“You scared the shit out of me.” He rested against the door with a hand on his chest. A moment later he saw my wagon. “Ooh, what’dya get?”
I told him.
“I bet that nine’ll fire real nice once you pretty it up.”
“I already have one. It’s yours if you want it.”
Tim’s thanks were interrupted by a scream. “I think that’s Jess,” he cried, vaulting the porch rail.
He sprinted toward the center of town with me on his heels. Two blocks closer to the main drag we saw Jess and Charles fighting off a half dozen zombies in a tight space between a small grocery store and a church. She didn’t hold a weapon, must’ve lost it, and all Charles had was a bat he was unable to swing properly because of the confined space and insistent zombies.
Tim ordered me to approach from the alley’s other end, so by the time I ran around the building and reached the group, he’d already taken down two zombies with his axe. I jabbed at the closest zombie with the pry bar end of my steel and caught it in the eye. I let it fall and my steel slipped from its eye socket. I changed my grip and swung upwards catching a zombie that had turned toward me under the chin. The jaw end of the steel penetrated through the flesh, sticking into the zombie’s mouth like another tongue as it worked its jaws in a futile attempt to bite me. Since I came nowhere near the brain, my swing did no more damage than if I had cut off one of its arms.
I yanked back towards myself and tore the mandible from its skull. I flipped the steel in my hand and cracked the zombie with the hammerhead once to put it on the ground, and again to fully break through the parietal bone and destroy the brain.
When I looked up, Tim was chopping the head off his third zombie kill and Charles had finally gotten the last one on the ground. He frantically beat its head into a paste with his bat.
Jess hugged herself and cried. I was about to assure her we were okay when I noticed blood trickling through her fingers. I yanked her hand away to expose a bite mark on her left triceps. “She’s been bitten,” I said loud enough for Tim to hear.
“Let me see,” Tim pushed past Charles and took a close look at Jess’ wound.
I figured the way he followed her around, Charles would argue the bite wasn’t deep, which it was, or he would say he was sure she’d be okay, which she wouldn’t. I figured Jess would wail and beg for mercy, which she wouldn’t get.
To her credit, she stood there sobbing, but allowed Tim and me to examine her and decide her fate. To his credit, Charles stayed quiet; he actually kept an eye out for encroaching zombies.
Tim pulled me aside and we agreed on a plan in seconds. He moved Jess away from the wall and put her in a blood choke. Ten seconds later she was out. Five seconds later Tim released his grip, lowered her to the ground, and stepped away. I caved in her skull.
Charles refused to come back with us and took off to the south following the river bank. The withdrawal from town was slow going. Tim and I were each left pulling two wagons back; we tied pairs together, like a double semi-trailer.
Twice, Tim had to sprint a short distance and take out a zombie in danger of giving our position away. My leg pain steadily escalated to nearly debilitating by the time we reached the rally point. The cook and Baines were waiting.
“Jess was bitten; she’s dead. Chuck took off; there was no reasoning with him,” Tim reported.
Baines contemplated this. I thought we could have rendered Charles unconscious and dragged him back with us. “Let’s head out,” was Baines’ only response.
Later that night, Tim and I were determined to empty the bottle of Wild Turkey in my shack after the supplies pilfered from town were stowed. There were no other 9mms in the camp. I split the ammo with Tim and gave him two of the three extra magazines. He gathered a rudimentary cleaning kit: an old toothbrush he modified to fit down the barrel, a rag, and some unused motor oil. He swore it would work.
I was skeptical, and also concerned about a drunk cleaning a handgun. The words ‘Public Service Announcement’ flashed in my head. “I’d kill for some ice,” I complained after a belt of whiskey. “My balls itch.”
“Rain gear’ll keep you dry.” Tim was looking down the barrel with one eye closed. “Let me know when you start getting a fever—start turning into a zombie.”
I skipped Tim in the rotation and had another swig. “I killed that girl,” I confessed through a whiskey face.
