Beyond the Barriers

Reality was the bitch I didn’t want to deal with. I came to it unwilling, tried to ignore it, but there was a ringing in my ears that wouldn’t let me be. Pressure on one side of my head made me feel like I had a cold and needed some medicine. I needed some Oxy while I was at it, because my whole body felt like a punching bag, or the remains of one tossed into the trash after a lifetime of faithful service.

The smell of dirt, mud, and old leaves filled me with a sense of peace. That came into sharp contrast as I tried to blink away flashes of light. It was like I had stared at the sun and paid for it with the aftereffects burned into my retinas.

I lifted my head, but the pain made me pay for that little effort. A pissed-off demon bashed around in my skull. It screamed over and over again for me to just give up and lie here for eternity.

Reaching up, I felt around the back of my head, which revealed a huge lump to my questing fingers. My shoulders hurt when I moved; they felt pinched and sore right in the middle of my back. Where had that blow come from?

My head was in a fog. The last thing I remembered was the battle at the barricade. My half-suicidal attempt to take out the enemy while my new friends got away.

Some of my vision returned after I blinked, but only on one side. My left eye continued to throb in time with my heartbeat. A blast of darkness that almost cleared soon fizzled out again. I shook my head, but that only made my brain rattle around and hurt even worse.

I had fights that didn’t hurt this badly.

I rolled to my side and then onto my stomach, managing to get one arm under my body and push myself off the ground. My hand crunched against leaves and wet foliage of some sort. When I gripped at pressed grass, I felt something slither across my fingers.

After I rubbed my eyes, my vision started to come back.

It was cold, wet, must have been close to morning. I got a glimpse of my hand and grabbed a piece of earth to reassure myself it was still there. Then I looked up at a scene of horror.

I would like to say it was some sort of hallucination brought on by the blow to the back of my head. I would like to say it wasn’t reality, but a bad dream. But the place in which I woke was all too real.

I was in a large cage complete with rusted metal bars. It looked like someone had taken over a farm of some sort and put people in the cages instead of animals. There were other large jails, some just chicken coops, but those had kids in them. I got a glimpse of grungy faces cowering together. They shifted around when they met my eye with a nervousness I did not find reassuring.

Another giant cage to the right was filled with folks—men and women in various states of dress. Some looked familiar, but I couldn’t be sure if they had been at the camp with me. I sat up and leaned my head forward so I could rest it against my fist, arm crooked and set against my knee. The effort of getting up had all but exhausted me.

I looked up again, and this time I saw the sky. It was red like blood, and I had to wonder if there was something wrong with my sight. The clouds rolled by, but had a pink tinge that made me think of the end of the world. They were late to the party, since they missed the end by about six months.

I had a feeling this was the end for me, because I was in a cage, and it was rare to keep things locked up like this. Either I was a prisoner or I was food. Couldn’t be much else. I struggled to a sitting position and heard a cry behind me.

Turning, I saw a girl lying on her side, sobbing. Her body jerked in big shaking movements that made her look like she was having a seizure. She wore a jumpsuit like I had seen at Lisa’s camp. It was gray, and she had her sleeves done all the way up. Near her was a man who wasn’t moving. I could only see the back of his head, which was caked with blood that matted his black curls. That had to be Scott.

It was warm, must have been morning, but I felt a chill deep in my bones. I wondered how long I had been on the ground. Cries from all around came in at an alarming rate, as my head struggled to equalize the pressure on either side. I crawled slowly, like an animal in pain. My back ached, my head hurt, and my shoulders felt like they were carrying an extra passenger between them.

I looked all around me to find the place was a nightmare. A home to misery.

Dirty faces pressed to metal bars. Like refugees on TV, the ads one saw to make one want to give money. I would give whoever these bastards were a piece of hell if I managed to get out.

So many people, and all of them in misery. I heard screaming in the distance, but it was too far away to pick out a location. There were shamblers walking around, zombies in various states of decay that stopped to look at the men, women, and children in cages. Some stopped as if considering them, but others just moved on. How the hell had we ended up here?

I went to Scott. He was covered in filth. Glancing down at my own shirt, the flannel one I had worn for months, I found it was in equally deplorable shape. I felt his neck and found a pulse. Breathing a sigh of relief, I turned his head. His face was bruised, and when I checked the back of his head, the lump there had dried blood on it. I hoped that neither one of us had a concussion.

I pulled him into my lap as I sat near his body. Brushing away his hair, I pulled back his eyelid to see if his eyes were dilated. I had no fucking idea if that was how you checked someone this damaged, but I had seen it on television dramas. What else could I do?

He shuddered, but slept on while I continued to hold him like a child. I did feel very protective of my new friend, like we had done and seen a lot together even though I had known him for less than a day. I hoped he would come around.

Outwardly I was calm. Inside, I was an inferno.

Rage was building inside me as I sat and considered my circumstances. Away from Katherine, carried here with my friend, thrown into a scene from hell. I had to get out of this cage. Then there were those around me being treated like Jews in Germany during World War II. How many times had I seen a documentary and raged against the injustice to humanity that had taken place? Here it was in the flesh, and I was likely to die in the middle of it.

There was a curious lump near me, and I reached out to touch it. The mass was a piece of meat, and when I pushed it, a bit of blood drizzled out. It was disgusting, and when I foolishly put my finger to my nose, I smelled the stench of decay. There was another lump, and when I pushed at it, I realized that it was the end of a human arm.

I recoiled and dropped Scott’s head, which got a reaction out of him. He reached up to touch his bruised skull, but his eyes remained closed.

That’s when the voice came and sent shivers up and down my spine.

“Eat. Become us.” It was raspy and deep. I turned slowly to confront one of the green-eyed men about whom I had been so interested in learning.

I didn’t have any words for this thing that was supposed to be a man. It was no person; it was no creeper. It was a monster. I had seen too many of these things driving the zombies on. On one hand, I wanted to crush his skull. On the other, I wanted to ask him why he did what he did. What did they stand to gain?

He was dressed in a pair of jeans that were surprisingly clean. He had on a long-sleeved flannel shirt that must have been hell in the heat of day. His hair was long and black and was a rat’s nest. Perhaps this emissary dressed just for me. I wished I were out of the cage so I could offer a proper thank you, just before I took him apart with my bare hands. I had held one close not too long ago, and I knew they were just as fragile as regular men.

“What are you?” I ran my hands through my hair, but the action made my head throb. The pain pissed me off even more.

“We are you. Just better.”

“Better? YOU ARE BETTER? You’re a fucking monster!” Yelling didn’t improve my pain.

The thing stared at me for a long time without blinking. That was odd. His lips parted, and I thought he was about to stick his tongue out and waggle it like a child. His lips did not curl up or down. No smile, no frown. His brow did not move. He was a walking, talking corpse. I wished once again that I were outside this cage so I could finish his transformation.

“You will join us. As will the others in the cage.”

“You expect to change everyone in this camp by making them what? Eat some rotting piece of flesh? You are out of your mind.”

“Not everyone. Only you few.”

“What about the other people? What do you feed them?”

He didn’t respond. I stood and went to the metal bars and pulled at them. This ignited a ripple of pain across my shoulders that made me nauseated. I had to sit down and collect my thoughts for a moment.

It was just as I feared. The people in the cage were used for feed. At the end of it all, we had become livestock to the monsters we had created. I had to get out of here. I had to free them somehow, but who was I fooling? This wasn’t some action movie or adventure book where the hero had all of the answers. Hell, I was far from heroic. I was just a man caught in a bad situation. The fact that I didn’t have a gun to shoot my way out was going a long way toward me being as useful as a wet puppy.

The ghoul turned without a sound and wandered away. His steps were mechanical, and he had about as much emotion in him as a rock.

I turned to regard my companions. The young girl had her eyes open, and she was staring at me. Tears streaked the dirt around her face. She sniffed and then sobbed. Her body shook, and I tried to imagine what it was like to be a child caught up in this madness. She couldn’t be more than fourteen or fifteen. She should be surfing the web, looking at her Facebook account, hanging out with her friends, going to music lessons after school, prepping for college. She shouldn’t be locked in a cage like an animal.

Holding one arm out, I put my hand up in a form of supplication I hoped she found comforting. I started whispering to her, because I didn’t know what state her mind was in. “It’s okay. I promise not to hurt you.”

She stared at me, and then seemed to withdraw. Her eyes clouded, and she clenched them tightly shut. Then she curled up into a ball and shook as great wracking sobs took hold. I nearly wept at the misery before me.

I considered the situation. I didn’t know shit about girls her age. All I did in my teens was chase them. Now I needed to be someone quite different, so I moved to her, creeping across the ground ever so gently. When I reached her side, I sat down with my legs crossed. The ground was cold and wet here, grass pressed down by the bodies that had been in here before us. At least I assumed that was the case. I reached out and shoved aside the chunk of meat that was left near her head, shuddering in revulsion. I couldn’t even pick out what part of the body it had been. It was just meat, like something left over from cattle.

I wanted to douse my fingers in acid to clean them, but I stuck out a foot and kicked the chunk across the cage. It rolled over and over until it struck a bar.

The arm was a mess. It was covered in blood, with the exception of the hand. So, like a weird handshake, I took the arm by the fingers and pushed it away. I couldn’t get it far enough away, though, so I picked it up and slung it under my side, flinging it away so it struck the bars with a hollow clang. Scott groaned and curled up into a ball, the ground crunching under him as he moved.

I reached over and gently touched her shoulder, just leaving my hand there for a moment then patting her. I didn’t want to push my luck, so I lifted it and tried to talk to her again.

“Hey, can you tell me how you got here?”

I tried to appear as non-threatening as possible, which may have been next to impossible. My normally short hair was in need of a trim, and after the lack of baths, it probably hung long and lank. I hadn’t shaved in days, and I’m sure my eyes were hollow and rimmed with red. I had slept the sleep of the injured, not the sleep of the tired, and I was paying for it.

My eyes were raw, felt like sand had gotten into them, and I wanted to rub them. I really wanted to put my face in a pail of cold water and revel in the feeling. A bath would wipe away the filth of the past few days.

I patted her shoulder again, but she recoiled from me like I burned her. I backed up a few inches, but sat so my chin was on my fist. She stared into my eyes, and it appeared that she came to some kind of conclusion.

“I don’t know. There was the fight, and people were running everywhere. Mom said to hide in our truck, but when I got to it, there were a bunch of the monsters around it.”

She had a scared voice that was tinged with a hint of hysteria. She sounded so young. Her voice quavered as she spoke, and I barely resisted the urge to reach out and touch her again.

“Were you at the camp with Lisa and the others?”

“I don’t know Lisa. We were up from the center of town, in the Vesper Wood area. About thirty of us. Mom said we were going to move on soon, but it kept getting pushed back. Said there were a lot of sounds out there, a lot of noises, like the things were getting closer. They raided our first camp, but we fought them off.”

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.

I thought back to the gruel I had eaten with the survivors at the Walmart. I would pretty much kill for a bowl of that right now.

Inspecting the cage took Scott and me all of two minutes. It was tall, rounded on top, but covered in a plastic material to keep some rain out. I stuck my hand out the bars by the metal door, but I couldn’t tell what kind of lock held us. I stretched and cranked my wrist around. It was no use. Whatever held us in was out of reach, which made me stomp the ground in frustration.

“I tried that the first day. The lock must be in the center of the door. I couldn’t reach it,” the girl informed us, then went back to staring at nothing. I scowled at that.

Scott and I went over the entire cage again, but we could find no easy way out. Maybe if we had some kind of torch or a hacksaw. Sadly, all we had was some rancid human flesh.

Later in the day, we sat together but didn’t speak. Rain drizzled down, and the sky was dark gray. One of the ghouls walked to our cage and tossed a couple of chunks of meat inside. I eyed him—make that her—but refused to look at the meat.

She was tall and thin, with hands that hung like emaciated sticks. Her fingers were long, and some were missing fingernails. Her skin was the same mottled off-color of the other ghouls. Her eyes glowed green just as those of the other ghouls I had seen, and she was a nightmare. Her skin was sunken, her cheeks barely existent, for her cheekbones were so sharp they looked like they could be used for weapons.

She didn’t speak; just shook as if she were laughing, and then walked away. The zombie wore a faded t-shirt with Elton John’s face on it, which was a strange contrast to her nightmare visage. A pair of canvas-style pants hung around her bony waist.

“Come back with some Wendy’s next time,” Scott called out and flipped her the bird, but she didn’t acknowledge him.

I snickered at his comment.

“Goddamn that woman is butt ugly.” Haley giggled at Scott’s joke this time.

“She was probably a bouncer before the world changed.”

“Nah, man.” Scott shot back. “She was a porn star. I bet she used to shoot three or four movies a week.”

I laughed at the image of that ugly thing ever being attractive. Then I worried that we may have crossed a line by discussing porn in front of the girl, but she didn’t even blink.

“I think she used to be a barista. At a Starbucks or Tully’s,” Haley offered.

“She’d scare off the customers.” Scott scoffed, turned his head, and spit out of the cage. It sailed through the bars and smacked a passing zombie in the leg.

“You’re making an art out of it,” I told him, half expected him to start throwing feces at the zombies, which would be just about the ultimate in irony. Look at the humans in a cage throwing their shit at a bunch of undead.

“I might run out of spit soon. Hope it rains.”

“We’re going to die in here, aren’t we?” Haley whispered.

I went to her side and draped my arm over her shoulder, wanting to tell her that everything was going to be okay and that I had a plan. The problem was, I had nothing. Not only was I out of ideas, I was so hungry there was no way we would have the strength to fight the undead off if we did get free. All they had to do was wait outside for us to eat the rancid zombie meat or die of starvation.

“You’re a brave kid. I respect that you have survived this long, so I’m not gonna bullshit you.” I took a breath. “I don’t know. I honestly don’t know. They never open the cage, so there is no way we can attack or run. We don’t have any sort of tools to get through those bars.”

To make my point, I walked up to the bars and struck one with the meaty part of my hand. They rang hollow, which made the girl’s face drop. I hated to be the bearer of bad news, but I truly saw no hope in our situation.

The bars were thick, at least an inch around. They must have originally housed some sort of small animals, maybe even monkeys.

“There has to be a way.” She sighed and stared out, up at the clouds. They had grown thicker, making the day even darker. Now a crackle sounded from far away, and a blast of lightning lit the sky. It was a full twelve seconds before we heard the thunder. I watched my two companions, and sure enough, they had both been counting.

The rain started coming down harder. Sticking my hand out, I let some run over my palm in an attempt to clean it. I rubbed it against the inside of one pant leg, then stuck it out again and caught enough to sip.

Haley and Scott joined me, and for the next hour, we drank our fill. After the negative turn our conversation had taken, all at my doing, it was pleasant to return to happier thoughts.

We passed the night in silence, huddled together, shivering from the cold as rain pelted down. It ran into the caged area and soaked the ground, wetting our clothes making sleep impossible. We kept the girl between us, but it was only for warmth. The last thing I was thinking about was the fact that I had a female pressed against my body. I needed her and Scott just for warmth.

Lightning continued to blast the air around us. I may have dozed a few times, but not for long. Somehow Scott slipped into sleep and even snored.

I was so hungry. It was at least three days since I’d last had food, and I was starting to daydream about every meal I had ever eaten. I remembered a day when Allison and I went to the city and stopped at a burger joint. I had a fish sandwich that dripped tartar sauce all over the plate, so I dipped my onion rings into the stuff. How I wanted that meal again. I would even settle for one of the poorly cooked deer steaks from the cabin. The thought of the cabin made me wonder how Katherine was doing.

Kicking the cage in frustration, the lashing blow made me fall on my ass. I was weak, but the force of trying to put my foot through a metal bar was oddly therapeutic.

