by TW Brown
“Casualties happen out here in the shit,” she snarled, reaching up on her tiptoes to get as close to in his face as she could manage. “You not making it back wouldn’t be that big of a deal to anybody.”
“Save your threats for somebody who gives a crap, Natasha,” Arlo said with a degree of coolness that I would not have been able to manage considering the situation.
I took the time and momentary distraction to get a better look at my fellow shackle-mates. Their reactions were a range of fear and astonishment. For the most part, they just seemed like cattle being led to the slaughter. Of course, they had no idea that I would be the reason for their demise.
I felt a trickle of guilt try to seep into my conscience again and I shoved it aside. There was no place for such things right now. I was going to do what I needed to do in order to finish what I considered my final mission. My only allegiance was to my dog, Chewie. After that, I felt a certain degree of camaraderie with Carl, Betty, and the kids. I had to keep reminding myself that we’d just added another member to our ranks right before I left. Also, if the reports could be believed, perhaps they’d bolstered their numbers even more in my brief absence.
“Get moving,” a voice barked as a hand shoved me forward.
We headed into the adjacent neighborhood and my eyes paused for just a moment on a wreck that I managed to get a glimpse of through a perfect degree of open yards and our current angle of the main road. The upside-down Jeep Cherokee in the distance made my stomach tighten at the memory of what had happened.
We turned right and ventured into the neighborhood. I was given a list of items that I was made to recite back to Arlo, and then my leash was unclipped.
“You have exactly five minutes,” Arlo warned. “That might seem like an eternity, but I assure you that it isn’t.” He hung a stopwatch around my neck and held up a similar one. “I am going to give you a countdown. We will both activate our stopwatches at the same time so that there is no excuse. If you are even a second late, Natasha pushes the button on her remote.”
I glanced back at the house I’d been tasked to search. My eyes did their best not to drift to what waited beyond. I saw no reason to waste a moment. I would go in and shoot right out the back door. There was a wooded field beyond that I should be able to duck into and stay out of sight long enough to give myself a good head start.
“And just in case you are thinking of doing something stupid,” Arlo’s voice cut into my scheming with an edge that caused my head to whip around to him, “that same green light that signals the connection is intact will also turn red if you just happen to accidentally start drifting out of range of her remote receiver. If that red light comes on, she will activate your MP3 player as a warning. Since we can easily hear where the sound is coming from, she will know whether or not you are just becoming difficult to keep a fix on, or if you are indeed slipping from her range. If it is the latter, the device will remain active.”
“And what will you guys do about the zombies coming down on you?” I challenged. “It isn’t like they will just ignore you guys and go just for those of us with your little collars on.”
“We return to the safety of our base. Anybody who tries to climb the wall wearing an active noisemaker will be shot in the knee or some equally disabling location.”
“Not just killed outright?” I couldn’t help but shake my head at this display of inhumanity. They were going to ensure that their captives were set upon by the undead.
“Once the zombies have done what is needed, we retrieve the bodies before they reanimate. They are taken to the basement.”
My mind flashed on Ariel being led away. Don had warned me that she would be taken to the basement where she would be kept until my return. I was not dumb to the reality that I was sacrificing three human lives in order to hopefully resume my quest for Chewie.
“Time to go,” Arlo said.
I glanced around and saw my fellow captives obviously just finishing up with getting the same general spiel. I wondered briefly if any of the other two had the same thoughts as me. Perhaps for different reasons, but maybe they were also contemplating the idea of making a break for it.
“On my mark…three…two…one…go!”
I turned and sprinted for the house I’d been assigned. I had no weapon and no way of really knowing if it was empty. I also had no intention of staying long enough to really find out.
8
The Guilt of an Executioner
I reached the front door and only paused long enough to take a big sniff. Despite the likelihood that these houses had been at least given a cursory search, I would not trust these people as far as I could throw their collective asses.
I tried the door and was only marginally surprised when I discovered that it was unlocked. I pushed it open and sniffed again. The stink of decay hit me hard, but nothing indicated that the walking dead were present.
I made it up the hallway when I almost tripped over the first corpse. The man had most of his head blown off. All that remained was a beard that was stiff with dried gore. I hopped over it and my eyes went to the sliding glass door. It opened out to a backyard that was just starting to show signs of the slowly approaching spring. The grass was starting to grow and the stalks of a few dandelions could be seen holding court over the emerald landscape. The trees had tiny buds displaying the faintest hint of light green, and one rose bush was already sporting a few small nodes that would open to a world that could care less.
I could hear my own voice as I’d recited the items I was tasked to locate and identify for the scavenger teams: blankets, sleeping bags, personal hygiene items. I was admittedly impressed by their approach. Instead of just ransacking the houses without rhyme or reason, they were making a systematic assault on the supplies. I had to imagine that it made cataloging what they brought in an easier task. I had no doubt that they were keeping close tabs on everything. Don didn’t strike me as the sort that left things open for the masses to consume as they wished.
