Our Undead

by Theo Vigo

  "He didn't even stop or take a look back to see if my dad was okay. I just stood there shocked, holding the door open for everybody, watching my dad scuffle to his feet with those things right on his tail. I wanted to run after him, but it was literally a "deer caught in the headlights" moment for me. It's something I'm really ashamed about.

  "My dad… He was able to get to his feet, but he was just a second too late. The zombies were on him, and he struggled to get them away, punching and flinging them off of him. He was so strong. I still couldn't move, but like lightning out of the corner of my eye, I saw the Australian guy take off toward him. My dad was prying himself away from one last zombie that had him by the arm when the Aussie guy had made it over to him, but then another one grabbed my dad on the shoulder.

  "God, I wish I could remember this guy's name. The Australian hero Baby-Ruthed the hell out of the zombie that had my dad by his shoulder. It allowed him to rip his arm away from the other one. I noticed in his face, that he winced when he had done it. After that, they managed to make it to the door pretty much just in time, but we found out later, when everyone was safely inside, that my dad had gotten scratched by the zombie he pulled away from. If it weren't for that chicken shit bastard my dad wouldn't have gotten infected."

  <><><>

  The end of her story brings us back to Margaret, Abe and Billy, walking down the dusty, dirt road at sunset.

  Margaret: Humans are naturally mean spirited cowards.

  Billy: The Australian hero wasn't a mean spirited coward.

  Margaret: Maybe not… but maybe he just didn't want to be the only strong male left in the group. If my dad had died that guy probably would've felt responsible for all of us women, plus the asshole fat-ass. When it comes down to it, he saved my dad for selfish reasons.

  Billy: I guess it could've been selfish, but it sounds like it was the best thing for your group at the time.

  Margaret: (sighs) All I'm saying is that zombies can't help but try and eat brains. They're brain dead so how can you blame them. Humans, on the other hand, have the ability to make decisions, and most of the time they choose to be cruel. What type of shit is that?! I bet you probably turned because of the actions of some thoughtless human too. Am I right, Abe?

  Margaret turns to Abe who is following not too far behind and chucks a small rock at his head. She nails it.

  Margaret: Yesss. Right in the noggin'.

  Billy: I don't know if I can believe that. I think everyone is just different.

  Margaret: Yea, I know everyone is different. I'm just saying that the majority…

  Billy: Wait. Shhh...

  Billy stops Margaret short again with his hand, Frank Costanza style.

  Margaret: What? You see something? Rabbits again?

  Billy: No. I don't see... Listen.

  Margaret concentrates on her auditory sense. She can't hear anything at first, but soon her ears begin to catch a soft shuffling sound, a sound that has become all too familiar to her during the last almost two weeks.

  Margaret: Shit… Zombies?

  Billy nods and pulls Margaret by her sleeve closer to the cover of the cornfield. She pulls Abe over with them as well, and the three lay low in the shadow at the side of the road. Although she can hear the shuffling getting louder, it's really difficult to tell which way the sound is coming from. Margaret wonders what Billy must be thinking, and soon she finds out. Billy taps her and points in the direction that they were headed in.

  About fifty feet ahead of them, a dark figure in the shape of a human trudges out of the cornfield and on to the road. They stay crouched and quiet. They need to be sure that the thing is a zombie and not a wandering survivor. It stands there for a few seconds, and then is joined by a second silhouette, also emerging from the cornfield, and then another. Ten seconds pass and four more humanoid forms come out from the cornfield. At this point, the girl and boy are certain that the black figures are undead. Billy whispers to Margaret his plan.

  Billy: Okay, we'll make our way around them using the cornfield.

  Margaret: But they're coming from the cornfield. Shouldn't we go back into the woods?

  Billy: No way. They'll hear us walking through there in a second. Just follow me, and move slow for now.

  Margaret: Then let's head back first, and then go into the woods.

  Billy: They're already heading this way. If we go back they'll just catch up to us, and the sun is almost set. We can't risk getting caught. Pushing past them is our best chance. Trust me.

  Needless to say, it's pretty hard to deny Billy's conviction. What did she have to lose anyhow, except her life? She gives Billy a nod of approval, and the three of them enter the tall browning leaves of the cornfield. They walk cautiously for several feet through the stalks of dead crop, pushing each one aside as they make their way through. They can still hear the shuffling, but now it truly sounds like it is coming from every direction. In her mind, Margaret says a little prayer, but it gets cut short when Billy prompts her to stop. He speaks with haste.

  Billy: Margaret, can you do something for me?

  Margaret: What?

  Billy: I need you to lift me up on to your shoulders. I need to see above this field.

  Margaret: Fine. Fine.

  She drops her duffel bag and crouches, offering Billy her shoulders. Billy takes off his knapsack and gets settled on the back of Margaret's neck.

  Billy: Okay, go up slowly.

  She does just that, lifting Billy up as slowly as she can manage. Billy is as light as she expected so lifting him is relatively easy, even with most of his weight on her good left foot. When Billy feels that he is high enough, he taps Margaret's shoulder.

