There was a knock at the door. We had let our guard down and had been talking so much we forgot the reality of our situation.
Instantly, Dushell and I armed, we looked at the door. Jones held a knife.
“Who is that?” I whispered to them.
“You got me,” whispered Dushell.
“They knocked,” scoffed Thompson. Without discussing it with us, he went to the door and before the rest of us could imagine him doing it or taking action to stop him, he opened it. “Hello?”
“Hello there.” It was a short man and woman.
“Come on in,” said Thompson.
They hurried in and Thompson closed the door behind them. Jones had his rifle now and none of us budged. We held our rifles high as they walked over to greet us. Dushell had no ammo, but pretended she did. I have no doubt she would quickly swing it at the first sign of trouble. From where I was standing, I could clearly see the bend in the shaft. That gun would never fire again.
“Put those down, can’t you see these are people?” Thompson’s hands were on his hips, scolding us as if we were his children.
“Stand down,” said Jones. We did.
Thompson hosted. “I’m Sam Thompson. My traveling companions are all soldiers. This is Private Jones, Private Baker, and Private Dushell.”
One by one, we nodded.
The man responded. “I’m Tom Billingsly and this is my wife, Sara. We live over the ridge back about three miles. We saw you heading this way and it took us this long to make it to you. Are you soldiers meeting with the army?”
“Yeah,” said Thompson. “We are heading toward Camp Brandt in northern Arkansas. You’re more than welcome to come along.”
“Thank you,” said the man.
“Thank you,” responded his wife.
The rest of us gave small smiles and glowered at Thompson. We didn’t know these people and he wasn’t in charge of anything. I was happy to know I wasn’t alone in disapproving.
“We have food,” Tom said. Each of them carried a cloth sack over their shoulder. I assumed the sacks belonged to children. I saw the high school logo as they unpacked on the living-room table.
Their meager belongings didn’t interest me, I reclaimed my seat. Thompson gave Jones a scolding look that made him ease up a bit on the suspicious look Jones gave them. They proudly presented us with what they carried; six cans of pork-n-beans, four cans of SPAM, matches, spoons, two tea cups, and three bottles of water.
“Sorry about the silverware, Sara didn’t do the dishes, so we grabbed the clean stuff and ran.”
“Why did you leave?” asked Dushell.
Tom looked upset by the question.
“I mean the zombies,” said Dushell. “We haven’t heard a peep since we came into the area. Were you overrun?”
“Well,” said Tom. “You can say that. They were getting close and as far as we could tell, they were a few houses down and headed our way. Out here in the country, houses are far apart, so we got a jump on our escape and grabbed what we could.”
“Do you have any weapons, any ammo?” asked Jones.
“Sorry.”
“You didn’t have to fight them?” Dushell asked, suspiciously.
“Sara fell once, a good whack from my shovel saved the day.”
I looked at his agitated wife. Her behavior was nothing, we had seen things we would like to forget.
“We could really use the matches,” said Jones.
“You are welcome to them,” Tom said.
“Wh-what are your names?” asked Sara.
“Brittany Dushell. I’m from St Louis.”
“Michael Matthew Jones. Miami Beach.”
“I’m Zora Baker and I’m from Columbia, Missouri.”
“Zora?” Thompson said my name slowly, looking at me rather creepily. I flashed a look and he returned his attention to his guests. “And I’ve told you already, Samuel Thompson. Chicago, Illinois.”
“Um, it’s nice to meet all of you.” Her smile was endearing, yet something about her bothered me and I had no idea what it was.
“Let’s eat folks,” Jones reasserted himself. “We found napkins and plastic forks in the kitchen. Dushell, hand them out. Baker, help open the tins. We have to ration, so tonight, we will have SPAM for meat and beans or spinach for veggies. There are six of us, we need to ration and have two to a can until we find more supplies. Thompson, you and I will team up. Dushell, you are with Baker and you guys are together.” He waved at our only married couple.
We passed everything out and sat by our partners. I was grateful for Jones’ directions, they helped. I sat beside Dushell and we shared a can of the SPAM our new members provided. Dushell dumped it out on napkins and cut it down the middle, evenly. I suggested pork-n-beans, though I’m sure she wanted the spinach. The beans might be gassy for some, but believe me, I was doing her and everyone else a big favor.
