He took the handle of the shovel in his left hand, trying to be as quiet as possible, then eased carefully down the last step, hanging onto the porch rail with his right. Now the tricky part. He had to scoot his feet through the snow rather than move his legs up and down. If he tried to walk normally through the snow, his feet would make crunching sounds, bring the deadheads on the run.
Please, God, let them be stiff, he prayed. Cold weather slowed them down appreciably. Deadheads would completely ice up if the temperature stayed below freezing long enough. Despite last night’s storm, however, he knew it hadn’t been cold enough long enough to turn them into zombicicles. He just hoped it had been cold enough long enough to slow them down, give him a little bit of an advantage.
The wind swirled around the side of the house, blowing fine flakes of snow into his eyes. The big sheet of tin in the back yard went: Creeeaaakkk-BOOM! Creeeaaakk-BOOM! The zombies in the front yard groaned.
He could see the old one now. It was male, elderly when it contracted the Phage. It stumbled around in the snow on legs like two broomsticks, its movements jerking and unsteady. It didn’t notice him for several seconds. Its cataract eyes were rolled up to the heavens like a man thinking, “Why me, Lord!” Then its head twisted in Brent’s direction, and it let out a gravelly moan that sounded more like a belch than a growl.
Brent gripped the shovel tight with both hands, heart galloping in his chest, almost dizzy with fear, and then a kind of calmness settled down over him, a sense of unreality, as if he were viewing everything from outside his body.
“Hey, assholes!” he yelled.
The big one at the door began instantly to howl. Brent heard it thud down the porch, running in his direction. Ignoring the old slow one tottering toward him in the snow, he stepped around the corner of the house-- just in time to see the big one run into the porch railing with its hips. Its upper body hurled forward like a child turning a flip on the monkey bars and it plummeted face first onto the ground.
Brent almost laughed at the zombie’s graceless sprawl. He ran forward, lifting the shovel over his head, ready to deliver the coup de grâce before the revenant could recover from its fall.
But it was fresh, strong. It lurched across the ground at him, hands snatching at his legs.
Brent delivered one solid blow, the shovel clanging off the zombie’s skull, but the hood of the deadhead’s parka had flipped up as Brent swung at it and the insulated material absorbed much of the blow.
“Shit!” he grunted, as the zombie latched onto one of his ankles. He twisted free and went stumbling away from the big one.
And almost into the grasp of the old leathery one!
Belching and gurgling, the old deadhead swiped at him, gnashing its teeth.
Still calm, still enfolded in that sense of altered reality that came over him in moments of extremis, Brent stepped back and swung on the old deadhead. He hit it hard and the zombie’s head flopped over with a muffled crack of breaking bone.
It went down on one knee, head rolling loosely on its right shoulder, then collapsed into the snow.
But the big one had clambered to its feet. It sprinted at Brent, fingers curled into claws, mouth agape. Black fluid like pure sewage drizzled down its chin.
Brent swung the shovel, struck it in the shoulder, but the blow was only strong enough to turn the zombie aside. It went to its knees, still howling, then launched itself at him again, hopping across the ground like a very large, very angry bullfrog.
Brent was howling, too. He struck the chomper a downward blow, catching the zombie on the back of the head. Dark blood and a chunk of hairy flesh twirled into the air. “Yaawwwpp!” the zombie bellowed. It jumped at him again, and Brent struck it on the head again. It went down on its hands and knees, its thick, spoiled blood dripping on the snow in globs, and Brent hit it again, driving it onto its belly.
“Fucking DIE already!” Brent howled, and he hit it again.
And again.
And again.
And again.
He stumbled away when he saw brains and tossed the shovel aside. Gasping, head spinning, he tried to catch his breath. He couldn’t see. He was snowblind. Blue and green afterimages obscured his vision. He headed toward the farmhouse, wheezing, and slipped. Went down on his knees. Tried to rise. Sprawled forward.
“Easy, kiddo, calm down,” Ghost-Harold said. “It’s okay. You killed them. You’re safe.”
