by Steve Kuhn
JC spat disgustedly and said, “Bianca. The bitch ain’t here. How much you wanna bet she’s in one of those trucks behind Cutty and Kylee?”
Know what? I kinda didn’t give a shit. I told them both, “Fuck her. No one from our group got shot, and if Kylee and Cutty are all right, then I call this a victory.”
Murphy approached me from behind and said, “Victory? Yer ass! I want that bitch’s head on a pike.”
Hook nodded his agreement with Murphy and held up his prosthetic. “Heh! Got shot after all…”
The sunlight streamed through a perfect hole in his hook as he examined what would have been a painful wound. I could only hope that Kylee and Cutty were having luck like ours.
We loaded the trailer with everything useful we could find and relieved the bodies on the ground of their weapons and any ammo. Murphy wrapped Fart’s corpse in some raggedy blankets, and we promised her a proper burial back at the cabin. After about half an hour with D-Prime running and ready to go, the jeep approached from the direction of the herd. The birds had stalled their approach and could now be seen dipping down to the ground to begin feeding. It was a tense moment because we didn’t know if both of them were in the jeep and if they were in good health. For all we knew, the birds could have been feasting, along with the dead, on both of them.
Luckily all was well as they waved at us, beeping the horn, and giving us a thumbs-up. In minutes, we were stopped at the rendezvous point, safe and sound. We exited the vehicle and celebrated the victory with hugs and high fives, but Murphy remained pissed off. He still managed to smile, though. I think he was just happy to be able to honor his—our dog properly.
JC happily slung open the doors of the trailer, revealing the spoils, and proudly exclaimed, “We brought gifts!”
Kylee, covered in blood and gore along with Cutty, smiled, panting and exhausted. She sauntered over to the side of the jeep and opened the door, saying, “So did we…”
Tossed in the back of the jeep, bound hand and foot and gagged with strips of cloth, were an unidentified man and Bianca. They were badly beaten, but otherwise alive and well. Cutty cracked his knuckles and said, “Neva thought I’d hit a woman, but dis bitch had it comin’.”
We’re nearing the cabin right now as Murphy smiles happily in the driver’s seat of D-Prime and Cutty follows in the jeep with our detainees. I’ll write more after we clean up and decide what to do with these two assholes.
Oh… and I’m just gonna say it: We were some bad motherfuckers today.
Period!
Entry 113
It bit me. Goddammit! I don’t even know how it happened. I never even saw it comin’, but it bit me.
We were just hacking through the brush on the way to the cabin. Cutty had Bianca slung over his shoulder, and Murphy had cut the binds on the stranger’s feet to allow him to walk on his own. He was held at bay with a pistol in his back and remained gagged, with his hands tied.
I moved to clear away some branches and immediately felt the searing pain sting my forearm as a snake chomped into me. Cutty threw Bianca to the ground and hacked off its head, which Murphy proceeded to stomp into pieces.
Shit!
Hook picked up the body and snapped, “Let’s go—double-time now! We gotta get him to Alyse, quick!”
It burned and stung so badly, I couldn’t even think straight as we pressed on towards the cabin. I was sweating profusely with panic and adrenalin making me feverish with every passing second. By this point, Cutty was dragging Bianca behind him by her gag. I could hear her struggling and choking slightly as the cloth dug into her cheeks and strained her teeth. I didn’t care. All I could focus on was getting to Alyse and hoping I’d have time to see Lilly.
Hook approached the door and gave a frantic knock.
Boom!
Boom, boom, boom!
Four shots tore through the door from the other side followed by a panicked squeal from Lilly. In our haste, Hook had forgotten to give the secret knock. Thankfully, the shots were a combination of panicked, aimless firing and fortunate ricochets. None of them hit anything but the trees around us.
Hook shouted, “Shit! Alyse! It’s us! Open up! Hurry!”
There was noise on the opposite side as Alyse removed the barricade and, as soon as it cracked open, we all pushed our way inside.
Hook snapped at Alyse, “Get the kit. Dext is bit!”
Alyse’s eyes widened, and she cried, “Oh, God! Um. Okay. I’m on it.” She dashed into her room and returned in seconds with a large first-aid kit. “Let me see it.”
