Z-Risen (Book 3): Poisoned Earth

by Long, Timothy W.

  We’d walked a few minutes when Joel broke the silence.

  “Sails doesn’t seem to like you much.”

  “What, that? She just doesn’t like public displays of affection.”

  “She tell you that?” He raised his eyebrows.

  “I figured it out.”

  “Lotta figuring with that girl,” he said.

  “Tell me about it.”

  ###

  09:00 hours approximate

  Location: Vista

  We followed a well-worn path down concrete lanes littered with--you guessed it--more fucking trash, and the remains of whatever had been inside shops and houses. There was enough empty luggage to fill an abandoned Kohl’s. Joel was not much of a conversationalist while we made the trek toward town.

  Someone had painted a mural of zombies eating a couple of children. The piece of art was complete with heads smashed in and brains leaking onto the ground.

  “Worst graffiti I’ve seen in my life,” I muttered.

  A shape flashed across an alley and faded into shadow. Joel followed it with his gun but didn’t start blasting, so I didn’t either. I’d learned a great rule from Marine Sergeant Joel “Cruze” Kelly, and that was not to start firing until after he started firing.

  When he finally unlocked his gaze from the alley, I took a step and accidentally kicked over a can. It clattered across the ground and landed next to the sidewalk. Joel froze and swept his gun up. Luckily, a dozen Zs didn’t descend on us.

  “Fuck is wrong with you?”

  “What? I didn’t see it,” I said.

  “How could you miss a big empty can of Campbell's soup sitting right in the middle of the walkway, man?”

  “Because I’m taller than you and that gun put together.”

  Something moved in the alley again so I took a step toward it. I crunched over someone’s cheap bead jewelry and a pile of soggy trash. I couldn’t tell who was moving around back there, and curiosity was getting the better of me. The shape faded into shadow after I caught a glimpse of someone dressed in black complete with a ski mask to up the creep factor.

  I got the chills just seeing the guy. If someone was stalking us I’d prefer that me and Joel do our talking with guns or fists.

  “Bad hombres. Let’s move out,” Joel said.

  I agreed with him and followed.

  It was 0900 hours and I hadn’t seen a Z since the day before.

  It felt fucking eerie.

  #22 – Gold Mine

  09:40 hours approximate

  Location: Vista

  The Z hit me like a ton of bricks.

  My partner in crime yelled for me to move out of the way, but I was slow on my feet. We’d come across a group of feisty assholes about fifteen minutes ago and ducked into the remains of an ampm. He and I huddled for a few minutes, but the sounds of something moving in the back of the convenience store finally got under my skin.

  The Z had been hovering near a shelf, and no more than a few feet away. In the gloom I didn't even see him until his shuffling steps betrayed him. He moved fast, arms up, milky white gaze locked on my face like it was prime rib. I spun, and panic made me lose my cool. That’s when the Z almost got a piece of my dumb ass.

  I hit the wall hard enough to see stars. Breath whooshed out but I got my hands up, purely by instinct, and fought off the Z. He had about fifty pounds on me and slammed me right back into the wall. I pushed the Z away. Something clamped my wrist and I squealed like a six year old.

  It wasn't teeth, it was his hand. Most of his fingers had been gnawed to the bone, and he had a hell of a death grip. I got my foot up and kicked the zombie in the chest. He fell away but his hand was still fastened to me. That's when I noticed he'd fallen away, all except his arm. I bounced around like I was in a one-man idiot dance-off as I tried to shake it loose.

  Joel was fast on his feet, just like I’d expected. If a Marine wasn't shooting stuff, punching stuff, or just snarling at stuff, he was probably asleep while standing up, expecting an attack at any second.

  He grabbed the zombie by the collar and knocked him to the ground. Joel lifted his boot and brought it down on the Z's head once, twice, and then a third time that left pulp leaking from the man’s cracked skull. The Z didn't move again.

  I leaned over and tried to catch my breath. Hands on knees, chest spasming as I sucked in air.

