by C. Dulaney
It turned out I was wrong in my estimation of their speed. Just before dusk, the mass of deadheads entered the far end of town. I wrapped up the uneaten portion of Heath bar I had been nibbling at and tucked it in my jacket pocket. Jake lit yet another Marlboro and watched tensely. I smiled weakly and patted his knee. His agitated state was new to me; he always seemed in complete control of his emotions. But, after more than two weeks of this shit, it was bound to unwind a few nerves, even in the most unwavering individual.
“Hey, what the hell is that?” Jake asked as he sat up straight and pointed towards the end of town. My heart sank when I saw he was pointing at the Hoskins place. My eyes strained against the darkening sky trying to make out exactly what it was that had Jake up in arms.
“What? I can’t see anything besides a bunch of dead bastards dragging their asses up the road,” I finally said, my voice cracking with frustration. Jake scooted closer to me and held his arm along the side of my head, forcing my eyes to follow his finger directly to the spot he was pointing out.
“Shit,” I muttered. The deadheads at the back of the swarm were stopping and turning their heads slowly in the direction of the house.
“Tommy’s still alive?” Jake asked. He was as surprised as I was, and impressed as well. I certainly didn’t think Tommy would have had enough supplies to last him this long, or the sanity either. But from the looks of the situation, Tommy’s luck had just run out. We watched in silence as the moaning began, at the back of the swarm first, then slowly increasing in volume as the moans rippled forward through them like a wave. Those in the rear were already staggering towards the house, with those ahead of them turning around and slowly moving to unite with their brothers.
“What should we do?” Jake asked.
“We wait and watch,” I said. This frustrated Jake even more, but he remained quiet and seated beside me. That’s when a bright spotlight lit up the entire front yard and the firing began. We both jumped, not expecting this turn of events in the least, but not entirely shocked by it either. We both knew Tommy was good with a weapon. I rubbed my shoulder absentmindedly as I watched the zombies closest to the house fall to the ground, one by one. Jake grabbed my forearm and rose to his knees.
“We have to help him,” he said. I grabbed his arm in turn and pulled him back to the ground. I jerked him close and hissed through my teeth.
“No, we don’t. We watch and wait.” He looked at me incredulously, but relaxed a bit and sat back. I let go of him and turned back to the house. Tommy was still firing, a little too rushed for my taste, but was basically taking them down with head shots. Not every time, but he wasn’t sloppy about it either.
As I watched, I began to slowly realize that there were too many of them, and even if Tommy had enough ammo, they would break into the house before he could kill them all. Unless he had fortified his front door and lower level windows, which I assumed was common sense and if he had survived this long, then surely he had completed those simply steps in the very beginning. It wasn’t long before it was once again proved that assuming something only ended in making me feel like an ass.
“They’re breakin’ in,” Jake said. He was clearly despondent, finally accepting the fact that if we tried helping Tommy, we would endanger not only ourselves and the cause for this whole trip, but also everyone back at the house. We needed every bit of ammo we had with us, and simply could not afford to use it in assisting someone who had already proved themselves to be unstable and untrustworthy. Did every human life count? Was every living being worth saving? Should every living person be saved? The one versus the many; how many times would we be faced with this decision?
“Kasey, can you hear me? Respond, dammit!” Nancy’s voice was shouting through the walkie. It was luck I heard her at all over the moaning. I snatched it from my pocket, turned the volume down, and kept my eyes fixed on the zombies as they clawed and climbed their way through the large picture window at the front of the house.
“This is Kasey. We’re okay, I didn’t hear you calling for me,” I answered. Jake simply stared at the scene below, the gunshots still reporting steadily from one of the upstairs windows.
“What’s going on down there? Are you shooting?” Nancy asked.
“No, it’s not us. We’re still watching the swarm, but something caught their eye at Tommy’s house. They converged on him, he opened fire, and now they’ve broken in. He’s still shooting, but it’s just a matter of time-” I held the walkie to my ear like a phone so I could hear her, and spoke as softly as I could. But the words caught in my throat. I couldn’t finish. Tommy was still taking them down, but more and more piled in through the broken window. I was having a very difficult time making peace with my decision, no matter how logical it seemed.
