“Hell, none of us like guns. Well, except for Frank the warrior here. But Joe, come on. It’s way past time.”
“We won’t be around forever,” Frank said. “He’s mean with a bow, and I taught him how to throw his fists around. And I hope it never happens, but one day, he might be in a corner with five corpses looking at him. He has to learn how to shoot.”
Aaron wasn’t a stranger to the world of the dead. He’d gone along the last few trips to town. But he never had to see a corpse up close, never had to shoot one in the head.
Joe was quiet a moment. He’d always been reluctant to start on Aaron’s gun training because, like Frank said, it was an admission that they couldn’t protect him forever. It was easy to pretend that deep in the woods, they were protected from the Hell that had taken over the earth. But the truth was no one was completely safe.
Frank didn’t agree with Joe when he decided to teach Aaron to read. Frank thought it was a waste of time. But Joe knew Frank was right about gun training.
“You’re right,” Joe said. “We all agree we need to head to town, right?”
Everyone nodded.
“Okay. We got plenty of daylight left. We’ll go in together, get what we need, teach Aaron to shoot. Hell, maybe we’ll even find a battery and some gas for the van.”
Denise laughed. “You always say that.”
“One day I’ll be right.”
Joe turned to leave, but Frank grabbed his shoulder. “Uh, hey. There’s one more thing.” He looked at Margie. She gave him a bright smile, one Joe hadn’t seen in quite a while. “We have something to tell you.”
* * *
Aaron poured a bucket of water over his head. It felt great, although it gave him a chill as the water seeped inside his shorts. He wiped his bald head with his sweaty shirt and carried the empty bucket down to the lake for a refill.
As he walked by the house he saw his entire family gathered near the cooking pit. They looked like they were having a serious conversation.
He knew it was one of two things. They were either doing some serious planning about their lifestyle, gathering food, the upcoming winter, that sort of thing. Or they were talking about him.
Ah man, Aaron thought. Have I done anything wrong lately?
He grabbed a book from his room and sat on the porch, although he wasn’t really reading. He just studied his family. Aaron liked to just study and watch things. It wasn’t like he had a huge option of other hobbies. He couldn’t shoot a bow or read all day long.
He noticed Dad and Aunt Denise holding hands. Nothing major, just by the fingertips. Aaron shook his head. Come on, Dad. When are you gonna tell her? It’s obvious how she feels.
He loved his father and knew him better than anyone. But Aaron was clueless as to why he held in his feelings for Denise. Whenever Dad just walked into the room, Denise would change. She would sit up straighter, puff her breasts out just a little more, smile a little brighter.
Is it possible Dad doesn’t know?
Now Uncle Frank and Aunt Margie, on the other hand…there wasn’t much of a secret there at all. Sneaking off in the woods together, late night swims in the lake. Aaron wasn’t completely sure, but he thought he heard footsteps late one night going from his aunt’s room to Frank’s. He was quite sure it wasn’t to play Scrabble.
He laughed to himself. He saw their mood lighten a little. Frank and Dad shared a joke, then Frank gave him a playful slug in the shoulder. His aunts hugged.
Hmmm. I wonder if Frank and Margie finally said something?
The women passed Aaron on the porch to go inside and change clothes. Frank picked up the deer and slung it over his shoulder. He looked at Joe, who was taking a seat next to Aaron.
“I’ll get this deer skinned. You got the bikes covered, right?”
“Yeah, I got ‘em. Just give me a few minutes.”
“Alright, I’ll be around back.”
Aaron looked at his father. “Bikes?”
“We’re all gonna head to town together today, get some supplies.”
“Okay. What was the laughing and playing around about?”
He smiled and shook his head. “Well, Frank and Margie just wanted to tell us they’re a couple now.”
“About time.”
“That’s what Denise said.”
They were quiet for a moment. Aaron could see his father had something else to say.
“Look, Aaron. Today, when we get to town, Frank wants to teach you how to shoot a corpse.”
