“There’s no one out here.”
“Yeah. Now. There was a few minutes ago.”
“You been hitting the ganja?” Joel asked.
“Not today. I swear, man, I heard something.”
“They’re gone now. Get some sleep. We need to leave in a couple of hours.”
“Yeah. I’ll do my best.”
When Joel left I dragged my mattress next to the sliding glass door and left it cracked open so the breeze rolled over me, but also so I could hear anyone approaching. The thin bit of breeze helped, but I was a long way from anything resembling sleep. I tossed and turned as I strained to hear anything besides the occasional moan of one of the Z’s wandering around in the dark.
Finally I closed my eyes and drifted off, dreaming that I was back on the McClusky and the crew had been replaced by a team of bikini models all named Helen. Every one of them.
Joel’s hand on my shoulder tore me out of sleep.
“Ugh,” I muttered.
“Mission time,” he said and moved away.
I was tempted to just go back to sleep. Fuck exploration, it was the middle of the goddamn night. I sat up and rubbed what felt like sand out of my eyes.
While I suited up in my engineer overalls, Joel stood to the side of the deck entrance and scanned the area. He was already dressed in his combat gear. He checked his pockets one more time, pulling magazines out to do a visual inspection by the light of the moon. Satisfied, he stuffed them back into pouches at his chest and side, then secured them by pressing flaps in. Early on, we’d learned the hard way that the crackle of a Velcro pocket could bring a pack in seconds.
Joel dragged the ladder out and lowered it to the ground, moving it around until he was satisfied it had a good hold on the ground. He slung his AR-15 over his shoulder and then went down the ladder while I trained the .45 around the area. When he was on the ground, he covered for me.
We hid the ladder under a pile of brush and dragged a pair of rotting corpses on top to keep prying eyes on other things.
Our destination was the naval base. Joel had wanted to return for the past week, but the Z’s in the area had been too heavy. After some scouting earlier today we determined that it might be safe to slip in, find some warehouse he knew about, commandeer a car, and get the fuck back to dodge, all before the night was over. We really needed to load up on ammo and maybe another weapon or two. If we got stuck with our current weapon pool, I doubted we’d be able to shoot our way out of a wet paper bag before we ran out of rounds.
Fucking zombies. I hate them.
Joel scouted ahead while I brought up the rear. I grumbled but a look from the Marine reminded me that it was time to get serious. One misstep out in this world and we’d be dead meat.
I did find that with night came something amazing. Cold air. It rolled off the water and reminded me of what it was like before we ended up stuck in Fortress. Going out like this was familiar. We’d already done it half a dozen times and we were still alive. The other thing that I found was the smell of decay. It was everywhere. Trash and bodies rotting in the sun made for a disgusting reek that clung to everything.
The idea was to remain quiet. As quiet as a sleeping baby. Any loud noises and you were likely to call in a pack of the dead. Not that they actually traveled together, because they had no thoughts in their heads. They reacted to some bizarre need to find live flesh. I liked my flesh right where it was — on my bones.
Joel stopped alongside a house and then faded against the wall. He moved around the corner with me right behind. Joel held up a hand and I stopped in my tracks. He did something with his NVG’s and then motioned for me to advance.
I crept around the corner and stopped as well.
Joel signaled for me to creep forward, then stopped me when I was a few feet away. He turned and put his fingers to his lips. Joel slipped the NVG’s off his head and handed them to me. I slid my handgun into the holster, took the glasses and slipped them over my head. He had his eyes closed but pointed at the garage. Curious about what the hell he wanted to show me, I moved toward it in the half crouch I’d seen him pull off many times. He made it look easy but I was a lot bigger. Shit was not easy.
The world jumped to life in hues and shades of green. The house was a single story rambler with the remains of a broken fence scattered all over the lawn. The front door hung off its hinges and a corpse lay on the small concrete patio. Even in the pale light of the moon, I could tell that his form had been torn to shreds. A rifle lay next to him. Other bodies littered the patio. It appeared the guy had done his best to fend for his home, but in the end, the Z’s got him.
The garage door was stuck half-open but that wasn’t what made me freeze in my tracks. It was the sounds.
If I didn’t know any better I’d have guessed there was some kind of feast underway in the garage. Maybe a barbecue in San Diego. Just another night for some civilian (or more likely, military) family.
What I saw was anything but.
I lowered myself to a crouch and moved my head around the corner of the house. The walls were stacked with boxes and some old furniture had been pushed into corners. A bike hung from the ceiling. That’s where “normal” ended.
In the center of the room sat four figures. They were dressed in rags and slicked with something wet; even with the NVG’s, I knew it was blood. One gazed up at the wall from its meal. I stifled a gasp when I realized the Z had been chewing on his own fingers. One of the four was an overweight woman missing most of her clothes. She sat and gibbered to herself while also chewing on the ends of her fingers. I don’t mean nibbled, either. She had literally devoured them. A couple of teens rounded out the family from hell.
It was so absurd that all I wanted to do was go in and shoot each one in the damn head.
I ducked back around the corner and shrugged my shoulders at Joel. He leaned in close.
“That shit is fucked up,” he whispered.
I dragged my finger across my neck and shrugged again. Joel shook his head.
He motioned toward my head so I took the NVG’s off and handed them over. As Joel grasped them, I heard someone approach from the other side of the house. I dropped to a crouch while Joel fumbled with the glasses.
A figure entered the yard from the west side and was doing nothing to mask his sounds. With the glasses off it took a few seconds to adjust to the natural light of the moon. I drew the Colt M45A1 as quietly as possible, lifted it with two hands, and aimed.
The person went to the corpse in the middle of the yard and picked up the rifle. They looked it over then felt around in the corpse’s pockets and came up with shells. The sound of them being loaded into the shotgun was like firecrackers popping in the still of night.
Joel crouched next to the side of the house and aimed the assault rifle. Shit! Shit! Shit! If we got into a firefight with someone, the Z’s would be here in a heartbeat.
I moved to his side and looked around the corner. The person lifted the gun and came toward us. Before we could react, the person walked into the garage and the shotgun sounded like a cannon blast. The gun was pumped and boomed again. Feet scrambled on concrete and the form backed out in a hurry. There were three of them on the person, who got off one more shot.
“Fuckers! You killed my family!” she screamed. Yeah — she.
She backed up a few more steps and racked another shell into the gun. She fired but ended up clipping one of the Z’s arms. Part of the arm disappeared, leaving shreds of clothing and flesh.
They advanced on her.
She backed up, pumping the shot gun over and over again, but she must have been empty. When she cleared the garage with the three Z’s nearly on her, I broke from cover. I slid my handgun back into its holster and hefted my wrench. The last Z stumbled out of the garage and I was horrified to see it was one of the kids. She staggered and moaned but didn’t have a lot of momentum. Then I saw why. She was dragging one of her feet at an angle that was impossible for a normal person. It was definitely broken, a gruesome fracture with the bone sticking out, but little Miss Sunshine didn’t care.