by Powell, Lora
For the first time in several days, we had the time for luxury like a bath, even if you could hardly call it a bath by normal standards.
Yesterday, all three of us had downed bottle after bottle of the stream water that we had treated with bleach, making up for days of dehydration. Although it smelled like the chemical stuff, so far, it hadn’t made anyone sick.
While acting as the lookout while Shawn and Fallon got cleaned up, a branch snapped nearby, making me come to attention. If a zombie was anywhere nearby, it was up to me to protect them.
Looking in the direction of the sound, I peered through the trees. After nearly a minute, with no more sounds and no signs of danger, I relaxed again. There were more random noises in the woods than I would have guessed; something that I still wasn’t used to. Every time a branch creaked or a squirrel chattered, I found myself bracing for an attack.
I heard Shawn splash his way back to the bank, and a minute later he appeared at my side, using a small towel to rub the water from his hair. He smiled at me before taking up a spot just a few feet away, scanning our surroundings. We stood like that in amicable silence while I listened to Fallon finishing her own bath up behind us.
We’d only known Fallon for less than a day. A bit reluctantly, Shawn had agreed to her request to let her take a turn on watch overnight. I knew he hadn’t actually slept while she was on guard, though I didn’t say anything. Truth be told, I had been reluctant to go to sleep without Shawn watching my back too. But through the open door between the nurse’s room and our office, I had seen how seriously Fallon seemed to be taking the duty. She had remained alert, pacing between the door wedged closed by the chair and the high window, constantly checking for any sign of danger. After a couple of hours, I started to feel silly for doubting her.
It amazed me how quickly Shawn and I had become “us” while everyone fell into the “them” category. It hadn’t escaped my notice that I completely trusted someone who I had known for less than a week, while finding it difficult to extend the same trust to another newcomer. I had always felt that actions spoke louder than words, and while Shawn may have been a stranger just a week ago, in the short time we had known each other, he had proven himself over and over. I had no doubt that he would have my back in any situation we came across.
I didn’t feel the same about Fallon, even though she had done nothing to warrant my mistrust. Maybe that would change with time, but for now, there was only one person I wanted watching my back.
Before long, the three of us were making our way back to the main camp building. Walking along, I kept having to pull my jeans up as they sagged. I’d noticed that I wasn’t the only one losing significant weight. While we had been eating, it wasn’t enough. Either we eat more now and take the risk of running out of food sooner, or we could ration ourselves and have something to eat longer. There really wasn’t much of a choice there. I had no idea what we would do for food once our supplies did run out. It’s not like I’d ever grown a garden or killed an animal before. My lunch had come nicely prepackaged from the grocery store for all of my life.
After our run in with the three zombies in town the day before, none of us was in a hurry to go back out there. I tried not to think about the fact that we were going to have to go back eventually. If for no other reason, to search that tiny town for things like canned goods and various supplies that would be necessary to stay alive in this new world.
Thinking about it now, I never knew just how easy electricity and running water had made my life until it was taken away.
Having all these thoughts in my head, my attention then was pulled to the girl walking just ahead of me. Fallon walked through the brush with ease—her wet hair wrapped up in a towel—as if this was not her first time doing such a thing. She dodged thorns and stepped over obstacles partially hidden under long dead leaves with the ease of practice. I couldn’t help but compare her progress to my own, as I tripped over a buried rock and snagged my jeans on a thorn bush again.
Carefully pulling the wickedly jagged branch free from my leg, I hurried to catch up with the others. There was no way I wanted to find myself alone in the trees, even if we were only a short walk back to the camp office. The forest was still way too creepy.
We had only questioned Fallon a little about herself the day before. So I didn’t know much about the girl, but it was easy to tell just by comparing her actions to my own—she had a different skill set than I did. While I had cringed at the first bottle of creek water with my extreme thirst as the only reason I finally gave in and drank it, she hadn’t hesitated to tilt a bottle back and finish it in few long gulps. Even now, up in the front, Shawn could occasionally be heard muttering under his breath about something that he had stepped on or gotten snagged in, and it was plainly obvious that I was no good in the woods. But Fallon moved through the trees and thorns like it was second nature to her. Plus, she had survived on her own for how many days, something that I wasn’t so sure I could have accomplished.
It all added up to make me more curious about our new companion’s background.
TWENTY-FIVE
DAY 12
A hair raising shriek from outside had me sitting bolt upright in the chair. The book that I had been attempting to read in the dark, both to pass the long night hours alone and to hopefully gain more useful knowledge, dropped from my hands and landed on the floor with a thump. Cringing, I froze, hoping that the sound would go unnoticed by the zombie who was too close for comfort.
Luck was not on my side because another scream instantly blasted through the night and the zombie thudded at once into the side of the building. Soft footsteps from behind me sent my already racing heart into orbit. I looked up and saw Shawn and Fallon emerging from where they had been sleeping in the nurse’s room. The moon must have been especially bright out tonight because more light than usual was making its way through the window, making it possible to make out the worried expressions on both of their faces.