  “Need a hand?” Joel nodded at the Z's appendage that was still stuck to my arm.

  “Oh that’s real funny,” I said.

  Fuck! It really was stuck on there. I flailed around, trying to shake it off.

  “Looks like he had a strong grip," Joel deadpanned.

  “Okay, that’s enough,” I said, and mostly meant it. I was worried that if I actually caught my breath I'd break into laughter.

  The arm refused to let go and as I shook it, bits of blood and flesh flew. Joel moved out of the way of the little projectiles.

  “You’re giving shaking hands a new meaning, man."

  “I hate this fucking place.”

  “Your ability to state the obvious is a real gift, Creed.” Joel smacked my shoulder, lifted his assault rifle and moved toward the back of the store. I grabbed the remains of the arm and pulled it free, and left it next to the Z's battered body.

  More movement in the rear of the store meant that my little break was over.

  Joel held up a hand to motion me to stay put. I did just that, trusting that he was confident enough to take on whatever was creeping around. From the soft scraping, I hoped it was just a torso looking for a meal.

  A few weeks ago that shit used to get to me. Seeing bodies or halves of bodies still crawling around used to freak me out so bad I wouldn't sleep for days. Now it was just another sun-up in Undead Central US of A. The Zs had lost their souls or whatever made them thinking and reasoning beings, leaving them as brainless meat bags capable of little more than piss-hate coupled with an appetite for human flesh.

  I've learned, thanks to the walking Marine hard-on named Sergeant Kelly, to be more aware of my surroundings. Don't let the above Z attack fool you. I'm a lean (because I haven't had a proper meal in days), mean (because I haven't had a proper meal in days), killing machine (you get the goddamn picture).

  ###

  I noticed that the little store reeked of spoiled food, rotting flesh, and blood when we sniffed around the entrance, but give a squid a break for hoping for a bag of Doritos.

  Turned out the shelves were bare and probably had been for days. Mom and Pop stores had been well-defended at the start of the damn apocalypse, but then the looters had gotten into it.

  Guys like Frank McQuinn, who just over a week ago had led his merry band of jackholes against my group and a bunch of retirees who wanted to be left to their own meandering devices. We’d hurt McQuinn and his group and they’d scattered. The quick brains of Kelly and my girl, Anna Sails, had saved us. Now she was stuck in a camper with a bullet in her arm and I was out trying to find supplies to fix her up.

  A pair of shapes slid behind a shelf. Joel motioned for me to take the other side. I moved away from him, head low, shoulders hunched, eyes on the floor as I sought out anything that might make noise like an errant Funyun or potato chip. If I saw one I would likely start drooling, then it would be a struggle to stop from eating it. Was there such a thing as "the three or four week rule"?

  I met Joel’s eyes. He nodded and we swung around the shelving from opposite sides.

  My wrench was already in hand and I’d raised it, preparing to bash in at least one head, all the while hoping that Joel wouldn't shoot my ass off.

  I nearly jumped out of my skin when the little figures dashed into view.

  The kids were filthy and had to be a lot younger than Christy. A pair of boys, just little kids really, with faces covered in dirt, hair a rats-nest, clothes holed and hanging in strips. My first impulse was to swing the wrench, because they looked like Zs.

  “We ain’t like those things,” one of the kids
said.

  “We’re just looking for water or food,” the other said.

  Joel blew out a breath and pointed his gun toward the floor.

  “You dudes got family?” I asked.

  “Yeah. Right outside the door,” one of them said.

  They were on the move before I could ask who was waiting for them. The kids were fast and slipped away and out the front before I could get another word in.

  “Well shit,” Joel said.

  “Hey! Come back!” I called and moved toward the door.

  I poked my head out, but they were gone. I could probably pursue them, but the little rug rats were a lot faster than me. Besides, what was I going to do when I caught up with them? More than likely they did have someone around here watching after them. Someone with a big ass gun, and a bullet labeled "Jackson Creed".