“I killed her, too,” Tim said without emotion. “It wasn’t just you.”
“Jess.” I may not have said that out loud.
“We slept together. It was just after I joined up with Baines’ little troupe here. We fucked in that same church back in town she and Chuck were coming out of when they got attacked.”
“They weren’t leaving the store?” I could have sworn only the grocery store had a door to the alley.
“No, man, they were getting a little privacy in the church. That’s one thing this place lacks: alone time.” This pistol was disassembled in its six parts, spread out across my mattress, clip emptied. Tim cleaned each part meticulously.
“Were the two of you a regular thing?”
“No, just that one time. I think she wanted more …why she was so…fucking annoying.” He was jabbing the brush down the barrel with force like he was tamping a musket.
I wasn’t even passing the bottle anymore. Tim didn’t mind. “You’ll kill me, won’t you?”
“Pass me the Turkey.” He did mind. He took a drink, looked at me, and took another. “We set her free. I’d do the same for you.” He continued his cleaning. The recoil spring shot out of his grasp, but he caught it on the way down.
“I’ll kill you,” I told him. He knew what I meant.
The bottle was almost gone. Tim reassembled the weapon and ran through a function check on muscle memory. “It’ll fire. No doubt.” He ejected the magazine and reloaded the wiped down rounds. He inserted the clip, chambered a round, and flicked the safety lever to safe. “Fuck Charles,” Tim grumbled, getting up and stumbling out of my shack.
A minute later a gunshot snapped me out of a ten-second sleep. “Fuckin’ works!” Tim yelled.
* * *
I woke up slowly, hoping my head only ached that much in my dreams. It didn’t. The bottle was nestled in the crook of my arm. An ounce or two sloshed around way at the bottom. It was still dark; I really hated not being able to simply know what time it was.
I shot straight up in bed when I felt I wasn’t alone. “Who’s that?”
A light came on. “Do you believe this thing still works?” My visitor held a small flashlight. “It’s rechargeable. Squeeze the lever here on the side a few times and you have light for a few minutes. Pretty remarkable the stuff they used to come up with, isn’t it?” He was sitting on my pack near the foot of the mattress. His snake pendant caught the light.
“Is that a cat?”
“It is.” The small flashlight was shaped like a cartoonish black cat. The eyes were the light source.
“Are you following me?”
“You should be following me.”
“When did you get here?”
“Long enough ago know you snore.”
“How’d you get past the security?”
“I stepped over it. It’s just a string, buddy,” he laughed. “You’d have to be a goddamned fool to trip over it.”
“What do you want?”
“Do you feel safe here? Personally, I wouldn’t. You know they transmigrate in groups sometimes. There’s no telling how long you can be protected here. No…if I were you, I’d keep going west. That’s the direction I find myself aimed as well, actually. I’ve always preferred to travel with an adjunct. Perhaps you and I could travel together?”
“We don’t work well together. Remember Camp Perry?”
“I remember that you can tie one hell of a noose.” He laughed again. “The things we did!”
I shook my head.
“Well, you keep that.” He set the cat between my feet and
slunk to the doorway. “And remember what I told you when you left Perry. Be seeing you.”
* * *
I hid the flashlight in my pack. There was no denying it happened, but I made myself ignore the confrontation. I focused on splitting wood, hauling water, catching fish, picking corn, snaring rabbits, and keeping my leg clean. After a few days, two women passed through camp. They weren’t interested in staying, which Tim reckoned was fine seeing as they were lesbians.
I declined a security shift one night after a day on wood duty which prompted a diatribe from the guy who wanted me to take his place. His name was Mark. The only times he spoke to me were when he wanted me to take his security shifts. I understood; I had not turned down a shift up to that point, and he was probably looking forward to playing with himself.
I went to my shack and fell asleep.
I never tried to be quiet when killing a zombie. I figured if there’s a zombie presence, the more people who were aware, the more people you had for defense if things started getting heavy. Others kept it quiet, like killing a zombie was somehow immoral. I imagine that’s how things went so wrong so quickly.