I reached the back door and paused. Once I walked through it and made my way to that fence, I was sealing not just my fate, but that of three other people. It seemed so easy as the scheme unfolded in my head, but now that I was about to commit the act, I was having trouble silencing my conscience.
Why not just wait until we reach the house? a voice that I dubbed ‘Reason’ asked inside my mind.
You think leading these people to the doorsteps of Carl and the others doesn’t end with you being killed by either side? the voice that I dubbed ‘Pragmatic’ shot back.
That was the hard reality of it. I had to figure that Carl would do whatever he needed to do in order to protect those living behind the walls with him. He would know my condition, and so he might even consider it a mercy to put a bullet in my head before things even managed to reach the negotiations stage.
My hand gripped the handle of the door and I made a hasty apology to the cosmos and the soon-to-be-departing souls of the people that my actions would condemn. I tugged at the door and cursed when it didn’t open. I looked down, found the lever, and unlocked it with an exasperated sigh.
My hands went to my collar. I would need to find something to cut that off my neck as soon as I could manage. I would be on the run, and I would be drawing the attention of everything living and undead for hundreds of yards in every direction until I could ditch it.
The next moment, I was sprinting across the yard with all the ability I had. The first surprise was how tired my legs were. It was too late to consider it now, but I hadn’t eaten in a while. The body does not hold an infinite supply of energy—another fact that I think is often ignored in most zombie stories.
“…oh, bay-bah, bay-bah…” The MP3 player erupted in sound. No matter how hard I tried, my brain would not equate this noise with music.
I reached the rear fence as the sounds of voices shouting from the street in front of the houses the three of us captives had been sent into began in earnest. There was a shout, and th
en gunfire erupted along with a scream that I was willing to bet came from one of the other MP3 wearers. I landed on the other side of the fence and took off across the field in the direction of the grove of trees ahead of me.
The field that I was crossing was anything but even, and twice, before I’d made it halfway across, I almost sprained my ankle. Once, I did end up sprawling on my belly with a painful thud.
As I reached the trees, I could hear the shouts behind me growing more angry than surprised. I risked a look over my shoulder just before I vanished from any eyes that might still be tracking me. I could not help but being astonished when I saw no sign of Arlo, Natasha, or the rest of the team. I was even more amazed when I spied one of my fellow captives running for all he was worth across the same field I’d just crossed. I was glad that this person decided that he had nothing to lose and had chosen to at least make the attempt to survive.
My relief was short-lived when I saw the person veering my direction with some sort of weapon in one hand. I didn’t know if it was a baton or a long and slender blade, but I had no doubt that this individual was coming after me. Whether to join me or take me down, I had no idea. I wasn’t in the mood to wait and see as I also heard the first of the moans of the undead coming from somewhere in front and to my right.
I was surprised that I could hear anything with this hellish pop music blaring from just under my chin. It wasn’t at ear-splitting levels, but it was well beyond plenty loud enough to grate on my nerves in addition to alerting zombies of my presence.
I was bounding through the knee-high grasses and dodging downed tree limbs, partially hidden trunks, and a variety of vines, as well as the odd clump of blackberry bushes. More than once I was able to just barely keep myself from falling again.
As I got deeper into the woods, I spied a few dark figures drifting in and out of the shadows of all the lush pine trees. I kept getting hints of the stink of undeath as I pushed on.
When I emerged from the relatively shallow wooded lot—much shallower than I would have liked when it came down to it—I saw another row of houses all with fences marking their backyard borders. I also saw something else, something that took a few seconds to comprehend and truly appreciate what it meant to my situation.
The little creek cut through the grassy field that bordered this side of the small wooded area. I was already determining if I could jump it cleanly when another idea struck. It wasn’t going to be pleasant, but it was the solution to at least one of my problems.
The closer I got to the ribbon of water, the more I dreaded what I needed to do. The water, despite having a current that I could see in the forms of ripples and eddies, looked absolutely foul. I saw sludge drifting on the surface in places as well as beginning to be able to smell it and all the decaying whatever that made the muck give off its own pungent funk. At least it was a smell I was slightly familiar with having grown up just down the road from a cow pasture.
Without hesitation, I did a belly flop into the water. Pressing my lips together tightly kept the fetid liquid out of my mouth, but that did nothing to prevent it from managing to make its way up my nostrils. I almost gagged on the bitter fluid as it oozed down the back of my throat, but, as I made my way to my knees, I was at least thankful that I hadn’t gone into that water with my mouth open. Small victories.
The MP3 player had gone silent. Obviously, it was not of the waterproof variety. I could worry later about removing the collar, as well as the wire mesh cage hooked to it, off me. For now, I would allow myself to be thankful for this tiny stroke of luck as well as the presence of mind that I’d displayed in sabotaging the noisemaker. It was also a huge blessing that I no longer had to endure Britney’s caterwauling.
Getting to my feet, I could now see a few dozen of the walking dead emerging from the woods at my back. What I didn’t see was my pursuer. I had just taken a few involuntary steps back the way I’d just come when I heard the scream.