He winced. “With a gun?”
Joe nodded.
Aaron didn’t know what it was about guns that unnerved him so much. He didn’t even like holding one. It was no different than trying to get an answer out of Margie about why she was afraid of spiders. That’s why he’d taken up the bow, so he would never have to fire a gun.
“Dad, I don’t like guns.”
“I know, I know. I don’t either. But there is a lot of danger out there, and you should be prepared for it.”
“I can hunt, fish, cook my own food, read a map, use the sun to get a good idea of time. Heck, give me a needle and thread and I’ll fix my own clothes.”
“Who taught you how to sew?”
“I read it.”
Joe laughed. His son truly was amazing. Sarah would be proud.
“I’m gonna get the bikes ready,” Joe said. “Don’t worry, you’ll do fine.”
A mischievous smiled crossed Aaron’s face as Joe stood up. “Okay, Dad. I won’t give you a hard time on one condition.”
“What’s that?”
“You tell Aunt Denise that you love her.”
He sat back down. “What?”
“Tell her you love her. Don’t worry, she loves you too.”
Joe shook his head in amusement. “And what do you think love is?”
Aaron thought a moment. “Love is when it hurts when the person is gone. They like, can’t be apart, you know what I mean? They try to make each other happy. Oh, and they have sex a lot.”
“Aaron!”
“Hey, I didn’t make it up.”
Joe looked through the living room window. He could see Margie and Denise in the kitchen. They didn’t use it to cook anymore, but it did store all of their supplies. He lowered his voice to make sure only Aaron could hear.
“Do you really think she loves me?”
Aaron just gave him a look. “Dad, she does. Trust me.”
He held out his hand. “Okay. You learn to shoot, and tonight, Denise and I will have a little talk.”
They shook hands. “Deal.”
Chapter 4
The bike ride through the woods was peaceful. It was a ride they had taken many times before, but it was rare they all went together. Aaron felt like it was a family adventure, although he knew they felt much differently.
Everyone had a large empty backpack. Aaron brought up the rear and took a quick drink of water from his bottle. He made a mental checklist of some of the things they mentioned needing. Ammunition, blankets, clothes, towels, salt and pepper, lighter fluid, shoes.
And now, condoms for Frank and Margie.
Yuck. I hope they don’t keep me up all night.
Joe held his hand up as the woods began to thin out. Aaron had a sense of deja vu. This was the way they always approached town. They leaned their bikes against some trees and carefully approached the hill that overlooked Walton.
The town of Walton, once a simple place in western Maryland, was now home to nothing but walking corpses. Looters had made off with supplies during the beginning of the new world, but there were still plenty of places to find what was needed. It was just a matter of getting through the former citizens.
It always felt strange to stand on the hill overlooking town. Such a beautiful day. Not a cloud in the sky, a gentle breeze blowing. But just one hundred feet away was danger.
“Denise,” Frank said. “Hand me the binoculars.”
“Wait a sec,” Joe said, then looked at Aaron. “Le
t’s see what our trainee here sees.”
Margie gagged a little as Aaron took the binoculars and dropped to one knee on top of the hill. “You’d think I’d be used to the smell by now,” she said.
Frank gave her a quick kiss on the cheek. It felt good, no longer having to sneak around. They had only kept it a secret so they could sort out their feelings in private. At first, it was just sex, but then it grew into something more.
“It’s okay. We don’t come out here that often. And I don’t think we’ll ever get used to it.” He gestured to town. “This is all just still so…unnatural.”
Aaron slowly looked across the houses, the small corner businesses, the streets. He saw the world in a way his family would never be able to understand. He saw much of what the world was like in magazines and books, but had never experienced it. He just couldn’t imagine millions of people all living together without going at each other’s throats. As he studied the dead town, he passed over a mailbox and a fire hydrant, having no idea of what either one was.