For a long time, I sat staring at the dark clouds. The rain grew heavier, and I didn’t have anything to do but watch it. Rain. Wet ground. I followed the tiny rivers of water that were forming. They rushed in every direction, but some were coming at the cage. I knew that if the rain didn’t let up soon, we would be sitting in a puddle.

Water flowed around the bars of the cage, and that was what caught my eye. I got to my feet and walked to the place I had kicked. The bars went deep into the ground, and I suspected they had some sort of thick cap to hold them in. But the mud around them told a different story.

I grabbed hold of the bars and lifted straight up. I almost broke into tears when they budged. It wasn’t much, but I could tell that we had a chance. Why didn’t I think of this before?

After waking Scott, I furiously whispered my plan into his ear. He was sluggish, but after he stood and stretched, we took a shot at the cage. He was out of it, judging by the way he came awake, rising slowly and shaking his head. I’m sure he felt the way I did, which was exhausted. But how else would we ever get out of this place if we didn’t try to move the cage?

We both squatted down and lifted, but the cage was very heavy. We kept looking over our shoulders and peering into the night, expecting the zombies to take notice of us at any time, but luck was on our side. The ghouls were doing whatever they did at night. They were always scarce after dark. In fact, I didn’t remember seeing any of them in the dark while we were locked up. Their oddly glowing eyes didn’t seek us out.

We stood and lifted and had better luck. The cage gave a sucking sound as the bars came out of the mud. The bars came up about an inch, but we set it back down. We could lift the cage, but not high enough for either of us to get out.

“Lift it higher and I can fit. I’ll figure out the lock and go get keys if I have to,” Haley said.

“You wouldn’t leave us here, would you?” Scott asked.

“No way. I actually like you guys. You make me laugh, and he is kind of a badass.” She indicated me.

“Not really a badass stuck in a cage now, am I?”

“No, but if I help you guys out, I think you might be able to protect my lily white ass from those things.”

Scott chuckled appreciatively. At her humor, I hoped. She may have been aged from the terrible life we were forced to live, but Haley was still just a child as far as I was concerned.

“Come on. We don’t have all day!” Was this the same girl who was shivering and wrapped in a ball the first night, afraid of my touch?

I shook my head and glanced around. With the rain pouring down, it was hard to see if any of the creatures were nearby. I hoped for the best. Scott and I lifted the cage as much as we could. We had to strain and reach down, letting go with one hand each time so we could grip the cage a bit lower. At last, it was about a foot off the ground, and my arms were trembling. I didn’t think I could hold it much longer.

But just like a snake, Haley bolted to the tiny opening and slithered out on her stomach. One advantage to being as starved as we were was that she was pretty far on the skinny side. In fact, she looked like one of those Hollywood starlets that ate a bowl of peas for dinner.

I nodded at Scott, and we lowered the cage as quietly and as slowly as we dared. I wanted to drop the damn thing, but I was afraid it would sound like a bunch of bells ringing. We managed to set it down with just a few grunts. When it had sunk back into the earth, I breathed a sigh of relief and stared at my friend. He shot me a quick grin, then his gaze darted to the girl.

The night folded around her as she scurried away. Eventually she came back around and looked at the lock, then at us. After she tugged at something, she disappeared. Scott and I waited for a minute, sure that she would reappear. A form walked toward the cage, but it was hard to tell if it was Haley. As the shuffling steps drew near, we both knew it was one of the dead.

It was a man this time. He was dressed in a gaudy red velvet shirt with blue pants. He looked like some ridiculous troubadour. Probably worked at a Mexican restaurant and was caught in the mess in his uniform.

“Friend of yours?” I asked Scott.

“Hey, fuck you, white boy. If I had a gun, I’d put him down with a single shot, Latino or not, bright puffy red shirt or not. Although I give him points for style. It’s hard to pull off that ensemble.”

Clapping my hand over his shoulder, I suppressed a chuckle. It was odd to think I had known this man for a very short time, and yet he was now my best friend in the world. He was currently my only friend, and I felt a fierce need to protect him even though he was more than capable of taking care of himself.

“I hope she comes back,” I said.

“You don’t think she will?”

“Would you?”

“For you? Nah, I’d rather haul ass out of here and take my chances in the woods all alone. Of course I would, dumb-ass.”

“Yeah? Well, I’d let you rot. You smell like death.”

“You’re one to talk.”

Scott walked over to the other side of the cage and stretched his hand out. He came back with the arm I had tossed aside the night before. He took it to the bars where we had lifted the cage and held it out to the zombie, hand first, like he was offering a handshake.

“Hey. Take this and fuck off.” He held the hand up and waved it around. The zombie didn’t have very good motor skills, but he managed to take the arm and sink his teeth into the rotted flesh. Then he wandered away with the morsel hanging out of his mouth.

“Do you blame me for this?” I had been afraid to voice this question, but it had gnawed at me since the day I awoke in a cave.

“I don’t, man. There were too many of them. They had that planned for a long time. They are getting smarter, the green guys.” He didn’t turn around, just kept talking into the night. “We noticed them changing a month or so ago. Getting more coordinated.”

“I can’t help but think it was me that brought them. I should have killed that ghoul when I had the chance.”

“Coulda shoulda. No way to change that shit now.”

I sighed and stared into the darkness around us.

We waited for what seemed forever, while the rain continued to hammer down. We discussed how to get the cage lifted long enough for the other to slip through, but I was already so tired I could barely lift my hand to my head, let alone hold the cage up long enough for him to slip out.

I sat down in the mud and thought about the meat they would offer in the morning. Should we give in? Give up our humanity? At least I wouldn’t be hungry and cold anymore. It would also give me a chance to see what they saw, feel the world the way they felt it. In a way, I felt sorry for the damned things. It wasn’t their fault they became they way they were. History was littered with tales of people eating the dead. It was a shame that we were being hunted to extinction by the ‘better’ humans. We are you. Only better. The ghouls words came back and chilled me to the bone.

To tell the truth, I would rather die than eat the rancid flesh. I would rather sit here and starve to death than become one of those things. Sighing, I leaned back against the cage. The rain had died down a bit, and the cover kept my back from getting more drenched. There was no way I could lay on the cold wet earth.

Scott sat beside me but didn’t speak. Weary, I laid my head back and closed my eyes. Without the girl here, we didn’t seem too concerned about huddling for warmth like we did before.

I was drifting off when a hand landed on my shoulder, which made me jump away from the bars. Heart pounding in my chest, I came up in a fighting stance, despite my foggy mind.

It was the girl, and she looked scared. Her hair was pushed back behind her ears, and her face was washed clean, so at least the rain had done some good. A bar sat in her hand—just a hunk of metal. I crept closer to her.

“I couldn’t find any kind of keys. There is a lock, but it’s dark, and I can’t see how it works.” She was standing by the door, feeling it with one hand. Metal clanked on metal, but she moved it gently.

“What are you planning to do?” I said.

“Not sure. I thought I could hit the lock, but I don’t want to bring anyone. Maybe I can wrap the bar in something.”

“Good thinking.” Scott unbuttoned his shirt and slipped it off. He handed it to her through the base of the cage, then stood shivering. His skin should have been dark, like he had a tan, but he was just as pale and white as me. I was probably paler. Glancing down at my hands and forearms, I realized that if I had red eyes, I would make a pretty good albino. I laughed at that thought, and Scott looked at me with a quizzical expression.

I was losing it.

She wrapped the bar in the shirt and then took a tentative swing at the other side. I couldn’t see what she was doing, but the sound was like thunder. It was softer with the padding, but to me it sounded loud enough to wake everyone in the camp.

The people in the cage across from us were on their feet, peering at us. They looked like desperate refugees, like something out of a movie about the Holocaust. The feed pit—that’s what they were in. If we got out, I knew I would have to take them with us.

She hit the door again, and a zombie wandered by on the other side of the cage. Scott used quick thinking, dashing over to that side and calling to the creature. It walked up to the bars, and he kept the dead man entertained by making faces and hand gestures. He held his arm out, and when the zombie went for it, he jerked it back inside.

If it wandered to the other side, we were screwed, unless she was quick enough to bash in its head.

“Shit!” she whispered. Another clang. This wasn’t working.

“Describe the lock to me,” I said.

“It’s not a lock. It’s just a bent piece of metal. The sides are away from each other, kind of like a Z. I can move it, but not far. There’s some kind of bolt or something holding it shut. I tried hitting the bolt, but it didn’t work.”

“How thick is the Z-shaped piece?” I kept my voice calm and low in the hope that it would soothe her. I didn’t want panic to show, even though I was about to go out of my mind with fear.

“Not very thick. But it is pretty hard.”

“Can you slide the bar between it and the door?”

“Oh!”

She handed the shirt back, and then I heard metal scraping on metal. She groaned, then there was a snap and she fell back. I pressed on the door, but it didn’t budge, which made me want to scream! Glancing over at Scott, I found he still attempted to keep the zombie’s attention, but it kept trying to wander off.

Then there was a grating noise, and something hit the ground with a thunk. Pressing on the door again, I found it opened on noisy hinges.

“Help us!” someone called. The others in the cage across from us had their hands pressed between the bars. Dirty hands and dirty faces—just like us.

I slid out of the tiny opening, and when I saw Haley, I swept her up in a fierce embrace. As I held her tightly to me, she sobbed in relief. “I thought I could sneak into a shack and find a key. But the guys with the green eyes were in there. I was lucky I didn’t get caught.”

“You did great, kiddo. I’m so proud of you.”

The people in the other cage didn’t take long to catch on after they watched us. Three or four of them lifted the cage, and others slithered beneath. It was dark, and rain still drizzled down, making it hard to see for more than a few feet. The others looked to be in pretty bad shape. I was concerned that they would be hard to separate from the dead in the event that it came to a fight.

When I joined the group, they stretched out fingers to touch me. I shook hands, but we remained silent. Then, like wraiths, we moved to other cages and lifted them or broke locks. Some picked up weapons and took out any of the wandering dead. Thumps in the nights, no cries or groans, just bodies falling to the ground.

If one caught wind of what we were doing, there was someone to put an end to them. The sound of thunks and metal grinding on metal were all I could hear. It was so hard to keep from running. Every extra noise had me on edge, biting my lip and fearing we would be caught.

Within moments, the dead lay all around us. Some of the living had their eyes set on the small housing spaces, and they had a hollow look, like they were already dead, or they expected to die. I grabbed one by the upper arm and hissed in his ear.

“If you go in there, you’ll raise an alarm. They’ll bring an army down on us.” The man was large, grim. He was covered in blood, and I wondered whose it was. Rain pelted his bald head and ran rivers down his hard cheekbones. If I saw this person from afar, I would have suspected him of being a zombie.

“They killed my son. They dragged him out and butchered him like he was cattle. He screamed the whole time. The next day they killed my wife. For that, I want to kill every one of those abortions.” His voice was choked with emotion, but his eyes were flat black orbs.

“Listen to me. It’s suicide. If we get out of this, we can come back when we are better organized. We can come back with guns, and we can hunt them down. Cleanse this place.”

The man stared at me for a long moment. Scott joined me, and his eyes were filled with concern. He touched my shoulder and motioned for the woods a few hundred feet away. Haley was at his side. She tried to smile, but it was halfhearted.

I was scared too, and wanted nothing more than to run, but I felt the need to get these people away from this death camp. I was sick and tired of being on the run all the time, but what choice did we have? The moment we woke up the ghouls in this hive, we would be dead. Hundreds of zombies led by ghouls would make short work of our group.

I looked at the dirty faces of young and old, men and women. We were a pitiful sight. Some had open wounds and wouldn’t survive much longer, but they would at least have a chance. If we went in blazing with what few weapons we had, it would be over before it started.

“Pass the word.” I gathered the man and Scott close to me. “Once we are free of here, we will come back with weapons and a plan. We will burn this place to the ground. No one will ever fear this area again.”

They both nodded, but I couldn’t tell if they believed me or not. Maybe they just wanted a shred of hope to overcome the desire to kill. I had the very same feelings, but I suppressed them and focused on getting us out of here.

There were nods all around, and before they could even finish passing my words back, I was on the move. I grabbed Scott, and we took off for the woods. We tried to stay low, but it was hard to see in the dark. We moved across the ground, hiding behind what cover we could find. Stacks of wood and rotted enclosures provided a slim hope of staying out of sight.

Rain continued to pelt the survivors. Everyone was slow and sluggish, including me. I felt like I was beaten down, and I hadn’t even started in the woods. Glancing up at the moon, I tried to figure out where I was, but there was barely a splash of white through the heavy clouds.

It was almost impossible to see anything ahead of us. Scott seemed at home moving at night, staying out of the line of those things’ eyes. It wasn’t easy, but someone who paid attention could do it. We had to be aware of our surroundings at all times. We had to be ready for the creature that stumbled around a corner. And it was just such a creature that almost proved our undoing.

Scott moved ahead of the group, while I hung back and kept an eye on the survivors. There were fifteen or twenty of us, and we were all worn to the bone. The others in the cage—I didn’t know how long they had been there. Each was filthy and smelled terrible. I was no cleaner, I’m sure, but I had only been locked in the place for a few days. I don’t know how long they were in there.

As I helped an older woman to her feet, I heard a loud grunt from ahead.

Scott grappled with someone in the dark, so I dashed ahead and found it was one of the dead. A man about my size, missing the top of his skull. He was dressed in rags, and reminded me of one of the caged people we had helped free. I went after him, but I was so weary it was hard to put one foot in front of the other, let alone think about fighting.

Scott went down, and I was there to help. Grabbing the zombie by the pants, I hauled him off. It was like picking up a ton of potatoes. The zombie swung his arm back, but I batted at it and pushed him aside. I reached for Scott, but recoiled when he stuck his arm out.

“I’m not fucking bit.”

“You sure?”

“Oh, I’m sure. I would know if I got some skin ripped off.”

The guy was trying to get back up, so I pushed him down by driving my foot into his ass. He went flat and cried out in a low moan, but started to move again soon after. I grabbed Scott by the arm and helped him to his feet. He brushed at his soaking wet clothing lamely.

Then Scott stepped on the back of the man’s head. I have seen a lot of pain and suffering since I returned to the world, but there was something sickening about the way the zombie’s head was crushed into the dirt. The way it mushed and the bones ground together.

Scott looked rather pleased with himself. I shook my head and moved on.

Staring back at the camp, I felt rage flood my body. Maybe it was from the death of the undead that I had just witnessed, but I wanted nothing more than to go back and annihilate the camp. If I had a big enough gun, I would have done just that, even if it meant me dying.

The woods were a canopy of misery. Sounds came from all around us as the rain continued to fall.

Haley was waiting for us inside the woods. She gave me a questioning look, but I shook my head. We pressed on, me in the lead as I tried to be a leader. I had no idea where I was, and there wasn’t even a moon to follow. How long had I been in the cage and never thought to mark the passage of our one orbital body? Or maybe I had and hunger and exhaustion had simply stolen away my memories, made me weak and confused.

I struck out between a pair of trees that led down a slight hill. At the bottom, we came across a stream. I almost wept in relief; at last, water!

I ran toward it, but slowed when I nearly tripped over something on the wet ground. Under the leaves and fallen branches, something crunched. As I drew close, the darkness played tricks on my eyes. Studying the ground, I thought I saw bones. They had to be branches or sticks, but it must have been the stress of being around all the dead things that did it to me.

The smell was the second hint. It hit me like a weight, as the scent went from clean rain and forest to rot.

As I closed in on the riverbed, I tripped on something and went down. I stuck my hands out, but I still hit pretty hard. The breath whooshed out of me, and when I got one back in, I regretted it. Slowly, I looked around the place where I had fallen, a few inches from the edge of the water. It was littered with bones.

Scott gave a low groan, as if in pain.

We huddled close to the water as we fought to catch our breath. I stared at the slow stream as it meandered by, wishing more than anything I could drink from it. The bones of the dead were everywhere. Chunks of meat and rotted tissue made a slippery surface for us to navigate.