At the same time, I could see out of the corner of my eye that Cutty and Murphy had tossed our prisoners into the secret hole in the living room where the weapons were once stashed and slammed the trapdoor shut. Murphy growled, “Later…”
They sat me at the table, and Alyse stretched out my arm to have a closer look.
Alyse asked Hook, “Do you have the body? I need to see it.”
Hook nodded and dropped it at her feet.
Alyse took one look at it and snickered at first then burst into outright laughter, leaving us all pondering just what the hell was so funny about me getting bitten. “It’s not even venomous! It’s just a king snake, dummy!”
Hook blushed furiously and demanded, “Red, yellow, and black bands! That’s a Goddamn coral snake if I ever saw one! This boy is in deep shit!”
Alyse waved him off and picked up the dead snake, showing it to all of us before dipping it slightly to give Lilly a good view. “Look! Look at the bands on it.”
The snake was banded with rings of red, black, and yellow all along its length from head to tail. Alyse explained, “The bands on this one are red, black, yellow, black, red, black, yellow, black, and so on. The coral snake, the dangerous one, is black, yellow, red, yellow, black, yellow, and so on.”
Hook scratched his head uncertainly and said, “Try again? I’m lost.”
Alyse huffed impatiently and answered him with, “The one that isn’t venomous just mimics the dangerous one so other animals won’t mess with it. Sheesh, Alex, you grew up out here and still don’t know this stuff?” He stood there flabbergasted as she went on to say, “Remember it this way. Red to black is a friend of Jack. Red to yellow kills a fellow. What you have here is a harmless king snake and a very worried Dext.” She turned to me and said confidently, “You’ll be fine. Let me clean it up, and we’ll keep an eye on it for infection.” She went to work patching me up as Hook picked up the corpse of the snake.
He held it proudly and exclaimed to everyone, “Welp! Who’s hungry?”
Alyse held up a hand and said, “Hold your horses, cowboy. You got some explaining to do. First, what’s up with the hole in your hardware? Second, and more importantly, why are there people in the stash room?”
Murphy interjected and callously answered her, saying, “They’re not people.”
Lilly asked no one in particular, “What are we going to do with them?”
Cutty told her, “Don’t you worry ’bout dat, baby girl. We gon’ discuss it.”
“After we clean up,” Kylee interrupted. She gestured to Cutty and herself to remind everyone that they were covered in blood and gore.
Hook nodded his agreement. “Good enough. Cleaned. Fed. Then we’ll deal with Bianca and the other one.”
Lilly expressed flat-out shock and horror upon learning that Bianca was one of the prisoners, but JC distracted her. He told her, “Someone else you know is here, too, kiddo.”
Lilly looked at him skeptically and said, “Who?”
After opening his bag and removing his prize, JC handed the stuffed dinosaur to Lilly with a smile and asked, “Remember this guy?”
Lilly chirped excitedly and gave the dinosaur a big hug before telling JC, “Thanks. I knew you would get him back.”
JC just grinned. Hell, we all took a second to enjoy the real victory of the day. Lilly’s face went slightly grim as she took a long look at the dinosaur and muttered something I couldn�
�t quite make out.
Cutty raised an eyebrow and suggested, “Say dat again, baby girl?”
Lilly narrowed her eyes at the living room and said, “We should kill them.”
Kylee tried to correct her, somewhat motherly saying, “Hey, hey. You don’t talk like that. I want you to just stick to killing monsters, okay.”
Never taking her eyes off the trap, Lilly replied quietly, “She is a monster.”
There was an awkward silence that followed before Cutty suggested, “Kylee, Dext, y’all go ’head and clean up first. I’ma pray fo’ a while. Lot ta be thankful fo’ today.”
Alyse stood and added, “Me, too. We can pray together if you like.”
Cutty smiled sincerely. “I’d like dat a whole lot, Miss Alyse.”
We parted ways just then, but not before I heard Cutty tell Lilly, “Bring yo’ li’l ass wit’ us, baby girl. I want you ta learn about dis side of things, too.”
Kylee’s about through emptying out her dirty tub water now, so that means I’m up next. More later.
