I let her talk.
“We had a lot of guns, but this time they came late at night. They were silent, and they just walked over the cars and barricades. By the time the alarm went off, there were too many of them. We tried to fight, but they kept swarming the camp.”
Smart of them—quiet and at night. I tried to imagine a less organized group than the one I had been in. How long had it taken them to grow complacent and lax in their patrols? As the batteries wore out, had they been forced to use less of the flashlights? Maybe they didn’t have enough fuel to run generators all night. This required a lot of organization. Lisa’s group was always on guard. That is, until I came along.
Of course, that had been my fault. Bringing the ghoul there had been a terrible mistake. I should have killed the green-eyed bastard when I had the chance. Should have left his head split like a melon and returned to camp. What did I gain? I had the picture of me and Allison and some fruit, but that was all gone now. All gone and me with it, because I was sure I would die sooner rather than later.
Darkness all around. That was the new world in which we lived. It was devoid of life and love; these things that had been human were washing away the old world and recreating it in their own rotted image. Their lack of humanity and love was appalling. How many had gone to church? Worked as cops, maybe doctors and nurses? Or just Joe Everyday who gets up for work and kisses his kids and wife goodbye, only to become one of these things.
I wanted to cleanse the earth of them.
I’ve never had much love for causes. But right now, I wanted to take every gun I could find and kill every one of the things. Fuck them and fuck what they had done to my world.
“Gotta get out,” I mumbled and realized she had stopped talking. I seemed to have drifted off and was muttering to myself. The girl was staring at me with those big eyes that bored into my head like a drill. My vision swam, and all I wanted to do was lie down and sleep for the rest of the day. Just put my head down and call it. After a midday siesta, everything would make sense again.
A voice in the back of my head screamed it was bad to let someone with a concussion sleep, but I silenced it with a loud “shhh” that may have come from my mouth and may have come from inside. Either way, it silenced the voice and I laid my head down on the filth and slept.
I didn’t dream.
It was dark when I came to. Jerking upright, I reached for my mouth. A line of spittle rolled down the side of my face. It felt like a bug, and that freaked me out. As I rose off the cold ground, I may have let out a little cry. My head still hurt, as did my throat and back. I shivered violently and curled up into a ball. It was so cold. The earth beneath me was hard and unforgiving as it leached more warmth from my body. I shivered again, and my body took that as a cue to shake all over.
Scott was having a similar reaction, so I went to him and wrapped my body close to his. We may have been strong men, but I should have done this when I first woke. No attraction, no ulterior motives. I just wanted to get warm. The girl watched me from the opposite corner. Her dirty hair covered her forehead, but one luminous eye held my gaze. It didn’t blink for a long time. She shook just as we did. Lying next to Scott, I put his hand over my chest and pulled him tight. To the girl, I gestured, and after awhile, she rose and crept to me, snuggling into the crook of my body, but when I tried to put my arm around her, she stiffened. I laid it on my side, parallel to the ground.
The night was silent. No bugs chirped, no crickets called, and no animals moved in the underbrush. The only sound came from the zombies as they wandered around the camp. Sometimes I would hear them approach the cage and rest a hand or a forehead against it. They were probably staring at us like we were prime rib. I rolled my head to the side to stare at one who leaned forward, blood and gore leaking out of his mouth. Most of his forehead was missing. I gave him the finger, rolled back over, and went to sleep.
In the morning, things were no clearer, least of all the sky. Clouds had rolled in overnight. It was overcast and gray, reminding me of a fall day. It was a bit warmer thanks to the clouds keeping the heat in. I went to rub my eyes, but one look at my filthy hands dissuaded me. The girl stirred against me. Quietly I tried to extract myself from the little sandwich we had created, but my movement woke her. She turned her head and, for a moment, the filth covering her features made me think of the ghouls that stood outside our cage. I sat upright, and she scrambled away from me and into the corner.
“The fuck?” Scott’s voice came from behind me. He stared at me with huge eyes that looked none too friendly. I looked between the girl and him, and I couldn’t help it. I burst into laughter.
“You think this shit is funny?”
“The look on your face is. You should see it.”
Scott scowled and turned away, then he rolled over and sat up. He looked the way I felt—haggard and worn. The girl pressed herself to the edge of the cage and watched us from underneath a curtain of hair. She cried gently, mewing like a small animal. How long had she been in the cage? Yesterday she was barely coherent. Yesterday she was much as she appeared now. Small. Lost. Sad.
Another minute and she seemed to recognize me. Sleep probably dulled her mind. It had dulled mine, not to mention the affects of hunger and thirst. She gave me a half smile and slid across the ground to me. I held my hand out, and she shook it.
“Nice to meet choo,” she mumbled, and I nearly broke into tears.
“Just ‘cause we slept together don’t mean we are engaged,” Scott shot from behind me. I turned to regard him, and he had a big shit-eating grin on his face as well. For the first time since the attack, I felt like I was among friends. I felt like I was among the living.
An hour passed where we spoke in low whispers. The girl’s name was Haley, and she was seventeen. She told me a bit more about the area in which she had lived, and even spoke of her life before the coming of the zombies. She was not the typical teenager who was filled with angst and taken to brooding about being misunderstood. She participated in a drama class at school and even did some plays. Had been very close to her mother and father. Every time she mentioned them, she wept.
We sat together, the trio of us. Haley smiled every once in a while at one of Scott’s jokes. I smiled as well. It was a strange feeling to be happy in this cage where we should be huddling in misery, but it was like an unspoken bond had formed that would not let us succumb to despair.
Zombies walked past us, and sometimes one would stop and stare at us. A well-dressed man—except for the blood and missing ears, stopped in front of the cage and watched us for a long time. Scott tossed him one-liners: “What ju staring at, Pedro? What’s wrong? Zombie got your tongue?” He picked up clumps of the earth and tossed them at the cage. One flew through the bars and smacked the dead man in the face, but the corpse didn’t even acknowledge the blow.
For the last insult, Scott approached the bar, unzipped his pants, and peed all over the dead man. Haley had the good sense to look shocked. She turned her head and covered her eyes, but she was giggling.
Scott did a nice job of covering the man in urine, then he zipped up and took a seat with us once again. It was good to have some levity, but the gnawing hunger in my gut was getting to be a real problem. I was having pains that made me clench my hands and hold my stomach. Sometimes I shook uncontrollably, and sometimes I wanted to grab a chunk of dirt and stuff it in my mouth. Anything to fill that void.