But just as she made a full revolution, she spotted it: a zombie in the field across the street from her. The field was choked with tall weeds and grass, cloaking most of the undead corpse. But there was something different about this one; it was crouched down on one knee, its face just visible above the weeds. And it just sat there, watching her. As soon as it realized she was looking at it, it bolted up to its feet and charged at her.
Sarah instinctively turned for the storage yard. She ran up to the front door and yanked on it, but it was locked. She could have smashed the glass sitting in the inset of the door, but the zombie would be able to come in right after her, so instead she went for the chain-link fence shored up to the edge of the building and wrapping around the yard. There was a thin gap between the bottom of the fence and the ground that she figured she would just be able to squeeze through, but the zombie would be too stupid to follow her, surely getting wrapped up on the fence instead. She dove onto the dusty ground and wedged her way under the fence. It was a tighter fit than she anticipated, and she frantically looked over her shoulder, not sure how close the zombie was.
It was already across the street and closing in on her. She slipped her hips through, but the seam of her jeans got caught on something sharp as she tried to pull her thigh from under it. She jerked and twisted her body as hard as she could until her jeans ripped and her leg came free. The zombie lurched down for her leg, but she slipped it through just in time. With the speed and ferocity with which it attacked her, she knew it was a scratcher. But it didn't lunge into the fence like she expected; instead, it stopped and stared at her.
They were both motionless on opposite sides of the fence for a long moment, the sun beating down on them. A gust of wind blew through and swirled up a tuft of dust, stinging Sarah's eyes. She held her knife at the ready and slowly backed away from the fence, mesmerized by its inaction.
And then the zombie lowered itself onto its stomach and began to crawl under the fence.
Sarah's heart beat faster than ever as she backed away from it.
As it began to shimmy to her side, it held its arm over its head, like it was ready to defend itself if she tried to stab it. And it was at that moment that Sarah knew she was dealing with something else entirely. She knew it was just like the zombie she saw at the hardware store a week ago—the one that seemed to have an extraordinary amount of intelligence for the undead... intelligence more akin to a normal human.
Fear gripped her, and what was once one isolated zombie that she could put out of her mind, was now starting to become a trend. However Ron and the other scientists were coming up with their cure, they had to finish it quickly; if Glass was given any more time, she feared they would be crossing the Rubicon from which there was no coming back.
When the zombie was through, it pushed itself up to its feet, leaving Sarah to search the yard for somewhere to hide or escape.
The yard was filled with the old ruined skeletons of cars, trucks, RVs, and a few pieces of farm equipment.
"Why didn't I bring a gun?" she muttered angrily to herself.
She spun around in circles, seeing no suitable place. The zombie was too close for her to hide anywhere, and the only way to escape was by scaling the fence, which was affixed with barbed wire at the top—something that she would do if she had to, but she was banking on the possibility that if she could do it, the zombie could too.
The corpse approached her from behind, running at full speed. Sarah took off and went for the nearest car. She pulled on the door handle, but it didn't open. She ran to the next car and was met with the same result. She spun around, hearing the zombie's gnashing teeth behind her. It attacked her and she stepped out of the way and sunk the blade of the knife into the back of its shoulder as it collided with the side of the car. She managed to pull the blade out as it pushed itself off the metal and turned around. She stabbed the blade at its head, but it ducked out of the way, seeming to take on something of a defensive stance; something that was completely alien to any other type of zombie she'd ever encountered.
The knife missed and the zombie launched itself out from its lowered stance and tackled her. Sarah kept herself from going all the way to the ground, but the knife was flung out of her hand and skittered against the dusty soil. She managed to kick the zombie off and skirt around to the other side of a silver sedan. She spotted a rock on the ground between an overgrown patch of grass and the dirt and she picked it up, brandishing it over her head as she watched the zombie from the other side of the car. They both stared at each other like they did when they were on opposite sides of the fence and they initiated a little dance as they both encircled the car. The zombie ran around to her side, and she ran too, but it was faster. In desperation, she hurled the rock through the passenger door window and unlocked it. She pulled open the door, using it as a shield as the zombie came up to her. She threw it open into the corpse as hard as she could, making it stumble back a few feet. It regained its footing, but this time it walked up to the door cautiously, with that same measure of intelligence. It watched her and waited to see what she would do. So instead Sarah got into the car and closed the door, rooting through the shattered glass in the interior and picking up the rock again. She uselessly held it up in front of her, threatening to bash the zombie with it, but she knew it wouldn't do much good. And somehow, the zombie seemed to realize this, too.
Sarah reached behind her to unlock the driver-side door to escape, but as soon as she did the zombie jogged around the car to her side. She wheeled around to face it, ignoring the small shards of glass digging into her knuckles and cutting her hand as she moved her back toward the passenger door, the rock still clutched in her hand. The zombie peered through the glass at the left side of her body, as if it was studying how she was missing an arm and working it into its strategy accordingly. Sarah was operating on pure adrenaline, but she couldn't shake that sense of mesmerism as she stared at the corpse standing beyond the glass.
