Living amongst the Dead

by J. Morgan

  The movement of his twitch in the quiet morning had caught the eye of the game though; it stood like a statue, ears giving a twitch in turn, angling themselves forward towards him. He froze, wishing to emulate a statue just as much as the deer. Wind, which direction was the wind? He couldn’t tell, it was gentle, could be from the south, or could be from the west; if it was from the west then it could carry his scent to the beast and make it detect the presence of something foreign, and so make it scarper. He had not yet disengaged the safety which, thank God, did not produce any clicks.

  The breath caught in his lungs, burning them over time as they ached for fresh oxygen-rich air, was released slowly as the doe walked calmly towards the south off the road. It began grazing on the grassland. Perfect, absolute perfection; its guard was down for the moment, it wasn’t facing him, and best of all, it was perfectly side-on to him. Aim for the shoulder, slightly behind for the heart/lungs area. Flashbacks of theHunter, a first-person hunting game he had played online, came to mind. Except on that he typically used a Mk.III* Lee Enfield with that stubby muzzle area that was so recognizable, not a No.4; he preferred the No.4 but still had MUCH respect for the older WWI workhorse that was the Mk.III and simplified/cheaper Mk.III* that was more widely used.

  His body lowered, thumb slowly going over to the left side of the receiver as he moved, boots scraping on pavement slightly, safety latch pushed forward so it was disengaged. A knee came softly to the dirt, moistening from last night’s rain, overcast overhead slowing down the rate at which the dew dried. Breaths came in and out of him calmly, wishing to recover the slight breath he had lost when holding it when he was peered at. It was as though he moved in slow motion, brass buttplate came to his shoulder, right eye peered down the irons, yeah 200m felt right. Left eye closed, he focused on the sight picture, on his breathing, finger now slipping down to the trigger, feeling the grooves on it as the front sight post fixed on the animal’s shoulder.

  Not steady enough, left elbow came to rest on the hunter’s left knee; the right was down on the tarmac. With elbow rested the irons were steadier but too low, so the right knee was scooted back, lowering his torso even if it was done a tad uncomfortably. The main thing is the sights were FAR more stable and now approaching their target. The animal took a couple steps forward, nearly blocked by a tree on the side of the road, but its torso was still in sight even if its antlerless head was hidden by wood. Slowly he began pulling the trigger, very slowly so that he wouldn’t anticipate the recoil. This will make a potential follow-up shot slower, but he didn’t want a follow-up shot. Letting the rifle fire without anticipating the kick gave the best possible accuracy, so let that one accurate shot be enough.

  BOOM! “FUCK! GOD! AHHHH!” his head craned to the side, teeth bared, eyes squinting, just able to see the animal jump a foot or two in the air and start running once it had again reached the planet. The run quickly turned to a trot, the trot to a limp, and it fell just a few meters from where it had been shot. He still cursed and swore. “Mmmmmmph, JAYsus…” he’ll have to be forgiven for his blasphemy, but his ears rang horribly, temporarily deafening him. Everything was almost muted, the volume turned down, even his own mutterings of pain. It sounded muffled. Shaking his head he knew the ringing would remain for quite some time, so went ahead to do what must be done.

  The bolt was opened carefully, brass taken in hand, warm, and put down into his pocket. It’ll be tossed in the main compartment of his backpack with the round he gave the amateur ‘salute’ with later on. Off the road, onto the grass, past the tree that had partially obscured his view, he went round to the back of the beast, its legs pointed off to where he had knelt and shot it. The man did not want to be near its legs as he went about this grizzly task. Kneeling down behind its head, pocket knife was pulled out of his right pocket, flicked open with his thumb, and stabbed down. He could have used his bayonet but that was used on walkers so often that he thought it was best to use the knife which was cleaner and less likely to infect the meat.