When Jones finished with his torch, he passed it to me. The small butane torch cooked our meat nicely. Months ago, the smell made us gag. It took time to learn to adapt and smell the difference between cooked meat and burning flesh.
Thompson and Jones had spinach and SPAM. The married couple had SPAM and spinach. We cleaned up when we finished and for the most part, had pleasant conversations with one another.
Dushell gave blankets to our guests and we turned in.
A gunshot woke me, then I heard a zombie scream. I need to stop calling them screams, they are not screams. I just have no better name for them at the moment. Dushell and I were side by side in bed, in the house’s only bedroom. We grabbed our guns and ran, neither of us had undressed. In the living room, Jones and Thompson were fighting Tom.
We walked into a zombie-human fight. The woman and the man were both zombies. The woman was on the floor with a gunshot wound. She moved and did her zombie scream. I didn’t act fast enough, but Dushell did. Her rifle was up in the air as she ran and whacked the woman across her head. Her head cracked, but nothing spilled out and the woman continued her screams. She tried to get up. I aimed between her red eyes with my gun.
“No guns,” shouted Jones.
I clicked on safety and went to Dushell’s aid. Together, we used our rifles like bayonets and stabbed the woman while she twisted and groaned. She wouldn’t die. We were going at her hard, too. I mean green blood was flying all over, it drenched us. I was going to take the chance and just shoot her. Finally, I stabbed her in her midsection hard enough to make both her hands go to her stomach and Dushell opened up on her. She held her rifle high, she screamed, and when she swung down, I heard the crack. Green blood splattered everywhere. The powerful swing finished her, zombie brains stained the floor.
I turned to see how the men were doing. Jones had lost his rifle somehow. He held up a chair with one hand as if facing a lion. The other hand held the knife that he threatened to use earlier. Thompson was throwing objects at the zombie, I imagine as a distraction so Jones could move in for the kill.
“What happened?” I screamed.
“Shoot him, Baker,” shouted Thompson.
I turned around my gun and checked for the safety.
“No!” screamed Jones. “No noise, Baker. Hit him.”
“You got to be kidding.” I was so tired and drenched in blood, I couldn’t take on another one.
Dushell saved the day. She crept behind it and whacked it while it faced the men. Her hit was not strong enough to kill it, but it turned to face her. At that instant, Jones dropped the chair and lunged. He gripped the zombie’s head and sliced its neck at the same time. He twisted its neck until it snapped. Maybe he had momentarily forgotten that ‘a cut throat’ was a waste of time. In the end, he got it. The zombie crumbled to the floor and screamed no more.
“Well,” said Jones, huffing and puffing. “That’s it.” He wiped green goo from his knife and put it in the holder on his belt. He turned up his nose at the green blood on his clothes and tried to flick it off with little success. “We got to pack and get the hell out of h
ere. Any zombies in the area are going to be coming this way soon.”
“I’m on it,” I said. I put the couples’ belongings in one bag and went to the bedroom for mine. Dushell followed and grabbed hers. We met the men back in the living room. I looked for Jones. “Where is Jones?” I asked Thompson.
Thompson looked at us both. “On the porch with his binoculars, scouting the area.”
Jones came back in. “I don’t see any of them anywhere. We got some time. Are we packed?”
“Yes, sir,” my automatic reply.
“It’s nearly light out, at least we got that.” Jones tried sounding optimistic for our benefit.
“What happened?” I asked again.
“They were infected.” Jones scowled at Thompson.
“How was I to know that?” Thompson’s only reply.
“You invited them in! We didn’t know them and you invite them in.” Jones was livid.
“What happened, exactly?” asked Dushell, as if my asking carried no weight.
Jones responded. “We went to sleep and I woke to noises. I thought it was the guy snoring loudly, it wasn’t. He was munching on his wife, and get this, she was munching on him, too. My guess is that they went to sleep holding each other and turned at the same time. In the darkness, they ate whatever wasn’t them.
“I wasn’t sure what it was I saw, so I shined a flashlight on them. They saw each other, then me. All hell broke loose and they charged me. I ran, got my gun, and got off a shot at him before he ripped it out of my hands. I didn’t hit him, but I got her. That guy was fast.”
“I slept in front of the door,” said Thompson. “I thought of it during the night, you know, as an early warning system? I was a good deal away from the action. I saw Jones fighting the man and the woman on the floor. I tried to get to the rifle, but couldn’t.
