The Zed Files Trilogy (Book 1): The Hanging Tree

by David Andrew Wright

  The word, “Huh” is all I manage before I notice her hand is digging into her coat pocket. I stab the barrel a little harder into her throat and the hand stops. “My thoughts at the moment are that maybe you wanna bring your hands back up to where they were. Real slow and empty like, please and thank you. I don’t want to have to give you a supersonic tracheotomy.”

  She doesn’t move. Her eyes flatten even more. I raise my eyebrows and shake my head at her. Her hand comes out slowly and empty. I see defeat in her eyes as her hands re-clasp behind her head. “Well done,” I tell her. “Well done. Smart move, really. I already killed a good friend of mine this morning. Beat him to death with a flat board. Don’t’ think I won’t cap ya cuz you’re good look’n. Hell, if I had an ounce of sense, I’d a shot ya already because you ARE good look’n. But I’m kind a stupid and old fashioned that way.”

  “You got the stupid part right, anyway,” she spits. The fire is back in her eyes. “First chance I get I’m gonna cut your throat and… “

  I stomp her hard on the shoulder and plant her backwards in the mud. The rifle barrel pushes into her windpipe shutting her air down. “Ma’am,” I tell her still smiling, “if you wanna live to see the next shitty miracle of a fuckin day, I suggest you adopt a more congenial tone to your discourse. Lest I have to aerate you and let the vermin of the world feast on your hide.”

  I take the rifle barrel and push her chin to the side. The right dead reverend’s head lies on its side looking at her, jaws still moving. “Why lookie there. There’s a hungry vermin now. You don’t cool it, I’m gonna turn you over to Reverend Snappy’s dismembered coconut and let him work you like an ear of corn. Praise be and hallelujah.”

  The site of Reverend Snappy’s gaping maw seems to suck the fight out of her. With eyes closed and gritted teeth, comes the question, “What do you want then?”

  Easing up on the weight of my foot on her shoulder, I pull the rifle back a few inches. “Well, let’s see. Hmmm. A million dollars ain’t worth much anymore. I’m guessing a hug is out of the question. Caramel popcorn’s out. How’s about a little intel? Some information on this here hang’n tree. And what’s back behind it. Hell… we can have a little chit chat. I’ll leave your pump gun where you can get to it. We can go our separate ways. Nobody has to die.”

  I can see the wheels in her head turning; the lie machine kicking into high gear. What to tell me. What’s plausible? What would a poor dumb son-of-a-bitch like me believe?

  “I’ll even throw in a can of lima beans, if you want. I can’t stand the nasty things. I’d just as soon eat the ears off of Reverend Snappy’s head as eat those goddamned awful beans. Whatduhyasay?”

  Her head nods yes. I remove my foot. The game begins.

  Chapter 4: A Friend for Dinner

  “So whadya’ll got back there?” I ask her. I swish the cleaver around in a mud puddle to get the goo off. The small .25 caliber pistol that was in her pocket sits on a fallen tree next to me. Her shotgun leans against it. She is busy working a P-38 can opener on the lima beans.

  “People,” she says.

  “How many?”

  “Five.” She works the small awkward can opener fast and shaky. She is starving. Or scared maybe. I consider loaning her my full-sized can opener. But I ought to know better than anyone that no good deed goes unpunished.

  “Five,” I repeat. “That’s a lot of mouths to feed. You know, I haven’t talked to a lot of people recently but I’ve heard a couple of stories. Stories about hungry people. Six hungry people go to bed, five full people wake up. That sort of thing. Ya’ll ain’t uh… partakers of the flesh, are ya?”

  The can is only half open, but she bends the top over and chugs down a mouthful of beans. Relief covers her face as she swallows. I study the back of the cleaver, running my finger along the spine of the big blade. “No. We are not cannibals,” she tells me as she wipes her chin.

  She takes a spoon out of her front jacket pocket and digs into the can. She stops as I wipe the cleaver on some weeds. Her eyes meet mine. I see fear for the first time. I smile back at her. “I wouldn’t feed ya before I et ya. Especially lima beans. They’re bad enough like they are. Twice chewed be enough to choke a buzzard off a gut wagon.”

