Love in the Age of Zombies (Book 2): Zombies in Paradise

by James K. Evans

  Doc felt a sickening thump, the kind of thump you only hear when you hit a two-hundred pound half-decayed body, and for a moment thought Oh my God, I’ve hit somebody! Glancing in the rear-view mirror, he saw the body hit the ground and one femur shattered. Even so, the zombie struggled to follow the Jeep, crawling, oblivious to the bone sticking out of its rotted leg.

  The town was overrun. He saw no sign of humans. If there were survivors they were well-hidden. The only human bodies walking these streets had no breathing lungs, no quickening hearts. They were not men. These were a travesty of nature. Destroying them was the merciful thing to do.

  By the time he got out of town, he’d hit several more zombies. He didn’t bother watching them in the rearview mirror.

  He stopped the Jeep on the bridge over Seven Mile dam. First he looked upstream, then past the spillway and downstream. You know, he thought, there is no fishing season this year. There’s no reason why I shouldn’t fish. He thought longingly about his fishing gear, but knew he shouldn’t let himself be tempted. He continued on, seeing only a few zombies walking the fields aimlessly. Their heads swiveled to watch him as he passed.

  Another half-hour slipped by uneventfully. He continued south, and as he approached another intersection, he saw signs of trouble. The intersection was clogged with wrecked cars and trucks. Several trucks pulling trailers had jackknifed, and although he was less than a quarter-mile away, he could see dozens of zombies milling about.

  What remained of Jack’s grocery store was reduced to rubble. There was nothing left of the Marathon station, only twisted steel and burned-out cars. It looked like the gas station had exploded and incinerated. Doc thought longingly of the Redwood Steak House a half-mile east. Like many things he’d once enjoyed, the restaurant was now only a memory.

  As he surveyed the scene, he detected movement with his peripheral vision. Turning with a start, he saw a handful of zombies approaching his Jeep from the pines on either side of the road.

  Snap out of it, old man! he chastised himself. He threw the Jeep in reverse, backed up a few hundred feet and did a quick three point turn. He slowly headed north the way he’d come, not in a terrible hurry – even ten miles an hour would easily out-pace the creatures.

  Consulting his map, he backtracked about a mile, then headed east. After a few more turns he was back on track, having bypassed the wrecked intersection. East Twin Lake was a quarter-mile west of him, but he couldn’t see the lake through the trees. He’d caught some nice walleye in that lake.

  He made good time for the next ten minutes. As he approached the bridge over the Au Sable River, he began to slow down as distracting thoughts of trout invaded his concentration. As he had done when crossing the Seven Mile dam, he stopped on the bridge to look upstream and downstream.

  The Au Sable. He’d spent many pleasant hours here during trout season, wading up and down the river with his fly rod. That was years ago—the past several years, the river was just too crowded. When Doc went fishing, he preferred to do so as a solitary man, not one among many. The Au Sable was one of the most renowned trout streams in the United States, which unfortunately meant there was a lot of competition, especially in easily accessible areas like this.

  But that, too, was now simply a memory. Despite everything he’d seen, Doc was still taken aback to see nobody on the river. The weather was perfect for fishing. And to have it to myself would be amazing. Zombies be damned! Doc thought, I’m going fishing! He pulled over to the shoulder just past the bridge, then selected his gear. He pulled on his waders then his fly vest. He selected one of his bamboo rods—he brought several—and made sure his vest had a few #20 flies.

  He considered taking his shotgun, but it would be nearly impossible to hold the gun and cast at the same time. The gun would affect his balance, and fly-casting is as much an art as a sport.

  He grabbed his creel and galumphed down the trail to the river. Once he was at the river’s edge, he took a look around. He saw a lot of tracks on the flat, sandy bank; deer, raccoon, coyote, rabbit . . . he even saw bear tracks. But no human tracks. Trees on either side shaded the water, and weeds grew wild along the bank. Parts of the flat riverbank he crossed were dry and rocky, and looking down he noticed a fairly nice Petoskey fossil. He idly picked it up and put it in his pants pocket.