  I stopped scanning for them when I noticed a shape across the street. He was dressed in black from head to toe with only his eyes peering through some kind of ski-mask-looking thing. This had to be the guy I’d seen earlier in the day.

  The person had a big assault rifle at the ready, so I slowly raised my hands to show I didn't feel like getting shot today. If that was one of McQuinn's guys, I was probably wasting my time and should plant my gut on the ground.

  Another figure appeared next to the first and I could have sworn one of them nodded in my direction. Then they both faded from view.

  ###

  10:10 hours approximate

  Location: Vista

  We moved out a few minutes later. I kept my eyes peeled but I never saw the two figures again. I tried to convince myself that they’d been a figment of my imagination.

  We came across decaying corpses, most unmoving. Whenever we did find a Z, we quickly assessed its threat level, and ended up leaving the majority of them behind. If any got too jumpy, a quick swing of my wrench put them down for good. They were a sorry bunch even for zombies. Most had taken damage of some kind and were no longer up and moving around.

  A particularly enthusiastic female--in her fifties, if I had to guess, hard to tell with the crushed face and shattered eye socket--pursued us with one working arm and one working leg. Her other limbs had been shattered like someone had dropped her from twenty feet up.

  After a while it was just pathetic, and so I also put her out of her misery.

  A telephone pole had a hand-printed sign nailed to it. I moved closer and read. Joel covered for me while I shook my head. After considering the words, I pulled the sheet off and showed Joel.

  “Think this is real?”

  “Sounds no good to me, brother,” Joel said while rubbing his chin with one hand.

  “But what if it’s true?”

  “I’m not sure I want to find out."

  I nodded and stuffed the flyer in my backpack.

  Every store we came across had been picked over. We finally got lucky when we started to boldly bust in doors on houses. Risking noise, because I was a little out of my mind with worry over Anna, we ransacked three houses in a row, killed the undead inhabitants, and taken everything that wasn’t nailed down. A three-quarters eaten box of stale Ritz crackers. Some beef jerky that didn’t amount to much more than a taste for both of us. I found a can of chicken broth. I couldn’t wait. I broke out my can opener and punched a pair of holes in the aluminum, then Joel and I took turns drinking like it was a fifteen-dollar bottle of whiskey.

  "This won't last,” Joel observed.

  "What?"

  "The houses with goods. As more and more get picked over we'll be coming up empty on our supply runs."

  “These are mostly picked over now. Guess we better stock up while we can. We have the camper, it can hold a lot of food."

  "Yeah, but five people can eat a lot of food. You eat enough for three people."

  "I don't eat that much. Shit, man, I've lost enough weight to look like a college basketball player. Look at this trim and fit example of military bearing.”

  "You look like you should be going into rehab. Like a damn crackhead."

  "Yeah, well you look like you should be on a milk carton."

  "The fuck does that even mean?" Joel asked.

  "I don't know. I'm tired, man. Brain ain't up to sparring with you today."

  Joel looked me up and down. "You're alright. Let’s get this shit over with so we can lounge around in robes and sip espresso while Roz and Anna feed us grapes."

  "Anna's more likely to feed me the barrel of a gun."

  Joel snorted and moved out.

  We dashed across a street littered with all kinds of crap that had been left behind, or tossed aside as people realized they were more likely to live if they were mobile. Bodies lay here and there, but no biters rose to greet us.

  We checked out a house that was missing its door, and after hearing an awful lot of banging around on the second floor, decided to try somewhere else.

  We moved between a pair of apartment complexes and found a group of Zs milling around. They were lethargic and dressed in tatters. Joel and I backed up, but one of them got its eyes on us. It lurched toward me, but it was barely ambulatory. I took it out and then the one behind it. Joel used the stock of his gun to smack Zs down and I finished them off.

  “Why are they so messed up?” I asked.

  “Fucking zombies, man,” Joel said.

  “No shit, but they were a mess even for Zs.”

