The undead were everywhere. They walked and crawled and bumped into things. They reminded me of fish in an aquarium–wide-eyed, mouths open, going one way then the next, only getting “lively” and zoning in when there was food.
I didn’t have any particular place I wanted to go that day; I was just having a look around. I toured a few residential streets, careful to stay away from congested areas. I wound up on the south side of town near Founder’s Farm and Hardware. I didn’t need to go there since I’d found most everything I needed at the old woman’s house, but I didn’t think it would hurt to see if they had any canning supplies I might have missed.
Just before I got there, I passed by a few houses, then came upon a small park that had been built for the town by the local Kiwanis Club. I stopped in the street and got out. The large sign by the entrance said: SPONSORED BY KIWANIS OF CLAYFIELD. The grounds were overgrown, but the playground equipment, pavilion, and basketball goals were still easily visible. The reason why I stopped was that there was a row of six metal fence posts–known as T-posts–in the ground in front of the sign. Each post had two to four human heads driven down on them like grotesque shish kabobs. It was new–something done within the past two or three weeks. There was another fence post there that was empty.
I got a chill and looked around to see if anyone might be watching me. I didn’t know if the heads had been the heads of zombies or healthy people. I presumed they had been zombies, because of their state of decay, but I hadn’t been out that way in a while, so they could have decomposed in that time. Then I thought I saw one of the heads move. It was the top head on the second post. I took a step closer to investigate. It felt like the thing was looking at me with its bluish, milky eyes. Then it opened then closed its mouth. I stepped back to my vehicle, and looked around me again.
I could understand exterminating them, but I couldn’t understand beheading them and staking the heads. Beheading them didn’t kill them; it just disconnected them from their bodies. While that incapacitated them and took away their mobility, they could still be dangerous. It was reckless, pointless, and barbaric.
I was troubled by what I saw, but I was trying to be optimistic. The beheadings meant there was, at worst, a very sadistic healthy person left in Clayfield, and at best, a bored or fed-up healthy person. I tried to focus on the “healthy” part. “Healthy” meant conversation and possible companionship. “Healthy” meant I might have help. I returned to my truck and drove on over to the hardware store.
Founder’s was gone–burned to the ground. I hadn’t been there in a while, but I was surprised I hadn’t noticed the smoke from the fire. The ground was scorched at least a hundred feet around the building. There were dozens of charred bodies and blackened skeletons scattered around.
I got out and walked up to the remains of the store. I could feel heat coming from it. There were probably still some glowing hot spots under all the ash and debris, but the fire had died days before. There were some warped metal racks and shelves still poking out, but the flames had done a thorough job on everything else. I couldn’t imagine what had caused it, but since it was in such close proximity to the Kiwanis Park and the staked heads, I presumed the fire had been intentionally set. Founder’s sold T-posts; I had taken some of their posts to shore up my perimeter fence at the stables. They didn’t keep them inside, but rather had them stacked outside. I hadn’t taken them all, but now there were none left.
Either someone torched the building, and the zombies had gathered in, attracted to the fire and burned, or someone had somehow lit the creatures, and the hardware store was an unintentional casualty. I wouldn’t know until I met this stranger.
On my way back to the Lassiter place, I slowed next to the pasture of the gray horse. It had moved to the other side of the field, a few hundred feet away. The zombies were on their way over to it again. As they got near, the horse bucked a little then ran closer to me. The undead immediately turned to follow. I rolled down my window and whistled. The horse snorted, threw its head back, and then ran off again. I didn’t see a gate for the field from my position in the road.
I got out, left the truck idling and the door open, and waded down into the waist-high weeds and thorny blackberry canes over to the barbed wire fence. If I leaned in a little, I could see a gate off to my right that had been obscured by a line of trees. I fought my way back through the weeds and returned to the truck. There was a dirt and gravel driveway not far down the road. It was only about the space of one car length–just enough room to park off the road so a person could open the gate and pull into the field. I had no intention of pulling into the pasture. I just wanted to open the gate to give the horse a way to escape so it could at least have a fighting chance. I swung the wide, metal gate into the pasture and propped it open with a stick. Then I went back to the stables.
When I pulled up out front, I found the driveway gate open and a little blue truck parked near the house. I was nervous but also excited about the prospects of another healthy person. Cautiously, I pulled my 9mm and placed it on the seat beside me. I drove up and parked close behind the blue truck. If this was a looter, I wanted to make their escape as difficult as possible. I shifted into park, grabbed my pistol, and sat there waiting.
After a few seconds, the front door opened, and a masked woman stepped out onto the porch. She was in a black leather jumpsuit like the kind motorcyclists wear, black leather boots, and a black cap. She was holding a sawed-off shotgun. She could have been a comic book villainess. We stared at each other, each waiting for the other to make the first move. Finally, she pulled down her mask and took off her cap.
It was Sara.