  Blood ran from its throat, bleeding it out, making 100% sure that it was dead. Wiping the blood off his right hand, as well as off the knife onto its fur, it was folded and returned to his pocket for now. Richard stood, looking about; the hill behind him, the car crash in the rock cut to his right as he faced west over the beast through which his bullet had flown. To the left was mostly prairie with what looked like possibly a lake barely in view, but the hill behind him weaved about; an unavoidable obstacle that was faced when building this highway, and likely beyond the hills here were several more through which many had been similarly cut.

  The cop car was most curious, and he hadn’t gotten within 50m of it before the smell was noticed. Well then… he doubted he would want to take anything from THESE rigs. Only one individual in each vehicle, though the passenger side door of the green car, the civilian one, was open. A corpse, one leg terribly mangled evidently from the accident with the ankle of the other equally messed up, its face was a mask of mutilation from glass, but it was alive, and moved from the sound of him approaching, but there were no eyes with which it could see. They must have been destroyed either on impact, or from the undead crawling about the glass-sprinkled ground for an unknown amount of weeks or possibly even months.

  Its arms reached out; he had clicked the socket bayonet on his rifle, and it was blindly trying to find him with discoloured and scraped up fingers from the glass it lay on. The person must have survived the crash, he figured. Wasn’t bitten, but died from blood loss, dehydration, or exposure. Since this was an easy corpse to deal with, the man figured that breaking his rule of ‘avoid confrontation when possible’ was ok. Thrust down, skull pierced, twist, and pull back. Its mouth hung open, little bits of wings, legs, and bodies of flies could be seen on its teeth. Unfortunate bugs looking for a snack on a decaying corpse which is USUALLY nice and still, but this one could still move its mouth to squish the critters, likely without intending to do so in this case.

  A clothes pin, he should have checked that house for a clothes pin, though then again they didn’t have a line on which to hang clothes to dry, perhaps having taken it down for the sake of using the simpler and easier drying machine. Still, in all likelihood the Winters’ main method of drying their clothes years ago was by hanging it up somewhere, so they might have had clothes pins in there. One could have been used to keep his nose shut. Stomach churned as he moved about the scene of the accident. Both drivers, one in a uniform tattered by decaying matter as was the clothes of the civilian driver, were dead; likely having never reanimated. Perhaps there was something in the virus, in the undead nature of these moving corpses or the constant moving about, that made them decay more slowly than a proper non-moving corpse that simply lay there to decompose normally.

  Peering into the police vehicle, the cop’s corpse did indeed have a side arm holstered. A Glock by the looks of it, and a shotgun was laying on the floor of the passenger seat. It was probably in a better position before the accident, but in the jostling of the collision that appeared to fuse the two vehicles together it must have bounced about inside, ending up there. The dirty clothing of decay was hanging loosely, the corpse shrinking from dehydration, the process of bloating must have already finished. The clothing was partially draped over the frame of the pistol. Even if he DID get it, he knew that the stench would be stuck to the polymer side arm, so even though this Officer likely had a few mags on him it was best not to bother. Though, with all the Hellish events that were unfolding over the months, it was likely that even if this fellow had two spare mags, which he did seem to have, they probably wouldn’t all be fully loaded.

  Didn’t appear to be RCMP either, an American cop? Had Richard gone south into the States, or had this guy gone AWOL and drove up to Canada in the north thinking that it would be safer up here due to lower population and colder climate? Reasonable thing to believe; in truth, things probably WERE better in Canada, but still terrible, just not as bad as in the US. Lower population, s
till lots of firearms to go around, more small towns and fewer big cities, it made unmanageable hordes less common unless you were close to a city. Though as Tiff’s town had shown, even relatively small places could still become unmanageable. There probably weren’t many gun owners there, sadly. Mostly Liberals, people who didn’t like firearms, didn’t hunt, didn’t WANT to hunt, and probably didn’t bother ever fishing… yeah. Bad situation.

  The shotgun though… it was pump action, and though it might have a lingering smell on it from proximity to the decay, it shouldn’t have any decayed MATTER on it, or at least very little, maybe some old blood splatter that had long since dried crusty and flaked off in the wind, or got rained off from the water that could come through the windshield or passenger side window. It was worth a check, though whether there would be spare shells, he didn’t know. Probably not on the corpse; maybe in the glove compartment or something? Glass crunched under boot as he carefully climbed on the back of the police car which his deer had made its way over, its trunk pointing about southeast or east-southeast. The front of course pointing in the opposite direction, connected to the civilian car, and the back of that one pointed roughly northwest or west-northwest.