  He began wading upstream, casting. It’d been awhile since he’d fished, and he wanted to limber up. He was out of practice. As he meandered along, his casting improved and by the time he’d gone around the first horseshoe bend he was back in form. Despite being so intent on his casting, he still took the time to monitor his surroundings. Just ahead, a thin line of alders overhung the river. The shade they cast made the pool under them look dark and deep. It had potential.

  The sun was overhead, he could hear birds and crickets plus the gurgling of the river as a light breeze moved past. Upstream was a stretch of ripples and he could hear the sound of shallow, fast moving water cascading over partially submerged stones and boulders. Just beyond that he heard what sounded like a murder of crows cawing raucously.

  He was trout-fishing the Au Sable. Alone. It was a miracle! Despite everything, Doc grinned with glee. Even amidst the fall of humanity, there were things to give cheer. His eyes darted back to the pool under the alders, detecting movement. A few fish were rising to feed.

  He set his fly and began casting. On his second cast he landed the fly about ten feet upriver from the pool with nary a ripple. The fly drifted downstream when suddenly wham! a trout snagged it. Doc quick set the hook, then began to play the trout. It was strong and wily, first running upstream, then back down, trying to get free.

  The trout went deep, and for a moment Doc thought he’d lost it as the line seemed to get tangled or wrapped around something, but then it was free again and he continued to play the fish.

  It was strong and fierce. After fifteen minutes, Doc’s arm began to get tired, but he didn’t dare shift the rod to his left arm. He’d lost many a fish in the awkward transfer. Instead he just gritted his teeth and kept playing the fish, slowly gaining ground.

  Ten minutes later the fish lay secure in his creel. It was a beautiful eighteen-inch brown trout, speckled with iridescent spots. Doc felt a sense of peace and contentment he hadn’t felt in a very long while as he prepared another fly to cast.

  While he worked the fly, he noticed a disturbing scent in the air. something nearby was dead. He looked around but saw nothing to account for the stench. It seemed the odor was coming from upstream. He began wading upriver, but soon waded onto the bank and walked the path above the river.

  Soon he saw where smooth water cascaded toward him over rocky falls. Upstream he saw a sight that stopped him in his tracks.

  It almost looked like a beaver dam, but no beaver had made this monstrosity. It was a dam all right; a dam of the damned. Dozens and dozens of zombie bodies had jammed together where the riffles started, caught in the flotsam and jetsam of logs, fallen branches, and boulders. The bodies were stacked in all directions, most of them thoroughly decayed. They had been washed downstream until they conflagrated here like so much deadfall.

  The crows he’d heard earlier were scattered along the pile of zombies. As he watched, one pecked at the remains of an eye until it came up with a stringy piece of tissue which it promptly swallowed. The rest of the crows flitted from body to body, eating their fill of decayed zombie flesh.

  As Doc surveyed the scene, several bodies on top began to writhe, sensing him near. Those who had arms reached in his direction. But they were far too enmeshed to move, causing no threat.

  He saw rotted flesh hanging from bones. The only clothing items that still had integrity were the synthetic fabrics—all of the cotton, wool and hemp were in varying states of decomposition.

  Doc had seen enough. He trotted back down the bank and into the river. Glancing at his feet, Doc saw bits of clothing among the submerged rocks. He saw dark matter, too, perhaps the rotted flesh of zombies. A nearly intact
scalp slowly tumbled along the river bed, the hair slowly waving in the current.

  The whole area was awash in zombie. Zombie stink. Poison. It was repugnant. In disgust, Doc turned around and waded back downstream. As he approached the pool where he’d caught the brown trout, he opened his creel. The trout was still alive, its gills gasping in and out.

  He reached inside and lifted the fish. He’d planned on fresh trout for dinner, but knowing what the fish had been swimming in and probably ingesting . . . he couldn’t do it. He lowered the fish into the water and held it for a few minutes to see if it would recover. After a few seconds the fish began to revive and flex from side to side. Doc eased his hands away, and with a fast flip of its tail the trout swam down into the pool and disappeared from view.

