by Hilaire, Tes
I sit back on my haunches, staring at the empty twist of wire and string. My stomach growls again, determined to not let me forget what else is empty. I haven’t eaten breakfast. Or dinner last night. Last real meal was two days ago. I’m so hungry. Virtually starving to death. If I were smart, I’d let go. Just lie down in this sunny little clearing and give up. I mean, what is the point? I am so lonely. Sometimes I wish I dared throw caution to the wind and go searching. I can make my way into someplace more populated. Maybe find another teenager, boy perhaps, who’s survived and is hiding out, too. We’ll run off together, find a secure place or maybe come back here. If it is a boy, and he’s nice enough, then eventually, in a year or two (the thought of baby vomit grosses me out) we’ll start our own little family.
Won’t that be nice?
A hysterical little giggle escapes my mouth, escalating. Family. Yeah right. We all know what happens to those. Dead. Gone. Killed by orphan daughters.
I sober. It’s not until the last echoes of my laughter fades that I realize something: The wood around me has gone eerily silent… and it happened before my crazy-induced outburst.
Oh this is not good.
I immediately go on alert. What changed? A sound? Something in the air?
I scan the forest, both for the danger and a means of escape. The bushes to my left are the perfect hiding spot… for something smaller than I. Nothing in front of me, nothing to the left, or right. I slowly rise, the back of my neck prickling at the thought of what might be behind me. In slow motion I turn, lifting and cocking my bow at the same time.
A figure, some twenty feet away and shadowed by the dark forest trees tilts its head, steps closer. The arrow slips through my finger. Shoot now, ask questions later. There is the sickening sound of impact and the figure doubles over with a stifled grunt.
I run. Great sobs wracking out of my chest, muffling the sounds of my frantic flight. I’ve either just injured a zombie or killed a potential friend.
Oh God, oh God. What have I done?
I swallow another sob, my last one. Fight or flight instincts have fully kicked in. No energy to waste on crying. Now I become aware of the noise I’m creating. Snapping twigs, heavy breathing, thud-thud-thud. A beacon to draw whatever might be behind me.
In the echo of my own thunderous footfalls I begin to hear another tempo. Slower, stumbling, but heavier. Zombie. Hungry enough to give chase. And I have no bow. I must have dropped it after letting the arrow loose.
My lungs are burning by now. I hadn’t realized how far I’d come and I’ve had to circle around my pursuer to make it home. I need to get inside. Up into my loft. Pull up the rope.
One measly cotton rope. All that keeps me safe. Forget the bow. Forget being out here in the middle of nowhere. Neither of those things are going to be my salvation today. Just the rope.
I reach the cabin, bursting through the door without thought to who or what might have entered during my absence. Three giant strides, a leap over the coffee table, and my hands close on the smooth cotton.
“Megan!”
I stop, my white knuckles posed above the second knot, my thigh muscles bunched and ready to climb this last obstacle to safety.
“Megan.”
That name. My name, I realize. And that voice...
I turn.
Standing in the sun-framed doorway, panting, one hand over a bloody wound sliced across his outer thigh, stands a man. A man with…
Red hair.
Zack? My hands loosen on the rope. Then tighten. Zack’s body. But is it Zack?
His head tips up, tired green eyes, but a wide familiar smile. His free hand lifts. My discarded bow. I ignore it. Totally engaged by that smile.
“Wow, Megan. God forbid you ever had to hit the broad side of a barn. Who the hell taught you to shoot this thing anyway?”
“Zach!” I let go of the cotton rope, launching myself into my brother’s waiting arms.
Two’s Company
It was the eyes that did me in. Those big, brown saucers of unquenchable hope that shone at me from the crevice that the creature had wedged itself into. There were a lot of things I could call the pitiful thing cowering in its makeshift den, dinner or bait being the most obvious, but My Best Friend was the least likely name I’d give it.
Stupid. Stupid would do. Though whether I was dubbing the creature or myself that was beyond me. A goddamn dog. What in the hell was I going to do with a scrawny-ass, noise-making mutt?