CHAPTER 4
“Holy shit,” I whispered.
I don’t know why I didn’t run to her. I was running on the inside, if that makes any sense. But I just sat there with my mouth open staring at her. I had not seen her for more than two months. She lifted her hand in greeting then walked down the length of the porch and stopped when she got in the driveway. Her eyes were glistening with tears.
I opened the door and slipped out of the truck.
“I thought you were dead,” she said. “I didn’t expect to find you here.”
I had spent all that time alone rehearsing conversations, and when the time finally came, I didn’t know what to say.
“How have you been?” she said.
“Where did you come from?” I said. It came out in a whisper. I hadn’t spoken to a real person in weeks. I drew near to her and touched her face. Her nose didn’t look right.
“It’s broken,” she said, noticing my concerned expression and reaching up to touch my hand. “I hit that electrical line that day when I jumped off the building.”
“That day,” I repeated.
“Yeah,” she said. “You told me not to jump.”
I nodded. “I’m glad you did.”
“I don’t think it has completely healed,” she said. “It still hurts, but it looked a lot worse than this. It’s going to be crooked now. I hope I’m not too–”
“You’re beautiful,” I interrupted. Then I blurted out, “A zombie ate my earlobe.”
She reached up and brushed my hair away from my ear. She made a pained expression but didn’t say anything.
“It was my favorite one,” I said.
She smiled broadly, “I’ve missed you.”
“Yeah…me too.”
I leaned in and kissed her. When I pulled back, she smiled again.
She was thinner. She looked older. I pulled her against me. She put her face on my chest, and I kissed the top of her head. Then I just broke down. I held her and wept.
”I’d almost given up on you,” I said.
“So much has happened.”
I pushed her out at arms’ length to look at her again.
“Are you hungry?” I said.
“No,” she said. “But I saw you had coffee in there. I would love some if you can spare it.”
I took her hand, and we
walked up to the house.
“You’ve been busy,” she said, nodding at the garden.
Once we were inside, I got some water warming on the stove, and we sat at the table. We were both quiet for a while. She stared at the floor. I stared at her and waited for her to talk. She seemed uncomfortable and timid like she had when we first met.
“Mr. Parks didn’t make it,” she said finally. She glanced up at me then back to the floor.
“I know,” I said. “I saw him.”
“How?”
“Mr. Somerville and I went looking for you and–“
“Nicholas is alive?” she asked, shocked by the news.
“He was the last time I saw him,” I said. “He went on to Springfield to look for you and Judy, and I stayed here. He said he would come back. He should have been back weeks ago.”
She looked down at her feet. “I wish Judy would have known that. I left her down near Biloxi with a group of survivors.”
“Biloxi? What were you doing down there?”
She shrugged, “I wanted to see the Gulf again. Judy and I didn’t have anybody but each other, and we just wanted to get away.”
“What happened?”
“We tried to cross over into Illinois following the route Mr. Parks had planned, but someone had made a bridge out of barges, and the infected people from across the river were just pouring over–thousands of them. A man told us that they’d gotten word that a big bomb had been detonated to the north, but they didn’t know exactly where, or if it was a nuclear weapon or something different–“
“I’d heard the same about some of the southern cities,” I said. “They said Nashville had been nuked…and Jackson, Mississippi.”
Sara shook her head, “I don’t know about Nashville, but I drove on the outskirts of Jackson coming and going. One whole end of town looked like it had burned, but I don’t know about nukes. It could have been, but it didn’t look like Hiroshima or anything. Not long after we arrived in Biloxi, we saw a small aircraft. Some of the others said it was a drone. We never saw it fire off any weapons, but it could be that the military is still around doing stuff.”
“Hmm,” I said, puzzled. “What happened when you couldn’t get over? I found your vehicles by the flood wall.”
“We lost everybody,” Sara continued. “Judy and I hid in a boxcar for a day until the things left. I wanted to get away from everything…or at least feel like I was getting away,” she said. “But it was worse down in Biloxi. I couldn’t stay. There were more infected, more gangs, less food...it didn’t make sense to stay. Judy wanted to be around people, and there was a really nice group down there–a big group–so she stayed with them. I tried to talk them all into coming back to Kentucky with me, but most of them didn’t want to leave.”
She stopped talking and got up to pour the hot water through the ground coffee and filter. She caught the hot coffee in a mug. When it was full, she replaced it with another mug and handed the full one to me. When her mug was full, she turned to look at me.
“Has it been hard for you?” she asked. “Being here by yourself?”
It had, but I didn’t say so. I just shrugged.
“I’m sorry I left you,” she said. “I didn’t know what else to do.”
“I know,” I said.
There was an uncomfortable silence. Her eyes went back to the floor.
“Nice outfit,” I said, trying to lighten the mood.
She looked down at herself and grinned, “The leather stops zombie bites.”
“Must have cost you a fortune,” I said.