Brent gasped. His chest hurt. He brought a handful of snow to his face, rubbed it onto his cheeks and forehead. There. That was better.
“Oh, shit,” he gasped.
“I know, kiddo.”
“I hate that.”
“I know.”
He crawled to the porch, turned around, sat on the porch step.
“I want to go Home,” he said miserably.
“We’re going to get you there.”
“Promise?”
“Cross my heart.”
“Okay.”
Brent sat there until he had calmed down, until he had caught his breath and his hands quit trembling. He stared off across the lawn, squinting into the glare.
“You need to do something with the bodies,” Ghost-Harold said after a little while. “You can’t leave them by the road.”
“I know,” Brent said.
Back by the barn, the big tin sheet went: Creeeaaak-BOOM!
Brent grinned.
“And I know just what to do with them.”
9. Cleanup
He listened for any approaching vehicles, and when he heard only the wind whistling in the trees, he walked over to the big deadhead, shoes crunching in the snow. The chomper was dead—what Harold used to call dead-dead—its head split open like a crushed cantaloupe, brains oozing out. Brent moved around to the zombie’s feet and took the big guy’s ankles in his hands. He took a deep breath and pulled, and the deadhead slid across the ground a foot or two.
“Fuck, he’s heavy,” Brent grunted.
“You gotta do it,” Ghost-Harold said.
“Yeah, I know.”
In case of a meat patrol...
The likelihood of a meat patrol driving down this particular country highway at this particular point in time was pretty low, but if one did happen to drive by, he didn’t want them to see anything out of the ordinary. That’s why Brent needed to remove the deadheads from sight. They ate their own, and they might just check the farmhouse if they saw a couple chompers lying in the front yard, especially with their heads bashed in. If he planned to stay until the cold weather passed, he needed to erase all signs of activity—of the living or the dead-- and do something about that piece of flapping tin! Its banging had already attracted two hungry chompers. He didn’t want any more uninvited guests.
He heaved, and the big deadhead slid across the snow another two feet, leaving a trail of black goo. It took the better part of an hour to get the zombie over to the barn and another twenty minutes to drag it up over the collapsed boards to the section of the roof that kept flapping up and down.
Tugging the corpse by the parka, he rolled the deadhead onto the loose tin sheet, then tossed some boards on top of it for good measure.
“There,” he panted, wiping the sweat from his face. The wind raked through his hair, blowing his sweaty bangs around, but the tin didn’t move. The world seemed suddenly very still. Almost too still.
Brent caught his breath, then returned for the other deadhead.
Despite its broken neck, the other zombie was still moving. Its eyes rolled in their sockets, just like Mrs. Johnson’s eyes had, while its jaw worked restlessly up and down. And then he realized that Mr. and Mrs. Johnsons’ heads were buried somewhere in the snow nearby, probably still chomping, and he got a shivery feeling in his belly. He looked around, suddenly paranoid, then reached down into the snow very carefully and grabbed the ankles of the old deadhead.
“Don’t bite,” he muttered anxiously.
Following the trail he’d already made, he dragg
ed the second deadhead to the barn and tossed it onto the first one.
The second one was much easier to move. It was shriveled like a raisin, light like old dried sticks.
Its head flopped close to the big one’s neck when he tossed it onto the pile, and the old dead one started trying to eat the fresh dead one. It gnawed at the fresh one’s neck, making a weird snorting noise.
“Ew, gross,” Brent said with a prissy frown. “Stop that!”
He couldn’t stand the thought of the old one nibbling on the fresh one while he puttered in the farmhouse, so he retrieved his shovel and brained the nasty old thing.
That done, he trudged to the front yard and used the shovel to obscure the signs of their battle as best he could. He pushed the snow around, trying to cover the streaks and stains of the big one’s blood. He used the flat of the shovel’s spade to smooth over their tracks, and obfuscated the trail of flattened snow where he had dragged the zombies to the barn. He was as thorough as possible, but it was still glaringly obvious that something violent had transpired in the front lawn. He just hoped nobody came along to notice.
