World Memorial

by Robert R. Best

  "Get to the hay!" yelled Maylee, aiming for the bales.

  She and Dalton ran. The bales grew near even though the brush and snow snarled at their feet. Maylee heard groans coming from somewhere. She also heard the men with guns shouting behind them, the ones from the church. She wondered how long she and Dalton had before they emerged from the woods and gunned them down.

  Then they were at the bales. They ducked inside, hiding amongst the tight rolls of rotting hay. Each roll was high enough to obscure them.

  They stopped for a moment, listening. At first all Maylee could hear was her chest pounding and her own panting. Then she heard the flock approaching, yelling directions to each other.

  "They know we went in here." said Dalton, gulping in air between his words.

  Maylee wiped her eyes and adjusted her scarf around her neck, holding her bat pointed toward the ground. "Yeah. We gotta get to the other side of this field. Use the hay for cover for as long as we can."

  The voices of the men drew closer.

  "Let's go," said Maylee.

  She and Dalton ducked around a bale and immediately found a corpse there. It was a young man with a hunting cap perched over his mangled face. His hands were burnt and cracking in the cold wind. Dalton screamed in surprise. The flock yelled something to each other in response.

  "Dammit," said Maylee. She still had her bat pointed toward the ground. She whipped it upward, slamming into the young man's chin. The nails dug in, hooking the young man in place. Maylee wrenched around and downward, pulling the corpse to the ground. She twisted the bat free and slammed down onto the man's skull. It split open, brains and black goo spilling out.

  The men kept shouting from somewhere outside the hay.

  "They heard that alright," said Maylee. "Run!"

  She and Dalton ran among the bales. The men shouted, sounding closer. More groans sounded, closer than before. Maylee kept her bat ready, feet pounding in the snow as she ran, looking side to side, ducking around mounds of rotting hay.

  They rounded a bale and found another corpse, a young woman with one arm missing. She hissed and came for them, her cold rotting skin cracking with each movement.

  Maylee raised her bat to strike when a shot split the cold wind. The bat was torn from her grip as the bullet slammed into it. Maylee spun around to see one of the flock, a man, looking at them with a mixture of fear and grim determination.

  "Crap!" said Dalton. "We gotta go!"

  Dalton ran off, around a bale and out of sight.

  "Dalton, wait!" yelled Maylee, rushing to where her bat had landed. She snatched it from the snow as the man cocked his rifle. The corpse hissed through her rotten teeth, reaching for Maylee with her remaining arm.

  She smacked the woman's arm away, then slammed the bat into her stomach. The corpse doubled over, slime and rotten teeth spilling from her mouth. Maylee whipped the bat upwards, cracking into the woman's forehead. The woman toppled over backward into the snow as Maylee brought the bat up overhead. She slammed down into the young woman's face, splitting her skull open. The woman clutched at the air with her one hand, then fell limp.

  Maylee panted down at the corpse for a moment, then remembered the man. She whipped her head to look at him. He was staring at her, gun limp in his hand.

  Maylee pointed the bat at him. "Keep the fuck away from us!"

  This seemed to shake the man from his daze and he pointed the rifle at her. She ran. He fired, and she heard the bullet thud into a hay bale as she ducked around it.

  "Dalton!" She dodged bale after bale, looking around frantically and listening for any sign of him. There was nothing. "Dalton!"

  She heard more shouts from the flock. Orders to each other, organizing their attack. She could hear the groans of dead throats coming from somewhere. She heard wind whistling by overhead. The only thing she couldn't hear was Dalton.

  She forced herself to stop, her chest pounding. She put her back against a bale and tried to calm down. Her mind flashed images of Zach, hanging and gutted. The flock eating him. Alive but eating him. Looking to the heavens with their blood-stained faces. A few more flashes and Zach was replaced with Dalton. Dalton, dead and hanging open. She forced the thoughts from her mind.

  "Stop it," she whispered to herself. "For fuck’s sake stop it."

  She breathed in and out, deeply, and listened.

  "Maylee!" came Dalton’s voice. Somewhere out of sight but not far away.

  She whipped her head around, trying to gauge where the cry had come from but couldn't. "Dalton!"