  He waded downstream, his mood ruined by the zombies. Zombies on the Au Sable, he thought. It’s not right. As he neared the path leading to the Jeep, he noticed a problem; a half-dozen zombies were meandering around his Jeep. They must have heard the engine noise and blindly followed the sound, or maybe they were near the bridge and saw him drive by. In either case, they were too near his car to risk a run for it.

  Doc regretted his snap-decision to leave the gun behind. He didn’t even have a decent knife. He had his rod, his waders, a few flies, and his creel. All of them useless in a fight with zombies.

  He stood still, weighing his options. Just as he was beginning to formulate a plan, he heard a crashing sound upstream. Looking over, he saw a zombie stagger out of woods and into the shallow water at the river’s edge.

  It was tall, wearing what appeared to be a down vest and a pair of snowmobile pants. Goggles were on its head, covering the left eye but too askew to cover the right. Dried blood stained its face and vest. Most of one cheek was gone, and Doc watched, fascinated, as the visible teeth in the gaping wound opened and clicked shut. It looked at Doc and began to make the peculiar rasping sound he’d heard several others make. It began moving toward him.

  The rasping sound drew the attention of the other zombies. They, too, began to jerk their bodies toward him, boxing him in. He waded deeper into the water, feeling the cold pressure of the water as it compressed the waders around his legs.

  As the zombies approached the river, the one upstream continued to splash through ankle-deep water, now only twenty five feet away. Without thinking, Doc let out some line, then flicked his rod a few times before casting the fly toward the zombie. The fly sailed over the zombie’s head and drifted down, landing out of sight behind the body. Doc reeled the line in until he could tell it was up against the torso, then yanked the rod and set the hook.

  The sharp tug of the hook as it snagged the down vest pulled the zombie with a jerk. It lost its balance and fell into deeper water. Not able to stand against current, the zombie drifted downstream and out of sight. To the next zombie dam, for all Doc knew.

  Doc had already cut the line and put another leader on, attached a treble hook, and moved upstream into deeper water. With only three or four inches of dry wader above the waterline, he stopped and again started casting, eventually hooking a zombie in the ear and causing it, too, to lose its balance and fall into the river. It drifted downstream.

  As Doc cut the line and prepared yet another hook, he became angry and despondent. The first fly he’d lost was purchased from his favorite fly tyer, and he knew he could never get more. He hated to waste any on zombies. Before he could get too aggravated, though, a song from Sunday School—a song he hadn’t thought of in probably fifty years—echoed through his head:

  I will make you fishers of men,

  fishers of men,

  fishers of men,

  I will make you fishers of men

  if you follow me!

  Doc laughed out loud as he disposed of the last zombie by deftly wrapping the line around its legs so it stumbled and fell into the water. Even to his ears, the laugh sounded like a madman, and maybe that’s what he was; a mad-fisherman.

  But he’d had enough fishing in the Au Sable for today. He hoped and prayed he could come back sometime soon, sometime after the zombie logjam broke apart and dispersed. A couple of good downpours upstream should do it.

  Once this water clears up, he thought to the trout he’d released, I’ll be back for you, grandpa!

  He reached the Jeep and took off his waders. He’d spent a good part of the day here and still had many miles to go. At some point, he had to figure out where to stop for the night, even if it was just sleeping on the side of the road.

  Once he was inside the vehicle, he poured a cup of lukewarm coffee, grabbed a chunk of venison jerky and a handful of nuts, and sat there staring mindlessly ahead at the road while he silently munched. He took an occasional sip from his cup, not thrilled with tepid coffee. He started the engine and once again headed south on CR-489 then took a series of back roads, avoiding most vestiges of civilization.

  Driving along these barren stretches of road, Doc recalled a Christmas morning a few years earlier. It was long after his divorce, but after his reconciliation with his adult son and daughter.

  Later that day I’d be seeing my son and grandkids, but at eight-thirty in the morning I didn’t have anything in particular to do and couldn’t go back to sleep.

