the kitchen and bathrooms the top priority. Understand?”
Again they nodded, and everybody piled out of the cab and into the street that was already throwing back some good heat as the sun rose to its midday apex. Stepping over a corpse that was rotting in the street, he did not fail to notice that it looked as if the body had been nibbled at. Somebody had put a bullet in this thing’s forehead. He could even make out the traces of burnt flesh around the entry hole.
He found that to be somewhat strange considering the fact that they had seen plenty of animals come out of the woods and fields in the past several weeks. None of them had shown any interest in the corpses of those who had once been zombies.
Walking up the path to the front door, Ken scanned the windows. Over the course of events, it had been discovered that most zombies made their way to a window sooner or later. They were filthy and left some nasty smears on the glass. None of the windows in the front of the house showed any signs of the undead, and he tried the doorknob. It was locked, but he quickly produced a metal device that Jason had fashioned and popped the lock with ease.
Pausing at the entry, he took a sniff. It was musty and there was a hint of rot, but nothing to indicate that a zombie might be present. The kitchen was through an archway on the right as they hurried up the narrow corridor. It was not a very good haul. Obviously these people had either taken what they could carry or, and this was a possibility that Juanita pointed out on
e day, maybe they were just at the end of a cycle before shopping. After all, who kept everything stocked at all times? Most people went to the store, loaded up, and then went back in a week or so as things began to run low, leaving the spur of the moment items that they really had no use for like the cans of garbonzo beans that seem to appear in every cupboard.
It did not take much longer than an hour to search the house and pick everything that they needed. On three separate occasions he had to tell either Chris or Jerri to quit poking through drawers. Clothing was not a priority.
Just as they exited the house and were about to hit the other half of this duplex, Ken caught the scent of the undead. He held up his hand to silence the droning whispers being exchanged between his cohorts. Thankfully, they both hushed in an instant. Ken even heard the familiar rasp of weapons being drawn from leather sheaths.
The sound was coming from the row of hedges that separated the driveway of this half of the duplex from the driveway of the house that was their next target after they tossed the garbage bags of the stuff that they had gathered into the back of the truck.
Ken was about to lean down, thinking that the sound was coming from a zombie that was unable to stand or walk. He’d seen plenty of that sort, so this was no big deal. Then the Pit-bull crept from the brush. It showed no signs of being bitten, but its eyes were that hideous milky white with the black tracers. Ken instantly thought of the body in the street he’d seen that had been picked at by something.
The realization came as he brought his machete down on the animal’s head to end it; there was nobody around to feed these poor creatures. Their domestication would lead to their demise, but when forced with starvation, picky eating goes by the wayside—his steady diet of those aforementioned garbonzo beans standing as testimony to that fact. This was further evidence that dogs were apparently able to contract this same horrible infection or disease or whatever the hell it was that had taken down humanity.
