Z Strain

by SJ Morris

  In that moment, I felt empowered.

  I had something that no one else had. I had an advantage over this infection and I was going to use it to save as many lives as I possibly could before things went bad again. Which, with my luck, they inevitably would.

  I switched to using the pitchfork in an uppercut fashion and spread out my kills to take down the remaining infected at the fence.

  When all was said and done, there was a total of twenty-three infected on the ground, dead, hopefully for the last time.

  The horses were still spooked, but they were calming as Dana and Kamil tried to pet and talk to them.

  I climbed over the fence to find the barn that used to house the horses when there was still a farmer to put them away, and a stall, piled high with bags of horse feed.

  Immediately, I grabbed a bucket and ripped one of the bags open. I filled a bucket and headed back outside to the fence-line where Dana and Kamil were still trying to calm the horses.

  They started to spread out, finally, but they continued to stay away from the corner where the infected were now piled up.

  I shook the bucket as hard as I could and caught the attention of most of the horses.

  They followed me to where Kamil and Dana were along the fence, with their heads bobbing up and down with the excitement of being fed.

  Dana and Kamil both grabbed handfuls of the feed and reached out to the horses that fed hungrily.

  I hung the bucket on one of the fence posts and went back to the barn to get more buckets of feed.

  Once the horses had their fill, they were fairly calm, so I ventured to grab one by the bridle and she came willingly.

  I led her to a corner of the fence, still away from the infected, but another small gate.

  I pet her slowly before opening the gate, in fear that she might still be spooked by the recent events and run to freedom as soon as she had the chance.

  She seemed fairly calm, though, so I opened the gate slowly and led her through.

  Kamil and Dana had followed suit, each with their own mare.

  I came around to the side of the fence, pointing Kamil and Dana towards the big barn that I retrieved the horse feed from. They led their horses into the barn and I closed the gate after them. I was going to let the other horses free once we were ready to leave, but I didn’t want them getting out yet. I wanted to make sure all three horses we were going to get saddled up would allow us to ride them before relinquishing our other two options.

  After all, it was crucial to take advantage of every opportunity and take nothing for granted.

  Plan for the worst and hope for the best, right?

  I remembered Chris saying that what seemed like ages ago.

  It’s funny how time has an odd way of stretching itself when there’s no longer the normalcy of routine or day-to-day things to be done that don’t require you to face certain death at every turn. Going to work or school five days a week, it seems like time flies. Throw in some zombies and the constant threat of your demise and a month seems like a year or more.

  I really needed to stop it with these negative thought tangents.

  After all, I should be grateful to be alive, right?

  We made it to the barn each with a horse and tied them up to the stalls. We looked around and found saddles, but I didn’t have the slightest idea how to properly secure them to the horses. Every time I went horseback riding, it was only for fun and I never had to do any of the work myself, so I was now at a disadvantage.

  Dana came to the rescue, though. She said that she used to take riding lessons as a little girl and she remembered everything that needed to be done.

  Kamil lifted the heavy saddles onto each horse and Dana started securing each of them.

  I took this time to sit and catch my breath. I grabbed a granola bar out of my bag and before I knew it, I had eaten three of them. It’s surprising how fast your appetite comes back when the reek of death and decay is absent.

  It took some time, but Dana got all three horses ready for travel. She checked their feet and everything, ensuring that they would be safe to ride, but because of all of her preparations, the sun was now starting to dip in the sky. I figured that now was a good time to check the main house for infected since it seemed like we were staying the night.

  “Hey, Kamil, it is starting to get dark and I don’t want us to be out there when it does, with no secure place to stay the night. What do you think about checking the main house and bedding down here for the night? It looks like all of us could really use a good night’s sleep.”

  “Yeah, I was thinking the same thing. Dana, are you okay with that?”

  “Sure, as long as the horses can be locked in the barn. I don’t want to wake up tomorrow morning to find them eaten by the zeds after we saved them.”

  “Sounds like a plan. Let’s get these three locked in stalls with some extra food and water, and get the other two that are out in the pen inside. Then, we can check the house together.”

  Dana got food and water in the stalls while Kamil and I brought the other two horses inside. They seemed to be very happy to be inside the barn. I would too if I had just spent however many hours, or days, thinking I was going to be devoured by the same people that probably fed and rode me daily.

  We closed the barn doors and secured the doors with some wood we found. The infected were killers, but I saw no reason to think they had the ability to open and close doors or figure out how to get the wood planks out of the door slots to get them open.

  The doors were large and heavy enough it would probably take a hundred or more infected pushing against them to get them to bust open and I certainly hoped we were not going to see that many.

  I gave Kamil the pitchfork I had used previously and Dana found a huge, arm-length scythe in the barn to arm herself with. I was more worried about her hurting herself with it, but Kamil seemed to approve, so I said nothing.