  Billy: K, that's enough.

  Margaret stops ascending, and Billy gets a relatively clear view of what lies ahead of them. From above, he can see that the six or seven zombies that they saw on the dirt road are not alone. The field in front on them is literally teeming with dark figures of the undead, all who are slowly heading in the general direction of the trio. Billy isn't a boy that is easily shaken, but the sight of the hoard that lies ahead puts a nauseated look on his face. The hoard is broken horizontally into two halves, and Billy notices the break in between the two separate groups. With the dimming daylight, it is hard to notice, but to him it looks like a pause in a sea of dark undulating heads. He taps Margaret on her crown.

  Billy: Bring me down.

  Margaret squats down, and Billy hops off her shoulders with a stone cold expression. What stands ahead looks quite daunting, but he doesn't want to worry Margaret by looking troubled, a practice in keeping himself calm as well.

  Margaret: What did you see?

  Billy: Uhh… I saw about two hundred walkers coming through the field toward us. They're not too far ahead, about a hundred feet away.

  Margaret: What the hell, Billy Tell?!

  Billy gives her an odd look for the little rhyme she created and wonders how she could be cracking jokes at a time like this. Maybe it was an accident. It isn't her fault that "Tell" rhymes with "hell".

  Margaret: So are you ready to head back now!? You're not seriously still considering pushing forward are you?

  Billy: We have to. I don't think you want to tangle with those things in fifteen minutes when everything is pitch black.

  Margaret: Shit… Well, you'd better have an amazing plan.

  Billy: I do. You're going to keep heading to the right. Just keep going deeper into the field. It looks like they're only coming from up ahead, so the rest of the field should be relatively safe, apart from the zombies that may have strayed from the pack. It was too dark for me to see any solo walkers. Just keep heading that way, but be careful… You can even use Abe as a buffer. Let him walk in front of you, like a human shield. It'll give you some extra time to react if you run into anything.

  Margaret: Aah, okay fine. What are you gonna do?

  Billy: I'll be back.

  With that Billy gets down on his knees and bolts off in the
direction of the hoard of two hundred. Margaret watches the kid disappear into the dark cover of the field, astounded, but she brings herself back to reality quickly and grabs Abe by the arm.

  Margaret: Okay, Abe. Let's get moving.

  She takes her duffel bag up in her left hand, slinging it on to the same shoulder and takes the knife out of the side of her shorts with her right. She uses the same right hand to guide Abe from the back.

  Margaret: You're taking the lead this time buddy. Go on.

  She pushes him forward with her knife hand, and it doesn't take too long for Abe to understand want she wants. He begins walking forward, and Margaret follows close behind. As the sun sets, it gets increasingly difficult to see. The tall stalks of dead corn don't help anything either. It gives good cover from the undead, but the cover works both ways. Both prey and hunter cannot see it each other. Margaret wonders who has the better advantage, and then she wonders which she is, the hunter or the hunted. Billy is definitely not the hunted. She wonders next what he could possibly be doing.

  The skinny black kid from Portland shuffles through the field on his knees, and soon he is not only quickly crawling through the bases of thick stems, but begins to pass the beat up feet and legs of walkers. The zombie leg to corn stalk ratio increases quite rapidly, and it quickly becomes harder for Billy to crawl around unnoticed, especially as he brushes past their legs. The walkers start taking heed of the boy, and they begin following him. Billy takes notice as well, but a clever boy such as this is not easily unnerved. He reaches into his back pocket as he crawls and takes out a small pocketknife. He unsheathes it and begins slicing through any approaching Achilles tendon. They'd still be able to follow him, but there is no way they would be able to keep up. He also makes sure to impale any heads that fall too near by.

  In a much calmer section of the field, Margaret and Abe are still cautiously making their way through the giant leaves. Abe still takes the lead, and Margaret plays the role of observer, keeping an eye on all directions and peeking over Abe's shoulder every once in a while to make sure he doesn't run into one of his cousins. Everything seems to be fine, although, she is beginning to wonder how much farther she should continue walking. At least Billy was right in telling her that there isn't anything dangerous over in this area. That was how she felt, until a sudden groan puts her entire body and every hair on it at full attention. A quick survey of her surroundings, and she sees nothing, but the groan gets louder and is soon accompanied by the crackling of something stepping recklessly through the plants. She pulls Abe's t-shirt from the back, signaling him to stop, and they stand still, waiting for whatever might be coming their way.

  Abe is the first one to see the walker that emerges from the thick in front of him. The two zombies stare at each other, each one looking the other over, but when Margaret pokes her head over Abe's right shoulder and sees the monster, she pushes Abe forward in a sort of panicked yet controlled thrust, an automatic reaction she didn't expect. Abe bumps violently into the zombie in front of him, sending the walker to the ground.

  Margaret: Fuck.

  Shaken but not stirred, Margaret drops her bag, passes Abe, full mounts the fallen zombie, and gives it three, quick, double-handed stabs to the cranium. She barely has any time to rest or react, when a second walker comes through the unflattened stalk. It immediately lunges on top of her, and although she is able to make a quick turn, she winds up on her back, fighting for her life.