  Her spoon resumes its work and I can smell the beans from here. A warm and moist pumpkin fart builds up in me, but I hold it. I doubt she would care but I don’t think I could stomach the combined aromas.

  I check the .25 caliber pistol. The magazine has only three rounds and there’s one up the pipe. I empty it and toss the gun back to her. “You can put that back in your pocket. I’m sure glad you didn’t shoot me with it. Woulda made me mad as hell.”

  She quickly slides the pistol back into her pocket. The beans are disappearing fast. I need to know more. “Five, huh? I guess if you’re out on patrol that means you’re an ‘equal opportunity employer’ kind of outfit, right?”

  She shakes her head no. Her spoon scrapes the sides of the can to get as much bean residue as possible. “I thought I heard…” she lets it slide off into a shrug and shakes her head.

  “Heard what?” I press.

  “I thought I heard a plane or a car or something. I thought maybe it was a way out.”

  “Out,” I repeat. I look off into the trees that surround us. “Out to where?” I wave the cleaver in the direction she came from before returning it to its sheath. “I’ve heard about people making a go of it in the desert. Zed dries up there like a kitchen sponge left on a hot burner. Hear he don’t fair too well in the snow either. Round here though…” I look around at all the vegetation and gray skies, “here it seems just right for those rotten bastards.”

  She lets the empty can fall to the ground and takes a long drag from her canteen. She looks like she just got laid. Her eyes close as she speaks. “We were heading out as a group. Heading for someplace out west maybe. I dunno. Just running away from the city. But we ran out of fuel. Highways weren’t safe. Everybody was freaking out. The zombies were everywhere…”

  “Yeah, been there, done that.” I tell her. “How many did you start with?”

  “About 20. We lost a couple of families on the way out. The Dawsons got picked off on the highway by raiders. They fell behind on a hill and by the time we turned around for them, it was too late. The Alvarez family… we heard their car start up in the middle of the night and run for a while. We thought maybe they were cold. Next morning, you could see the hose duct taped to the exhaust.”

  She sighs heavily. “The rest of us found a school not far from here. It had a chain link fence around it. All of the stores had been cleared out, but for some reason, the school hadn’t been touched. We blocked off the open parts of the fence, boarded up the windows, started raiding empty houses in the little town. We made it a few days. Thought maybe we’d be able to make a stand there.”

  “School got out early, I take it.”

  “The five of us were out looking for food. Everyone else had taken a turn so the rest of us pretty much had to. We walked for a long way but there aren’t many houses all that close together. We took this dirt road down here and we found this… compound I guess you’d call it… back in the woods. Looks like some sort of religious compound. Lots of weird shit everywhere. But it was empty. It looked like it had been abandoned. But we thought it might be more defensible. Pretty solid log walls around the perimeter, metal gate.” She stops and looks up at the hanging tree. “I’ve got no idea what the hell this is all about. But this is where I heard the noises coming from last night. This direction anyway.”

  “No bodies or noth’n in the compound?” I ask.

  “Somebody had been staying there. But they weren’t there when we stopped by.”

  “Ah. Well… I guess if they didn’t leave anybody behind to mind the store then they must not be coming back.”

  She sighs heavily. “Yeah. I dunno. We headed back to the school to tell the others. When we went got back there…”

  Her voice trails off in
to nothing. No tears. No grief. Just a blank stare as the memory takes her vision. “The front gate was open…I thought maybe they were ex-military since they had a Jeep kind of thing with a big gun on it. When we got to where we could see with binoculars… they had all of them on their knees out front.”

  The memory that had taken her vision takes her words now. The gears inside spin without touching each other but refuse to stop spinning. Her hands clench at the second knuckle as if to hold all of the broken parts in. “I could see a man walking along in front of them all with a pistol, just shooting each one in the head. They were loading the bodies into a panel truck.”

  She is beautiful in her emotionless despair, gorgeous in her shattered state. My hand moves to the holster under my poncho. My breath quickens and my teeth clench as my thumb lovingly caresses the fine notches cut into the spur hammer of my .45.