Sounds to the side, near the break in the woods, caught my attention. A voice hissed at us. I turned to regard the approaching cluster of people. They stared at us, and I stared back. Scott must have recognized one of them, because he rose on shaky legs and approached them. They talked quietly. It was still dark, but I saw his head turn toward the stream, then toward us. He shook his head. The group of three moved off.

“Friends?” I inquired when Scott rejoined us.

“From another enclave. We used to trade with them. I can’t remember names but one of the guys was familiar. They are going deep in the woods. Lick their wounds. I don’t think they want company.”

I wondered if it was better for us to stick together. We would make more noise crashing through the forest, surely making ourselves a larger target for the ghouls to track. I started thinking of tactics against the undead.

In my years in the military, I was trained to think like that. Had I forgotten so much? Though tired, barely able to rise to my feet, we crept off into the night and away from the water and its filth. One drink from that stream would probably be the end of us.

As we walked, I went over old training exercises and tried to apply them to this situation. We were outnumbered, so guerrilla tactics would be best. Stay light and mobile, scope out the enemy, and only engage when we had the advantage. So strike one. We had neither the advantage in weapons nor the ability to hide and move, for we had no idea where we were.

We had nothing in the way of weaponry, but like all good primates, we could scrounge up clubs or staffs from fallen branches. My focus swept the ground as we staggered through the woods. I finally found something useful: a heavy stick about three feet long with a large knot in the end.

It was just in time too, as a walking corpse stumbled from between two trees. I stepped toward it so I was no longer in the light. He or she was still a few feet away, but I had to be sure. It could be a refugee from the camp—someone like us who spent days or maybe weeks in captivity and was now trying to survive.

The weird preternatural glow to the thing’s eyes gave it away. Not quite a ghoul, but still brighter than the dead we had encountered thus far. I didn’t need any further prompting. I swung the stick around in nothing approaching a graceful manner. The club came up in an arc that stretched from my knees to my shoulders, driving the heavy end into the zombie’s head.

It went over without making a sound and didn’t move. Panting in the dark, I stood over it and worked on catching my breath.

There was nothing quiet about our steps as we crashed through the forest. We took to the woods and let our fading adrenaline drive us along. I didn’t have much left, and I couldn’t imagine they had much more than I did.

What I wouldn’t give for a hot bath, a bottle of ibuprofen, and a six pack of cheap beer.

We moved for as long as we could before Haley begged a break. I panted beside her until I caught my breath again. Then I put my hand on her shoulder in what I hoped was a comforting manner. She reacted by covering my large hand in her cold slim one. Her eyes were large and glistened in the dark, as if she had been crying. I stood like a big dumb oaf, wondering if she wanted a hug or something.

She sat down on a log and stared back in the direction from which we had come. Scott dropped down beside her.

I sat as well, even though I was afraid I would never be able to get up again. I picked the most uncomfortable-looking section of the log, leaned over, and tried to catch my breath. Scott did the same next to me, as did Haley. She was having trouble breathing, but when I looked over at her she was still looking away, back toward the camp we had fled. I wondered what her thoughts were, but I kept mine to myself.

A bunch of black bulbs caught my eye. Reaching down, I pulled one up and studied it. I was tired and couldn’t afford to make a mistake, but we needed something to eat. After turning the mushroom around in my hand, I popped it in my mouth.

Scott looked over and gave a gasp as I chewed. I shot him my best grin and pulled up another one.

“You fucking crazy, man?”

“It’s okay,” I assured him. “Black Trumpet is an edible mushroom. We need the protein.”

He looked at the thing then touched it with his tongue. He recoiled, but then he stuck it in his mouth and chewed, keeping his eyes scrunched the entire time as if he were indeed eating poison. I would have thought a survivor of one of the worst events in the history of the human race would have a bigger pair, and expressed my thoughts. I was dog-tired but didn’t want to miss a chance to rib my friend. It was all in jest, and I thought it might take the edge off our situation.

“Whatever, man. I bet I can whip up some dog shit tacos you wouldn’t look at twice,” he countered. Haley looked on but didn’t say a word.

Her face was paler than I remembered, so I moved my hand to touch her forehead to check for fever, but she moved aside before I could make contact. She sat back, away from us, and wedged herself into the crossing of two large tree trunks. I tried to meet her gaze, but she didn’t let me. Instead, she closed her eyes.

I didn’t blame her. I was cold and tired too, but we had to stay alert. It wouldn’t hurt to let her keep her eyes closed for a few minutes.

Movement to my left. I caught the shadow of something just as Scott jerked his head to follow it. We might not have had weapons, but that didn’t stop Scott from picking up a large branch. He put it over his shoulder and gripped the haft with both hands. If he was anywhere near as exhausted as I was, he might get one solid swing out of the hunk of wood.

I dropped into something close to a combat stance and got ready to fight if I had to. Lucky for us, it was just one of the mindless wandering by. Its shiny bald head passed between a break in the branches and then moved on. I exhaled as quietly as possible and wondered if the things even had decent hearing. For all I knew, the zombies were deaf mutes that relied on something else to sense those around them.

I was so tired that I started daydreaming about men in white coats who surrounded a pair of zombies bound in shackles. They poked and prodded, and one even used a pair of pliers to snip off a fingertip. The thing moaned and groaned but didn’t acknowledge the pain.

Shaking my head, I snapped out of it. Was there a place in the city where they made a study of the dead? Was there a clinic that was looking for some sort of cure? The government had to be in control of something. They had to have a plan. Was this really how the human race was meant to go out? In a flash of undead that devoured the world? I refused to believe it.

Scott nodded at me, so I reached down and urged Haley to her feet. She sighed as I helped her up, then looked at me with blank eyes. I tried to look reassuring, but it was a struggle that she didn’t bother to acknowledge. When I reached to touch her head again, she did not pull away. She was hot, like she was running a fever, probably from all the running. Not to mention living in filth and cold for days. I shouldn’t be surprised she was getting sick. When was the last time she had eaten?

“Let’s roll, hombre,” Scott said, and I nodded.

I tugged Haley along behind me, and her tiny hand burned in mine. We headed in the direction I hoped was away from the camp. The rain fell again, and it just added to the misery. I stumbled over a fallen branch, then slid across a pile of leaves that gave out as I stepped on them. My foot got stuck every time I squished over a mud hole. My shoes were a mess, but at least I still had them. They grew heavier and heavier as they accumulated more and more gunk.

I ran smack into someone or something and threw a halfhearted punch. It was a jab with little force behind it and, of course, I missed by a mile. The figure stumbled back and held his hands up. He hissed at me, and I dropped my arms to my sides. Another survivor.

“It’s me, from the cage. Name’s Jack.”

I remembered him from not so long ago. He was the one who wanted to go back and destroy as many of the ghouls as he could in a suicide mission. I stretched out one exhausted arm and placed it on his shoulder. Somehow, I managed a nod that I hoped was somewhat friendly.

“Nice to meet you, Jack. Welcome to the boy scouts from hell.”

“And girl scouts,” Haley muttered.

He gave a sharp chuckle at her gallows humor. Scott slid up beside me and studied the man in the dark.

“Where are the others you escaped with?” Scott asked.

“I don’t know. We ran together, but I got separated and backtracked. I think there’s a road around here somewhere. Seems like when they brought us in, we weren’t too far from some houses or maybe a farm.”

“A farm? Hiding out there would be appropriate,” I said.

“Huh?” Scott looked at me like I was crazy—again.

“Like the old zombie movies. People boarding up houses and hiding out while the dead figure out ways to get in.”

“You are one morbid mother fucker, you know that?” Scott said.

I shook my head and pointed into the dark. How much longer until light? If the dawn arrived, we might have a better chance, but the dead would also have a better chance at finding us. Stepping away from the men, I assumed they would follow, while I let my instincts guide me toward who knew what.

The sound of birds tweeting all around us was reassuring. It gave the air a sense of normalcy, as if we were on a camping trip and not running for our lives. For the past hour, we’d made our way through the woods, hoping we weren’t going in circles.

Jack was a big man, but he seemed to have more energy than either of us. He crashed through whatever we came across with a sense of purpose, like he was on a mission. I admired his drive, since mine was all but gone. When was the last time I’d had a real meal? The few mushrooms sat in my stomach and made me queasy, because they demanded company. But the night held little in the way of relief. I came across another patch of mushrooms, but I didn’t recognize them. They taunted me, and for one crazy minute, I imagined them sautéed and placed atop a massive porterhouse steak.

We were sitting with our backs to trees on a slight incline. I wanted to close my eyes and sleep for a few hours, but I settled for drifting off, then shaking my head when I had waking dreams. The thought of sleeping was tantalizing. It would be so easy to just let it go and drift off for a while, but there was no telling what all was out there or if they hunted us. An hour ago, we had heard a scream in the distance. We looked at each other with wide eyes. My back broke out in goose bumps.

We were tense, expecting them to come upon us at any time—a horde of the undead intent on either dragging us back or simply eating us. I didn’t think I had the strength to last much longer.

Then I heard someone talking.

I put my hand on Scott’s knee, and with the other, I motioned for him to be quiet by putting one finger to my lips. He opened his eyes and stared at me like I was a stranger. He was just as muddled as I was.

I motioned toward my ears, but I didn’t know if he understood, so I did a little movement with my hand, the thumb and first two fingers coming together as if I were casting a shadow puppet on the wall. Scott shook his head again.

Then a branch snapped nearby, and the voice came again. I couldn’t make out what he was saying, but it was male. Maybe it was a survivor. Maybe it was a ghoul. I held my breath and rose ever so slowly to my feet.

A shape drifted nearby; it rose in the gloom then slipped away like a shadow. I took one step after it then another. A second shape followed not too far from the first. They moved in a direct line—not confused at all. I knew the sort. These were either military or trained individuals.

A flash of camo reassured me of my assessment. I had to be careful, very careful. If they were tightly wound, they might shoot before asking questions. I knew I would.

“Scott. Do we have any dry wood for a fire?”

My voice echoed in my ears like I had just shouted in a deserted warehouse. Scott just about leapt out of his skin; his eyes went wide as he stared at me.

“The hell, man?”

“Go with it.” I made a rolling motion with my hands, hoping my gestures would guide him.

The shape didn’t move for a few seconds, and I imagined a gun coming up to take aim at my head or Scott’s. I play-acted as best I could, which probably wasn’t very well. Leaning over like I was scrounging for wood nearly made me fall flat on my face. I pushed aside some leaves and brush, the ground cold and wet against my hand. There was an earthy smell, and it made me think of my body buried in its depths. That was how I wanted to go out—not in someone’s stomach.

“Don’t move,” a voice said to my left. He was good; he had moved from his location with barely a sound.

I hoped he didn’t mean it, because I put my hands up and then slowly straightened my back. When he didn’t shoot my fool head off, I decided that maybe he wasn’t as trigger happy as I had assumed.

“Someone there?” My eyes darted around the dark space as I searched for his form.

“You know I’m here. And you know I have a gun pointed at you, so stop the dog and pony and tell me just what in the fuck you are doing out here?” The voice was gruff but sounded young, based on the timbre and the way it wavered ever so slightly.

“Okay, but can you lower the weapon and show yourself? There are four of us, and one is a young girl. You are probably scaring the crap out of her.”

“Sorry. For all I know, you’re one of them and this is a trick.”

“No trick. We just escaped the zombie camp back there.” I motioned in the general direction from which we had come, but to be honest, with all the walking and confusion, I could have been pointing in the opposite direction.

The man stepped out of the woods. He was tall, lanky, and held his gun like a pro. I took one look in his eyes, which were hard, then I looked at his rifle. It was a very nicely kitted-out AR-15 with short stock, laser sight, probably fully automatic. He could cut us down in a split second.

The man was younger than I. He looked like he was twenty or so. His clothing was in good shape, and his shoes weren’t polished, but they were clean except for the fresh mud caked around the soles.

Jack rose beside me, with Scott on my other side. The man looked from face to face, and I wondered how we appeared. He didn’t betray any emotion, but we had to be in bad shape. It was nearing dawn, and the breaking light of morning had revealed Jack to be a bloody mess. His face was red, and his clothing was covered in crimson. Scott wasn’t too bad off, but the days in the cage were rough, and his clothing was dirty and drenched in water. He stood shivering like the rest of us.

Haley peeked around my side. Her face was dirty, and her dark hair looked like it would make a good nest for a bird. Mud and small sticks caked it, making her look almost wild.

The man looked from face to face and settled on Haley. I motioned for her to stay behind me. I was judging our distance, considering how far I would have to move to close and get my hand on the gun. He stood about eight feet from me, and his legs were spread, so he had decent base from which to fire. If I made a grab, I doubted I would have a chance. Even if I could get close and knock the barrel aside, there was a chance the bullets would hit some of the others in my troop.

We stood in silence for a while longer, and I felt like, once again, my life hung in the balance. I wondered if it would be best to just give up here and now. A bullet to the head seemed more desirable that hanging out in the woods, being hunted, waiting for death every moment of the day. Despair was something I had faced before, and it was something I faced now.

I grinned at the kid, and he relaxed.

“You are one sorry group.”

“We just got our asses kicked, tossed in a cage, and then left to die. Been in that place for almost a week,” Scott said.

“We heard there was a ghoul camp around here. Let’s go talk to the old man. He’ll know what to do.” He lowered his gun, looked around the area, and motioned for us to go ahead of him. When we passed him, he didn’t level the rifle at us, but he did keep it at the ready.

“Old man?” I asked.

“Our leader. A lot of the men in our troop owe their lives to him,” the man recited this like a litany. His eyes lit up with something approaching religious reverence. “He even brings in some of the creepers. That’s what you guys remind me of, you know. Creepers. With any luck, he’ll be willing to help.”

I knew this kid’s sort. Didn’t have a plan until he joined the ‘corp’ or army and found a purpose in life—like killing other men in faraway places, or protecting the country from terrorists. That had been the ultimate slap in the face as far as I was concerned. It was bad enough that thousands of our guys died in the jungles of Vietnam to protect the world from communism. On more than one occasion, I had wondered if the war on terror was just another excuse to get young men killed.

I knew this firsthand, because I had joined up thinking I would make a difference. But the war dragged on, and I was lucky enough—although at the time extremely bitter—to get out while the getting was good.

Allison—it had been she who saved me.

“Is he close?” Scott looked around, as if the mysterious leader were about to pop out from behind a bush at any moment.

“Near enough. That way.” He pointed with the barrel of the rifle. “I’m Andrew, by the way.”

We did introductions.

“I don’t know if I can make it. I’m really tired, man,” Jack said.

He was in bad shape, probably the worst of us. All that blood, was it his? His eyes were bloodshot, and shone with an angry glint as he looked back at the man with the rifle. Not too long ago, he had been in a cage, expecting to be eaten. And before that, he watched his family being dragged away and slaughtered. I wondered if he were even sane.

“We have food and water,” the soldier said.

Jack looked between him and me, then nodded.

We marched into more misery.

The break in the woods came much sooner than I had thought it would, and I never would have found it had we proceeded on our prior path. Not even a quarter mile from our resting spot. As we stepped out of the close-grown trees, we stumbled into a small creek. It ran parallel to the nearby road, but it wasn’t the first thing I saw. That vision was reserved for the military-grade vehicles pulled up alongside it. I went down with a splash and had a vision of the bloody water we had seen a few hours ago, but some of the stuff splashed in my mouth and tasted like heaven. Instead of hauling myself to my feet, I drank my fill as I lay shivering in the water.

It was warming up, but the night and captivity had taken their toll. I still felt chilled to the bone, but at least I was out of the woods. The risk of hypothermia had gone down considerably. Now that I was in the stream, all I wanted to do was lie there and drink until I was sick. I wanted to throw up a gallon of water and then drink again.