Realizing there was nothing else she could do, Sarah grudgingly opened the passenger door and crawled out as the zombie skirted around the car and ran at her. She stood her ground and swung the rock at its head. It threw an arm up to try to block her, but the weight of the rock and its momentum was too much, knocking its arm out of the way and clocking it in the head. The zombie stumbled to the side and fell to its hands and knees as Sarah dropped the rock and headed for her knife several yards away. She snatched it up, and when she turned around, the zombie was already on her heels.
But it stopped once again, taking that familiar defensive stance. Sarah brandished the knife, slowly backing away from it. She took any opportunity she could to glance over her shoulder at the back of the yard, and she spotted a section of the fence where the barbed wire had been torn away from it, dangling down into the yard all the way to the ground. She thought about escape, about climbing over the fence. She knew she had the athleticism to do it, but she would be slow with one arm, and if the zombie could figure out how to climb the fence, it would simply run her down when they got to the other side.
Hatching a better plan, she stepped forward and thrust the knife at the zombie, but again it weaved its head out of the way and dodged her strike. She wasn't used to this; every zombie she dealt with before, even the scratchers, was predictable. Though some of them were very tough foes and not to be taken lightly, this new kind was a whole other game. And as tough and battle-hardened as she had become, Sarah knew that even she would have slim chances of surviving much longer if this trend kept up and Glass unleashed even more dangerous undead.
The zombie reached out for her, almost playfully grabbing at the blade of the knife, gauging her reaction and waiting for a response as it inched toward her. Sarah continued to back away for the fence and the barbed wire. When she was a few yards away from it, she lunged at the zombie and waited for it to move before she thrust the knife. In reaction, the zombie twisted its body away from her, expecting a knife thrust. Then when it was already off balance, S
arah shot out the blade and stuck it through the jaw, missing the brain. She tried to pull it out, but the zombie grabbed her wrist. She kicked it in the stomach, sending it to the ground and breaking its grip on her, but the knife stayed lodged in its face.
Sarah turned and ran for the loose barbed wire. She carefully picked it up and gripped it tightly in her hand, making sure she didn't touch any of the razor-sharp barbs.
The zombie rose to its feet and pulled the knife out of its face, holding it up and now brandishing it at her. It looked like a desperate scene for her as she stood there holding the loose end of the barbed wire, something that normally wouldn't do much of anything to a zombie, and the zombie itself holding her knife, the only weapon she had brought with her.
Almost as if it sensed this certainty in their dichotomy, the zombie ran at her again, tossing the knife away like it didn't need it. It tackled Sarah to the ground and tried to eat her face, but she managed to wedge her knees under its torso. As she worked to keep it off of her with her legs, she wrapped the wire around its neck.
The zombie ignored this attempt completely, as unconcerned with her attempts to damage it as any other zombie would be. But she managed to make a loop around its neck, and when she pulled it, it started to twist the zombie to the side, its mouth now snapping at empty air next to her face. She used her foot to kick out one of the zombie's knees, causing it to lose its balance and fall to the ground.
Sarah scurried underneath it and managed to get around to its back. She wrapped the wire around its neck one more time and then wrapped her legs around its waist. She wrenched the barbed wire with all the strength she had. Her hand slid across the wire and dug into a barb. Blood started to seep out of her hand and run down her wrist, but she didn't let up on her grip. The zombie's arms thrashed wildly, switching from trying to get at her to trying to pull the wire away from its throat. She used her own hips and the wire around it to wrench the zombie in every which way against the barbs, cutting its throat and neck open. Blood began to pour down its body as it struggled in vain to get at her.
Eventually the blood loss was so tremendous that the zombie began to slow down. Its movements became sluggish until its arms dropped to the ground and became motionless. Even zombies had their limits, and without blood running through their body, the limited functions operating within them would shut down. Sarah unwrapped her legs from around it and shoved it off to the side, letting go of the barbed wire and ignoring the pain in her hand and the blood trickling down her arm. She retrieved her knife and returned to deliver a final, certain stab to the zombie's skull to make sure it was rendered dead.
She backed away from the corpse, finding it hard to take her eyes off of it for a long time, studying its lifeless shape. Eventually she turned and headed for the spot under the fence that she had crawled through. She put her knife away and inspected the damage done to her hand. It wasn't bad, but something she would have to patch up.
As she continued down the sunny road, the wind blew and the peaceful crickets of a hot summer's day chirped busily.
3
Faith Reprise
After Sarah finished taping her hand, she inspected it in the daylight coming in through the bathroom window next to her. It had been cut up pretty good between the barbed wire and the shattered glass from the car window, but most of it was superficial; her fingers still worked perfectly fine, and that was all that counted. Just as she drew in a deep breath, letting it out slowly and thinking of recent events, Wayne began to stir from his bedroom.
He started mumbling, reiterating the same tired noises that she'd heard every night since she rescued him from the base. At first they were just unintelligible mutters, but then he started forming words. Most of the time he just kept repeating the word "no" over and over again, and this time was no exception. He always slept late into the morning, even though he would generally punch out early the night before.
