by C. Dulaney
“What the fuck’s goin’ on down there? Better not be a zombie, cause if it is, I’m gonna seriously start doubtin’ your judgment girl,” he said. I had to chuckle a bit before telling him to come on down. He wasted no time and kicked his horse into gear. I went back to Teresa and knelt down again next to her.
“Have you been bitten? By zombies, I mean?” What a ridiculous question that would have been two weeks before. She looked at me funny for a moment, probably trying to understand what I meant by zombie. By the time Jake got to us, she was shaking her head and saying no, she hadn’t been bitten, hadn’t even tangled with any of those things. I introduced her to Jake, and instructed him to set up camp.
“Uh, yeah, a minute, Kase?” he said and walked some distance away from Teresa. I smiled at her, then got up and went over to him.
“Are you crazy?” he whispered and grabbed my arm. I raised an eyebrow at him, looked at his hand, then stared hard at him until he finally got the drift and let go.
“No, I’m not crazy. Are you?” I asked rhetorically.
He just huffed a little, looked over my shoulder at Teresa a few times, and asked “What’s her story?”
“I don’t know. She hasn’t been bitten, but she’s been beat up pretty badly. And judging from the way she reacted towards me, I’d say she’s scared to death and running from someone. I don’t think she’s a danger to us,” I explained. Jake frowned and shook his head.
“That’s all well and good, you wantin’ to help her, but what the hell are we gonna do with her? Or did you forget we’re kinda on a mission here? And I don’t think she’ll be wantin’ to go into Gibson with us. Shit, she’d just end up gettin’ us or herself killed anyway.” He had his hands planted on his hips while he spoke, his eyes darting back and forth between me and Teresa, who was sitting up now and trying to straighten out her shirt.
“I’m not sure what we’ll do with her. But for now, we can feed her, let her get some sleep, and find out where she’s been. She was coming from that direction,” I said, pointing north, “and Gibson is less than a day’s ride from here. Chances are she knows something about it, and a little news could really help us.”
Jake’s face smoothed out and he agreed I had a good point. So, he went about setting up camp, and I returned to Teresa. After helping her to her feet and making sure she could walk on her own, we joined Jake by the fire he had just started and waited for the coffee to finish. We ate a supper that consisted mostly of beef jerky and assorted junk food, including a few pastries I couldn’t bear to leave the house without, then sat together in silence as Teresa told her story.
* * *
“We should send her back to the house,” Jake was saying while I packed up the sleeping bags and other campsite supplies and was stowing them on the packhorse. I had been mulling over our options since daylight, and none of them seemed satisfactory. To me, at least. Each one had its disadvantage: leave her on her own, and she wouldn’t last long, take her with us and she would be more of a hindrance than anything else with her injuries, or send her back to the house and hope she didn’t wind up leading a pack of nasties straight to the others.
I knew Jake wanted to send her home, not only because of his feelings regarding our decision to stand by and let Tommy Hoskins die, but also because he was quite taken with Teresa. A blind man could have seen that much halfway through her story the night before. His chivalrous, protective side had come out, and he wanted nothing more than to help her, no matter what the cost. This slightly annoyed me, that he was willing to put the others at risk for a single stranger we knew almost nothing about. But, I had to admit, after what happened to Tommy, it would be nice to make a different choice this time.
“Alright, Jake. But you give her the instructions, you take the responsibility. You make damned sure she knows where she’s going, and that she absolutely, no matter what, does not lead any zombies to the house. Give her your walkie, make sure she knows to call ahead before she gets to Matias. Tell her what she should say, whatever. You take care of it, I’m gonna scout ahead,” I said, then mounted Daisy and started north. I said a quick goodbye to Teresa as I passed, then turned my focus on the task at hand. I wanted to make sure our route through the meadow was secure, and take a look over the far ridge, before Jake finished up with Teresa and caught up with me.