My stomach clenched up as the cool water hit. Then I did feel like throwing up, but settled for a long, loud burp. As I sucked down water like a fish, I kept my eyes on the men and vehicles around us. A couple of guys had stepped out and trained their weapons on us. A nice mix of old and new barrels leveled in our direction, but the kid with whom we’d come out of the woods must have said something, or made some sort of motion, to assure them we were no threat.

Scott staggered beside me and dropped to his knees. He rinsed his hands as if he were at home getting ready to do dishes. Then he dipped his hands once more and scooped up some clear water to drink. He sipped slowly, something I should have done, since I was cramping up.

“Fuck me.” Jack sighed and leaned over to sip near me.

The line of military vehicles, minivans, and trailers roared to life. I even saw a Stryker. It was moving, but it had seen better days. Someone had taken spray paint and tried to camouflage the sides, but it looked more like a six-year-old’s finger painting than a military transport.

A couple of Hummers surged up the road with men poking their heads out the top as they manned the machine guns. Scouts.

Men jumped into their vehicles, which quickly roared to life. The smell of exhaust tore at the early morning air. I took another sip of water.

A man stepped out of one of the Humvees and strode toward me. I was still on my knees, so the first thing I saw were his boots. Diamond patterned snakeskin. I cursed under my breath. As soon as he saw me, it was over.

“You guys look like hell spit you out. Bunch of creepers I bet.” Lee spoke the word like it was poison.

My hair hung to the side and hopefully shaded my face, so I glanced toward him. Would he even recognize me with the week of beard and filth caked on? The only time he had seen my face was at the military checkpoint almost half a year ago, then again at the house they tried to trap us in. At that time I was clean-shaven.

Lee strolled toward us then stopped beside Jack. I kept my head down and tried to act like I was breathing hard, which wasn’t too far from the truth. I wanted the appearance of a man that was too tired to get up and shake hands.

A group of geese picked that moment to fly overhead, honking as they passed. A flight shaped like a V that swooped away from us. A couple of the men popped off a few rounds, which scattered the birds but didn’t hit any of them.

“How many of you are out there?” Lee asked.

“Not sure. They had us in a camp back in the woods. We just escaped a short while ago. Probably another twenty or thirty back there. But we need to get out of here. There are a shit load of dead in the woods,” Jack said.

Haley stayed away from Lee. She was behind Scott, and didn’t look to be in much of a hurry to be noticed. Her face was pale and dirty, and she looked like she was a few years older. It was the weariness, the constant danger. It had to have worn on her worse than on us. Then again, I didn’t know what she had been through in the past six months.

“Who’s the kid?” Lee pulled his gun. He had the barrel in the air, like he was going to shoot a bird out of the sky. Now that would have been an impressive sight.

“She was trapped with us. They kept us in a cage, and she helped us escape. Her name is Haley, and she’s very brave,” I spoke up, feeling fiercely protective of the girl for no reason other than our companionship. I had never had kids, and didn’t know how to talk to them or relate.

One of the men approached and whispered in Lee’s ear as he lowered the gun. He squinted as the man spoke, looked toward the woods, and then back at us.

“Looks like you stirred up a hornets’ nest. There are a bunch of bodies heading our way, and when I say bodies, I think you know what I mean. So do I leave you here, or take a chance that you won’t do anything stupid and get us all killed? I really don’t have any use for more creepers.”

Scott stared at the man like he had never seen him before. I wondered if he were about to break into a cry of protest, but his face stayed tense. He looked at me then back at the large man.

Lee turned away and talked to the other guy, giving orders that I couldn’t hear. Scott leaned close and whispered in my ear.

“Shit! That’s him. What the hell are we going to do when he recognizes you?”

We didn’t have a choice. Maybe if we slunk to a truck, in the back we could get some food, and then sneak away at the next stop. It was a shitty plan, but it was either that or remain here and wait for the dead to find us. I doubted he would let us join his group. This was the same man that set a trap for my friends. These men were thieves, murders, and rapists. If I could fool them for a few minutes and get on board a vehicle without Lee noticing me, I might be able to get my hands on something useful, but I didn’t think I could stomach being so close to them.

We were on an open stretch of road, and it would make us perfect targets if anything came out of the woods. Across the double-lane road was a fresh copse of woods into which we could crash and try to hide. I didn’t like either option, but maybe we could join up with the men and get away later.

“Are you okay, girl?” Lee had his full attention on Haley, and that concerned me.

She stared at him but didn’t say a word. She wasn’t shaking anymore, and I was glad she was coping with the cold better than I was. She probably had more practice at it.

“Haley?”

She turned to regard me. Her eyes were darker now, lined in red—bloodshot and desperate. Had her eyes always been that color? I thought they were hazel, but now they were just black.

“Are you okay?”

She looked at Lee and took one step back.

“What the hell?” Scott took a step after her.

Lee took a pair of long strides, brushing past me.

Lee grabbed her arm as she put it out as if to push him away. He took her wrist and yanked her to him.

I went red with rage. What was he planning? If they had burned a family out of their home just to get their food, what was he going to do with a sixteen-year-old girl? Surely the entire world had not descended into anarchy. There had to be some humanity left.

“Let me go,” Haley roared. She struck at Lee, but he deflected the blow with one hand like he was swatting a fly. He leaned over so he towered above her head as he stared down at her.

“Let her go, God dammit!” I said, trying to get to my feet.

At my cry he turned and looked at me—really looked this time. Then his face darkened. Strom clouds filled his eyes, and I could tell I was about to meet an early end. I hoped fate hadn’t planned for us to make it this far only to be shot down like dogs. I wasn’t planning on lying here and watching something bad happen to one of us, especially not Haley. She had come back when she could have ran, could have left us. In fact, we told her to, but she still came back for us. Without Haley, we would still be in the cages.

“Erik,” she cried and looked at me. I met her eyes. They were filled with … something that wasn’t fear. They were brighter than before, like she had changed contacts. They had been dark, but now they were brighter and partially green.

“Hello, Tragger. Nice to meet you, son,” Lee said in a low voice.

Gasping, I tried to get to my feet.

“Let her go.” I said with as much force as I could muster.

“I’ll let her go, alright. Then you can join her. This little bitch is becoming one of them, and if you were paying attention you would have known that. But you know something?” He paused for dramatic effect. “Even if she wasn’t turning into one of those ghouls, I would still do this. Because I owe you.”

Lee pointed his gun at her head. I screamed from the ground and rose, but someone pushed me down. Thrusting my hand out, I found an ankle, hooked my hand in a claw and yanked. The man cried out in pain and nearly fell over. There was one other man near me, and he had a gun pointed, but I didn’t care. I planted my hand flat on the ground and shot my foot out. It slammed into the other guy’s shin, knocking him off his feet. In case he fired, I slid to the right.

The soldier went down, and I struggled to my feet, but I didn’t have anything left. Lee moved fast. He slid to his left, boots shuffling over the wet ground with a whisking sound. He had Haley’s arm in hand and dragged her along with him.

“Stop!” he yelled, pointing the gun at my face.

If I were on my feet, I might have had a chance, but from my position on the ground, I would be dead before I could try to knock the gun aside and go for a strike. It was suicide, but I didn’t see the folly of my action. All I knew was that I had to rescue Haley before Lee did something to her.

One of the guys I hit came back to his feet, and he was not happy. He pointed his gun at me, jabbing it in my face. The other guy rolled on his back, still clutching his shin. “Ah shit, man, that hurt. That fucking hurt!”

“Don’t shoot him,” Lee ordered the guy with the gun pointed at my chest.

The man looked at Lee, then at me, and snarled. He flipped the gun over and jabbed the butt into my gut, and I went down hard. My breath went out, and I couldn’t catch it again. Jack moved toward us, but the guy swung the gun at him. He stopped and held his hands out.

Lee stared at me for a few seconds, while Haley struggled to get away. She snarled and pulled at him, but he held her just as firm as if she were tied to him. His face was unreadable. If he was trying to tell me something, then I didn’t understand the message.

The next event would be burned into my brain for as long as I live.

Lee pushed Haley down. She fell back on her behind and stared up at him with something approaching rage. Her eyes were bright, and something should have clicked in my head, but all I saw was the girl who had helped us.

The gun boomed across the silent morning. A few seconds ago, the birds had started to call to each other again, making their plaintive cries, each struggling to be heard. I also wanted to be heard. I wanted to scream my rage, wanted to yell against the injustice, but all I could do was sit there, defeated, while Lee put a fucking bullet in the girl’s head.

She was gone, and I think part of me fled as well.

I stared, unable to think, unable to even make a sound. I was in shock, but it faded to white-hot rage in a few seconds. In that time, something happened.

The dead had arrived.

I backed up on my ass as an army of the things broke from the cover of the trees. They lurched and drooled blood as they set eyes on the living. Lee turned his gun on the nearest and fired. One of the zombies spun to the right but recovered, turned to face us, and lost the back of its head to a bullet.

There were five, no ten—there were fifty of them. They moved toward us, intent on our flesh. One of the ghouls broke from the trees and paused to study the scene. I looked at him and knew it was the same bastard that had taunted us at the camp. He snarled when he saw me, then his eyes went to the girl’s corpse.

Scott helped me up, and we backed away. I was filled with rage over Haley’s murder. My body and soul hurt, and I was angry and exhausted.

The undead came on and were killed. The men and women around us moved with precision as they fell back to their vehicles. One of the campers had only one door, and they ran for it, covering each other as they entered. I wished I had a gun in my hand, but I was so exhausted that I probably wouldn’t have been able to lift it.

I studied the soldiers dumbly, wondering if any had been at the ambush last week. They moved like pros now, not like the heartless scavengers that had tried to take our weapons and gear.

Scott and Jack moved me between them. We were forgotten, left behind by the men with weapons. They were swarming their vehicles, firing as they went, but they didn’t get all the undead.

The ghoul obviously had some time to plan and act. His line of zombies moved from the other side of the road. A canvas covered truck left, with a female soldier half hanging off the back. She tried to grab a hold of the back of the Jeep, but missed and fell off. One of the men reached for her. He had a frantic look on his face, as the driver gunned the engine and the car took off, only to smack into a pair of dead, knocking them to the side.

Lee was clinical. He moved backwards, covering his crew. He fired slowly, accurately, and when he ran out of rounds, he just as calmly dropped the magazine into his hand, put it in a pocket, and came out with a fresh one.

There were too many of them, and they were everywhere! Their moans chilled me to the bone; their calls for us, the living, made my heart race. We had come so far, so very far in the night, and we were back where we started. Back among the dead.

We stumbled, and I went down first. One of the soldiers had gotten turned around while he sought targets, and we all crashed together. I fell on top of him, and I didn’t even think about my actions. The gun was there, on the ground, and I picked it up. It was a small-caliber handgun, but it would take out the dead just as well as a hand cannon.

“Get the fuck off me!” the man screamed.

Jack grunted and moved back. Scott was first on his feet and pulled me up. The guy struggled to get up, but the strap from his rifle was wrapped around his shoulder, and he fell flat again.

I should have just left him, but I offered my hand, and he took it. With Jack’s help, we staggered back toward one of the vehicles. It was surrounded by the dead things, but the guy with the gun started shooting. I dragged the pistol up and put one in the side of a creature’s head. It fell off the back of the car with one hand clutching the guy it had been trying to bite. The man struggled and pushed but was dragged off the back. His screams were furious.

Lee called orders as he made it to the large trailer. Guns sprouted along the sides where the windows had been. There were slits in the sides, and metal plates slid out of the way to allow more guns to point outward. Shots rang up and down the road as the vehicle lurched forward and smashed into a couple of the dead that were trying to climb to the roof. They groaned as the big RV pulled away and ground them into the dirt.

We made it to the side of the military vehicle. It was surrounded, but we cut down a few in front. Scott moved like a man possessed. He had a look on his face I hadn’t yet seen on him. He was mad—beyond rage. Swearing, he jumped into the car and kicked one of the dead away from the driver’s side. He picked up a small machine gun, looked like an MP5, and jacked the chamber back to check the load. The zombie he had pushed off the side of the truck was replaced by a black guy with part of an ear and cheekbone missing. His mouth moved like he was talking, but he was probably imagining meat between his jaws.

Scott stuck his boot in the guy’s chest, and calmly held him back while he took the magazine out of the gun, as the dead man peered inside. Satisfied, he jammed it home, raised the gun, and blew the thing backward with a tap to the head. Scott didn’t waste ammo. He aimed and fired—one shot per zombie. Aim, fire, shift. Aim, fire, shift.

“Let’s go, man!” Jack screamed. He plopped down in the back and tried to look everywhere at once.

There was a large-caliber machine gun mounted above us, but it wasn’t like the movies, where I could just hop on the gun and start firing. The gun had to be checked and loaded.

The soldier with us jumped in the back of the car beside Jack and fired as fast as he could, but we were surrounded. Scott sat down and handed me the MP5. “There are a few shots left. Make ‘em count while I get us moving!”

He cranked the keys, and the truck roared to life. I held the gun in unsteady hands and shot the zombies as they came at us. Another truck roared past us, with one of the dead hanging from the back while the gunner on the big .50 caliber tried to take aim. The driver turned, pulled a pistol and shot the thing in the face, but his car was pulled to the right, and he clipped our truck then ran off the road, into the bushes. They were swarmed in a matter of seconds, and their screams went on for a long time as they were eaten alive.

“So sick of this shit,” I muttered as our vehicle lurched forward. One of the dead was just ahead, so I stood up in the tiny space, held onto the front windshield, and shot him in the head. Scott swerved slightly, but we still pulped the zombie.

There were more of them ahead, at least a dozen, and we didn’t have enough momentum yet to escape them. If we were going thirty or forty miles an hour, we might be able to barrel through them, but we were at a crawl. Scott punched it and knocked a few out of the way. The soldier with us stood up, changed his magazine, and then started shooting at everyone ahead of us.

As we made our slow progress through the human barrier, we met with more and more resistance. The dead surrounded the car and reached for us, clawed for us. The stench of rotted meat was disgusting. I couldn’t decide if I wanted to shoot them or throw up. The rotted dead were everywhere, and I was once again struck by how obscene they were. The things were an abomination. Up until now, I had been willing to recognize that they had been us, they had been human at one time. Now they were just mindless monsters worthy of only a bullet.

I shot as many as I could, and we broke free. I was already starting to feel better, a new reserve of adrenaline welling up from beneath my exhaustion. Every muscle ached, but I was in my zone now. I had a weapon, and we had a vehicle.

As we broke through the last of the dead things, Lee caught up. I heard a thump and glanced behind, taking my eyes off the enemy for a split second. Lee was flopping in the back of the truck, trying to climb onboard with us. He had his upper body over the back of the vehicle and strained to get in.

The man who had helped us get to the truck leaned over the back of the seat to help Lee. His upper body hung to one side, one leg dangling over the edge of the spot where the rear door should have been. One of the zombies got lucky. They grabbed his foot and tugged, pulling the man off balance.

Another latched on as Scott turned and pointed his gun. I could tell that he wasn’t going to get a good shot, though, because one of the soldiers was in his line of fire.

I shot one of the zombies in the face when it got too close, then I leaned between the seats and offered Lee a hand. He seemed surprised. He had his other hand in the back, gun over the seat as he fought for purchase in the bumpy ride. His cammo shirt rode up to expose a burned wrist and a tattoo of a devil surrounded by a yellow flaming pentagram. Instead of taking his wrist, I grabbed his pistol.

We lurched ahead, free of the zombies, and Scott put the pedal to the metal as we screeched up the winding road. There were a few of the dead on the road, but Scott did a good job of avoiding them. I admired his resolve not to smash into each one like a piñata, which might have damaged the truck. The last thing we needed was to be stuck.