“Maybe it’ll snow again tonight and cover it all up,” he said.
“Ah, it’ll be fine,” Ghost-Harold replied. “You worry too much, kiddo. Go inside and get some rest. There won’t be any meat patrols running around in this weather. You know they hate the cold.”
That sounded like a good idea.
10. Caught
He couldn’t rest. Instead, he made a rabbit trap.
He had seen rabbit tracks in the snow that morning. Just thinking of a steaming pot of rabbit stew made his belly gurgle hungrily. His battle with the deadheads had drained him, both physically and emotionally, but he knew that rabbit wasn’t going to catch itself, so he rigged a trap for it.
He made the trap from a kitchen drawer, a piece of yarn and a wooden spatula.
He tied one end of the yarn to the handle of the spatula and the other end of the yarn to a hunk of the ivy that was spreading across the living room walls. The ivy had several green leaves sprouting from it. Maybe Mr. Bunny would find them tempting. Brent hoped he did because he didn’t have anything else to bait his trap with. He didn’t think rabbits were overly fond of uncooked ramen noodles, and the only other food he had left was a single can of mixed vegetables, and none of the veggies in the can were large enough to tie the yarn to.
He went out back with the components of his trap. After clearing snow from a four by four foot area, he propped the wood box on the end of the spatula and placed the ivy under the box. If Mr. Rabbit came along and gave the greenery a nibble, it would dislodge the spatula and cause the box to drop down over him.
“And voila, rabbit stew,” Brent said, sitting back on his knees and admiring his handiwork.
He had made traps like this before. They worked surprisingly well, though a few times he’d trapped critters he hadn’t intended to catch. Once he’d caught a skunk and got sprayed the instant he lifted the box. Harold wouldn’t sleep near him for a month after that happened. A few times he’d caught feral cats, birds and squirrels. They were all edible, if not as tasty as rabbit.
He returned inside. Wiping his cheek with the back of his hand, he realized there was zombie ichor splattered on his face. Grimacing in disgust, he stripped his soiled clothes off and washed again, then selected another outfit and put it on. Clean again, he cooked another package of ramen noodles, ate, then ambled upstairs to take a nap.
Curling up in his little nest of blankets, he found himself dozing off very quickly. He was exhausted-- by his exertions, and by the adrenaline rush he’d had when he was battling the zombies. His arms and legs felt like they were weighted with lead. His eyelids too.
He shut his eyes, enjoying the warmth of the day’s last light. Tomorrow, if it were warmer, he would think about moving on, maybe walk up the road a little way and see if there were any houses nearby.
It was always tempting to stay somewhere safe, but he would never make it Home if he gave in to that temptation. Besides, there really wasn’t anywhere safe in the world. Not anymore. Something dangerous would eventually come along-- a meat patrol, a herd of chompers, a group of violent survivors. In the post-apocalyptic world, complacency was the most dangerous thing of all. Better to keep running. Better to keep heading for Home.
He finally drifted off, and he dreamed about Home.
He had no illusions about the place. Home was not some magical city paved in gold—not even in his dreams—but there were people, lots and lots of living people, and they welcomed him through the city gates, embraced him, celebrated his arrival as if he had come to deliver them from their enemies. He was no messiah, no hero come to save them, but their joy was gratifying. It was all but overwhelming, and the feeling of being swept up in their love, the sense of community, brought tears to his eyes. He was a part of something again. He belonged. He was no longer alone.
And then he woke up.
It was still light out, but the angle of the light had changed. He realized at once that he had slept through the night. It was morning again. He knew because his bladder was full to bursting. His body felt refreshed, if not a little sore. Particularly his arms and shoulders. Probably from bashing in those zombies’ heads, then dragging them to the back yard. But there was something wrong, too. He felt it in the pit of his stomach. A tingle of fear. The beginnings of panic.
A sound, like the rumbling of a distant train. But there were no trains anymore.
An idling engine!
A big one. Like a truck.
“A meat patrol!” Ghost-Harold shouted.
