by C.G. Banks
through the crowd and pushed a couple of em off the porch to see what we had here. A window was so caked over with gore I couldn’t see inside but that bone in the back of my throat was humming like a strummed guitar string. I looked down and noticed I’d drooled all over the front of my filthy shirt. About ten feet away, right before the porch ended in a collapsed pile of burned wood, was a door. Shut. Smeared handprints all over the motherfucker. But wasn’t nobody else down there. I shuffled over and tried the knob. Sure enough, unlocked. I shook my head and turned to look at the others milling around. Not one of em with sense God gave a goat.
And then there was me, the genius.
I shook my head and pushed the door open. The smell was gigantic inside and I just had to go check it out. That bone was striking up a band right now far back in the depths of my throat. I closed the door behind me so nobody else would wander inside. The foyer led straight back to what looked to be a massive living room. That’s where the smell was coming from. I lurched down the hall, completely forgetting myself in the wonderful miasma of smells and came up short at the entranceway.
I felt a little cold chill then when I looked around.
The room was piled high with bodies. There musta been close to a hundred. None of em moving. And I was reminded right then of not being the sharpest knife in the drawer. This whole goddamn place was a trap! I didn’t even have to look at em to know they’d all have at least one bullet hole in the head. And now the splattered wall peppered with bullet holes outside made a lot more sense.
Liv-ers.
Motherfuck.
It was right about then I heard the first gunshot. Then two more in quick succession. Oh yeah, they’d piled all these bodies in here to attract us like bugs to a light, and when the numbers got right, why here they’d come. And it looked like they were here now. And me, the dumbass, walking around right in the middle of everything. Fuck. At least I wasn’t outside. From the sound of it outside was definitely not a place to be.
The Liv-ers were shouting and shooting. And even though I was the dumb fuck who’d walked right in the front door of the mousetrap I still didn’t think I was done just yet. Why there was that big pile of bodies right there in front of me. Godawful for them that was outside shooting but inside here with me, shit it might as well have been Christmas.
I figure whoever was out there would waste all the available mudheads and then drag em in here to keep the stink percolating. All I had to do was burrow into the mess and wait for the Liv-ers to leave. Not bad for a mudhead like me. And damn it was starting to get heated up out there. Yelling and screaming, guns going off like firecrackers. Somebody musta missed what they were aiming at because I heard glass shatter somewhere far off in the house. Then a minute later, the sound of footsteps up on the porch. Time to start digging.
As I said the room was just scatter-filled with bodies. Looked like they had started a big pile right there in the center but I guess as the smell got worse they weren’t so keen on keeping things neat. It looked like the last few times they’d just dragged the mudheads down the hall and let em lie where they got shoved. I could understand that, what’s candy to me is rot to them.
But I didn’t know who or what was up on that porch. Deader or Live-er. From the shots fired outside I didn’t figure many mudheads were left. If any.
I stepped over a couple of bodies, making my way to the center of the room where the pile was. Because it was so haphazard there was plenty of space to crawl up in so I just crouched down on one knee, pulled an arm out of the way, and kinda nose-dived right on in there. I figured I didn’t need to get too deep, just in good enough to cover my head. I didn’t figure when they came to dump the rest of the Deaders they’d hang around long but who the hell knew? I just needed to get my head hidden. It didn’t have a bullet hole in it and that was the mark of Cain around here.
Wasn’t a coupla minutes later the front door burst open. There was a lot more yelling and hollering but I couldn’t make out much of what they was saying. Almost like a foreign language really. I kinda knew what dogs must feel like laying there in that pile of rot.
I had just snapped off a finger and was chewing it real good when I heard em making their way down the hall. I quit chewing. Got real still. Closed my eyes just in case one of em reckoned himself a detective. Then they started tossing the bodies into the room and I’d been right. Wasn’t none of em getting close to me. I even heard one guy puking in the hall. I’m telling you it was thick in there. Amid the yelling and cursing I guess it took em about ten, fifteen minutes to get all the mudheads in. Then they were gone like a flash and I couldn’t blame em none.
