I brought the rock high over my head and struck with entirely too much force than was necessary. A jet spray of freshly squeezed zombie juice crossed to the left of my eyes and down across my nose and mouth, with a fair amount now dripping from my chin. I brought the rock back up to reveal a monster that now had no nose. I had nearly made the surface of his face as flat as the plains of Kansas. Everything had settled down to the level of his eyes, which I could now see were clearly burning with an intense hatred. Maybe it was for my humanity, something he’d lost, or more likely it was because the zombie was realizing that his odds of getting a meal were being rapidly reduced.
I brought the rock down on those hateful eyes, halving the size of his skull. Brains had blown out the sides of his head where it had split like an overripe pumpkin left out on a doorstep a week past Halloween. I pulled the rock up again, just to see as the spark of whatever this thing called life finally departed after so many years. Its face now was as broad as a large frying pan. I brought the rock down one more time just for good measure. What was left wasn’t more than an inch high from the ground. I’d seen store-bought hamburger have more facial recognition than that pile of fleshy goo below me. I pushed up, getting off the carcass. It was then I noticed I had way more of the zombie on me than I would have ever wished for or intended. Mathieu was looking over at me.
“Friend of yours?” he asked.
“More like a friend of yours, it was you he wanted to kiss.”
Mathieu looked a little in shock. “Thank you,” he finally managed to get out.
“We should get going. Very rarely do they venture out by themselves. Kind of like a women-going-to-the-restroom type of mentality, I think.”
Mathieu had a confused look on his face as he arose. Tough to ease the tension of the situation when your attempt at humor fell upon someone who had no prior reference in which to work with your witticism. I spent a minute putting out the fire as Mathieu gathered up our meager belongings, then we were on our way pretty quickly, and it was a good thing. Two more zombies had found us that night, but thankfully it was impossible for them to sneak up on us. There were no external man-made sounds to mask the noise, and certainly no petrifying soundtrack music like in a movie. It was the wildlife itself that made all the difference. Birds, crickets, slithering snakes, and croaking frogs would all stop what they were doing when a zombie approached. Instinctively they knew that every one of them was on this new creature’s diet and say what you will about any living being, but none of them want to be eaten. That goes all the way down to the lowly cockroach.
The forest would go quiet all around us like we were housed within a large cone of silence, a force field that kept out even the miniscule sound of an ant farting. Do they fart? Another funny thought at an inappropriate time. When the first zombie was coming up on us and the woods went still, Mathieu and I were both sort of thrown for a loop. We weren’t really sure what was going on. Sure, we knew it was a predator, but was it a Lycan, mountain lion, or...yeah, then the smell had tipped the hat on this one. I tried to get in front of Mathieu to shield him from what was coming, but he wasn’t much into playing the part of helpless victim as he shouldered his way to the side. I wished he hadn’t. He was obviously a survivor, he’d proved that countless times over the years, but for twenty-nine out of thirty days, he was still an ordinary man and susceptible as any to the effects of the zombie virus.
I’d just found a man that could brew incredible beer and sort of liked my jokes. I wanted to keep him around for a while. So there we stood, pretty much blocking the entire pathway, shoulder to shoulder. I had my axe out and he had his machete.
“The head, Mathieu, only the head. Every place else is just a wasted effort and gives it more time to damage you, and oh, by the way, a scratch alone will do you in.”
He stayed steadfast by my side, but I heard him swallow down a relatively large gulp of “holy shit.”
“Just the head, just the head.” He repeated this a few times. I could hear his hands twisting on the hilt of his weapon.
There was a little bit of cloud cover, not really enough to hinder the star and moon shine that helped us to see. We both tensed as we saw the figure emerge from around a bend some thirty feet up from us. It was running full speed now that it had a strong scent of food. It did not slow when it caught sight of us to possibly figure out a strategy—if anything, it picked up speed. That was the thing about zombies. You really didn’t need to worry too much about a trap. Basically, it was brace for impact and hope your refuge held; whether that was a cement wall, oak door, or a plethora of weaponry.
I was debating the wisdom of our own particular strategy. Why I didn’t just think he was going to head straight for us, I don’t know. I would need to time my swing just right to make sure my axe came down on his head, and even then its momentum was going to still bring him into contact with us, where any number of bad things could happen. Too late now, I suppose. I was in mid-swing, my blade just parting through the jelly-grease-matted-down mass of black hair on the top of its head. Vibrations were traveling from my hand up my arm as I struck skull plating.
It wasn’t going to be enough. Even as clean of a hit as this would be, he’d halved the distance and, in less time than it took to blink my eyes, he would hit me. With his speed, he would drive me to the ground. That was until Mathieu’s arm shot out. Blade thrusting straight past my peripheral vision, I watched in graphic detail as the blade went straight through the zombie’s eyeball, bisecting it almost perfectly. Mathieu was pushed back as the hilt guard slammed up against the orbital socket, shattering the delicate bones that protected the eye. The zombie danced around as his brains were being stirred. Shortly after my axe broke through and finished the job.