Other than the one zombie that had surprised us in the little cabin our first morning here, we hadn’t run across any zombies way out here. The rugged terrain and low population seemed to be working like we had hoped, keeping the numbers of the undead low. Of course, we had known that we were bound to run into at least a few zombies. But that didn’t mean that we were any more prepared for another run in with them than before.
“What do we do?” Fallon hissed, eyes locked on the door that was wedged close with the other chair.
“Maybe it will go away?” I thought back to Evie and how she lost interest in the bathroom door when I had been quiet for a while. The zombies didn’t seem to have much of an attention span. If we all stayed silent, maybe it would go away on its own.
Lapsing into a tense silence, we all waited to see what would happen next. Thumping and bumping its way along the outside of the building, the zombie let out rumbling growls and the occasional scream that we could easily hear in the silence of the night. It seemed to have worked its way away from the end of the building that we were in, the noises becoming more muffled, and I sagged a little in relief. It was only a matter of time before the zombie wandered off into the woods. But it would still be out there somewhere; and therefore, still be a danger.
A particularly hard thump, followed by a splintering sound, made the hair stand up along my arms. That did not sound like anything that would bode well for the three of us. More thrashing and shrieking was accompanied by more splintering, and suddenly the screams were louder than they had been before.
Cursing—something that I had learned Shawn did when things were not going in our favor—he crept closer to the barricaded office door. He leaned close, pressing his ear to the surface, and listened. After a second, he pulled back and motioned for us to stay quiet. Completely unnecessary, but then again, I had been the one who dropped the book.
“It’s in the cafeteria.”
It sounded like a table and a bunch of chairs were knocked over as more low growls came from just
on the other side of our flimsy office door. As much noise as the zombie was making, if there happened to be any more nearby, it wouldn’t be long before they joined the party. I wasn’t the only one that that thought occurred to, as Fallon whispered, “That thing needs to shut up.”
It felt like an eternity as we stood there, huddled together in the dark, listening to the zombie trash the cafeteria. The creature worked its way around the room, blasting shrieks and clanging chairs, marking its path. When the noise from the outer room suddenly stopped, it was somehow even creepier than the sounds the zombie created.
Looking at the two standing beside me, Shawn’s and Fallon’s faces showed the strain of the last couple of minutes. We were all well aware of the implications of having a zombie roaming the building around us. And now, the thing had fallen silent, and that was even worse. Before, we at least knew where it was. The unknown, as it turns out, was worse than knowing.
Several more minutes passed, but the zombie continued to keep quiet. Some small part of me began to hope that the best may have happened, and I finally couldn’t help but verbalize my thoughts. “Do you think it’s gone?”
I saw hope light up Fallon’s eyes at my question, but it was short lived as Shawn answered.
“It was at the wrong end of the room when it went quiet. Near the kitchen, not the door out. I don’t think we can afford to assume that it’s not inside anymore.”
He was right, of course. I knew I certainly wasn’t going to be getting any sleep until I was sure that more than a hollow wooden door held close by an office chair was between the zombies and me.
“We need to go out and check.” Fallon didn’t sound any happier with that thought than I was.
Nodding, Shawn eased closer to the door and pressed his ear to it to try to listen once more. He had emerged from the nurse’s room already armed with his bat. Backing toward the desk, I picked up my knife from where I had sat it earlier. Seeing my action, Fallon gripped her own knife, one that she had lifted from the kitchen the day before, in an unsteady hand.
Standing back up, Shawn looked over his shoulder to us. “Are you ready?”
The whispered words sent the knot of dread that had formed in my throat straight to my gut, but I nodded my head anyhow. Getting a like response from Fallon, Shawn slowly eased the chair out from under the doorknob, trying to be as silent as possible. Setting the chair out of the way, he eased the door open a crack, just far enough that he could see into the cafeteria.
A couple of frantic heart beats later, Shawn pulled the door the rest of the way open.
The moonlight coming in through the high windows illuminated the outer room well enough that I could see the destruction caused by the zombie. The formerly neat rows of tables surrounded by their chairs had been bumped into. Tables had been shoved out of line, chairs toppled. The door leading outside, the one that had been closed, now stood open. Splinters of wood scattered over the floor nearby, letting me know that something about the door had failed when battered by the zombie, and that was how it had gotten in. There really wasn’t any surprise there. Security had obviously not been a high priority when the camp was built. Whoever made those sort of decisions had probably thought that, way out here in the middle of nowhere, the risks of any sort of intruder were minimal.
How could that person have known that one day, a trio of people would rely on those doors to keep out the undead?
The zombie wasn’t anywhere in sight. Staying close together, we worked our way across the cafeteria. Stepping carefully, I made sure not to bump into anything that would make any noise. The swinging door that led into the kitchen beckoned. If the zombie were still somewhere inside the building, the kitchen seemed the likeliest place it would be.
We reached the door and paused just outside. Unlike the kitchen door at the office building that Shawn and I had narrowly escaped from not so long ago, this door did not have any sort of window that we could use to see inside. The only way to know was to go in.
Looking at each other, in some sort of unspoken agreement, we moved towards the swinging door together.
TWENTY-SIX
DAY 12
What in the hell was it doing up there?