“Kasey, are you still there?” Nancy asked. I glanced at Jake and saw him staring at me; not with hatred or disgust, but with sympathy and understanding. A terrible choice had been made, a line crossed, and we both knew it.
“Yes,” I finally said. Jake nodded firmly, then returned his tear-filled eyes to Tommy’s place. “We’ll let you know what happens. Maintain radio silence,” I said and promptly turned the walkie off. The shots were less rhythmic now, and it sounded like more than a few were actually fired inside the house.
I checked my watch and saw that we had been there for almost two hours. I turned and sat with my back towards the road. I’d had enough; the sounds coming from inside the house were enough to paint a clear picture of what was happening. Jake sat stone-cold still, his glare icy and his face set, until the screams finally stopped. Then he too lowered himself, sank to the ground, and turned his back to what was left of Tommy Hoskins.
* * *
After much discussion with Jake and Zack via radio, we decided to camp there for the night. We couldn’t see where the zombies had moved off to, but the guys seemed to think it would be safe to shine a flashlight in their direction, as long as we were quiet and didn’t move around. I figured the worst that could happen was getting caught and having a gang of deadheads on our trail all the way to Gibson. Either way, I really didn’t care. Time was wasting, and we needed to know the zombies’ location before heading out again.
So an hour after sunset, and after the moaning had subsided, Jake snuck down to the horses and found his spotlight. He climbed back to the rock ledge and knelt beside me.
“Sure you want to do this?” he asked. I snorted, unable to see his face in the dark, then pulled my lighter from my pocket and lit a Camel. The flickering flame lit his face for an instant, but it was long enough to see his soberness.
“This wasn’t my idea. But we gotta try something, right?” I heard his heels crunch in the dirt and pebbles as he turned away from me. I closed my eyes and prayed this wouldn’t alert them to our presence. I heard the click of the flashlight as he turned it on, then his harsh breathing as his nerves threatened to get the best of him. From my seat I couldn’t see over the rock ledge, and Jake was on his knees looking over and down at the road. For several minutes he hunted for them, moving the strong beam of light slowly back and forth, searching for the dead.
“Now I know the damned things didn’t disappear,” he finally whispered. He turned on his heels, raising himself a bit more above the ledge, and turned the light towards town, scanning farther up the road. It wasn’t long before I heard him suck in his breath. I waited for him to explain what he was seeing, and when he didn’t, I slowly got to my knees and moved over next to him.
“Found ‘em,” he whispered again. Sure enough, there they were, in the same haphazard clump as before, and staggering their way through town. Jake slowly lowered the beam so it wasn’t shining directly at them, yet shedding enough light that we could keep track of them until they passed my driveway. We both held our breath until we were sure the light hadn’t caught their attention. And I have to admit, I was shocked that it didn’t. I made another mental note concerning their abilities and let out a sigh of relief.
“I c
an’t believe this worked,” Jake said, voicing my own thoughts. I patted his shoulder and gave it a quick squeeze, then settled back on my haunches and watched as the zombie mass slowly worked their way past the other end of town. I took Jake’s hand and squeezed it as they neared the driveway, despising my sudden weakness but so scared I didn’t give a damn. It made me feel a little better when he squeezed back. At least I wasn’t the only one who suffered moments of sheer terror.
“Look,” he whispered. I let out a breath and closed my eyes, my head dropping and my chin nearly resting on my chest, when I saw that indeed our cover job had worked, and the zombies were passing the driveway without incident.
“Thank God,” I finally managed to whisper. The glow of the flashlight lit Jake’s face enough for me to see him grinning from ear to ear.
