Fall of the Risen

Two zombies were already down, courtesy of me and my hunting knife. The third lurched toward Murray, who was clutching my machete with a death grip. It seemed to vibrate in his hands.

When Murray hesitated I stepped in and downed the zombie before it could make Murray into its evening meal. It was the third time we had stopped to kill a few of the wandering dead, and the third time Murray couldn’t bring himself to kill one.

“They still look like people,” Murray said. “Mostly.”

“They aren’t,” I said, wiping the blade of my hunting knife on the closest zombie’s clothes. “And you can’t hesitate, not even for a heartbeat, because they won’t. They aren’t even capable of it. They’d kill you and feel nothing about it. No remorse, no guilt. They wouldn’t even remember that you were a living, screaming creature seconds after you’re gone. You’re meat. That’s all.”

The blood seemed to drain from Murray’s face, but he gave a nod before turning to head back to the truck.

I climbed behind the wheel and sat there for a moment before starting the engine.

“We’re almost there. I know a safe place nearby,” I said. “Maybe you should lay low there until I’m done with my business?”

Murray shook his head. “I’ll be all right. Promise.”

He wasn’t, but there was no talking him out of going through with it. I respected that.

For probably the tenth time, I rambled about what we could expect once we got there. It was wasted breath, really. I didn’t know what to expect besides zombies and bullets.

When the edge of Sisco was visible, I slowed the truck to a crawl. If I stayed far enough back the trees would cover us from being seen by whoever was in the tower.

“This is as close as I can get for now. You ready?”

Murray nodded.

He grabbed a set of steel ramps he had brought along with the schlepper and placed them at the end of the truck bed. After unstrapping the schlepper, he hopped into the tiny cockpit like he had done it a hundred times.

The schlepper inched down the ramps. A few times during the descent the front end of the pickup lifted an inch or two off the ground, but the schlepper eventually touched down on the ground. Murray gave me a thumbs up and I gave one back.

I had thought Murray was being overly cautious with the speed he went down the ramps, but as he headed toward Sisco’s gate I realized that was just how slow the schlepper moved.

I walked to the edge of the treeline and watched Murray’s progress. It was the only thing that moved slower than a zombie. I didn’t even think the guard would notice it’s approach. Just as that thought ran through my head a shout went up from the guard booth.

I expected to see Ferguson there, but it was one of Jansen’s other lackeys. He put his rifle to his shoulder and looked down the sight. My heart jumped into my throat. I didn’t think they’d be so quick to start shooting. Murray had no chance of getting out of the way!

The shot rang out and I expected the schlepper to stop moving, it’s driver dead. Instead, the bullet bounced off of the body and the schlepper continued to inch forward. Bullet after bullet hit various body panels and barely left a mark. No wonder the thing was so damn heavy.

The bullets stopped shortly after the idiot firing them realized they were having no effect. I could hear the muddy shouts of a conversation being called over a distance, and over the shouters’ panic. Couldn’t hear the words, but it was clear that they were pissing themselves.

Thunder crashed in the distance. Before I could wonder about rain, it was spitting.

After what seemed like an hour, the schlepper was in range of the gate. I hoped that the bullets wouldn’t start flying again, drew my machete, and ran toward the toward the fence.

I aimed for a spot to the left of the gate. I hoped they’d be too focused on Murray to notice my approach. I also hoped the zombies would be too distracted and riled up from all the shooting. Some of them had turned to look at the schlepper, but so far they weren’t that interested in it.

When I reached the edge of the horde surrounding Sisco, I took down the closest zombie with a swing of my machete. It wasn’t needed. Between Murray, the noise coming from Sisco, and the increasing rain, they weren’t looking at me. I made my way along the ring of dead, toward the gate and the schlepper.

Once I reached the schlepper, I located the steel cable on the front; right where Murray said it would be. The cable flowed out easily as I walked with it to the gate. That’s when the zombies began to notice me.

I took out the ones in front of me easily. They were still turned toward the gate. The ones that closed in from behind were the real problem. Progress was slow. Zombies kept tripping over the cable, which pulled stopped me for a second or two each time. I was only a few feet from the gate and couldn’t seem to close the distance. Then the cable stopped coming.