“Let go of that gun!” Lee yelled, but I ignored him and pried it loose. Jack held onto him so he couldn’t get into the seat; his legs hung over the back of the truck like zombie bait. I didn’t care if one of them took him. I was just as likely to put a bullet in his skull after what he did to Haley.

“Scott, pull over as soon as we’re free. Lee and I are going to have a little chat.”

“Does the chat involve tossing his ass off a cliff?”

“As much as I know we need to keep other humans alive, it is pretty tempting.”

Lee stared daggers at me. If he had the gun, I was sure he would have shot me right about then. The scar that ran up his cheek was livid as he ground his teeth together, and I swore I could smell the stench of death on him. How I wanted to shoot him and be done with it.

“At least let me sit in the seat like a big boy. I hate having my ass hanging out for the zombies to latch onto.”

“Do you think Haley felt that way, too? Think she’d like to be sitting with us, instead of lying in a pile of blood, you son of a bitch?”

“Hey, son, she was changing into one of them, and you know it. Everyone knows that when the eyes go green, you shoot. We don’t need any more of those ghouls in the world. They’re already convinced they’re stronger and better than us. I did her and you a favor. It’s time you recognize what’s right in front of you.”

“What’s in front of you, Lee, is a fucking gun, and it’s pointed at your face. Do you really want to keep justifying killing the girl that helped us escape? A girl, Lee, a seventeen-year-old girl!” My hands shook with rage as I lifted the gun and pointed it at his forehead. My finger fell across the trigger, and I wanted to apply the pressure it would take to fire the bullet into his smirking face.

“You going to shoot one of your own? Are you going to shoot a survivor?” he challenged me.

“Is that the same choice you’ve offered the people you dragged out of homes? The people your men raped and killed?”

He didn’t even acknowledge my questions. He just stared at me like I was speaking a different language. I hated this man, and I barely knew him.

“Do it,” Scott said.

I glanced over, and his eyes were just as livid as my own. Jack looked between us, but I couldn’t read his expression. Maybe, like me, he was exhausted and sick of running.

“Scott, pull over, please,” I said, deciding I couldn’t kill Lee. As much as I wanted to, he was right.

Scott came to a halt and took the MP5 from my lap. He looked at me and winked, signifying that whatever I chose, he was behind me.

“Get out,” I said simply.

“You gonna just shoot me here, and leave my body for the goddamn zombies? Takes a real man to do that, you know—to step forward and take care of business. It takes a man with guts. You sure you’re up to the challenge?”

“Get out of the fucking truck. NOW!”

Lee stared at me for a while, shook his head, and then slid out of the back seat.

It was much quieter here, a mile or so from the death and destruction. There were a few birds chirping, and noises from the bushes surrounding the road. A lazy cloud picked that moment to drift over the sun, setting the road on fire as diffuse light scattered across the ground, faded, and then reappeared.

I pointed the gun at his face and thought about all the reasons I should let him live. He was one of us, as disgusted as I was with him. He was a human, and we were an endangered species. I thought of all those who had passed into the night since the uprising of the dead, saw their faces, and felt a sense of loss.

Would one more death change anything? Then I pulled the trigger.

Shock registered on Lee’s face as the hammer smacked against a dry chamber. I stared at him then at the gun. With a cry of fury, I tossed the pistol into the bushes.

I reached across the back of the seat, grabbed him by the collar and pushed. His precarious position, ass in the air, meant he had no purchase. He flopped off the truck and landed in a heap. I heard the air hiss out of his body when he struck. .

“Go join the dead. I hear they’re recruiting.”

“Coward. Come back here and face me. Come back here! This isn’t over!” he screamed as we drove away. He was on his hands and knees, hand pressed to his stomach.

He was right about that; it was far from over, but that was all later.

We drove for miles until we came to the outskirts of Vesper Lake. The road was blackened and scarred, and the same husks of cars I had grown used to were now faded shadows in the pale light. We needed a place to hole up, but the cabin was too risky this late in the day. The drive would take at least an hour, and I didn’t trust our gas supply to get us there.

Every once in a while, the radio squeaked, but I didn’t take time to figure it out. Scott fiddled with it and changed channels. He listened and sometimes spoke into the old CB speaker, but he didn’t get a reply.

We pulled off on a dirt road, which we followed until we came to an old farm. The house was blackened and gutted, but we found a barn in the back—more a slaughterhouse than anything else. The sign out front informed us that they sold quarter and half slabs of beef. I was so hungry I was pretty sure I could devour one if it appeared. I wouldn’t mind a juicy steak cooked over an open flame.

We did a quick reconnaissance, but the place was long deserted. The remains of a man, or woman, in overalls, lay outside of the building. It didn’t twitch, so we left it undisturbed. There were no animals left, and the gates around the place were wide open. We didn’t bother with the house; it was obviously empty. The roof was partially caved in, and one side had disappeared in the flames.

The place we called home for the night still bore the stench of things long dead. There was a bucket in the corner filled with a dried-out collection of organs and intestines. It was so desiccated flies didn’t even buzz around it. I took it outside and tossed it as far away as I could. Then I slid the long door closed and latched it with some bindings I found over one low wall that was probably used as a waiting room prior to slaughter.

Jack sat in the back of the truck with his head drooped forward, chin on chest, as he snored like a locomotive. He was still covered in blood. I looked over the remains of my own clothing and thought of how much I would give for a change right now. My week in the woods and the cages had not been kind to them. My pants were nearly dry, but they were hard to move in. They were crusted with old salt from my sweat, mud from the woods, and all manner of things that I must have brushed into while on the run. Sniffing the shirt, I smelled my own stench; not a hint of Haley to be found. I hung my head and sighed.

“Yeah brother, I’d cry too. You smell like shit,” Scott said. He had the same quirky grin as always, and I almost embraced him right then and there. It was my fault he was stuck here with me, but he took it in good spirit, just like everything else. I hoped someday I would be able to make it up to him.

“What the hell do we do now?” I said.

“I don’t know about you, but I would love to get some rest, and then call in an air strike on the bastards that kept us in that cage. We left a lot of people back there.”

“I know, but the army and air force are long gone. At least I think they are, unless you know different.”

“I’m not sure. There were rumors of military survivors rebuilding in some cities. I heard the military had a safe city built up around Pittsburgh, but who knows if that’s true.”

I went to the truck and rummaged around. There was a cover over the back, from the seat to the bumper, and there were boxes secured under the seat itself. After popping the latch, I sucked in my breath. Scott came over to look at the contents and whistled at the haul.

“Who the …” Jack jerked up and nearly fell out of the seat. Scott and I chuckled and welcomed him back to the land of the living. He rubbed his eyes as he crunched over the straw-covered ground and joined us. His eyes went wide.

Food!

I found a bottle of Gatorade that had the lid screwed back on. It was full of water—clean, clear water. In a few swallows, I drank it down, not caring that it was warm. There was a case of the bottles, and we made a serious dent in them. There was no question about reserving some of it. We weren’t on a deserted island; we just had to scrounge for our meals, and when we found them, it was in our best interest to enjoy every bite like it was our last.

Then we tore into a box of Cliff bars. I ate three before I came up for breath.

We looked through the other boxes and supplies, stacking and sorting, compiling and discussing. There were enough supplies here for a half-assed plan that was forming in my brain, but we needed to do it right. We needed to plot, and we needed to trust each other implicitly. I needed help, for I couldn’t do it alone. As I stared from face to face, they must have known what I was thinking.

There were boxes of weapons and ammo, from hand guns to fully automatic machine guns. Trying not to grin like a maniac, I ran my hand over the neatly stored weapons. I was familiar with some of them, while others were foreign or had unusual designs, but they all had one thing in common. They were good at delivering death.

As night drew close, we left off counting our haul. We sought a place to rest and pulled loaded weapons close. I found a few smelly old blankets, rotted things that moths had been at, but they were better than nothing. Scott got in the passenger-side of the truck and reclined all the way back, while Jack stretched out in the back. His feet hung over the side. He looked like a big baby bump under the green blanket, and he snored like a train once again.

I withdrew to a corner of the building and curled up on some straw. It wasn’t that comfortable, but it was better than the cage in which we’d been kept.

Tomorrow would be a new day. Tomorrow would be filled with hope. It would be a fresh start for us, or it could be our last day. But it would be new, and it would be filled with death. I was no longer content to be herded and chased, nor would I be compliant to the will of the ghouls. I was no longer at their mercy or at the behest of the dead. I would take the fight to them.

It might have been morning, or it might have been night. I woke in a ball of pain that started at my scalp and ran to the tip of my toes. The smell of the old place assaulted me, as did snoring from across the room. I went to stretch, but my limbs ached so badly I let out a hiss of pain.

The image of Haley flashed through my mind: her head snapping back as the bullet entered, the look of fear on her face. There was something there that I didn’t understand, and I wondered for the first time if Lee had been right. Had she been in the process of changing into one of them? Did she eat from the undead flesh while we were trapped in the cage? While she was out and looking for a key, had she been captured and force fed?

These thoughts made me toss and turn as I tried to come to grips with reality. My mind became a haze of pain and regret, fear and loathing. It became a cesspool of the darkest things in the human nature. It made me bitter, and it made me hate.

It was red hot—a seething mass of energy that lurked beneath my skin, aching to get out. I tried to sleep, to ignore the sounds of the world around me, the smell of death and rot that permeated the air. It was hard, hard to ignore everything that had happened over the last few days and months. The cabin, Katherine—oh my God, Katherine. I wanted to get back to her more than anything, wanted to protect her, to love her. She was scarred, and so was I, but together we could forge a future. I was sure of it.

First, I had to take care of something. I was tired of being on the run, fighting for my life. I was going to bring to the dead what they had brought to so many of us. I was going to put an end to every one I could find, and then I was going to burn them from the face of the earth, if it was the last thing I did.

I rose, my legs popping as I groaned. Lack of potassium was making me weak; my body was trying to keep up with the torture, but it was hard pressed. There were more protein bars, and it would have to do. At least they would fill the void in my gut.

How many boxes of Cliff bars were left in the entire world? With the U.S. overrun by the dead, how long did it take for the factories to shut down, for the grain and supplies to stop flowing? How many cargo ships sat off the coast and waited for something to change?

I wished I had a cup of coffee—a big twenty-ouncer that I could nurse until it was the perfect temperature then guzzle for the caffeine hit. I found the next best thing in some energy drinks that were stashed with the rest of the supplies.

I ate a dried-out protein bar and washed it back with a pair of Red Bulls. They were the sugar-free kind that left a weird aftertaste in my mouth, but the chemicals, herbs, and heavy caffeine hit me like a brick, leaving me buzzed before the first one was gone. The second one was just gravy.

After pulling stuff out of boxes, I sorted and categorized. There was an arsenal here, and I planned to use it all. Guns, bullets, grenades, even some empty glass bottles that would make great Molotovs. Fill a bottle with fuel, stick a piece of cloth in, light it, and watch the Z’s crackle, pop and burn. Bye bye, bastards.

“Why do you have to start that shit so early?” Scott mumbled. He slid beside me and took in the food and drink. I could tell he was in just as much pain as I was.

“‘Bout time you got up, princess. I was about to send a toad to wake your ass up.”

“Am I the toad?” Jack sat up in the back of the truck and rubbed his eyes.

I looked between the two, looked closely at their eyes, and felt sorry for doing it. They weren’t changing into ghouls. These were my friends, and I would protect them from any harm. They would never eat of the dead, nor would I. I would die of starvation first.

“You’re something, but I don’t know if I would go with toad,” Scott said.

“Good to know I’m loved.”

“Yeah, those things out there would love to munch on you.” Scott chuckled.

We ate a few more protein bars and compared the taste and texture to sawdust, then discussed the merits of a few beers with breakfast while we sorted the gear.

I found a jacket in one bin that was a little worn and a bit tight over my frame, but I was able to slip into it. The thing had an impressive number of hooks and pockets; I would be able to hang all manner of gear on it.

Scott dug around in the glove box and came out with an old manual for the machine gun mounted on top of the beat-up Hummer. He started going over the device, and even fed some bullets into it from a large ammo box.

“Want me to shoot?” I asked?

He smirked at me and shook his head. “No fucking way, partner. I’m going to be all over this thing when we bring it.”

When we bring it, eh? I was planning to ask them to stay here while I went, but from their faces, I could tell that was a mistake. There was no way they would wait here while I waltzed off with our only transport and a will to die for my new cause.

I checked the perimeter next, something I should have done to begin with but didn’t have the energy for. It would probably serve us right if we were ambushed.

The farm was a few hundred feet off the main drag, so I doubted we would be disturbed. I checked as much of the place as I could, and even went to the wide-open front gate to check for footprints, but the only fresh signs I saw were the marks from the truck.

A dog barked somewhere in the distance. It sounded big, like a lab or German Shepherd. Birds were making a cacophony in the woods. With so many humans gone, it was no wonder they were returning and probably multiplying like flies.

I walked back to the slaughterhouse and noticed an old well to the side. It was partially covered with a fallen tree about sixteen feet tall. Looked like a small maple to me, but the leaves were all dried and blown away. Pushing the husk aside, I checked the pump. It was old, and there was a block on it—a piece of metal that slid into a latch. With a screech I pulled it out, and the handle moved. There was a tap that was covered, but I couldn’t move it. I went and found a rock and hammered it a few times until it came loose. Take that, primate ancestors.

I worked the pump for a minute before yellowish water came out. The wind was picking up and blew some of it on me. I backed up, but there was no smell of rot, just rust. I went to the other side and pumped until the water ran clear, then I did my best to rinse my hands clean.

On the tip of my tongue, I tasted a bit, and it was as sweet as honeydew. Scott stared at me from inside the slaughterhouse, and I gestured for him to come over. He tasted it, whooped, and then drank some. We took turns sipping the water until Jack came out.

“Well you are just full of surprises, Erik.” He grinned at me.

“I just fired it up. I didn’t dig the thing.”

“You’re still my hero.”

Jack didn’t stand on ceremony. He walked around until he found a bucket and dumped out whatever the hell was in it before. After he rinsed it out a few times, he stripped out of his clothes. Scott and I looked at each other, and his eyebrow quirked up at the corner as the larger man dropped his drawers.

In the chilly morning air, he filled the bucket with water then dumped it over his head, while we pretended to look at everything but his unabashed nakedness. Not that I had a problem with the human form; it was just weird. He shivered, howled at the cold, and did it again.

“God damn, I’m alive.”

After he went back inside to get dressed, I shrugged at Scott and did the same thing. The water stung like an electric shock, but I felt almost reborn after the icy cold washed away my fear of the day to come.

We left an hour later, somewhat clean and more or less refreshed. I had a full stomach, and the energy drinks were doing their best to eat away the lining of my stomach, but I was more buzzed on caffeine than I had been since the cabin. The morning air had burned off to reveal a warm Oregon day. Clouds pulled back, and the sun roared down like an angry god.

“Any idea how to get there?” Scott asked from behind the wheel. He’d driven yesterday, and when we got in the vehicle, he jumped in the driver’s seat like he was made for it.

“We head back the way we came. The turnoff was about three miles down the road. I remember a big burned-up husk of a crew cab on the side of the street. Then we visit Haley and find our way to the camp.”

Scott was silent when I mentioned her name. Had he become as close to her in the cage as I had? I felt an odd sense of loyalty to her memory, even though I had only known her for a day or two. I had thought of her as a kid sister. Someone I would have been happy to listen to when she was troubled at school, but she was gone.

“Do you think he was right?” Scott asked.

“Doesn’t matter. He shouldn’t have done it. Asshole.” Jack leaned forward.

“I should have killed him when I had the chance.”

“Maybe, but he is one of us. Good or bad, he’s still human,” Jack said.

“Bad, man. That was the same guy that dragged a family out of their home because they wouldn’t join his cause. We had enough whack-jobs in the day. We shouldn’t let them run around like that.”

