by Jay Wilburn
Short Order would joke with me about it. He would walk through the other rooms of our abandoned houses pretending to try every switch.
He would say, “Hey, maybe this one. No, I guess this bulb needs changing too, Mutt. Could you check the junk draw, please, for a 60-watt soft light, so I can read?”
Sometimes our feet went right through the rotten floor boards and we just hoped there were no zombies in the crawl spaces. Sometimes the zombies were in closets or hanging from ropes by their necks where people tried to kill themselves after being bitten. People hanged themselves in garages and closets a lot. Sometimes a room of the house was full of them and we had to back out slowly or sometimes quickly.
We made due with whatever we could find.
In a day, we would cover between ten and twenty-five miles typically. We stopped in the middle of the day to rest. We started looking for a place to stop for the night about mid afternoon not terribly long after we left our lunch site. We had to start looking early so that we had time to find something. We could stop for lunch anywhere, but we needed somewhere secure, secluded, and sight-lined for evening, night, and morning. We had to stop in time to finish cooking before dark so we could black out in hopes that our smoke during the day wasn’t enough to attract trouble. If zombies sniffed us out from inside, we needed to be able to get to the truck quickly. We needed more than one viable exit route.
We avoided using guns except in dire escapes or afternoon hunting. We could shoot an animal, load it up quickly, and drive away before the zombies honed in on our location. This worked well until the day we killed the deer. We could drive far enough away to avoid the trouble we had caused. Then, we could cut and prep the meat at our evening stop for whoever was cooking. We didn’t always catch something and if it was big like a deer, we usually couldn’t eat it all for dinner and breakfast. Some was wasted, but we weren’t answering to anyone and it saved our supplies.
It did bother the chefs. They didn’t like to waste food. They also felt like they were disrespecting the life of the animal. Since they didn’t believe in God, I’m not sure about who they were worried. If we didn’t kill it, the zombies would eventually.
Most structures were not built with all these needs in mind. Most structures had not survived the abandonment of the living for all these years. It was tough to stay in badly preserved shelter until morning light and it was tough to leave a precious find while eating a leisurely breakfast in comfort. We managed both as we moved mostly north through the ruins of the walking plague.
We were slowed by blocked roads and detoured by packs of zombies. Sometimes we had to escape quickly; sometimes we had to hide and wait. We found no one alive outside of our own truck in that first week, but we found plenty of dead folks walking around outside it.
One day we stumbled on our first super pack. It was thousands of zombies following a dry riverbed below a washed out bridge on the highway. We spotted it early and pulled off the road at a distance. They hadn’t heard us over their own moaning so we waited and watched. We watched for hours. Finally, we took the chance and started the truck to circle back. If they heard us, none made it up the riverbank before we were out of sight again. We ended up making less than ten miles that day, but we didn’t really know where we were going, so it didn’t really matter when we got there.
Doc and Chef were really unsatisfied with our gas mileage. Chef complained that we had packed too heavy, but he didn’t complain much when Doc cranked on a record quietly in our more secure stopping points. It seemed to help us sleep better.
Doc complained that we could walk in a day what we were making by driving and we could stay off the roads. He thought we were drawing the dead along with our engine noise. Short Order was not interested in walking. Doc believed the canisters of fuel were so heavy that they were negating the benefit of having the extra fuel in the first place.
We kept driving each day anyway.
That week we took turns cooking for the group. Chef had started “The Mother Hubbard Challenge.” Whoever was cooking that night had to use the ingredients in the house or business we stopped in along with any meat we took during our lunch break to create the best meal possible.
Chef found white chicken chili spice packets, pickles, three varieties of canned beans, canned corn, and various spices in a small brick house that still had a decent garage and loft even though the roof had rotted off the rest of the house. He was able to retrieve these items from the kitchen and made squirrel chili with a three bean salad. It was really good.
There was a body hanging in the garage when we got there, but it was dry and still. There was a long message written on the dry wall using a carpenter’s pencil. A lot of it had faded in the middle in an hourglass pattern along the path the square of light followed through the decade of seasons since it had been written. We were probably the first to see it since this guy ended himself for no reason. The edges of the message mentioned walking plague, airborne, hopeless, sorry, God, and chocolate.
We cut him down and dragged his body by the noose into the wet part of his house to finish decaying, so we could cook our squirrel chili.
One night, Doc cooked a deep fried turkey with dressing and cranberry sauce from a can. It was good. He tried to talk Chef into letting us stay put for a couple days so that he could brine the turkey and then bake it instead of frying. Chef almost let him, but then made him come up with a one day plan. The fried turkey was good.
Short Order felt he got cheated in the competition. On his first night we had killed a raccoon and he found one can of beats in his cupboard. That night we dumped his dinner and went into our supplies.
Chef made a tortoise cooked in shell with honey, mustard, and citrus marinade and a modified mixed vegetable medley. He didn’t like cooking foods from cans, but that was the rule of the challenge.
Doc’s night came when we cooked and skinned a wild, hairy pig. We had mushroom pork chops, bar-b-que ribs, bacon wrapped artichokes, and a German potato salad. It never ended. I was almost sick from being too full.
