by Kody Boye
One of the creatures lifted its hand.
Dakota turned.
A lone zombie—decrepit and falling apart as it moved—shambled toward them: a long, low wail emanating from what remained of the flaps of skin on its torn throat.
Rose spun, drew her bat from its sling on her back, and ran forward. She clocked the creature alongside the head and felled it just in time for Steve to come forward and decapitate it with his machete.
Dakota turned his attention back to the creatures.
The one who had been emulating his human characteristics raised a hand and then gave him a thumb’s up.
Amazing, he thought.
“It… remembers,” Dakota said.
“It apparently does,” Jamie replied, giving the creature a thumbs up of his own.
“It looks like they’re not going to cause us any trouble,” Rose said as the creatures began to shift, mobilizing to remove themselves from the shade of the bank’s awning. “Even if they do start to follow us, at least it’ll give us cover from behind.”
“If they don’t let the zombies through,” Steve said.
“I doubt they’re going to do that,” Dakota replied. “Not after they just pointed one out to us.”
Dakota turned and started back up the road.
Behind them, the plant walkers followed.
They were followed the entire way through the city. Held at bay by the plant walkers, what few corpses remained in the area kept their distance—growling, snarling, baying and howling whenever they happened to spot the humans at the front of the party. Once, one threatened to run forward, but stopped as one of the walkers behind them let out an undulating sound that sent it back several steps.
So, Dakota thought, wanting to cast a glance behind him but knowing there would be no use in doing so. They’re afraid of them.
The way they walked, the way they sounded, they way they looked, acted—all were dichotomies within this new kingdom of the dead, where life was fickle and death was not. To most, they would have looked upon the plant walkers in confusion—as zombies who had been smothered in dust or coal or even a bizarre display of paint—but to Dakota, he looked at them in reverence.
For two hours they walked without confrontation.
It was only later—after leaving the city, and long after the plant walkers stopped following them—that they ran into any issues.
The animals along this route were feral and covered with mange. Packs of wild dogs and even what appeared to be coyotes littered the side of the road, scavenging through rotting corpses or garbage and even at times one another. Their attacks were cruel—vicious in that they did not hold back—and their barks and snarls as the group approached was enough to set Dakota on edge.
The scariest part was—they weren’t even dead. These were living, breathing, starving animals. And they looked ready to attack at any moment.
“Should we shoot?” Dakota asked, aiming his gun at one of the dogs as it began to make its way forward.
“We’d just draw attention to ourselves,” Jamie said, keeping his machine gun aimed steadily at them as they continued to walk away from the group of ferals, most of whom were mid to larger-sized housepets that had since reverted to their primordial state. Several Italian greyhounds bickered over a scrap of bone, while a golden retriever—speckled in blood from head to toe—growled at the smaller dogs as they came too close.
“I don’t think they’ll do anything,” Rose said. “I—”
She tripped.
She stumbled.
She fell.
The dogs were after her instantly.
Jamie did not hesitate to open fire.
The first spray of bullets was simply a warning—a deterrent to let the beasts know that he meant business and that he would continue to shoot should they continue to advance. The second spray soared over their heads, but did nothing to stop them from hurling themselves at Rose.
Dakota fired.
Blood sprayed the air as one of the animals was hit.
Steve immediately jumped in front of Rose and drew his machete, slashing the air in front of him and yelling, “BACK! BACK!”
The dogs jumped, growled, attempted to make their way around Steve.
Rose pulled her baseball bat from her sling and jabbed it into the crowd, striking one dog and causing another to pull away.
“GET BACK!” Dakota screamed, firing another shot into the air. “Get BACK!”
He fired at the ground—not wanting to have to aim for a dog but still cause enough noise to scare them off.
When the dogs turned and high-tailed it down the road, Dakota sighed and reached down to help Rose to her feet while Jamie and Steve stood guard. “Rose,” Dakota said. “Are you—”
He saw the bite mark on her wrist—long, deep, punctured in three different spots and torn in the fourth—and grimaced.