The cans didn’t wake me up, and as it turned out, neither did the glass bottles. The screaming did—several people screaming. I rolled out of bed, tucked my pistol and the spare magazine into my pants, and grabbed the steel.
While the overpass camp had never been especially tidy, there was an overall organizational plan. A cursory glimpse of the camp showed how easily that was ruined. At least three fire barrels had been overturned; the spilled contents had set a few shacks on the other side of the overpass ablaze. Sections of stacked firewood on my side had been knocked loose; cords of wood were strewn across the roadway. The staggering lurch of zombies was easy to spot. There were so many.
Hands roughly grabbed my upper shoulders. I lost my balance and fell to the ground; the weight of my attacker followed. The smell was instantly nauseating and telltale of the mortal danger in which I suddenly found myself.
I could not fathom how zombies had gotten so deep in our camp before the screams woke me.
The gurgling of the zombie’s moan was so close to my ear that I lost my grip on my steel when I fell, it lay several feet in front of my face. An intense pain tore through my torso, radiating from the back of my neck where it bit me. I screamed and bucked wildly, throwing the zombie off my back. I leapt up and pulled the pistol from my waistband, wincing at the tender spot on my hip where I fell on it.
I thumbed the safety to fire and shot it in the face. I ignored an intense urge to dismember the body, and instead gingerly touched the stinging wound on my neck. My fingers came back wet and warm with my blood. I didn’t have a large chunk of flesh missing, but nevertheless I was now operating on a timer.
In six to twelve hours the fever would start, followed by severe vomiting and diarrhea. Those symp-toms would continue and would soon enough contain blood. Next, my brain would begin to malfunction, sending erratic signals to my limbs. Then those signals would stop and I would be unable to walk, use my arms, or even turn my head. Soon after, my brain would stop telling my heart to beat and my lungs to work. Then, I’d die. And unless someone did the right thing and stuck something through my brain, I would get up several minutes later.
I instantly decided to do something with my final hours. I grabbed my steel off the ground and turned back to the camp. Moaners outnumbered screamers four to one. I remembered what Baines said when I first came to the overpass. The first plank was near my shack. I pushed it toward the other side and let go when my end was clear of concrete. It tipped and fell through the narrow space between the two sides. Three zombies came at me from between shacks. I drew my handgun and started firing. The closest went down with one shot off-center of its forehead. I caught the second in the neck and it didn’t even flinch. 9mms lack stopping power. My kingdom for a .45.
I tensed my grip; my next shot went wide, but actually caught the third zombie, smashing the bridge of its nose and dropping it. The second zombie was now so close to me when I shot it, bits of skull and flesh spattered on me.
The second plank in the center of the camp was harder to get to because of all the loose firewood. I rushed and lost my footing several times; fortunately I didn’t break or sprain an ankle. More zombies were trying to get at me, but could not get through the wood obstacle course. I let the second plank fall and more carefully made my way to the third.
I spotted the cook by the portable toilets, closer to the last plank. He was stepping around in a circle confused about the safest way to go. Zombies approached him from both directions and there were even more on the other side of the overpass.
“Knock that plank down!” I yelled at him.
He turned to one of the toilets and began rocking it. Soon, he tipped it over and sat on the ground with his legs through the hole in the concrete. It looked like he was lowering himself gingerly into a hot tub until he screamed in pain: jagged concrete and sharp rebar was poking and slicing his skin. Then he disappeared. I continued my way over to the last plank and pushed it down. I ran to the overturned toilet, but couldn’t see to the road below. The cook’s screaming continued.
I looked toward my shack. I hadn’t searched the few shacks on this side, but nearly all the residents lived on the other side. I played the numbers and hopped sides, landing next to two zombies munching on Mark’s intestines, oblivious to my sudden presence. I used my hammer end twice to abruptly end their meal, and once again to make sure Mark never got up.