Then, the evening after we were stopped by the super pack, Short had to make something out of possum and chocolate syrup. He forfeited and claimed we were doing it to him on purpose.
The next day we swung wide around the river bed and ended up moving through a medium sized town. We were drawing attention and had to side track off the main roads. We got to safety, but then spotted a deer crossing the road slowly in front of us.
Doc said, “I’m going for it. We can’t pass this up after chocolate possum night.”
He reached back for the rifle.
Short Order said, “We just shook the zombies a couple blocks over. They will be on us after the shot.”
“We will make it,” Doc said. “Be ready to help me tie it on once I shoot it.”
The deer turned its face towards us as Doc opened his door. He stood on the edge of the door jam and aimed over the roof. The deer just stared like she didn’t recognize live humans. The bullet tore through its skull and dropped her to the ground like anything else hit in the head.
The noise rolled over the buildings to our right and the lots to our left.
“Move fast,” Chef called from the wheel.
Doc pitched the rifle back into the cargo section and grabbed some rope. Short and I jumped out and ran forward. The deer was heavy and I could hear the moaning already.
“Hurry up,” Short called to Doc.
He put the rope over his shoulder as he reached us and we hoisted the body up. Chef pulled the truck up to us and stopped. The deer’s body bent at three points as we hustled it up flat on the roof. Its hoofs splayed over the passenger’s side.
“They will smell it,” Short grunted.
“Get it on top,” Doc grunted.
The groaning dead echoed their voices between the buildings behind us. A few shuffled out into the road ahead of us several feet away. They looked from side to side and then began staggering toward us. Their tight faces pulled thin as t
hey opened their mouths and snapped their teeth.
Doc threw the rope over and Short fed it through the interior of the truck.
“Be sure the doors still close and hurry up,” Chef yelled.
More were approaching from the streets behind us. Doc tossed it over again and Short fed it back through. They did it a third time. More zombies emerged from buildings across the lots to our left and started stomping through the grass and thorns toward our side.
“Tie it faster,” Short shouted.
Doc tightened the rope again and finished a second knot above his door.
“Okay,” he said as we jumped into the cab.
I couldn’t get my door closed. I pulled as hard as I could as Chef began to back up.
“What are you doing, David?” Doc asked looking back and then forward.
Hands raked over the passenger’s side as we whizzed by. One of them caught hold of the rope briefly and got pulled along, but lost it and stumbled away from the truck.
“We have to circle back,” Chef said. “The town is crawling with them and we’re just on the edge right now.”
I opened my door again and pulled it back. The rope still kept it from latching. A lady with a sagging face and a heavy dress barely missed grabbing the edge of my door with her one arm as we shot by her.
Doc said, “No, go forward. That river of zombies is behind us.”
“We just shot a gun,” Short yelled. “This place is done.”
I pulled and shook my body straining the handle, but it wouldn’t latch. Another zombie that was missing his throat bumped into my door and tried to pull it open with his stumps, but failed. Then, we were by him.
“No,” Doc said, “We just …”
He stopped talking and looked at me leaning back holding the door with my teeth gritted. He looked me up and down as I strained. Doc stepped out of his seat and pulled my hands away from the handle. He opened the door and adjusted the ropes where they had crossed over each other at the top of my door. He slammed the door latched and locked it.
“What are you doing?” Short asked looking back when he heard the slam.
Chef yelled, “No, we just, what? What are you saying, John?”
Doc said, “Go forward. I saw something off the road up ahead. We can get clear of this.”
“Saw what?” Chef asked as he continued wheeling backward down the street ahead of the zombies stepping out into our road from the right.
Short Order pointed through the front grill and said, “We can’t go forward again. The road is sick with them. We’ll be trapped.”
Doc said, “David, trust me, turn up one of the streets between the lots and we’ll circle out ahead of them.”
Chef looked at Doc as the truck slowed. He shifted into drive and turned the wheel slowly.
He said, “Doc, if you get me killed, I don’t see how I’ll forgive you.”
“Just go,” Doc yelled, “before they get our venison.”
Chef hit the gas just ahead of the reaching hands. Doc guided us up through a series of streets until we were on another empty road heading back into the town. He looked up as we passed under the shadow of a water tower.
He said, “Slow down, Chef.”
“What is it?” Chef asked.
“Turn here between the storage place and the fence,” Doc said.
Chef slowed and then turned. We rolled slowly up the narrow dirt path. After a few seconds we emerged in a park behind the water tower. There were covered picnic areas, cooking pits, and ivy-covered, playground equipment in heavy pine needle cover that had kept the grass from growing. Vines covered the fenced perimeter of both the park and the water tower paddock. There were three exits for the truck including the path we had followed, another side street that went by the empty parking area for the park, and the then a trail back through the woods that led to more houses beyond the trees.
“You saw this from the street?” Chef asked.
Doc answered, “I was looking at the water tower through the binoculars and spotted the covers through a gap in the buildings and trees for a split second. I just took us toward the tower.”
