by Brown, TW
“Let’s go!” the doc said in a hushed whisper like she thought they might actually be able to hear us from way across that open field and dirt lot.
I followed, and I noticed Darla fall in behind us. For some reason, I felt kind of weird. I hadn’t said or done anything, but I still felt like I was doing something that Katrina would not approve of. In a flash, I realized why I had not ever really been in any serious boy-girl relationships. I have no idea how to handle one! Heck, I didn’t even know if I was actually in one. It wasn’t like Katrina had said that I was her boyfriend or anything.
Women have it so easy, I thought as we stepped outside and started towards the direction we had seen the zombie children. They have all the power and control. I guess that is one of the reasons that I never understood why girls stayed with guys who treated them so crappy.
“You wanna keep your head on straight?” Dr. Zahn snapped as she grabbed my arm and yanked me back.
I looked around and it took me a few seconds to see why she was so mad. The creeper about three feet away reached out with its gnarled hands and grabbed hold of a patch of weeds and dragged itself a few inches closer. I probably would have tripped over the thing if not for the doctor.
“Sorry,” I muttered.
The doc gave me one more withering glare and then stepped over and spiked the creeper. I was further embarrassed when I realized that I had not even been aware that she had taken that staff from her back. It was a long piece of well sanded oak by the looks of it. At one end she had a metal spike attached with a metal band and some studs. At the other end was a small disc that turned out to be a compass that had been implanted in what looked like a screw on top of the same oak. It was attached by a leather thong and could be twisted into place when not in use.
“I need you to be ready,” Dr. Zahn said, basically dismissing my apology. “When we get close, I want to study the group for a few minutes before we actually grab one.”
“What do you hope to find out?” Darla asked in a whisper.
“I really don’t know,” Dr. Zahn answered with a shrug. “I just know that they are exhibiting very different behavior than the normal zombie, and it appears to be fairly consistent with the younger children.”
And with that, we resumed our trek. It was actually more difficult than I had originally thought. From a distance, the pasture just looked like an open piece of land with a few dead cows that had rotted away to almost nothing. Moving through it, it turned out to be a damn mine field. I must have hacked two dozen creepers, and Dr. Zahn spiked at least that many.
As for Darla, she had her own method. After the third one, she actually showed me what she was doing. It seems that her boots are fitted with special heels made of a piece of solid steel that she uses to stomp down on the head of any creeper unfortunate enough to get close.
“Their heads seem to have gotten softer in the past year,” Darla explained.
To each his…or her own, I thought. I brought the pommel of my machete down on the head of a legless old lady with my right hand and shoved the blade of my big knife in the eye socket of another as it reared up at me like a cobra.
When we reached the edge of the pasture, Dr. Zahn raised a hand for us to stop. From our spot at the edge of the road, we could hunch down in the bushes and get a good look. The children were gathered around something, all of them on hands and knees. It did not take a genius to know they were feeding.
“I didn’t hear anything?” I whispered. “If those kids got ahold of somebody, wouldn’t we have heard? And different or not, they sure as hell aren’t chowing on another zombie.”
“I have no idea, I can’t see any better than you?” Dr. Zahn replied almost too quiet to be heard.
“Might be those crazies from over past the fairgrounds,” Darla offered.
“Christ!” I muttered. “How many groups are around this tiny town?”
“Probably down to twenty or so if you count anything over ten as a group,” Darla offered in response to what I had thought to be a rhetorical question.
That got both me and Dr. Zahn to turn and look at the girl. She glanced at us and returned her attention to the zombie children. When it was clear that we were waiting for her to elaborate, she sighed deep and sat back on her haunches so she could see us both.
“La Grande was what some folks might consider to be a bit of a right wing sort of place. Lots of people owned flags and guns. When the dead came, folks here put up a good fight, problem was, too many of them started getting a bit itchy with the trigger. The idea of the Old West has always been a pretty dominant theme in these parts, so folks reverted to that sort of lawlessness. All it took for somebody to get hunted down and killed was an accusation. Top that off with old disagreements returning to the surface and people thinking that they could now right whatever wrong they perceived to have existed…well, I would almost be willing to bet that the living killed almost as many normal folks as they did them zombies.
“One day, a mob of about a hundred thousand of those things just showed up and rolled through town. People tried to band together, but by then it was sort of already too late. The few groups that had set up basic fortresses and such made it through for the most part. That was how La Grande fell. It was not some slow eventual process. This city died in about seventy-two hours about three months in.
“Ever since, groups have been fighting for some sort of control, but then fall came and most folks had to worry about just surviving the cold. It was clear that we would be in big trouble once proper winter hit.
“It was around then that the military group showed up. They came and took out one of the strongest groups in town and began to expand their borders. They had better weapons and equipment. A few of the groups started to band together, that’s why there are so few now as opposed to just six months ago. The thought was that it was time to put differences aside. If anybody was gonna control La Grande, it would be the locals.”
