Kyle led his friends outside. It was mid-morning, but it was still cool. Alice shivered slightly and rubbed her shoulders as she looked around.
“You have to admit,” she said. “In spite of everything else, this place is really beautiful.”
She was right.
Kyle felt comfortable in the woods. It was probably because he’d grown up with them, grown up running around in the mountains with his siblings. He stepped on the fallen leaves and twigs and even though they crunched beneath his shoes, he was comfortable here.
He just hoped it would stay that way.
It wouldn’t, of course. He knew it was only a matter of time before zombies wandered out of Raven and into the darkness of the woods. It was only a matter of time before this place, too, was overtaken.
Despite this knowledge, Kyle didn’t feel afraid the way he probably should. He didn’t feel scared the way he should. No, Torrance’s comment had snapped something in him, made him realize something.
He didn’t want to be a pussy.
He wanted to be brave, strong.
He wanted to be the kind of man she could be proud of, the kind of man his mother had tried so hard to raise.
He wanted to be better than he was, so he needed to start with not being scared of the woods, with not giving in to the monsters that lurked in the darkness.
There would be monsters everywhere, he knew. Even before the monsters had been so visible, they had existed in the world. Even before the apocalypse, the world had contained darkness.
The zombies just manifested the evil in a very obvious way.
“I cleared the cabins,” Kyle pointed to the first little house they approached. Each single-room cabin had contained very little, but he’d gotten lucky in a couple of them and found things campers had left behind.
“Anything good?” Mark asked.
“Some random clothes and tools. Found a couple of backpacks and a tent in one. Some jackets. One cabin had an ice pick.”
“Dibs on the ice pick,” Alice called out. When both men turned to look at her, she raised her hands. “What?” She asked innocently. “It’s just for sculpting. Winter will be here. Maybe we’ll want some decorative ice sculptures.”
“You want to kill a zombie with an ice pick,” Kyle accused.
Alice’s eyes twinkled as she smiled and nodded. “I definitely want to kill a zombie with an ice pick,” she admitted.
Chapter 8
When the group returned from their morning adventure, Torrance had lunch ready and waiting.
“What the hell is this?” Mark asked as his stomach rumbled audibly, and she just laughed.
“It’s not what you think,” she said.
“Really? Because I think it looks fucking delicious.” He grabbed a plate and sat down at the huge kitchen table. Then he took a quick bite. The groan he let out made all of the hard work worth it.
Alice and Kyle grabbed plates, too.
“It’s just canned chicken,” she said. “I lit one of the stovetop burners with a match. Did you know these things are just propane? There should be a tank outside. This is good news, you guys. It means we can have good, hot meals without having to cook over the fireplace.”
“This is not just canned chicken,” Alice said through a huge mouthful. “Seriously, how did you make this?”
“Trade secret,” Torrance said, but her smile was forced as she ate her own food. The truth was that as a single mother, she hadn’t had a lot of money for luxuries. That included good food for her kid. Most of the meals she’d made to share with Brandon had been mediocre at best and disappointing at worst.
This was one of the not-that-good meals she used to make her little boy.
He’d always had a good attitude, though. He’d always politely thanked her and smiled and promised he loved the food because it was so delicious.
Torrance almost believed him.
The truth was that no matter what else happened in her life, she had never minded too much because she’d had Brandon. He’d been the best thing to ever happen to her and even though he was gone, even though she was going through hell right now, the memories of their time together was what kept her going.
She shouldn’t think like that, shouldn’t consider suicide constantly, but judging from the things the rest of the group had said, she knew she wasn’t alone. Still, she knew there was a point when she had to decide to let go of the life she’d lived before. She and Kyle had talked a lot about it during the previous week. A lot.
If there was one thing she knew, it was that pouting wasn’t going to bring her son back.
Mourning wasn’t going to make him not-dead.
Feeling sorry for herself wasn’t going to change the situation.
So she needed to move on, needed to change the way she saw the world. She needed to change the way she saw everything. She needed to change the way she saw people.
Torrance had a group now that she could trust. A family. They had become a family. Somehow, Kyle, Mark, and Alice were all their own little community, but they had let her in when she needed it most.
She would always be grateful for that.
When they had finished eating, Kyle and Mark washed the dishes in a bucket of water they’d brought up from the lake.
“They won’t smell great,” Mark said, “but the plates are definitely clean.”
“Did you use enough dish soap?” Torrance teased, jerking her eyes to the pile of bubbles on the floor. “I’m not sure. Maybe you should put in a little bit more.”
“Better to be safe than sorry,” Mark said simply. “None of us knows what kind of fucking contaminants are in that lake.”
She instantly sobered. “You’re right. Thanks for helping with the dishes.”
“It’s nothing,” Mark said.
“You should sit,” Kyle said, helping her back to the living room. “I’m glad your ankle and foot are feeling a little better, but you don’t want to push yourself yet.”
“I don’t want to seem lazy,” she admitted.
“No one thinks you’re lazy.”