“Yeah,” she said, drawing away from Dakota as soon as she got to her feet. “Let’s get the fuck out of here before they come back.”
They took off at a jogging pace.
Rigby, Idaho came upon the horizon by nightfall—when, as the sun was beginning to coast the horizon and shine upon the world dull shades of orange and pink, it appeared like a lingering specter in a frozen world.
“Thank God,” Rose sighed, holding her gimped wrist to her chest. “We’re home.”
“Almost,” Jamie corrected. “Remember—we still have to get there first.”
Nodding, Rose sighed and tightened her hold on her baseball bat. It’d been her constant companion since she’d been attacked by the dogs. She was unable, or unwilling, to relinquish her hold on it, and though she was not left handed by nature, she could swing almost as hard with it as she could her right.
We won’t even have to worry about that soon, Dakota thought with a sigh, drawing forward to he could stand beside Jamie, who had been leading the group after the unexpected assault.
Soon, they would be home—beneath their roofs and within their beds, but with one person missing.
Poor Erik.
Dakota sighed and reached out to press a hand against the small of Jamie’s back. “Jamie,” he said.
“Yeah?” the older man replied.
“I’m sorry about everything that’s happened.”
“Why are you apologizing to me?”
“I just feel like it’s partially my fault. I mean… Erik and Ian lured them aside so Rose and I could get away.”
“You’re both alive,” Steve said.
“Which means their sacrifice was worth it,” Jamie said, wrapping his arms around Dakota’s shoulders.
Though Ian’s passing had struck him only slightly, Erik’s had taken a toll on his conscience. It had been he who had volunteered to stay behind—who had remained bold and steadfast as in front of him he and Rose had run. Erik was the one who had taken the risk. Erik was the one who’d gotten scratched. Erik was the one who was now—
Dead, Dakota thought.
He closed his eyes and tilted his head back to bare his sweaty neck to the cold.
He’d never anticipated having survivor’s guilt. Maybe this was why some men went mad after war—because in the end, how could you live with yourself if one of the best people you knew had died in your place?
Tightening his hold against Jamie’s coat, Dakota opened his eyes and watched as they rounded a corner.
There, in the near distance, stood their homes—gate closed, houses maintained, a figure seated in the window, watching and waiting for them to come home.
“Is that,” Rose said.
“Desmond?” Steve asked, taking a few steps forward. “It is. Hey! Hey! Desmond! Desmond!”
“Will you shut up?” Rose growled. “You’re going to get us all killed.”
“We’re almost there,” Steve asked. “What could possibly—”
A zombie lurched out from the nearby bushes, taking hold of Steve’s arms and dragging him to the ground.
“Oh no you don’t,” Ro
se said, taking hold of her bat and swinging it, pitcher’s style, toward the zombie’s head.
Its skull caved to the side.
Rose struck again.
Steve turned his head and closed his eyes.
By the time it was over, the attack had lasted less than a minute.
Steve rose and immediately rolled up his sleeves.
“Were you scratched?” Dakota asked.
“No,” Steve sighed, bearing his arms to show the group his skin, which was clean and unblemished save the red spots where the zombie had latched on. “Thank God.”
“We need to get going. Now!”
Nearby, the gate opened and out ran a figure, completely ignorant to his surroundings. “Steve!” Desmond cried, taking off as fast as he could—slipping, at one point, and going down, but not caring before throwing himself to his feet. “Steve! Are you ok?”
“I’m fine, babe,” Steve said, taking the much younger man into his arms as he ran forward. He pressed a long, hard kiss against Desmond’s mouth and sighed as they backed away.
“You’re sure?”
“I’m sure.”
“You’re not scratched? Bitten?”
“No?”
“Where’s Erik?” Desmond asked, craning his head to look around Steve.
“He didn’t make it,” Jamie sighed.