“Murray!” I yelled. “Move closer!”

A scream was all I got in return. The dead had finally noticed Murray through the small window in the schlepper and were climbing all over it. Murray didn’t seem in any real danger sitting in a bulletproof car, but that didn’t stop him from panicking.

“Murray! MURRAY!”

I called his name over and over. The rain came down harder and harder. The zombies came stronger and stronger.

Shots began to ring out from Sisco. That was it. Any chance we had left was dashed. At least a bullet would be faster than being eaten to death.

Zombies began dropping all around me. Either the guard was a bad shot, or he wasn’t aiming for me. I took a chance and turned to look at the guard booth. He stood looking on, but had no gun in his hands. He looked as surprised as I was. I didn’t know where the shots were coming from, but I could guess who they were coming from. Jack and Dawn.

The zombies near me were all down, and the ones on the schlepper began to fall off with a bullet in each head. I trudged through the mud and corpses to the schlepper and pounded on the window. Murray looked at me through trembling fingers.

“MOVE UP!”

He nodded and moved forward.

Once the schlepper was close enough, I attached the cable and motioned for Murray to back up. Then I sprinted back toward the tree line.

Jack and Dawn had gotten their hands on some guns. Maybe they even rallied some of the other people who were tired of things they way they were. I couldn’t tell if that would make things better or worse. Didn’t really matter. I couldn’t do anything about it except what I already planned to do.

I hopped into the driver’s seat of the truck and started the engine just in time to see the schlepper peeling back one side of the gate like the top of a pudding cup.

I put the truck into gear and gunned the engine. It was time to take back Sisco.

“Stop!” Murray yelled.

I hit the brakes hard. The schlepper, secured in the truck bed, revealed its immense weight and threatened to make the truck skid forward.

“What the hell’s the matter?” I asked.

We were mere feet beyond the vault door. Murray had already closed it with a remote he kept in his pocket, but he jumped out of the truck and walked back to the door, placing one palm against the steel.

“Dammit,” I said, stepping out of the truck and following. “If you don’t want to go, I’m not going to make you.”

“No, no,” he said, waving dismissively. “I want to go. I need to go. I just… I need a minute.”

“Okay. I’ll wait in the truck.”

“No. Stay.”

He stood for long moments. It wasn’t what I would have expected as a good-bye. I would have thought he’d want to walk through each room he spent time in, see parts of his home that he might look at for the last time, and let the sights and sounds trigger fond memories.

Murray just stood there with a hand on the door, his shoulders slumped, eyes locked in a stare.

Then, without a word or even a sound, he turned and walked back to the truck.

I scrambled back behind the steering wheel and looked to Murray. What could I say to a man that just left the home he’d known for what was probably decades?

Before I could open my mouth, Murray motioned for us to move forward.

The truck climbed the ramp, out of the underground tunnel, and back into the daylight. Murray closed his eyes and turned away from the passenger-side window. After a few moments, when he had adjusted, he couldn’t tear his eyes away from the window.

I wondered what it would be like to see the world after so many years underground.

“Doing okay?” I asked with a nervous laugh. What a stupid thing to say.

“You live a certain way for so long that you don’t think it could ever be different. You know there are different ways to live, but you don’t think you could do yours any other way. Or maybe you just don’t want it to change. Hell, I don’t know. Then, one day, you just change. It’s still hard, but it’s not impossible, even though it seemed that way. You know?”

I nodded.

It wasn’t long ago that I was cruising down the country roads near Sisco with Jack riding in the passenger seat. He would crack a joke, I’d pretend I didn’t think it was funny, and then try to say something funnier. This would go back and forth all day long, denying each other laughs until they were impossible to contain.

It was my comfortable normal—at least as normal as life could get in a world of walking corpses. It wasn’t normal according to the old world, but it was my new normal, and I craved it.

Instead, Murray rode beside me as we drove away from his home, intent on waging war on mine. Maybe. I hoped it wouldn’t come to that, but there was little chance in things ending without spilled blood.

I could avoid it if I walked away, but that would mean leaving my friends to a fate I knew nothing about except that it wouldn’t be good.

