by Mark Tufo
Then the turn for the worse came. Far distant explosions. In and of themselves? Nothing to overly worry about. They weren’t in the direction of the house we were at, and nowhere close—the problem was the damned noise attracted all manner of predators.
“Fuck.” I looked up to a small rise to our left, a lone figure was looking down at us. I looked into the pit, BT was roughly three-quarters down. “Company!” I shouted down. He looked around but he didn’t have any line of sight to see much more than us. He started picking his way down a little faster. Wasn’t sure if that was the direction I would have had him go. The one figure became three, then five. They were all just standing there looking at us, five became ten, each one of them that showed increased the fear in my belly. At this point, all three of us were staring back. When ten became twenty I knew we had to do something.
“BT—we’re going to be in real trouble up here…soon.”
“Zombie?” he asked.
“I’m thinking so, but they’re too far to tell and they’re just standing there looking back.” The acoustics in the bowl were pretty damn good; I was happy not to have to yell and my message was still being received without any distortion.
“How many?” He was now chugging along to get to the bottom.
“I’m gonna say thirty.”
“Go, Mike. Make a run for it!”
“I’m not leaving you here.”
He stopped and turned. “If you come down here and neither of these machines works we’re all dead. If you take off, they’ll probably follow you. None of them are coming down here, and I’ll be hiding.”
“You son of a bitch. You figured this all out.”
“Of course. I’m not you. Now get the fuck out of here—get safe. I’ll meet you back at the house.”
I waved. We had to go. He was right; they wouldn’t go down the hole if there was no reason to.
“Steve, we have to run again.”
He didn’t give me a smile and a big thumbs up but he also didn’t complain about it. It’s the small victories you have to take.
We hadn’t gone far when I decided to take a look behind us. The zombie numbers had swelled. They took up pretty much the entire top of the hill they were standing on. A couple had started coming down; the pursuit was on.
“Steve, we’re going to have to burn in another gear.”
He turned to look where I had and to his credit, he notched it up. We played run, hide, and evade for most of the day. The idea was to keep the zombies from flanking around and surrounding us. No matter how many times I deviated off course, they followed like a Sidewinder missile. The thirty that initially started the pursuit had swelled in numbers up into the hundreds, maybe more—I’d not gotten an accurate census. We rested when we could but those breaks were getting fewer and farther between. Our only chance involved the woods. Our going would be slower, but so would theirs. One thing I knew, we couldn’t lead them back to the fort.
It was twilight outside, so within the confines of the forest, it was much closer to night. A ground fog swirled around our feet, leaving eddies as we ran. Steve was off to the right, my sister was straight ahead of me. We made separation from the main group and were now running for our lives, to stay ahead and away. Lyndsey was breathing heavily, she was in great shape and had even run for fitness back before. Things are different though, when you’re running for your life. Adrenaline can be your friend, but after a while it begins to become an enemy—calling in too much, too quickly on its loan of strength and endurance.
I was under the belief that the zombies were trying to separate us. Divide and conquer shit. They were assuming top-predator qualities and I was not a fucking fan. The pursuit was heaviest from behind, but I would periodically stop and give them a few rounds...something to think about, perhaps. The problem was the runners creeping up on our sides. There was no doubt in my mind that eventually we would be surrounded. My sister could go on a while, but the real problem was Steve. He’d had knee replacement surgery the year before the zombies came. Running around like a track star wasn’t really in the cards for him; another stellar decision, letting him come along.
My sister was small enough that when the time came I could pick her up and run for, I don’t know, at least a little ways, but not while her husband lived. She would never leave him behind. I don’t know if I was more pissed that he kept hobbling along or not. There was a strange translucent color to the woods as we ran. There were distant gunshots as some other group fought; they would be no help to us. Our drama would be long over, one way or the other, before they could find their way to us, and then what? Would they be another foe to battle? The fear was palpable; it was a demon in its own right, one that threatened to overtake us.
“Mike....” my sister said it all in that one word; that she’d labored so hard to issue the utterance let me know she had pushed to her limits. For a good long while there was only the sounds of people running through the woods, leaves rustling, fallen branches breaking, grunts and growls of those chasing us, our curses hissed through clenched jaws as uneven ground threatened to turn an ankle or hyperextend a knee. Either would be a fatal injury right now. I’d stop again and give her some more running room, but that would not slow the ones already abreast of us. I whipped my head to Steve, his .45 sounded explosively loud in the relative silence of our flight for life. A zombie had come dangerously close to dragging him down.
His limp was much more pronounced, in a couple hundred more yards, he’d be dragging his bad leg behind him. He’d always said that training for and running in the Boston marathon had been among his biggest achievements and biggest regrets in life. He’d finished that grueling race, but at the expense of the health of his knees. Steve was six feet tall and built more like a lumberjack than the prototypical whip strong long-distance runner. The cumulated effect of running those distances with that much weight had worn away his cartilage; for a few years he had actually been bone on bone until his surgery. He was only two months away from having his other leg worked on when the zombies threw a wrench in those plans.
