by Bible, Jake
“We keep moving we can lose them up the hill,” Melissa says, pointing to the winding twists and turns that make up Pearson Bridge Road. “They’ll slow down quick.”
“But the little ones,” Stella says, looking at Tran and his family.
“We’ll have to carry them,” Melissa replies. “Switching off so no one gets bogged down.”
The scavengers take the rear, their eyes watching the Zs as we get across the bridge and start up the road. In seconds, Elsbeth stops and holds out her hands.
“No,” she whispers, “not up the road.”
“What did she say?” Melissa asks, her voice quiet also. She knows nothing about Elsbeth really, but she can sense the survivor in her. Plus, the little show earlier certainly added some respect. “What’s up?”
“The Zs,” Elsbeth says, turning to look at the hillside and the thick underbrush. She points over her shoulder at the bridge. “That is the small problem.” She points ahead of us. “Big problem coming fast.”
Then we hear them. A lot of them. Even with their shuffling gait they make quite a noise as their feet hit asphalt. Gravity is on their side as they come around the corner downhill. Some look like they are ready just to topple forward as they struggle to keep up with their feet and the decline.
“Shit,” Melissa says. “How many is that?”
“Gotta be a hundred,” Stubben says. “We are fucked.”
“This way,” Elsbeth says and dives into the bushes that cover the hillside in front of us. “No more road.”
Stella and I help the kids find handholds and Elsbeth shows them where to grab vines and roots to scramble up and away from the road. She points them to the right and they obey instantly, following a natural path made by water erosion and small animals. Stella goes with them then looks back at me. I wave her on, giving her a big smile. Tran and his family are next followed by the rest. The scavengers are pulling up the rear and Melissa grabs onto my arm as her people close in behind us.
“You think your leg can make it up this?” she asks me.
“Do I have a choice?”
“No,” Tara Johnson says, her eyes watching the two groups of Zs. I know she is timing when they’ll come together. The others are busy sizing up the weaker and the stronger of them.
Melissa goes first and reaches down. I grab her hand and she helps pull me up the hillside. I grab onto anything that will hold me and struggle against the weakness in my leg, but I don’t crumple. I don’t let it take me down. I’m sweating and could really go for a shot of whiskey and some aspirin, but I make it to the small path. The carbon pole helps too as I jam it into the soft earth here and there for purchase.
“They see us,” Andrew says. “Gotta hustle.”
I dig deep and pull out some hustle so we can get some distance between the Zs and us. By the time the two groups come together, we are a good forty yards above them, moving parallel with the road above us. The path seems to be a natural switchback, keeping us from the Zs and the Zs from us. They’d have to be great climbers, which they aren’t, to get up the hillside.
Unless they just fall from above.
“MOM!” Greta screams up ahead.
My instinct is to run towards her, but Melissa keeps me back. One of the first rules of surviving the zombie apocalypse, is that you don’t rush in to anything until you know your situation. Otherwise, you’re dead too. I can hear Charlie yelling and someone telling him to shut up. I try to push past Melissa, but she holds me firm. A couple nods and half the scavengers scoot past us and sprint up ahead.
“Melissa,” I growl.
“No,” is all she says.
Branches are breaking and there is crying and screaming and yelling. For those Zs that don’t know where we are, they have just been told. Today’s lunch is a panicked party of twenty-plus suburbanites. Enjoy.
I can hear the grunts of the scavengers as they engage the Zs. The undead groans get louder and louder as I move forward. Only about ten yards up, the path twists and I see what happened. The road turns at a sharp angle about twenty feet above us. The Zs are just tumbling over the edge. Like undead lemmings, they keep coming, falling, and then getting up immediately, many of them snapping their legs in the process. It cuts down on their mobility, but there are just so many of them that they create piles of gnashing teeth and reaching hands blocking our way.
I can see Elsbeth killing and shoving, trying to clear a way, but even her skills can’t keep up. Charlie is fighting alongside Stella with Greta between them. Carl and Brian are hacking away at anything that moves, while Stubben is busy swinging like a madman, doing absolutely nothing productive.