Brent scrambled up and ran for his boots. He sat on the Bowflex to pull them on, then snatched up his backpack. Did he have a weapon? He turned in a circle, surveying the room. No! He had left his knife downstairs after using it to make the box trap. It was on the kitchen table!
“Hurry! Hurry!” Ghost-Harold shouted.
There was a crashing sound below. The scrape of something heavy scooting across the floor. The sofa. Someone was forcing the front door, pushing the sofa out of the way!
There was a second crash, the tinkle of glass, and he heard the kitchen table squawk across the linoleum.
“The window!” Ghost-Harold shouted.
Brent ran to the window and started tugging on the handle. It wouldn’t budge. He realized it was locked and flipped the lever to unlock it. He started to heave the window up and two deadheads came around the corner of the house. They were armed, dressed in heavy winter clothing. Both of them had rifles. Brent stepped back before they glanced up and saw him in the window.
“I’m trapped,” he hissed.
“Hide in the closet,” Ghost Harold suggested.
Brent nodded. He ran for the closet door as footsteps thudded on the staircase. Praying he was just having a particularly vivid nightmare, he jerked open the door. As soon as the door swung open, several plastic bins fell out. He had looked through them yesterday when he was searching for new clothes, had stacked them haphazardly in the closet when he was done. That’s what you get for being lazy, he thought. He jumped forward, arms outstretched, and tried to keep them from hitting the floor. He managed to catch them all but the top one. It slid off to the side and hit the floor with a thump.
“Oh, shit!” Brent whimpered, looking over his shoulder.
He couldn’t remember if he had locked the door or not. He had fallen asleep too quickly, slept much longer than he had intended to.
“Here,” a gravelly voice said.
The doorknob jiggled.
Johnson’s exercise equipment!
Brent let the boxes fall and ran to the Bowflex machine. He snatched up a couple five-pound barbells that were on the floor next to bench and prepared to fight.
The door shuddered as one of the invaders kicked it. A crack appeared in the doorframe by the knob, but it held.
“Sssomeonesss in there!” a croaky voice cried. “I ssssmell it!”
A second kick sen
t the door flying open in a spray of splinters. It banged against the wall and swung back, but a deadhead was already charging into the room. It blocked the door with its elbow, a rifle in its hands.
It saw him.
“Yesssss!” it hissed.
It was a big deadhead, powerfully built. Obviously some kind of cop or soldier when it was alive, judging by its buzz haircut and the shape and bearing of its body. It had a flat featured, blocky head and small sunken eyes. Its skin had a bluish-green cast and there were several open sores on its forehead and cheek through which bone and muscle tissue were visible. It also had no lips. Its upper and lower lips had been gnawed off.
“Put it down!” it snarled. Without lips, it sounded as if it had said “toot it down”, but Brent knew what it meant.
Yelling, Brent rushed at the deadhead, swinging for its head with one of the barbells. The zombie jerked back, moving surprisingly quickly for its state of decomposition. The barbell came down on its arm instead, knocking the barrel of the rifle aside just as the creature pulled the trigger. The bullet struck the floor and ricocheted with a squeal, punching a hole in the closet door. The zombie tried to bring the rifle to bear and Brent struck at it again.
Enraged, the zombie dropped its rifle and seized Brent by the shoulders. Brent stumbled back as the creature drove forward, holding him by the sleeves. The creature was nearly a head taller and much heavier than Brent. Brent’s heels caught against a box and he toppled backward, the zombie falling atop him.
“I’ll swallow your soul!” the monster snarled, its bare teeth snapping off the words just inches from his face.
“Get—Off--!” Brent yelled, twisting and pushing against his assailant.
The deadhead drew back its fist and punched him.
The blow connected with Brent’s cheek. It turned his head to one side, exposing his throat to those teeth. Brent saw stars, felt as if he had been knocked just slightly out of alignment with reality. He blinked his eyes, tried to reorient himself, and then another blow landed, and another.
Cattle (The Fearlanders) Page 5