“Hold up. I’m worried about this thing waking up and biting one of us. Does the virus spread the same with these ghouls?”
“I don’t know, man. I think they ate some of the fucking dead flesh and the virus mutated in them or something. I haven’t heard of one of them biting anyone.”
“I’m not taking any chances.”
Yanking out the knife at my side, I used it to cut the thing’s sleeve off. We had to drop him, but he barely stirred. He smelled like rot, just like the zombies, but he had an undercurrent of something like old fish. His arm under the sleeve was white with massive patches of gray. He had open wounds that oozed pus, and I didn’t want one of those sores touching my clothing. It was bad enough having him between us.
I used the sleeve to gag the creature. It opened one eye, which blazed a shade of green. I wasn’t in the mood, so I drew back my arm and punched him in the temple. He went down like a sack of potatoes.
The barricade was buzzing when we got back. Men and women, armed to the teeth, patrolled the tops of cars and the perimeter. The air was filled with the shouts of the community as they came out of tents and houses.
“It’s Scott. Hold up!” My companion yelled as we approached. He raised one arm and waved it. I looked behind me at the mess we had left, but all I could see was a column of smoke slowly rising in the early morning breeze. The sky was crystal clear with the exception of a few light puffs of cloud.
People had long worried about the impact we had on the environment. That we were going to destroy it. One thing was for sure: Humans were a dying race, a breed that was bound to pass on like so many that had come before, but the earth would still be here long after us.
Lisa was on top of a car, staring down an automatic barrel at us. My skin crawled as she drew a bead on me. I wondered what she made of the ghoul, wondered if she was thinking of blowing us away just for hauling it back. Trust was hard to come by nowadays.
She would be right to kill him and us. I wondered if I would do the same in her shoes. I realized what a mistake it was to bring this thing with us. I should have ended him when we were back at the house, but this was an opportunity to study our enemies’ leaders. What sort of information could we learn?
“What the fuck is that?” she yelled as we drew within fifteen feet.
“One of the ghouls.”
“What?” Coming off the car, she slid to the ground in a neat, practiced move.
She came at us with assault rifle raised, stopping a few feet away before she lowered it to her waist. The gears were spinning—I could see it in her eyes as she considered what we had brought with us. This was a great opportunity; she had to see that.
“You can’t bring that ghoul in. Lay it out and take care of it, then drag the body somewhere. I don’t want to see the thing.”
She turned to leave.
“Wait!” I set the unconscious creature down on the ground. Scott leaned over to help, then straightened and stretched until something popped in his back.
“Heavy mother fucker,” he grunted.
“What? You think that thing is going to come in here? Maybe we can feed it, give it a room to stay in? Maybe we can ask its name and treat it like family, the way we did with you and Katherine last night?”
She had a point, but the tactical advantage had to outweigh the risk. We could learn so much from this ghoul. We could find out how they controlled the zombies, how they lived, where they lived, and how many there were. I was afraid to admit that the ghouls might have some sort of organization, that they might be living in groups and communicating, like we did. If that were true, then we would need to find and eliminate them, because they would certainly be unwilling to peacefully share the world with us. They would want to destroy us—or worse, gather us up like they were farming cattle.
“We need to find out if they’re organized. We need to learn everything we can. Don’t you have a secure room where we can keep him while we gather intel?”
“Gather intel? Is that another word for torture?”
“What the hell does it matter if we torture this thing? It’s not even human.”
“I can give fuck all about him. I don’t want him in the camp.”
I wanted to chalk up her reaction to being a woman, but that wasn’t it, and it would be cheap to think so. Lisa had worked very hard to maintain this enclave in the midst of hopelessness. She had been a beacon for the survivors, given them a place to gather and live together as a family. They relied on each other. They protected each other, and I had no doubt that each would sacrifice himself or herself for the others. It reminded me of the military, and that was why I felt so attached to them after only one day. I couldn’t betray them, but I didn’t want to lose valuable information we could learn from the ghoul.
A scream from ahead drew my attention toward the end of the road. There were a couple of zombies headed in our direction. A loud moan filled the air and lifted the hair on the back of my neck. I looked down at the ghoul, and his eyes were open and glowing.
“Are you doing that?” I wondered how intelligent he was.
“You will die,” he hissed in a burst of foul breath that made me want to turn aside and throw up.
I looked back, and there were more of them. They were filling the street, heading in our direction. I considered the ghoul—this man that used to be human but was now some sort of monster. Who was I to become judge, jury, and executioner?
“Call them off or I’ll blow your brains all over the road. You want to die?” Pulling my handgun, I pressed the barrel to his head.
“I’m already dead … just like you. You just don’t … know … it.”
His speech pattern was a mess. He could only choke out a few words before wheezing.
“Fuck! How do you do it? How do you call and control them?”
“Why are you still... among the living?”
White rage filled my vision. It tore across my eyes and filled them with hatred for this thing. He was human once, like me, like all of us, but he had no humanity left. He was worse than an animal. He was a demon that needed to be put down.
I was holding his collar as I kept his head off the ground. Dropping him, I stood and blew his head open with a pair of rounds that turned the concrete red and gray, like a bowl of putrid spaghetti had been spilled.
More moans filled the air. I did a full turn as I took in the hordes that were closing in on us. I saw five or six coming in every direction, with more behind them. A shambling army of rotted dead that walked like living men and women. Their cries and snarls filled me with more rage. This was not supposed to happen!
“Call everyone back!” Lisa yelled.
A pulsing sound ripped through the air, like they had routed a semi’s air horn into an air raid siren. Houses opened on all sides, and people came streaming out and into the street. They were strapping on clothes, packs, guns—it was a perfect example of organized chaos. There must have been thirty people, which would put the population of the enclave at something like seventy. Would it be enough?
Scott grabbed my arm and tugged at me. I stared at the ghoul on the ground as the light left its eyes. The body didn’t even twitch; it just lay listless like it had been on a morgue table for days.
The rage washed over me, but I used it rather than let it take over. I had met men who would go blind with rage in the heat of battle and make mistakes. Blind anger was a powerful tool, but it could lead to mistakes. There would be no mistakes. I was going to mold the rage.
Forcing down the adrenaline shakes, I took a deep breath, then another, before focusing on the zombies coming at us. Men and women with horrible wounds that no longer bled. Strips of flesh hung over rotted clothing as they came after us.
Lifting the rifle, I stared down the iron sights at a man dressed in a suit. His tie was still pulled up tight, but most of his shirt was missing. I put one in his forehead, and he fell back without a sound.