“Sorry, man,” I whispered as I turned and ran for the fence line.
I reached it, struggled my way over, and prepared to vault when my brain caught up to what my eyes were seeing. This particular backyard was a diorama of horrors with at least four dogs and as many children. Additionally, there was a lone adult. All of them were zombified, and the dogs were limping along with the adult in my direction. One of the dogs was already at the fence, and had it been a larger breed, might’ve been able to grab the cuff of my jeans by the time I recovered, reacted, and withdrew.
I landed back on the ground, but my mind was still filling in the picture I’d just seen. The children had been huddled on the back porch and they’d made no effort to move towards me.
“Creepy-ass zombie kids,” I wheezed as I reached the next yard and hauled myself up enough so that I could see into it. The yard was blessedly empty, and I double-checked before throwing my leg over and then dropping down into it.
I heard a pounding sound and located a female zombie on the second floor of this house. She was slapping at a window and doing a great job of coating it from the inside with a vile slime that was dark enough that I doubted very seriously that she would be able to see anything from that vantage point before too long if she kept up her assault.
I cut across the yard and exited to discover a street that looked like a war zone. There were bodies sprawled in the road and in yards. A few of the homes had at least partially burned up, and one of them had a car jutting from where I imagine a large living room window once existed.
I spied a car that had run up on a curb. It was missing the driver’s side door, but the driver was still very present and squirming in the front seat, unable to escape the safety harness that held her in place. Other than being up on the curb, having the airbag in the steering wheel deployed, and missing a door, the vehicle looked fine. It was close enough, and at a good angle that allowed me to see keys dangling from the ignition.
“It’s worth a shot,” I whispered as I hurried to it.
As soon as I did, I became committed to my objective. Zombies were emerging from numerous yards and open doors. It was almost as if my noisemaker was still active. If I had a weapon, the situation would still be dire. Without one…it was beyond horrifying.
I reached the car and took a second to figure out how I could undo the seatbelt without the zombie woman being able to grab hold of me. As soon as the clasp came free, the zombie’s struggles sent her tumbling from the car. There was a sickening squelchy noise as the belt apparently ripped free from where the dried blood had welded the fabric to the skin.
Before it could recover, I moved in and stomped hard on the back of its head. It was nowhere near as easy to do in real life as it appeared in movies and video games. At last, the female zombie ceased its struggles. In the time it took me to do all this, several of the zombies had begun to stir with my arrival and homed in on their potential prey…me.
I dreaded climbing into the filthy seat, but now was no time to be squeamish. I hopped in, ignoring the crunchy noises. Holding my breath, I gave the key a twist and almost cried with relief when the engine turned over right away.
I had to back up, and as I did, I glanced in the rearview mirror. A pair of zombies had come up and were just about to the bumper of the older model Buick. If I had to guess, I would say it was an early Eighties’ model, which made it pretty close to a tank.
I felt the frame of the vehicle give a shudder as I hit, knocked over, then rolled on top of the pair of zombies that had stumbled into my path. With no door, I could hear the snapping and cracking as bones were crushed. There was a loud, wet popping noise just before I shifted into drive and cranked the wheel around. My eyes lit on an insignia on the dash.
“Never heard of a Buick Electra,” I mused as I came around and started up the street, doing my best to avoid as many of the approaching zombies as they came at me with arms out and no fear of being hit by this vehicle. The ones that I couldn’t avoid, I tried to simply catch with as little of the nose of my car as possibl
e.
I passed one yard and felt the hairs on my arms and the back of my neck start to prickle. A pair of zombies stood in the middle of a small rose garden. The boy looked to be around ten or so and the girl maybe four or five. The pair were actually holding hands! To add to the surreal scene, a German Sheppard edged past them, doing its best to join the rest of the standard zombies as they shambled towards or after me. The entire rear of the dog was dragging along on the ground and I could see that both of its back legs were practically gone.
If all that wasn’t bad enough, a pair of calico cats wove in between the legs of the zombie children. The kids didn’t seem to notice, and if they did, they were showing no interest in attacking the pair of felines.
“What the hell is going on?” I gasped.
There was too much that I could not explain, and my mind was reeling with questions that I could not even form properly, much less try to figure out a way to get at the answers. I now had one purpose. I did not care how, but I was going to do what I’d set out to do.
Glancing in the rearview mirror, I could not believe that my eyes still showed no sign of my being infected. It had to be that scratches took longer. That was the only possibility…unless…
“Don’t even let your mind start down that road,” I cautioned myself as I made a right turn just before a three-car crash involving a pickup, a minivan, and an ambulance. All of them had zombies writhing in the front seats.
As I got all the way beyond the accident, I could see the rear of the ambulance was open. There was a body strapped to a gurney. The blood of that poor unfortunate soul had dried long ago after spraying the interior of the ambulance’s cargo area. I caught a hint of movement and was not surprised when the head rose and the zombie on that gurney moaned its frustration.
“There could be a strong case made for this being Hell,” I muttered as I sped along this street that cut through a decimated residential neighborhood.