Odium (The Dead Saga.)

by Riley, Claire C

  I pull out the knife and stare at it. It’s sharp and dangerous-looking, far better than my stupid knife. I turn and watch his retreating back as he climbs down the main pole to the ground, my stomach fluttering as I watch his descent.

  Stupid man.

  The air is once again humid as we trek through the forest, and it’s surprisingly clear, apart from the one deader. It doesn’t seem to pose a particular threat to any of us as it slowly drags its decrepit body across the forest floor. It groans as we near it, its eyes turning to look at us, one hand reaching up for us clumsily.

  JD walks over to it, staring down at its putrid body with something more than hate written on his face. He puts his boot on the side of its head and slowly presses down, taking his time to feel every bone crunch in its head. The zombie’s face pops with finality, leaving black gunk and bone where its head once was. I look away with a grimace, and when I look back up, I see JD smile at it and stalk off without a second glance. I look up and catch Mikey watching me with dark eyes. He reaches down, picks up a rock, and continues walking.

  I walk behind him, listening to the scrape of metal upon stone, and realize that he’s sharpening my knife. My hand instinctively goes to the knife at my waist—the one he has given me. My fingers grip it around its handle. I’m not giving this back, no matter what he says or how sharp he makes my stupid knife. Ungrateful and selfish? Yeah, probably, but I don’t care. Weapons like this don’t come easy, not in this world, not anymore, and I would be stupid to just give it up.

  The walk is hard on my body. I’m tired, and weaker than I will ever admit to anyone because of the crappy early morning and the lack of food. The nerves are beginning to set in too. Why the hell did I decide to come along? I didn’t have to. They were going to be doing this regardless of me. Maybe it’s my own desire to try and prove to Crunch and JD that I’m not some stupid, feeble woman, that I’m as strong as they are—more so for what I have been through. Or maybe it’s because I wanted to be near Mikey. I hate that he has gotten under my skin; it makes me have an entire new bag of reasons to feel guilty in my life.

  I’m lost in my own thoughts and don’t notice when Duncan falls into step beside me.

  “I hope we’re not going to regret this,” he says quietly, more to himself than me.

  “You and me both,” I reply without looking at him.

  There’s silence the rest of the way there, apart from the odd grunt from people tripping on stuff. Okay, so that would just be me that’s tripping on stuff.

  The hub comes into view again as we pass our vegetable patch, and I’m pleased that my rhubarb is still growing strong and there are no deaders around, thanks to my little zombie repellent. We crouch down behind some rocks on the ridge, looking across at the place where the Forgotten had stopped yesterday and tortured the deader. There’s no sign of them or it today, but there’s a large patch of brown-black sludge where they were standing. JD hurries off commando-style to make sure that the coast is clear and none of the Forgotten are still over there. A few minutes later he comes back and gives us the all clear, and we set off again, with Duncan by JD’s side.

  We aim for the back of the building, which Duncan tells us is an emergency exit and therefore less used. I guess he’s hoping to come across as little zombie exposure as possible, but that doesn’t seem to be JD’s or Mikey’s aim. They seem to want to clear the building and take back control of it.

  We all stand side by side, our backs against the warm cream walls, as Duncan fumbles around for the key. The bastard locked everyone inside when he left. Any respect I have for him is quashed upon that realization.

  Stepping out of the heat and into the murky coolness of the hub, Duncan slips a catch at the top of the door so that it won’t lock when it closes behind us, and we all take a second or two to collect our thoughts and wits.

  JD points to Mikey, giving him some strange hand signal, which—lo and behold!—Mikey actually seems to get. Or at least he nods, looks back at me, and uses the same hand signal. I shrug and tiptoe up behind him.

  “What?” I whisper it as quietly as I can, but in the gloom, the sound of my voice seems to echo around us all, and I flinch.

  “Stay behind me, okay? We’ll stick to the left, Crunch and Duncan to the right, JD will be in the middle. Keep your eyes peeled and stay in formation.” His face is serious, concern crinkling at the corners of his eyes.

