by Will Lemen
As I pulled off the lot, my rearview mirror reveled that Bob's snapping head was rolling from the top of the heap (most likely helped along by his squirming entrails) onto his flexing right leg (I only knew it was his right leg because I could see that half the foot had been removed and I had left his other foot firmly attached to his left leg) and there it settled in for a good gnawing.
Unaware that it was his own leg that he was chewing on (I mean if zombies are actually aware of anything but their voracious appetite), Bobby's head continued to bite away at the relocated leg even as it seemed to be trying to escape his menacing brownish-green snapping teeth as it wobbled back and forth on the automobile museum's parking lot.
As I left the parking lot to get back onto the main road, I watched gleefully as Batshit's quivering severed leg wormed itself away from the main mound of stacked flesh and churning internal workings, and dragged Bob's munching decapitated ravenous brainpan along with it.
Even after witnessing all of the aforementioned butchery and subsequent slithering and wriggling of my ex-boss's disemboweled internal organs and dislodged appendages, I'm still not convinced that the increase in the after-death movement of the so-called dead zombies is a product of zombie evolution, although that term is as good as any.
I figured it this way, because the walking dead cadavers never seem to be interested in anything except choking down anything with meat on its bones, and of course avoiding water as much as possible, to think that their primal brain functions could cultivate anything as advanced as evolution, just does not compute.
My theory on this particular phenomenon is quite simple and makes much more sense to me than something that under normal circumstances usually takes millions of years to come to fruition. Not that we were living under normal circumstances by any stretch of the imagination.
In conjunction with my positive charged ion theory of early twitcher movement.
I have incorporated my concept of the reason that the undead and their body parts continue to struggle even more in a grotesque ballet of twists and turns long after their twisted souls have been sent back to hell (where they belong), it is loosely based on the reason that Mexican jumping beans move around after being jostled.
Within the Mexican jumping beans are tiny worms that wiggle when they are disturbed and thereby cause the bean to move as if it is alive.
When movement occurs in the dead (really dead) zombie population, it is caused by the interaction of the ravenous fly larvae gnawing on the raw nerve endings within the muscles and tendons. This gnawing titillates the nerve endings causing the contraction of said muscles and tendons, causing the disjointed limbs and various other affected parts of the corpse to flex awkwardly, and thus giving the illusion of life after undeath well after the ions have lost their positive charge.
Except for the zombie's head of course.
Because the head houses the diseased brain that is in control of the organism, it still is possessed with an insatiable appetite for flesh (preferably living human flesh, but in these times of trouble they'll take whatever they can get), unless blunt or sharp force trauma has been inflicted upon the skull thereby penetrating into and killing part of the brain.
Whether it is the cerebrum, telencephalon, cerebellum, diencephalon, mesencephalon, or the whole encephalon (a little medical terminology to lighten the mood) that is destroyed doesn't matter..
To make a long story even longer, if any one of the parts of the brain are destroyed, or if all or any number of the parts of said brain is devastated, at that point the foul reanimated cannibalistic road kill is terminated and ceases to plague the earth any further. Then its ensconced maggots take over the mechanics of body movement from there.
I also believe that the reason that the older zombies have a tendency to move a lot more than the newly inundated ones, is that they have more maggots that are incorporated within their stinking carcasses, and the more maggots they have gnawing on their frayed nerves, the more movement they will display upon their final death.
Why these nerve endings don't seem to be affected before the undead meet their maker is a bit confusing, however, there is always the chance that they are affected and thus are the cause of the newly found athletic ability of the walking dead.
Now, in the beginning, why the fingers moved immediately after they had been cut from the hands of the undead no matter how long the zombie had been enrolled in the zombification portion of our program is beyond me. The best explanation that I have been able to come up with is, "shit happens".
Well, anyway.
I don't know how Bob found his way to the Corvette Museum. The last time that I saw him was the day the world spiraled into a graveyard spin.
He had left work just a few minutes before I had, and driven off in the opposite direction. He must have run into the same kinds of mayhem that I had seen on the road that day.
Possibly he and his family had tried to make a run for it, and didn't make it. However, knowing the coward that he was, he might not have even tried to get to his family and take them to safety (at that time everybody thought that there was such a thing as a safe place).
The most likely scenario that Bobby had chosen to pursue that got him so far from home, being the chicken shit, candy-ass punk that he was.
Was when the shit hit the fan, he bolted from the buffoonery and ran screaming and crying into the zombie wilderness, pissing his pants along the way like the previously mentioned six-year-old girl.
How my previous foreman found his way to the Corvette Museum is of little consequence. The main stipulation is that he will spend the rest of eternity fermenting on the tarmac of that abandoned classic automobile facility.
That is, if some feral dogs or coyotes, or maybe some of his own ilk (zombies) don't come along and devour his entrails, trot off into the wild, and shit him out by a tree stump somewhere. Or in the latter case, maybe just tote him around in the seat of their britches until hell freezes over and we get written confirmation from the Gods that it happened.