The dog whined and inched towards me, one dark, muddy paw after the other. I was still struggling with how I might manage to discourage it from following me when the thing completed its journey and curled itself against my calf. Matted black fur caked with mud and burs, tail thumping wildly as it stared at me with adoring eyes.
And sold to the man with no backbone!
I swore and stood, surveying our surroundings. It looked like a damn bomb had gone off, obliterating zombie and survivor alike, except there was one aspect of that theory that was distinctly missing. The torn up bodies lay interspersed with the surrounding destruction were fresh. No evidence of decay beyond that which you’d expect 12-24 hours after such utter destruction. Nope, the centralized apocalypse that had occurred here in this isolated hamlet had nothing to do with the greater one surrounding it. There were no zombies here. Probably never had been and undoubtedly never would be.
Back in the beginning of the pandemic when the spread of the strain was running faster than people could load the family minivan, it might have been possible for an infected to end up here, but now that the entirety of civilization had been grounded back down to its Darwinistic roots? Nope. People didn’t mingle anymore. And zombies didn’t cross large bodies of water or goddamn deserts either. Yeah, maybe one or two might wander its way across the blazing rock and sand of the Mohave in search of a critter or two, but most would go for the guaranteed meal when their preferred food source ran out, i.e. each other.
If there were a zombie out this far in West-fucking Nowhereville, then it had been an isolated incident. Which meant that these people had died for one of two things: sheer stupidity or extreme paranoia, and since I didn’t see a whole lot of confiscated military equipment lying around to indicate they’d accidently set off their own incendiary I was betting it wasn’t their lack of IQ that had led to their demise. And I was also betting that I knew just who had done this.
“Goddamn stupid bastards.”
The mutt tipped its head, giving me the faintest of inquisitive whines, its body quivering in anticipation. Guess it already knew its name.
I sighed. “All right, Stupid. You can tag along if you want.” I pointed my finger at him. “But don’t expect me to take care of you. And you better keep up.”
Stupid wagged his tail, bum and all, and offered a sloppy kiss to my finger in answer. I grimaced, knowing deep in my gut that I was making a mistake. I should just put a bullet in its head and be done with it. It was the humane thing to do. Man’s Best Friend didn’t last long in a world where friends were as apt to eat you as save your ass. And even though I hadn’t run across a zombie in close to a hundred miles, the chances of this mutt making it without someone looking out for him were slim to none. And I certainly didn’t have the time or resources to do so.
I didn’t allow my mind to wander to who its previous owner might have been to have brought it through the worst of the breakout. Most adults were too pragmatic to be swayed by saucer brown eyes during the best of times let alone the end-of-the-world crisis that we were in and there were some decidedly less-than-full-grown limbs in the rubble surrounding us.
Pointedly ignoring the carnage, I picked my way around a still smoking heap of twisted metal. Ford truck. Too mangled to determine the model. Yup, crazy-eyed Joe and his lackey’s had definitely been here.
I’d been tracking them for months, following their random, zigzagging trail across the Southwestern US of A as Crazy Joe and his band of brainless brawn had gone about with their mission
of ridding the world of zombies. I would consider it a worthy task if it wasn’t for one thing: they were ridding the world of perfectly healthy people too. People like Private Cooper and his beautiful new wife Brook, with the bright blue eyes and the smile that just continued to come despite the gone-to-shit world we lived in. And it was my fucking fault too. I’d taken the bastards in. Let them join our little enclave on the assumption that five more strong backs with weapons knowhow would take some of the strain off our already strung-out hunting and sentry schedules. I should have known better. Even a newborn could have recognized the edge of crazy in Joe’s lone eye. But I’d let necessity outweigh gut instinct and given the stupid bastard and his boys their guns. The same guns that had taken out my people, and left me bleeding out in the dirt as they’d confiscated our last vehicle and driven off into the sunset. It had been like a bad western gone wrong.
And now, from the looks of it, he’d scored a grenade launcher too.
Fucking wonderful.