“I think I am,” she whispered. She didn’t want to admit it to the others yet. She knew she was over-thinking things, knew she was probably being ridiculous, but she didn’t like the idea of being needy, of being weak. She didn’t like the idea that she wasn’t pulling her weight. No one had use for dead weight in the apocalypse.
It was one reason she was scared of other survivors finding them. What if they took in someone who really did end up being dead weight? What would they do then? They couldn’t very well just kick that person out into the woods, could they? That would be murder, and Torrance was not a murderer.
At least, she told herself she wasn’t.
The zombies she had killed probably disagreed.
Chapter 9
The first zombie came during lunchtime.
It had been a few days since Mark and Alice had made it to Kyle’s lodge, and Alice constantly thought it was amusing she mentally referred to the building as Kyle’s Lodge. It was Torrance’s lodge just as much as Kyle’s, but somehow, he seemed to be the king of the little building, and she was fine with that.
“There’s a walker,” Torrance said, dropping her granola bar on the table. They all heard the jingle of bells as the Infected became tangled in one of the traps Kyle and Mark had set up outside. They didn’t have a fence set up yet, but they’d been talking about it and trying to plan one. It was the ultimate goal. For now, they had perimeter alerts whenever something got near.
The windows had been boarded up, but Kyle had left little slits in several of them to peek through. Now, he jumped to his feet and ran to the window.
“Fuck,” he said. “There are three of them.”
Mark and Alice got up and grabbed the weapons they’d set up by the back door. She felt a rush of adrenaline as they went out the back door. Torrance stayed behind because of her ankle. It was almost completely healed, but Alice knew she was worried about being a lia
bility.
None of them would ever view her as anything but helpful, but Alice knew what she felt like. When they’d first started fighting, Alice was weak and untrained. Now, she felt better about her skills and abilities. Now, she felt like she could hold her own when it came to fighting.
Still, she didn’t blame Torrance for staying behind. Part of her was a little excited. There were three zombies and three of them. She’d get to kill one all on her own.
The truth was that it had been a few days since Alice killed anything and she was getting a bit antsy about it. She’d gone outside the day before and practiced throwing knives at a tree. It was something she’d never done before and certainly wasn’t any good at, but she’d pretended that tree was a walker and she’d never felt better.
She was strong.
She was fearless.
And now, she was about to take down the Infected in front of her.
“Dibs on the farmer,” Mark called out, and headed to the Infected closest to the lodge. It was wearing overalls that were smeared with blood and dirt. At least, Alice hoped the dark stains were dirt. Judging by the smell, it might very well be excrement.
Nasty.
“I got the middle dude,” Kyle said, swinging the bat he was holding in the air. He gripped it tight and took another step toward the ordinary-looking Infected in the center of the trio. The man looked freshly-turned, which was a concern. Alice wondered if it meant there were humans nearby. Were there other survivors who weren’t infected hiding in the woods?
Were they ill-prepared to deal with the zombies?
And how had he gotten infected?
The entrance to the lodge was a mile down the road from town. The closest way to get to the lodge was by lake, but these creatures had definitely wandered from the road. Did that mean there would be more zombies?
Did that mean Alice should be ready to fight or scared out of her mind?
“Guess that leaves Mrs. Undead for me,” Alice muttered. She also had a bat, but this was one she’d tricked out for a special occasion. She’d added various nails and screws to the end of the bat, making it a killing machine.
Making her a killing machine.
She took a step toward the woman, who was fucking growling at her. Spittle and blood dripped from the woman’s mouth as she stepped quickly toward Alice. Another step, then the woman lunged at her.
Alice was ready.
She dug her toes into the dirt and readied her stance, then swung when the woman was close enough.
And she fucking hit her shoulder.
“Dammit!” Alice cried out. She was out of practice. It had been too long since she’d killed, too long since she’d hit something. The Infected growled more, louder, as she yanked her bat from its shoulder and swung again. This time, the nails in the end of the bat connected with the woman’s head, and the Infected fell in the grass.
Alice let the bat drop, too, as she woman shook for a second before dying for real.
She took a step over and placed her shoe on the woman’s chest, then reached for the bat and tugged. It came out with a jerk. Blood splattered on Alice’s pants.
“Gross,” she muttered, and turned back to see how the guys were doing. They were standing with their own dead bodies, watching her. Apparently, they’d put down their monsters on the first try. It was only Alice who had taken awhile. Still, the entire fight had been over in a matter of minutes. The Infected were more annoying than scary when they were there in small numbers.
“Think we were loud?” Kyle asked, looking around them.
“Worried they’ve got friends?” Alice asked. Kyle nodded, and the three of them stood there for awhile, looking around.
“I think that’s all for today,” Mark said after a minute. “Let’s get rid of the bodies.”
They each grabbed their zombie and dragged them away from the lodge. They’d marked a place to dump the bodies, but hadn’t gotten around to digging a real hole, a real trench yet. For now, they’d leave the bodies there in the woods, in that one particular spot, so they could rot.
