by M. D. Massey
Gabby’s eyes closed, and then they fluttered open again. “God, this hurts. Give me a map so I can show you where she’s at.” I handed her my map. She looked it over for a second, and pointed to a heavily wooded area about five miles north and east of our current position. That was a hell of a lot better than trekking back to the safe zone. Even so, Gabby had mentioned La Araña several times previous to this, and I wondered why she didn’t head there when her uncle disappeared on her. I tried to hide my suspicion as I responded. “That close, huh?”
She opened her eyes, just barely, and sighed. “Look, I know what you’re thinking. I was going to take you to meet her once we were done here, while we were on the way to where my uncle vanished. Just get me to her and she’ll explain everything.”
“Fair enough. But I want straight answers once we get there—and you’d better not die on me before I get them.”
She flipped me off in reply. “If I look like I’m going to die from this mosquito bite, you can shoot me yourself. Now, leave me alone until it’s time to go.” I chuckled and left the canteen where she could reach it.
Bernie looked at me with suspicion in his eyes, and motioned for me to follow him outside. “Well, what do you think?”
“I was going to ask you that. These are your hunting grounds, no pun intended. This being your neighborhood and all, I was wondering if you’d ever heard of this woman.”
He shook his head in the negative. “Nope, can’t say that I have. Heard talk about some medicine woman out in the sticks further south, but I couldn’t tell you what or what not about it. That area she pointed out is pretty damn close to here, and I think we’d have known if there was a healer living in these parts.”
I rubbed my chin and considered the possibilities. “Unless she was laying low, or just passing through.”
“Yeah, I suppose. But from where, and why?”
“Bernie, your guess is as good as mine, but I’ll just have to worry about that later. Right now I need to figure out how to get Gabby to this medicine woman before dark. Let’s go see if those punters left us some transportation.”
We found a horse and a mule, and I loaded up Gabby and headed out with a quick goodbye to Bernie and Margaret. They were good people, and I hoped to see them again soon. They wished me and Gabby luck as we left the gates, and I reflected that we were going to need it. There was no guarantee that we’d find this curandera friend of Gabby’s, and besides, she was in no shape to move. But, we really didn’t have a choice in the matter; it was either move her and get some help, or let her die. Either way, the kid was pretty much screwed.
After about a half an hour, I looked back and saw that Gabby’s wound was leaking blood, and she was swaying in the saddle. She looked pale as all hell, and I was worried that she’d fall out. As we were taking the old county and farm-to-market roads, I’d been keeping an eye out for a place to rest since we left the Canyon Lake settlement. I spied an old gas station ahead, and made a beeline for it. Once there, I tethered the animals and got Gabby down from the saddle to check her wound.
Right away I could she was out of it, and besides that she was mumbling incoherently, something about not being a monster and needing to find el diablo, or un diablo, or something like that. I decided she was just having a fever dream, so I checked her wound and saw it was leaking badly, and the bandage was soaked. Just as I was about to change her bandage, I heard a crash from inside the gas station and saw two deaders milling around inside. They’d probably been in limbo mode until we pulled up, but I could see they were getting agitated and trying to get to the door, which was nothing but shattered glass and a pull bar.
I had no idea how many more deaders might be around, so I decided to just wrap Gabby back up and move on quickly, rather than risk being attacked and overrun. Besides, we were only a few miles from the spot where Gabby had indicated that La Araña was camped; the quicker I got her there, the better. I looked over at the store and saw that the deaders were now fighting each other to get out of the gas station door, and would soon be on us. Frustrated and feeling quite useless, I quickly secured her back in the saddle and moved out, leaving the deaders from the gas station moaning and shuffling in slow pursuit far behind us.