  I imagine running my hand across the smooth skin of this woman’s face. Our empty eyes meeting as she finds solace in the knowledge that she is not alone. I think of kissing her gently and staring through the broken windows of her soul. Her mouth falling open in ecstasy and surprise as the hammer falls and the round ignites.

  A howl erupts from behind me, shattering our separate daydreams. A thrashing in the bushes is closing fast. I spin and toss the shotgun to her as she springs up. I bring the Ruger to my shoulder and quickly dial the scope down to its lowest power. I see a blurry flash through the eyepiece. It’s too close. I look over the scope and fire point blank as the first Zed jumps. The bullet enters his open mouth, driving up through the palate. A small spray of bone and black blood erupts from the center of his skull. He crumples in a pile in front of me. He looks to be about fifteen maybe.

  I hear more coming. A girl of about the same age as the first Zed bursts into the thicket on a dead run at the woman. The woman doesn’t fire. I look out of the corner of my eye, but remain watching forward. The Zed teenager is almost to the woman. I start to turn and shoot but I’m going to be too late. The woman waits until the Zed is only about three feet away before unloading in her face. The girl’s body continues forward while the top of her head lifts slightly and falls behind her.

  Two more charge from in front of me. I sidestep away from the woman to where the brush isn’t as tall. I swing the little rifle and pull a bead on the first one’s head as he runs by. Keep the barrel swinging, I tell myself and pull the trigger. The tiny bullet enters just forward of the ear into the temple. His head snaps and he does a face plant in front of me. The second one is almost to the woman but I can’t get him in time. The woman racks the slide on the pump gun and lets him have it in the side of the head. His skull seems to expand slightly from the shock wave and he falls to the ground on top of the lidless Zed girl.

  I grab my pack and push ahead a few yards to the tree line. I need to be able to see them coming from further away; this underbrush doesn’t provide enough warning. There may only be a few, there may be a hundred. There may be a never-ending wave of them. I scan between the trees for signs of movement and step forward again. Everything looks quiet. As I move out into the open spaces below the trees, something hits me hard from behind, knocking me down. I can hear the remnants of the shotgun’s boom rolling off through the woods.

  I roll to my side and bring the rifle up. I can see the woman standing about 25 yards behind me, shotgun raised, a small cloud of smoke rising above her. My arm hurts like I’ve been stung a thousand times but I raise the rifle and fire at her. The shot is wild. She doesn’t duck or flinch. She stares at me a moment before turning slowly and walking away. I grit my teeth and listen. I think I hear footsteps leading away but leave the rifle pointing in her general direction.

  I kick my head back and squeeze my eyes shut against the pain. I look at my arm and see tiny red spots coming through my jacket. My pack has taken the brunt of the blast. I see the white plastic shotgun wad lying a few feet from me. I run my fingers over my wounded shoulder. Tiny lead pellets stick to my bloody fingers. “Fucking birdshot,” is all I can say.

  I get up off the ground and inspect my pack. The pellets have torn a small hole in the canvas. If I hadn’t moved forward when I did, she probably would have been close enough to smoke me. I smile as I think about her scurrying back to her friends. I pick up my rifle and make sure I have everything important. I put her pistol bullets in my pocket.

  Looking back towards her direction, I yell off into the forest, “Missed me, missed me, now ya gotta kiss me.”

  I grimace quietly and look at my arm again. “Fucking Christ. My mother always warned me about talking to strange women with shotguns.” I need to find a place to hole up, clean up. Infection will kill me as quick as anything.

  I look around me. If I had any sense, I’d trek straight north of here and then west. Maybe make for the Rocky Mountains and leave Goldilocks to play with her friends at the fort until the three or more bears come home and eat their stupid asses.

  “But if I had any sense at all, I’d of shot her on sight and kept going. You know better,” I tell myself as I pick myself up off the ground. “It’s like Grandma used to say, ‘Don’t be stupid all your life.’”

  The compound can’t be far from here. I put my pack on my good shoulder. I check the chamber of the rifle and begin picking my way through the underbrush. She wasn’t a pointy-eared green Neptunian woman, but she wasn’t half bad either.