Then that Kirby guy goes down, his throat ripped out by a reaching Z. I’ve seen a lot, but never a man’s windpipe yanked right from his body mid-scream. One second it’s being pumped full of air and wailing, then it’s cut off like hitting the power on a stereo.
“Fuck,” I say.
I shake it off and move forward. I see Tran and his wife. But I don’t see their kids. His wife (God, I’m such a shitty neighbor that I can’t even remember her name) is screaming at the top of her lungs, her hands on her head, pulling at her hair. Tran is yelling and lunging forward, but he is stopped by a pile of undead mouths and hands, teeth and nails.
Then she dives in.
One second Tran’s wife is there, hysterical, and the next she is in the pile, her arms thrashing and fighting, trying to get at something. I’m not close enough to see the something, but there are very few things in the zombie apocalypse that would make a screaming woman willingly dive into a pile of death.
Her screams become wails of pain, the shrieks of agony and anger. Z parts start flying everywhere and Elsbeth shoves Stella and Charlie back out of the way. Black blood splats against tree trunks and rhododendron leaves as Tran’s wife goes full on Tasmanian Devil. I can see her arms and hands grabbing and tearing, ripping and rending. There goes a hand, a head, arms, ears, more heads, hand, arms, and ears. A torso is thrown down the hill. She is possessed.
“Come on!” Melissa shouts. “We can’t stand and watch. Push through!”
She urges everyone to keep moving and Elsbeth follows suit, pushing ahead, trying not to get hit by the rain of Z stuffs. We all try not to get hit by it, but I feel the splatter of something as it slips past my cheek. I glance at Tran’s wife, knowing there is nothing I can do, but still feeling like a coward as we hurry by, using her as the distraction to occupy the Zs.
Tran is screaming at her in Vietnamese. I have no idea what he is actually saying, but I know what he’s communicating. “They are dead! We have to go!”
She’s screaming back at him and at the pile of Zs. Her refusal to leave without her children is obvious. It’s even expected. I have thought a million times if I would have had the strength to go on in this world if I didn’t have Stella and the kids. Probably not. I’m sure I would have eaten a bullet by now.
The group is ahead, following a split of the path away from the road, going up and deeper into the brush choked woods that cover the hillside. I look over my shoulder and I see Tran staring at us, watching us all go. I can see the fight in his eyes. I can see the resignation that it is all over. I can see the indecision of whether to stay or to go.
Then I watch him grab his wife by the waist and lift her up into his arms. His adrenaline has taken over as he seems to carry her like a pillow, barely an effort needed. She wails and cries, her fingernails biting into his forearms as she struggles to get free and get to her babies. But it is too late. Those Zs that she hasn’t ripped to shreds are busy feasting.
When I see the tiny toddler arm being fought over, I turn away. There’s only so much I can handle. Anymore of that and I know I’ll hit my limit.
We hike for a good hour before Melissa calls a halt. Tran and his wife are still well behind us, just out of sight, it is hard to tell how far back because she went silent after twenty minutes or so.
“Bite check,” Melissa says.
We strip and check each other. No bites. Everyone is good. We get dressed and wait. I can tell Melissa and the scavengers don’t like staying put, but we have to wait for Tran and his wife. It is the least we can do. The very least.
“How long to the Farm?” Greta asks and she’s shushed by several people.
Normally I’d be pissed at anyone shushing my little girl, but not today. Today she needs to shut the fuck up.
Then there is Tran. No wife. And we know no kids. But no wife?
He walks up to one of the scavengers and holds out his hand. It’s West Bullock, a burly man with a barrel chest and these gnarled short fingers like blunt sausages. He’s holding a wicked machete and keeps looking from Melissa to Tran and back. Melissa nods and he hands the machete to Tran.
We all watch as Tran walks back down the path and around the hill. We wait, our ears straining for some idea of what is happening. Then we hear the whacks and thunks. In a minute, Tran comes back up the path to us, fresh blood splattering his chest, neck and face. He wipes the dripping machete on his pants and hands it back to West. The man shoves it into its sheath on his belt and hands Tran a bandana. Tran nods and wipes his face and neck and hands the bandana back. West shakes his head and Tran looks at it then stuffs it into his back pocket.
