by Jon Schafer
“I know Shawna was out of town visiting her family,” Lena said. “She must have caught it there.”
Rick shrugged and said, “Nobody knows much about this thing, and the news media isn’t telling it straight. Who knows, some of the dead might have been here the whole time.” After thinking about it for a few seconds, he gave Lena a sideways glance before adding in a quiet voice, “I’ve had to kill two today, do you want me to end it for you, too?”
Lena thought about it for a moment before saying, “I’ve gone over that in my mind a million times since it happened, and I have to say no. Like you said, nobody knows shit about this disease, so I’m going to sit here for a day or two and see what happens. If I don’t turn into one of those things, I’ll come get my kids. But if I do die and come back…” Her voice trailed off.
“What about your kids?” Rick asked. “Did they get bit or scratched or anything?”
Lena sighed and shook her head before saying, “No, it was only me.”
Rick shrugged again and said, “Well, I’ll take care of your kids, but if I don’t see you in forty-eight hours, I’ll come back and do what has to be done.”
“Thank you,” she said. “I’ve always had a good immune system, so maybe I’ll work through it.” Turning to the truck, she called out, “Megan, Ethan, come here and say goodbye to your mother.”
After a tearful parting, Lena watched as the truck drove away. With a heavy heart, she walked over to the fresh graves and sat in the shade of a nearby tree.
Forty-five minutes later, the first convulsion struck. A minute later, Lena died. Two minutes later, it rose. It was hungry.
Wandering down the drive to the main road, it would stop occasionally to sniff the air for prey. Its brain was almost gone except for its base functions, but its senses were still keen. Even with its extremely diminished mental capacity, it knew that if it kept to the cleared areas, its chances of finding flesh were better than being in the woods. Not smelling any food, it started on and then stopped, suddenly overcome by the urge to hide, to wait. It had to stay safe, feeding would come later. Its deep-rooted instinct told it to suppress its hunger until it could join others like itself. It knew that in a pack, the hunting would be good.
With saliva running down its chin, it gave in to this urge and headed into the woods. It had no particular place in mind to go, but nonetheless, its feet carried it with a purpose. Before long, it came across three more like itself, standing in a clump of trees and moaning with hunger pains. Within a few hours, their group had grown to over twenty.
Then, as if by some unheard signal, they all started off in the same direction. Along the way, they picked up more stragglers until their number had grown to thirty. Within half an hour, they came to a clearing with a small house set in the middle. Night was upon them, so the lighted windows threw long beams of illumination across the well-tended lawn. The dead grew still for a moment, taking in the scene as their senses tried to discern if there was food inside. When a figure passed by the glass of a large picture window, it was all they needed.
With what had once been a woman named Lena in the lead, the dead lurched forward as a group. While Lena might have forgotten her past life and everyone in it, she did know that the flimsy glass was no barrier against their numbers.
***
The small groups like Lena’s that formed in and around Jasper eventually merged into one larger herd of dead. Now a thousand strong, they swarmed over the town, easily overwhelming its defenses by sheer weight of numbers. Doors were busted down, not with axes and battering rams, but with the pressure of hundreds of bodies pushing against them. In this initial onslaught, thousands of the living fell to the dead.
First the humans and their domesticated pets were killed and eaten, and after they were gone, the cattle were set upon and devoured to the bone. Woodchucks, rabbits, gophers and anything that burrowed into the ground were then dug up, torn apart and stuffed into the mouths of the dead in a quest to assuage their never-ending hunger. Some animals like the coyote and the bear fled before this onslaught, and this proved to be the wisest course of action. It was the same for man and animal alike; if you barricaded yourself inside your home or den, you eventually starved to death or were forced to venture out in search of food and water. Once away from shelter, anything living was easily outnumbered by the lingering zombies and was torn apart. Then, the ones that didn’t have their brain destroyed in this carnage got up to join their brethren. The only thing that didn’t get up were the animals, since the disease wasn’t able to jump the biological barrier between man and animal.
After the entire population of the city was dead, in one form or another, the group moved on to the nearest population centers. With the bridge to the west gone, they headed east.
Burkville and Newton, Texas, had had their own outbreak, so the dead from Jasper found little to eat. The groups of dead from these three towns merged into one and moved south, and then further east. After ravaging this region, they went back and forth through the area in a constant search for food, wiping hundreds of square miles clean of anything living. Now on their way back west to scour the bleak terrain once again, they would let no barrier made by man or nature stop them until they found flesh. The downed bridge had been a deterrent so far, but not anymore. The urge to feed was so strong that they would go over, under, or through anything that stood in their way.
Located between the lake and the outskirts of Jasper as they trudged westward, the herd stayed on Highway 190 since it gave them an easier path than cutting through the forests and fields on both sides of the road. Coming to the edge of the lake, the road narrowed as it funneled them into a single column of tightly packed dead flesh that stretched from shore to shore as they spilled onto the causeway. Coming across the downed section of the bridge, without hesitation, those in the lead stepped off to drop into the water.