“Who are we to judge?” I wondered out loud.

“Fuck that, man. This is a new world. A world that sucks, sure, but it’s ours, and we have to shape it or we are dead. All of us will become creepers like those things. Do you want to wander around like that? I sure don’t. Not me.”

“I don’t think we should have the power to decide who lives and dies.”

“Really, Erik? So then what the hell are we doing now, if we shouldn’t be judge, jury, and executioner?” Scott shot back.

“He’s got you there, boss.” Jack said, leaning back and putting his hands behind his head as he stared at the sky. He hummed a song as we drove on.

Scott did have a good point, but this wasn’t simply about judging. This was about eradicating a cancer from the earth. This was about vengeance. This was about taking out every one of those undead bastards so they never again held people against their will. I would err on the side of humanity when it came down to it.

We took the turnoff and drove past the spot where I’d tossed Lee out on his ass. There was no sign of him. I might have had a change of heart and put him down after all.

It wasn’t much longer before we came across the battle scene. Most of the bodies were gone, but there were spent shells all over the ground.

We sat in the idling car for a moment, staring at the spot. Haley’s body was still lying there, alone, next to a puddle of water that had been my salvation for all of two minutes. I got out without a word and went to her. She looked pathetic with her face to the side, one arm over her head, the other crooked against her body. Her legs were splayed open, so I pushed them together, but resisted the urge to touch her. There was a familiar smell to her—that rotted stench like fish guts left in a bucket. It could have been from the cage; we might have all smelled like it.

I skirted the area with my rifle held low, but nothing moved in the woods, even when I moved into the trees a bit. Scott and Jack dragged branches to Haley and covered her as best they could. We didn’t speak as we got back in the truck and drove off.

“I think this might cut into the camp. The road hasn’t seen much use, but I have a feeling it is in that direction,” Scott said. He was pointing at the dirt path. There was a mailbox that read ‘Johnson,’ but it was hanging off the post like someone had run into it with a car.

We had been up and down the area, over and around the back streets, and while we had escaped at night, I was reasonably sure that we were in the right location. I jumped out of the truck, puffing up dust with my beat-up boots, then moved to the edge of the woods that rose in a low fence around the pathway.

I would have given just about anything for a suppressor for the gun. It was an older AR-15, much like the gun I used back when we were at the Walmart, but this one had seen a lot of use. Half a dozen magazines weighed me down, and I planned to use as many of them as possible.

“I’ll take a look. Hang back for a second. If you hear gunfire, come in with guns blazing.”

“What if a bunch of boy scouts are camping in there?” Scott grinned.

“Then come in singing Kumbaya, mother fucker.” I faded into the tree line.

The woods weren’t as dense as I remembered, and it would be about my luck to have chosen the wrong location. I crept ahead, feet placed softly, gun raised, as I tried to not step on any branches or into holes. Light streamed in from breaks in the trees, but, for the most part, it was dark and gloomy. It smelled fresh, the wet earth and trees. There was no stench of the dead carried on the wind here.

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.

I moved farther along the camp perimeter. The zombies were on the move, too, looking for the source of the explosion. They came off the ground, rising like ghostly apparitions. They moved in slow motion at first, but faster as they sensed something was up.

How could the dead sense anything? They might have reacted to sound or to the explosion, but they couldn’t see me. Still, I felt like they were looking right at me, like their eyes were burrowing into my soul.

It was the ghouls. They had to be stopped. I had to eradicate them and free their hold on the masses before me.

There were a few, then there were a couple more, then dozens of them. They came at the woods with their lumbering strides, slack jaws, and empty eyes. They came in their masses with the stench of the earth surrounding them. Flies buzzed around them in clouds as they feasted on blood and any exposed viscera they could find.

I moved from tree to tree, keeping them in my sight at all times. I would stop and fire, drop a few, and then move. But for every one I shot, two or three replaced them. The camp had been infested with the bastards. If I had to put a count to them, I would have guessed three or four hundred. I did not have that many shots.

Any minute now, the guys would come in blazing, flank the mass, and I would make for the shack and kill the green-eyed demons. The .50 caliber would ring out with its pulsating whump whump whump, and I would be able to complete my task.

More were on the move, and I had to make a run for it. I came to a clearing and jumped to the side in an attempt to stay out of view. I was behind a copse, but it was overgrown with blackberry bushes. I had to skirt it, and this exposed me to their eyes. They moaned and howled for my blood, and I shivered in the warming day.

Into the woods again. A branch to the face. Eyes closed as I brushed away the dry needles. Into a tree at nearly full speed. I struck it and nearly fell over, so I paused to catch my breath, smelling them on the air. They were close.

On the run again. More undead to my right. I wrapped the rifle strap over my shoulder so I could draw my handgun. A guy broke through the trees with a woman in tow. They were joined at the wrist by handcuffs, and I almost laughed out loud at the sight of them both naked. Must have been an interesting story there—one I wouldn’t ever get to hear. One they wouldn’t ever tell, either, as I shot them both. The first shot pegged the guy and tossed him to the ground like a ragdoll. I managed to get the girl in the shoulder as she spun, and a second shot took the side of her head off.

Moving again. There was a horde just ahead, so I unsnapped another grenade and threw it from my side, arm whipping out from my body. I kept moving as it WHUMPED behind me.

As if in answer, a gunshot called out behind me, far behind me. What kept them so long?

With the cavalry on the way, I decided to risk the open area. If they made speed in the truck, they would break into the open area in less than a minute.

I was twenty or thirty feet from the mass of zombies when I came screaming out of the trees, rifle blazing, popping off as many rounds as I could. All high shots, so I would take the zombies in the head, if possible. Changing magazines on the run was an exercise in patience, as I had to feel the rounds into the gun.

With a fresh round in the chamber, I blasted a couple that came into view ahead of me. One went down, but my second shot went wide, and I nearly ran into the second zombie. A front kick sent it reeling, and I passed the bastard, on my way again.

The shack was ahead, and, all around me, the cages rose like a weird circus. Some still had humans in them. We had to have missed them in the craziness of the night before. God, had it only been a day?

More shots sounded behind me—a mix of automatic and single rounds. That did not sound right. Then the big machine gun opened up, and I grinned as I shot another zombie. This bullet took it in the throat and must have passed through the spine because it went down without a sound.

The shack was just ahead. I didn’t know what purpose it had before, but now it was my target. I knew it sheltered the ghouls and served as their base, because I had seen people brought to it, and they did not come out. No matter the purpose, I had a surprise for the building. Something I had been saving.

I spun and shot, emptying an entire magazine. The group coming toward me fell, some now missing body parts. The violence of the bullets ripping into the mass was appalling.

Hitting the shack, I felt it rattle. I slammed into it again, then peeked around the corner toward the road that led into the compound. Jack and Scott should have been here by now!

It would have been much easier if we had some way to communicate. Even an old pair of cell phones with Bluetooth units, but those hadn’t worked in months.

Note to self: Get walkie talkies.

Note to self: Kill everything with green eyes.

The small building was constructed of corrugated steel. In the summer, it would have been a sauna. It was rusted on one side, and the few windows were covered over with wood and paper. I dropped into a crouch near one and tried to peer in by looking over my shoulder, but the coverings made it impossible to see inside.

With my back pressed to the wall, I slid toward the door. The dead were onto me and on the move. They were closing in from all sides, and it looked like I might have just one shot at this.

I ripped the last fragmentation grenade off my shoulder and stopped at the wooden door. When I hit the wall, then door popped open, but shut quickly from the force of my back striking the rickety building.

I pulled the pin and looked up briefly. Not a prayer exactly, just something I had seen done many times. If there was a God, he wasn’t here. The only thing here was the dead. Fuck the dead.

As gunfire erupted behind me, I popped the door open. As I poked my head around the corner of the doorway, I could have sworn something splatted across the ground nearby. What the hell was going on out there?

I would have to hope for the best, hope they got here soon. I didn’t have much time left.

I tossed the grenade in the shack then ran. The space was small enough that the shrapnel should put it down. It did a good job, all right, lifting the building up slightly with its explosion. The flat roof shifted to one side, and then smoke rose as the building fell on its side.

One wall went over, and the rest followed. A crumpled mass of old metal rang like a bell as it crashed to the ground. I picked myself up and went to the wreckage, hoping the confined space helped finish the job, but if any still lived, I would take them down with a bullet. I wanted this camp shut down and the green-eyed bastards eradicated from it.

The rumble of a giant machine gun called, assuring me that the cavalry had finally arrived.

A horde of zombies was on its way, so I slammed in a fresh magazine and opened up. From behind me came the sound of more groaning. They were calling for my flesh. Spinning, I dropped one that was too close—a woman missing part of her left arm and all of her right. Her ragged flesh hung like a nightmare, and where blood should have flowed, only bugs and maggots dwelled.

After I shot her in the face, I bolted for the remains of the shack. Smoke rose from the fallen walls and made the air reek of explosives. I poked the gun under one sheet of metal that had fallen over a desk. It was bowed in the middle, making a weird little tent. I couldn’t help but think that it would have made a much better place to rest than our cage. I would have killed for such a place a few days ago.

Scanning the remains of the walls, I didn’t see any legs or hands poking out. There were no bodies to be found.

“Goddammit!” I yelled in frustration.

Shoving aside one of the thin walls, I found the remains of a sparse room built atop a thin wooden floor. I moved more pieces aside, hoping to see bodies squirming around in the wreckage or lying unmoving.

Setting the rifle down, I worked on the edges, but kept one pistol in hand. When one of the dead got too close, I would shoot it.

The chance to escape with my life was fading as they arrived. They closed in from all sides as I worked to slide things aside.

There were no bodies.

The big gun opened up again, and I thought of Scott on top, shooting our former brothers and sisters down. I would have been horrified, but I would have done the same. I would have cleared them like weeds.

My boot snagged on a ragged section of wood that stuck out of the ground. Stepping over it, I wrestled another piece of metal out of the way. I had to move my foot off the metal, then I stepped back onto the place I had cleared.

There was a snapping sound, then a crash, as I slid into something. I reached out for purchase, for anything, but there was only the hard wooden floor to grasp at as I went down.

A flight of stairs greeted me as I fell, and I’m pretty sure I crashed into every step on my way down. I tried to stay on my back, but I hit a railing and slid over to smash into the wall about halfway down. Clods of dirt smacked me in the face as my feet hit the ground. I lay for a few seconds just listening. The zombies above me moaned, while chunks of stair and earth fell all around.

My body felt like someone had taken a jackhammer to it. My legs and back were bruised and sore to begin with, but now they were barely able to function when I told them to get me up. I reached for the railing, but it broke in my hand, so I had to sit forward and try to lurch to my feet.

In my current state, I was as close to being one of the dead as I had ever been in my life. If one of them fell on me now, I doubted I would have the strength to resist. Then it would all be over.

Struggling to my feet, I took in the room. It was much larger than the floor above. There were a few bodies here, but none of them moved. I trained the gun around me, sweeping it left and right in the poor light. Nothing rose up to threaten me.

Parts of the walls were shored up with wood. I found a light switch and flipped it a few times, but nothing came on. Where the hell did I think the electricity would come from?

I staggered around until I found a shelf in the back. Feeling along it, I came across something round and hard—a flashlight. After I hit the button, a dull light cut into the gloom. Dust fell from above, as did more chunks of earth. What was this room for? Had someone built it as a prison, or just a place to work and escape the heat during the day?

As I scanned the room, a shape moved into my light, and gleaming green eyes transfixed me. My body went cold with shock, and goose bumps rose across my chest. A ghoul stood right before me.

“Hello,” it hissed, emitting breath as foul as any sewer I had ever smelled. I didn’t give the ghoul a chance to say another word. I tugged the gun up and shot it twice. Once in the throat—almost a reflex shot—and once in the cheek. I meant to shoot it in the center of its forehead, but fired careless in my shock.

At this range, nearly point blank, the ghoul was taken off its feet and fell to the ground. Well there was my revenge, just as pretty as you please. A ghoul shot down and me the victor. Weep for me, world; the greatest victory I could ever hope for was at my feet, and I still felt empty inside.

Then other bodies on the floor moved. Why didn’t I check them when I first tumbled down here? Probably because my brain was addled from the fall.

I don’t know how many there were in the room. Three? Ten? Instead of wondering, I started shooting. They howled for my blood as they closed in. I shot one in the forehead, and then rocked my elbow back into someone’s face as they grasped at me.

I stepped on something and slipped. Only when my foot slid off it did I look down and recognize the shape. A skull. Another ghoul came from the right, sliding off the ground like a shadow. I barely saw it until the eyes gleamed with intent. Green, angry, and dead, but cunning. I planted the barrel in its face as its hands reached for me. They brushed my shirt, questing for something to hold on to. I fired, but my aim shifted as I was rocked from the rear by another of them.

Gunfire from above told me my friends had arrived. Hope at last.

“Down here!” I yelled, lashing my elbow back, but I missed my target. I adjusted my aim and fired again. The shape fell away, but I didn’t know if I’d hit it. There was no sound. My ears were completely numb, felt like they were full of cotton. The noise in the room when I fired was overwhelming. Each shot was now muffled, like I was shooting underwater. I hated that I had lost one of my best weapons—my hearing.

I backed up until my legs hit the stairs. A piece of the building had fallen so that it partially blocked my view. Light streamed in from where I’d found the entrance.

My shoulder and back ached from the fall. I had banged my hip pretty hard, and it throbbed to my heartbeat. The pain was refreshing; it reminded me that I was still alive, and it kept me focused.

I shot another one in the chest, and it fell back, then I fired at another shape before the gun jammed. I was surprised it had lasted this long without getting stuck. The weapons were in good shape, but not all that well taken care of. “Way to go, Lee, still fucking me over.”

Dropping the rifle, I drew the Desert Eagle from under my arm. It was a heavy gun—big and nasty. When it spoke, it did so with authority. I didn’t have time to inspect everything carefully, but I was pretty sure it was a Mark VII. It held eight rounds of the .44 caliber variety instead of the modified .50 I had fired a few times. That gun took even fewer rounds, but it would probably take down a bear. I didn’t need to shoot anything that large, but the weight was reassuring.

It was good to know that if I did fire off seven rounds, I had one left with my name on it.

The ghoul behind me got up again, snarling and drooling blood from a busted lip where my elbow struck. I spun, leveled the nearly foot-long gun, and shot it. The gas-powered auto-loader worked like a dream as it propelled the massive .44 load down the long barrel. It sounded like someone had tossed an explosive at my feet, and it did the job. The ghoul didn’t so much fall back as he was blown back into the wall. Not a headshot, but I think the gun did enough damage to justify not aiming.

Fuckers were everywhere. I tried to get up the first step, but missed it and scraped my chin as a hand closed on my ankle. Cold, questing fingers that felt like they were coated in slime wrapped around my leg. I spun and stomped down, missing the wrist but smashing the forearm into the ground. Aiming where I thought the thing was, I fired another load, then another as I shifted the aim based on the flash. If I hit it, the round went in probably near the shoulder. My next shot was right in the brain.

The ghoul’s head hit the ground so hard that it recoiled, and a mass of gray splattered the cold wood floor.

“Stop,” someone called out. It was soft, but had the telltale dry rasp, signifying it was not human. It sounded like two old pieces of leather rubbing against each other.

The shapes fell away and moved to the side of the room. There were a lot of them—more than I thought possible. Green eyes regarded me from all four walls. I didn’t know who had spoken. If I found out, I was looking forward to shooting that one in its glowing orbs.

“Stop killing. We can talk like civilized men. You and I. Just put away your gun. I can promise you safety.”

“You can promise me safety? I believe that about as far as I can spit. Talk fast so I can get back to killing all of you.” My lungs hurt from the night before, from running, from being lost in the woods. They hurt from falling, and they ached from the fight. I didn’t have much left. Hell, I hadn’t had much left when I woke up this morning. Here I was, letting the damned things I came to kill try to talk me out of it.