A third of the shacks were on fire, the flames wild enough to threaten the rest. Twenty feet away, I witnessed Baines stab a zombie through the temple with what appeared to be a railroad spike, evidently his weapon of choice. Gunshots identical to mine called my attention to Tim helping ward off zombies, giving a small group the time to climb down one of the rope ladders. The small-faced woman who only identified herself as Missus Cooper was near another rope ladder still lying on the roadway. She was shielding the two older children from a pair of particularly putrid zombies with a bit of wood.
I went to her and tossed the ladder over the side. I pulled the woman back from the zombies and commanded, “Get them down!” I turned to face the zombies that had moved too close. I swung my steel, and the head of one zombie completely collapsed from the blow, rotten brain matter leaked from the large hole I created.
I hooked the other zombie behind its neck with the jaws of my steel. I muscled it to the edge of the overpass and sent it over the side with a final yank. I turned to help the woman while also keeping watch for more zombies. We lifted the girl over the side and she grabbed onto the rungs. Shadowy shapes below grabbed the boy who had just reached the ground. He screamed—his voice would never deepen.
The girl stared down at her friend in utter horror. I knocked on her head to get her attention. “When you get within their reach, jump off as far as you can and run,” I ordered. She descended immediately. If she lived she would be one to keep around.
My short lapse in attention allowed a zombie to get close and sink its teeth into Missus Cooper’s cheek. She screamed with a volume I wouldn’t have guessed possible for her. I cross-checked them with my steel, pushing them both over the side. They fell past the little girl, barely missing her. Neither of them moved after they hit the ground.
Baines was no longer visible. I worked my way toward Tim, shooting at zombies coming from behind me and mauling the ones ahead of me, suddenly very aware of the possibility of stray bullets doing unintended damage to what survivors remained. Tim worked his way back to meet me halfway.
“Hey, new guy.” Tim was winded. It was a busy night.
“I can’t see anything.” The smoke was getting thick. “Anyone else to save?”
“No, I think we got everyone down. Well, everyone not dead.”
“I gotta get my pack. You go down, head west with the survivors. I’ll catch up.”
“Fuck your pack! Let’s go fucking now!”
“Get out of here.”
I sprinted across the road and hurdled the safety barriers. There were still zombies on the other side, but they were spread out and far fewer in number. Both my magazines were empty. I avoided them when I could, knocked them in the head when I had to, but didn’t stop to make sure I put them down for good.
I tore open the door to my shack and stopped dead in my tracks. The little boy with the bad ear was sitting cross-legged on my mattress. He was naked, coated in blood, and playing with the cat flashlight. It may have been a trick of the light, but his penis appeared to be forked. His eyes darted up at me—the irises were thin slits.
“They’re an army,” he said in a calm, nearly adult voice.
There was no bump on my head when I woke up face down on my mattress. I reasoned that I fainted. It was uncomfortably hot in my shack. I hesitated before snatching up the flashlight and stowing it in my pack.
I momentarily stood in awe of the scene outside. The entire overpass appeared to be on fire. All the firewood on my side had ignited; every shack except mine was a torch with flames licking the sky fifteen feet high. There were still a couple zombies walking about as calmly as ever. They were pillars of conflagration—clearly fire did not scare them.
I watched with a modest amount of relief as one succumbed to the combustion and fell still.
One of the rope ladders was directly next to my shack, still not deployed. I tossed it over the side and followed it down.
Baines’ mangled corpse lay near me. He must have fallen off the overpass after getting bit. It futilely tried reaching me, unable to move anything other than its head due to a visibly broken spine. I avoided it and left it to hopefully die of exposure.
I quickly searched under the overpass for other survivors. There were none.
I smelled the cook before I heard its moans. It was caked in feces from falling feet first into our waste. I pictured zombies descending upon the cook as he tried to extricate himself from the mound of shit.
First Time Dead 1 Page 17