  "Maylee!" came Dalton's voice again. Again, she couldn't tell from where. She heard the men yelling. Corpses groaned. Snow began to fall, softly but already picking up.

  She listed for a few more seconds. She heard footsteps, boots crunching in the snow. Too regular to be a corpse, too heavy to be Dalton. Maylee knew she had to move and ran, ducking around a bale. As she rounded it, she heard a male shout and a gunshot. The bale shook with the impact.

  She darted between two bales, hoping to lose the man shooting at her. She heard groans and stopped. There were two corpses, one on each side. They were both men, with torn t-shirts covering their large guts. Frozen black gore coated one's shirt. The other had a frozen, black-red gash in his throat, the meat and tendons cracking as he moved.

  "Fuck!" yelled Maylee. "No time, assholes!"

  The man with the wound under his shirt reached for her. Maylee dropped to her knees, swinging her bat in his gut. The nails snagged on the man’s wound as his hands closed on the corpse with the torn throat.

  Maylee pulled her bat free, wrenching the man's stomach open. She slammed her bat into the ground and pushed herself backwards, sliding away from him across the frozen ground. Half-frozen organs spilled across the snow, dark and wet and crystalized.

  Still on her knees, she wrenched the bat from the ground and whipped into the other corpse's knees. It crumpled to the ground, leaving the first corpse leaning on nothing. It fell forward, piling on top of the other.

  She hopped to her knees as the two corpses fumbled with each other. They slid around in the wet organs and bloody slush. Maylee slammed downward on both corpse heads at once, cracking them against each other. They split open, shooting red and black across the ground and finally stopped moving.

  Maylee stopped and listened. The man seemed to have lost her for the moment, but she knew she'd made enough noise to be found again. "Dalton!" she cried out, wondering how much time she had to stand and listen.

  She heard Dalton scream. Farther away than before.

  "Dalton!" The snow was falling thick now. Maylee brushed it from her eyes and looked in every direction she could, trying to place where she had heard him.

  Then an idea hit her. She slid her bat into the strap across her back and trotted a few feet to her left. Two tall bales were stacked atop each other, sticking up over the bales around it. She dug her gloved hands into the hay and started climbing.

  It was harder than she thought it would be. The hay was frozen in places and rotten in others. Patches were either too hard to dig into or too soft to support her. After a few moments, though, she reached the top.

  She stood, looking to one side and blinking into the falling snow. She saw several corpses stumbling around outside of the bales, no doubt attracted to the noise. She saw several men with rifles, slowly picking their way around the bales, but no Dalton.

  She looked the other way. More of the same. Snow fell into her eyes and she wiped it away. The rusted tractor stood at the far end. Groans floated up around her and corpses stumbled in the field outside the bales.

  Then she saw Dalton creeping out from behind a bale.

  "Dalton!" Maylee said in the loudest whisper she could manage. "Dalton!"

  Dalton heard her voice and searched frantically for her location. He looked up, spotted her, and waved.

  A gunshot exploded behind her. The outer edge of her coat ripped open, near her right arm. She stumbled and fell off the bale.
<
br />   She hit the ground on her side, knocking the air from her. She panted and rolled to her knees, patting her gloved hand on her shoulder. She realized there was no pain where the shot had hit. No warm blood running down her arm. The shot hadn't found flesh, it had only grazed her coat.

  She stood and pulled her bat from its strap again. She heard the men yell to each other. Saw flashes of them eating Zach. Of Zach bucking and screaming as his insides spilled out. Anger grew in her stomach, hot and ugly.

  She tried to recall where she had seen Dalton, took her best guess, and took off. A corpse appeared around a bale, its dead arms cracking in the cold wind. Maylee smacked it aside and kept running.

  She heard Dalton scream. More flashes of the flock eating him. Her anger grew, festering in her insides. Her cheeks were hot.

  "Hold still!" yelled a man's voice behind her.

  Maylee ignored him, running even faster and darting around the bales. Snow was coming hard now. Groans sounded all around.

  She rounded a corner and saw Dalton cowering against a bale. She saw a rifle off to one side, pointing out from one bale of frozen hay, and could see the hands of the man holding it.

