by TW Brown
The Ned-zombie let loose with a rasping moan now that the noose wasn’t constricting it. That elicited a few cries and gasps. These people were getting a sneak peek at what he was going to demonstrate in front of the entire town shortly. Ned was not going to be part of that bigger demonstration, Ken thought with a wince as he stepped forward to end what might possibly be suffering…or nothingness. Whatever the case, the man deserved better than an ending like this. Grabbing the man by a handful of hair, Ken thrust his blade into the open and staring left eye socket.
The sounds of more gasps and shrieks echoed in his head as he eased Ned’s now still corpse to the ground. Without a word, he knelt, scooped the man into his arms, and carried him to his truck where he laid the body down in the bed.
As he slipped his arms out, he spotted a folded piece of paper in the breast pocket of the man’s shirt. Plucking it out, he climbed into the cab of his vehicle and unfolded it. It read:
To who finds this,
I apologize for what will seem like a very terrible display, but you all need to understand that this is very serious. I don’t know how, but somehow, I have become infected. I noticed the start of the dark tracers in my eyes just after we got back from the Miller house. I did not get bitten, but somehow, I am still infected. I can feel it…taste it in the back of my throat. Rather than possibly become one of those things, I have decided to go out on my own terms. Please pray for my soul as I know that suicide is supposed to be an unforgiveable sin that will condemn me to Hell. And if that is my fate, then I will accept it rather than possibly bite and infect one of you. So, please, pray for me and ask that I be forgiven my final sin.
I know there is a gathering set for here, so this is why I chose this as my location. My hope is that the person who find this will share it during the meeting. If I can say one thing to you all, it is simply this—your only chance at surviving is to stay together. I know that many of us have had differences with one another over the years. None of that matters now.
Ned
Ken felt a suspicious moisture in the corner of his eyes. He promptly bit down on the inside of his mouth to drive it back and wiped it away with the heel of his hand.
“If you weren’t bitten…then how did you turn into one of those things?” Ken growled.
He drove back to the brewery and carried Ned’s corpse inside. Colton watched in silence as he stalked through the building to the back. Once inside his office, he went about the unpleasant task of undressing Ned. He was only partially surprised to discover that there was not a single bite, nick, or scratch on the man’s body.
Sitting down on the cold hard floor, Ken meant to simply rest for a moment before dressing the man and carrying the body back out to the pickup. He leaned his head back against the wall and merely shut his eyes to ease the stinging sensation.
A moment later, Ken’s chest was rising and falling in the steady rhythm of sleep as his soft snore began to vibrate throughout the small room. Almost immediately, the nightmares began.
4
More Bad News
People were filing in to the stadium. Ken stood at midfield with a makeshift PA setup that one of the school custodians had helped assemble. Despite having so many people gathered, it was strangely quiet. There was a low buzz, but it was very subtle.
Colton stood at his side. He kept looking back at the small horse trailer like he expected it to fly open and gush with the worst demons from the depths of hell. Bennett stood at his other side. She had a clipboard in her hands and had been jotting notes furiously since they’d arrived.
He knew better than to interrupt her when she was this intent on something. The tip of her tongue stuck out from the corner of her mouth and her eyes were squinting as she tried to bore a hole through the page with her vision. That was always a dead giveaway. He stifled a snort of laughter at his pun.
“What’s so funny?” Colton whispered.
“Just random thoughts,” Ken answered with a dismissive wave.
Colton shook his head as if he did not believe anybody could find a reason to chuckle at a time like this. Ken returned his attention to the slowly growing crowd. He saw so many familiar faces, but he also realized that, despite how small Estacada was, there were a lot of people for whom he could not say he even had a glimmer of recognition.
He saw clusters of children from grade school to high school all flitting about the crowd. Most of them seemed oblivious to what was going on. He had a slight twinge of apprehension about what he was about to do, but then realized that the rules of as recent as yesterday no longer applied in many instances.
It took much longer than he would’ve liked for the crowd to finally stop trickling in and get seated. Even more frustrating, Mayor Drinkwine was one of the last through the gate. He had to figure the man had made it a point to greet every soul that walked past. Hell, if that was the case, no wonder it took the crowd this long to get situated. It was this lack of urgency that he intended to put an end to. After a nod to Colton, Ken approached the microphone.
“For those of you who don’t know me,” Ken started as the mayor made his way across the field to where he stood with Bennett and Colton, “my name is Ken Johnson. I’m one of the people who called this meeting.
“As many of you may know, there has been a very serious situation sweeping the world. Some of you may have heard of the ‘Blue Death’ or the ‘Z-plague’ on the news. It doesn’t matter what name you give it, this is something very serious…and it has come to our small town.”
He let that last statement sink in. There was a visible as well as audible tremor in the crowd at this proclamation. Ken recounted the Miller residence incident as well as his own encounter at the warehouse. After a pause to let that sink in, he glanced at Mayor Drinkwine who obviously wanted to address the crowd as he indicated by holding up one finger.
