Atlanta looked as if the people who lived here had simply vanished in the twinkling of an eye. It looked as if they all snapped their fingers and wiggled their noses before they disappeared, cleaning up after themselves. There was no paper, no strewn clothes, no musty books, no tipped over trash cans, and no abandoned cars. Every vehicle that we found had been incinerated or it was impossible to get it moving. Everything about it seemed strange. There were no bullet holes in the buildings and there were no broken windows. I had never seen so many windows intact since before the panic and the insanity of the collapse. Somehow, Atlanta looked like a ghost town and not a former major city of America.
“Is this weird to you?” I stop and call back to Lindsay.
She looks at me and then back to the buildings, continuing to walk on, ignoring me. There’s nothing left for me to say to her. She doesn’t want a thing to do with me and everything I try is failing. I want to turn south and leave her. If she wants to be a spoiled brat, then let her rot alone in this worthless city. But the deeper I go, the more I realize that I can’t just let her wander alone. This place is a haven for something strange and the more I look, the more horrifying it truly is.
There’s a giant white stretch of cloth hanging down the front of a shop, covering the door with a veil of soiled white. Down the middle of the cloth is a black line and then another crossing two thirds of the way up. The enormous cross immediately reminds me of the dead men that we found at the wealthy part of the town. I look at the banner and then around at the empty, vacant buildings and wonder just how much of this town has been looted and ransacked by these cross-bearing murderers. I wonder if there are any more nearby.
Truthfully, I’m beginning to wonder if we’re the last people left in the world. For so long, all I’ve seen are Zombies. Granted, we’ve stuck to ourselves and haven’t gone looking for signs of life in the towns that we passed, but still, I haven’t seen a single sign of life here in Atlanta. I almost want to scream for someone to answer. Did these religious people find and round up everyone? Is there some sort of compound deeper into the city where survivors have banded together? I think about the old Preacher in Detroit and how comforting the idea of religion had been to me in the beginning. How many people would undoubtedly go flocking to one who claims to speak for the Almighty? Maybe there was a revival and those who banded together under the cross decided that they needed to fight for their right to remain in this world. Maybe those up on the hill, surrounded by wealth and opulence, were some of the questionable, horrifying, cannibalistic hunters that we ran across so many times in the past. What if they were just purging their city of those who would feed upon the chaos and drive those who are desperate farther down the road to Hell?
We come across the first sign of activity. In the passing storm, the pile of ash and cinders was flooded and washed away, leaving a long, black smear across the sidewalk where the pyre had been built and then consumed. I stop at the sight of it and kick through the ashes, listening as my boot overturns pieces of metal. I kneel down and pick through the soggy blackness. Eventually, I find what I’m looking for and pull out the remains of a rifle. I hold it up and look at it. Someone has taken a hammer to the weapon, making it impossible for anyone to use it without malfunctioning or backfiring. I find pistols and more rifles in the enormous heap of blackened ash. As it dries, it’s nearly a rock hard layer and I wonder if whoever burned the guns knew exactly what they were doing. They had to have. They beat the weapons into useless hunks of metal and then burned them so that no one else could find a way to use them.
“What do you make of this?” I ask Lindsay, who is peeking through a window. I look over my shoulder at her and see that she’s completely ignoring me. I might as well have died and become a ghost to her, lingering with her as she walks. I feel anger flushing through me, but I try to keep calm, try to see it her way. “It’s just like up at the hill,” I say, kicking through the ashes as I rise. “It’s like they’re gathering up all the guns and getting rid of them.”
“Stupid of them,” Lindsay mutters.
Life. I smile at the first sign of it and keep walking onward. There are bodies heaped into a large pile at an intersection with pages glued to the ground all around where the pyre was built for them to be burned. They were thrown onto a mound of books before being set on fire. I don’t understand. Why the books? Why the guns? Whoever the dead are isn’t important to me. Their blackened faces, emaciated by the flames until only blackened skin and scorched, pink flesh peeking through; they mean nothing to me when I look at the books. Dead people are everywhere in this world. Burned books, that’s some Nazi shit right there and I don’t like it. It makes me feel uneasy about the whole thing.
Lindsay keeps her distance from the pile of dead bodies. I don’t blame her. There’s something intelligent about this. There’s almost a feel of a ritual here. I wonder if there are still people here. These bodies have been burned and abandoned some time ago. There’s nothing that implies that they’ve been here since then. I don’t know how many days it’s been, but probably more than a week. Death has abandoned this place a long time ago. I step away from the dead and start moving toward the southeast.
The first sign of true life is like a candle in a blackout. We stop at an intersection when I spot them and immediately rush to the corner of a brick building, gazing down the street at the strip mall that has drawn my attention. Outside of the strip mall, a small pair of Zombies stumble about, looking up at the sky and swaying their arms as they walk. I’m not sure if they’re sniffing for something or if they’re just brain dead at this point. Maybe the dust has completely eroded their nervous system, leaving them little more than shambling vegetables. I look over my shoulder at Lindsay who comes up behind me, placing her back against the wall and drawing an arrow out of her quiver. Nocking it, she steps out from behind the corner, takes a second to aim, and fires without saying a word. With my back to the wall, I’m watching her as she stands perfectly still, her eyes narrowed behind her sunglasses as she watches the arrow hit its mark. She’s focused and determined. She’s proving to me that she doesn’t need me.