Desmond’s eyes faltered. “Oh,” he said, a glimmer of a tear appearing within one of their surfaces. He took hold of Steve’s hand and squeezed—for dear life, based on what Dakota could see—before turning and facing Jamie. “I’m sorry,” he said.
“It’s ok, kid. Don’t worry about it.”
“Your arm,” Desmond said as he turned to look at Rose. “What happened?”
“Dogs. No big deal. Nothing some peroxide and antibiotics won’t fix.” She forced a smile. “How is everything here?”
“Everything’s fine. We stayed in the house, like Jamie told us to, and read, played board games, watched movies on one of the portable DVD players. Steve told you we scavenged a few houses, right?”
“He did,” Jamie agreed.
“Mark even got in his first zombie kill,” Desmond smiled. “Poor kid. He’s only… twelve? I think? Maybe thirteen?” He sighed. “He shouldn’t have to do that.”
“No one should have to, bud. But that’s life during the zombie apocalypse.”
“It fucking sucks.”
“I couldn’t agree more.”
With that, they stepped in through the open front gate and made their way toward Jamie’s home.
They were immediately greeted with shouts, hugs, and condolences upon their arrival.
“Erik was a good man,” Kevin said as he pulled away from Jamie to look into his eyes. “I’m sorry for your loss.”
“Thank you,” Jamie said, then nodded to the two teenaged boys when they said the same. He turned to look at his expansive childhood home and sighed as he settled down on the loveseat. “I used to sit with him right here, you know? We’d play video games, watch movies, shoot the shit. He was a good guy. He…”
Jamie bowed his head.
“Do you want to lay down?” Dakota asked, reaching down to take hold of his partner’s hand.
“Yeah,” Jamie said, standing. “I think that’d be for the best.”
“Come into the kitchen,” Steve said, gesturing to Rose. “Let’s get you cleaned up.”
While Steve and Rose disappeared into the kitchen, and while Jamie and Dakota walked up the stairs, Dakota looked at the pictures hanging of the wall and tried not to notice how many of them Erik was in. Erik and Jamie as toddlers; Erik and Jamie as kids; Erik and Jamie as teenagers and then, eventually, in armed forces uniforms. He saw pictures of them in Guam, right next to the picture of Jamie’s handsome father, and he saw pictures of them as they returned from their first deployment—laughing, smiling, hugging.
They would never have that again. Ever.
At least not until he dies, Dakota thought. And then…
He couldn’t bear to think of it.
After everything they’d been through—after all the laughs, the cries, the pain, the sorrow, and now the deaths—he couldn’t bear to think of his best friend and the only person he loved more than anyone else in the world dying.
That afternoon, as he lay down to sleep with the man he loved and the one person he couldn’t even bear to think about losing, he tried to remember a time in which he’d felt more comfortable and found that he couldn’t.
As he closed his eyes, drifting slowly toward the edge of sleep, he thought of Jamie—of Erik, of Ian, of the men and women they’d lost in the asylum and of those that’d been lost to the world—and realized that life, as miserable as it happened to be, was complete.
And regardless of everything that had happened, he wouldn’t have it any other way.
Chapter 10
“I want to leave,” Rose said.
It was a bombshell none of them could have ever expected.
Standing in the middle of Jamie’s living room with Steve, Desmond, and Kevin and his kids, Dakota looked on as the woman stared at Jamie with stalwart determination.
“I,” Jamie started, then stopped, as if unsure how to continue. “I’m not sure I understand.”
“I made a mistake when I left Fort Hope,” the woman replied. “And after seeing what Erik went through… I realize that now.”
“You’re telling us you want to go back to Rhode Island?” Steve frowned.
“I’m saying I want us to go back to Rhode Island. Together.”
Us? Dakota thought.
Did she really think they were not safe here—that this personal stronghold of theirs, so nearly-impenetrable, would not stand up to the world around them?