Within minutes of leaving the gas station, we came to an old blacktop road that looked like it could take us north into the wooded area Gabby had pointed out to me earlier. I headed us up that way and followed it as it wound through the area, finally coming to a dead end at an old dammed-up creek. Thus far I’d seen not any sign of the old woman, and nothing to indicate the presence of a single other soul living out here, either. It was getting close to dark, Gabby was delirious, and if I didn’t find a place to hole up soon we’d both be toast. I backtracked up the road a bit and took a side trail that looked like an overgrown country driveway. Bingo. It ended in a circular drive for a home that someone had cleverly built from an old prefab metal silo.
The silo house looked like it’d once been fortified, but now the front door hung off the hinges and the entire place looked abandoned. However, the windows were still boarded up, and if the place was clear of undead, it might make for a more or less secure place to hide overnight. I left Gabby on the mule and dismounted, then entered the building with my HK at the ready.
I noticed ample evidence of a bloody struggle as soon as I entered the home. It was clear that someone or something had broken down the door, and there were large blood smears on the entryway floor. From the looks of it the blood was weeks, maybe even months, old. I paused to listen, but heard nothing to indicate any movement inside the house. Silence was no indication of safety in the Outlands, however, so I moved as quietly as possible as I continued to clear the rest of the first floor.
Following the circular flow of the layout, I entered the living room next. There I found more blood everywhere, furniture pushed up against the windows, and broken glass and china all over the floor. Further in, I reached the kitchen area and found a single corpse lying facedown on the table, long dead from a gunshot wound delivered at close range to the back of the head. It was a teenage boy, maybe thirteen or fourteen; I noticed he had a paperback copy of The Hobbit wedged in his hands. Probably never even saw it coming.
Just past the kitchen I came to a laundry room and a family room, both empty and devoid of movement. With the bottom floor clear, it was time to head upstairs. I took a quick peek outside to make sure Gabby was alright; she was still in direct sunlight, so for now she’d be as safe as possible under the circumstances. Once I was certain she was okay, I headed up the stairs with as much speed and stealth as I could muster.
The top of the steps opened into a hallway that forked off at right angles in two directions. Most folks tended to turn right when given a choice; I’d learned long ago that it paid to be unpredictable. So, I decided to go left and crept down the hall as rapidly as stealth would allow.
The hallway ended in three doors, and two were ajar. I nudged the closest one open with the barrel of the HK, revealing a child’s room decorated in pastels and princess posters. There was a small figure on the bed with the covers pulled up over its head. I drew my tomahawk and pulled the covers back with the spike on the back of the axe blade; the corpse was a small girl, maybe seven or eight years old, who’d died of a single gunshot wound to the temple. I was starting to get an idea of what had happened here. I sheathed the tomahawk and moved on, reflecting on the scenario that was revealing itself before me.
After the War and the subsequent occult species invasion, a lot of people decided that this was the final Apocalypse and simply gave up outright. But despite the apparent hopelessness of it all, there were also many families that attempted to hold out in isolation, thinking that if they just made it through then eventually they’d be saved. I’d come across scenes like this many times before; a family holds out for a while, but as hope turns to desperation they end up making some sort of death pact with each other not to be taken alive and turned. Eventually, something gets to t
hem, whether an undead attack, or sickness, or just a case of the crazies, and some loony schmuck decides to follow through on the suicide pact, whether the rest of the family approves or not. I hated coming across these scenes.
Sure enough, the other two rooms on this side also had family members that were killed by a single bullet to the cranium. Moving to the other end of the hall, I found the same thing in a bathroom, but this time it was a woman in the tub with a self-inflicted gunshot wound. She was likely the mother, and decided to spare herself the torture of hearing her family suffer. I left the bath and turned to the final closed door, which I assumed was the master bedroom. Folks always seemed to retreat to what they felt was the safest place in the home to eat the last bullet.
I opened the door, and saw a corpse on the bed with a suppressed Colt 1911 in its hand, with old brain matter and blood spattered and encrusted all over the headboard. I walked over and took the sidearm from him, breaking a few fingers off in the process. I checked the slide for function and to see if it was still loaded. One in the chamber and two in the mag. The Colt would make a good replacement weapon for Gabby, if I could keep her alive to use it. I shoved it in my waistband and quickly checked for more ammo in the nightstand drawers.