“Keep an eye on them, make sure they all pass the drive and keep moving. I’m going to sneak back down to the horses and get us something to drink.” Jake nodded as I turned and crawled away. I noticed the smell was starting to fade as well, or my sense of smell was finally gone. After the last couple of weeks, I wouldn’t have been surprised. I turned back to check on Jake before pulling two Cokes from my saddlebag and calling the house on the walkie. He was still watching the deadheads, the beam of light moving so slowly you could barely see it moving at all. I opened one of the Cokes and took a long drink, then realized when I felt the coldness go all the way to my toes that it had been awhile since we last ate. I’ll take care of that after I call the house, I thought.
“Nancy, this is Kasey, please respond,” I said softly into the walkie. Daisy shuffled a bit at my voice; apparently the old girl had been sleeping.
“This is Nancy, go ahead.” She sounded distressed and very tired. Yeah, didn’t we all?
“We think the danger has passed. The deadheads are moving west, and they passed the end of the driveway without so much as a blink. Hmm, I wonder if they do blink,” I said, half teasing and hoping to put a smile on the older woman’s face. Although I couldn’t see it, I could hear it in her voice when she replied.
“That’s great news, Kase. I’m very relieved to say the least,” she said, and chuckled a little before letting her finger off the mic. I smiled, suddenly very relieved myself, and very tired. To hell with putting in a full day’s work, just get yourself all worked up and your nerves in a bunch if you want to wear yourself out in a hurry.
“We’re going to keep an eye on the situation tonight, then head out in the morning. We’ll give you a shout at daybreak, or before if something happens. Until then, keep a couple of people on watch, and at least one of the outside lights on, preferably the one that shines down the driveway,” I instructed. Nancy told me she understood, and that she would talk to me in the morning. I signed off, grabbed Jake’s Coke, and headed back up the hill.
* * *
I woke up the next morning with a horse’s nose in my face. Daisy was nuzzling me, shoving and pushing my head from side to side, but at least she hadn’t started licking me yet. I chuckled and pushed her away, opened my eyes, saw it was just coming daylight, and sat up to see where Jake was. After reassuring ourselves that the zombie horde had moved off to the west, we had taken turns keeping watch during the night, and had grabbed a quick bite to eat. Jake was nestled between two rocks up on the ledge, watching the road below. I pushed myself to my feet, rolled up my sleeping bag, stowed it on the packhorse, and walked up to meet him.
“Mornin’ sunshine,” he said cheerily. I grumbled something at him about being so damn happy in the morning, he laughed, then switched places with me: I stood watch while he relieved himself behind a bush, rolled up his own sleeping bag, and got the rest of his things packed up. This was going to be a long trip without coffee.
Jake whistled when he was ready, so I walked back down the bank and met him at the horses. The coast looked clear, so I called the house and let them know we were on our way again. After another round of ‘be carefuls’ and ‘talk to you soons,’ we mounted our horses and headed north again.
Chapter Seventeen
October 16th
“Jesus-jumped-up-pony, what now?” Jake cursed. We had been on the road for roughly a day and a half total, about a day since the fiasco in Matias, and everything that could go wrong, had gone wrong. Everything from zombies jumping out of bushes and scaring the shit out of us and the horses, or coming up on hillsides too steep to maneuver (which never failed to take us hours out of our way), running into creeks that had flooded out of their banks (again forcing us hours out of our way), and Jake eating some berries he knew he shouldn’t have, but being the crazy bastard that he was, ate them anyway (which again took some time from our traveling each time he felt the need to squat behind a bush).
This new obstruction was of the human kind, but we had yet to determine whether it was living or dead. We sat on our horses at the top of a grassy knob overlooking a valley below, and some two hundred yards straight ahead was a figure moving slowly through the high grass. We had been trying to decide the best way to navigate around the meadow; we’d already had our fair share of zombie scares, and really didn’t care to run across one hidden in the weeds, legless but still perfectly able to bite. Halfway through our ruminating, Jake happened to spy this new problem, which of course resulted in a string of curses from him, and some good natured laughter from me.