“Some of you have heard…or were witness to the loss of my friend Ned Sanders. I want to share a note I discovered on him after retrieving his body.” Ken went on to read the note. He looked up when he finished and saw many people wiping their eyes. Glancing over, he saw that even Mayor Drinkwine had red-rimmed eyes and a hint of moisture glistening on his lashes.
“Friends, I want to make a point about what Ned said. We have to do what we can to ensure our safety. I know that this opens some very questionable moral doors, but this is an unprecedented situation. There is no way we could be prepared for this, but we can now do what is needed to take care of ourselves.” He paused again to let that sink in, then continued. “And now I want to step aside for Mayor Drinkwine, but before I do, I want to tell you that we have a demonstration planned at the end of this, and some of you might think you want to get your children out of here before we do it. I want to advise you against that. This is not the same world you knew even a few days ago. I believe your children need to be aware of the danger we are facing.”
Ken moved back from the microphone for the mayor. As the man began to address the crowd, Ken considered the events of the past couple of days. He turned back and walked over to the horse trailer. Colton stood a few steps away from it with a look on his face that Ken couldn’t recall having ever seen: fear.
Part of him was almost happy. The young man should be afraid of these things.
Almost as if the creature in the trailer knew he was thinking about it, a low moan sounded from inside it, echoing off the metal walls. That made Colton put another few feet between him and the horse trailer.
“…and now, for those of you who may not feel comfortable with your children seeing something graphic and possibly disturbing, I want to warn you that the upcoming demonstration is going to be possibly unsettling,” Mayor Drinkwine cautioned.
The man turned to Ken and gave the slightest of nods before moving away. It wasn’t lost on Ken that the man walked to the stands and sat with the crowd that remained. It also surprised him at just how many people did not leave.
Walking over to the trailer, he drew a machete from his hi
p and pulled the cotter pin from the latch. Even being prepared, he still felt his stomach clench when the full stench hit him.
There was a moment when all he could see was a bit of movement in the shadows deep in the back of the trailer. At last, the woman zombie lurched forward enough to be visible. There was a noose around its neck and a long strand of rope trailed behind it.
When it finally reached the end of the trailer and could be clearly seen by most of the people in the stands, there was a collective gasp. Seeing something like this on television was one thing, but now that it was here in front of the town in the flesh, it was real.
Ken remembered how he’d watched the different news reports. Even when some of these things had been zoomed in on with a camera, there was a disconnect in reality. The mindset he held was that this was a problem for the big cities. Certainly it would not reach out to the rural places like Estacada, had been his thought. Yet, here it was for everybody to see firsthand.
The zombie woman stood in place for a moment as its head twitched and looked one way and then another. At last, it fixed on Ken and started for him, its hands reaching. Instinctively, he backed up despite being several feet away. A sound to his right made him glance as Colton scrambled back almost all the way to the bleachers.
Holding the mic, Ken kept his eyes on the zombie as he addressed the crowd. “You can see that these things are very real. This one was in a vehicle involved in an accident right by city hall. Instead of simply putting her down on the spot, I wanted to demonstrate a few things to make a point.”
The zombie moaned as Ken side-stepped its advance and moved around so that he was now facing the audience. For a moment, the creature stayed put and cocked its to head one side and then the other in an almost bird-like manner. He worried that it might start toward the crowd and gave a low whistle. That proved to be enough to get it to turn to him once more.
“Some have suggested that these things might just be ill. I can almost promise that is not the case. These things are very dead.”
This caused another ripple to come from the crowd. Doubt was clear on a few of the faces. This convinced Ken that he was indeed right to do this demonstration. Without warning, Ken swung with his machete. The blade chopped through one outstretched arm just above the wrist and the hand fell unceremoniously to the grass. Just as he’d hoped, the zombie made no indication it even noticed.
“There is no reaction,” he announced. “This thing is dead…undead…whatever you want to call it. What it is not is a living being. This poor thing died from whatever this is that is happening and then came back as a monster.” With that, he chopped again. This time aiming for one leg. It took three swings—all the while the gathered crowd reacting with groans and a few shrieks—but he eventually separated the leg just above the knee.
The zombie toppled to the ground amidst even more cries from the crowd. There were a few shouts, but he tuned them out. If these people were going to have a chance, they needed to understand what they were facing.
“The reports say that these things spread their infection through a bite or scratch. I can tell you that is not entirely accurate. I checked Ned after cutting him down and saw no indication of any injury. Yet, for those who were there to see, he was one of these things.” Ken stepped aside and kicked at the female zombie’s outstretched hand. During just this short period, she had managed to squirm closer to him. “If anybody has any ideas, please meet with the mayor after this and pass it along. But I wanted to make this point about how to end one of these things.”
Ken’s mind flashed back to when he’d basically flattened a part of that one zombie’s skull to no effect. An idea bloomed and he worked his way around to the side of the thing. As quickly as possible, he moved in, stepped down on its back to pin it in place, and then chopped down hard on the back of its neck. This only took two swings, but at last he’d chopped through.