Jack was my best friend. He’d do just about anything for me. He risked his life to try and save mine. Where did that leave him? A prisoner? The next one to be walled? I had to save him from whatever trouble he was in.

Then there was Dawn. I didn’t know what Dawn was to me. Sure, she had always been my friend, but I wondered if she was more than that. The days leading up to me being walled had been… confusing. I had never been too good with feelings and crap like that. All I knew was that I had them, and they made me stupid whenever I was around her.

“What the hell?” Murray blurted, pointing to the road ahead. A lone zombie was standing there, staring at nothing.

I started slowing the truck down gradually so the schlepper wouldn’t override me. Once I got to a full stop I grabbed my machete and stepped out of the truck. Murray jumped out of the other side and waved his arms.

“What are you going to do with that?” he asked. “This man is no threat. He needs help!”

“Remember that talk about zombies, Murr?” I pointed to the corpse, who had noticed us and was stumbling in our direction. “That’s one of them.”

Murray stared with eyes wide as it trudged forward despite the many injuries that would debilitate a normal man. It growled with each step, eyes of hatred and hunger locked onto Murray.

The poor old guy was frozen by a mixture of terror and fascination. I stepped forward, and the zombie turned toward me, hands raising for my throat. The tip of my machete entered under the chin and exited through the top of the skull. I swung the dead weight toward the side of the road and let go of everything except my machete, letting the rest fall into the grass.

“My, God,” Murray said. It was barely more than a whisper. “They got it right.”

“What? Who are you talking about?”

“The guys that made all those movies,” he said, still staring at the body of the zombie. “All of it. The way they move, the noises they make, the way they die. How the hell did they know all of that?”

I shrugged. “I don’t have any answers, but if you’re going to live in this world, you’ve got to learn to deal with these suckers. For now, at least. I had a plan, but… ah, nevermind.”

We got back into the truck. Murray’s eyes were still wide, though he didn’t really look at anything in particular. His breathing was a little fast and his arms seemed to wrap themselves around him. That was a feeling I remembered.

“Adjust quick, Murr. Where were going, there’s a whole lot more of them.”

Murray stood inside the massive garage, with a sea of cars and trucks behind him, arms stretched wide and a smile on his face normally reserved for fathers with newborn babies.

“Well?” he asked. “Anything here going to do it for you?”

I walked to the nearest pickup truck and inspected it. It was older than the ones we’d been finding. Its body would be a little more rigid, but it would probably have less power.

“You’d just let us take a vehicle?” I asked.

“What the hell am I going to do with a hundred cars?” Murray asked.

“Look!” Gianni called out, running over to a black 2-door similar to his last one. “It’s the sport model. It’s got 97 more horsepower than mine.”

“They only made 114 of those,” Murray said. “Last time I checked, there were only 70-something left. That was quite a few years ago.”

“Looks like it needs some bullet holes,” I said.

“Don’t joke about shooting a masterpiece,” Gianni said, pointing a finger at me like an angry mother. I chuckled and moved down the line of trucks.

All the vehicles seemed to be sorted into categories. Sport, utility, luxury. Macadamia was a collector of all types. There were cars that most people wouldn’t be able to afford if they lived three lifetimes. Then there were others that even I had owned at one time or another.

I spotted something in the far corner, covered by a large sheet and walked over. It was low to the ground, but wide and long. I thought maybe it was a chassis for a sports car or something.

When I lifted the sheet, I saw the vehicle was complete, but very odd. If I fit into it—which was a big if—I’d have to practically lie down, and it didn’t look like I’d be able to see.

“Murray,” I called. “What the hell kind of car is this?”

“Ah,” Murray said, walking over. “That’s the schlepper.”

“Schlepper?”

“Yup. Prototype Mr. Macadamia had developed. It has its flaws, but… well, it has a lot of flaws.”

“It might serve, though. I’m looking for something tough. Something that can ram at high speed.”

“Well then,” Murray said with a big smile. “This isn’t what you want at all. She tops out at 8 miles an hour, on a good day. It was built for torque, not speed.”

“What good is that?”

“Pulling power. Dragging things. Hell, if there was a trailer big enough for the titanic, this baby could pull it.”

“Does it still work?”

“Far as I know.”