  Still dodging and slicing the tendons of the undead, Billy Tell realizes that he has not had to dodge or slice a tendon for some time. He stops for a moment, as it seems he has made it to the break in the hoard. He knows he doesn't have much time so he moves fast, slinging his bag around to his front and pulling out three grey sticks of dynamite.

  Margaret grows tired. The zombie on top of her is ravenous, and she can't get a good enough footing, for her legs are tangled up atop the dead body of her previous attacker. There's no way she can get this one off of her with both of her hands occupied, holding the flailing wrists of the beast. It's a wonder that she's managing to avoid getting her face bitten off with the lack of visibility. She moves her head from right to left, every time, in the knick of time.

  Margaret: Shit… Get!… Off!

  It's no use until Margaret remembers the ace up her sleeve. She thinks to call Abe for help, but before she can get a word out, she sees Abe already standing above her. He reaches down and sticks his fingers into her attacker's mouth, grabbing the snarling zombie by its upper jaw. It sputters and bites down on Abe's hand as it gets lifted off of Margaret who dashes out and away from the two rotting men. She gets to her feet and watches as Abe takes the zombie's lower jaw with his other hand and proceeds to rip the monster's mouth apart. When finished, Abe throws the separated lower half of the jaw aside and flings the rest of the zombie over to Margaret. It stumbles toward her and falls to its knees right in front of her. The bottom half of it's face is gone, but it still pursues her. Before it can grab her, she gives it a forward kick, sending it to the ground closer to where Abe stands and jumps it with her knife. When it stops writhing, she gets off of it and grabs her duffel bag.

  Margaret: Wait'll Billy hears about thi--

  Before she finishes her sentence, yet another zombie comes forth from the tall leaves. It scares the shit out of her, but this time she is ready and makes quick work of it. Now, three dead zombies lay on the flattened surface of stalks before her and Abe.

  Margaret: Maybe we should get out of here. Come on Abe, let's keep moving.

  Margaret tucks away her knife and takes Abe by the wrist, about to lead him further in the direction Billy in which had told them to go, when she hears another sound approaching fast. She turns around and takes her knife back out, ready to attack, but the thing turns out to be Billy. He is coming at them fast, and it doesn't look like he plans on stopping.

  Billy: Run!

  Margaret: Why? What's going on?

  Billy: Just run!!

  Margaret puts her knife away, grabs Abe's arm and her duffel bag and follows behind Billy as fast as she can. Not but five seconds later, she hears a deafening blast that comes from behind them, and then another, and then one more. The unexpected noise sends a chime down her spine and creates mild tremors in the ground, causing Margaret to cringe and come to a stop. She lets out a high-pitched yelp that catches Billy's attention. She sees his little black head poke out from the large stems ahead of her.

  Billy: Come on! Don't stop!

  And just like that his head vanishes again. Margaret snaps back into action. The last thing she wants to do is to lose Billy in this zombie-ridden labyrinth of a cornfield. The shortage of light makes it difficult to see, not to mention having to drag Abe's unstable anatomy along behind her, but Margaret does a fine job keeping up. She tries her best to follow the sound of the lengths of stalk that Billy tramples over as he runs, while also keeping a close eye on his speedy little figure. She thinks to herself how lucky she is that the field is there to regulate Billy's speed, otherwise he would have already left her in the dust. She also thinks it weird that they are running. What is there to run away from? Are the zombies, two hundred strong, hot on their tails right now? She doesn't know, but she does think that it's unlike Billy to just be running through this cornfield without even half a drop of the caution he was exercising before. It just doesn't seem smart to her. Perhaps Billy's plan didn't work out the way he thought it would, and now they're in the middle of "Plan-B"; run like hell.

  So this was the plan the whole time then, to run recklessly away? They would've been better off taking their chances in the woods. At least, that is what Margaret thinks, and she really begins to believe that when stray zombies begin to appear on their path. She didn't get to see the first one, but she had heard the growl and the thump that sent it to the ground. Half a second later, her and Abe are running over it's still moving body. Soon she and her pet are running over another felled zombie, and then another. She deduces that Billy is
running himself into the lost walkers as he runs. It seems like the only explanation, especially after one tries to grab her out of nowhere, and her first instinct is to knock it across it's face and keep moving. It must've have also been Billy's first instinct. Better to stick and move than fight it out in this mess.

  It feels like they have been running forever even though it's only been about two minutes. With her ankle still not at one hundred percent, the voices of doubt start to creep in earlier than usual. This is when Margaret starts to breathe heavily, but she notices that Billy seems to be moving slightly to the left now. They continue in that direction and continue pushing over any stray ghouls that get in their way, when suddenly, to her left, Margaret can see a dark grey cloud of smoke rising and flames beginning to sprout from the field. The fire looks like it's starting around the area in which they began running, but Margaret doesn't take much time to take it in for fear that she may lose partner in lead.