I laid there in the pile for another good little while. Soaking in the smell. Looking around at all the flesh piled up around me. That bone in my throat was singing full chorus and I did take a few samples besides that little side-dish finger. It don’t feel as bad for me when I eat the dead. It’s the Living that gives me the creeps. So I finished my snack, wriggled around in there for a bit more just for the hell of it, and round about dark I squeezed out to leave.
I was still a little worried about the crew outside, but I figured now, in the night, in the woods, this would probably be the last place on the list they’d want to be. I mean, let’s face it, we are some creepy motherfuckers. And I still had a little worrying to do. That was a killing party. Of Live-ers. Hell, it’d been weeks since I’d seen even a group of two of em together and here in the middle of the woods there musta been a whole handful from all the yelling and shooting. And here I’d been thinking it was just mostly us Deaders left.
I’d have to be damn careful.
I eased over toward the entranceway to the foyer and kinda peeked my head around. It was all dark clear through to the door. Which was closed. I was kinda half-hoping they’da left that open. I thought about turning around and trying to get out through the back way but they’d boarded up the windows mostly and I’d’ve had to make a shitload of noise pulling the boards off. So no, the front door.
And if this was it? Well, in the long run it didn’t really seem to matter all that much.
With that thought in mind I turned the knob and pulled the door back. Tunnel dark outside. Nothing moving. I thought about trip wires and such shit but recalled there’d been nothing coming in. Then I reminded myself how fucking stupid most of us are and that quieted me down. This was a simple operation. They piled a house high with stink and when the mudheads came around in numbers the Live-ers rolled in and cleaned house.
I made my way out to the porch. Eased down to where the stairs were. Shuffled off to the back edge of the yard and turned around. Thought about burning this motherfucker down like I done to momma’s house…but no. I didn’t want to go inviting disaster. I had no idea where the Live-ers were and I damn sure didn’t want to stir that ant bed.
I walked all night and didn’t see another damn thing. Living or dead.
Right at morning I came to the river. Wasn’t a big one, more like a stream with an attitude really and I followed it. I came up on the Deader a short time later. I could tell from the distance it wasn’t no Liv-er because it was naked. Now, since everything went to hell in a hand basket I’ve seen a good share of naked Deaders but never naked Live-ers. Let’s face it, it’s bad enough to be chased and eaten by zombies but being chased and eaten naked, well that’s just an indignity few will suffer willingly.
He was about a hundred yards up from me. Fishing looked like. Now in case you forgot, we tend to do the same things in death that we done in life. Teaching, doctoring, delivering the mail. Fishing. The only thing that really gets our blood up is walking, living flesh. That can definitely put a jump in our step. But other zombies? Don’t hardly rate attention anymore. I saw him move his head when I come on but he didn’t stop what he was doing. Then the closer I got the weirder his back looked. Feathered like. Then I almost had to laugh because he was fishing but it appeared the only thing he was catching was himself. There musta been fifty or sixty fly baits stuck in h
is back. He had the drive but he didn’t have the skill, musta been. He’d go to throw the bait and sure enough, nine times outta ten that damn thing would hitch up in his back. Then he’d slowly sit down on a bucket, carefully cut the line, and rebait. And within minutes he’da hooked himself again.
I will say one thing, that sonofabitch had more patience than any other Deader I seen before or since. I even walked up a little closer to get a good laugh, and a good goddamn if he didn’t almost get me too. Fucking bait whizzed past my ear like a hornet and ended up snagging in his ear. He sat right down on the bucket and began fucking with it. I picked up a rock and lobbed it at the sonofabitch myself. Be damned if it didn’t land in the dirt by his foot, and even with me standing fifteen feet away, the mudhead looked the other direction. I tell ya, even under the new standards, that was one dumb somebitch.
I didn’t feel like losing an eye so I shuffled off down the bank. Got a hankering to cross over and I still don’t know why. Didn’t look like there was anything over there that wasn’t over here, but like I said, I ain’t the sharpest knife in the drawer myself. And the stream’s attitude had gotten a little nastier by this time. I just come around a bend and the