He walks past us all without a word and keeps hiking. Melissa sighs, looks back from where we came, then up at Tran. She nods and waves us all forward. We follow Tran, trailing in the wake of his grief and despair. You can almost taste it on the air like a bitter wind.
Everyone knows not to say anything, even Elsbeth.
Another hour of shell-shocked hiking and Melissa calls a halt. She sends Andrew, Lanny, and Steven up the hill to the road. We wait a few minutes and they are back, quickly huddling with Melissa in quiet conversation. After a few nods, she turns to gather us all in close. Except for Tran. He’s crouched on the trail a few feet away, his eyes staring at his dirt and blood covered sneakers.
“The road is clear for now,” Melissa says, “and will get us to the Farm faster.”
“But?” Carl asks.
“But there’s a higher likelihood of running into Zs up there,” Melissa says. “Andy’s gut is telling him we haven’t seen the last horde.”
“Maybe your gut just didn’t like the egg salad,” Landon sneers.
“Not the road,” Elsbeth says then glares at Landon. “Not the egg salad.” He wilts under her look.
“So we stay on the path,” Melissa states.
“Shouldn’t we vote?” Stubben asks. “You ain’t in charge, Melissa.”
“Fine,” Melissa says. “Anyone want to waste time voting or are you fine with me keeping you alive?”
“Alive,” Charlie says.
“Alive,” Greta pipes up.
The rest of us nod.
“Not what I meant, but whatever,” Stubben mumbles.
“The other problem is daylight,” Melissa says. “It was going to be cutting it close before, but with this detour, we aren’t going to get to the Farm by sunset.”
“Let’s not decide yet,” Stella says, knowing what Melissa is about to say. “Keep pushing on. If we see a place to hold up on the way, then we take it. If we don’t, then we don’t stop.”
“We’ll have to stop once it gets dark,” Andrew says. “Too many drop offs along the way. We could all end up falling down the hill and crashing the Z party down there.”
“Then our first priority is shelter before it gets dark,” Melissa says. “I’m sorry we can’t get there tonight, folks. We’ll get there tomorrow, I promise.”
“Promises are like assholes,” Elsbeth pipes up. “They stink when you put your nose in them.”
None of us have a response to that.
“Okay then,” Melissa says. “We keep going until we find shelter. West and Alison know this area best, so we’ll let them lead.”
“There’s an old tobacco farm a few miles up,” Alison says. “That will work if we need it.”
We nod to each other and push forward. Tran gets up and lets us pass before he follows. He keeps his distance, not wanting to be a part of the group, but not letting us leave him behind. I can feel the internal debate he’s having: keep going on, or just give up. It’s not an unfamiliar debate for any of us. I don’t know if the kids have had to deal with it, but every adult on this path has looked that choice square in the face. My instincts tell me that we’ll know his answer by the morning.
It’s not quite 6pm when Alison steers us off the path and up a short incline. We come out of the trees and into a field, overgrown and unkempt, but still obviously part of a small tobacco farm. We stumble over the ups and downs of the long gone dirt rows of tobacco plants, now just wild weeds and grass. At the far end of the field is a dilapidated two-story structure. It had probably seen better days well before the apocalypse hit this part of the mountains, but now it looks like it is held up by the whims of fate.
“Yeah,” Charlie scoffs, “that looks safe.”
“You want to sleep in this field?” West asks, playfully grabbing Charlie by the back of the neck. “I think we just found our volunteer for first watch.”
“No, no, I was serious,” Charlie says, twisting away and out of West’s reach. “I think it looks safe. That’s what I was saying. Why? Did I sound sarcastic? Sorry, my bad.”
“Exactly,” West grins.
“Come on,” Alison says. “It’s fine inside. This tobacco barn is probably a hundred years old, but men that knew how to build shit to last, built it. Just watch out for spiders.”
