More Zombies showed up. These moved at more normal speeds. Normal if a regular human could jog all night without getting winded. The virus didn’t give these Zombies anything special so far as Kyler had suspected previously. What it did seem to give them was the ability to not care if they were running their feet down to nubs. To not care if they were ripping their skin apart running through briars with no clothes on.
He sent two radio bursts down to the men on the ground to let them know the Zombies were here and to stay quiet. He hoped it was his imagination, but it seemed like the Zombies around the trucks had perked up when he’d pressed the send button on the walkie. If the Zombies had gotten to the point that they could detect that tiny bit of non-descriptive noise, then the human race was royally screwed. Even more screwed than it was already was which was saying quite a bit.
More and more Zombies ran up to the part of the road the trucks were parked on. Several of them were looking all around as if trying to see if their prey were hiding in the woods. Kyler did his best to stay completely motionless. He also made sure not to make eye contact with any of them since that’d always seemed to him to be a sure-fire way of being seen. He hated that his life and the lives of the men below may end up depending on the skills he’d picked up as a kid playing hide and seek.
The Zombies kept coming. They didn’t look like they were trying to keep moving down the road. Kyler and the rest of them had pretty much assumed they were going to pull over to the side and wait for the Zombie herd to pass by then get back in their trucks and keep going. It looked like this herd was thinking about bedding down for the night. Which sucked since it looked like they were planning on sleeping under the trucks and in the woods that Kyler and team were currently occupying.
Kyler didn’t bother clicking the radio. He saw several of the Zombies sink down into the thick weeds by the road and knew the herd had decided to stop for the night. Kyler didn’t want to end up sleeping in the tree so he climbed down as fast as he could and made the motion for everyone to gather up and head deeper into the woods. No one questioned the order. Kyler had been the one up in the tree watching the Zombies. When he came down the tree and told them where to go it only made sense to follow him.
They all moved as quickly and quietly as they could about a mile into the woods. He was still freaked out about the way some of the Zombies seemed to have heard the basically inaudible radio static bursts. Kyler went around to everyone and signaled for them to maintain operational silence. When they were finally deep enough in the middle of nowhere Kyler squatted down next to Krantz and used his phone to type out what he’d seen and why he’d told everyone to move into the woods. Krantz took the information that the Zombies seemed to have gained some enhanced auditory abilities in stride.
The order was written down and passed around. They’d bed down here and continue in the morning assuming the Zombies decided to keep moving down the road. If the Zombies chose to hang out by the trucks for a while, they’d cross that bridge when they got to it. The biggest part of the order that filled many of the men with fear was that there was to be no talking at all, and motion should be limited if it weren’t essential.
On reading the order the men each understood that this nightmare they were living in had just somehow managed to get even worse.
Authors Note:
Thank you so much for going on this adventure with me. These stories always take twists and turns I don’t foresee when I start writing them. I try and let the characters come alive and dictate the pace of the story and what happens to them. I remember each character is a real person with good and bad impulses. No man is ever purely evil or purely good. It’s more of a sliding scale really.
I was reading in a discussion group where authors were talking about how they would write an entire series then go back and change parts of the beginning if it didn’t work with the story. It made for easier ways to tie up loose endings and make everything fit together. In my case I prefer some loose endings. Just like real life not every problem always gets addressed. There’s not necessarily an answer to every question. Actions have consequences so I think having to live with those initial actions throughout an entire series make it more lifelike and interesting.
Thank you again so much for supporting me in this story telling endeavor. I do hope you’re enjoying the adventure as much as I am. If you could please take the time to leave a positive review that would be very appreciated and help me to keep churning these out. Until the next book! Remember that motion is life!
Other Books by R S Merritt
For more of a Zombie fix check out the Zournal series:
The Zournal Series
Looking for something a little different? Try the Son of the Keeper Series.
Son of the Keeper
Zombies! (Book 4): Nowhere To Hide Page 28