“Hell, I don’t know. Let me grab the binoculars,” I said and twisted in my saddle to dig through my bag again. I raised the binoculars to my eyes and studied the figure. It was a woman, and she was moving along pretty well. Probably not a zombie, yet anyway.
“It’s a woman, and she looks beat to hell,” I said and handed him the binoculars. He studied her a long time before finally snorting, lowering the glasses, then raising them to look some more. I was beginning to lose my patience just when the woman fell to the ground. I pulled my rifle from the case strapped to the side of my saddle, and told Jake to stay there and keep the packhorse with him. He began to protest, but zipped it quickly after seeing the look on my face.
I dug spur and started Daisy out at a slow gallop down the sloping hillside. I scanned the immediate area around us at all times for lurking nasties, yet kept the location of the woman directly ahead of us. After covering the first hundred yards, I slowed and walked us the rest of the way, rifle raised and trained steadily on the spot where the woman had fallen. I began to pick out bits and pieces of her the closer Daisy and I got; flashes of green I assumed was her shirt, red hair, no shoes. I decided to play it safe and stop about twenty feet from her. She was moving, struggling to get back to her feet, but from the looks of her I wasn’t surprised she was having trouble. Someone had beaten the shit out of her, or else she was extremely clumsy.
“Hey, are you okay?” I asked. Idiot. Of course she wasn’t okay. She tipped her head back and tried to look up at me, but with the sun at my back, all she could see was a hulking form in front of her.
“I won’t hurt you. What’s your name?” I kept talking, hoping a female voice would settle her down. I was wrong. She started crawling backwards on her belly, or rather, she tried crawling backwards. Mostly she just squirmed around on the ground, one leg and one arm obviously injured, and made whimpering noises as she tried to get away. I eased Daisy closer and looked the woman over as well as I could. It didn’t look like she had been attacked by zombies; no discernable bite marks, but several bruises and cuts, mostly around her face and neck.
“My name’s Kasey, just relax okay? Seriously, I’m not gonna hurt you,” I said as I climbed slowly from the saddle and walked the few feet to the woman’s side. I stood back far enough that she couldn’t kick me with her feet, but pointed my rifle barrel at the ground and held out my free hand, palm facing her, as if to say “take it easy, lady.” I could see immediately she was older than me, but younger than Nancy. She had flipped over onto her back and was holding herself up on her elbows, kicking at the dirt and grass with her feet, and silently crying as if she was afr
aid I’d hurt her if I heard her sobs.
I spared a quick glance around us, checking the high grass and making sure we were safe for now, then looked back at Jake. He was still waiting patiently with the horses, so I decided to leave him there until I figured out what this lady’s deal was. I could call him on the walkie when I had more information. I knelt down on one knee and laid my gun on the ground. The woman was studying me very intently, apparently trying to make up her mind whether I was okay or not. I smiled and began talking to her again.
“Are you hurt? We can help you, if you are. We also have food, if you’re hungry. We’re just passing through ourselves, where are you headed?” I waited while she bit her lip and darted her eyes around. Clearly she knew she had no choice but to trust me, but it was tearing her up having to do that. I immediately felt pity and compassion for her, things I rarely felt for my fellow human beings.
“I’m Teresa,” she said, her voice raw and raspy. She shocked me by speaking, but I covered it well and replied with a smile.
“I’m Kasey,” was all I said in return. I got to my feet slowly and walked back to Daisy. I slid the rifle back into its case, then rooted around in the saddle bag until I found a bottle of water and another Heath bar. I took these back to her and sat down on the ground (not too close), while she drank and ate greedily. I waited until she was finished before speaking up again.
“Would it be okay if I called my friend down here? It’d be safer if we stayed closer together.” For a second I thought this was going to send her into another crying fit, but she sucked it up nicely and nodded.
“Sure,” she said. Jake had been sitting up there for about ten minutes, so when he saw me head towards Daisy and pull the walkie out, he had his to his mouth and was already talking before I could give him the go ahead.