As I crossed through the meadow with my pistol drawn, my eyes scanning back and forth around and in front of me, I recalled the story Teresa had told us. She’d said she had been a prisoner of the Cedartown convicts, and that she had escaped two nights ago. They had been camped several miles on the other side of Gibson, which obviously caused Jake and I great alarm; last thing we needed was to run into those bastards. However, she did say she’d overheard some of the men talking earlier about heading west. Jake and I could only hope that’s what they had done.
Teresa explained this was where she had gotten the beating; the men had a habit of beating the women after raping and torturing them. Well, the women they deemed “clean,” which were all the living ladies. Yes, they had added dead females to their entourage. Teresa said this was their version of torture; the men would threaten any woman who wouldn’t do as they were told by shoving them into a tent with the deadheads or tying them up close to one of the zombies, which were kept chained up to protect the prisoners.
Teresa also said there had been women too strong-willed to be broken, so the men would just feed them to the deadheads, then cut their heads off, or otherwise dispose of them after they turned. The women who eventually broke and bowed to the prisoners’ will were used as “breeders.” Teresa said the camp was divided up like this: One group of women who were worthy in the prisoners eyes would be used as breeders, one group who were unworthy but could be used as playthings to rape and beat, and the last group who were for gruesome entertainment purposes only; to be bait, and eventually, to be killed by the resident nasties. I imagine this also served to keep the other women in line.
I had asked her how many women were still alive, but she couldn’t give me a definite answer. She said the women were kept separate, isolated within the group they had been assigned to, and only saw one another when they were on the road. The prisoners were on horseback, but the women had to walk, tied together and led. Or dragged, which apparently was the case on several occasions. I had decided right then, if we happened to come across this band of twisted thugs, and assuming we still had ammo, we’d do what we could to kill every last one of them and free the women. But I wasn’t going to go out of my way to find them. Maybe, after all this was said and done, and we succeeded in getting meds back to Mia, maybe then we would go after them.
I slowed Daisy as we approached the bottom of the ridge and glanced back over my shoulder. It was far, and I couldn’t really see what Jake was doing, but it looked like he was moving supplies from the packhorse to his own. I sighed and let Daisy pick out the best path along the steep, winding hill. Before reaching the top, I pulled back on the reigns and slid off, told Daisy to stay put, then crawled on my belly to the hillcrest.
About ten feet from the bottom of the hill was the main highway, and it was littered with stalled or wrecked vehicles. Some were abandoned, some still held their occupants. A few of the latter were indeed dead, having succumbed to dehydration days before. Most, however, were reanimated dead. Since it was October, it was cool most days and cold most nights, but with the exception of one rainy day, it had been sunny every day for the past two weeks. And unless it’s freezing and in the dead of winter, it still gets hot as hell in a vehicle with the sun beating down on the windshield.
So you can imagine the state of these deadheads, trapped in miniature greenhouses for who knows how long, slowly baking and roasting. I lifted the binoculars from around my neck and studied the closest, some poor fella sitting quietly inside his Chevy Equinox. His skin was pulled tight and cracking over the bones in his face. His lips were drawn back, revealing every tooth in his head. His coloring was terrible, sort of green
and gray at the same time. His gums however, they were black as night. I imagined if we were to cut one open, their insides would be black as well. But that was only a theory. And one I was in serious doubt of testing.
I glanced around at the other trapped zombies, all in the same state of dehydrated decomposition, and then turned my eyes towards the north. There were several miles between this highway and Gibson, and like most of the state, it was forested land. I couldn’t see anything for all the trees and thick underbrush, but far away, on the horizon, towering plumes of smoke rose steadily into the sky. I wasn’t surprised; from what I had seen on the news, most cities and towns were falling to one type of destruction or another, mostly fires. But this was Gibson, the home of my family, and our destination.