I glanced at Dr. Zahn and she just shrugged back. Maybe I was just too young or stupid, but it seemed to me that folks were mostly idiots. I still could not believe how many pieces of human garbage we had encountered since this began. Faced with extinction, you would hope that humanity would maybe band together to stop the threat. Instead, it seemed like everybody was just out for themselves and damn anybody who they didn’t like or feel like including in their newly made-up club.
That got me to thinking about our group. Back when it had just been a handful of us, we were looking for someplace out of the way. We had avoided conflict when it was possible. Somewhere along the line, things had changed. I was still not entirely sure as to why we had left our place up in the mountains. Sure, it was a bitch in the winter, but we had made it through most of that time. Why couldn’t we have just continued to shore things up and make it a better, more secure place? Why had we felt the need to come down to La Grande and take over? And when had we decided that we needed to take over and control a city? Who was making those decisions?
For the first time, I questioned what it was my group was doing. By moving into La Grande like we did, had we become the unwitting (hopefully) bad guys in this story? Please let it be unwittingly, I would hate to think that we were now in the business of conquering. I would have to look into this more when we got back.
“See that little boy in the rear of the group with the missing left arm?” Dr. Zahn asked. Her question shocked me back to the situation at hand. “That would be the best target.”
“Why that one?” I had to ask.
“Missing an arm will make it easier to control. It won’t be able to fight as effectively. We need to take advantage of any upper hand we can.”
That sounded like as good of a reason as anything. Now all we had to do was figure out a way to do this without getting bit. I was not yet ready to think about how we were going to transport this thing back to the compound. Even worse, I did not want to try and imagine how this would sit with some of the other residents.
“We
need to get their attention focused on—” Dr. Zahn started, but I already knew how this was going to play out.
I got up and strode out towards the cluster of zombie children. I did not have a weapon drawn yet…but my hands brushed the hilt of my favorite machete just as a point of reassurance.
I was not prepared for the response. As one, the children turned to face me. They cocked their heads one way and then the other like they were studying me. A couple actually took a step back! I covered half the distance and then stopped. I have no idea why, but I knelt down as if I were trying to coax a frightened puppy.
“Hey there,” I said, and immediately felt like an idiot.
Still, the zombie children were not coming at me. This was too weird. I took the time to get a good look at them. Most of them had been zombies for a while; maybe since the first days by the looks. Their clothes were in tatters and a couple of them were one snag away from naked. Their injuries were dried up and one of them had no visible sign of being bitten. Some showed signs of having been in a skirmish or two. One had at least a dozen holes in its tiny chest.
Then I saw something else that hurt my heart. The smallest of the bunch peered out at me from behind the legs of a girl who was maybe ten years old. This one was probably four years old…and had lost all its baby teeth since turning, but none of the “adult” teeth had grown back. The little guy kept smacking his lips, and reminded me in a twisted way of my late grandmother.
“I think we have a better candidate than One-armed Pete,” I said over my shoulder. “This kid has…maybe three or four teeth. Perhaps you could yank them.”
“Also the smallest,” Dr. Zahn called back. “I hadn’t even seen that one until just now. So, yes, that will be our target.”
Now all I had to do was figure out a way to separate it from the herd. I had noticed that they had grown a bit agitated when I spoke with Dr. Zahn. As a group, they had taken a few steps back. I took a few steps toward them and one of the little monsters hissed at me. I took it as a warning and stopped in my tracks.
“So how do you want to do this?” I called.
“We will have to kill the others,” Dr. Zahn answered with clinical detachment.
Somehow I knew she would say that. It was not that I saw these things as anything other than the monsters that they are, but it just felt different this time. I was seeing their behavior and it was not like anything I’d seen in any zombie. It was almost like they were…children. Here they were acting afraid of a stranger; that is something you start to see in kids at some point. I could not tell you when since I’ve never had one of my own. However, I remembered my Aunt Nancy’s daughter.
Amy had always loved to be held and I thought it was kind of cool. But one day, I came in the door with my mom and she cried, ran, and hid behind her mom. She had to be coaxed out to see me. It was like “Bang!” no warning, I had become a stranger to a child who I had held the day she was born and played with for the first year and a half of her life. But I miss a few weeks (I had gone away to a football camp that summer) and suddenly she did not want anything to do with me. That was the closest thing I could come up with to explain the behavior I was seeing.
The problem with that was that if these zombie children had some shred of their humanity left…then would I be committing murder? I shook my head physically as if it would help break that particular chain of thought. All that single act did was agitate the children. A few took menacing steps forward, and in that single act, I remembered what I was dealing with.
That was the case all the way up to the point when at least two dozen more stepped out from various places all around me. I was now in the middle of their bull’s eye.
“You have got to be kidding,” Dr. Zahn exclaimed.
“I need a little help here,” I called. The moment I grabbed the hilt of my blade, it was like flipping a switch. They were now just like any other zombie.
I heard steps in the gravel and turned just in time to see ten or more of the little monsters come out from behind a mound of rock just to my left. These were now the closest threat and I had no idea how they had gotten into position without my having heard…unless…
“These bastards set this trap!” I yelled as I brought my blade down on the first to get close enough. They were no longer little boys and girls; they were monsters set on taking me down and eating me alive. Killing them just got much easier.
