The blade struck the middle of his face with a crack, and he stopped in his tracks. I braced my foot against his chest and pulled the blade out with a watery chuuup that made my hair stand on end. The Undead fell backward into the dirt and lay there like a turtle on its back. I hit him a second time. The blade penetrated deep into his skull and destroyed his brain. The Undead kicked a couple of times and finally lay still.
I gasped, trying to catch my breath. It took me three tries to get the blade out of his head. Holding the bloody ax out in front of me, I headed for the house. I must’ve looked like a crazed psychopath.
I crossed the porch, eased open the front door, and peered inside. Two years’ worth of dust covered the furniture. Outlined in the dust on the floor were halting footprints. My heart racing, I followed those tracks to the kitchen.
The trail led to an Undead woman standing beside a fireplace. When she saw me, she rushed forward but tripped over a stool and fell in a heap. Not hesitating for a second, I hit her with the ax over and over till her head was a mass of bone and brains.
I plopped down on a couch, sending up a cloud of dust. I calmly picked up a crumpled pack of Marlboros lying on the coffee table and lit a cigarette. I amazed myself. I’d taken out two monsters in five minutes, and my pulse was pretty steady. Strange… a while back, I couldn’t have imagined doing something like that.
The Undead’s blood meandered through the grit on the floor. When it reached my shoe, it branched off and disappeared under the couch. I threw the cigarette on the floor after just two puffs. I’d suddenly lost interest in smoking.
I walked around the house but didn’t find anyone else. In the basement, I got a wonderful surprise: a freezer filled with huge cuts of beef. My mouth watered. That night I’d have a first-class dinner.
I still had to check out the barn. I went back outside and crossed the yard to the large red wood building. Two vultures were gorging on the scattered brains of the cowboy I’d just killed. The birds studied me, but made no move to fly away. They’d lost their fear of humans. I noticed how fat and shiny they were. No wonder—there was no shortage of food.
The barn door was locked with a heavy padlock. I cursed under my breath. The key had to be around somewhere, but I didn’t have the time or inclination to search. I drew the Beretta and fired at the padlock. The frightened vultures flew off, squawking indignantly. The shot sounded like thunder and probably echoed for miles, but I didn’t care. There wasn’t anyone—or anything—around.
The interior of the barn was dark and very cool, but I was surprised at how humid the air was. I looked around and discovered why. A water pump at the back of the building had burst; water was spurting out of a well. A small lake had formed in the back of the barn and was disappearing under the wall, into the parched dirt.
Grain stored in the barn had sprouted in that damp air; the grain sacks had burst, filling the barn with a strange, vegetal smell. In the middle of the lake, a huge John Deere tractor sat dormant, waiting for a harvest that was years overdue.
I cautiously circled the tractor and spotted something large covered with a white sheet, wedged between a workbench and a rolled-up, moth-eaten orange rug. I walked around the table and the rug and pulled off the sheet.
“Thank you, God! Thank you!”
Under that sheet were two shiny motorcycles.
An hour later, the sun was setting and night was falling on the Double J Ranch. I was back in the barn, sitting in front of a fire, grilling some fantastic steaks.
Lucullus was sleeping peacefully, softly snoring, as near the fire as he could get without singeing his fur. I’d cleaned his wound, changed the dressing, and injected him with a tiny bit of the antibiotic I’d found. I’d tried to calculate the amount according to his weight, and prayed that it didn’t kill him. The antibiotic seemed to be working. My little friend looked much better than he had in days. His tail was still a bit infected, but he was going to pull through, even if he’d left one of his nine lives on the road.
I was ecstatic as I gazed upon my new acquisitions: a huge, heavy Honda Goldwing and a small, ugly 125cc Korean dirt bike.
The Goldwing gleamed in the firelight. It was one of those sturdy touring bikes with a wide seat and a handlebar covered in dials. It was built for riding thousands of miles and was in superb condition. Of course the Goldwing was my first choice, but it had two problems. First, the battery was completely dead, and its fuel-injection engine would never start without a battery. Second, it was big and unwieldy. It’d be perfect on the open road, but I needed something more nimble to speed away from the traffic jams I knew I’d encounter along the way.
So I turned to the Korean Daystar dirt bike with its cheap finish. I’d never heard of that brand, but it was small, light, and rugged looking. Best of all, it had an engine I could kick-start.
I flipped the steaks and went over to the motorcycle. I rolled it to the center of the barn and got on. I gave it a shake and found that the tank was full. Perfect. I put it in neutral and tried to kick-start it. After being parked for two years, the engine sputtered and coughed and wouldn’t start. I pulled out the spark plug, cleaned it, and put it back in. I got back on the bike and stomped hard on the kick-starter. The engine sprang to life with a raspy sound; black smoke blew out the exhaust pipe. I smiled, relieved, and revved the engine a couple of times. The bike gave a somewhat muted roar, but it was still a roar. I roared, too! I had transportation out of there!
I jumped off the bike and did a silly Irish jig around the barn, too ecstatic to stand still.
Suddenly, the orange rug groaned. I let out a startled yelp and collapsed next to the fire, my heart pounding. Surely I hadn’t heard right.
The rug groaned again. I tore through my pack searching for the gun, knocking the steaks into the coals. The smell of burning flesh filled the air as I held the Beretta with trembling hands.
The rug growled again and, this time, moved a little. I approached cautiously, not taking my eyes off that mound of rotting fabric. When I looked closer, every hair on my head stood on end.
It was no rug. It was a damned Undead. What I’d thought was fabric was actually a huge colony of orange fungus that had quickly spread over the thing’s entire body in that damp, dark barn.
I recalled that the barn had been locked from the outside. This person must’ve been the first to be transformed. The other two people on the ranch didn’t have the guts to kill him. Were they his parents? His brother and sister? So they locked him in the barn, not knowing that TSJ was coursing through their veins too. And there the creature stayed, slowly rotting, till I arrived.
I wondered why the thing didn’t move. I approached cautiously, bracing myself for any sudden movement. I could see that the fungus had eaten away most of the person’s muscles. Man? Woman? Impossible to tell. It couldn’t stand up or move what was left of its muscles. It was just a skeleton, wrapped in a thick orange down, barely covered by what flesh the fungus hadn’t eaten yet. Protected inside the skull, the Undead’s brain would last to the end. That couldn’t be much longer.
It was a horrible sight. I couldn’t imagine a worse agony.
I couldn’t take my eyes off that wreck of a person. Where its head should’ve been was a lump that followed my movements. Its eyes were long gone and probably its inner ear, too, but somehow it sensed I was there. It was fascinating and repulsive at the same time.
I pondered what this development meant for all the Undead. I doubted it was a special case. If the fungus had swallowed up and nearly destroyed that Undead, why wouldn’t all the others suffer the same fate sooner or later? At least the ones in humid, warm climates where fungus grew easily.