I ran my hand across the puckered scar of the exit wound high on my chest, the ache of muscle and tissue that had never quite healed right a constant reminder of my own mission. Outgunned or not, I was going to find that bastard. And this time it was going to be him left lying in the dirt. Only I wasn’t going to make the mistake of leaving him half-dead.
***
“Worthless! You’re fucking worthless!” Crazy Joe snapped his leg, delivering another rib-cracking blow to the man on the ground.
Stupid growled, and I pulled him down further behind the large boulder we’d crammed ourselves behind. What a bit of blind luck. I’d taken a chance and cut across the foothills rather than try and follow the Humvee tracks on their more roundabout path. The gamble had paid off, either that or there was a good bit of divine intervention going on here that they’d stopped for a breath right here.
“You said it could make it back!” Crazy Joe screamed, delivering another kick to the gut.
The man groaned, clenching his stomach as he hissed between bloody teeth, “I says it might make it back!”
Out of gas? Better and better. This could be my chance. Only, there was no good way to get down off the steep face of this hill without being noticed…and shot.
I racked my brain for possibilities. What I needed was a distraction, or better yet a way to draw them up here. The abundant boulders and shrubbery along this face of the hill offered plenty of areas to hide. The problem would be in making them curious enough to scramble up the jagged terrain while not giving them a perfect target for those new RPG’s of theirs. And low and behold if I hadn’t recently acquired the perfect bait. I glanced down at the dog that’d settled down and now sat patiently beside me. Tie the mutt, get it to bark…true there was just as good a chance they’d shoot the dog on sight as leave it until after they’d found whoever it was who’d tied the mutt up, but it would serve the purpose of drawing them into the ambush and might even buy me a few extra moments.
And you won’t even have to be the one to shoot the dog when it gets too sick and weak to keep up anymore.
As if he could hear my thoughts, Stupid whined, his pink tongue making an effort to close the distance between it and my face. My hand sank deep into the thick fur around its neck, trying to hold the dog at arms-length. In so doing my fingers closed around something that was not fur. Curious I parted the fur, revealing a worn collar made out of braided rags. One strip stuck out where the collar had been knotted off, the unevenly spaced capital letters in faded permanent marker dubbing the dumb mutt as “BUDDY.” Definitely a kid’s dog.
I swore. Profusely. I’d suspected as much, but somehow in the knowing something changed. It was as if even contemplating using this dog in a manner that was sure to get it killed, I was defiling the last wish of the boy who’d not only loved him enough to keep him alive through the worst of the apocalypse, but keep his innocence enough to also bestow him with such a dorky, predictable name. And dub me for the stupid, soon-to-be-dead fool I was, but I couldn’t do it. Oh I’d still go down there and take on Joe and his men, but I wasn’t going to do the smart thing and forfeit this dog’s life to get the upper hand.
One boy’s love trumped the possible cost of more lives, even my own.
“Idiot. Sentimental fool.” I stood, shaking my head. Stupid immediately stood up too, its tail wagging and its head tipped at me questioningly. Okay, that was a bit of a problem. How was I going to get the dog to stay up here while I went down there? If this were any other situation walking out there with a dog at my side would be the smart thing to do—the dog’s presence proving to anyone with half a brain that I was not a zombie—but the thing was, with Crazy Joe I knew that wouldn’t matter. He’d shot the dog, string me up, and make me wish he’d finished the job five months ago when I’d somehow managed to not bleed-out on the ground.
“Guess I’m going to have to tie you up anyway.” I pulled out a bit of frayed rope from my pack, working it through the dog’s collar. It wasn’t very thick, probably wouldn’t take the dog more than an hour to chew through if he had to get himself free. Hopefully it wouldn’t come to that. I fully intended to be back before the dog got desperate enough to try, but if I couldn’t…well, I didn’t want to think about if I couldn’t, but at least the dog would have a chance if the unthinkable happened. Not much of one, but it would be a chance.
I finished by tying the other end around the thick base of a nearby shrub. No water, but at least there was shade, now all I needed was something to occupy the dog while I was gone. I riffled through my pack, pulled out a couple of MRE’s and ripped them open. Stupid’s ears pricked forward, his butt immediately hitting the ground. I dumped the contents out in front of him on a relatively flat rock. Stupid stared down at it, his body tense and waiting. Someone had taught him manners.