  Chapter 5: Twist and Shout

  “Find tracks, follow tracks, get hit by train,” I say to myself as I follow the woman’s trail through the forest. It’s the punch line to an old joke about three hunters. First one finds deer tracks, follows them, gets a deer. Second one, an elk. Third one… yeah… well… you get the idea. I figure most of the time, the punch line is funnier by itself. For instance, So the farmer says to the salesman, ‘But I don’t have a daughter!’ See what I mean?

  Gut-buster.

  I’m not sure why I’m following her. The sky overhead is growing darker and more menacing. The air is yellow again and what I can see of the horizon is dark green. It isn’t exactly nuclear winter like they said it would be on the news but it is damn strange weather to be sure. I can’t remember how many kilotons of crap got blown into the stratosphere by that rock that landed in the Atlantic, but it has been a long time since the sun came out.

  I’m still in the woods and it is a bad, bad place to be if a twister drops down. A flash of lightning hits close enough to make me duck. Having all of these trees around kind of sucks for lightning too.

  I see a smudged boot print on the edge of a puddle. The leaves on the ground leading away from it are disturbed in evenly paced gaps, far enough apart to indicate running. “I’d run too if I were chasing me,” I say softly. I take off after her, moving quickly but quietly. The electricity in the air stokes my adrenaline and I slide between the trees and around the bushes like an electron sliding along the wire of a hot cattle fence. If she had invited me to come with her, I would have said hell no. But after taking a shot at me, I’m running after her like a starving man called to a free chicken dinner.

  The tracks are closer together now. She’s run out of air. I slow my pace as well. She probably knows I’m following. “And should that concern me?” I ask myself. I stop for a moment and look around me. What the hell am I doing? “You need to get laid, buddy,” I tell myself. But she waited for the Zed kids to get close enough before unloading on them with the birdshot, why shoot me from so far away if she wanted to kill me?

  Another blast of lightning hits close and the first few heavy drops of rain hit the leaves around me. I can see the clouds moving overhead at great speeds but it is perfectly calm on the ground. The sound of the raindrops should be enough to cover the sound of my approach, I decide, and I pick up my pace. Both hands stay on the little Ruger. All she has to do is hide behind a tree for a second, wait for me to walk past and then let me have it. And I figure she’s that kinda girl. Call me crazy.

  The trees thin ahead and I find a dirt road. H
er boot print sits on top of a heavy truck tire track. I step to the grassy middle of the road and follow after her.

  I’m jogging now and my shoulder hurts like hell. I feel goofy and slightly euphoric from the endorphins. But there’s no mistaking all hell is about to break loose behind me. My eyes scan from side to side hoping to spot a barn or an old house or anything. I need a place to hole up, clean up, take a few aspirin and get some kind of game plan together. Chasing Goldilocks over the river and through the woods just for the sake of doing it is just plain stupid. I can feel the lightning hit before the crack. I duck down as flat as I can go without hitting the deck. Something heavy falls in the woods behind me.

  Finally, I see a farmhouse off to my right. It appears to have been abandoned long before zombies and angry women with shotguns roamed the forest. The wood siding has been bleached gray by time and the porch wrapping around the front and sides has long since fallen in. The roof appears to be mostly intact and covered in green moss, only a few small holes penetrate the old wood shingles. The front door is slightly ajar and I can see the foot of a staircase. This oughta work, provided I’m not in the direct path of anything rotating.

  I walk around the side of the house and find two warped and broken cellar doors. Bingo. All of these old houses have root cellars. It may not save me from a big tornado, but it may keep me upright and breathing after a little one. I lift the corner of one of the wooden doors and look down inside.

  I pull out my flashlight and shine the steps. From what I can see, the steps are covered in coon shit and leaves. Cool stinky humid air breathes against me. The old house groans and creaks and a big limb from one of the trees lands on the roof. I nearly jump out of my skin at the sound of it.

  I shine the light around some more. Could be possums down there or rats. Probably a million spiders and millipedes. Hope to god that’s all. I’m not sure why there would be a Zed down there but they tend to turn up in the damndest places. But it looks like mostly shit.