“We need to get to work on that hole,” Mark muttered. “We need to burn the damn bodies.”
“We could just bury them,” Alice said.
“Burying isn’t good enough for these fuckers.”
She looked at the bodies and she knew that he was right.
They deserved to rot in hell.
Chapter 10
Mark stripped down and walked into the water with a bar of soap. It wasn’t much in the way of showers, but he was tired of smelling as bad as the zombies they’d been fighting, so he was braving the lake.
He shouldn’t have.
He realized this as soon as he was waist deep, as soon as he felt the inevitable shrinkage beginning to happen, as soon as he stepped on a rock and felt it prick the soft skin on the sole of his foot.
“Fuck,” he said, but he had come this far. He dove forward, throwing his body under the water, and doused himself. Then he started to scrub. He scrubbed all of his body with the white bar of soap.
He’d probably still come out smelling like a fish, but wasn’t that fucking better than the alternative? Wasn’t that better than smelling like death? Wasn’t that better than smelling like he was one of the Infected?
What good was it to be human if everyone mistook him for a walker?
He might as well be one if he was going to be treated like one, hunted like one.
He scrubbed harder.
It had been a long day and the truth was that the water felt nice. The solitude of the water felt good. The lake was clear and the water was flat and quiet. There wasn’t even a ripple. He wondered if the fish had died, or if this lake had even had fish to begin with.
The idea that all Midwestern lakes had fish in them was a myth, he knew. A lot of lakes, especially man-made ones, needed to be stocked each year with fish. While some of them did have fish naturally, things happened. Fish didn’t live forever. Sometimes they died and sometimes a lake was fished too much. Sometimes the lake needed to be replenished.
He wondered what the status was on this one.
He didn’t feel any fish nipping at his toes, didn’t feel anything biting him. He knew Alice was nervous about the idea of bathing in the lake, and that was fine. He’d help haul up some water onto the tiny beach later. She could bathe with a bucket and a towel on the side of the lake.
He liked her – loved her, even – but she was starting to stink.
They all were.
Maybe on their next supply-hunt, they should get deodorant. Probably, they had some somewhere. They had to, right? It only made sense. Mark didn’t remember seeing any, though, so perhaps they’d all forgotten.
They’d been so worried about things like bullets and bandages that they hadn’t remembered one of the most important things about survival: social skills. Stinking until your roommates couldn’t stand being around you wasn’t the best way to behave.
He should try to be better, more considerate.
They all should.
Mark should have brought shampoo, but he didn’t. Instead, he lathered his hands with soap and ran it through his hair. It was shaggier than it had been before. He wanted a haircut, needed one.
He shouldn’t need one. He should be past the point where he felt like he needed his hair to be short, and the truth was that on most days, he was. On most days, he was fine with it. On most days, he was comfortable with the civilian version of himself.
When things got rough, though, and when stress overtook Mark, he started to crave the consistency the military had offered. He started to crave the schedule, the routine.
He wanted some of that now.
He wanted to know when he was going to wake up, what he was going to do each day, when he was going to eat, and when he was going to go to bed. He wanted to be able to look at a watch or a clock on the wall and know exactly when he needed to do each item on his to-do list.
He didn’t have that anymore.
&nbs
p; Time had lost its meaning awhile ago and he was lost now without it. It was strange to not live his life by a clock, to not check the time regularly. It was strange not to be in any sort of rush and even though Mark knew mentally that it was a good thing to have this break from reality, he still craved some sort of structure in his life.
Would he ever be happy again?
They had lived in fear for so long. It had only been a couple of weeks, but it felt like an eternity. He noticed Alice had some grey hairs now that weren’t there before. He wasn’t going to fucking tell her. She’d kill him if she knew, if he pointed it out. Either that or she’d send him for a box of dye, and there was no way he was risking his neck for vanity.
Still, Mark wondered if this lodge really was the new hope they needed, if it would bring them peace and happiness. Maybe happiness was a concept that belonged in the “before” world, in the land without zombies. Maybe contentment was something he no longer had access to, something he’d no longer be able to grasp.
It was possible that the idea of joy was now completely unattainable and if that was true, he needed to accept it.
He needed to learn to deal with it because if he didn’t he was going to go completely crazy before they’d even made it a month.
He finished washing his body and turned to head out of the water, but that’s when he saw the creature.
That’s when he saw the monster.
That’s when Mark realized he’d never been alone at the lake, not even for a second.
It was watching him the entire time from the darkness across the lake, lurking in the shadows. It was watching him, waiting for him, keeping an eye on him, and Mark shivered as he stared back at the Infected.
It was one of the weird ones.
The creature was standing across the lake, just outside of the forest that led to Raven, the forest Kyle and Torrance had come through to get to the cabins on that first day. Mark knew if he walked through those woods, he’d end up at the building Torrance had been hiding in when the outbreak happened.
Just Another Day in the Zombie Apocalypse (Episode 6) Page 4