Entry 114
My arm hurts. It looks all right, but it’s red and puffy—throbbing a little bit, too. Whatever, though.
I had a chance to ask Kylee about how she and Cutty managed to handle both the herd and the guys that followed them while we dealt with the business park. She told me that it was one of the closest calls she’s had since the beginning, but how it went down didn’t matter. I pressed her for more details, and she gave me a quick rundown. Essentially, they were taking fire from the trucks, and she knew the herd was just ahead of them. So, she lit the remaining pipe bomb and dropped it behind the jeep. It exploded underneath the first truck, destroying it completely, causing the second truck veer off and flip over. Bianca and the other dude fled on foot after being ejected from the bed of the truck as it tipped over.
They gave chase with Bianca firing over her shoulder until she ran out of ammo. Cutty stopped running after he got winded; so, they went back to the destroyed trucks to begin executing the wounded and finishing off the dead before they turned. It didn’t take long for Bianca and the stranger to come running back after realizing their escape was cut off by a wall of the dead, and that was when it got sketchy. She said that in the fight that followed, knives were drawn and Cutty saved her life. She left it at that.
When we finished cleaning up, we returned to the front of the cabin and made an effort to eat some lunch. Bianca and that other asshole started kicking the trapdoor obnoxiously and trying to scream through their gags. We tried to ignore it, but Murphy lost his cool and stalked over to the stash room. He whipped open the door and thrashed on both of them with a broom handle until it got quiet again. Breathing heavily with glassy eyes, he returned to the table, sat down, and resumed eating in the relative quiet like nothing happened. We all exchanged some anxious stares after that.
Alyse spoke up and suggested to Hook, “We should figure out what to do with them soon. They’re going to need to eat eventually, or at the very least, drink.”
JC scoffed. Murphy did the same.
She continued, “We also need to tend to the feeding pens. Maybe these guys can help with that.”
Kylee raised an eyebrow and asked, “Feeding pens?”
Hook answered her with, “Rabbits.”
JC smiled and said, “I bet Lilly would love to help feed the rabbits.”
Lilly grinned at the idea.
Hook shook his head and informed us all, “She can’t.”
Lilly’s face saddened immediately, and she begged, “Aww, c’mon. Pleeeease?”
Hook shook his head again and told her, “It ain’t whatcha think, hon. These ain’t pets.”
JC rolled his eyes and said, “No shit. They’re food. Still, I don’t see why she can’t.”
Alyse interrupted to explain, “Not just our food, JC. You guys ever wonder why the dead don’t come around here?”
Personally, I hadn’t thought about that before. I tend to not look a gift horse in the mouth, and if the dead hadn’t found their way here, I couldn’t care less why. I was just thankful for the fact.
Alyse continued while chewing, “Feeding pens. Rabbits breed superfast, as I’m sure you know. We could only eat so much when it was just me and Alex, so we used the extras to keep the dead away.”
Hook continued for her as she took another bite of food, “I got about six stations set up in the surrounding area. I fill them up with bunnies and food. Any of the dead that happen to wander through here find the rabbits and stop to eat. Now, we haven’t ever had more than two or three at a time, so they eat their fill and just lay there all bloated up. Every couple days I check the stations, kill off the dead that are lying around, and they never make it here to the cabin.”
Cutty chortled and sarcastically teased, “Dat’s da dumbest shit I eva’ heard.”
Hook shrugged and told him, “Dumb or not, it’s worked this long. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. So, who’s comin’ with me to help out?”
I threw my hand up immediately. I had to see this shit. I also told Murphy he was going. He gave me some attitude about it, but I reminded him of the ass whoopin’ he just put on the two in the stash room and suggested he needs to take a walk and clear his head. Reluctantly, he agreed.
Kylee added, “Fine, but when you get back, we’re making a final decision about these two.”
JC nodded his agreement and pulled out a pistol to begin breaking it down. He showed Lilly the various components and guided her hands as she wrinkled her nose in concentration, fitting them on and off of one another. By the time Alyse and Cutty had the table clear, Lilly was thumbing the release, and the satisfying chick! of a round chambering filled the room. And so ended the lesson.