Jamie crossed his arms over his chest. Kevin frowned. The boys visibly trembled as they looked upon the woman who, to anyone’s recollection, could’ve easily been considered mad.
“Rose,” Dakota started. “I’m not sure I under—”
“We aren’t safe here,” she replied. “There’s too few of us, too many of them. Erik and Ian were killed on basically the same day. There’s hordes out there we can’t even begin to contend with. And we won’t have enough supplies for us to last for the long-term.”
“We’ll keep scavenging,” Kevin said.
“And what, dear tell,” Rose asked, “happens when the food we start scavenging runs out?”
“Then we move on.”
“Where, though?”
The man didn’t reply.
“Look,” Rose continued, looking from Jamie, to Steve, then to Kevin before finally settling her eyes back on Dakota. “I’m not saying that this is going to be easy. If anything, it’s going to be nightmarish. But fact of the matter is: we’re not going to survive here in the long run. We’re too exposed, we don’t have enough guns. If a big-enough group of survivors come, they could easily overwhelm these walls and kill us all.”
“Why now?” Steve asked. “After all this time of being here?”
“I’ve missed Lyra and E.J. since the moment I was forced to run away from Fort Hope,” Rose sighed. “Listen…” She paused, her gaze faltering as it fell to the floor. “I’m not saying any of you have to go with me. What I’m offering is the chance for you to come with me. If you don’t want to, I understand. I’ll go on my own.”
“You’d never survive out there by yourself,” Jamie said.
“I did it once. I can do it again.”
“You nearly went mad.”
“I was mad,” Rose laughed. “Still am, if you really want to think about it.”
“It’s something we have to consider,” Dakota said. When the rest of the group turned their eyes on him, Dakota sighed and looked up—most particularly, to Jamie and Steve. “She’s right, guys. We only have a certain amount of time before we’re going to have to move on anyway.”
“And what better place to go than with the military?” Rose asked.
“We were with the military,�
�� Jamie replied. “See how well that turned out for us?”
“That was just one time, Jamie. In a place that wasn’t readily-fortified and secured by dozens of armed men.” Rose sighed, then turned and started for the doorway. “Like I said: you don’t have to come with me if you don’t want to. Either way, I’m going.”
“Don’t leave now,” Desmond said.
Rose turned and asked, “What?”
Desmond swallowed a lump in his throat. “Not while it’s still snowing,” he said, then cleared his throat before adding, “You’d be better off traveling in the spring, when it isn’t too hot and it still a bit cool.”
“Especially through the midwest,” Jamie agreed. “Once you start cutting through Wyoming and Nebraska, you run the risk of snowstorms.”
“I can deal with snowstorms,” she said.
“Yeah,” Dakota replied. “But if you don’t have a vehicle to sleep in? Or a place to camp out for the night?”
Rose didn’t say anything.
“Let us think about this,” he said as she reached out and opened the door. “We’ll get back to you on this.”
Rose left without saying another word.
“Are you really proposing we leave?” Jamie asked.
“We can’t stay here forever,” Dakota said. “And she’s right. We’d be safer in a heavily-armed facility with more than just a few people. Our ammo won’t last us forever, Jamie.”
Sighing, Jamie ran a hand over his thickening beard and lowered his eyes to the carpeted floor. Dakota—having expected him to say something further—waited with bated breath. When he didn’t, though, Dakota leaned back and settled down onto the ottoman that sat at the end of the bed. “Jamie,” he said.
“Yeah,” the older man replied.
“Please don’t leave me in the dark about this.”
“This is my home, Dakota,” Jamie replied. “I just can’t leave it behind.”
“I know it’d be hard, but… it’s just…”
“What?”
This time, it was Dakota’s turn to sigh. “I don’t feel safe here,” he said. “Not after what happened to Ian. To Erik. To us on the way back from Boise. I don’t like having to feel like I’m running for my life every second of the goddamn day.”