I should let her go. I know this now more than ever. She’s good on her own. No, she’s great on her own. All I’ve ever done is slow her down and endanger her life. She used to find enjoyment in killing the Zombies or risking her life, but everything has changed now and she’s soured to the whole situation. I don’t like it and the one who is poisoning her is me. It’s not the world that’s tearing her down. What I have done to her is the anchor that is sinking her soul. If she finds morbid delight in such things, then God forbid I be the one that takes that away from her.
She nocks another arrow and draws back the bowstring, aiming for only a breath before she releases the arrow and it hisses away like a thin little missile. Slowly, she lowers the bow and starts walking, leaving me where I am. I blink and look back down the road we’ve come. That’s my road out. It’s time to end this.
While she collects her arrows, I veer off toward the strip mall, listening as she wrenches her arrows out of the twitching bodies of the Zombies. She finishes them off with her knife, but I don’t stay to watch. I make my first stop at a dollar store, pushing open the sliding door and stepping into the musty stink of the vacant building. It hasn’t been overly looted, but the freezers in the back are filled with long rotten and dusty decay from the food that was there. I walk to the cash register and remember the first job I ever had, working at a small grocery store in northern Michigan. I don’t miss those days. Every night I closed up the shop at midnight alone, counting tills and leaving when there wasn’t a soul awake to keep me company.
The shelves where once there was food have long since been looted. The food that’s left has rotted or turned to a disgusting mush of stale dust that’s coagulated from the humidity. There’s nothing here that is worthwhile. I step across the shriveled Mylar remains of long deflated balloons that once bobbed across the ceiling of the shop. I walk all the
aisles, looking for something that might be of value. The only thing that I find of use is a face mask used to keep from inhaling paint fumes. I figure that it might be useful when the storms pick up.
I look out the front doors as I stuff the pack of seven into my bag and stare out the front doors of the shop where Lindsay is standing with her arms crossed, looking around to keep watch. It’s now or never. I’m not going to keep walking through this freaky city with her if she isn’t going to talk to me. I sling my pack over my shoulder and head out into the warm, stale air of the city. I can hear birds somewhere to the south of here and it makes me uncomfortable. They sound like ravens or gulls. Standing in the sunlight, I whistle at Lindsay.
“Let’s check the pizza place for food,” I call to her.
She turns and looks at me, nodding weakly before heading with me toward the restaurant next door. I pull open the doors and hold it for her as she enters. The place reeks of rot and decay as well, untouched since the fall. Whoever hit the dollar store had definitely ignored this place. I wrinkle my nose and look around at everything, disgusted. Lindsay is heading for the counter when I decide to stop her.
“We need to talk,” I tell her. She stops at the sound of my voice and I can see her whole body slump as if she’s been waiting for this moment since we had our sit down at the dining room table. Slowly, she turns around to face me, taking her time. I’m not sure how to read her in this moment, but it has to be done. “I think this is as far as I’m going with you,” I say to her. “There is something seriously wrong with this place. There are no cars here to speak of. But the biggest reason, above all, is that I’m not sure I trust you to have my back.”
“Typical,” she shakes her head.
“What is?” I press, feeling my temper sizzling away.
“You,” she answers. “I’ve had your back since the moment we met and now you’re looking for a reason to bail, so here you go. Don’t feed me that shit, Charlie. If you want to go, just say it.”
“I don’t,” my voice is a sharp, angry whisper. I’m too afraid to yell at her. I don’t know what’s waiting for us in this city, but I don’t want it to come find us. She looks at me with wide, confused eyes. She crosses her arms and leans back against the counter. “I don’t want to leave,” I say again. “Lindsay, you are a survivor. You’re as tough as they come and you are so full of drive and life that I don’t know if I’m going to make it out there without you, but I will not play games with you. I’m sorry if I offended you or hurt you in any capacity, but you have to see that it was not my intention. Now, if you want to keep playing the pissy silent game with me, then you’re on your own. Good luck and I’ll see you on the other side when this is all over. But if you’re willing to keep going forward, then I’m more than happy to keep going forward with you.”
“Charlie, you don’t have to apologize to me,” she says in a low voice. “But I told you that I love you and the best you could give me is silence. A person doesn’t just spring back from that when there’s only a handful of people left in the world. I’m sorry that I can’t laugh and joke with you, but I need some time to myself.”
“So then where does that leave you?” I ask her. “Because I’m heading south and before we step out of these doors, we’re going to have a plan and we’re going to stick to it.”
She’s silent for a moment and then quickly her eyes widen. I know the look well enough that there’s something dangerous nearby. Dropping down into a crouch, I follow her lead and turn around, looking over a plastic red bench at the windows that are smeared and tarnished from the year of neglect. I see immediately what it is she’s looking at.