  Avoiding scratches from the broken glass scattered on the back of the vehicle, he dismounted on the opposite side. To the east, now able to see more, it was indeed very hilly with patches of woodland in some of the small valleys and even on top of the steep hills in some cases. The road turned off to the left, to the northeast, which cut off his view. Passenger side door of the cop car was wrenched open, and on approaching it only then seen on the floor in the back seat. Wedged into the corner at the base of the driver side rear door, was the decomposed corpse of what appeared to be a little kid, couldn’t be more than 5 years old perhaps. Maybe he, at least by the look of the clothes it was a he, was taking a nap during the day or sleeping at night in the back seat when the accident happened. A glass partition separated the front twos eats and the rear seat of this car, but he knew from experience that you can still talk to those on the other side of the shatterproof glass. Hopefully the youngster didn’t feel anything…

  More glass fell to the ground as the vehicle was accessed. Reaching in, he took out the black pump action. Full length magazine tube under the barrel which appeared to be rather short so probably only held 4+1 which was still plenty. Simple short radius notch and post sights, pistol grip, cross-bolt safety, it seemed pretty standard. Was probably a Remington 870 variant of sorts, or maybe Mossberg 500. Those two designs were, to his knowledge, the most common pump action shotguns in North America. Though he was good with rifles, he was however NOT the most experienced man in the world when it came to shotguns, not at all. He’d only owned one shotgun before and it was a Marlin Model 55. Something like a 30” barrel, had a 2-round box magazine which tended to fall off the shotgun upon firing, and so this bolt action shotgun was used as a single-shot typically. Tended to be nicknamed a ‘goose gun’ or something along those lines, however he just used it for skeet shooting typically.

  This was obviously FAR better; it was given a sniff which he recoiled at, only to realize the futility of the action since there was decomposing bodies mere feet away from him. If only there was a sling… but no matter. A firearm was a firearm. Not wishing to get TOO close to the corpse, he decided not to bother with the side arm or the trunk. A brief glance in the civilian car didn’t show anything promising and posed the same issue that made him unwilling to get too close, so he returned to the deer. Ears still ringing, he had his head on a swivel, looking for any movement since relying on his hearing wasn’t a particularly good idea. With nothing even remotely close in terms of populous areas it would seem that no walkers were showing up anytime soon. Good.

  Once at the deer carcass he went to pull the slide back on the shotgun; it wouldn’t go. Now there was a trick to this he recalled… what was it? He flicked the cross-bolt safety which was behind the trigger, showing a red ring, which he assumed meant fire; slide still wouldn’t work, so the cross-bolt safety was pushed again which hid the red ring. A latch at the front of the trigger guard, he pulled it back, then pulled the slide; bingo, it came back but was only pulled half ways. A shell was already chambered. Putting the butt of the firearm to the right side of his waist, right hand went to the ejection port and left hand pulled the slide back; the round ejected into his hand. Not knowing of any other way to unload the shotgun, he held the latch which he’ll call the slide release latch and pumped the slide over and over, racking out all the 12 Gauge shells.

  Reloading, they went in one at a time, a bit clumsily in his unfamiliar hands. One, two, three, four, fi-… four; so it held 4+1. The slide was racked to chamber one of the four, and then with it chambered the fourth shell was pushed in. He didn’t know if it was slug or buckshot, but imagined it was one of the two and not bird shot. Should have made DOUBLY sure that the red ring showed fire and not safe when the firearm was unloaded. Closing the slide and pulling the trigger would have told him the answer. If there was an audible click upon pulling the trigger, then the hammer or striker dropped, meaning it had fired. If there was no click, then it was on safe. Rich figured it best to assume red meant fire, not safe.