Daffodil was walking the rows of cars, but not looking at any of them.

I walked over to him and waited until he looked me in the eye.

“Something here is going to work,” I said.

“I know,” he replied.

“We’re going back home, and this time, we’re going to get in.”

Daffodil nodded.

“Probably best if we wait until daylight,” he said.

I nodded.

Murray was thrilled when I asked if we could stay the night. He led us back through the maze of the underground vault until we reached a hallway with doors on both sides. Each door led to a room with a bed. A real bed. Meant for sleeping. It hadn’t even been two weeks since I left my bed back in Sisco, but I felt like I was trying a bed for the first time in my entire life.

Sleep came easy. Too easy. Being underground made it feel like it was the darkest part of the night all the time.

It still felt like the middle of the night when I woke up at 1 in the afternoon.

Murray, Gianni, and Daffodil had already left their rooms.

I stumbled through the hallways, got lost a half dozen times, and eventually found my way to the garage. Murray was whistling as he finished tying the schlepper into the back of an oversized pickup truck.

“Morning, sunshine!” he called. “More like afternoon, I guess.”

“Uh…hey. I sure appreciate you letting me have this. I’ll find a way to return the favor. I promise.”

He nodded and continued his work.

Gianni and Daffodil were nowhere to be seen. The black 2-door Gianni had been drooling on was gone as well.

“Murray, have you seen my friends?”

“Gone,” he said, without looking up from the rope he was tying. “Left early this morning. The normal-looking one left with my car. I’d be mad, but doesn’t seem like anything is worth anything anymore.”

I had grown lax on Gianni. Once I thought about it, it was more surprising that Gianni hadn’t left earlier. Hopefully he had no plans of going back to Sisco, but there was nothing I could do about it even if he did. I didn’t really want to have to fight him. As much of a pain as he had become, I had started to like to guy. A little.

“What about Daffodil? Uh, the strange looking one.”

“Didn’t even see that one leave. One minute he was standing behind me, the next, I turn around and she’s gone. Is it he or she? Ah, hell. That person is gone.”

That was more disappointing. Despite all the threats, I had hoped he’d stick with me through whatever. I needed his help. Instead, he stuck around hoping that I’d change my mind about going back to Sisco. Now that I had the means and the intent, he took his opportunity to hit the road.

I let out a sigh and looked at the truck Murray was packing up.

“It’s going to be a long ride home,” I said.

“We’ll find a way to pass the time.”

I smiled. “Are you coming with me, Murr?”

He shrugged and avoided eye-contact. “It’s either that or stay here in this big empty vault by myself.”

“Okay. Let’s go to Sisco.”

Before I opened my eyes, before I even realized I was awake, I heard the distinct sound of a shell being loaded into the chamber of a shotgun. Chik-chuk!

My eyes popped open to see the barrel of that same shotgun inches from my nose.

“Morning, sunshine,” said the gruff voice I had last heard through a speaker. “You ready for that talk?”

The man standing in front of me, holding the shotgun, wore an old set of blue coveralls. Wisps of bright white hair stuck out from under an old ball cap on his head. The shotgun vibrated in his hands as a result of his shaky hands.

I was sitting in a steel chair, hands secured behind my back. Daffodil was in another chair to my left, staring at the old man. Gianni was on the other side, starting to stir, but with his chin still resting against his chest.

“You gassed us?” I said.

The old cackled. “Yeah. Nice little trick, huh? Can’t be too careful. When the world ends, people get desperate. Decent people will try to take what you got, even kill you to get it.”

“Not us. We were just looking for a vehicle.”

“Sure, sure. And what did you bring to pay? Weapons. Makes you seem like a real peaceful lot.”

“You know what it’s like out there,” I said. “If we walked around unarmed we’d have been killed a long time ago.”

“Really?” The old man sat in his own chair and leaned in close. “Dog eat dog world, eh?”

“You could say that.”

He inched his chair even closer.

“Tell me about it. Details. Where were you just before you found me?”

“We were searching the area for cars.”

“Above ground?”

I nodded.

“For how long?” He asked, inching even closer to me.

“A week, give or take.”

“Without breathing equipment? The air can’t be safe to breathe…” He broke off into intelligible muttering, turning his attention away from me.