The town looked the same as it did last time. Abandoned cars lined the streets. Vultures circled from above, then they would swoop down and eat maggots off of the undead. Nature had begun to reclaim the town; fallen trees leaned into the roofs of houses, trees and bushes were growing in the middle of the street. The only sounds were the shuffling and wailing of the corpses, and the wind as it blew through the streets.
To Aaron’s family, it was a ghost town, a reminder of a life that once was. To Aaron, it was a place he never got to know, a life he never had.
He watched the undead. They stumbled and wandered around town without a purpose. Some didn’t bother moving at all. One pulled himself along with his arms, as he didn’t have any legs. Some of them were more decomposed than others, but they were all horrible and disgusting. It was hard to believe that they were once people, with their own thoughts and desires. Now they had only one desire, and that was to eat the flesh of the living.
Aaron took another sweep of the town. He noticed that some of the undead seemed to be stumbling in one direction. He followed with the binoculars, attempting to figure out where they were heading. Then he saw three figures in the street, running from building to building.
“Hey Dad,” he said. “There’s people down there.”
“Let me see.” Joe watched as they shot a few corpses while maneuvering around others. They were dangerously close to getting grabbed a few times.
“What’s going on?” Frank asked.
“I don’t believe it. I think it’s Dillon and Shaffer. They got a third guy with them, don’t recognize him.”
“Who?” Denise asked.
“Dillon and Shaffer. Two guys Joe and I ran into last time we were out here. Good enough people, if a little reckless. Guess they have a camp around here somewhere.”
Joe continued to look through the binoculars. “Well, for better or worse, they’re dragging half the corpses in town along with them. We might be able to hit our normal stops a lot easier today.”
“Shouldn’t we help them?” Margie asked.
The men looked at each other. Joe felt a tiny twinge of guilt, but that just wasn’t the way the world worked anymore. If they were in trouble against three or four corpses, that was one thing. But Dillon and Shaffer were carelessly running through town, attracting the attention of every corpse that could still see, hear, or smell.
“No,” he said. “We’ll hit the clothes store first. Remember, always stay together. Don’t wander off. When we’re back on top of the hill, we’ll give Aaron a gun. Unless you want one now?”
Aaron shook his head without a smile.
They started down the hill. Joe caught Denise’s arm for a moment. “Hey, uh-” he fumbled for words, “I, uh, need to talk to you tonight.”
She smiled. “Sure. I’m not going anywhere.”
The five quickly and quietly made their way down the hill and hugged the back wall of what used to be a laundromat. Joe took a look around the corner. There were six corpses in the way between them and the clothing shop. He tried the other side and saw a much clearer path, although a more disgusting sight. A single corpse with a raggedy police uniform slowly walked with a broken leg. A malnourished dog ate at the corpse as he walked. The dog chewed off one finger, then another. The corpse did nothing besides moan and wail, only giving the occasional annoyed glance at the dog. For whatever reason, they only craved warm human flesh, not animal.
They heard gunshots. It was hard to tell where they came from. With the eerie quiet, it could have been close to the other side of town.
They sprinted around the laundromat and across the street to the clothing store. The corpse with the dog noticed them, but Frank dropped him with a single shot to the head. Aaron flinched, like he always did. He knew they weren’t people anymore; they were monsters, which his books said didn’t exist.
Joe and Frank did a sweep of the store while everyone else hid against the wall behind a rack of clothes. Joe used to be able to smell if corpses were nearby. But the number of walking dead had only increased over the years, and the smell was everywhere.
The clothes store, like everything in the world, was destroyed. The large glass windows that once separated the store from the sidewalk were shattered. Clothes were scattered everywhere. Mold grew on the walls.
They didn’t say a word, just watched the street. They’d been through these trips countless times. The street was empty, but that didn’t mean a thousand corpses weren’t just around the corner. It looked deceptively safe, but they all knew better.
“Okay,” Joe said. He grabbed Aaron’s and his own backpack. “Fill these two up with as much as we can. Shoes, warm winter clothes, you know the routine.”
