The sun was already out, and the room was warming up. I took a deep breath and stretched, savoring the cracking of my bones. Then I went downstairs, whistling as I took them two at a time, and made breakfast. After I’d eaten, I moved around the lodge, looking at the zombies outside.
I spotted six of them, but they were spread about, and they were all just standing motionless, waiting. I reloaded the gun, found another knife, and went outside.
There were two zombies standing near the fire pit. Maybe they’d been drawn there by the flames, perhaps driven by some remnant of their former selves to find warmth. Either way, they knew not to get close enough to catch light. A thin ribbon of pale smoke wound up into the sky, but that was all that was left of the fire now. I’d douse it once I’d dealt with the zombies.
I was able to get to the first one without being seen, and I rammed the knife into the base of his skull before he could react. The movement attracted the attention of the second zombie, a girl in a set of biker leathers. She’d obviously been in an accident. The right arm of her jacket was heavily scuffed and dotted with grit. The side of her skull had been torn away, exposing the brain within. It made her an easy kill.
As I pulled my knife from biker girl, I heard a muffled groan. Another zombie had appeared, one I hadn’t seen on my initial reconnaissance. He was big, probably twice my weight. Thankfully, he was very slow. He lumbered toward me, and I ducked under his outstretched arms and drove the knife up into his jaw. He let out a wet, gargling cry and went limp. He dragged the knife from my grip as he fell, and I cursed as I retrieved it. I was getting careless. There were still at least four zombies near the lodge, and who knew how many more waiting in the forest. I needed to be more careful.
I moved around the buildings until I could see the entire clearing. The two zombies crouched over the corpse were actually eating it. They were picking at its flesh, gradually stripping the body to the bone. I’d never seen the phenomenon before. Every other zombie I’d seen had been seemingly oblivious to others of its kind.
The other zombie I’d seen earlier was still standing motionless at the edge of the forest. Another was near the path that led to the workshop. He was staring up at the trees, his mouth slack.
If I were a better shot with the pistol, I’d have used that to take some of them down. But as I’d proved the day before, I was no marksman, even at close range. It would have to be my knife.
Staying crouched, I ran across the clearing as quietly as I could, toward the zombie by the path. The grass brushing against my legs sounded incredibly loud, but he didn’t hear me until I was almost on him. I caught him in the face, and the knife embedded itself in his right eye. My momentum carried the zombie over. I pulled the blade free as he fell and then slammed the heel of my boot into his face, shattering bone.
The feeding zombies were twenty feet away, but they’d seen me. They rose from the corpse, their movements languid. Bits of flesh clung to their faces from their meal. Behind them, the slack-jawed zombie in the forest was still staring up at the trees.
My pulse was racing. I could feel the shadow delighting in the carnage, urging me on to bigger and bloodier things. I moved to the flattest piece of ground I could find, kicked a couple of rocks out of the way, and then waited for the zombies to come to me.
Both men wore identical outfits, were the same height, and despite the decay, their features were almost perfectly the same. They must have been twins. Their clothes had been beige originally, but now they were soaked with blood. One of them had a strip of pale flesh hanging from the side of his mouth—more remnants of their feasting. There was no sign of how they’d died. Their movements were slow and deliberate, and it gave me plenty of time to plan my attack.
The two of them reached me at the same time. The first twin went down with a single blow from the knife. I swept the point down onto the top of his head. It sank deep into his skull, but the zombie stayed upright. I pulled the knife free. He wavered slightly until I rammed my forearm against his chest. He fell, but in the time it had taken me to knock him over, his brother had gotten hold of me.
He clamped one hand around my arm and clutched at my throat with the other. I ducked forward. His fingers grazed my head, one ragged nail tearing across my scalp. I swung the knife upward. It sank into his arm, just below the elbow. Bone snapped.
The zombie let out a deep-throated cry of rage and clumsily tried to grab my face. This time, I was ready for him. I rammed the knife into his throat, cutting off the cry. I twisted the blade and pulled it free as he collapsed to the ground.