“Do you think we can get water from it?” Short asked as he opened his door and looked up at the underside of the tower.
“Depends on what type of tower it is and where the valves are,” Doc said. “Head Chef David Sharp, you think we can do something interesting with venison tonight to beat candied possum?”
“You kill a deer on Chef’s night, but get me road kill on my nights?” Short said.
Chef asked, “You think cooking and camping out here is a good idea?”
Doc answered, “We have sightlines and cooking space.”
“We’re in the open,” Short said.
“We’re outside, but this isn’t wide open,” Chef said, “Will that pack track us out here though?”
Doc said, “We turned a lot and there are two drainage ditches between us and them. I think we’ll be as okay as we ever are. We’ll escape if we’re not.”
Chef said, “Okay, let’s prep some venison.”
Doc pursed his lips and said, “I hate to be the party pooper, but I have to take an awesome possum-sized shit.”
Chef turned away, “Doc, really?”
“Nature calls; I answers,” Doc said putting the extra “s” on the end of “answer” on purpose.
He lifted a roll of toilet paper from the open storage section. Then, he put the roll on the end of his aluminum pole and started walking.
“Don’t get lost or we’ll leave you,” Short said.
“I bet you would,” Doc said as he walked back by the dead pump house past the fencing for the water tower.
“Don’t wander far,” Chef said as he wrapped up the rope standing over the deer on the ground.
I was already prepping the siphon hose to top off the tank to the truck just in case.
“No,” Short said as he knelt down sharpened a skinning knife on a filing rod. “Please, go very far away. I’d rather smell the zombies.”
Chef said, “Seriously, John, we don’t want to be separated if there is trouble.”
Doc called as he stepped into the bushes and his pole bobbed away, “If there’s trouble, start driving and I’ll start running.”
We skinned the deer and prepped the cuts knowing we wouldn’t eat it all. I got the fire going in one of the pits.
“We’ll have to dump the rest of the carcass where it won’t attract the walkers,” Short Order was saying.
“We may have to bury it,” Chef said. “Mutt, gather some more wood. Don’t go far.”
I went toward the trail and began picking up kindling heading back toward the houses. I kept my eyes open looking around on all sides as I went.
I heard it before I saw it.
I set my wood down and squatted. It was crossing through the brush at an angle in front of me. It was going to emerge on the trail near the houses. I drew the hunting knife I was carrying at that moment and waited. If it moved on without seeing me, that would be best. It stepped out into the trail almost at the mouth near the yards beyond. It started turning around. I put my chin to my knee as low as I could fold. It didn’t spot me as it turned again toward the houses and kept walking. It had a metal pole over its shoulder.
I stood up straight and saw Doc as he disappeared into the neighborhood beyond the trees. I ran up the trail to see where he was going.
It didn’t occur to me that anything was wrong.
***
I reached the end of the trail. He turned back to look behind him again as he crossed the tall grass of the front yard of a squat, brick house. He never made it around to spot me. Someone else had stepped out from the side of the house to greet him.
Doc brought his metal pole out in front of him as he squared off. I stepped off the trail and up into the yard with my knife drawn.
The new arrival was battered by his time outside. The remains of his cloths hung off him in tatters. He had a relatively intact, blac
k vest around his chest and shoulders. The padding was wearing away, but the Kevlar underneath was still protecting the zombie’s center mass. There was a necklace around his scarred neck with a shiny medallion at the end over the vest. He lifted his upper lip slightly and growled at Doc in the back of his swollen throat.
Doc said, “You’ve been waiting for me all this time? I guess I should be flattered.”
I stopped in the middle of the grass by the broken front window of the little, brick house. I was about ten feet behind him.
He brought the shaft back and connected solid against the side of the zombie’s bare skull as it approached him. It bent and stumbled sideways, but caught itself at the end of the warped, porch rail near the front stoop. It looked at me and then back at Doc. The wood groaned under the zombie’s weight.
Doc swung the rod around over his head again and crushed the zombie’s face at the nose. It staggered backward. Its eyes weren’t level anymore and it squealed air through the long dent where its nostrils used to be.
I took a couple steps back.
Doc brought the metal down on the dead flesh a few more times until the zombie collapsed to its back with its head leaking out of several broad openings. Its arms went limp in the grass.
I started to walk forward again.
He raised the pole up again and slammed it into one of the arms. He brought the pole up again jammed the point into its kneecap. He squared off and whirled at the shin below the broken knee.
I took a step back.
He struck again and again and again. The zombie’s limbs began twisting and flattening as the bones splintered and shattered inside. Its splattered head took a few more blows as well.
I realized I was walking backward when I almost fell off the slope at the edge of the yard. I sidestepped and went around the corner of the house by the broken piece of gutter pipe.
Doc finally stopped.
His chest heaved as he dropped his pole in the grass. Then, he dropped to his knees. He ran his hands through his hair, but it didn’t smooth down. He reached down and jerked at the necklace. It came right through the broken spine and pieces of skull around the neck. He held it up to his eyes and rubbed at the medallion.