Deadcore: 4 Hardcore Zombie Novellas Part 27

"We're wasting time," said Jim.

Cutshaw allowed Franz to lead him on. The sun broke through and heat gathered in shimmering pools on the plain. It was as hot as an oven inside the Humvee. The terrain grew steadily rougher. Around noon, we were forced to abandon the Humvee at the edge of an immense boulder-field on a high plateau.

"Nine hours till sundown," said Cutshaw.

"Where's the nearest hut?" asked Bob.

Cutshaw spread a map over the bonnet. "Six miles north of here."

"We need to be back here by seven at the latest then," I said.

"That gives us seven hours," said Bob.

"Hurry it up, will you," said Jim, his face haggard with anxiety.

Cutshaw folded the map away and we started hiking through a broken country of snaky ravines and flat-topped sandstone hills with dark, crusty caps. The sky darkened as it receded into the north.

There was little talk, even from Hooch. The memory of the previous night's horrors was still fresh in our minds. We were ready for anything. If a horde of flesh-eaters had risen out of the gravel plain I don't think any of us would've been surprised.

We'd been walking for roughly an hour when we reached the gorge. Tiers of crumbling sandstone cliffs, dotted with caves, ledges and overhangs, fell away from our feet. There was nothing left of the river that must have once rushed in a frothing torrent through the belly of the gorge.

We descended a steep, loose slope, arms spread like surfers trying not to wipeout. After twenty minutes of scrambling, palms bloodied, trousers torn, I slithered to the base of the slope.

"They can't have got much further," panted Bob, uncorking his canteen.

"They shouldn't have got this far," said Cutshaw.

"Must all be stage ones," said Hooch.

A few hundred metres further on we found the dead zombie. It was lying spread-eagled on a boulder at the base of a cliff. Fragments of its skull were spread over a radius of several feet. It was a stage one. Its body appeared relatively fresh on the outside, but its face was swollen by fluids and gases building-up under its skin.

Bob glanced up at the cliff. "It must have fallen."

Cutshaw studied the blood congealing over its shattered skull. "This happened less than an hour ago."

Franz lifted his head, sniffing. His gums drew back, his fur bristled. Jim, who'd continued ahead to a bend in the dry riverbed, gave out a sudden shout. He dropped to one knee, shouldered the rifle he'd inherited from Harry and squeezed off a shot. Then he jumped up and sprinted forwards.

"Wait," I yelled, chasing after him.

I reached the corner in time to see Jim disappearing around another bend. Cutshaw whistled and pointed and Franz raced ahead of us.

A second shot echoed around the gorge as we reached the bend. Jim was stood on a flat boulder about thirty metres away. "Come on," he called, flashing us a wild-eyed look. "I've seen Tommy." He jumped off the boulder.

"Watch out," I cried as a flesh-eater lurched out of the boulder's shadow. The zombie was fast, but Franz was faster. He sprang at the creature, knocking it off balance.

"Get down," Bob and Hooch shouted in chorus. Jim flung himself to the ground and before the flesh-eater could regain its balance a torrent of bullets blew its head apart.

Bob puffed his cheeks. "d.a.m.n, that was close."

"How many did you see?" Cutshaw asked Jim.

"Six or seven." He got to his feet. "Tommy was with them, I'm sure of it."

"Why haven't they attacked us?" I said. "They must have caught our scent by now."

Jim pointed at the dead zombie. "What do you call that?"

"Yeah, but what about the rest of them?"

"Who gives a s.h.i.t? Come on." Jim charged onwards.

As the riverbed tumbled down in a series of steps, the gorge narrowed until only a ribbon of sky was visible. Stunted screwbean mesquites with spiny, twisted branches dotted the parched channel, indicating that there was moisture not far below the soil's surface.

We caught up with the zombies as they were about to enter a cave. A distinctive mop of curly ginger hair at the pack's centre told us Tommy was with them. Jim swung his rifle into position for a shot. Cutshaw knocked down its barrel so that the bullet kicked up a puff of dust.

"What the h.e.l.l did you do that for?" snarled Jim.

"He's still alive."

"That's impossible," I said.

"Alive," murmured Jim. "How?"