With one booted toe, he nudged the head away from the body and was not that surprised to see the mouth still moving and the eyes tracking him. He reached down and grabbed it by the hair.
“The reports say that massive head trauma is the only way to put these things down.” He started towards the bleachers despite the shouts and cries of protest peppering the crowd. “The actual damage seems to need to be to the brain itself.”
Holding up the head, those closest had no trouble seeing that it was still animate. Many cringed away, but a few leaned forward, obviously curious. There were even some toward the middle and the back that got up and made their way down the stairs to get a look.
“This should remove any doubt as to the fact that these things are no longer one of the living. They aren’t just sick…they are dead!” One of the men that had come down front started to reach out as if he might be about to poke the thing. Ken jerked it back. “Are you not hearing me? This thing will bite you and give you whatever it is that causes this. This is what killed the Millers. I had to put down the seventeen-year-old daughter. Missus Miller. Do you want to be next?”
“It just looks so…unreal,” the man gasped. “How is this possible?”
“Smarter people than me don’t have a clue, so I can’t help you with that answer. But let me assure you,” he shook the head for emphasis, “that this thing is quite real.”
“So what are we supposed to do?” somebody from the crowd yelled.
“Haven’t you been paying attention?”
Ken turned, surprised to see Mayor Drinkwine standing just a few feet away. “We are going to need to secure our town. We have to go door-to-door and check on our neighbors. We must be prepared to fight these things off if they come. We have to set aside the ideas that governed society just a few short days ago.”
At that point, Ken had heard and spoken enough. He walked back to the trailer, sticking a blade into the eye socket of the zombie head to finish the job. After helping load the corpse into the trailer, he decided that driving out to a field just outside of town would be ideal for disposing of the bodies. He would suggest to the mayor that they burn any and all contaminated bodies at a specific location. There was no telling if the corpses would contaminate the ground, so he wanted to be proactive and ensure they disposed of the bodies away from any of the farms or water supplies.
By the time he got home, Ken Johnson was exhausted. He could not recall the last time he’d eaten, and other than the short cat nap he’d taken in his office, he hadn’t really gotten any sleep in the past couple of days.
Flopping down in his favorite recliner, he planned to just clear his head and then get some sleep. It was sixteen hours later when he awoke…and not pleasantly.
***
“Ken, wake up now!” Bennett practically screamed.
He jumped, his hands patting his body down in search of a weapon as his brain still clung to the image of the undead horror that had been the Miller girl coming for him in his nightmares. Looking around, it took several panting breaths to realize he was in his own living room.
“Ken, get out here!” Bennett called out, a hint of panic in her voice that was very uncharacteristic.
Pushing himself out of the chair, Ken hurried to where he heard his wife calling for him. As he entered the kitchen, the hint of a stink he now knew to be associated uniquely with the undead drifted up his nose.
When he reached the arch that opened to the kitchen, his eyes immediately went to the sliding glass door. Standing at it was one of the undead. It was nobody Ken recognized, but it was the most horrifying thing he’d seen yet.
The woman had been perhaps in her early thirties. Her long dark hair was clumped and littered with twigs, leaves, and other things that indicated she’d come from the nearby woods. Her lower lip was dangling down from her chin and most of her nose had been chewed off. She was naked, and her belly had been ripped open, allowing her insides to unspool. Much of it had obviously been ripped away or perhaps eaten, but here were still strands of intestine dangling from the hideous open wound. A few of the lower ribs of her
ribcage had been splintered, and one was actually jutting through the waxy skin of her abdomen. Both breasts had been ripped away and flaps of skin hung from that area as well, indicating she’d likely been a busty woman before her death.
“This one just showed up, but there are three more out there, only…they’re…different. And they’re…children,” Bennett said, whispering that last bit like she was hoping it was all just an illusion.
“Where?” Ken stepped into the kitchen, his eyes having a tough time tearing themselves away from the zombie at the door as he sought out the children Bennett spoke of.
“Over there.” She pointed to the thick row of hedges that were beside the storage shed in the far end of their back yard.
It took him a few minutes, but when he finally spotted the children, he took another step closer to the sliding glass door before he realized it. There were indeed three children in the bushes. If he had a guess, he put them between five and ten years old. There was a little girl and two little boys. They all bore the wounds of having been savagely attacked. Their eyes were filmed over and shot full of the black tracers as further confirmation. Only, unlike every zombie he’d encountered up to this point, these three were making no effort to come for him. If anything, they seemed to be watching the woman zombie as she clawed and scratched at the glass.
“How long have they been here?” Ken asked as he eased up beside his wife.
“A few minutes, I guess,” she answered. “I was just finishing with getting a bunch of bread made when I heard a noise. I turned around and just about wet myself. That woman was at the door staring in at me. As soon as I screamed, she started pawing and slapping at it.”
“What time is it?” he asked, looking around the dining room until his eyes settled on a clock that answered his question before Bennett could reply. “Eight? In the morning? Damn, how long was I out?”