If it had been a little quieter I probably could have heard the grind of his bones like seeds in a mortar and pestle. He didn’t want to die, and he wanted to protect his wife, but the longer he lingered the less likely he was going to be able to do the latter—the former was damn near a foregone conclusion. We’d kept on for another half an hour; it was getting difficult to navigate. My face was a criss-cross latticework of cuts from branches scraping across my face. The time would come when I would run eye first into a branch and scramble what little brain I had left. There was a loud “oomph” from Lyndsey, as her shoulder took the brunt of the impact from an unyielding tree. That was compounded when I ran up on her heel; I’d had to reach out and grab her by the arm before she fell over. I was half dragging her as I kept moving.
“Where’s Steve?” she asked breathlessly.
“Side,” I said tersely. “And behind,” I finally added.
“Save him.” She’d put her hand on my arm and was pulling on it when we heard him scream out. I turned just as four rapid shots came from his weapon. He’d taken three zombies out but at least two had gotten to him. I didn’t need to actually see them bite; I’d heard that high-pitched keen before. It was the only proof I needed that they’d broken through skin and into meat.
“Run, Lyndsey. Run and keep running.” I told her. I left her and headed back. I could not save Steve, but I could save my sister from hearing the final death cries of her husband. I went through ten rounds, blasting the zombies that had begun to feast. All manner of zombie debris flew up and away, more than one round found its merciful way to Steve. His screams cut short, I turned to catch back up to his wife. An armbar nailed me right across my Adam’s apple. If I had been running full speed, the zombie would have crushed my windpipe. As it was, I was going to have a significant bruise. Getting the rifle up was out of the equation as he came out from behind a tree and we began to grapple. I dropped my weapon, le
tting the tactical sling hold it against my chest; this afforded me the opportunity to reach down to my leg sheath.
“How about a little Ka-Bar for your troubles,” I grunted. His head dipped as he watched me reach down, he was following my hand. He knew what I was doing. My first inclination had been to shove that steel serrated blade straight into his temple. But this one had other ideas. He faced the blade, making that strike more difficult. I was running out of options; the bastard had plenty of back-ups; I was on my own. I drove the point of that black blade into his right cheek where it skittered across his cheek bone and then popped over and into his orbital socket. I had about two inches in—his eyeball was a jellied mass of a mess. The serrations had got caught up on the delicate bones that surrounded his eyes, keeping me from pressing it in deeper and into his brain. I’d nearly lost my thumb to his crunching teeth as I leaned in farther and shoved. There was a small snapping as if I’d broken the wings of a sparrow then the blade slid easily in. He was falling away as I pulled the knife free.
I had a sense I was surrounded, but last I checked, their night vision wasn’t any better than a normal person’s. I should be alright. The thought hadn’t even had the opportunity to get dumped into my economy-sized short-term memory bin before I thought my ears drums were going to bleed. A shrieker was out there and he was actively seeking food. When Justin and I had first come across them we’d thought that perhaps they had some sort of echo location system like the others, but this seemed a more base, but insidious hunting tactic. They had the ability to send a debilitating sound straight into a mind, causing their victims to panic and run, giving the speeders the chance to hunt their quarry down.
For the time being, zombies were only able to use their most rudimentary, God-given natural weapons to hunt. Without bows, guns, knives, or any other deadly instrument, they’d begun to adapt. Human eyes and noses would only take them so far to locate food from their rapidly diminishing supply; like all species, they needed to keep coming up with new and creative ways to learn and adapt. Tomorrow’s zombie would look nothing like today’s and that was terrifying. The spike sound in my head was threatening to make me shut my eyes, although with how dark it was getting, it wouldn’t make much difference. I was up and running by this time. I’d slowed down out of necessity and I had my hands out in front of me so I didn’t clock a tree like my sister had. Zombies were all around, there were low groans, as maybe they were communicating with each other. But they’d slowed as well, and I didn’t know if that was because they realized they had me in a snare, or they just couldn’t track anymore in the dark. A bright half-moon was on the horizon, I wasn’t sure if I was elated or dismayed at its showing. For now, the field was leveled; we were all stumbling around in the dark.
My foot went through a rotten tree, or possibly a corpse. Everyone nearby stopped due to the resultant sound. I held my breath, not trusting myself to not sound like Darth Vader. A hand slapped against my face, dropped down, and clutched the front of my jacket, pulling me closer as he leaned in. I turned my face away just as his mouth bit on my head. The zombie towered over me; I was being attacked by Wilt Chamberlain. In addition to his height advantage, he was strong, not stronger, but strong. He spit what instantly became my lucky hat out and I knew where he would attempt to lodge those teeth next. All I could do was lean away, down, back, and keep dodging his mouth because I could not break his vise-like grip on the front of my jacket. He was moaning/messaging our location as he did his best to do me in. I thrust my knife blade completely through his lower arm and twisted, using his bones as leverage to force his arm away.