Mathieu pulled his gore-coated knife free. The expression on his face reminded me of what an infant’s might look like upon his first taste of a lemon, lips pursed and eyes shut tight.
“Please tell me your eyes weren’t closed the whole time.”
“I...I’m not really sure, they may have been.”
“Well, I guess it goes without saying that we’re not going to get any sleep tonight.”
“Keep moving or are we going to wait?”
“My vote is to keep moving, but if you need to rest, I’ll defer.”
“I’m already two close calls into the night; I won’t be able to sleep. Let’s keep going.”
We’d gone another five or so miles when our early warning detection system went off again. I swear, even the insects stopped buzzing around us this time. The silence all by itself was intimidating. Mathieu and I had talked about an alternate means of fighting the approaching zombies rather than the closed eye and knife thrust one he had implemented. Now it was time to employ our new tactic. I grabbed an end of the piece of cord we had fashioned and tied it off on a tree. Mathieu had then wrapped the other end around his arm a few times and pulled tight as he went to the far side of the path holding his end of the trip wire. I went another ten feet down the trail and we waited.
It didn’t take long. There he was, naked as the day he was born; and in reality, covered with as much human material as he had been on that fateful day. Chunks of things I did not want to identify clung to various parts of his body.
“This sucks.” I was as much talking to myself as I was Mathieu, as the thing came blazing towards me, heedless of the trap we’d set up.
I was in a fighting stance and had my axe held about head high. I was bouncing slightly on my knees getting ready to pounce, dodge, or run as the case might necessitate. In the back of my head, I thought that maybe the zombie might see something wrong with this picture and lunge for Mathieu at the last moment. Maybe it would have, too. The cordage was definitely light colored enough to be picked up in the ambient lighting. And the zombies, by the end of the war, had increased their smarts tenfold over what they had started with. However, this one seemed blinded by hunger, and I was standing in the middle of that path like a glowing bacon double
cheeseburger.
I heard an “oomph” from the brush as the zombie’s foot snagged the thin rope. Mathieu was pulled onto the path as the zombie started his fall to the ground. For a half-assed, untested plan, it worked out pretty good. The zombie came to a skidding halt not more than two feet from me. I brought the heavy part of my axe crashing down on his skull. An eggshell would have held up better against a mallet, it was that quick and thorough.
“You alright?” I asked as I stood back up.
“Rope burn but yeah. Dead?” He motioned with his head to the zombie.
“He was dead when he came running down the pathway, now he’s more dead…again. Don’t even say anything, I know that makes no sense.”
“I don’t think I’m a fan of zombies.”
“Not too many people were.”
We trekked through the night and into the next morning, the sun high overhead when things started to look familiar. We were definitely in Landian country, which meant Talboton was not too far off. I wanted to give my step a little extra bump but I was already pulling from reserves and Mathieu was just about sleep walking. If I hadn’t known any better, I would have thought him a zombie the way he ambled about. Gotta give it to him, though, he never said quit. We just kept putting one foot in front of the other until we saw that magnificent log wall and town sign.
We were zigzagging those last hundred yards or so like wanderers lost in the desert and sunstroke already having set in. A bevy of guards told us to halt our progress. That was one of the easiest demands I had ever had the pleasure to comply with. I went all the way to the ground, sitting down hard on my ass. Mathieu just kind of stood there waving with the wind like a corn stalk. I would have pulled him down with me, but I was kind of curious to see how long he could keep doing that before he just fell over.
There was another group coming out to greet us, this I could tell not because I looked up to see but because I could hear their footsteps. My chin was touching my chest, and it was all I could do to keep my eyes open.
“You’re...you’re alive?” Azile reached a hand out and touched my face, or a reasonable facsimile of my face. I was covered in enough dirt, blood, and grime as to create an effective barrier against almost all of but the most probing of inquiries.
I stood with no small effort, Mathieu actually reaching out to steady me, which was like a piece of flotsam helping some jetsam. I wonder if that even makes sense.
“Why are you crying? Are you sad to see me?” I was making light of the situation.
“My heart was broken, Michael Talbot. The tears are for its repair as it tries to knit itself back together.” Hey eyes softened as she looked at me, the corners of her lips trembling as was the hand that was still on the side of my face. Her gaze had not left mine since I’d walked up on her.
I felt Mathieu shift uncomfortably next to me. Awkward only began to describe how we were both feeling.
“Uh-hmmm.” He fake coughed into his hand.
“Sorry. Azile, this is Mathieu, he saved my life after a particularly nasty Lycan encounter from which I surely would have died.”
Azile finally acknowledged his presence and seemed startled he was there, like he’d just magically appeared.
“Thank you,” she said as she gripped his hand. “I cannot express enough gratitude for bringing him safely back to me…I mean us. I am forever in your debt.”
Mathieu seemed embarrassed. “You are welcome, Azile,” he said with a stiff bow. To me he asked, “She’s a witch?”