The rest of the dead followed, looking like a collection of gruesome lemmings following the leader over a cliff. After hitting the water and sinking to the bottom, they slogged through the mud and silt that made up the floor of the lake, endlessly moving forward in a search for food.
With their number at over twenty thousand, the dead in the lead were well ashore and moving off the causeway before the final zombie dropped over the ragged concrete and exposed the rebar that made up the edge of the blown bridge. It took hours, but finally the last of the stragglers made it across. These at the rear were not the walking dead, but rather the legless that had to crawl and the blind that made their way on all fours as they felt their way along. Dripping wet, they made their way on shore and moved forward, closer now than anyone at the mansion realized.
CHAPTER THREE
The Happy Hallow Insane Asylum:
Sitting on the bed of an unused room, with his back against the wall and a map laid on his lap, Steve studied the unlit cigarette in his hand. His mouth already tasted like he’d scoured it out with oily steel wool from smoking too much, but the habit and the stress kept him wanting another one. It gave him something to focus on, something to think about other than the mess they were in. Instead of lighting it, he took a drink from the water bottle lying next to him. After screwing the cap back on, he said, “Fuck it,” and fished around in his pants pocket for his Zippo lighter. As soon as he took the first drag off the stale Marlboro, though, his body said, ‘No’, and he started dry heaving. Grinding the butt into the tile floor, he coughed and gagged a few times as he fought not to throw up.
“Those things are going to kill you,” Heather told him from where she stood at the door.
Halfway regaining control, Steve choked out, “I hope I live that long.”
“We’re all going to live a long time,” Heather reassured him. “I just checked on Brain, and he said that he’s almost finished with the explosives.”
Looking up in interest, Steve said, “I didn’t hear a loud boom, followed by us getting eaten, so I guess everything went well.”
“I was down i
n the kitchen watching him for a while before I went up to help Tick-Tock,” Heather told him. “It was scary for a second; when he was moving the pot off the stove, some of the Styrofoam dripped onto it. I thought Brain was going to shit one big brick when it happened, but luckily none of it hit the open flame.” Laughing, she added, “When he said, ‘Got to remember to turn that flame off next time,’ it sounded like his balls were in his throat “
“They would have been if it went off,” Steve commented with a laugh, “or more likely in New Jersey. How long until he’s ready?”
Walking over to the bed, Heather held out her hand and said, “He’s molded them all and set the detonators in them, but he told me they still have to cool and harden for a little bit. He said it would be another hour or so, which means it’s time for you to get up and get to work. Tick-Tock and Denise are almost done getting everyone organized, so the next step is to take them on the roof for target practice. We could use your help.”
Steve grimaced as he grabbed her hand and let her pull him to his feet. After steadying himself, he stopped for a moment, thinking about something that had been weighing on his mind. Quietly, he asked, “What do you think our chances are?”
Heather stopped to think about this. After a moment, she said, “Overall, I have no idea. I learned a long time ago that when I’m facing something that seems overwhelming, to break it down into steps. First, when you consider that we have to travel over forty miles -”
“Double that,” Steve interrupted. “It’s over forty miles to Fort Polk as the crow flies, and since we’re driving it will be more than that. Then you have to consider that we’re going to have to make a huge detour to the north to get around the mob coming at us from Jasper -”
“So call it seventy miles to get to Polk,” Heather interrupted him this time, “but once we get into radio range, we should be able to get someone to come pick us up, so I’m going to go back to my estimate of forty.”
Steve opened his mouth to say something else, but Heather cut him off with a warning look not to interrupt her again. He saw this and chose to remain silent, so she continued, “The best way to complete a journey is in stages. First stage, we have to get away from the mansion. I think that once we do that and get into the woods, we should be in pretty good shape.”
“Why’s that?” Steve asked. “We’ve probably got thousands of Zs around us, not counting the ones bunched up around the mansion, and they’re not going to just let us leave without following.”
“Well, from everything we’ve seen and heard lately, it seems like the dead are mobbing up into big groups,” Heather told him. “We’ve got these big herds -”
Steve laughed and said, “Herds?”
Heather shrugged and said, “It’s as good a name as any, now back to what I was saying, we have these big herds wandering all around us, but I think that since they’re all bunched together, they’ll be easier to spot and avoid. If we stay on the move and send scouts ahead of our main group, we should be able to avoid them. Think about it, most of the people we’ve lost have been to one or two Zs that were hidden somewhere and came at us from nowhere. From here on out, though, we’ll be in a position to keep track of them. As for the dead that follow us, we’ll just have to figure out a way to lose them. When we were looking at the map earlier with Tick-Tock and Denise, I saw a couple of choke points that we can use to slow them down.”
“I was just going over the topographic map before you came in, and I saw the same thing,” Steve told her. “It’s a good plan, and while it sounds good saying it here, who’s going to be the person that stays at these choke points and keeps the Zs from following?”