Tears suddenly sprang to my eyes, clouding my vision and testing my patience. I didn’t have time for this, no time to cry, and I knew that if I didn’t keep a clear head and stay on course, the chances of us making it home were slim to none. So I hung the binoculars around my neck and closed my eyes a few moments to compose myself, then scooted backwards down the ridge to Daisy, who had been picking grass and waiting for my return.
I sat with my back against a rock and watched over the meadow as Jake and Teresa parted, got in their saddles, and went their separate ways. I really hoped he knew what he was doing. I spent the two or three minutes it took him to cross the field and start up the hill trying to figure out a way to cross the highway without getting the deadheads all stirred up. Frankly, I didn’t have a clue how we were going to do that.
“What’s the situation, Boss?” he asked after dismounting and joining me on the ground.
“Well, there’s a highway just on the other side of this hill. It’s full of vehicles, and some have zombies in them. Past that, there’s woods all the way to Gibson, which is burning. You can see the smoke from here,” I said. Jake listened and nodded along, then was quiet a moment as he considered the same problem I had been mulling over.
“So, how are we gonna get across the road without those fuckers moanin’?” he asked. I simply shrugged.
“I don’t think there is a way. We could ride east or west, look for a place to cross, but I’ve got a strong feeling the entire road will be just like this. Packed full of vehicles, with half of them, if not all, containing deadheads.” I sighed deeply and took a few drinks of water, giving Jake enough time to think about what I had just said.
“Yeah, sounds like we’re screwed. So let’s just haul ass across, and hope their moans will be muffled inside the cars,” he finally offered. I nodded firmly and got to my feet. Jake followed and we climbed back into the saddles. Before crossing the ridge, I redistributed some of Jake’s cargo onto my own horse, giving him a little more room to maneuver. I noticed that he had left some things with Teresa, but wasn’t concerned about it. If we got what we came for in Gibson, the plan was to, as Jake liked to say, haul ass back to the house. So we probably wouldn’t be camping overnight. Just ride straight through.
I had Jake follow me as I let Daisy pick her footing down the other side of the hill. The zombies in the closest vehicles had already noticed us and started moaning. Jake was right, their moans were muffled. But would they be muffled enough? We would soon find out.
We hit the pavement at a run and headed straight for the woods. After breaking through the tree line and weaving around the thick underbrush for roughly a hundred yards, I motioned Jake to a stop so we could get our bearings. We were both panting, which was funny considering all we were doing was riding. The horses weren’t even winded yet. But, fear has a funny way of taking your breath.
“The coast looks clear,” I finally said after taking a look around us. These woods were quiet, too quiet. No birds, no rustling of squirrels or chipmunks. I shared this detail with Jake, who immediately offered up a reason.
“There’s zombies all around. On the highway, in Gibson…the animals had the right idea - get the hell outta dodge.” He looked at me while he spoke, his eyes full of sad weariness. I was proud of him; he was smart, clever, and always paid close attention to detail. I nodded my agreement, took one last look around, then led us through the woods.
* * *
We could smell Gibson before we could actually see it. The trees here were still thick, and provided us much cover, but they did nothing to block out the horrific stench. The city had a pre-zombie population of roughly seven thousand. From the smell of things, that number had been drastically reduced. The rotten dead smell combined with the smoke, and it was no surprise that Jake and I were bent over behind a bush heaving our guts out.
We had stopped and tied the horses about a mile from the city limits, still well within the woods. They would be far enough away and behind enough cover to evade the eyes of the dead, but close enough we could get to them quickly when the time came. So after we finished yarking up our lunch, we did a double check on the weapons, made sure they were loaded and ready, sprayed ourselves down again with what was left of the scent-blocker, and made our way slowly to the edge of the trees.
I knew our best chance would be the CVS Pharmacy, and I had led us through the woods, up and around, so that when we finally dismounted and went the rest of the way on foot, we would be coming out of the woods on the same side of town as the pharmacy. If only the store was on the outskirts. Sadly, it was not. I waited until the very last moment to tell Jake how far into town we would actually be going in order to get to CVS.
