He had been keeping a sharp eye on everyone ever since Abby killed herself. He noticed things most people didn’t. And what Jonah had noticed was an increased breakdown of everyone’s spirit. It wasn’t obvious. Well, Jake’s was obvious, it was the slap-you-in-the-face kind. Otherwise the young man wouldn’t have killed the village idiot. All of them were suffering from it, an erosion of their fortitude, a decay of their will, sometimes even a slip from reality. Jonah was slightly comforted by the fact that he realized these things, and because of that he could constantly monitor himself. At least he
thought
he was monitoring himself. Was he being fooled by his own mind? Was he, the most reliable of the group, breaking as well, and already too far gone to know it?
A twig snapped to his left and his head twitched. Another sign he was losing his edge. He knew better than to jerk at a noise. He forced his body to relax, slowly turning his eyes toward the stand of trees fifty feet from him. The breath he had been holding suddenly released when John stepped into view.
Catch hold of yourself, boy
.
Except John wasn’t walking – he’d been running.
Something’s wrong.
Jonah met him halfway across the pavement and fought to keep the quiver out of his voice. “What’ve we got?”
John stood half a head taller than Jonah, yet as he halted in front of the cowboy, he was slumped enough to look him in the eye. Waters and the other soldiers (his friends were standing watch this time), sat around the fire and raised their heads in interest, but made no sign of moving their way. Jonah flicked his eyes from the soldiers back to John and took a deep breath.
“Well?”
“Three deadheads, dragging ass this way,” John panted, winded from his sprint.
“Where?”
John jerked a thumb over his shoulder and pressed his other hand to the small of his back, straightening slowly. “There’s an old house on the other side of those trees. I think they came from there. Shouldn’t be a problem.”
Jonah turned back to the fire and pulled his right hand from his pocket. After a few hand gestures to Waters, he tapped John’s chest and headed off toward the trees, unslinging his rifle as his boots crunched against the pavement. His fingers were nearly numb from the cold by the time he crossed into darkness.
“Lead the way,” he said, stepping aside and letting John brush by.
Rifles raised, they crept through the trees, John surprising Jonah with the level of stealth he displayed. The guy was big and usually moved like a bulldog, so this was definitely something new. The deeper into the trees they stalked, the more wary Jonah became. Fortunately, John palmed his small flashlight and lit up their path before Jonah caved and bugged out.
“Holy ─” Jonah inhaled. John had led them right up to the deadheads. Literally. “John… don’t ever fucking do that again.”
The big man glanced over his shoulder and chuckled, shaking his bald head a few times before returning his attention to the crawlers a few feet in front of him. Jonah wasn’t sure whether the lower halves of their bodies had rotted away, or if they’d been ripped off. Either way, all three deadheads were nothing except torsos with arms and clacking teeth.
“Shoot ‘em and get it over with,” Jonah said after staring at the crawling messes for a moment.
“Yeah, yeah. On it.”
John slung his rifle and pulled his sidearm. As he leveled the barrel on the closest zombie, which was basically nothing but a skull with teeth, a cold wind picked up and slammed an odor into his face. It was so strong, John reflexively stumbled back against Jonah. He jerked around to face the cowboy, whose eyes were already registering what John was realizing.
Not counting the three crawlers, they weren’t alone.
“Well this is a bitch,” John swore.
Jonah turned and ran, John hot on his heels.
* * *
Mia hopped up and down in place trying to stay warm. She was wearing a heavy coat and a wool hat, but standing in one spot for three hours in the middle of a November night was still goddamn cold no matter what you were wearing. She was also hungry, which only added to her irritation. Waters had the entire convoy on rations that wouldn’t even keep a squirrel alive. Mia tried not to think about it, like she tried not to think about how freaking ridiculous it was to have a watch to begin with. Why didn’t everyone sleep in the
armored vehicles?
She also tried not to think about how angry she’d been feeling lately. Not annoyed, not irritated, but royally pissed. All the time. Michael was sinking into depression, John was getting reckless, Jonah was becoming paranoid, Kasey was somber and morose, and Jake was way more serious than what could possibly be healthy for him. So why not? It made sense that she would be the one to succumb to rage. The only member of their group still alive who had not shown any signs of wear and tear from the goddamn Zombpocalypse was Gus.
What I wouldn’t give to be a dog
.
“This is fucking bullshit,” she whispered. The verbal curse made her feel better, but only momentarily. Feet pounding the ground in the darkness beyond ruined the fleeting moment.
* * *
“Incoming! Incoming!” Jonah shouted in the general direction of the campfire.
The five soldiers were on their feet without question and raising their weapons in the direction of the trees. Two seconds after Jonah yelled his warning, Mia came tearing out of the meadow on the other side of the road, waving one arm and calling out the same basic warning. A few seconds after that, Jake, Michael, and I were joining them, running frantically from our previous guard locations. Gus beat us back, four legs proving quicker than two once more.
“Adder!” Waters yelled, but Rabbit was already climbing into the middle Humvee and taking up position behind the 50 cal.
Michael raised his rifle. “We got runners!”
“No shit!” Jake answered.
“Church, Willis, right flank. Jonese, you’re with me on the left,” Waters barked. “You assholes, cover our front and rear! Move it!”
I assumed by assholes, he meant us, so I moved to the front without asking.
“Thought you said we wouldn’t have this problem anymore,” Jake said.
Mia answered for me. “Shut up and get ready.”
She was on my left, Jake on my right. Gus had crawled underneath the vehicle, and ironically, I was more worried for him than I was for us. We could hear the runners’ growls and screams. They were noticeably quieter than the last time we had faced any deadheads.