“No one,” Heather replied. “I promised Brain not to steal his thunder, so he’ll tell you what he has in mind. It should slow the dead up long enough for us to get away.”
Steve thought for a moment before saying, “If Brain’s got something up his sleeve, then we might have the beginnings of a plan beyond blowing a hole in the dead and running. Our first objective is to get as far away as possible, but there’s still a lot of unknowns in front of us, so we’ll just have to adapt to whatever situation comes our way. The main thing I’m worried about is how to lose any of the dead that come after us. But if Brain has something we can use, we’ll just have to do like Tick-Tock always says and -,” They both finished in unison, “Improvise, adapt and overcome.”
“Now you need to quit feeling sorry for yourself and get your ass moving,” Heather added. “You’re sitting in here doing nothing when there’s too much to do.”
Dropping his head, Steve said in a quiet voice, “I was mapping a couple of escape routes, but I had to stop because I couldn’t concentrate. I keep thinking about Mary, I should have been able to prevent her from getting killed.”
Heather stopped and studied Steve for a few seconds while she tried to decide which way to go with this. Knowing they didn’t have a lot of time, she opted for hardcore to pull him out of his depression and get him motivated.
Before he could say another word, in a loud, sarcastic voice, she asked, “And who the fuck died and made you God?” She could see this startled him, and at least he was looking at her now, so she continued, “There’s nothing you could have done to prevent what happened to Mary. Sean was nothing but a coward, and they’re the most unpredictable. His actions killed her, not yours. But I’ll tell you one thing right now, you better get your head screwed on straight or you are going to be the one to get people killed. Everything bad that’s happened to us so far has just gotten ten times worse. We need to have you on the ball if we’re going to make it to Polk. Now pull your head out of your ass, get off your pity-pot, and go down and see Brain. When you’re done with that, you need to get your ass up on the roof and help us teach the others how to shoot.”
Steve felt anger flash through as he said, “Bullshit, I should have seen what Sean did coming.”
“How?” Heather asked as she threw her hands up in exasperation. “Do you have a crystal ball that you’ve been hiding from the rest of us? Sean acted like the little worm he’d always been up until the second he snapped. If anything, I would have guessed he’d hide on the floorboards instead of trying to drive through a herd of the dead, but panic and fear do strange things to people. You can never tell how they’re going to react until they do. Look at the rest of the people in his group, for example. They’re all stepping up now.”
Distracted from his thoughts of Mary, he knew Heather was right, but a small tug in his gut told him different. He might be able to rationalize it in his mind, but his emotions didn’t listen to common sense. Instead of arguing the point further, he let go of his pride and asked, “How do you think the others will do?”
Picking up his M-4 from where it leaned against the wall and holding it out to him, Heather said, “There’s only one way to find out. You need to get that cute little ass in gear and get to work.”
***
Tick-Tock stood by patiently as the last of his trainees reassembled their weapons. It would have been easier if they all carried the same model of rifle and pistol, but that was not to be. He’d had a rough time in the beginning as he, Heather and Denise had them all break down their rifles to make sure they were clean enough to fire without blowing up in their hands, and with the mish-mash of bolt action and semi-automatic weapons he’d had to deal with, he was amazed that they’d eventually figured out how to take them all apart to make sure the barrels, gas chambers and bolts weren’t jammed up or plugged and that the firing pins were intact. The pistols came next, but they had worked out a system by this time, so it went slightly faster.
When the last piece was finally snapped into place, as the man fumbling around with it finally figured out how to get the cylinder back on his revolver, Tick-Tock gave a silent sigh of relief. The trainee looked up at him as if expecting praise that he’d finally gotten it right, and Tick-Tock had to bite back an acid comment at this. He knew that if he had more time, he would break these people dow
n before he built them back up, but he didn’t have time. Time was their enemy. He didn’t have the time to give them a thorough training, so he needed to use a combination of praise and a boot in the ass to get everyone ready to move. He wanted nothing more than to get down in this guy’s face like a drill instructor and scream that if he ever finished last again he would be doing bends and motherfuckers until he puked, but this was not to be.
Forcing a smile, Tick-Tock gave the man a strained, “Good job,” before saying in a louder voice to everyone, “now we need to go through your packs and make sure you have everything you need and that you’re not carrying a bunch of crap that you don’t. I want everyone up on their feet with their weapons in front of them. If you still have a pack, put it at your right foot and your sleeping bag at your left.”
They all rose from the blankets and sheets they had laid out on the floor of the recreation room to break their weapons down on and stood at a semi-posture of attention. Two of them picked up their packs and started to rummage through them until Tick-Tock stopped them with a barked, “Did I tell you to do that?”
The packs were immediately dropped, and the whole group went rigid.
Lowering and shaking his head in mock disgust, Tick-Tock said, “We went over this before. We need to act and think as one. If you want to be an individual, you’re going to die like an individual.” Pointing at the first woman that had picked up her pack, he asked, “Why?”