"No, no... please," he pleaded, still half-asleep.
Sarah turned her head toward the hallway and sighed.
He pleaded again and again, then he began yelling. It was so loud that he woke himself up. Sarah could always tell that this was the case because his scream would stop abruptly followed by more self-conscious mutters.
Sarah felt bad for him, but she didn't know what to do to help him. Even though she'd been put through the wringer herself, she'd never been imprisoned and tortured quite like he had. Her mind would often go to the time the bandits enslaved her on the bridge to Durham, but they only treated her like property to do with as they pleased; Wayne was caged with the explicit intent to torture him to the point of removing his very soul from his body, as Wayne once relayed to her that Jack told him. And even though she had nightmares from her experience, they weren't as bad as this. Sometimes she didn't get any sleep at all now because Wayne screamed through the night. And she didn't want to admit it, but she felt like this made her disappointed in him; she always looked up to him as a strong, cool-headed figure, but now he seemed totally different, like a broken and lost child.
She was in the kitchen of the cabin by the time Wayne sauntered out of his bedroom. He carried the long, thick branch he found outside in the woods, holding it out in front of him to feel for objects around him. He used his other outstretched hand to pat around to make sure his face wouldn't run into anything.
His ankle caught on the leg of a chair and he stumbled to his knees, wincing in pain. "Shit," he muttered angrily.
Sarah looked at him with pity, wanting to help him, but knowing what his response would be. She remained at the counter.
"Sarah, are you here?" Wayne shouted six feet away from her.
"I'm here," she said softly.
"Oh. What are you doing?"
"I'm just having some lunch. Do you want some?"
He didn't answer, but instead just grumbled under his breath. She knew that was a yes, but that he didn't want her to prepare it for him; he needed to do it for himself. He extended the branch out toward her, swinging it around wantonly in the open space. Sarah casually backed up and let the branch smack into the bottom of the cupboards where she was standing. When Wayne felt the counter, he carefully propped the stick against it and started fiddling in the cupboards, feeling around for a can.
"Where's the can opener?" he asked.
"It's right here," she said, sliding it across the counter to him.
His hand patted around for it, and just as he reached it, his stick tipped over against the counter and clattered on the floor. "Son of a bitch," he muttered. He ignored it for the moment and used the can opener to open the can of roast beef he'd taken out, then he rustled around in the drawer for a fork. He shoveled a few forkfuls of food into his mouth, then he placed the can on the counter and bent over to pick up the branch, propping it under his arm.
"So where have you been all morning?" he asked.
Sarah was silent for a moment. "Just out picking up some supplies."
"With Ron?"
She said nothing.
"Sarah, I heard him here. I'm blind, not stupid. You really think I didn't know that he showed up again and you've been going out running his errands? Never mind the fact that he suddenly shows up here after being dead. After I saw him get bit by a zombie with my own two..."
He suddenly flung the fork across the kitchen and it bounced off the wall, leaving a gash in the wood. "Fuck!" he shouted, slamming the can down on the counter and leaning against the edge of it with the meaty palms of his hands.
Sarah stood motionlessly, sizing up the heartbreaking man in front of her.
"I, uh... I'm sorry," he said.
"We were just going over some business," Sarah told him. "It's nothing important."
"Of course not," he said bitterly. "Just... forget I said anything." He took the branch out from under his arm and headed toward the living room. When he got to the threshold between the living room and the kitchen, he stopped. "It's a fool's game," he said.
"What?" Sarah asked.
"What you're doing, or what you think you're doing with Ron and Glass. Don't you know by now that there's nothing you can do against him? Look at us. We're a couple of cripples hiding in the woods. Nothing but a damn fool's game."
Sarah felt rage bubble up in her. She wanted to give him a hundred reasons why he was wrong just to shut his mouth, but instead she kept hers shut and let him go. She had to keep reminding herself that he was going through a lot of pain and confusion right now and that he wasn't going to be himself for a long time. Maybe he never would be again.
When he disappeared from her sight, she headed out the back door to the deck stretching around the rear of the cabin. She leaned against the railing and stared out at the cliff in the distance that overlooked the vast woodland below. She let the gentle breeze and the warming rays of the sun calm her down. She took a deep breath and pondered on everything, thinking about what Wayne said and every task in front of her. Sometimes his very words echoed in her head because from time to time they were her thoughts, too. It was difficult to overcome the fact that they really were just a couple of cripples in the woods.
It took real courage to overcome those doubts and remind herself what she was doing. There was nothing selfish about it; she was literally giving up life and limb to achieve her aims, and she wasn't about to stop now or ever, no matter how difficult the path ahead seemed. She now knew from personal experience and without the shadow of a doubt that Glass was far more than a force to be reckoned with. He was the one impossible, insurmountable obstacle in their path. But she really believed in what Ron was doing, and she believed that somehow, against all odds, they could pull it off.
The Eden Project (Zombie Apocalypse Series Book 6) Page 3