“Oh, no,” Greta says, shaking her head. “Not going in there. No spiders, thank you.”
That’s my girl. She can hold her own with a horde of Zs, but mention spiders and she’s done, thank you.
“Taking second watch?” West asks.
“Screw you,” Greta says. “I. Don’t. Do. Spiders.”
“Tonight you do whatever you are told,” Stella says. “And the first thing is to be quiet.”
“Good plan,” Melissa says as she motions for her team to split and each take a side of the barn.
We wait in the field, watching, the late summer sun beating down on us as it burns a little more before dipping behind the trees. It takes a few minutes, but soon all of the scavengers are back, giving the thumbs up. Melissa waves us in and we step into the musty darkness of the tobacco barn.
The architecture has always fascinated me. Tobacco barns aren’t like regular barns. They aren’t these huge buildings with one double-door entry on each end. They aren’t designed to hold livestock and horses, or bales of hay. They are long and flat. Usually two stories with each story only about twelve or fifteen feet high. Thick beams crisscross the ceiling, with spikes and hooks every foot or so. The sides aren’t boxed in like a barn either, but open to let the air get inside. Tobacco barns are for hanging and drying the harvested leaves of tobacco- huge, yellow brown things that can be a foot wide and more than a couple feet long. The tobacco is long gone, but the earthy smell has been left behind from decades of use.
“Upstairs,” Melissa says and we all follow to the second floor.
The scavengers space themselves out evenly along each side of the barn, their line of sight broken only by the occasional frame post of the barn, otherwise they can see in every direction clearly.
“It’ll keep the weather off us,” Melissa says, “and give us a defensible place to sleep.”
“Where are we going to cook?” Landon asks. “This place’ll go up in flames if we start a fire.”
“That’s why we won’t start a fire,” Alison says. “We eat what we have, cold.”
“Cold?” Landon asks. “What about in the morning? I brought green tea.”
“Oooh, I want some green tea,” Greta says, then sees her mother’s look. “When we get to the Farm. Let’s save it for the Farm.”
“This blows,” Landon says. “Stuck in some fucking barn like a yokel and can’t even have my green tea.”
None of us
see it coming. We’d been so used to giving him space and letting him be, that I think we forgot about Tran. It just was easier to push it all out of our minds and let Tran keep to himself. So when he pounces on Landon, I think it takes even Melissa and her scavengers a few moments to realize what is happening.
“Jesus fuck,” Andrew says as he dives for the two men.
Tran is on top of Landon, having tackled him and knocked him to the barn floor, his fists slamming again and again into Landon’s head. When Landon gets his arms up to protect himself, Tran starts in on his gut, landing gut crushing blow after blow. The distinct smell of shit hits our noses. Tran is literally beating the shit out of Landon.
“Enough!” Andrew hisses as he yanks at Tran.
The man shoves him away and starts back in on Landon. It takes Andrew, Carl, West, Stubben, and Melissa to pull him off. Landon just lies there, whimpering, his arms covering his face. The rest of us stand around, looking at each other, waiting for someone to make the first move.
“You’re a fucking douche,” Brian says quietly to Landon and walks away to another part of the barn.
We all decide to do the same thing and leave Landon to his wounds and the shit in his pants. He eventually gets up and makes his way down to the field to get cleaned up. It’ll take a lot of leaves and grass to get that shit off, but he’s got nothing better to do.
Tran settles down and collapses against one of the support beams, his eyes closed, tears dripping down his cheeks. We share looks of empathy, but none of us know where this is going. Tran could pull out of it or he could spiral down until he gives up. Like I’ve said, it’s a debate and choice we’ve all had to face. But facing it is the first step, and I don’t know if Tran will go there. Nobody but Tran knows that.
The sun finally starts to set and we hand out some of the food. There isn’t much left, just enough for a small breakfast, so we had better make it to the Farm tomorrow. You get used to hunger in the apocalypse, but it never gets easy. It slows you down, dulls your senses, and makes mistakes more likely. But we’ll face that tomorrow.