Maybe that was a good sign.
“Here they come.”
* * *
“Don’t waste time aiming, just open up and mow their asses down,” John said as the runners staggered onto the road, tripping over the tall grass and weeds that lined both ditches.
Michael picked his first shot. “No, John! Aim! We don’t have automatics!”
The runners were torn up pretty badly and weren’t moving as well as they used to. They still jerked and vaulted forward, making it a bitch to get a steady bead on their heads.
“Take out their knees and hips if you have to! Don’t waste time!” Jonah shouted. He squeezed the trigger, leading by example as a runner twisted sideways and fell face first onto the road, his hip blown to pieces.
Above them, Rabbit opened up on the 50 cal., cutting the blacktop and taking the legs out from under six of the runners closest to the men on the ground. He swung his body around and did the same on his right side, repeating this in a circle. Swing, fire, swing, fire, doing what he could to keep the runners off the people below him, giving them time to put down the rest. It was messy, chaotic, and nerve-wracking, but it got the job done and no one died.
Seconds after the attack had begun, it was over.
* * *
“Jesus,” I wheezed. My arms were shaking and my legs felt boneless.
“Yeah…that was a whole mess of crap all at once,” Jake said, then promptly bent over and puked.
Mia grabbed his rifle before he dropped it and patiently waited beside him, studying me and glancing around at the bodies lying on the road. That girl had nerves of steel.
“
Je
sus,” I said again in a hoarse falsetto, dragging one hand through my hair.
“Hey, everyone in one piece?” the one they called Church asked, coming around the Humvee behind us. He jerked to a halt before running into Jake, who was still bent over with his hands on his knees. Church wrinkled his nose, Jake dry-heaved a few more times.
“Basically, yeah.” I leaned my weight against the hood. “You guys?”
“We’re good. Cap’ wants us to make sure those sonsabitches are down for good, so uh─” He glanced at Jake again, then looked back at me, one eyebrow cocked. “Whenever you can, sweep our front?”
“Will do,” I said and slapped the hood. “Clean it up, Jake. Got a job to do.” I slung my rifle and pulled my pistol, stepping around Mia, who had propped Jake’s rifle against the grill and was already halfway to the first twitching runner.
“You’re an asshole,” Jake groaned in between heaves.
“Yeah, I know. Let’s go.”
Church disappeared around the side of the Humvee. Jake straightened up like an old man, wiped his mouth, pulled his sidearm, and followed me a few yards down the road. Mia was systematically throwing lead between the eyes of every single runner, whether they were still moving or not. I think it was mostly a relief-valve for her, so I didn’t stop it. The dull orange glow the fire cast on our immediate surroundings was highlighted by the pulsing flashes of muzzle flare. If Collins had been there, looking down from above, it might have looked like a summer night filled with fireflies.
Of course, if Collins
had
been there, he would have seen a group of runners twice the size of the gang we’d just put down, drawn by the sound of gunfire, heading straight for us.
* * *
“Get your ass outta my face, Gus,” Jake grumbled. He shoved at the beagle, who had taken up residence in the front. The dog had his front paws on the dash, causing his tail to thump lazily against Jake’s chin.
It was well past 2 o’clock in the morning and raining hard. Waters had ordered everyone to load up and move out after the attack a few hours earlier. Mia finally got her wish; we’d be sleeping in the Humvees and rotating drivers the rest of the way to Pency. Which shouldn’t have taken any longer than a day, if the roads were clear of car wrecks and debris as Collins had indeed reported before heading back to Blueville Correctional.
“Leave him be, Jake. He’s enjoying himself,” I said.
Willis chuckled behind the wheel. “Least someone’s enjoying himself.”
“Hardy fuckin’ har
.
” Jake shoved once more at Gus’ behind before turning his face to the door window.
The sky was clogged with storm clouds, hiding the moon and blackening the night. Mia was asleep beside me, snoring quietly. Her left leg twitched every once in a while and kicked the back of Jake’s seat. For the most part our Humvee was silent, not counting the few words that passed now and again to cover the awkward tension, the steady pounding of rain on the roof, and the
swish-swish
of the windshield wipers. We were all starkly aware that our trip was quickly coming to an end. That by itself was working on our nerves. Let alone that we’d just been through a wildly expeditious attack, and before that we’d witnessed a bunch of zombies-that-weren’t-zombies kill a pack of zombies-that-were-definitely-zombies. It was safe to assume our crazy-threshold was being pushed to its limits.
I sighed and relaxed back against the seat, letting my head roll to the side so I could stare out the small window. The scenery sped past, occasionally highlighted by the Humvee headlights. Everything was overgrown and tangled. From the very edge of the pavement to the tree line, what was once kept trimmed and manicured was now snarled and chest-high. Grass, weeds, shrubs, bushes, everything was exploding with growth since man was no longer around to hold them back. The animal life had been a little less fortunate than the vegetation, ever since the deadheads’ food supply began running low and they’d been forced to “feed” on whatever living thing they could find. Even so, wildlife was thicker than I could ever remember it being.
Did the virus mutate again?
Which one will I turn into?
I found myself coming back to that and replaying key events from the past seven days.
It’s only been a week?
Seven days since realizing those who’d been sent to safety were returning as deadheads. Seven days since Waters admitted there might be a something going on that was bigger than us, bigger than we could handle.
I analyzed each detail in my mind, from our first hint of something amiss to our first glimpse of runners who bled red.
What am I missing?
Were these new runners part of the rescued? Those survivors who had been found and then sent to the CC? Were the runners we put down at the club the same kind as the ones we saw during the Great Cow Exodus?