  "Don't shoot!" yelled Dalton, holding up one hand. "We didn't see anything."

  She ran hard toward Dalton and the rifle. The rifle shook as the man cocked it. Dalton cowered, waiting for the shot.

  Maylee reached the edge of the bale obscuring the man. She dropped to her knees and slid out into the opening screaming, and whipped her bat to the side. It cracked into the man's knees. He cried out and crumpled into the snow, dropping his rifle to the ground, firing as it landed. Dalton screamed.

  Maylee looked to him, her chest tight as she imagined the open wound in his chest, the blood spreading out across his coat as the color left his face. But he was okay. The shot had missed. A corpse gurgled nearby. The corpse, a young man missing an eye, stood there with his dead mouth hanging open. A fresh bullet wound spilled black goo down his face. He gurgled in the ooze, then fell, unmoving. .

  Maylee stood. Her bat’s nails were lodged in the man's knee. He screamed and fell onto his back. She looked down at him, studying his face. She remembered seeing him in the chapel when Zach was killed. She'd seen him there praising Jesus and eating Zach's flesh.

  "Shut up," she spat, wrenching the bat free. He cried out in pain. She stepped backward toward Dalton, putting herself between him and the man.

  She pointed the bat down at the man. "You stay the fuck away from us, understand?"

  The man nodded, clutching his bleeding knee to his chest.

  More shouts came across the wind. Maylee looked around, listening, then back to the man. "How many of you are there?"

  The man stayed quiet, looking away from her. Blood fell from his knee, pooling on his coat. Falling snow covered the blood, staining itself pink.

  "I said how many of you are there?" Maylee yelled, shaking the bat at him.

  "Four!" the man yelled back, gritting his teeth in pain.

  "Counting you?"

  "Counting me!"

  Maylee grabbed Dalton's arm. She walked away from the man, pulling Dalton with her.

  "What are you doing?" he said as they ducked around a bale.

  "These bales don't reach all the way to the edge of the field, Dalton." She let him go and gestured for him to follow her. They walked briskly between the bales, Maylee wiping snow from her eyes. "Once we're out in the open, they'll pick us off."

  "So?"

  "So, we have to make it so they can't."

  She and Dalton stepped between two bales. She saw a few corpses moving behind the frozen hay. She ignored them for the moment.

  They came to small clearing and stopped. No corpses or men in sight.

  "Over here," Maylee said. "Do what I do."

  She led Dalton to a nearby bale. She put her back to it and knelt down on the ground. Dalton followed, kneeling down beside her. Maylee was closest to the edge of the bale.

  Maylee cried out into the wind. "Don't shoot!"

  Dalton looked at her, frowning.

  She whispered to him. "Play along." Then she cried out again, as loud as she could. "Look, you got us! Don't shoot!"

  A man called out in response. He sounded close. "Hold on, Brother! I'm coming to help!"

  Dalton looked at Maylee, realization spreading across his face. "Yeah!" he called out. Don't shoot! It's not very Jesus-y!"

  Maylee rolled her eyes at him but kept yelling into the cold air. "Please!"

  The man was close now. Maylee heard feet pounding in the snow. "Watch out for the girl, Brother! She's dangerous."

  "Yep," said Maylee quietly.

  The man rushed into the clearing, past Maylee and Dalton. As he passed, Maylee slammed her bat into his knees. The crack echoed around the bales. The man cried out and fell face first into the snow. His rifle spun away, out of reach and hidden under frozen brush.

  "That's two," said Maylee, standing. "Come on!"

  "But the gun!" said Dalton, pointing to where it had fallen.

  "There's no time for that!" said Maylee, grabbing Dalton and pulling him along. The remaining two men shouted to each other, their voices bouncing around the frozen hay. Corpses groaned.

  Maylee and Dalton ran between bales, straining to hear over the crunching of their own boots. The men shouted and corpses groaned.

  Maylee skidded to a halt and Dalton stopped short. She listened. She heard the two men moving among the bales. One sounded close.

  "Stay here," she whispered, walking to a nearby stack of two bales. She climbed up the hay, having an easier time than before.