“You know she can hear you, right?”
“Michael, I would imagine you already know, because you seem to attract all manner of life, but Mathieu is a werewolf.”
Mathieu was taken aback that she knew that just by the small amount of contact they’d made.
“Does that answer your question?” I asked him as he stared at his hand that had seemingly betrayed him.
“I suppose.” He was now holding his hand up in front of his face.
“Have you since changed your stance on werewolves?” Azile asked me pointedly.
“Stance?” Mathieu asked back.
“Can we perhaps talk about this later?”
“I think Mathieu should be informed of your intentions before the next full moon and he completes the cycle of the virus.”
“Little late for that,” I laughed. “He’s been a werewolf for fifteen years.”
Azile stepped back. “How…how is that possible?”
Mathieu gave her a short accounting of the years as they passed and I filled in our particular vamp-to-werewolf encounter. Her mouth just kept opening wider and wider as she listened.
“Gonna have canaries perching there soon,” I told her. “There’s more. We found a clutch of zombies.” If I thought she was shocked beforehand, well, this just took it to a whole other level.
“Mike, we need to talk.”
“We will, Azile, just not right now. I am more tired than I can ever remember being. I do not believe I have slept more than a couple of hours these last four nights. There are a couple of things I would like to attend to before I sleep, then I promise we will have that talk. I do not see Bailey. How has she, the children and Oggie fared?”
Azile’s head immediately began to bow as if it had grown heavy with thoughts. “These are the things I wanted to talk to you about. The boy turned and attacked Bailey.”
“Is she alright?” I asked in alarm, my earlier exhaustion pushed back as I heard this troubling information.
“She’s fine, as is Breealla. The boy is dead.”
“And Oggie?” I noticed that she had conveniently left him out of her explanation.
“We do not know.”
“What do you mean you don’t know?”
“He was fine when he left Bailey. Nobody has seen him in over a month.”
“A month?” My chest tightened just thinking about my lovable Oggie out on his own for that long. I had no doubts he could survive on his own, as he was an incredible hunter. But he was my baby, and it was not looking good that I would ever see him again. Who will scratch behind his ears, and rub his belly and give him just about anything he wants? Another family member lost, another anchor to this world un-tethered.
“Oh, Talbot, I’m so sorry.” Azile had moved in and wrapped her arms around me. I was so lost in despair I had not even noticed she had called me by the same name of affection Tracy used to use so many years ago.
“Umm, Mike, I’d like to rest and then see if I can get ahold of some materials for a new batch of beer. I’m truly sorry for your dog.” He patted my shoulder.
Even those golden words from Mathieu were not enough to lift my spirits much beyond a blip.
Azile grabbed my hand and led me upstairs in the small hotel, where she somehow had a bath already prepared. I was on autopilot as she left the room and I stripped down. The water was not hot enough to sear away my pain nor cold enough to freeze my thoughts. I sat in the warm water and, from time to time, remembered to rub soap across some particularly nasty part of myself. Three times the hotel staff came and changed the water out; impossibly, the second and third times were each dirtier than the previous, as if the dirt was somehow being time released from my body in greater amounts as I stayed in the water longer.
That second time was horrible. The water had almost become a solid, and the staff nearly had to remove it as one giant clotted ball of filth. I must have lost ten extra pounds of waste water that day. It did feel good when I was done, though, like I had finally liberated the person trapped beneath. I had made up my mind towards the end of my marathon cleaning session. The war be damned—I would go out looking for Oggie, and either we both came back or neither of us did. I felt good for that decision, at least for a little while.
I checked on Mathieu, who had a room a couple of doors down, but he was downstairs talking with the tavern keeper. Discussing beer brewing, I would imagine. I decided to leave them to their own devices. Maybe they’d hurry up and get some batches goin
g.
Night had come, and I was lying in bed, mostly staring at the ceiling and watching the light from the candles play across the uneven surface. I heard some boards creak outside my room and figured it was Mathieu coming up to get some sleep. I had not been expecting the soft tap on the door.
“It’s open.” I wasn’t overly worried. If someone was coming to kill me, I was fairly certain they wouldn’t announce themselves by knocking. I had my hands clasped under my head, and I turned slightly to see who it was. I figured it would have been Bailey, but she wouldn’t have knocked either. “Azile?” I asked when she strode through the door, turned and shut it quickly, and more suspiciously, quietly.
She turned back around, and in one deft motion removed her large red cape, every supple inch of her exposed as she purposefully walked toward me.
“Whoa,” was all I could suavely manage as I sat up.
Her body was hypnotic as she swayed. I don’t know if she was using some sort of magic but I’d swear it seemed like she was taking an awfully long time to cross that small room. She pushed me back down onto the bed, with her left hand on my chest; she planted a passionate kiss the likes of which I hadn’t felt in an eternity. Unfortunately, I was never one to just let a good thing play out on its own.
“I’ve got to ask,” I said as our lips parted a couple of inches.