My first thought was one of confusion as I looked around Shawn and caught a glimpse of the zombie. It had managed to climb up onto the long center island that ran the length of the kitchen and was reaching toward a set of pots that hung gleaming in the faint moonlight from ceiling hooks. This one had obviously been dead for a while. Its bloated and greasy looking flesh seemed like it wanted to slide right off of the bones. Most of its hair had fallen out, leaving just a few sparse clumps to cling limply to its scalp. Gore crusted its ragged clothing, and I couldn’t tell blood from any hapless victims it had managed to sink its teeth into from what was its own leaking bodily fluids.
I thought that we had been silent, but maybe we weren’t quiet enough. The creature slowly swung its head in our direction and focused its one remaining eye on where the three of us had stood frozen in the doorway.
Maybe we confused it as much as it standing on top of that counter confused me. Or, perhaps it was just having trouble seeing. Either way, the zombie cocked its head slightly to the side and went utterly still, staring right at us.
Then its rotted lips peeled back from its teeth and snarled exactly the type of sound that one would not want to hear coming from the dark.
Lurching forward, the zombie crashed to the tiled floor in an ungraceful heap. It took it a few seconds to disentangle its limbs, but far too soon, it was clambering disjointedly back to its feet. I didn’t even realize that I had backpedaled back through the swinging door until I was already back in the cafeteria. Behind me, Fallon was backing away too, and the door hadn’t had a chance to swing all of the way shut again before Shawn followed.
I guess none of us was too eager to get anywhere near the zombie.
The door swung shut all the way this time as the three of us regrouped near the center of the cafeteria room. At that point, we came to our senses enough to know that we were going to have to stop our retreat at some point. The zombie was going to have to be dealt with, whether we like it or not.
A scream came from behind the kitchen door just before the door burst open. Lurching through the doorway, the zombie focused its one good eye on us. It moved with none of the speed than I had come to expect from the zombies. Instead, it jerked along in those characteristic fits and starts, but much slower and almost uncoordinated in its movements. The creature shambled towards us, paying no mind to anything that was in its path. It tripped over downed chairs and bounced off of the heavy tables to reach us.
The sight was horrifying.
As the zombie came within a dozen feet of our group, Shawn stepped forward and raised his bat. Its eyes held the dead gaze of a predator, as it focused on his movement. Swinging the bat hard, he hit it right in the creature’s skull. A wet splattering sound followed quickly when the zombie hit the ground. It was for-real kind of dead instantly.
All of us were breathing fast and just stood there for a few seconds, staring at the rotting corpse that now lay just a foot from us. A pool of blood began to spread across the floor. The hard hit had split the zombie’s skull.
Hyped up on adrenaline, I hadn’t noticed the stench coming from it, until now. The zombie smelled like an animal that had been killed on the highway and then laid in the summer sun for a week.
Fighting back a gag, I pulled the neck of my shirt up in a futile attempt to cover my mouth and nose.
Poking at it with the end of the bat, Shawn looked back at us. “It’s dead.”
Next to me, Fallon gave an audible sigh of relief. “Do you think it was just the one?”
“I think so, but we should probably look around. Just to be sure.” Shawn looked over to where the door was still hanging open. “Need to do something about the door too.”
I chimed in through my shirt. “We need to do something about the zombie. It can’t stay in h
ere.”
Nodding, Shawn handed me his bat. He reached down and grabbed the corpse by its filthy shoes, and began dragging it toward the door. The smear of blood that was left in its wake looked nearly black in the limited moonlight. Trailing behind him with some vague thought of watching his back, I watched as Shawn paused at the open door. Looking out, he looked around carefully before dragging the zombie outside. He dropped its feet when he had pulled it a dozen yards away from the building. “When the sun’s up, I’ll come back out and finish dragging it further away, but this will have to do for now.”
Back inside the building, we found Fallon looking nervously into every shadowy corner. The bathrooms were still and empty, the kitchen was now thankfully the same.
Upon closer inspection, we found that the door had been forced open when some of the screws in the jam were pulled free. Shards of wood from the door frame still littered the ground. Fixing the door properly with what we had on hand wasn’t really an option. Surprisingly, Fallon was the one who came up with the idea that at least allowed us to keep the door closed. It was by no means secure. But anything was better than letting it hang open for any passing zombies to stroll right on in, and the fix was as good as it was going to get, anyhow.
By the time we were finished, there wasn’t a lot of the night left. No one wanted to go back to sleep, so we all sat in the office, sharing a bag of beef jerky and talking about what had just happened.
“Why was it different from all of the other zombies I’ve seen?”
Fallon asked the question that had been mulling around in my mind. I shrugged before answering, “I don’t know. Maybe it was so decomposed that it was starting to have trouble getting around. I’ve not seen one like that before, either.”
She nodded. It made sense, anyhow. Who really knew anything about why the zombies were the way they were. I was convinced that the flu vaccine was what had started this whole disaster, but the why still escaped me. Was it some random fluke, or had someone engineered the apocalypse? I wasn’t sure that we would ever find out the answer to that question.