Hook, Murphy, and I geared up to travel lightly and hit the door. Kylee pulled me aside and warned, “Be careful.”
I gave her a look that said, “I’m always careful,” but she shook her head.
She whispered, “I mean about Murphy. He’s losin’ it. He hasn’t been the same since the dog was killed. Just try and keep his head on straight.”
I shrugged her off. I probably shouldn’t have, but I dunno. Murphy has been acting a bit harder, like he’s suddenly edgier and tougher, but he’s a smart dude. I think he just needs to close this chapter. Cutty handled Rebecca’s death with a certain level of rage, and maybe this is the same thing. Keeping him focused is the key. We need Murphy because he’s an ‘outside of the box’ kind of thinker. He managed to figure out ways to administer the infection with weapons, and after what I saw at the feeding pens today, he may have just figured out a way to keep the dead at bay indefinitely.
We came upon the first pen after a short hike, but not before Hook stopped off at his field to chop a few more plants. He stuffed them into his duffle bag and then led us further out. The pen was a cheaply framed circle of wood and chicken wire that stood about waist tall. That allowed the dead to reach in and grab the rabbits easily.
Murphy asked Hook, “What about coyotes and shit? I figure they’d clear these out overnight.”
Hook whispered, “Ain’t no more.”
Murphy looked puzzled at the assertion, but his question came at a perfect time. Pretty much right at our feet lay the bleached skeleton of a canine that had no doubt come sniffing for the rabbits. The bones were strewn about, and most had teeth marks all along their length. The dead were like a locust swarm, leaving nothing alive behind them.
As we approached the pen, Hook spat, “Sum’bitch! Look at that! Never actually seen ’em feed before, ’cept on the living. Every other time I’ve checked the pens, they’ve been finished up.”
There were two bernies on hands and knees tearing at a few of the rabbits with bits of fur and blood spread on the ground around them. The pen still held about fifteen or twenty bunnies of varying colors and ages.
Hook raised his weapon to put them down, but Murphy whispered harshly, “Wait! I have an idea. Got rope?”
With a nod, Hook
quietly opened his duffle bag, filling the air with the skunky smell of his meds before he produced a long length of rope from within. He passed it to Murphy. Murphy drew his knife from his belt and cut the rope in half before tying each of them into lassos. He told Hook, “Tie these off to those trees.”
Hook did as he was instructed while I covered the geeks. They weren’t even aware we were in the area as they munched greedily on the flesh of the rabbits. In the meantime, Murphy pulled a few saplings down, bowing them deeply to create a trapping mechanism which would fire when the bernies stepped into the loops. He hung the loops about the same height as the pen to catch them around their waists. We backed off a few more feet, and Murphy gave a sharp whistle.
With the three of us pointing weapons in their direction, the dead looked up from their meals, rose to their feet, and snarled as they shambled towards us. There was a controlled tension in the air, much the same as Murphy’s traps as they stepped into the loops, but both worked perfectly.
Snap!
Snap!
And in seconds, we had two geeks grasping and clawing at us fruitlessly. The knots held firm, and they stood side by side, firmly anchored by the trees. Hook exclaimed, “Holy shit! That’s Jake!”
Murphy and I looked at him, puzzled. Hook clarified, “That’s Jake Freeman, man. Used to see him at the bar all the time. Big sports guy—K.C. fan if I recall correctly.”
Hook took a step towards the geek and playfully teased, “Jesus, Jake! You look like shit.”
The one he was talking to had huge chunks of flesh removed from its neck and torso, and its clothes were nothing more than ribbons from being weathered for who knows how long. Its skin, what was left of it, hung like loose cloth on its bones. Hook continued as he eyed up the other one, “This must be the missus. Boy, she was a fine piece of ass in her day. Now she just looks like ass.”
So, here’s where shit got interesting. Murphy walked past them and to the pen, where he picked up one of the rabbits by the scruff of its neck. He walked back to us and turned to face the geeks as he told us, “These dumbshits like blood and guts and all that, and it’s gotta be fresh. In fact, I’ve seen these things eat just about anything that’s living or freshly dead.”