  JD is huffing for us to go, but Mikey is relaxed and calm. Or at least he seems to be.

  We make our way down the hallway, checking out side corridors as we pass them, but silence is what envelops us. Nothing but silence until Duncan whispers that we are nearing the center. The canteen is apparently to the left of the center, and that’s where Duncan wants to get to. However, when we reach the main part of the building, JD gestures for us to go right. Duncan does that weird argue whisper thing with JD, who blatantly ignores him and keeps on going right. No one in their right mind wants to disagree with JD, so we all follow like lambs to the slaughter.

  As we turn the corner, the moaning can finally be heard. The moaning that only the dead make. I watch a nervous Duncan make a sign of the cross and pull out both his guns, ready to protect himself. I grip my knife tighter, my nails digging into the soft flesh underneath as fear trickles into the pit of my stomach.

  The stench of death is upon us and I can’t seem to breathe through my nose anymore for fear of throwing up. Even with the fear of being eaten to death—or worse, being eaten and turning into one of the deaders—it’s still the smell that manages to get to me the most. I can almost taste last night’s rabbit threatening to make a reappearance, but I’ll be damned if I’m going to lose another meal to these freaks. I swallow down my bile and grit my teeth.

  The corridor is lined with doors, and we gather around the first. JD tugs on the handle until it relents and swings open to reveal an empty office. I release the breath that I’ve been holding and Mikey looks around at me and gives me a grim smile.

  JD closes the door and we move as one to the next door. I instinctively hold my breath again. JD’s hand pulls on the handle and he opens the door wide, surprising the zombie inside.

  It turns, and I swear I see it smile as it comes toward us, stumbling over the clutter on the floor in its eagerness to get to us. It walks with arms raised, bloodied fingers searching us out. There’s a swoosh as a blade slices through the air, hitting the zombie in the neck, and then a small thud as its head hits the floor. There’s no blood—just black sludge, which oozes out of the hole where the head should be as the body falls to its knees and then lands in a heap.

  Somehow we have all crowded into the small space of the doorway, and as we step back and close the door, we are finally greeted with the view that we have all been dreading.

  Deaders. Lots of them.

  Twenty-One.

  “Fuck!” Crunch breathes out, beating me to the punch line with startling accuracy.

  Yes, fuck would be it indeed. Or fucked may be better. Maybe even well and truly fucked. This isn’t how we had talked about it going down. In fact, this would be the entire opposite of how we expected it to go down. We had planned on picking them off one by one, or at least two by two. Like Noah’s ark, but without the cute animals.

  I turn, startled by the noise behind us, and I know for a fact that my eyes have just widened by at least an inch as more zombies round the corner.

  “Double fuck!” I beat Crunch to it this time, and the group turns to look behind us too.

  “Ten to the rear,” Mikey barks out and readies his machete, solidifying his stance.

  “Eight to the front,” JD shouts back, his voice nearly drowned out by the groaning horde coming toward us.

  We stand back to back, giving each other just enough space to move around as the crowd of overzealous zombies draws close.

  I haven’t realized that I have placed myself between Duncan and Mikey, with JD and Crunch to my rear. As the first of the rotting zombies gets close, M
ikey steps out of formation and slices its head from its shoulders in one move. That’s the good thing about the older deaders: the muscle and sinew are much weaker and easier to destroy than the newer deaders. The downside to them? They stink to high heaven. I mean, way more than your average deader. Once again there is no blood splatter—just black gunk, which oozes out of the hole, and a fresh wave of putrid stench. Mikey takes another step forward as an overeager female zombie with one arm and a rotten face (showing more bone than flesh) trips on the body of the first deader, and he swings and removes her head too with a satisfying thwack sound. Duncan takes aim with his gun and fires into the crowd, but he seemingly misses their brains, since they continue to twitch and writhe to get to us. Dude needs to practice his shooting skills more, if you ask me.