“My only option was to throw and distract the guy so Jones could kill him. The woman was having trouble getting up. I guess we learned a little something tonight.”
“What’s that?” I said.
“We can incapacitate them.” He looked amused. “Don’t you get it? We discovered something no one else knows. Two things actually. First, in total darkness they eat whatever is in front of them. Second, they can be hurt.”
Thompson looked happy about it. He was a scientist, so I imagine that is what they do. The rest of us had different worries. “I’m more concerned they turned so quickly. You have any new information on that?”
“Soldiers.” He scoffed. Maybe to him we were grunts and nothing more. The way he looked at us made me want to shoot him. “Total darkness, that means they hunt by sight for humans. They make choices on whom to feed off. They choose.”
“You can’t know that for sure,” said Dushell.
“Maybe not, but it’s something more we now know. Of course, they can smell flesh, but this is something different. And the ‘being hurt part’, that has never been documented, as far as I know. The bullet paralyzed her as if she were still human. That is fantastic news. Her nerves play apart in what she can do.”
“So?”
“I mean, we tested them for ways to destroy them, but no one ever thought of severing their spinal column to see if they became quadriplegics. This is fantastic news.”
“How?” I said.
“If we can’t develop a weapon to kill them, perhaps a nervous system virus, one that paralyzes. We swoop in and stack them as firewood. Fantastic!” He laughed wildly. This man was truly a mad scientist and gave us the creeps.
“Let’s go,” said Jones.
He had night goggles and led us out. It would be morning soon and with luck, we would be miles from there before more zombies came.
We walked in single file to keep from tripping. There were small hills and steep areas we had to go through. Jones led us as best he could to avoid bad terrain and we were grateful. If I guessed, I would say we walked three hours in darkness.
As the area lighten with the sun’s rays, Jones put away his goggles and led us near a small pond. While we admired the scenery, Jones ran off. We walked in his direction, hoping he had seen something useful. When we got to him, he was on the ground making a fishing pole.
“With luck, we are about to get some protein.” Jones was excited. Being the sportsman of our group, I’m sure he would catch plenty of fish, if they were there to be caught.
“Make me one,” said Dushell.
I had no idea she knew how to fish, let alone would be around the slimy things and their bait. “What?”
“What?” she repeated.
“I didn’t know you fished.” I said, hoping she wouldn’t read anymore into it.
“I’m more than a beauty queen.”
“Yeah, right.” I laughed. Not from what she said. It was the way she looked. She was covered in zombie goo and smelled worse than she looked. I was no Miss America myself.
“Come on,” she said. “Let’s go get cleaned up while we can.”
“Right.” I closed my mouth and followed. Dushell picked up her bag and we went to a low spot to ease into the water. At first, we feared water, thinking it held the virus. Scientists figured out the virus could not survive in either fresh or saltwater. It was a small reprieve from the madness. Before electricity declined to bare minimums, word had spread around the globe about water.
The unfortunate outcome was that people thought water was a safety net and many drowned trying to get away from zombies. Yes, they can get you in water. They can’t swim, but they can float out to you and chump down.
One female soldier had to be relieved of duty. She was in another group rescuing those on the water and saw a zombie float to a woman in the Gulf of Mexico. The woman was one of those triathletes that swim, bike, and run. She thought she could swim out to a buoy and survive. She would have, if not for bad timing.
The swimmer took off her clothes, she wore a red bikini underneath. She dove in and swam for the buoy. A zombie rushed in the water behind her. It ran. Its head went beneath the water and then it surfaced, it floated. The swimmer kept going and was close to the buoy.
A rescue boat came by and when it turned in the water quickly, it produced a wave that drove the zombie into the woman. The zombie came like a shark, grabbing and biting one of her legs. Both sunk beneath the water. When they surfaced, the zombie was around the woman’s middle, eating her from the side.
The soldier believed the outstretched woman was dead and shot the zombie. It took time to get the woman to shore and then her hand moved. The soldier, thinking it was her fault, tried to save her. The soldier did compressions on her chest. When she bent down to give the woman a breath, the woman opened her red eyes and tried to bite her.
The soldier was quick enough to get away and shoot her, but the damage had been done. She snapped. It could have happened to anyone. We are in a war that will kill every man, woman and child on the face of the planet. Who wouldn’t snap?
Chapter Five