Suddenly I heard a shuffling sound behind me, and turned to see a tall elderly deadhead in bloodied and torn flannel pajamas bearing down on me fast. The thing was already on top of me before I could get the barrel of the HK around, so I used the weapon as a barrier in order to put some distance between us. As I struggled to keep the deader off of me, the ugly bastard was snapping at me all the while and trying his best to take a chunk out of my arms. The old cuss smelled like mothballs and death, and was surprisingly strong for a dead octogenarian.
Out of options, I moved my left hand to the center point of the rifle and reached for the Colt in my waistband. It only took a split second for the zombie to use my lack of leverage to knock the rifle away and snap his mouth on my sleeve. I almost crapped my pants when I saw his mouth lock onto my arm, until I realized that the old man didn’t have his dentures in; the poor bastard was gnawing on my arm with nothing but gums.
Saying a silent prayer to thank God for old age and poor dental hygiene, I placed the barrel of the .45 on the thing’s forehead, watching it chew in vain as I squeezed down on the trigger. But right before I felt the trigger break, I remembered that we were all alone out here with night coming on fast. So, I released the trigger and just pistol-whipped the thing repeatedly until I felt its head cave in with a loud crunch. It dropped in a heap and I kicked it away from me, continuing past it into the master bath from where it’d emerged with the .45 at the ready to make sure there weren’t any more surprises waiting for me. Once I was certain that all the corpses present were blessedly and truly dead, I ran down the stairs two at a time to get Gabby inside so I could barricade us in before nightfall.
TWO
PARCHED
I GOT GABBY OFF THE MULE and carried her inside, gently laying her down on the couch to rest until I could get the house locked up tight. I also set the animals loose outside and shooed them off after unloading all our gear, which was a regrettable but necessary action. Leaving them tied up would only result in attracting all manner of undead nasties to the place, and it would also keep the animals from being able to flee if cornered. Sure, I could bring them inside, but horse hooves on tile and concrete made a lot of noise; even on carpet they’d be loud as hell. By turning them loose, at least they’d have a chance to run if danger came around, and chances were good they’d wander back come morning. That is, so long as they weren’t being pursued by a horde of the living dead. Better them than us, I thought, but I still felt bad about it.
Heading back up the steps, I noticed a pull-down attic door that looked promising. As far as I could tell this place didn’t have a basement or bunker, but for a temporary safe house, an attic could do in a pinch. If deaders came in the place, they’d never be able to reach us in the attic. And if one of the more intelligent occult species came in the place, the attic door would create a choke point that would make it easier to stage a strong defense. So long as I could keep Gabby quiet tonight, we might be okay.
A quick look in the attic told me that whoever built this place had built it right, as the attic floor was covered in plywood and the rafters were well insulated. I guessed that they’d probably intended to make it into another room at some point, before the Great War had put a dent in their plans. Bummer for them, lucky for me. I hauled Gabby up there along with some blankets for a pallet, followed by our gear. I also left the HK up there and left the Colt near my gear (cleaning it later would give me something to pass the time), and set to barricading the front door.
The back door was already nailed shut and secure, so I put the front door back in place as best as I could and started moving stuff in front of it. First a bookcase, then a china cabinet, then a sofa with a love seat stacked on top. Fortunately, the front entry faced a wall, so once I started stacking stuff against the door and wedging it against that wall we were pretty secure.
Once that was done, I wiped up a few drops of blood that had fallen on the steps when I was carrying Gabby to the attic, spraying it down with some bleach-based cleaner I found in the kitchen. Then I hauled the dad’s corpse to the stairs, and also brought grandpa out and laid them both over where I’d cleaned up the spill, hoping that the desiccated and rotting corpses would mask the scent of fresh blood. After scavenging the house for foodstuffs, I stuffed another body in an old sheet and dragged it all over the house, and then left it on the couch to cover the bloodstains Gabby had left there, again in hopes of covering our scent in case something did get past my makeshift barricade.