It wasn’t the pain that caused him to let go, but rather the damage I’d inflicted. What I did next was done purely for survival mode. I gutted the lanky motherfucker. I stuck the blade, hilt deep into his midsection and then ripped up. He didn’t really care so much as lengths of ropy intestine spilled out—he was still trying to bite through my cranium. My mother always told me I should wear a helmet. Right now a suit of armor sounded like a pretty good idea, but it would have to wait. I reached inside him with my left hand, not even believing what I was doing. I plunged deep enough that my thankfully gloved fingers scraped up against his spine. I wrapped a fist around that bone stick and pulled him down by it. I brought my right hand up and repeatedly started stabbing him in the face and head. It was the sixth or seventh strike when I finally got the response I was looking for. His body went slack and we crashed down onto the ground with him on top.
A zombie’s foot came down less than six inches from my face. The white swoosh of a Nike sneaker clearly visible. The moon was indeed making its presence known now. I couldn’t ever imagine a time when I would like the moon less than I did at that very moment. I could hear him sampling the air with his nose. If I thought I could smear more intestine over me without making any noise I would have. He was looking around and now leaning over. I could see moonlight glint off the milky gray cataracts that completely covered his eyes. My body went rigid when he sent a shriek through me. The rest of the zombies had gone still as they waited for the brushes to be beaten and the rabbit to start fleeing. My heart was pistoning like an overtaxed engine—that scream pressed directly on my adrenal gland; prickles of heat flared through me. Without a doubt, I knew to run meant death, yet I desperately wanted to. These screaming zombies had nailed some primal part of human psyche that demanded flight.
Fighting against instinct, I stayed put. The Nike zombie took a step or two down the length of myself and my zombie-stench covering. He leaned down again. Scanning, sniffing...he got down onto his knees. I almost reacted again when he leaned in and took a small sampling bite of the zombie on top of me. I wonder if his slogan was Just Eat It, probably signed a multi-million dollar contract with the shoe company; I can’t imagine a tiny apocalypse infringing on the shoe giant’s business permanently. This one knew something was here, he just hadn’t wrestled the answer out yet. I would have sat up and shoved my knife into his temple if not for the dozens of his teammates streaming past. I imagined they were following the sounds of my sister’s hasty retreat. My panic, which was already at a pretty high threshold—red-lining even—was ratcheted up a notch. I was not sure how much more I could ask of my circulatory system as it force pumped my blood at rates of speed that I didn’t think my heart capable of handling.
Nike zombie was moving my cover, the zombie above me was rocking back and forth. I had gripped his sides trying to keep Nike from flipping him over and off. The movement of my hands, or maybe a whiff of the new scent as they came out from underneath, seemed to pique his interest. He stopped; the air sampling began again. This one was not going to get bored and leave.
“Just fucking great.” I thought. “I have to get a zombie with OCD.”
There were still the flat footfalls of zombies all around as they stumbled past, looking for us. What I’d first figured to be dozens seemed to more likely be hundreds, this was an impressive horde. I don’t understand why they were assembling in such great numbers. With their food source so scarce, I couldn’t imagine that when they finally did land something that many of them would get more than a morsel. The only thing saving me from zombies right now was a zombie. Nike finally stood; I mistakenly thought he’d got sick of this game and was distracted by something. Nope, not this one. He was like a damned pit bull—he couldn’t let go, like his damn jaw had locked on to a hand and nothing short of a crowbar to the skull was going to make him release his grip. I’d not been expecting the next maneuver, so when he grabbed the dead zombie’s leg and pulled down, I was exposed, at least my head and the top of my shoulders, before I could grab the zombie’s head and keep him from being yanked completely off me.
Those walking past seemed to slow, but I couldn’t honestly tell; I was a little preoccupied. It could have been that everything was speeding up inside of me so much that all else slowed in comparison. Nike was apparently content with his work; he’d stopped pulling. In the pale burgeoning light, I could tell he was
looking at me. Damn near saw his thought process, too. No other zombies knew I was here. Telling them would be tantamount to calling your buddies to a chicken wing party before you’d had your fair portion. If he told them now, he would have to share his boon with all of them; he’d be lucky if he got a phalange to eat on his own. Nice to see zombies weren’t above greed; it meant their humanity was in there somewhere. He didn’t even look around to make sure he wasn’t going to be busted. He just went for it, pitching forward like he’d been shoved over. One of the most bizarre strike attempts I’d ever seen—good enough he’d caught me by surprise and almost got to eat some cheek meat before I could thwart him. I’d got my arms out just in time to absorb his fall; the weight of him had pushed my arms out and we were close enough that when he stuck his tongue out, the blackened appendage dragged across my lips.
Eliza’s kiss had been a welcome, tender filled moment in comparison. His tongue was rough, like a cat’s, and the smell—well, you can probably imagine. Although, when you would have ever had the opportunity to stick your nose in week-old skunk roadkill is beyond me. After his sampling, I can only assume he liked what he’d tasted. He growled as he tried to push closer, I involuntarily turned my head as he got abundantly nearer my nose. Seems Nike zombie was big into ‘roids, he was stronger than he should have been. Either that, or zombies in general were increasing in strength, another weapon in their expanding arsenal. Of all the evolutions, that required some of the easiest changes—just a synapse break in the brain, apparently. My understanding is that sane humans are their own strength inhibitors. That’s why crazy fucks are insanely strong, although, I don’t know how much weight that theory holds. If it’s true, then I should be able to lift cars and Trip, well, Trip should be able to juggle elephants.