The monsters rose up, making sounds neither Napro nor Teva had ever heard before. No living creature could have shrieked the way these things were shrieking now. It was a sound exclusive to the dead, dying once again.
Napro was finally able to struggle to his feet, though he immediately sank to his knees again. He cried out in pain and used his spear as leverage to help him stand once more.
Teva kept the zombies at bay. The ones who were not already burning were clearly frightened of the flames and Napro thought he could see a war between fear and hunger raging in their eyes. Teva rushed to him, scanning his body with her gaze and he saw her wince at the sight of his injuries. Their eyes met knowingly and Napro said, “The cave. Help me back.”
Teva nodded, her wild hair framing her face as she wrapped her free arm around Napro’s waist and waved the flame at the zombies who dared to get too close for her liking.
Walking backwards, they moved slowly in the direction of their home, Teva constantly whipping her head around to be certain no zombies approached from any side. Whether or not she’d seen Gel’s body, Napro didn’t know. If so, she’d made no reaction. She was concentrating on the task at hand, battling the undead and half-dragging her mate to safety. Napro was certain that if she had seen their son, the sight had not completely registered with her and when it finally did, all the fight would leave her body, as it had almost done to him.
The closer they came to the patch of land where they lived, the thinner the forest became, the rockier the terrain and there were several times when Teva tripped, unable to pay full attention to her footing, and almost brought them both down.
The zombies continued to shuffle along after them, grunting and groaning their displeasure at the dangerous fire she threatened them with when they dared to try to close the distance between them.
Although Teva was strong for a woman, her muscles firm against his body, Napro felt them tighten even further when another scream reached them. Their eyes met, bright with terror. There was no mistaking the screamer: Rani.
Together, they tried to move faster.
When they reached the cave area, the first thing they saw was a dead zombie near the spot where Napro had hung animal skins to dry. The monster was burned black, barely recognizable as human.
“Rani had a torch,” Teva said. “I told her to protect Zic.”
But the girls were nowhere to be found. Perhaps they were huddled and hiding deep within the cave? Maybe buried beneath bedding and skins? Or had they run back into the forest?
Their questions were answered when Rani screamed once more and they hurried in the direction of the scream, around the far side of the cave where the stream gently gurgled.
What they found made Teva gasp and forget her mate, rushing towards their daughter and letting him fall to the ground. He shrieked in agony, but his eyes never left Rani, perched in a tree and brandishing her torch at the zombie beneath her. Terror and anguish seized his heart when he saw that the zombie was the old medicine man they had taken in.
Fee clawed at the tree in an attempt to reach Rani, his fingernails ripping off his fingertips as they scratched down the bark. He didn’t seem to notice, but continued to howl in frustration, his prey just out of reach.
Napro saw the old man’s throat had been chewed open, a ragged red hole gaped on the left side, just beneath his jaw. He must have bled out quickly but then what? It was the first time it had occurred to Napro that they were in danger of turning into one of the undead themselves. His thoughts turned to Gel, back there in the woods. Would he come shambling out, torn to shreds but still filled with bloodlust? Napro didn’t understand how this could happen, but clearly it could. The evidence stood before him, trying feebly to climb a tree and devour his middle offspring.
Teva raced towards Fee, jabbing her own torch at him. He caught fire easier than the others had, his scraps of clothing and long, greasy hair bursting into flame instantly. The zombie that had been their friend careened around, almost as if he were engaged in some ancient tribal dance, slapping at his head and then his face, as his beard also began to burn.
Sobbing, Rani clung to the trunk of the tree, her eyes wider than Napro had ever seen them, sitting on a thick branch that was several heads taller than Napro himself.
The three of them watched Fee prance, screaming unintelligible words, until at last he fell forward on his face, knocking his head hard against a jutting rock.
The flaming zombie’s screeching had encouraged the other zombies to keep their distance from the family but now they found their bravery again, venturing forth from the edge of the forest, rounding the side of the cave and moving forward as though of the same mind.
They seemed to be focused on Teva—perhaps the one they perceived to be the biggest threat. She shouted, wielding the torch once more, demanding they stay back, but the torch’s flame was not as strong as it had been, and continued to weaken by the second.
The monsters also seemed to notice this and advanced on her the way Napro had seen packs of wolves advance on a lone bear. The wolves had known there would be injuries or even loss of life, but that had not dissuaded them in the slightest. They would have their prey regardless.
From his vantage point on the ground, Napro watched the zombies surround Teva, just as they had surrounded Gel and when she began to scream, he began to scream right along with her, oblivious to the fact that Rani was also screaming.
It was when her mother’s head was separated from her body that Rani lost consciousness and fell from the high branch directly into the mass of feasting undead below. If she awoke at all when the first set of teeth sunk into the soft flesh of her young throat, she made no sound to indicate it.
Napro, his own vision beginning to fail, finally stopped screaming, noticing for the first time how cold he’d become. He shivered against the ground and did his best to ignore the wet tearing sounds coming from the circle of zombies that enclosed the remains of his clan.
Eventually, the sounds stopped and he was grateful that it would now be his turn to die. The only thing he regretted was not knowing what had happened to his youngest daughter, little Zic, and what it was that had made the gods so angry to befall such a punishment on them.
To his astonishment, he awoke briefly to get at least one of his answers.
Perhaps the zombies had assumed he was already dead and went in search of fresh meat. All he knew was that the world was quiet for a time. He gazed up at the blue, blue sky for he didn’t know how long, until the sound of shuffling feet tore his attention away from all that gorgeous empty space.
He turned his head a fraction and saw Zic’s twin approaching him, so small and fragile looking. And so very dead. Letting out a long heavy sigh, he waited for her to reach him, giving thanks to all the gods that it would be she who finally finished him.
Barely able to hold his eyes open, he was uncertain when he saw movement behind the dead child. He blinked several times before he became convinced that what he saw was real and he knew that it would be the last thing he ever laid eyes on: tiny Zic, her own eyes dark and feral, sneaking up behind her dead twin, an impossibly huge stone clutched in her little hands and held high above her head for a fraction of a second before coming down fast, instantly crushing a tiny skull the same size as her own.
HIT THE WALL
David Dunwoody
“We’re under attack.”