“Look, sir, I don’t know much about air quality, but I know there are two things you need to watch out for: people and zombies.”

“People have always been dangerous,” he said with a deep sadness. “What the hell is a zombie?”

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“What do you mean by zombie?”

“You don’t know what a zombie is?”

“Only in movies and TV shows, and that’s not real. So I’m asking what you mean when you say zombie.”

I looked over at Daffodil who just shrugged at me.

“How long have you been down here?” I asked the man.

He stood and backed away until he stood leaning against the wall.

“Lost track.”

After a long silence, I wondered if the old man had forgotten about us.

“What’s your name?” I asked.

“Murray. Murray Rafferty.”

“How’d you end up here, Murray?”

What came next was a story that seemed too wild to be real, but I guess the existence of zombies fell into the same category.

Murray worked for an extremely wealthy man. Wealthy and eccentric. The employer, who Murray called Mr. Macadamia, thought he could predict the future. His prediction was World War 3, a war that would only end with the planet’s near-complete destruction. He was way off on the cause, but half points for the end result.

We couldn’t tell how long Murray had been down there, but the maintenance man claimed he was a young man when Mr. Macadamia herded dozens of his employees into the underground vault.

“We’re probably talking decades,” Gianni said. “How the hell are we the first people to find you?”

“You’re not,” Murray said. “The opening of the tunnel used to be covered. Not sure what happened there. But 10 years ago, people started coming up to the door. Never let any of them in, though.”

“Why’d you let us in?” I asked.

Murray shrugged and studied his dirty fingernails.

“You’re the last one, aren’t you,” Daffodil said.

Murray looked at Daffodil, but didn’t answer. He didn’t have to. Daffodil was right. Murray was all alone.

“What happened to everyone else?” I asked.

He shrugged again, almost childlike in the way it attempted to avoid any real answers. “Everyone got….” He looked at the palms of his hands, and slowly turned them over to peer at his knuckles. “…old.”

We sat in silence for a while until Murray smiled as if he hadn’t been thinking the most depressing thoughts a person could have and stood up.

“Let’s get you untied, huh?”

He got to work loosening the rope around my hands.

“You suddenly trust us?” I asked.

“I don’t know,” Murray said, moving to untie Daffodil. “Guess it doesn’t really matter. How much time have I really got left? Besides, the old gut says you’re all right.”

Once we were all loose, he gave us our weapons back and beckoned us to follow him.

“Got something to show you.”

He navigated a series of hallways, turning left then right, another left, and I was lost after the second turn. We ended up back outside of the room we had been gassed in. The large bay door stood before us.

Murray pushed a button on a small remote he had in his pocket. The bay door rolled up to reveal dozens of vehicles.

“You said you were looking for a car,” Murray said, holding the arms out. “Did you have anything in mind?”

I stood in the middle of the road, waiting for Gianni’s car, which would either stop as I planned or sail right over me with nothing more than a thump to mark my passing.

He’d arrive within a few moments if Gianni stuck to the schedule he’d been keeping for the last week. I’d already cleared the area of any zombies I could find to avoid unwanted interruptions.

I studied the trees to either side of the road, but couldn’t find Daffodil. There was a chance that he wasn’t there. The previous night, as the two of us sat in my van discussing the plan, he told me he didn’t like the plan and that he didn’t want to go back to Sisco anyway.

I heard Gianni’s engine before I saw his car appear on the horizon. The urge to scramble to the side of the road grew stronger the closer he got. Especially since he didn’t seem to be slowing down.

“Stop, man!” I shouted. He didn’t even slow.

By the time I was ready to give up, and get off the road, it was too late. I was transfixed on the car bearing down on me. I threw my hands over my head and screamed. The tires locked up, and the car slid to a stop on the dirt road, less than two feet from my jelly-like legs.

Gianni stepped out of his car with a smile on his face and a gun in his hand. I raised my hands, not looking to give him an excuse to shoot me.

“I’ll be damned. The rumours are true,” Gianni said.

I gave a slight bow.

“You should hear them talk about you back home. It’s like you’re bigfoot, or Santa Claus or something like that.”

“Those are big shoes to fill.”