  “Maybe they been decaying. Old Zs,” Joel said. “Give 'em another week and they might be crawling. A week after that they might just stop moving.”

  “What if they all get old and slow? Think the shufflers will slow down?”

  “Don’t know, brother. I’m too tired to worry about it right now.”

  ###

  10:50 hours approximate

  Location: Vista

  The next home was a goldmine.

  The house we’d picked was a single story with three bedrooms. The last door on the left was closed and I thought I’d heard something thumping around in there, so we didn’t bother exploring that room.

  There was a huge bloodstain on the carpet leading into the dining room, but we couldn’t find a body to go with it. Didn’t matter anyway. After a couple of weeks of this shitty new life, I was just about immune to the horrors. I might have been squeamish at one time. I might have looked away when a doctor cut into my finger to sew a tendon back together. Now it was different. A guy with his guts hanging out, half his face eaten away, and dragging a broken foot, was just another day in undead central.

  I hit the bathroom while Joel tossed the kitchen. I needed to piss, and got lucky and didn’t find a mess in the toilet. Sure, I can pick any corner of the world to take a leak in, but it didn’t hurt to pretend to be civilized from time to time.

  I opened drawers and came up with a bottle of Percocets that had expired a year ago. There was a bottle of TUMS, so I ate a few for the calcium. I found some birth control pills, considered them, and decided to leave the packet. It was better than getting slapped in the face by Anna Sails.

  “Oh yay. Jackpot, baby,” Joel called from the other room.

  I followed his voice into the hallway. He was rifling through a pantry, and he wasn’t being very organized about it. Open boxes were tossed to one side, while cans and closed supplies were put on the other side.

  “What?” I asked.

  “Found this,” he said and held up a flat box.

  “That looks like a pan or something,” I said.

  “Nah, man. It’s a burner. Takes these little cans of butane. You can even use it inside and it won’t kill ya.”

  “Nifty,” I said.

  “No more digging a fire pit and hoping we aren’t sniffed out. As long as we have fuel we can cook inside.” Joel grinned and pushed the box into his backpack along with a bunch of cans that looked like old-school hairspray.

  I wasn’t as excited as Joel. I’d gotten used to eating stuff right out of cans and cold. Chicken noodle soup wasn’t half bad in a congealed form.
It filled the gut and was easy to open and consume.

  In the bedroom I tossed the contents of a nightstand and came across a half bottle of something with a name so long I wasn’t about to try to pronounce it. I added it to the bag, along with a full bottle of antidepressants. Too bad there wasn’t enough to keep us all medicated for a year. If I was going to spend all of my time shooting Zs, I’d love to do it with a smile on my face.

  I also found a pair of fuzzy handcuffs.

  “Kinky bastard,” Joel said. I hadn’t even heard him moving down the hallway.

  "Antidepressants and handcuffs. Ain’t that some shit," I laughed.

  "Place must have belonged to white people," Joel said, and went to check out the last bedroom.

  I went through a dresser and found enough silky lingerie to open a Victoria's Secret store. I held up a pair of flimsy, see-through panties and squinted. "Why not?” I muttered and stuffed a few items in the bottom of my backpack.

  "Shit yeah." Joel said from the other room.

  He'd put a dresser drawer on the bed and was busy sorting out ammo. Whoever had lived here had been ready for action. It made me wonder where they were now.

  "Box of nine. Seven boxes of forty. Damn, we should check for that piece. And look at this. A few boxes of .45 rounds. Dude had a fucking armory. I love whoever lived here.”

  "You could tell him. He's probably the fucker thumping around in the last bedroom."

  “If at all possible, let’s avoid looking in that room. Could be another shuffler-kid, I’d rather just leave it a mystery.”

  “Good thing those smart Zs can’t figure out the complexities of a doorknob,” I said. “Reminds me of the aliens in that movie Signs. They traveled a million light years to conquer earth but couldn’t open a damn door.”