  I take a cursory glance behind me, and see that JD and Crunch have also dropped from their positions and are fast approaching the other deaders while attempting to separate and single them out so they’re easier to kill.

  I dig deep down in me, summoning up some strength of mind to get my ass into gear. After all, I was the one who asked to come on this joyous trip.

  My blade is sharp and deadly and I fumble for a moment before I, too, begin hacking away at the deaders that get too close to us. I slice and dice without prejudice. Mikey is covered in black grime, his face contorted with a deadly rage that I haven’t seen on him before. Yet his movements remain precise and controlled; only his eyes give it away. The hate, the contempt.

  Duncan steps close to a thrashing zombie and fires his gun into its brain. The bullet comes out the back of the deader’s skull and hits the one behind it, spraying it with chunks of rotten brown-and-black brain matter. Unfortunately it doesn’t kill the deader, just pisses it off, and it moves forward, stumbling over the now brainless deader on the floor, and grabs at Duncan’s shirt. It leans over and tries to bite him, but only comes away with a mouthful of shirt. Duncan pushes his gun between himself and the deader and fires haphazardly into it, but the thing barely notices that its insides are being turned to oozing black mush, which is now trickling out of several holes in its intestines, and continues its onslaught regardless. I swing with my arm—wildly, I’ll admit—and hit it in the back of the head. The zombie twitches and releases Duncan, turning to look at me instead, my machete still sunk deep in its skull. That’s unusual; a deader is normally so focused on the prey directly in front of it. Regardless, I don’t get to ponder this obscurity now that I’m its new source of prey.

  I take a step back from it as Duncan fires his gun again, but it clicks on empty. Between him reaching for his shotgun and me getting ready to kick the deader away, Mikey somehow realizes what’s happening and turns to pull my machete from the back of the deader’s skull. He hacks at its skull again, this time making sure its brain is completely destroyed. The zombie grunts once and falls to the floor as Duncan aims his gun at it.

  “Sorry,” Duncan pants, wiping away the sweat and black gunk from his face with shaky hands. “And thanks.”

  I shrug a no problem, but really feel like peeing myself. JD calls out that it’s clear where he and Crunch are, and I nod and make my way to them without looking at Mikey even though I feel like throwing my arms around his neck right here and now and slobbering him with grateful kisses.

  They’ve managed to make their way further down the hall in their fighting, leaving a trail of rotten bodies either missing their heads or with little left of what were once their skulls.

  I’m glad that these monsters are dead, yet I feel no joy at their passing. Only relief that they are out of their misery. For all the death and destruction that they have created, we all know that they didn’t ask for this, and if they did have a choice in the matter, this is not the way they would have wanted to go.

  We regroup, pausing and catching our breaths as we lean against the walls—all but Mikey and JD, who cover both ends of the hallway.

  “How many more, Duncan?” Mikey asks as he wipes his blade along the seam of his pants to clear it free of any gunk.

  “I’m not sure, um, I don’t know how many made it out before…” He mumbles his words.

  “Well, for argument’s sake, let’s just say that none of them made it out. How many more?” JD snaps.

  Duncan seems to be going over the mental calculations in his head before coming to an answer that seems to please him. “I think maybe another twenty or so, maybe less.” He smiles, but no one reciprocates it. “I thought that we were just getting some supplies. We don’t need to clear the building, we’re fine where we are.”

  “I’m not living in the trees for the next twenty years, Duncan. We’re clearing this place, end of discussion,” JD barks out.

  Duncan nods, but he clearly doesn’t agree. I don’t know where I stand in it all. It would be great to be living on solid ground again, but there’s something about living up in the trees that actually makes me feel safer, Ewok or not.

  “Twenty more then?” Crunch asks with a grim look.

  Duncan shrugs, but doesn’t say anything. He doesn’t need to. Twenty zombies still lurk in this place. Twenty zombies that we need to find and kill before we can even begin to collect the things we need. Twenty more times that the hungry, gory mouths of the dead can try and eat us.

  “Let’s go.” JD moves off around the corner, and we follow him as one and without argument.