While I was fighting the twins, another zombie had come out of the trees. She was old and decrepit. What few clothes she wore were torn and rotten, exposing the decaying flesh beneath. Ribs, stark against her gray skin, poked through split flesh.
She wobbled unevenly toward me, a tattered chunk of meat clutched in one hand. I steadied myself, and as she stepped into range, I swung the knife. The blade sank deep into the side of her head, and she fell to the ground. She lay there, twitching, making one last effort to cling to living death. Then she let out a soft moan and lay still.
The zombie near the path seemed completely oblivious to me. I walked right up to him, weapon at the ready, but he just stood there, looking up into the trees. I got as far as picking a spot on his neck for the knife when the shadow stopped me. I was wasting an opportunity. I could come back for him later.
I lowered my weapon and walked through the forest toward the workshop.
Chapter 39
Two Men Remain
Mike was still alive when I got to the workshop. Barely.
His skin was stretched tight over the bones of his skull, cheekbones clearly visible—diagonal slashes straining against the gray flesh. A few clumps of hair had fallen from his scalp. His lips were dry, and there was a split running down the middle of the lower one. A trickle of dark blood had run down his chin and pooled on his throat. It was almost black.
The shadow could see his guilt, and now so could I. He was corrupted by it. It rolled off him like great waves of black tar, and a black aura hovered around his body like heat haze. It wasn’t the virus that was killing him; it was his guilt. The guilt that only the shadow could release.
He turned his head toward me. His eyes were dark, and the whites had almost been swallowed up by the blackness of the irises. Gray smudges ran beneath each one. A scarlet-and-purple welt cut across his forehead. He opened his mouth to speak, but no words came out.
“Good morning, Mike.”
He tried to sit up, made it a few inches off the table, then fell back down. His head thumped onto the bench. The chains wrapped around him rattled.
I walked over to the shelves, past the snare hanging on the wall. Mike watched me as I moved. I placed the knife on the table. Its blade was slick with blood, the viscous black liquid dripping onto the table’s pale wood.
I opened the drawer and removed the case containing my tools. The smell of leather drifted up to me. I closed my eyes and ran my fingers over the lid, savoring its touch. The shadow and I sighed. I opened the case and pulled out the fourth scalpel.
“Please…”
I turned to Mike. His mouth was open, and his tongue nestled inside, thick and black. It looked like he was eating a giant slug.
He swallowed and spoke again. “Marcus…”
His chest rose and fell. Each rattling breath was harsher and shallower than the last. He coughed. Thick black blood spattered the floor around the bench, barely missing my foot.
“Kill me…”
I crouched down beside the bench so that my face was a couple of inches from his. “You want to die?”
Mike dragged in another breath. “Y-Yes.”
Even through the ragged breath, I could hear the desperation in his voice.
I held the scalpel in front of him and raised my eyebrows. He nodded. What little white remained in his eyes was tinged with red. I could smell him. He’d fouled himself, but there was a trac
e of decay beneath that bitterness—subtle but definitely there. He coughed again. Black phlegm dripped from his mouth. Perhaps he was already dead.
I reached over and rested the scalpel’s blade on his throat. He tipped his head back and closed his eyes.
It would be so easy. I could increase the pressure until the blade sank into his flesh. I could drag it across his throat, freeing the guilt now flowing through his veins and corrupting his body. It wouldn’t be enough, of course. I would have to decapitate him. That was what he really meant when he said he wanted to die. He didn’t want to become one of them.
Anger flared—the shadow. I shouldn’t waste this opportunity.
I removed the scalpel.
Mike opened his eyes. “No, please…”
Oil-stained tears ran down his face. He grimaced in pain. I expected him to beg me to kill him, but he didn’t say anything.