Scent really wasn’t an issue with zombies and ghouls; most of them operated on sound, so stealth and sound discipline were your best camouflage. However, a vamp could smell fresh blood hours after a wounded victim had passed; I’d actually witnessed them tasting the air like a lizard, tracking wounded prey for miles. They were nasty, apex predators with an ability to hone in on a blood trail like nothing I’d ever seen among the undead. That was what had me worried most, that if there was a nos-type hunting these parts we’d get found on account of Gabby’s gunshot wound. But if I was really lucky tonight, that mule would get wind of a deader and run off to the next county, taking the scent of Gabby’s blood with it. If I was lucky.
And then of course there were the ‘thropes to contend with, and I honestly had no idea how I’d fare if one of them showed up. All I had to go on were rumors and hearsay, since we’d never had even a single wolf down in these parts, not in all the eight years or so since the bombs fell and the world went mad. I’d heard they were fast, incredibly strong, and that they healed almost as quickly as you could hurt them. But if what I knew about the effects of silver on the undead held true for ‘thropes, then I could at least take comfort in having several full mags of silver rounds for the Glocks and my HK handy.
As the sun was going down, I was ruminating on all this and heading back up to the attic to check on Gabby, when I heard something clatter in the house below me. Huh. I set the food I’d found down on the carpeted surface of the stairs, all of which consisted of some stale crackers and a jar of canned veggies that may or may not have been of questionable provenance. Listening for further sounds of movement, I drew my battle-axe in one hand and my Bowie knife in the other. The Bowie knife was ten inches of high carbon steel that I kept honed sharper than Stephen Hawking on Ritalin, and the axe was a modernized version of a Vietnam-era battlehawk, a military tomahawk that we’d used for breaching doors and busting heads back in the ‘Stan.
Despite the neat hardware, if I got bum-rushed by a vamp I’d be truly and righteously screwed. Deaders were up and active by now, so whatever might be in here would need to be taken out quietly; that’d be a tall order if a vamp got in. But as much as I’d hate having to go hand-to-hand with a vamp, firing a gun at night in the Outlands was like ringing a zombie dinne
r bell; every deader in the area would be on you before you could say “uninvited.” I hoped to hell that noise was just a can falling over.
With a death grip on the tomahawk and Bowie knife, I crept down the stairs and moved in the direction I’d heard the noise. It’d sounded like it came from the kitchen, so I ninja-ed over to that area of the house, pausing around the corner to listen for anything moving. Not hearing a peep, I turned the corner with my blade forward and battle-axe high, only to see an old bulging can of dog food on the floor in front of the pantry. Letting out a sigh of relief, I walked forward to see if there might be any canned food I’d missed, and then realized that I had shut that door just minutes before. Senses on high alert, I pulled back the pantry door, took one peek, and then bolted toward the stairs just as fast as my moccasin-covered feet could carry me.
What I’d seen as I looked around the pantry door had chilled me to the bone; it was an open trap door, a miniature deathly maw that indicated someone or something else was in here with us. As I hauled ass to the attic, I mentally kicked myself for not being more thorough in my search of the house earlier. Just as I rounded the corner to the stairs, I heard the attic door close with a loud BANG! and knew I was going to be too late. I took the stairs two at a time and leapt off the top step to reach the pull cord for the attic door, yanking the ladder down and scrambling up it like a bat out of hell.
I cleared the top rung in a leap and dive rolled toward where I’d left Gabby. As I came up out of my roll, I saw an emaciated figure in a threadbare nightgown leaning over the kid’s still form, sniffing at the large amount of blood that’d soaked through Gabby’s dressing. The once-human thing before me was a ghastly caricature of its former existence. Its long brown hair was tangled and clumped with dirt, dried blood, and twigs; its face was sallow and pale, with sunken cheeks and horrid, leathery skin; and its bare feet and hands ended in claws that were as hard and poisonous as old rusted tenpenny nails.