There are a pack of people coming around the corner and each of them has the look of something out of a fantasy movie. They walk with worn, dirty boots and pants that are covered with a long white cloth from their shoulders, down to their ankles. There’s a belt tied around their waists and they look like they belong on some medieval battlefield. Their white tabards are painted with a black cross that immediately gives away their allegiance and exactly what role they play in this strange city. I watch them with morbid fascination as they walk. Two of them are walking without shirts on, their bare chests riddled with scars and wounds. Some of them are wearing chains wrapped around their wrists and forearms, the links hanging down to the ground as they walk. All of them are carrying crude spears or clubs made out of metal piping. One is carrying kitchen knives and another has a long piece of metal that looks to have been beaten and sharpened, shaped into a barbaric sword. The shirtless men have no hair on their bodies whatsoever. The rest have long, thick hair hanging over their faces and heads in greasy locks. The men with hair also have long beards that must have been growing for well over a year. The only thing that seems to unite them is the black cross. They have it painted down the center of their faces and the crossing line over their eyes from temple to temple.
“What are they?” Lindsay whispers.
“How should I know?” I hiss back. “Some sort of doomsday cult, maybe?”
The band of cultists approach the dead Zombies, and one who looks to be in charge kneels down and places his hand on the heart of the corpse, bowing his head as if he’s praying for the creature’s damned soul. The others fan out, searching the rooftops and the surrounding buildings for any signs of life or movement. I don’t like the look of this, they almost look defensive, vengeful for the death of the Zombies. The leader moves over to the second dead Zombie and does the same thing, kneeling and praying while the others search with mad, angry eyes for whoever might have done this. I look at Lindsay and she looks at me. We’re in a seriously fucked situation.
“They’re still warm,” the leader says, rising to his feet. “The blood is fresh. They’re nearby.” He looks to his men and there is a certain fiery determination in their eyes. I don’t like the look of it. The leader steps out from the ring of warriors and holds out his arms, as if encouraging someone to embrace him, or to strike him down. “We know you’re near!” the man shouts in a loud, powerful voice. “We know that you are near. You have slain one of God’s creations. You have killed that which you had no right to kill—taken that which is not yours. You have sinned against God and your fellow man. Surrender yourselves, and you will be given a merciful death. If there are many of you, we will only take two and let the others pass. You must answer for your crimes. You must answer for the lives which you have stolen!” The man is roaring in anger. His face is red and he is spitting as he talks. He waits for a reply, but there’s nothing I can do. I’m not getting up or moving. I don’t want them to see or hear us. The man takes a step back into his group. “So be it,” he shouts with a determined voice. “The servants of God will find you. We are legion. We will bring you to justice. God wills it.”
With that, the two shirtless men raise something to their lips and suck in a deep breath before unleashing a blast. I see that they’re holding up cow horns to their lips. These bastards made horns. They made actual fucking horns. I listen to the powerful blast and then a second one shivers my very bones before they lower the horns. Lindsay and I look at each other with worried, terrified faces. We might be able to sneak behind them if they chase their supposed enemies deeper into the city. We might be able to make a run for it and head south. We stay hidden in silence, waiting.
Soon, more horns answer the call.
A lot more horns.
Chapter Sixteen
There are what sounds like hundreds of horns answering from all directions. I look at Lindsay and feel my heart sinking. What do they want with us? Why would they hunt down someone for killing one of the Zombies? The horns fill the air, blasting twice before receding, but there are so many that it seems to carry on for minutes. I can feel my heart pounding as I stare out the window at the leader and his pack behind him. They’re waiting for us to move. They’re waiting for fear to get the better of us, smiling triumphantly and nodding with anxious bloodlust. They’re building their courage and boldness, drawing str
ength from the horns. I don’t like this. I don’t like this at all.
“We need to move,” I whisper to Lindsay.
“There are so many,” she whispers back to me.
“Doesn’t matter,” I reach out and take her hand. “We’re getting out of here.”
I crawl backwards toward the counter, keeping my eye on the doors. With each movement, I’m expecting one of them to see us, to come after us and for the real chase to begin. These aren’t Zombies. These are thinking, murderous people who are probably telling the truth when they say that they’re legion. It takes something powerful to unite people and it has to hold them. Religion has always been one of those precious tools. I don’t doubt that survivors from all around have been coming to Atlanta and being indoctrinated by these psychopaths.
“We are coming for you!” the leader is shouting at us. “We will find you.”
“Good luck, asshole,” Lindsay hisses under her breath.
Slipping behind the counter, through a gap between the wall where the restrooms are and the soda dispenser, Lindsay and I rise to a crouch and begin sneaking through the back room. It’s pitch black, but we can’t risk turning on one of the flashlights. I switch positions with Lindsay, letting her lead since she has an extra hand that she can use while holding mine. I follow her into the thick blackness with only the dim light from the front room to guide us. Slipping by the ovens, we blindly make our way through the small employee nook with their cubbies and past the manager’s office. I only know this because Lindsay is hissing to me everything that she finds. I don’t know how she knows these things, but she does. Eventually, after several minutes of trial and error, she finds the backdoor and slowly, carefully opens it, blinding us with harsh sunlight.
LEFT ALIVE (Zombie series Box Set): Books 1-6 of the Post-apocalyptic zombie action and adventure series Page 31