“You’re shittin’ me,” he said very evenly. I was already frowning, so when I began shaking my head, he swore several times under his breath, punched the air with his fist, all the while trying to be quiet and not make any sudden movements. I found the entire show funny as hell, and had to cover my mouth with both hands to keep from laughing out loud. After composing himself, he stared out through the brush we were hiding behind and bit his lip.
“Hey, take it easy, okay? I’m sorry for not telling you sooner, but I didn’t really see the point. Does it matter how far we have to go? We still have to, right? And I didn’t want you to be distracted this whole trip worrying about something you couldn’t change.” I gave his shoulder a firm squeeze and smiled when he finally looked at me.
“I grew up in this town, know it like the back of my hand. Just stay close to me. Piece of cake, right?” I was still smiling, but I was scared out of my mind and looking for any sign of confidence from him. This was Jake after all: he wasn’t afraid of anything.
“Piece of cake,” he said and forced a smile. Then he drew his handgun, a Kimber 1911 .45 caliber, pulled the slide and loaded one in the chamber. Locked and loaded. I nodded once and did the same. Mine was a smaller caliber; I had lost my .45 at Tommy’s house the day he shot me. But I figured a 9mm would still do the trick.
The layout of this part of town consisted mostly of houses, crammed together with barely a walkway in between. Beyond those, there was a street, more houses, another street, and then the business district. If we were able to stay on a mostly straight course, once we hit the business district we would need to take a left and go two blocks down to the pharmacy. Once our business was finished there, instead of backtracking and coming back the way we came, I wanted to lead us straight across the street, through the houses, and back into the woods, sort of making a big circle.
I quickly went over the plan with Jake, made sure he fully understood and remembered everything, then headed out. There were no deadheads on this side, so I assumed they were in the houses and on the streets. We shimmied between the fences of two adjacent backyards, then between the houses themselves, and stopped to take a breather before heading into the street. The path was free of dead activity directly across from us to the next row of houses, but I could hear something close by dragging itself along the pavement. Actually, more than one something. Jake rested across from me with his back against the house, so I jerked my head to the right, gesturing for him to sneak a quick peek at whatever was on my side.
And a quick peek it was. H
is head jerked back so fast I thought he might have whiplash and his eyes were as wide as saucers. I mouthed “How many?” and he held up five fingers. Then he mouthed “Close.” Great. I took a deep breath and steeled myself, then took a peek down the other way, behind Jake. I mouthed “Fuck” and held up five fingers, then five more. He rolled his eyes and tilted his head back, staring up at the smoke filled sky.
“Straight across,” I whispered and as soon as he nodded, I bolted out into the street. I hit the small gap between those houses at a dead run, with Jake so close behind that if I had stopped, well I’m sure you can picture what would’ve happened.
“Stay close, we can’t stop now,” I whispered loudly as we wiggled our way to the next street. We glanced quickly behind each other’s shoulder down opposite sides of the street when we got to the end, just to make sure there wasn’t a deadhead waiting right around the corner ready to snag us, and kept moving. I didn’t look around as I ran, but out of the corners of my eyes I could see this street was loaded with zombies.
Jake was still right behind me when we crammed into the next walkway between the last row of houses. He was panting hard and I think cussing with each step he took.
“This is fubar, dude. Did you see that one on fire?” he was asking as we struggled down the long walkway. I called back over my shoulder that no, I hadn’t seen the dead Roman candle, and could we please focus. The crazy bastard just laughed, and at that moment, I was so happy I had picked him for this trip.
The street between the last row of houses and the business district was not clear, as the other two had been. Well, our path across wasn’t clear. There were two zombies waiting for us at the end of the walkway, but I already had my gun drawn so I dropped them before we stepped out into the street. Jake took down two more behind me, and I emptied my clip clearing a path to the opposite sidewalk. I hit the release and tucked the empty into my back pocket, then rammed another clip home and started firing.