No doubt, this question occupied all our minds as we charged towards the cave. None of us had considered it even a remote possibility that Tommy was still alive. Out of all the unlikely occurrences of the past few days this was by far the unlikeliest. A zombie's primary instinct is to feed on living flesh and brains. In this respect, there's no more single-minded creature on Earth than a zombie. The idea that these zombies were able to resist taking a bite out of Tommy with the smell of his flesh in their supersensitive nostrils was utterly incredible.

Before entering the cave, Cutshaw and Hooch pulled on night-vision goggles. The rest of us checked our infra-red scopes. The flaring entrance soon narrowed into a tunnel wide enough for two men to walk abreast. Jim and Cutshaw took the lead, followed by Hooch and Bob, then me. The cave was cool and dank. From somewhere far beneath our feet came the muted sound of running water.

Suddenly, a voice shrill with fear cried out, "Help me."

Jim surged forwards. "Hold on, Tommy, we're coming."

"Wait, we've got to stick-" I started to say, but was silenced by the ear-splitting boom of Cutshaw's rifle. He drew back the bolt for another shot, dropping onto one knee so we could shoot over his head. Squinting through my scope, I saw that the tunnel ahead of us was clogged with zombies falling over each other in their eagerness to get at us.

A vice-like grip closed around my arm. The noxious stink of dead flesh hit me full in the face as I jerked my chin around. I mouthed a silent scream, knowing I was on impossible terrain. In full daylight a zombie is a dangerous opponent, but in darkness and at close-quarters it's absolutely deadly. I dropped my rifle and fumbled at the grip of my Beretta, tensing in antic.i.p.ation of feeling the zombie's teeth sink into my flesh. Franz's fur brushed against my face. I pitched myself backwards, tucking my head down so my shoulders would take the brunt of any impact. My breath whistled through my teeth as I hit the ground. Then I was sliding on my back headfirst down a rock-chute. I groped at the smooth rock, desperately trying to check my pace.

The chute spat me into thin air. I tumbled head-over-heels into a channel of swift-flowing, icy water. I kicked hard for the surface, water rushing up my nostrils. There was a small gap between the channel's surface and the roof of the cave. I pushed my hands against the rock to keep from having my head split open. In places the channel grew so narrow I became stuck until the pressure of water building behind me propelled me onwards like a torpedo. At other times the roof came down so low I was forced underwater until my lungs came close to collapsing. After what felt like hours, but was probably only minutes, a violent eddy buffeted me into the rock and I was knocked unconscious.

When I came to, I was lying on a muddy beach beside a river.

I struggled upright, feeling like I'd been worked over with an iron bar, but elated that I'd somehow managed to come through without serious damage. I scanned my surrounds. The river, which poured from a cave near the base of a sandstone cliff, was bordered by a narrow alluvial plain dotted with thickets of mesquite. Mesas, their slopes blanketed by clumps of sagebrush that perfumed the air with a pungent, turpentine aroma, formed an impenetrable barrier to the east and west.

My elation faded as it dawned on me just how tenuous my situation was. I was lost in a hostile environment with no radio or food and half a canteen of water. I faced a stark choice: remain where I was and hope the others managed to find a way through the cave-system or hike south and try to find a route out of the river-valley before nightfall. As I weighed up the pros and cons of either option, a low moan caused me to s.n.a.t.c.h out my Beretta.

The zombie lay on its back on the river-bank, hidden from view by a hump of mud. Its left leg looked as though it'd been put through a mangle and there were teeth-marks on its face. It stared at me, licking its lips as I took aim. The soft-nosed bullet did its job, fragmenting on impact and destroying two-thirds of the creature's skull.

As the echo of my shot died away, an agonised scream issued from a nearby mesquite thicket. I sprinted towards the thicket. A hot desert wind blew in my face, so I knew there was a good chance any flesh-eaters lurking in there hadn't caught my scent. My progress was slowed by a dense growth of crucifixion thorn that encircled the mesquites like a barbed-wire fence. The scream came again as I picked my way through the spiny tangle.

"Hang on, Tommy, I'm coming," I shouted, crashing though the remaining few feet of thorns, not caring that the spines lacerated my clothes and skin.