  Dana stood by the back door to the house as Kamil and I checked the surroundings outside. The last thing we needed was to be worried about infected coming from the house and then coming at us from outside as well.

  When we were satisfied the outside was clear, we looked to Dana. She knocked on the door softly and listened for a few moments, after which, she stepped back and knocked a little harder and went back to the door, with her ear to the wood.

  “I think I hear something, but I can’t tell,”Dana said, backing away from the door.

  “Let’s go around the front and see if we can look in the windows…We’ll knock up front too. If there was anyone alive inside they would have come out already when we were taking care of the horses, I would think.”I said quietly.

  We started around the side of the house, away from the barn, as to not make too much noise and possibly spook the horses again. I hoped they were sleeping, so they would make as little noise as possible.

  I realized then, that I hadn’t really thought the whole using horse’s thing through.

  Yeah, they didn’t need gas and could navigate wrecks pretty well, but they are also big animals that can make a lot of noise, just by walking.

  Note to self; make it a point to find three bicycles if possible.

  Since the sun was going down and there were no lights or candles on, I couldn’t see inside very well.

  It was difficult to tell if there was anything moving around, or not. We got up to the huge, front porch and the stairs creaked, making me jump with every little noise they made.

  Dana was a very beautiful young girl and tan, but right now, she looked terrified and as white as a ghost.

  Kamil kept the same poker face he wore all day, pretty much, but he was sweating profusely, so I could tell he was pretty anxious and possibly scared shitless like I was.

  There’s no shame in that!

  We got to the front door and I opened the screen with the telltale farmhouse squeak.

  I knocked, fairly loudly.

  I was starting to get the creeps, being out here,
exposed, as the sun was going down. I wanted to get inside while we still had some sunlight left.

  I listened carefully and just as I was reaching for the door handle, there was a loud crash from inside the house.

  Suddenly, a face appeared at the glass of the door. It used to be a teenage boy, but now it was just a mindless infected, crazed by the promise of food.

  I asked Dana to stand behind Kamil and Kamil to stand behind the screen door.

  I grabbed the pitchfork from Kamil and asked him to hold the screen door open for me. I reached out to the door handle and again, the infected didn’t seem to notice me. He was focused on Kamil and Dana, who were hiding behind the other door.

  The eyes of the infected were glazed over with a thick, white film so he had been turned for a while, but I guess he could smell them because he thrashed at the glass of the door, right in their direction.

  I pushed the door-handle in, hard and the zed went toppling over to the floor from the force.

  I took the advantage, while the infected was trying to get back up and used the pitchfork to spear him through the face.

  It scared me, that it was now so easy to skewer what used to be a teenage boy, but I told myself it was either him or us and he was no longer a boy, thanks to the Z-Strain.

  Idragged the body out of the house with the pitchfork still embedded in its brain. I left him near the road, hoping that its smell wouldn’t carry up to the house.

  Next, we all filed in the house slowly and carefully, trying our best not to make any noise.

  We wanted to listen for any other telltale signs that there may be more infected inside.

  When I was satisfied that the silence I heard was genuine, we searched the downstairs together, room by room.

  The door to the kitchen was closed, resolving the question of why our young infected didn’t come to the back door to greet us earlier.

  During our search, I found some flashlights and candles in the pantry.

  Newly illuminated, we headed upstairs to check the bedrooms together.

  I didn’t want to leave anyone alone. If there should be any surprises hiding in this house, I wanted all of us to be there to get each other’s back.

  When we got to the top of the stairs, we stopped to listen again and I heard nothing.

  I walked up to the first door on the left and knocked softly.

  There were no sounds aroused by my knock, so I opened the door, slowly.

  It was a bathroom and the only bad thing about it was that it was decorated in the most disgusting rooster theme I had ever seen.

  I closed the door behind us and we went to the next door. I performed the same knock and listen routine, again without evoking an audible response. I opened the door and it appeared to be the room of our teenage-boy zombie. It was blue with posters of rock bands and pretty girls all over the walls.

  I checked the closet and under the bed as Kamil and Dana stood by the door. We figured if zombies didn’t like me, why not make me the official zombie room checker?

  It made sense, but it didn’t make looking under the bed any less frightening.

  I had always been afraid of what was underneath beds since I was a kid.

  My mother letme watch horror movies, starting when I was about eight. There was one movie where a demon arm came out from under the bed and grabbed the girl’s foot. He dragged her away while she screamed.

  This scene stuck with me for life.

  When I lived by myself, before meeting Jack, I would still try and jump from my bedroom door to the bed at night.

  Silly right?

  Yet, here I was, choosing to look for so-called demons under the bed, to make sure we were safe.

  I was going to have some awful nightmares tonight, of that, I was certain.

  When the room was all clear, we went to the next one, which was an office of sorts.

  This room was also clear.

  Then, there was the last door at the end of the hall. The master bedroom, I surmised.

  I didn’t even need to knock

  As soon as I got to the door, I heard scratching noises coming from the other side.