“You are hurting us, hurting our kind. Go. Leave us. Alone.”

“Fuck you and your kind. You are an abortion. I want every one of you dead.” Anger seared through me—a hot fuse that was going to explode. If I had a box of C-4, I would probably set it off just to spite these assholes.

“But we are you. We are human,” the ghoul said. Why couldn’t I pick him out in the mass? I couldn’t even determine where his voice was coming from.

The room swam before my eyes, and I didn’t think I could stay on my feet much longer. How many shots had I fired from the big gun? Did I have another one I could use on myself? Rookie mistake, losing count like that. Or the simple mistake of a man driven to the brink of his sanity and exhaustion. The whole last terrible month felt like it was crushing me with an ungodly weight. I wanted to sit down and babble about the evils of the world, find Jesus, slink away to a cave somewhere, and just die.

But if these ghouls had their way, I would join them. It wouldn’t take much for them to simply hold me down and force feed me some zombie flesh. Then they could lock me up until I changed.

What did I have? A few bullets? A knife? And I was faced with about fifteen or twenty of the glowing-eyed bastards. A pair of eyes from much farther away than the rest told me a tunnel stretched into the distance. Who knew how far back it went or what it contained? There could be a hundred more of the monsters.

If I only had some last resort. Once again, I yearned for a brick of C-4 explosives; maybe that would shut this place down.

Screams from above accompanied flashes against the dark of the stairs as bullets bounced around. I wished I were up there, able to fight with my friends, but they would do their best to finish the mission. They would kill every last one of the dead in the camp before leaving. They had assured me it would be done. Then they would lead the survivors out of the camp into freedom. Maybe take them to Portland.

Wait. Explosives. These ghouls were mean, but they weren’t all that bright. I took one of the bags off my shoulder ever so slowly while trying to keep the gun trained on them. It had a couple of smoke grenades that I wasn’t sure what to do with, but the boy scout in me had said they might come in handy. I held it up above my head.

“This explosive can level this place. If I pull the pin, we all go up. You, me, and everything in the room—every last dead one of you. Someone want to start negotiating?”

Silence was their answer, while unblinking green eyes continued watching me. No one moved. It was a start.

“You will die,” one of them said in that voice that made me want to rip off my own ears.

“I don’t care.”

Or did I? I missed Katherine terribly and wanted nothing more than to join her again. For all her problems, she was as close to the perfect woman for me as I had ever met. Allison had been pale and waifish, beautiful and flighty. She never knew what she wanted, and I never knew where I stood with her. With Katherine, there was never any bullshit.

“Your sacrifice would be for nothing. We are everywhere. We are—as the old line goes—legion.”

One of the green-eyed monsters stepped away from the wall with its hands above its head. He was dressed in the rags of his old life—a Hawaiian shirt that now looked ridiculous hanging from his dead body. It was torn and dirty, and I don’t think he cared one bit. He wore a pair of jeans that hung low and loose, the bottoms torn and frayed.

His eyes regarded me in their lifeless way. The others moved around as he stepped toward me, and I expected one of them to pop out and try to take me while my attention was focused on the ghoul moving toward me.

More gunfire from up above. Yelling, but the words were hard to make out. Ripples of fire rocked the ground as the big gun spoke.

“Fine. You go first.” I gestured toward the stairs.

He picked his way over the broken stairs. I followed close, the Desert Eagle aimed at his head and the ‘package of explosives’ in my other hand. As we moved upward, I kicked debris over the edge of the stairs.

I squinted as we came into the light above. I worried that Scott or Jack would see the ghoul and shoot on sight, but they seemed to have their attention on taking out zombies.

When I came into the light outside, I looked around. The vehicle was fifty or sixty feet away with Scott on the machine gun, firing toward the entrance of the camp. Jack was on the side of the truck firing in single-shot mode from an automatic. I grabbed the ghoul and thrust him in front of me. He nearly fell, but I didn’t help. Touching the thing was repulsive.

“Look at all of your sheep dying.”

“There are always more sheep—many more sheep. A whole world of sheep.” the ghoul said. “I was one once. My name was Warren. I was much like you, but now I am better.”

“And dead.”

The thing turned to look at me, his face a nightmare of bruised and mottled flesh around large green eyes that even glowed in the light of day.

“As will you be, someday. I look forward … to it.”

I could just shoot him here and now, be done with it, but then I would lose a bargaining chip. I needed him, but only for the time being.

“Scott, Jack, you ready to roll?” I called out.

Jack looked at me as he changed a magazine. Bullets whizzed by him, and one pinged off the side of the truck. Scott readjusted his aim and fired in the general direction of whoever was shooting. He was smart, for he didn’t pound the gun. Instead, he shot a short burst, moved his aim, and shot again.

Who the hell was shooting at them?

“Are there more ghouls out there with guns?”

“Only your kind use guns. Mine use a much greater weapon.”

“Blah blah. Why don’t you stick to simple yes or no answers?” I considered shooting the ghoul again, then I had a better idea. Besides, he was full of shit. I knew one of them had shot Katherine.

I grabbed his cold neck, but shifted the remains of his shirt up so I didn’t have to touch his flesh. Then, with the warm barrel dug into his neck, I propelled him ahead of me toward the truck. There were a few hordes coming at us.

Pushing the ghoul ahead of me, I used him as a shield. We walked as fast as he could, but his movement was wooden, stiff, and resistant, like he was on stilts or had boards strapped to his legs. The ground was flat, and I frowned when we passed a cage that was now empty.

A zombie came at us; a large naked man covered in mud. There were two more behind; one was missing a foot and dragged the remains of his leg. I lowered the big gun and fired, but the shot went wide and only hit his shoulder. He spun around as the round ripped a path of destruction along its way. Stumbling, the zombie fell into one of the others, then they all went down like dominoes.

Bullets kicked up clumps of dirt around me, but none struck the ghoul. He stumbled once, over the foot of one of the dead lying discarded on the ground. I stayed with him and guided him back to his feet so we both didn’t go down.

Scott tore his gaze away from whatever he was aiming at and scanned the area. I followed his focus as I tried to keep it together. Just a few more feet. Then, once in the truck, I would rearm and shoot everything that moved. That was the plan now.

“You got a new girlfriend?” Scott asked as we slammed into the side of the truck.

“You run off and I’ll shoot you in the back of the head. Got that?” I said in the ghoul’s ear, but his dead eyes were unreadable. I wanted to smash the gun into his head, wanted to grind the barrel between his lips and blow the back of his neck out. The thing that was once a man disgusted me.

“Who the hell is doing the shooting?” I ducked down as more fire rippled our way. Behind us, several hordes advanced in our direction. Ten shambled into view, then, or so it seemed, hundreds came. There were so many that I couldn’t count. They came from the woods, from the buildings. They crawled if they couldn’t walk. A couple of them moved faster than the others, in a way that was closer to a normal human gait, and they were snarling. Their eyes were livid as they got a look at us.

Scott leaned down out of sight and came up with a bottle. He applied flame to the piece of cloth that hung out of the top.

“Cover me!” he yelled.

Jack sprayed the area ahead of us, emptying most of his magazine.

Scott stood up and tossed the Molotov at a cluster of dead that had taken a liking to us. It splattered the ground and set their clothing on fire. One must have sensed his fate and walked away, but the others came on even as they burned.

“We need to get the fuck out of here, now!” I yelled.

Scott answered by ripping a blast of machine gun fire into a horde that came in at a fifteen-degree angle. They blew apart as rounds pounded into their mass. The carnage was horrific, but it was what we had come for. We had come to kill these dead and soulless things in their multitudes. I would not rest until I eradicated them.

“That asshole from yesterday followed us,” Scott told me. “Waited until we got inside, then pinned us down. He won’t poke his head out, but he keeps shooting at us.”

“What?”

“Lee, that son of a bitch. He must have been waiting, because as soon as we got inside the perimeter, he started shooting. I recognized him as we sped away toward the center of camp.”

“Ah Christ!” That was just great. Just great!

“What do we have for wares?” I crawled in behind the back seat next to Scott.

“An AK, I think. Looks beat up, but it probably works well enough.”

Grabbing the ghoul by his shirt, I pulled him in. He went almost willingly. I grimaced as more of the dead closed in. They were everywhere.

“Fuck it. Charge him,” I said as I looked over the mass around us.

“What?” Jack teetered off balance as he slapped a fresh magazine home. His head snapped back, and then he fell flat on his back. A blast tore at the air. It shook like a plane breaking the speed of sound. Part of Jack’s head was gone.

“Ah hell. Get ready to fire at anything that moves!” I called to Scott as I crawled over the passenger seat and into the driver’s seat. I waited to feel the blast of a bullet any second, wondering if I would see the glass of the windshield break when the bullet took me apart. Lee had a damn accurate rifle, and I didn’t want to be his next target.

The truck was rumbling, so I slammed the stick into gear and hit the gas. Rocks shot out as it rocketed forward. Four or five zombies had been heading in our direction, and I angled the big front end so we sideswiped a pair of them.

Scott went to town with the giant gun. It rattled away, picking off a few of the zombies moving in our direction, but he also shifted aim and sprayed the area that led into the camp. Dirt kicked up as he tried to find a target. It was too hard to see where the shots had come from, but he kept a steady finger on the trigger and sprayed anything that moved.

Hot shells rained down on the hard metal floor, creating a staccato that sounded almost like rain—metal rain. The gun was immensely loud, and it battered away at my hearing.

What a mess this assault had become. What was I thinking? I should have waited and come back with an army. Lee was a wild card, but if we had waited at the farm then moved on later, Jack would still be alive. Another death meant more blood on my hands.

A glance in the rearview mirror showed me the ghoul sitting perfectly serene, as if we were heading to the store for groceries. Was he communicating with his brethren somehow?

A green and tan vehicle lay near the line of trees, and a pair of giant wheels were exposed toward the front of what looked like a Stryker. Our HMMV was a big truck, but that thing was huge by comparison. If I hit the tires, I doubted we would do much more than piss off the guy lying on top of the vehicle. So I aimed for the front.

I felt more than saw the bead of the gun as it drew on the truck. I jerked the wheel to the right, and sure enough, the windshield exploded where a passenger would have taken a bullet. It punched into the empty seat, and I wondered if it struck the ghoul that was cowering in the back.

Fuck it!

“Strap in!” I yelled as loud as I could, gunning the engine as I reached for the seatbelt. I dragged it up and over my lap, reaching awkwardly for the clasp, but it slipped in my hand. Dragging it back up, I tried to snap it in place. Scott dropped into his seat, yelling something at me, but I didn’t hear what he said. I tried to concentrate on getting the belt on.

The engine roared. Fifty feet from the giant vehicle. Please don’t draw a bead on me.

Forty feet. The metal buckle went behind the clasp.

Thirty feet. I jerked the wheel hard to the left.

Twenty feet. Breathe. Concentrate on the lock.

Ten feet. A quick glance. There it is.

It clicked into place.

Impact!

A haze of thought came before the rending crash. The screech of metal and broken glass filled my ears as we crashed into the military-style vehicle that had a pair of men on the roof. The back of this transport was cracked open and hung like a lip. We hit it at about thirty-five miles an hour, which was more than enough to rattle my bones. I was already sore, but this made me black out for a few seconds. It might have been a few minutes, or hours for all I knew. Except I was still strapped in, and we weren’t being consumed by the dead.

Steam shot out from the front of the truck. Probably punctured the radiator. I doubted the truck was ever going to be drivable again, and I wondered if I was going to be able to walk again. My body ached like I was thrown across a room, and my head rang from hitting the other vehicle. A large airbag was deployed in the seat, so I guessed I could thank my lucky stars for that.

I looked in the back to find Scott in bad shape. He leaned forward, a trail of blood streaming from his nose to the floor. The ghoul was in a heap, curled up on the mat like a dog. If he was dead, it was just as well. I didn’t feel any pity for him, none whatsoever.

A cough from the front of the other vehicle caught my attention. A haze of motion, as something interrupted the steam pouring out of the punctured hood. A shape came into view, and I thought it was a deader at first. I reached for the Desert Eagle, but it was nowhere to be found. The floor seemed like the likeliest place, but when I looked down, all I saw was darkness. I reached under the passenger seat, but the door was hauled open and a blood-splattered face met mine. One hand came in and pulled at me, but the seatbelt kept me in place.

Weakly, I slapped the hand away and reached under the seat once more, but I couldn’t get my hand back far enough. I hit the release on the belt, and it popped without retracting into its shell. When I got my hand farther under the seat, my fingers brushed the gun. I leaned over more, my face pressed to the seat, which smelled like sweat and body odor. I grabbed the gun by the barrel just as I was pulled out of the truck by my shirt.

The zombie was strong, and even though I got a hand on the roof of the truck to stop my momentum, I was dragged out and tossed on the ground, losing the gun in the process.

Getting my hand up stopped an incoming blow. I didn’t need this; I couldn’t fight back. At least it was a zombie, so it was slow and dumb. I could probably get it off balance and figure out a strategy, like how to crawl under the truck for the gun.

A hand grabbed me and pulled me farther from the vehicle. The person was breathing hard and muttering under their breath. Not the typical undead actions, or so my addled brain told me. I almost giggled when I thought about talking zombies. Then a vision of the ghoul in the back of the truck blossomed in my mind.

A fist blocked out the sun and aimed at my temple. I jerked aside, but it still caught me on the side of the head and made my ears ring. Feebly, I kicked and made contact with something. Then the hand holding me down withdrew, so I grabbed hold and helped myself up. This was no zombie I was fighting.

The sun was bright and high in the sky. When I came to my shaking feet, I couldn’t make out the figure. It was like they had a big yellow halo around their head. A fast jab shot toward my head, but my body worked on instinct. My right hand came up close to my side then flattened, palm up to take the blow along my arm and redirect the force along the side of my body.

My other hand snaked over and did a check, felt a shoulder, then I used my close quarters training to raise my right elbow up high and clock the attacker in the head. But it wasn’t where I expected it to be, and all I ended up hitting was the side of its neck.

I pivoted on one foot and came around with my hands in the air to block. When the sun was at my back, I got a clean look at his bloody face.

It was Lee, and he was pissed. “I’m gonna shit you into tomorrow.”

He grimaced and threw a big haymaker that would have laid me out for the rest of the day, but I crossed my body with my right hand and barely deflected the blow from my head into my arm. My left shoulder went numb, and I staggered to the side. A left hook came next, and it wasn’t as strong or accurate as the first. That told me he wasn’t used to fighting off-hand. I turned my weary body just a tad to the side, and his punch missed. Then with what little strength I had, I whipped my hand up like a viper striking, first knuckle closed so that my hand formed a half-fist, and drove my hand into his face. Thank you, Katherine.

I struck him below the nose, feeling his lips mash and split around his teeth. He fell back with a groan of pain, and had I been in any kind of fighting condition, I would have followed and finished him off. But I could barely stand, let alone step into his guard and finish him.

“You’re an idiot, Lee. You know that?”

“No one fucks me. No one! I’m gonna wear your carcass like a jacket, and then when it’s dried out, I’m going to set it on fire.”

So much for pleasantries. Here we were, in the middle of a camp full of the zombies we had both sworn to kill, and all we wanted to do was murder each other.

He came in swinging, so I got my hands up, dropped down low, and put a quick right foot into one of his legs. It wasn’t much of a strike, but the heel of the foot to a thigh could be devastating. Score one for me. He grunted but got a blow over my guard, smashing it into my cheek. Getting hit in the face hurt a lot worse than one might have thought. Guys didn’t just roll with it, like the movies. This one made my eye start to water right away. It blurred my vision, and my head rang.