They did know the routine, and it was a sad one. Their van had run out of gas years ago, and the battery was dead. Their trips to the city consisted of filling their backpacks with whatever they needed. Backpacks only carried so much, and they were always in short supply.
Frank tossed a thick pair of jeans to Joe. He caught them and handed them to Aaron. Aaron shoved them in his backpack as tightly as he could.
“You alright?” Joe asked.
“Yeah. Those things, they just scare me a little.”
Joe gave him a pat on the shoulder. Even growing up in a world of the dead, there wasn’t any way to completely acclimate to the walking corpses. Everything about them was inhuman, despite the fact they used to be human: the way they moaned when no one was around, only showing excitement when they sensed warm flesh, the way they staggered, unable to control their own bodies. Aaron saw a man get killed once on a trip. It was terrifying to watch them go from creatures without a purpose to a bloodthirsty mob, in no time at all.
“Okay, we full up on two bags?” Joe asked, keeping his voice low.
Frank nodded. “Yeah. But it’s not much.”
Margie laughed, but it wasn’t happy. “It never is.”
“Okay, next stop, the Rite-Aid across-”
Joe was interrupted by gunshots. They weren’t far away this time. They heard some voices just out in the street.
“Dillon! Stop shooting them in the fuckin’ shoulder! Get the goddamn head!”
“I’m trying!”
Dillon, Shaffer, and their friend stopped in front of the clothing store to fire a few more rounds. Joe heard a skull explode and a body fall. Dillon turned and saw Joe and his family. He recognized Joe and Frank, whom he’d seen one other time in town before, but not the women or teenage boy.
“Guys! In here!”
The three men jumped over a few overturned clothes racks and joined the group.
“Frank, Joe,” Shaffer greeted.
“What’s going on?” Joe asked.
“The corpses are coming. A lot of them.”
As soon as he said it, two shuffled on the sidewalk in front of the store. They turned and moaned. Aaron tried to fight the feeling that monsters were coming for them. But that’s exactly what was happening.
<
br /> Margie gave the three outsiders an angry look.
“And you thought it would be a good idea to drag them to us?”
“We’re just trying to survive here, lady. More guns are better than a few.”
Joe held up a hand to stop the argument, although he did agree it was a dumb move. No doubt they were just looking for supplies, but Shaffer and his friends certainly went about it the wrong way.
Frank dropped the two incoming corpses with quick shots to the head. But they could hear the wails now, just outside the clothing store. One showed up, then another. They were coming.
Joe’s fear started to rise, but he held it in check. That was simply rule number one in the world of the dead. Don’t panic.
“We won’t be able to kill all of them,” he said. “There’s gotta be a back door to this place. Probably corpses there too, but hopefully not as many.”
The third man with Shaffer and Dillon aimed his gun and finally spoke. “No. I’ve got a better idea.”
He fired two times, but he wasn’t aiming for the walking dead. He shot both Joe and Frank right in the stomach. Joe felt hot for a moment, a cold sweat forming. They both fell to the ground.
“Allister, what the hell?!” Dillon shouted.
Denise and Margie were shocked, then started to raise their guns. They were just a second too slow. Allister already had his nine millimeter raised at Aaron’s head.
“No no, don’t even flinch, or the kid here dies.”
“You asshole!” Dillon shouted. “These are good people!”
Allister grabbed Dillon by the shirt collar without taking his focus from Aaron. The corpses were still coming. There were so many they couldn’t see the street behind them.
“This is how it goes now,” he said. “This is how you survive in this world. Get used to it.”
Aaron watched numbly as the cold, calculating man led his two companions toward the back. Dillon and Shaffer looked apologetic, but didn’t stop. He wished he knew how to shoot a gun, so he could fire as many rounds as he could into Allister’s head.
Margie and Denise were tending to Joe and Frank. Margie was crying. Denise’s medical training was trying to take over. But she knew that, here on the floor of an old clothing store, with no supplies, there wasn’t much she could do.
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