“Yeah,” she said, turning and posing like a model on a runway, “but I can wear it shopping or to parties. I’ll get a lot of use out of it. Maybe you should get one then we can look like Batman and Batwoman.”
“Batgirl,” I said. “No, I’m more of a denim and Kevlar man. Sometimes I need to stop bullets too.”
She smiled at me, put her coffee cup on the table.
“Kevlar might stop bullets, but does it look as good as this Batwoman outfit?”
“Batgirl,” I said. “And…no.”
“It’s kind of hot and not in the sexy way.”
“Oh, it’s plenty hot in the sexy way,” I said, then felt embarrassed for saying it.
“I picked it up a while ago, but I’ve only really worn it a couple of days this past week. To be honest, I’ve been thinking about ditching it.”
She sat in her chair, and her face lost all expression and she spoke without looking at me. “When I saw you fall under that bulldozer, I thought I had lost you. I cried for you for days. I still held out some hope. For a long time, I waited for you to show up, but…I didn’t know what to do.”
“You’re here now, and that’s what’s important.”
She nodded and looked at the floor.
“Jen is dead,” she said. It came out of nowhere, and I didn’t understand why she was even bringing it up.
“Um…I…yeah,” I said, trying to form a thought. “We settled that, remember? Jen is gone.”
“No,” she said, leaning in. “Jen is dead. She…or the zombie version of her showed up when I was with Mr. Parks’ group before we left.”
“Did you…?”
“No,” she said. “I didn’t want to be the one. Ron killed her.”
“Oh,” I said.
“I only tell you because I want it to be settled in your mind. I want you to know that you’ll not be seeing her again.”
I nodded, taken aback by the news.
She put her hand on my knee, “You okay?”
“Yeah,” I said. “Jen has been gone for months. I’m over that.”
“I’ve been gone for months,” she said. “Are you over me?”
“No, of course not.”
She stood and went over to the window.
“The garden looks good,” she said.
“It’s a lot of work,” I said. “I’ve never had one that big before.”
She nodded but seemed lost in thought.
“I don’t understand,” I said. “If you didn’t think you’d find me here, why did you come?”
She shrugged but didn’t turn around. “I was just feeling sentimental, I guess.”
“You drove all the way from Biloxi because you were feeling sentimental?”
“I told you why I left Biloxi,” she said. “It was bad there. I’ve been back in Kentucky for six days. I’ve been staying in a cabin on Kentucky Lake. It’s secluded out there, and I’ve only seen one zombie since I got there.”
“Six days? Why didn’t you come here before now?”
“I didn’t think I could bring myself to live in Clayfield anymore; I thought it would be too painful. But also...I didn’t come back alone.”
There was something about the way she said it...
“Oh?”
“I met this guy down there. I came back here with him and another couple.”
“Oh,” I whispered.
She turned to face me, but her eyes found the floor again.
“I thought you were dead,” she said.
“Yeah, you said that already.”
She returned to the table and sat in her chair.
“I didn’t know you were here,” she said.
“Did you think you’d find supplies or something? Did you come to take the stuff?”
She winced at that and shook her head. “I wanted to come here, because I missed you. I wanted to visit where we used to be together, you know? I wanted to come alone, because this was a private thing for me. I left early this morning before the others got up. It was the first chance I’ve had to get away. I left them a note, but they’re probably worried sick about me.”
“Then I guess you should get back, huh?” I said flatly. I felt numb.
She stood again and went back to the window.
“I wasn’t expecting this,” she said. “I wasn’t expecting to see you again.”
“I’ve been expecting you for…forever,” I said.
&n
bsp; “I love you,” she said. “I’ve told you that before. Please believe that. I love you. That never changed.”
“Then why are you with him?”
She turned and looked me in the eye. “Grant is a nice guy and–“
“Grant?” I scoffed. “That’s his name?” It was a childish thing–laughing at the man’s name, especially since it was a perfectly good name–but it was all I had.
“–things are different now,” she continued, ignoring my outburst. “Couples are pairing up not so much for love but more for safety and companionship and just knowing that there’s another healthy person close by. I guess I’m setting feminism back by saying it, but it’s good to know there is a strong man around.”
“So he was convenient,” I said.
“He was there. He’s a really nice guy, but…yes, he was convenient. It’s not like there are a lot of nice men left.”
“Was I? Was I convenient?”
“No,” she said. “But I always felt like I was. I always thought I was what you settled for when Jen was gone.”
I looked at the floor. I hadn’t intended on doing that, but I could see that I had treated her that way.
“I’m sorry,” I said.
She turned back to the window.
“Grant and I have been together for about a month. It’s not really that long, but in this new world, it’s a very long time. He’s been good to me. We–“
“Stop,” I said. “I don’t want to know about Grant or his niceties or how grateful you’ve been to him. All I want to know is what you’re going to do.”
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