I dropped to my side, dragged one foot up, and kicked low, hoping for a knee. I must have struck his shin, because he moved away and gasped in reply. He ran at me and kicked, then his foot stomped down. I rolled toward the truck again, but my attempt to get the gun was pretty pathetic. I could curl up in a ball and hope he got tired of beating on me soon, but I wasn’t sure how long it would be before Scott came too. If he had his gun ready, he could drop this jerk for me.

Moans nearby informed me that the dead were closing in. If Lee didn’t finish me off soon, they would.

A foot caught the inner side of my calf. If it had been angled, I’m sure it would have broken. I lashed up with my other foot and caught his leg, then hooked and pulled. He went down in a big puff of leaves and debris, and I wanted to turn my head and cough out a mouthful of the stuff. It felt like I was eating it instead of trying to breathe through it.

Dizzy and in pain everywhere, I sat up and tried to get ahold of a pant leg. He kicked out at me, but I got my hands up in time to keep the blow away from my face. Instead I took the shot on my already sore arms and hands. I balled my fist and hit him hard in the thigh with just two knuckles. A Charlie horse wasn’t exactly fair fighting, but I was more interested in living than offering him a chance to take my own life.

I went to work, using every memory of training I had acquired over the years. Ground fighting was tough; one had to keep his balance and work the big muscles in the thighs.

His arm came up as I moved close. I nearly hovered over him. Smashing aside his strike, I drove my straightened fingers into his shoulder, then took a blow on my arm. Turning just in time, I jabbed fingertips at his eyes, almost making contact. He looked away long enough for me to get another strike in, but it brushed his ear, and another knuckle struck close by his nose. He retaliated with a snap punch to my gut. Not much power, but it rocked me back on my heels.

I fell on him and batted aside his hands as he reached for my throat. I weighed about as much as he did, but my hope was that he was as weak as I was.

He bucked his hips up with a grunt and tried to turn to the side. I gathered what I had and smashed his nose with my fist. This time it was a full blow that knocked his head into the dirt.

I didn’t stop. I went for his eyes, his throat, then slashed toward his temples, grabbed his hair and smashed his head into the ground. Then I hit him a few more times, even getting a throat strike in that hit his Adam’s apple and made him gag. Smashing his already pulped nose, I hit him one more time.

He stopped moving.

A gun opened up, and I ducked in fear, but one glance told me that Scott had come to his senses and was mowing down the zombies with a purpose. Thank God for Scott! I was going to hug the man if we got out of this alive.

They were everywhere. I hit Lee again and decided to just leave him for the dead to finish off. After diving for the truck, I scrambled around until I found the big handgun and came up shooting. Zombies were all around us, but I dropped a pair, even though they weren’t badly wounded.

“Shit shit shit!” I yelled as I made for the truck. The AK was on the floor, and when I picked it up, I caught a glimpse of the ghoul laying still, his eyes ablaze, and I swear he was smiling.

“Just shoot them!” Scott gave the gun a break.

I opened up with the Soviet weapon and dropped several, then I moved into the driver’s seat and tried to turn over the engine, but it would have none of that.

“The other truck!” Scott yelled.

“I won’t leave you!”

“Just go start the fucking thing and stop acting like a bitch. I got this.”

I had to grin as I tried to jump out, nearly falling to the ground in my beaten condition. I limped the short distance to the rear door of the military transport. It was open, thankfully, so I walked up the short ramp and into the warm confines.

Some of the seats were gone. In their place sat a bunch of cardboard boxes filled with all sorts of gear. I maneuvered past them and toward the front. I didn’t know anything about this particular transport, so I just hoped for the best.

The driver’s seat was hard as I sat down. It might have been cushioned at one time, but someone had ripped out the material and covered it with a blanket that smelled like horseshit.

There was an ignition button with a big smiley face sticker on the top. When I hit it, the vehicle roared to life. I looked all over the inside for a way to release the back door. That would explain the shots from the end of the road. But where were his other men? I was sure he wouldn’t have come alone.

I didn’t know a hell of a lot about the army’s newest transport. While it was top of the line, this one had an awful lot of gear removed. The gunner station was open on top, but a large weapon of some sort was attached. Tubes led down the hole to blue barrels on the floor. I would have expected a big M2 browning .50 machine gun or even a grenade launcher. Who knew where Lee’s men got the damn thing to begin with? It was a pretty scary world where weapons like this were just left for the taking.

The command station was also gutted, and none of the electronics were in place. Some variations of this vehicle had pretty sophisticated gear. This one had next to nothing left. Someone had left a plastic drink holder duct taped to a space where electronic readout equipment should have sat.

Scott came hobbling out of the truck, firing as he limped. I hit the side door and kicked it open.

“Here!” I screamed.

He made a beeline for me and slammed into the seat so hard he gasped. He tossed the gun in the back and slammed his door shut. We were safe, for now, as there was no way for the things to get in.

I pulled forward a few feet, jammed the gear in reverse and, with a rending screech, tore free of the beat-up Humvee.

We roared out of the camp and made for the open road. The ride was bumpy, and I felt around for straps or something to hold me in the seat. Before long, we hit pavement and I stopped the Humvee. He leaned back and breathed deep. The air probably tasted like the best champagne in the world.

“What a cluster fuck,” I muttered.

“We had it, man, but that asshole had to spoil things.”

I stared out the window at the road ahead. Trees had grown here, long and lean, and branches hung over the road, creating a canopy. A power wire had been pushed down.

“What was I thinking? Dragging you guys into this. Now Jack is dead.”

“We signed on to help. We knew the risks. It could just as easily have been me back there, dead, with half my fool head gone. But I’m alive, and so are you.”

I sighed.

“Look, man. It’s done and nothing can undo it. You gonna live with guilt your whole life, or are you going to channel it and make Jack’s death count for something? All the deaths, for that matter. We started this thing, so let’s figure out a way to finish it.”

“Are you crazy? I can barely move. Do you think we can just roll back in there with machine guns and shoot them all? We wouldn’t stand a chance.”

Was he thinking about a suicide mission? I felt so miserable it almost appealed to me. But that would be a selfish way out. I owed it to Katherine to let her know I had survived. She would wonder for a long time, otherwise.

Scott crawled out of the chair and went in the back of the vehicle, climbed the small ladder, and poked his head out. He was up there for a while, fiddling with the weird gun. Then he dropped back down with a big shit-eating grin on his face.

“I have an idea.”

I stared at my bloody hands on the wheel of the vehicle. The knuckles on my right hand were bruised and torn. My left hand shook, and the pinky was bent at an odd angle. Probably broken.

“Erik, we have to go back anyway. The food and water is in the truck. Not to mention the ammo.”

I shook my head. I felt like I was coming out of a bad nightmare. “Yeah.”

“And the people still in the cages … Are we going to just leave them?”

Scott put his hand on my shoulder, and I looked back at him. His face was a bloody mess, and his hair was caked with dirt. We made a fine pair. I patted his hand like an affectionate uncle. He grinned and looked at the ladder. Following his gaze, I wondered what he had up his sleeve, and then he told me.

We roared into the camp the way we had left—like the devil himself was on our heels. This time we were bringing hell. I had wanted to destroy the base before, but now I would do it for real. Scott maneuvered next to the smashed Humvee. It was surrounded by the dead, but he rolled down his window and went to work with the AK-47.

I turned my unique gun on anything that moved. Scott had worked out the device. He followed the tubes to the blue barrels then back to the weapon. After messing with it, he discovered there was a tiny propane tank on the end that provided the spark. The barrel was nothing less than a flamethrower.

I turned the dial and let a little gas leak out. There was a sparker next to it. I clicked it a few times, and a blue flame appeared. The weapon had a couple of gauges on the side, so I messed with them until I had a good stream, then I triggered the gun. Fire leapt out and consumed the first pair of zombies near the side of the truck. They staggered away, now walking torches. I was hoping to set Lee on fire, but he was gone. They probably dragged his body back to feast on.

A search of the vehicle had turned up a couple of other weapons. I took a worn but well-oiled MP5 and had a few mags lined up near the flamethrower.

I set to clearing the immediate area while Scott dragged boxes from the back of the Humvee to our vehicle. He tossed me a large bottle of Gatorade, so I took the top off and drank warm but clean water out of it, draining it in a few massive swallows.

I turned the gun on one of the dead that had grown interested in Scott. His head exploded backwards, and his body slumped to the side, just like that. Another body to add to the list.

It only took a few minutes to move our supplies. If the rear door had been able to slide down, it would have been faster. The impact of the Humvee had damaged the rear too badly.

I slid down to help move things around, then we took our positions again.

“Ready?”

“Damn right.” I nodded.

We started at the rear of the camp. Our path was littered with the dead. When we came across them, we ran them down and kept going. I shot the few I had to, but I wanted to work from the rear to the front.

We approached the destroyed hut. The corrugated metal was pushed aside, thanks to my escape. I almost felt a sense of glee when I turned the flamethrower on the opening and set it for full stream. Fire raced down and roared into the space. It was so loud that I couldn’t hear any screams from those below. I let the fuel run for a few minutes until I was satisfied the place was sanitized.

It took most of the day to clean house. We worked from the other end of the camp, burning away any of the dead we found. Sometimes they came at us en masse, which made it easy to destroy them. When each section was cleared, Scott jumped out of the truck and freed any prisoners that were still in cages.

The stench of burning flesh tested my gag reflex. It filled the air, and I knew it would haunt my nightmares for years to come.

The survivors sat in what space they could find in the vehicle. A couple of the men took guns from our stash and joined in the massacre. We rescued a few children who couldn’t have been older than ten or twelve. I wondered why there were no others in Haley’s age range. Then it hit me: they probably took the older ones to convert to ghouls—which I had just destroyed.

The cleansing, as I thought of it, was a success. We left a mountain of scorched bodies in our wake. By the end of the battle, we had a tattered army of a dozen or so men and women. The younger members of the crew sat on the floor in the cramped vehicle. What seemed like a huge space before was filled with the wretched remains of the camp. Weary faces munched on the remaining protein bars. They drank what little water we had, and a few even broke into the energy drinks.

I stayed on the ladder for a long time, gun aimed at the opening to the camp so I could kill any stragglers. The flamethrower was just about out of fuel. I would have to work out the formula they used to create the custom device. It had been one of the most effective weapons since I came back to the world.

“You going to come down?” Scott called from the front. He popped out of the vehicle with the AK-47 slung down low. “I think I have this thing working.”

I crawled on top of the STRYKER then slid down inside. It was obvious we had cleaned the camp, as no other zombies wandered out. Flames still rose into the sky. A small section of forest had caught on fire, but it was dying down thanks to all the wet wood. An out-of-control fire in the woods would be a terrible sight. How would it ever be stopped?

Scott sat with his rifle in his lap. He had an old beat up CB radio with the top off on the ground in front of him. There was a wire running from a car battery to the inside.

I collapsed beside him, my body more tired than it had ever been. Talk drifted from inside the STRKER, but I couldn’t make out the words. The refugees had been grateful, but some also wore distrustful looks.

He adjusted something on the inside and, with a crackle, the speaker let out a squawk. He hit a knob then adjusted a dial, and his eyes lit up like a kid at Christmas. Then he turned up the volume a little bit. A flat hiss sounded, but it wasn’t so loud it might call any remaining zombies within the vicinity to our camp.

“Now we wait.” He grinned and patted the top of the radio.

“Wait for what?”

“Wait for someone to talk to us. A bunch of groups keep in contact with CB’s, but we can’t run them all the time.”

“Let me guess, on a particular channel that requires a decoder ring to gain access too?”

“Something like that.” He laughed.

We sat in silence for a few moments, both of us waiting for the radio to speak up.

“Do I need to say it?” Scott’s gaze drifted toward our vehicle.

“That we rescued a lot of people?”

“No, man. How many of them are like Haley? About to change …” He trailed off as he turned his eyes back to the burning camp.

“We don’t know that for sure. We don’t know if she was one of them.”

“Come on, man. She was. Lee was an asshole, and he could have handled it differently. The fact is, we might have learned a lot from her. Maybe she wouldn’t have been like the others. Maybe our influence would have kept her on our side.”

‘Our side.” I thought dully, What is our side? “People hiding out, waiting for something to happen.”

“Better than the alternative.”

“It is, but we have to do something about it. I’m sick of running, of being afraid. I’m tired of seeing groups of people divided. We need to find a place to call home and get people organized.”

Scott looked thoughtful.

“There are a lot of people out there still. People that want to fight back. I say we head to Portland, find Lisa and her crew, and start the revolution.”

“And then what? Make an army of flamethrowers and clean out these camps? Do you know how long that will take?”

“It’s better than the alternative. If we let them continue to multiply, we will never win.”

Scott sighed, but he had to know I was right.

“So what do we do now?”

“Go back to the farm, get some rest, and then make a break for Portland. If some of these folks want to go with us, they’re welcome. The rest can go their separate ways.”

“Works for me. All I want to do is rejoin my old friends. Lisa, I miss her.”

“You have something going with her?” I had wondered if she moved on after Devon.

“I don’t know. We spent some time together. What do you think? Would we make a good match?” He grinned.

“She is pretty fiery. Good with a gun. She might shoot you if you piss her off. I mainly knew her before the change. I guess that means I didn’t really know her at all.”

Scott chuckled and stared at the flames.

The day had been exhausting, but I suspected the coming days would be worse. My body was sore, and my face hurt from the fight with Lee. I wished I had found his body so I could finish him off. He would never see reason, no matter how hard I argued. I had to stop and reflect on the fact that I had so glibly decided to kill another human being. Eradicating the dead was making it easy to kill. Was one human life so cheap?

We sat for a long time as the flames died down and smoke continued to rise. As night came on, we decided to make for the farm and call it a day.

As I stood up, a voice came over the speaker. I just about jumped out of my skin.

“News of the world?” A female voice that sounded familiar to me. Deep, but still female.

“Hey. If it ain’t the mysterious Lizabeth,” Scott said. “You can’t believe how happy I am to hear you. It’s been a while.”

“Well if it isn’t the smartass. I thought maybe they got you.”

“They did, but we escaped. Are you still in town?”

“Nope. We left a few weeks ago. We’re camped on the outskirts of Portland.”

“That’s where we’re headed.”

Lizabeth. Liz. It had to be her. So they had made it out of town after our distraction. They were safe. I breathed a heavy sigh of relief.

“Liz, it’s Tragger.” There was a long pause from the other end of the line.

“You.” She laughed.

“Me.”

“You got us out, you know that? We made it out of town thanks to you. Are Pat and Katherine okay?”

I closed my eyes for a few seconds then spoke.

“Pat didn’t make it. He sacrificed himself so Katherine and I could escape. Katherine’s with another group of survivors. They left for Portland about a week ago. They’re in a huge convoy of trucks. You can’t miss them.”

“I hope it’s not the sorry group of burned out vehicles we found a few days ago. Some of the guys were on a sortie to find some food. It looked like the convoy had been attacked at night. We found bodies but not many. Some may have escaped.”

I clenched my fist in fury, slamming it into the hard ground and ignoring the pain.

“She has to be alright,” I muttered. “Everyone else is gone. I need her to be okay.”

“Maybe she is. We’ll send out a party in the morning. Maybe they’re hiding in the woods. No guarantees, but we will do our best. It’s the least we can do. I didn’t care for you much, Tragger. But you done good,” Liz said over the airwaves.

“We’re coming to you. We’ll be on the road first thing in the morning.” I wanted to leave right then and there, but what about the other survivors with us? Some might want to return to whatever home they had occupied. I would wait to broach the subject after some rest. We all needed it before making any hasty decisions.

“Lizabeth. If you find them, ask for Lisa. She runs the outfit. Tell her you are a friend of Scott and Erik’s. Just tell her that and bring her in. Bring them all in.”

“I will. Hey I have to go. We have some activity here.”

“Wait!” I yelled at the radio, but it went dead.

The End of Book One