I was worried. Daffodil was supposed to have intervened by then. It seemed I was on my own.

“They aren’t going to let you back in, you know. Even if I let you in my car, which I’m not, they’d make me leave you outside the gate.” He smiled again, and pointed his gun at me. “But I bet I’d be a hero to certain people, the people in power, if I brought back your head.”

“I wouldn’t recommend that,” I said.

“And why not?”

“Because,” I said with a shrug. “Daffodil will cut your fucking head off.”

Daffodil had finally showed up. As I spoke the last few words, he stepped up beside Gianni, silent like the creepy bastard he was, and slipped that strange wire of his around Gianni’s throat.

The sudden crazed look in Gianni’s eye made me remain standing still with my hands up. If he thought he was about to die, I would go before him.

“You ever see Daffy use that thing before?” I asked. “He gives it a little tug and your head hits the ground before your body does. But that’s now going to happen, right? Toss the gun down.”

He let the pistol fall from his hand. Daffodil kept the wire around his throat until I walked over and grabbed the gun.

“Glad you decided to show,” I said to Daffodil.

“We’ll see if it was the right decision.”

I shoved Gianni toward the rear of his car. He watched me open the trunk with a sneer on his face.

“You’re not putting me in my own trunk.”

I pointed his own gun at him. “You were about to shoot me and take my head back to Sisco. I could always do things that way.”

“One scratch,” he warned as he stepped into the trunk and curled into the fetal position.

“Yeah, yeah,” I said. “Like you could do anything about it.”

He opened his mouth to spew a response, but the lid the slammed shut before he could curse the first syllable.

“All right,” I said to Daffodil. “We’re off to see the wizard.”

“Who?”

“Just get in the damn car.”

Sisco was in sight within moments of driving. Sooner than I was truly ready for. My plan had gone perfectly so far, but the next step was a little hazy. It didn’t matter how much time I had to think it over. I wasn’t ready.

As I approached the gate, I spun the back tires of Gianni’s 2-door, fishtailing the car around and doing a few donuts. Generally anything to make it look like a showoff was behind the wheel. I could see why Gianni did it. It was fun.

Thumps came from the rear of the car along with some muffled objections to my considerable driving skills.

I stopped the car in front of the gate, honked the horn, and tried not to sweat as we waited. After a few long seconds, the gate started to swing open. I smiled over at Daffodil.

“See?” I asked.

“Yeah. But now what?”

I hadn’t even thought of that. Once inside the gates, how long could I hide before someone saw me? I could lay low at Jack’s for a while, but was that any better than hiding outside of the walls?

As it turned out, I didn’t need to worry about any of that.

The gate froze when it was only open a few feet. There was some commotion up in the security booth, though I couldn’t quite see what was going on.

Some of the nearby zombies wandered over to the car and started to paw at the windows. More of the dead became interested in us by the second.

“Problem with the gate?” I asked aloud.

“Probably not,” Daffodil said.

As if Daffodil had seen a little piece of the future, the gate started to close. With my way into Sisco disappearing and more and more attention from the horde, I panicked.

I stomped on the gas and took aim at the gate. With the short distance I had for speed, and the strength of the gate, all I was able to do was help the gate close faster. I backed up a short distance, which was made more challenging by all the corpses, and charged forward again.

There was more speed behind the second attempt, but the result was mostly the same. When I backed up, there was nothing more than a tiny dent in the gate’s frame.

“It’s progress,” I said, putting the car into drive and making another run. It would take a while, but eventually I’d get through. And in the progress, I’d run over a whole lot of zombies. Win, win.

Then a bullet ricocheted off of the car’s hood. My eyes widened at the hole it left in the metal. Jansen stood at the peak of the overpass with a rifle, and a goon on each side of him. He took aim again and a bullet came through the windshield.

“Shit!”

I put the car in reverse and turned the wheel as I backed up. Back into drive, I hit the gas and steered away from Sisco. The wheels spun as they slipped on body parts and puddles of goo.

Another shot rang off of the car body. We were moving, but just barely. It was like driving in winter with bald tires.

“You feel like getting out and pushing?” I called, and was not dignified with an answer.