Instead, he arched his back and groaned. His spine cracked, and the groans became a guttural scream of pain. Metal rattled as he writhed on the table, his face contorted in agony. The pain seemed to ease, and he relaxed again. His groans were replaced by ragged breaths.
I heard a noise—a sharp snap. It came from outside. Not close but still loud enough to break through the wheezing of Mike’s final breaths. Another crack, closely followed by a rapid series of pops.
Gunfire.
It couldn’t be the military. I hadn’t heard the helicopter. Unless it flew into the camp from another direction, whispered the shadow.
“No.” This was not happening.
Mike’s eyes widened. He cried out. It was a strangled, pathetic noise, but it might still be enough for someone outside to hear.
I paced along the side of the workbench, my hands pressed on top of my head. The shadow urged me to ignore the gunfire. I should just focus on the opportunity fate had presented me.
Mike struggled against the chains.
More shots cracked and popped. I was sure it was closer now. Whoever was in the camp was heading this way.
I slammed my hand against the table hard enough to rattle the knife. Pain shot up my arm and into my shoulder. I replaced the scalpel, closed the case, and jammed it into my jacket pocket. I reached for the knife. My hand stopped just above the handle. The shadow held it there. Patience.
My fingers were shaking, just slightly. Then another burst of gunfire broke the shadow’s hold on me.
The shadow screamed in frustration as I grabbed the knife. I swept it upward as I turned and brought it down on Mike’s neck. The blade tore through flesh and bone. His head tipped back, his eyes vacant. I sawed at his neck, slicing through flesh and severing his spine.
More gunshots drifted to me through the trees. I dropped the knife and ran out of the workshop.
Chapter 40
Aim for the Brain
The military were back.
Four soldiers stood in the middle of the grassy clearing, more of the grunts like the ones that had been defending the helicopter. I didn’t recognize them, and there was no sign of Captain Faraday or the chopper itself. A group of zombies had arrived in the camp as well, and the grunts were picking them off one by one. Machine-gun fire came from somewhere beyond the lodge.
I stayed out of sight, watching the soldiers gun down the zombies as they stumbled into the open. Even if I’d wanted to approach them, chances were they’d shoot me before I could show them I was still one of the living. If I was lucky, they’d clear out the camp and not find me or the workshop.
Another soldier appeared at the side of the lodge. She was wearing a heavy flak jacket and a metal helmet. Her clothes were streaked with black. She shouted at the four soldiers. Two of them peeled off and jogged across the grass to her, and then all three disappeared around the lodge.
A zombie, a lumbering hulk of a man, bare chested and with a wound in his stomach that had almost torn him in half, stumbled into the clearing. Both soldiers raised their guns and fired at the same time. The back of the man’s head exploded, and he fell to the ground. The soldiers laughed, high-fiving each other before turning to sweep the clearing again.
There were no more zombies for the time being, but one of the soldiers, an intense-looking girl who barely seemed old enough to enlist, pointed toward the trees where I was hiding.
I ducked.
The gunfire I was expecting didn’t come, but when I risked a peek through the undergrowth they were walking toward my hiding place. They hadn’t seen me yet, but it was just a matter of time.
I brushed my hand against the knife on my belt and felt a spark of approval from the shadow. But there was a big difference between a zombie and a trained soldier. I might take down one but not both of them. And they were armed. Their guns were lowered, but even so, there was no doubt in my mind that they’d put a bullet in my skull before I got anywhere near them.
Instead, I shouted. “Please don’t shoot!”
Their weapons snapped to their shoulders. The nearest soldier dropped to one knee. The other stood, her weapon trained on the forest.
“Don’t shoot,” I said again.
The girl swept her rifle toward the sound of my voice. “Stand up. Very slowly.”
I raised my hands and did as I was told. “I haven’t been bitten.”
Both of the soldiers were wearing earpieces that looked like Bluetooth headsets. The kneeling soldier touched his and said something I couldn’t make out.
The girl flicked her rifle to the side. “Come out.”