  Pocketknife out, he REALLY had to sharpen this thing some time… with his rifle slung on his back and shotgun resting on the grass beside him, the ringing was SLOWLY going away as the process of gutting this animal began. The belly wasn’t swollen, so it shouldn’t be pregnant, which was good. It was a job made excessively difficult by the poor tool he was using, a simple stainless steel pocket knife that was used more as a can opener or a screwdriver than anything, but it was getting the job done, even if it was at the cost of sweat and frustration.

  One time, it was illegal what he did now, possibly every part of it. It was a doe deer; perhaps not a ‘fawn’ as he thought baby deer were called but definitely not FULLY grown. He also used FMJ bullets which he was quite certain was illegal as well when hunting; should always use soft points or hollow points or what have you. The only way it could have been made worse is if he used a .223 or perhaps something even smaller. Groaning as the guts were pulled out, sweater left to rest on his backpack, his forearms and hands were coated in blood. With a lot of the animal’s weight now left on the ground, he tried to clean his hands a bit in the wet grass, wiping them on the deer’s fur. It didn’t do much, but was good enough for now. Tying the sweater to his backpack, he took the shotgun in his left hand, the carcass in his right, and started heading along the side of the road. Internal organs were left for the bugs and scavengers while a red trail was being painted on the field of green.

  It was late afternoon now, maybe even early evening; Tiffany was hungry and dipping the hook of the fishing rod she found in the basement in the water… without bait. She’d been at it for the past half hour without even a nibble. As it settled in her mind that she wasn’t going to see Richard again, much angry muttering had come to pass. Her extreme feminist mind was rising from its ashes anew, angry at the men who just took her, who used her, and then left. She scowled, frowned, growled as thoughts of him came to her, and with a shriek she threw the rod in the water.

  “BEANS! I’LL EAT FUCKING BEANS!... FUCK!” It had only taken him like 10 minutes to get fish yesterday; what the HELL?! A small and cackling voice within one of the dark corners of her mind laughed at her, telling her that the fish won’t bite because she’s a woman, because they’re sexist, and she screeched again in frustration as she marched through the door, wishing to believe it but at the same time not QUITE foolish enough to do so. Close, however.

  Inside she stormed, quickly pacing herself up the stairs, swearing that she’ll eat BOTH cans just to spite those damn fish! The logic behind this decision eludes the writer of this novel as well… you’re not alone, reader. Back downstairs, the woman who’s attitude was right now as fiery as the red portions of her hair found herself slowing to a stop in the living room, arriving before the wide access between it and the k
itchen, then gave a cry of frustration as she hoisted the two cans and threw them savagely at the cupboards. A deep gouge was put into one which resulted in a rim of the can being dented, while the other hit the edge of the counter, denting the side of the can before both rolled to a stop on the floor. She did not have a can opener and the only one here was electric.

  “I can do ANYTHING you can do, fucker. You think you’re better than me? HUH? Think you can just force yourself on me and run? I bet you’re getting eaten alive right fucking now… starting with your pitiful little cock. Your disgusting little smelly… wrinkly……. ARGH!” Having found the biggest knife she could in the drawer that held the specialty items like spatula, potato masher, bread knife, knife sharpener, ELECTRIC CAN OPENER, and so on, she had given the can opener a toss behind her and now with that large chopping knife in hand or WHATEVER it was used for, she stabbed it down onto the top of the can with the dented rim. It slipped off the angled surface leaving a dent and a scratch.

  Pulling it up again, like something out of a horror movie, Psycho specifically, the blade plunged, “ARRH!” this time delving right through the metal lid. “HAH! See? Not so hard, FUCKER! Not so FUCKING hard! Think a WOMAN can’t do this?!” There was no sense to her actions, her face showed absolutely nothing but hatred and anger; wide eyes and loss of sensibility. She rocked the knife back and forth, it made a horrible scratching noise against the metal, it wasn’t opening like he had done it! Trying to pull it out lead to the whole can lifting, she held onto the can with her left hand, giving a tug with another maniacal cry, and plunged it down on the lid again.