By the way, either scenario works for me.
Just before bidding my last fond farewell to my old boss, I thought.
"It's too bad Bobby's odd looking masculine concubine wasn't with him, I could have killed two birds with one stone so to speak."
"Fuck you Bobby, and the whore you rode in on," I yelled, slightly changing that well know phrase to match Batshit's prior indiscretions, while waving my tomahawk out the window.
Then my last words to my old boss, if you can call them words, was my usual Indian War Whoop, just to set the tone for the activities that would surely be a part of my journey sometime in the near future.
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DEREK THE RED
Traveling on long trips by yourself can be lonely, and loneliness can lead to boredom, and keeping with my new resolution to not become apathetic and end up getting myself killed and eaten for no good reason (fucking with Batshit Bobby was a good reason), I altered my former modus operandi to an even greater extent.
With that in mind, I decided to increase my awareness during my trek to Indiana by employing a new tactic against the walking dead army that seemed never to tire of trying to make my life more miserable than it already was.
At certain times earlier, I had fired my weapons out of the driver's window at what I refer to as road zombies.
Picking them off one by one as I drove passed, not worrying about attracting more of the rotting sons-a-bitches with the noise the firearm was making, because by the time any curious flesh eaters could make it to the scene of what would have been a crime a couple of years ago, I was long gone.
Drive-by shootings of pedestrian zombies was not only good sport, but with the movements of the cadavers combined with the movement of my truck, and my rule that only head shots counted (and only head shots do count), it also helped hone my shooting skills to an even finer edge.
However, that too began to become boring after awhile, even with extending the range
of my shots from between point-blank range (which had a tendency to expel their vile juices all over me) or a few yards, all the way out to almost twenty-five yards.
Therefore, I made the decision to do a little maiming on the side to liven things up a bit.
You know as well as I do that there's nothing that makes you feel better in a zombie apocalypse than a good dead body mutilation from time to time to take the edge off.
Therefore, I began to lower my aim and started taking out clavicles and knee joints and an occasional spine when I felt the need arise.
In doing so, I left a trail of crippled zombies limping around, or incapacitated and wallowing in their own feces, from just north of Nashville all the way to the Indiana border and beyond.
When I was picking off road zombies from the comfort of my truck as I passed, I would blow out a leg joint (knee or ankle, sometimes both) to slow the swifter aggressors down some, to a more malleable, safer speed.
Then on occasion, I would stop momentarily and carve some of the mean off the dirty deteriorating bastards with either my tomahawk or machete, and leave them to somewhat safely spook the next live human to come along. I kept that practice to a minimum though, for I still had a reunion to attend up north in the badlands.
Although, when I did stop to mutilate one of the grim reapers, hacking their hands off with my edged weapons became a mainstay in my quest to neutralize the undead without killing them, making them comparatively less menacing and far less dangerous before I began the ritual of manually disassembling their good looks.
This process was usually done first for my own safety, even though I had already crippled the monsters with a 9mm slug in one or two critical skeletal junctures, and then chopping their jaw off to curtail their habit of biting was normally the second thing on the list.
Don't get me wrong, I didn't spend too much time cleaving pieces of their decomposing flesh off of the dastardly man-eaters, I still had pressing business in Indiana to take care of, but once I started to whittle one down to size, I felt that it was only fair to everyone (and everything) involved to finish the job.
Even though the job didn't take that long, that's not to say that every zombie that I started to transform, got the finishing touches, sometimes circumstances dictated that I leave the scene prematurely so as not to be carted away in the pants of a horde of the ravenous dead.
You may find it hard to believe, but given half a chance, those devious monstrosities will sneak up on the unwary, and carry out their unethical atrocities without a second thought.
Before I am judged too harshly for my indiscretions toward the monstrous beasts committing unspeakable acts against the remainder of the human race. Keep in mind that everything that had meaning to me had been taken from me because of the zombie uprising.
Although these hideous brutes were not directly responsible for the death of my family, they are definitely a major factor in the bigger picture of what has happened and what is still happening to our world.
If I can't get my hands on more of the prehistoric beasts that were directly responsible for the demise of my beloved wife and children, I can certainly dish out some pain and agony to some of the salivating abortions that cross my path.
So I feel a little pay back from time to time is justified and deem it as therapeutic.
Besides, if your God didn't want me wandering around the zombie wastelands dishing out punishment for past offenses against nature, she certainly wouldn't have turned me into the predacious creature that I am today.
Nevertheless, with my awareness of the new fleet-footed abilities of the zombies, along with their contemporary solitary ways, and still keeping a weather eye out for raptors hunting in the area (one can't be too careful you know), I continued northward up interstate 65 to rendezvous with the trouble that awaited me in Louisville Kentucky.