  There are stains smeared along the walls, handprints and the words ‘help us’ written in dried blood. I shudder and look at Duncan. He lowers his gaze away from me and away from the words, knowing only too well that he caused this. He could have saved some of these people if he wouldn’t have been such a coward. Instead he locked them all inside and sentenced them to death.

  There are the remains of a body or two on the floor, but not enough of either of them remain to be reanimated, and so JD kicks the bloody bones to the side and out of our way. We can hear more growling coming from behind a closed door; we seemed to have riled them all up, by the sounds of it.

  “That’s the medic’s room,” Duncan whispers.

  I want to shout out no shit, Sherlock! since there’s a big red cross on the door, but JD turns the handle before I can get my words out. I swallow them down and ready myself as the door opens inwards and reveals to us the five zombies within.

  They head straight for us with long, hungry growls, as if mamma didn’t give them their last meal before bedtime. Sludge hangs from their jaws and a cold blankness fills their eyes. Their lips peel back to reveal blackened and broken teeth and they push and shove to get past each other and to their meal: us. I shiver and swallow down the stomach acid that has worked its way up my esophagus and into my mouth.

  “I got this.” Crunch steps forward, and with her two knives, she decapitates the first two zombies with relative ease (if there can be such a thing when killing the living dead). JD follows her in, and when a zombie lunges for him, he deals with it with a quick swoop of his scythe down its middle. From skull to stomach it splits, and everything left inside tumbles into a pile on the floor along with its body.

  Crunch laughs as she circles another, kicking it away with her foot until it falls on its back. She stands above it, placing a foot on its chest, and drives her blade through its face slowly and with a maniacal glee that sends shivers down my spine. There is something like contentment in her expression as she pulls the blade back out, gunk spewing out of the hole left by her knife.

  The last deader has reached the doorway, and Duncan takes aim with his gun.

  “I’m sorry,” he whispers as he pulls the trigger and the zombie hits the floor.

  From the looks of the random skeletal body pieces lying around, there were more than just these five in here at one time. I realize that there is no way to know for sure how many had been here. This room is the real hub, the beginning of it all for Duncan, and the end of it all for everyone that had been in here. He hangs his head in shame as he looks at the body of the deader he just shot—what was once a y
oung boy. I’m guessing this was the Sanil from his story. There’s a huge chunk of the zombie’s face missing—his cheek and part of his right eye. Yes, this was definitely Sanil.

  “Do you know how many people followed you in here, Duncan?” Mikey asks, his voice quiet.

  Duncan shakes his head in response, but doesn’t reply.

  I notice that Crunch has taken watch by the door while JD is kicking bodies around, trying to get a rough figure. “I think there were maybe three others at one time, but…” JD kicks another body and shrugs. “It’s too hard to tell.”

  I do the quick math and approximate it at around nine more to go, give or take. Give or take are not good odds in situations like these, and I tell everyone so.

  We head back down the hallway, listening intently for any sound. When only our footsteps echo back at us after a couple of pit stops inside various rooms, Mikey stops and turns to look at us.

  “Wait. Let’s try and think about this. Duncan, where would the highest number of people go?” Mikey waits for Duncan to reply.

  “What would that matter? Zombies don’t think like humans do. They wander, they moan, they attack and kill. They don’t relive their final days,” Duncan replies coldly.

  “Probably not, but what if everyone went to hide? What if they’re still there…waiting?” Mikey lets the news sink in for a second before continuing. “Alive or dead, that’s more than likely where they are going to be. Think about it. The first deader was trapped in his office, and I’m willing to bet that he locked himself in there when the shit went down and he couldn’t escape. He most likely died from hunger in there and then turned.” Mikey looks to everyone in the group and we all nod in agreement; it makes sense when you think about it.

  “They’re probably in the sleeping quarters then. There’s a lock on the inside of the door, but no outside exit from there.” Duncan’s guilt is palpable as he drags a hand across his face in shame at what he has done.