The next shot shattered the rear window. As if it gave us a much-needed push, the tires found traction and we shot forward, away from Sisco.

Day seven. I was cleaning my weapons after my daily attack on the dead surrounding Sisco when I noticed the gates opening. Gianni’s black 2-door was leaving for another run. I guessed he was the new supply guy.

He used to only leave once a week, for a few days at a time, in search of new people. Since I was kicked out he had been leaving daily and Jack hadn’t left once.

Gianni had always hated recruitment, but Jack and I were already doing runs when he joined the settlement. Obviously, he found himself on Marshall’s good list when he helped stop Jack and Dawn from rescuing me.

I watched him drive away from Sisco until he was out of sight. Suddenly, something was behind me. I spun, pulling my knife as went. There was nothing there. Just trees. Something had been there, I was sure of it.

I walked through the trees cautiously. Zombies were never subtle. They weren’t cunning. They weren’t capable of laying a trap. That didn’t mean they couldn’t surprise someone. There could have been one behind any tree, standing there with nothing to trigger any of its base instincts. A warm-blooded human was the exact trigger that could cause a quick attack, and likely a bite.

Ten minutes of searching turned up nothing—not even a sign of something—but the feeling never left. Even as I headed back toward my van, I couldn’t help looking over my shoulder every few steps.

When I got back to my new home, I couldn’t relax. I couldn’t stop peeking out of the windows expecting to see something or someone. I couldn’t stop my mind from churning.

“Screw this.”

Keeping busy was going to be the only way I was going to keep my mind off of paranoia. I went into the pub and pulled out a small table, a few barstools, a flatscreen television, and several empty liquor bottles. If my mind needed to be kept busy, I was going to force it to make traps.

After an hour of planning, experimenting, and constructing, I had a very purposeful-looking pile of junk. The only thing it might have been good for was causing someone who wasn’t looking where they were going to trip.

I didn’t have a mind for that kind of stuff the way Jack did, and I wasn’t good with my hands like Dawn was. In the current world, there was only one thing I was any good at.

I marched out into the forest in search of walking corpses to misplace my frustration on.

Killing used to be something I did when I stumbled upon zombies. My time on the outside taught me how to hunt them, and I was getting pretty good at it.

With nothing else to do, it felt like there were less and less zombies to hunt each day. There were the ones at the walls of Sisco, but the stragglers in the forested area around the city were getting scarce. Was that a cause for hope? If one man could eventually make a few acres safe, could the remaining human population make the world safe?

The sun was an hour from setting when I decided to head back to my van. The eerie feeling of something being right behind me had faded sometime while I was hunting. I’d finally be able to relax, and sleep.

I opened the side door and was shocked to see a body sitting in the van. I stepped backward so quickly that I tripped over the pile that was my failed attempt at a trap. The figure in my van crawled out and stood in front of me.

“Daffodil?”

At first there was relief. It wasn’t a zombie that had managed to surprise me, and it wasn’t some other scavenger who was willing to kill me for my stuff. It was Daffodil. Then came anger. I scrambled, trying to work my clumsy ass off of the various things under me, face turning red.

“Son of a bitch! What the hell are you doing out here? And in my van!”

“Don’t like it in Sisco anymore. Never really did. So I left. Came to find you.”

“Little bastard.” My heart was still threatening to pound right through my ribcage. “You’re lucky I won’t hit a lady.”

I walked past Daffodil, letting out an at-my-wits-end sigh as I went, and climbed into the back of the van.

“Can I ask you something?” Daffodil said.

“Now you’re all about permission? Go ahead.”

“You haven’t moved on from Sisco. Why?”

I shrugged, my anger turning solemn. “Sisco might be done with me, but I don’t think I’m done with Sisco. Feel like I need to get back in. Even if it’s just to check on Dawn and Jack.”

“They won’t let you back in,” Daffodil said.

“I’ve been thinking about that. And you’re right. They won’t let me back in, but they let Gianni back in every damn day.”

Daffodil gave me a curious look. I smirked and looked out at the horizon.

“It’ll be dark soon,” I said grabbing the handle to the sliding door. “Getting in or staying out?”

Daffodil climbed in beside me and we started putting together a plan to get back into Sisco.