Passing the Louisville city limits sign reminded me that this wasn't the first time that I'd been to Louisville.
Twice I'd taken my youngest son Jacob there to compete in the national archery tournament held there annually.
Although he had done very well at the state level, his lack of desire to practice for the big contest came back to bite him in the ass both times that we were there.
Something about how he didn't need to practice, and wasn't I aware of how well he had done at the local and state tournaments?
Anyway, Louisville was the last stop before crossing the Ohio River and the Indiana border, and I was still making good time on my journey through the Bluegrass State despite the occasional stops for my barbarism therapy, and by keeping a weather-eye out for danger during those therapy sessions, I had managed to avoid any delays of any consequence.
I was driving along thinking about how in the past, my family and I had had run-ins with numerous groups of people and zombies alike, all of which were trying one way or another to bring us to the end of our road so to speak.
Then as if I had tried to put a hex on myself, I began to wonder when my good fortune was going to run out, and that's when it did.
Just like in the past, I rounded a curve and found the freeway blocked. Ahead of me on the highway were two large box trucks from a now defunct rental enterprise.
The trucks were parked perpendicular to the road and blocked every lane and about half of the emergency lanes on both sides.
Dozens of cars and trucks were haphazardly filling the ditches on either side making it impossible to drive around the back of the rental units.
They were positioned so that the two men standing between the trucks could easily walk out from behind them for a parley if they chose to. Yet the trucks still afforded cover for the two of them if the feces was going to be flung into spinning rotary blades, and trust me, a copious amount, a superabundant amount of shit was about to hit this fan. At least for some it was.
This wasn't my first rodeo, and just because I couldn't see any more than two men standing in the road, didn't mean that there wasn't more hiding somewhere nearby.
It was too late for me to stop and turn around, even at the apocalyptic hyper-speed of 22 mph that I was traveling at the time. I was well within the range of their weapons the moment they came into view.
If I stopped and tried to make a run for it, I would surely die of lead poisoning if the two men were so inclined to inject me with a fatal dose of the heavy metal.
I figured my best chance to make it through the roadblock and into Indiana, was to try to negotiate with the probable road agents.
I slowed to a stop a couple of yards from the rental trucks and yelled to the two men that had cautiously moved from behind the trucks in my direction, pointing their assault rifles at me as they did so.
"Howdy fellows, how may I help you?"
"First of all you can put your hands were I can see them," the taller man ordered.
"Well sure, I can do that," I answered, leaving my suppressed pistol on my lap as I grasp the steering wheel with both hands.
"What brings you down my road, and where are you headed stranger," the other man gruffly asked.
"It's the shortest distance between two points is why I'm on your road," I said with a plastered on smile. "I'm headed into the Indiana Badlands."
"Well stranger, you've got more hair than I do, hell more hair than me and Tony here put together, wouldn't you say so Tony," the shorter man insisted.
"Hell yes Danny, you gotta have a huge pair of furry cojones to go up into Indiana. Mister, you might be okay on this side of Indianapolis, but any farther north and you'll be in the shit for sure.
Danny and I were up there once about five months ago, just in time for the spring thaw. Zombies were coming back to life everywhere, their blood, and muscles unfreezing, hell, we just barely made it out alive; We'll never go back up there if we can help it. Right Danny?"
"You got that right," Danny agreed.
"Tell me mister, why in the fuck would you willingly want to go into the Badlands of Indiana?" Tony inquired with a glare.
"Business, in the Badlands, don't make me laugh," Tony said chuckling.
"Yeah, don't make us laugh," Danny agreed, his demeanor becoming solemn.
From past experiences, when somebody's demeanor changes from cheerful or congenial to solemn or harsh, it is usually not too long before bullets start flying.
"What kind of business might you have that would take you into the Badlands by yourself?" Tony asked suspiciously, still glaring at me.
With my fraudulent smile fading, I answered Tony's question.
"I'm going into the Indiana Badlands to find a guy that calls himself the Caucasian; He's the leader of a group of people up there."
When I mentioned the Caucasian, Tony and Danny hesitated for a moment, and I could see the look of fear in their eyes.
Then Danny stammered as he asked.
"Are... you... friends with the Caucasian?"
"Yeah...are you...a friend of the Caucasian?" Tony chimed in, also stammering.
The look of fear in the two men's eyes told me that they felt that they had more to lose than I did. That gave me a distinct advantage over them in a fight, so I thought that it was time that I took control of the situation.
"Lower your weapons," I ordered, as I slowly reached for my Beretta, hoping the two men were scared enough not to call my bluff.
To my surprise, the men immediately lowered their rifles, and their body language told me that they had assumed that the answer to their question about my relationship with the Caucasian was yes.
With their weapons no longer pointed at me, I grabbed my M-4 to complement my pistol, and with a gun in each hand, I got out of the truck.
"You two all alone out here?" I inquired, re-plastering my counterfeit smile back onto my face.