  I turned on the Christmas tree lights and stood outside on the front porch, watching my breath swirl and fade in the morning cold. On a whim I cranked up the Jeep and drove around the back roads, more or less sightseeing. It wasn’t a white Christmas, just a typical cold, gray Michigan morning. Some of the houses were ornately adorned with Christmas lights. I thought about the scenes inside: kids tearing open presents, bleary-eyed parents resolutely drinking coffee and trying to wake up. Maybe the Christmas ham or turkey was already in the oven.

  In that forty-five minute drive on Christmas morning, I didn’t pass a single car, although I did pass one middle-aged jogger wearing a jaunty Santa hat. The air was so still I saw a trail of breath following the man as he puffed along.

  It was eerie in a comforting kind of way, knowing I was surrounded by families gathered together in celebration and revelry. Some houses had four or five cars parked in the driveway, and I could both see and smell the wood smoke rising from chimneys. In a couple of places, I could even tell what kind of wood they were burning; I smelled hickory and oak.

  Today, however, was different. The few houses he passed were dark and probably vacant. No smoke rising from chimneys, no traffic, no joggers, only an occasional zombie stumbling through the fields. That Christmas morning he had felt alone but surrounded by people. Now he was alone and surrounded by zombies. He wasn’t the kind of man who needed to be constantly surrounded by people, and indeed often felt the need for solitude, but he enjoyed the company of his friends, and occasionally a woman spent the night with him. Now his only friends were still hours away and he hadn’t seen another living person in months.

  Before his retirement, he dreamed of escaping to the cabin just to get away from all the stress and constant demands on his time. Now that he’d been alone for nearly six months, he felt an uncharacteristic craving for human company. He found himself filled with happy anticipation at being with Kevin and Michelle. He passed a stretch of wildflowers and trilliums in bloom. His thoughts returned again to an even earlier day, over fifty years ago.

  Paige and I were young lovers, headed towards marriage, parenthood, and an ugly divorce. We only had eyes for each other, and our bodies were constantly hungry for each other. I’d gone for a drive on a day like this. The warm weather and newly-budded trees made everything serene and romantic. As we drove along, Paige snuggled up against me on the bench seat of my Impala. we both started to feel amorous and began to touch and squeeze each other through our clothes.

  We searched for a good place to pull off the road and indulge ourselves. Finding a two-track headed into the woods—barely more than a trail—I eased the Impala along, checking my rear view mirror until I could no longer see the road.

  I parked the car and
we made out for a few minutes, getting more aroused and hungry for more. “Let’s go out in the woods,” Paige suggested breathlessly between kisses.

  I got the emergency blanket out of the trunk. We walked a little way from the car until we found a clearing, then lay down together to continue our explorations of affection. Within a few minutes, Paige was on top of me, moaning as we made love. Her blouse was open and she wasn’t wearing a bra. The sunlight on her breasts and nipples was lovely. I wanted to look at her forever.

  I heard Paige gasp and tense up. She stopped moving. I was afraid we’d been caught, but when I followed her eyes I saw a porcupine a dozen feet away, blinking at us stupidly before turning its back and waddling away with a grunt. We both laughed and Paige said my quill was the only one for her, then we kept going until we snuggled breathlessly on the blanket, sated. It was a scene we would laughingly talk about for years, until things went bad. Once everything fell apart, our only communication was through attorneys at two hundred dollars an hour.

  Thinking about it filled him with a new kind of sadness. Not because he missed Paige—although he missed how it was in the early years: their friendship, the passion they shared and the way their lives dovetailed together. No, he didn’t miss her, although he felt sad that she was likely dead or one of them.

  It was the world he missed, the world he had both loved and loathed. It was still hard to fathom that it was gone forever. He knew intellectually that there might still be good times ahead; there would be times of triumph and likely times of great despair, but the world he had known and taken for granted was gone. He and the world had divorced.

  He’d looked forward to teaching his grandson how to fish, looked forward to spending time with friends he’d known all his life, friends he’d only recently gotten back in touch with. He missed his adult children as they grew older and more mature. He’d looked forward to retirement and having the time and resources to do the things he’d been putting off.