“You’re a good mutt, aren’t you?” Stupid looked up at me and whined. “Okay, go ahead.”
Stupid didn’t wait for a second invitation. He lunged, chowing down the food in great big gulps. I frowned, realizing I had less time than I thought to get my butt down into that valley.
I didn’t waste a moment of it, moving quickly from boulder to shrub, then on to the next boulder as I made my way down the steep slope. I was rather surprised when I was most of the way down and hadn’t heard any noise from above—Stupid’s manners obviously encompassed not barking while leashed. Guess my other plan wouldn’t have worked anyway.
Things below me had quieted down too. The man Joe had been beating on had gone completely silent after one too many kicks, and the other three seemed unwilling to interrupt Joe as he paced and swore his anger off. I was tempted to wait and see what they’d do—whether they’d set up camp for the night or make a stab at crossing the desert on foot—but the knowledge that even the most well-mannered dog wouldn’t stay quiet forever kept me moving forward. Besides, it was time to end this. I was sick to death of breathing the same oxygen as the sadistic bastard.
I inched forward, measuring speed against stealth. If I could just get a bit closer…and that’s when Stupid barked, the sound echoing through the valley.
Four sets of eyes snapped to the side of the hill I was stealthily making my way down. “What the fuck was that? A dog?”
I sucked in a breath, my hand going to my knife, but not a one picked out my camouflaged body against the shrub and boulder ridden landscape. Stupid barked again, this time ending in a forlorn sounding howl.
“Go check it out,” Joe ordered.
I ground my teeth and waited as the three mobile lackeys began picking their way through the boulders. It looked like Joe wasn’t going to follow, his attention already turning to a map he’d pulled from the back of the Humvee and was spreading out on the hood. Too easy. Too perfect. I couldn’t miss this chance though. Nor could I let those men reach Stupid.
I held my breath, waiting patiently for the first man to pass. The second man had split off and was too far for me to worry about at the moment but the third was trailing well beh
ind his buddies. He moved past and I slipped out of hiding, rising behind him.
“This is stupid. It’s just a damn dog,” the man muttered, oblivious to my presence.
“Yeah, but how’d it get out here?” I whispered as I slid the blade across his throat. The man’s hands instinctively flew to his throat, his mouth yawning open as wide as his neck as he uttered a soundless scream.
I tossed him aside; assured that the sounds of his feeble struggles would easily be swallowed by the noise his friends were making as they ungracefully scaled the steep face of the hill. A quick glance over my shoulder showed Joe still engrossed in his maps. Too far, but this one’s friend…
I loosened the small axe I kept on my belt, testing its weight before throwing it with a good overhand throw. The blade struck with a thick thud and sank into flesh, but not quite deep enough to snuff the sound of pure agony that escaped from the man as he sank to his knees. The far man spun, his gun rising in a sweeping arc as he opened fire. I threw myself behind a nearby rock, but not before I saw the man I’d hit jerk spasmodically as he was caught in the crossfire. Talk about friendly fire.
Something sliced across my cheek; chips from the rock being blasted with bullets as the man tried to maneuver into better position. I glanced down into the valley. No Joe. Crap. This was not where I wanted to be: between a rock and two men with guns.
I scanned my options. Nothing but shrubs to the left, but to the right there was a virtual maze of boulders. If I could just get across the ten foot expanse between me and the minefield of boulders, I might yet have a chance.
Abruptly the gunfire stopped. Waiting? Or out of ammo?
Wait long enough and you’ll find out.
I slid my pistol from its holster, comforted by the weight in my hand. I didn’t have a ton of ammo but… I came up, gun firing. Three quick cover shots as I made the lunge across the open terrain. I’d almost made it when a crack of a rifle split the air. Something punched into my calf, knocking it out from under me. It wasn’t until I hit the ground that the pain blossomed, telling me exactly how bad it was.