Dr. Zahn and Darla rushed out and caught a few of them off guard. Those were the easy kills. But soon enough, they were in the defensive mode just like me. It was not about attacking at that point; you swung and danced back to create a little space. The problem was that they still were not acting exactly like what we were used to when dealing with the undead.
I spun as a pair of tiny hands gripped my left arm. The face I looked down into caused me to pause. They say that everybody has a twin…and I had just found Thalia’s. The little mouth clamped down on my sleeve, but fortunately could not break through. I snapped out of my dangerous moment of hesitation and drove my knife into her eye. The child dropped and I kicked it away, causing it to trip a pair of its comrades.
It was a nightmare, and twice I had to physically pick one of them up and toss it into an approaching group of its fellow child zombies to slow their approach and give me time to dispatch the ones that were grabbing and tugging at my clothes. I am pretty sure I heard Dr. Zahn choking on a sob. As for Darla, she just seemed to switch off and go to autopilot as she hacked and slashed without mercy.
At last, we were down to a handful of the little monsters. It was at this moment that they exhibited another new behavior that did not fit their mold.
They began to turn and move away. I can’t say they ran, but they definitely did not want to have anything more to do with us. Looking at the ground littered with so many tiny bodies, I felt a surge of guilt. I can’t explain it other than I suddenly felt really bad about what I had just done.
“Grab him before he gets into the woods!” Dr. Zahn snapped. I really needed to stop zoning out or I was going to get myself killed.
I took off at a sprint for the toddler who was doing its best to get away from the big, scary adults with the deadly weapons. I caught up and put a boot in the middle of its back, sending it sprawling face first.
“Sorry, little fella,” I said as I moved in and produced a set of cuffs.
That was a mistake. It squirmed and fought me, but I managed to get them on…only to have them slide off his tiny wrists. I had to keep my knee on its back as I dug through my field pouch for a zip tie. At last I had the wrists bound behind its back. Next I did the ankles. By the time I had that done, Dr. Zahn and Darla had reached me.
The doc opened her own pouch and produced a hard ball. It took me a second to recognize it as one of those teething balls you get for your dog. I flipped the small figure over onto its back and shoved the ball into its mouth as it snapped at me in futility. I swear I saw its eyes widen when it realized it could no longer bite.
“Okay,” I looked up at Dr. Zahn, “now what?”
Dr. Zahn produced a large plastic square and shook it out to reveal that it was what I had immediately guessed: a body bag. She handed it to me. Nothing needed to be said; it was pretty self-explanatory.
It took a few minutes because, for a zombie, this little guy was really putting up a fight. Also, I was struggling with how this made me feel. I realize that it was a zombie, not a real child, but that did not lessen the feeling that I was doing something fundamentally wrong. I shuddered at the thought that the news had been full of stories about kids being grabbed. How could anybody do this and not feel skeezy?
“Okay, let’s get moving, we are attracting attention.” Dr. Zahn tapped me on the shoulder. I looked up to see a few “regular” zombies coming out of the woods and across the open fair grounds.
I slung the bag over my shoulder and started back the way we had come. That is when Dr. Zahn stopped me.
“We aren’t taking this back to the co
mpound,” the doc said. If I felt dirty before, I had a feeling I was about to get filthy.
About an hour or so later, we were inside a normal looking one-story house. It was situated right between the high school and, big surprise, the Grande Ronde Hospital. When I walked in behind the doctor, I realized just how consumed by this idea she had become. There were five gurneys and two rooms had been converted to obviously act as holding cells for a child zombie. There were restraints already in place.
I heard Darla breath an exclamation, and I was right with her on that thought. I looked over at Dr. Zahn, but she was already pulling out a few small cases with all sorts of shiny instruments. In that moment, I officially began to worry about the mental well-being of the doctor.
I might not have been a big zombie movie guy back before all of this, but I had seen plenty of the cool horror films like Saw and Last House on the Left. Crazy doctors were always showing up in those things. Was Dr. Zahn one of those?
I warred with the idea that maybe I should tell somebody. The problem would be just who exactly. The best choice would be—
“Oh, good, it’s you,” a voice said from behind me, causing me to jump as well as drop the wriggling body that I still had slung over my shoulder.
I turned to find Sunshine coming out from a room which she quickly shut behind her…almost like she did not want me to see what was on the other side. If I had been having problems with this before…I was really struggling now.
“Saw a patrol move past just about twenty minutes ago,” Sunshine said without even giving me a glance as she approached Dr. Zahn. “I was worried somebody had seen me arrive.”
“Did you use our secret route?” the doc asked as she pumped some sort of gel on her hands and scrubbed them before donning a set of Latex gloves from a box.
That was enough for me. I headed for the door. I had no idea what these two were up to, but I suddenly wanted to be out of here and away from them. I guess Darla felt the same way because she was right on my heels.