  She reached the top and spotted one of the men nearby, so close he was almost under her. He hadn't noticed Maylee. She crouched on the hay, watching him. He whipped around frantically, moving his rifle in time with his head.

  She inched forward, toward the edge of the bale, knocking loose a clump of snow. It tumbled, landing at the man’s feet. He looked down, startled. Maylee tensed, waiting for the moment he looked behind and up.

  A groan came from the right. A corpse stumbled into view, lurching at the man. It was an old thin husk of a man with leathery, cracked skin. He hissed and reached. The man aimed as quickly as he could, cocking the rifle.

  She jumped when he fired.

  The shot slammed into the corpse's head, sending powdery dust and flakes of dead papery skin across the hay. Maylee landed on the man, her knee cracking down on his shoulder. The corpse fell backward into the snow. The man screamed in pain, crumpling to the ground as Maylee rolled off him.

  She stood. The man clambered to his feet, his arm loose and limp at his side.

  "I think you broke my shoulder!" he screamed

  "Really?" said Maylee, snatching her bat from where it had fallen. "What a fucking shame. Tell me, did that kid taste good?"

  "You don't understa—" said the man, wincing in pain. His eyes fell on his fallen rifle and he stepped toward it.

  "Shut up!" yelled Maylee, kicking the rifle out of reach.

  Dalton ran around the corner, his eyes wide. He looked at the man, then at Maylee. When the man spotted Dalton he gasped, recognition spreading across his face. "The drawings! The visions!"

  Maylee stomped over and jabbed her bat into the man’s wounded shoulder. He screamed, backing away.

  "If you say a fucking word I swear I will break it the rest of the way off."

  "Okay, okay..." said the man, crying from the pain.

  "We gotta go, Maylee."

  Maylee stared at the man. "There's nothing stopping him from telling the others."

  "We gotta go, Maylee!" Dalton repeated.

  "And when we go, he tells the others about you."

  "What are you saying?" said Dalton.

  The man backed even further away.

  "What are you saying, Maylee?" repeated Dalton, stepping close to her.

  Maylee stared at the man. She considered it, considered knocking this man’s head open as she'd done to
so many corpses.

  She sighed and pointed the bat at him. "What's your name?"

  The man looked at Maylee, blinking through the falling snow. "T-Timothy."

  "Listen, Timothy,, if I find out you told your crazy-fuck friends about my brother, I will find you and I will finish you."

  "Okay..."

  "Do you understand me?" she yelled, jabbing his shoulder again. He cried out and fell back further.

  "We gotta go now, Maylee!" yelled Dalton, pulling her back. Groans were coming from all sides.

  Maylee turned and ran, Dalton right behind her.

  They ducked around bales, through the thick and heavy snow. Maylee had lost all sense of location. She didn't know if they were even heading the right direction. She heard groans and wind. No more shouting men, though. There should have been one left. She tried to remember, tried to count off the men as she ran. There was one left, wasn't there?

  She and Dalton ran in silence. Their panting breaths and crunching boots drowned out everything else.

  Then, suddenly, they reached the end. They stumbled back out into the open field, skidding to a halt, the bales behind them.

  "Shit," said Maylee. "We're exposed out here."

  A rifle cocked.

  "That you are," said a man from behind them.

  Maylee froze, and Dalton locked into place next to her. Slowly, her boots snapping frozen twigs underneath, she turned. The last man was there, standing on the seat of the abandoned tractor. He trained his rifle at Maylee.

  "The bat," said the man. "Drop it."

  "But you have a gun," said Maylee.

  The man shook the rifle. "Drop it anyway."

  Maylee complied, her bat falling to the snow with a muffled thud. She cast quick glances around, looking for escape routes, but none presented themselves. There were corpses on the other side of the tractor, stumbling around. None seemed to have noticed them. The tractor on which the man stood was rusted and red, old, with many gears and levers Maylee didn't understand.

  She took a step toward him. The man shook his rifle at her.

  "Stop!" he said. "The Lord commands I do this!"

  A coldness came over Maylee. She realized she wanted this. She wanted to be done. She took another step.