I halted in the shadow of a mesquite from which dangled fistfuls of screw-like, dull-green pods. I don't mind admitting that I was scared almost to the point of paralysis. I took several deep breaths and forced my legs to move step by trembling step.

Nothing, not even the events of the last twenty-four hours, could've prepared me for the sight that greeted my eyes as I entered the small clearing at the centre of the thicket.

Tommy was lying on his back. Most of his face was missing. His skull had been smashed open and a zombie was feeding frenziedly on his brain. Two more zombies stood at the back of the clearing. The feeding zombie was a late stage three. Dry decay had stripped away much of its hair and flesh and it was almost toothless. The other zombies were unmistakably stage ones, their green-blue skin was only just beginning to exhibit significant signs of putrefaction.

In every zombie pack there's a ruthlessly simple pecking order. The strongest zombies feed on the most nourishing parts of their kill, i.e., the brains and bone marrow, while older, weaker pack members make do with whatever's leftover (usually a.s.sorted internal organs). Understandably, then, my thoughts were thrown into turmoil by the sight of the stage ones allowing a stage three to feast on Tommy's brain. Read any book on evolution and you'll find talk about how one of the standards by which humanity is judged is the way we provide care for old and sick members of our society. It's this behaviour that separates us from the beasts in the jungle. By that reckoning I was witnessing something that cast into doubt not only what it meant to be a zombie, but what it meant to be human.

You may dismiss such talk, as others have done, as the product of a mind unbalanced by what happened next. But I know what I saw. I only wish I understood what it meant.

I unloaded into the stage ones. The force of the dum-dum bullets hurled them into the air like rag dolls. As I reloaded, the feeding zombie jerked its head up. There was something about its eyes, some gleam of intelligence that was horrifyingly familiar. My mouth opened and shut soundlessly. I could feel my eyes bulging with the effort of trying to speak. The word finally came out in a dry croak, "Dad."

The zombie hissed, rising slowly to its feet. It shuffled towards me as if its ankles were shackled. I tried to pull the trigger, G.o.d help me I did, but I couldn't do it. My arms dropped limply to my sides. Tears ran down my face.

The zombie was less than a metre away when blood ballooned out of the back of its head. I heard the shot a fraction of a second later. It was the perfect shot, the bullet entering dead centre of the frontal bone and exiting through the parietal bone. I found out later that it'd been made from nearly a mile away without the aid of a telescopic sight.

I blinked, then glanced around as though emerging from a trance. Unsurprisingly, the shooter was nowhere to be seen. The zombie lay on its back, arms outstretched like someone about to enter an embrace. There was a gold ring on one of its fingers. I worked it over the knuckle and put it in my pocket. Then I bowed my head.

I was still sat like that when a heavily accented voice said, "Everything ok, cabrito?"

Jesus Martinez entered the clearing. He prodded the zombie's carca.s.s with his foot as if to make sure it was truly dead. "I've tracked this one many months. I never encountered its like before." He bent to peer at its face as if studying a specimen through a microscope. After a full minute, shrugging to himself, he turned to leave. "Come, I will take you to your friends." When I didn't move, he said, "Que pasa?"

"I need to bury him."

Martinez's eyebrows lifted. "There are many zombies nearby."

"Still, I need to bury him."

"How?" Martinez stamped his foot. "The earth here is like baked clay."

I took out my knife and began digging. Martinez watched me a moment. Then, with a sigh, he set his rifle down very carefully and joined me. The soil was looser under its crust. We buried the corpse just deep enough to keep the vultures off.

Beyond that there isn't much to tell. The thinker's death brought an end to the attacks on the camps. Poor old Tommy was taken back to Robertson Island for cremation. That was nearly a year ago. I haven't seen Jim since. I heard he got married and had a kid. Hooch is gone. The crazy sonofab.i.t.c.h's luck finally ran out on a night mission somewhere. Cutshaw is gone, too. He went missing on the Eastern Reserve last month. I hate to think what sort of zombie that b.a.s.t.a.r.d will make. I tried to find out what happened to Franz, but n.o.body seemed to know. Bob and me have got a hunting trip planned for spring. No prizes for guessing which reserve we're going to hunt.

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