I picked my way through the undergrowth, being careful not to catch my foot on any of the roots or rocks that littered the ground. Sudden movements have a tendency to get people shot.
As I stepped into the clearing, the girl said, “That’s close enough.”
The woman in the body armor I’d seen earlier appeared from inside the lodge and walked across the clearing. She was accompanied by two more grunts, one on either side of her. She was unarmed apart from a pistol clipped to her belt, but her companions raised their automatic rifles as soon as they saw me. The sound of gunfire crackled through the trees around us.
She flicked her head at me. “Are you infected?”
“No, I’m not.”
“Turn around. Slowly.”
I did as I was told, painfully aware of the blood that was spattered across my face and clothes.
“Where did the blood come from?”
I had the irrational feeling that she’d somehow read my mind.
“I killed some of the zombies.” I gestured toward the bodies scattered around the clearing. The soldiers tensed, and I raised my hands a little higher.
“You’re the one the others told us about. They said you’d been bitten.”
The soldier kneeling on the ground straightened, and I was sure his trigger finger twitched.
“Yes… no… I thought I was, but it didn’t get through my jacket.” I wanted to move my arm to show her, but it didn’t seem like a good idea.
One of the grunts beside the woman turned to the right. “Sergeant, two zees at three o’clock.”
The woman, the sergeant, didn’t take her eyes off me. “Vantage, Robson. And don’t forget, single rounds.”
The two men flanking the sergeant took up position a few feet to the west. One of them fired two shots, and I heard the thud of a body falling to the ground. Three more shots and another thud.
The sergeant took a deep breath, annoyance flickering across her face. She nodded toward the soldiers aiming at me, and they lowered their weapons. “What’s your name?”
“Marcus Black. Thanks for not shooting me.”
“Don’t thank me until we get you to safety.”
“Oh right. Safety.”
The sergeant smiled. “You can put your hands down now, Mr. Black.”
I lowered my arms and let out a breath.
“Come on,” said the sergeant. “Let’s get you to the vehicles. There’s a couple of Hummers parked outside the lodge.”
Visions of a barbershop q
uartet flashed through my head, leaving confusion behind. “Hummers?”
“Yeah. Crappy gas mileage but damn near impregnable. At least as far as the zees go.”
I smiled, my brain finally catching up with the meaning behind her words. Maybe I had been bitten after all.
“You didn’t bring the helicopter?”
“No. That thing’s gas mileage is even worse. Cleanup’s done by a ground team. Just like the good old days.”
The kneeling soldier raised his gun and fired off to my right. I ducked then moved out of the way as a zombie dragged itself out of the undergrowth. The soldier fired again, and the zombie’s head exploded.
I hurried to the sergeant’s side—partly to avoid any zombies but also to get out of the line of fire.
The sergeant pointed toward the workshop path. “Wentworth, there’s a trail there. Take Davis and do a sweep, but this time, if it gets too hot, back out.”
“Yes, ma’am,” said the kneeling soldier.
“There’s nothing down there.”
“And what makes you think that, Mr. Black?” said the sergeant.
“I’ve just come that way. It’s safe. That’s why I was hiding there.”
The sergeant shook her head. “There’s a lot of forest for the zees to hide in. Go on, Wentworth.”
I watched as the soldiers walked toward the trail. “There’s really nothing—”
“Come on,” said the sergeant. “Let’s get you locked down.”
She led me through the lodge with Vantage and Robson close behind. Soldiers were stationed in the living and dining rooms, with two more at the top of the stairs. They watched me as I passed. I tried to look relaxed, as though I was supposed to be there, but I could feel their suspicion hanging in the air around me. I was a civilian. I was a threat.
With each step I took, my spirit sank a little deeper. I’d regained my sanctuary only to have it snatched away again. I couldn’t see a way out of this. I was getting a rescue I didn’t want. The shadow had fallen silent.
Serial Killer Z: Volume One Page 26