  Although the sounds were different from those we experienced when we met the infected before, to be safe, I asked Kamil and Dana to go back down the hall, by the first door.

  Once they had put a good distance between themselves and the door, I decided to knock, to see if whatever was on the other side would get more riled up and make a more definitive noise, to tell me more about what I was dealing with, but when I knocked, the noise stopped altogether.

  I opened the door slowly, with my gun pointed in front of me this time, since I had no idea what to expect.

  The door creaked open slowly and the smell hit me like a ton of bricks. It was the smell of decay; the signature smell of the infected.

  On the bed, there was the body of a woman in a housedress. She was infected before she died, as far as I could tell, from the black blood that surrounded her face and chest that was now blown apart.

  In the corner of the room, facing a window, was the slumped-over body of a man, who I could tell had sat down in the chair, put the shotgun that was now at his feet, in his mouth, and pulled the trigger.

  He had a bite wound on his arm and my guess was that his wife was bitten, she had turned and bit him as he tried to help her. He had already seen what happened to her and after being bitten, so after he killed her, he turned the gun on himself.

  I didn’t see where the son fit into all this but considering the boy was downstairs and these two were closed up in this room together, I was betting the son was the initial infected.

  He bit his mother and the husband took her up here to get away from the boy.

  I wasn’t sure why I had to have it all make sense or have a story that coincided with what my eyes were seeing, but it’s something my mind just does. I guessed I was justifying the scene to myself so that I didn’t harp on the tragedy of it all.

  I knew I needed to check the closet and what looked to be a bathroom for more infected, but it was difficult to look away from the scene before me.

  I always tried to put myself in the shoes of others, to try to know how to best approach a situation and even though there was no need for that with these people now, I was still upset thinking of this man’s last thoughts in life.

  His son had turned rabid and went after his own mother and father. Then, his wife went after him. It was an impossible situation but in my mind, he made the right choice.

  I would have done the same, probably.

  Just as I was wiping my eyes, coming to terms with the carnage before me, I saw movement in the far corner of the room.

  Instantly, I pointed my gun in the direction of the movement and stood quietly.

  There was a pile of blankets in the corner of the room and they started moving, slowly.

  I stood motionless and silent, waiting for whatever it was to come out.

  Kamil whispered from the hallway, asking if everything was okay and at the sound of his voice, a cat jumped from the pile of blankets and bolted out the door, past me.

  “Goddamn, cats!”I swore they knew how little I thought of them, so they, as a species have made it their mission to scare the shit out of me at every possible encounter.

  Dana screamed as the cat flew out of the room, but I yelled that everything was okay and she quieted down.

  However, I made a mental note that I needed to have a talk with her about her screaming. I couldn't believe she lived this long and hadn’t figured out that it probably wasn't a good idea to scream all the time.

  With the house cleared of infected, we took the extra blankets and pillows from the hall closet and set up camp.

  I had Kamil and Dana set up in the living room and I was going to take the kitchen since the door could be closed, just in case something happened to my kind of infected body during the night.

  Kamil said nothing when I said I was sleeping in the kitchen, but Dana thought it wasn’
t a good idea to split up.

  I eventually convinced her, though, saying that I needed to keep an eye on the back windows, making sure that the infected didn’t find their way to the barn and the horses.

  Also, since the infected wanted nothing to do with me, it was best to have me near the windows and doors, instead of one of them, that the infected would possibly smell and come looking for.

  I didn’t think I was going to get too much sleep anyway, so the kitchen was just fine for me.

  We each took turns in the bathroom, getting cleaned up and we thanked everything holy that the farmhouse water was heated by propane and there was plenty left for each of us to take a nice, hot shower. We were short on fresh clothes but we made do with what we found in the laundry room.

  Dana and I were about the same size and the woman who lived here was a little bigger, so we just needed to tighten our belts a bit.

  We looked funny, but we now had clean clothes, food, and shelter for the night, so we didn’t care what we looked like.

  Chapter 21

  The night, thankfully, passed without incident.

  Well, not a serious incident anyway. That stupid cat thought it would be a good idea, in the middle of the night, to run around the house, scaring the shit out of all of us.

  I finally cornered it and Kamil threw a blanket over it. We let him go outside.

  I know that could probably be considered rather mean, but he definitely would have died, locked up in the house, and we sure as hell weren’t going to add a cat to our baggage.

  Being outside was the best thing that damned feline had.

  Plus, I wanted nothing to do with any cat, ever again. This cat was the second strike for me during this whole thing and I wasn’t going to let there be a third if I could help it. I had never been a cat person and I certainly wasn’t about to start now; sorry cat-lovers out there.

  We each got up with the sun and took turns taking showers again. Who knew when we were going to be able to shower in hot water again, so we took full advantage.

  We had a breakfast of canned goods that were in the pantry because there was no reason to use our MREs if we didn’t have to.