I did my best to head in a westerly direction. I had affixed a tiny compass I found in the tip of a survival knife to the stock of the gun, and I followed it west. When I came to a fallen tree, I had to lower the gun to slide over it. As I came up from a crouch, I caught movement ahead.
The ground here was covered in pine needles, and each step was a crunch that sounded, to my ears, like I was stepping on bubble wrap. I kept expecting a group of the dead to swarm me as I crept toward them.
It reminded me of the day I came across the zombie in the woods near the cabin. Katherine and I had been together then, and I was fiercely protective of her, even though she would have likely picked up an axe and buried it in the thing’s head as fast as I would have.
The zombie was near the ground, low, and it was grunting. I assumed it was a man from his frame. Big and blocky, but bent over. If he wasn’t a zombie, I hoped it didn’t stand up too fast and end up with a bullet in his head.
With my thumb, I snapped the safety off. The click was so loud, I was sure everyone in a one-mile radius heard it, but the guy kept on doing whatever he was doing.
I drew to within a few feet of the man before he pulled up from the ground long enough for me to get an idea of what I was dealing with. It wasn’t even male. It was a woman with a bloated body, grunting over a prize. Her mouth was covered in blood and viscera; she chewed a mass of congealed matter while blood leaked down her chin and onto the ground. The sound was disturbing, like hearing a bear chew on a hunk of flesh.
She drew back, showing her teeth, and moaned. I kept my cool and shouldered the weapon. Reaching to my waist, I retrieved a long machete that had turned up at the slaughterhouse. It was stained red, but not from rust. I suspected they put animals down with it, probably with a slice across the throat. The most impressive thing had been the edge. It was almost sharp enough to split a hair. It did a good job of lifting the hair off a patch of my arm.
She moaned and snarled, but I wasn’t in the mood for zombie bullshit. I didn’t give her a chance to turn around and stand up. Instead, I moved forward and stepped to the side, so the overhanging tree wouldn’t stop my blow, then I buried the blade in the side of her head.
Adrenaline and the rancid aftertaste of energy drinks made me want to throw up. The sound was like hitting a cantaloupe with a knife. It sank in deep, and when I tried to withdraw it, the damn thing stuck.
I held on with both hands as her body spasmed. Still, to this day, I do not understand why massive damage to the brain kills the creatures. They are already dead; removing a limb just makes them mad. But for some reason, when you put some lead—or a blade—in their brainpans, they go down like a sack of potatoes.
It was the same for this one. She hit the ground and didn’t get back up. I got a glance at her prize, which was a leg. The end was partially eaten away, but it was still dressed. Male or female, I couldn’t tell from the shredded foot that was just a mass of gore hanging from the end. I turned away before the sight could get to me. After many months of this, I should be used to it. So much for having an iron gut.
There was a pair of zombies wandering near the edge of the woods, but I avoided them and moved farther along the perimeter. Within moments, I found what I was looking for.
By the light of day, it wasn’t nearly as ominous, but it was still the camp, and it still looked like a scene of hell. The cages lay like discarded hunks of metal, and some still housed inhabitants. We might have missed them during our escape, or they might have brought more people in during the night.
I came in at the wrong angle, and now I couldn’t see the little shack where the ghouls hung out. I would have to kill any that got in my way as I burned a path of destruction through the maze. Caution would be needed, and Scott and I had already discussed that. I didn’t want any of my fellow humans dying. Some might even be from Lisa’s band of survivors, and that would weight heavy on my already addled mind.
The only deaths I wanted to cause would help finish the job that God started with these things. I wanted them all on the ground, no longer moving.
The strangest thing in that strange day happened. A plane buzzed overhead. It was a small Cessna—something I hadn’t seen in a good long time. The tiny craft dipped low, slowed, and scanned the camp. I crouched down and took aim, just in case. But what in the world was I going to do? Shoot down a potential ally? If it held friends of Lee, then that might be a different story, but I doubted his ragtag group could muster up a pilot and organize flights to find him. It was only fifteen hours or so since I had kicked his ass out of the truck.
What did the airplane signify? Was there an organized base of some sort nearby? Maybe they were getting ready to fuel bomb the sight and I was about to join my enemies in a massive pyre.
Some of the dead paused in their aimless ambling. They looked up and considered the propelled bird, and then moved along again. I marked five or six right away and began to build up a map in my head. The topography of the piece of land left minimal cover. Lucky for me, I wouldn’t need it. Our plan was simple. I would provide a distraction to draw in the Z’s, start cutting them down, and then the guys would come in and take care of stragglers. Once we had most of them gathered close, it would be a slaughter.
That was the plan, but I knew from past experience that no part of a plan went as intended once that first shot was fired.
I skirted farther into the trees as the plane roared away in the distance. The wind shifted, and I got a whiff of the dead, the dying, and the rot of those left in the cages. Some had been forgotten or refused to do the bidding of the ghouls. Their lifeless bodies clutched bars or lay curled up. One, a woman, judging from her frame and remaining clothes, clutched a child to her chest. Her body was wasted, head covered in pus and scabs. Her desiccated arms latched onto the smaller person in a death grip. The child, who appeared to be about three, squirmed in her embrace. His eyes, green and glowing, shone with malevolent intent. I shuddered and moved in.
There was a group of them standing over a still body. They had torn off most of the person’s flesh, one arm, and part of a leg. I counted seven or eight of the things and decided it was a good place to start.
Slinging the rifle over my back, I checked my two handguns. I patted each magazine on my chest as I confirmed where everything lay. On each shoulder, a pair of green eggs sat. I had taken the time on the ride over to wrap the metal parts in strips of cloth, so they didn’t clink when I moved. Two came free in my hands.
The pin came out with a click that sounded as loud as a gunshot in my head. Well it was too late now; I was already moving away from cover to deliver my first volley.
With a large stride, I came out from behind a huge oak and swung my arm forward. The grenade flew in an arc that fell just short of the undead. After I popped the other pin, I moved one step closer. This one landed just to the side of one of the zombies. It looked at it, but nothing stirred in that brain. Nothing to tell it to move, jump, or just get the fuck out of the way. It stared at it like a curiosity.
The first explosion ripped the air in a ball of hate and high-speed shrapnel. I was already behind the large tree, trying to make myself as small as possible. Pieces of metal accelerated by the explosion whizzed past me, as did chunks of the dead. When I peeked around the corner, a scene from a nightmare greeted me. Some had been blown apart, while others had lost limbs and were still moving on the ground. There wasn’t much blood, owing to their strange physiology, but they still came apart just like normal humans.
One, bereft of its legs, crawled away, so I shot it first. Gun up, forehead sighted, the stock hammered into my shoulder as I put the thing down. Then I aimed and fired until I had finished most of them off.