Tag: zombies

It was day four since I’d jumped off of the wall into a sea of zombies and fought my way to the forest surrounding Sisco. A long soak in a nearby stream washed away the blood and guts from dozens of the dead. No bites. Must’ve had a horseshoe up my ass.

There wasn’t much cover around without a car for travel, and I wasn’t getting too far from Sisco. My friends were still in there, and for all I knew they were next to be walled. I couldn’t stop that from happening, but I’d do everything I could to make sure they lived through it.

I floated around a lot. Staying within earshot of the settlement, eating what I could find—which was mainly tree nuts. I could have caught a rabbit or something, but I hadn’t found any supplies for making a fire. I hadn’t found many supplies of any kind.

Jack and I had already found mostly everything in the area surrounding Sisco. Occasionally, I came across a car that had been overlooked or dismissed, but even then, the average car didn’t have a lot to offer. They were pretty useful for sleeping in, though. Safe, protection from the elements, and some of them were even comfortable.

I slowly approached Sisco, staying in the safety of the treeline but close enough to look at my old settlement. It was quiet. It usually was, but seemed even quieter. Maybe it was just my state of mind, or maybe that’s just what we looked like to an outsider.

A low moan sounded behind me. A single zombie was wandering my way. I didn’t know if it had seen me yet, but it was heading my way. Maybe to join the thick ring of dead that eternally surrounded Sisco.

“See that, pal?” I asked the zombie. “That’s Sisco. Not a bad place, by today’s standards. Nice people. Some of them, at least. A few of them suck.”

I wasn’t about to carry around a volleyball with a face on it, but it was nice to talk.

The zombie gurgled a response. It definitely knew I was there.

“I know what you’re going to say. If it’s so nice, what am I doing out here? Just because I got kicked out doesn’t mean I’m going to stay out.”

The zombie’s arm came up as it closed in on me.

“And it doesn’t mean I can’t help protect the place.” I stepped forward, plunging my machete through the zombie’s face. I slowly lowered the corpse to the ground, letting it slide off my blade.

“Thanks for listening.”

I looked at the horde in front of me, stretching around the bend in both directions. It was the same around every foot of the perimeter. Either they noticed people going in and out, or they could smell us.

With my machete in one hand, and my knife in the other, I stepped out of the tree line and gave a battle cry. Only a few zombies turned to look at me, but as they went to the ground with ruined brains their friends started to take notice of me.

This had become a daily ritual for me. Approaching the army of dead from behind enemy lines and slashing until I could barely lift my weapons.

I backpedalled as I fought. The first day I had attacked, I stood in one place and quickly found myself surrounded. I almost went down as a result, so from that day forward, I backpedalled.

By the time I stepped into the treeline, some of the zombies lost sight of me and lost interest, turning back for Sisco’s walls. The few that followed didn’t stand a chance. I was used the trees to impede and confuse them. They died exactly when and how I wanted them to.

I spared a moment to make sure no more zombies were following, and to admire the corpses that marked my trail of destruction. It wasn’t thousands, or even a hundred. All told, there were just over a dozen corpses. With enough persistence and daily attacks—sometimes twice a day—dozens would eventually turn into hundreds, and then thousands. It wasn’t efficient, but it was progress.

I headed toward a small pub that I remembered scavenging with Jack, and hoped there was a room or a cellar that we had missed. Even if there wasn’t, I remembered a few cars sitting in the parking lot. At the very least I’d be able to turn in for the night.

After a quick sweep of the pub, I was pleasantly surprised to find a bit of food. Four days of eating tree nuts and what did I find? A half bag of peanuts. At least they were salted.

In the parking lot, I crawled into a dark blue mini-van. The middle and rear seats folded down into the floor of the vehicle and gave me more than enough room to stretch out. After days of trying to curl up in the backseat of four-doors, it was damn near luxurious. It didn’t run, but I added the keys to my meager belongings and planned to make the van my semi-permanent home.

The way I’d been spending my days was fine so far, but it wouldn’t be enough for much longer. I had my sights set on Sisco and I wasn’t shifting my gaze anytime soon.

I didn’t sleep. Not even for a minute. I was about to be walled. My friends were planning a secret rescue, but I knew almost nothing about the plan. I hated not knowing, but at least it gave me some perspective into how Jack felt whenever I pulled him into one of my crazy ideas.

Light began to leak into the garage around the doorframe. It seemed a lifetime between seeing the first bit of light and Jansen and Marshall coming for me.

They opened the door to my cage and I felt an overwhelming urge to fight, or run, or…something. I had faith in Jack, but in the face of potential death the mind’s ability for logic is impaired by pure instinct.

Jansen started wrapping a length of rope around my hands and the urge increased.

“Leave it,” Marshall said. “He’s going to need his hands to climb the ladder.”

“He could do it with his hands tied,” Jansen said with a smirk.

“I told you to leave it.”

Jansen and Marshall faced off in a battle of glares, which I had never seen happen before. They usually agreed with a scary consistency, but the few times they hadn’t Marshall’s word was law.

With a huff to make a five-year-old would proud, Jansen tucked the rope away into a pocket and shoved me toward the garage exit.

My breathing turned shallow and fast. Each step increased fear’s grip on me. It was a short walk down the street, and a left-turn to get to the gate; and the wall. That’s when saw it.

At the end of the street we were walking down was the pick-up Jack and I used on our runs. It faced me, like it was watching us. The lights came on and the engine roared to life.

“What the?” said Marshall.

The truck surged forward. It would reach us within seconds. I felt a smile grow on my face that I couldn’t have stopped if I wanted to.

My freedom was mere yards away when another car came into view. Gianni’s black 2-door came out from a nearby garage and stopped in the truck’s path. The pickup’s tires squealed as it came to a halt.

I was so distracted by my own doom that I didn’t question why it was only Jansen and Marshall escorting me. Normally the rest of the security team would have been there, too; unless they had something else to do.

Those same security goons appeared out of nowhere, rushing to the sides of the truck, pulling Jack and Dawn out of the vehicle. The thought of being walled had worried me, but this brought my panic to a new level. Marshall was probably going to make my friends line up right behind me.

“Nothing happens around here without me knowing about it,” Marshall said.

“What are you going to do with them?” I asked, a tone of begging cutting my words. “It wasn’t right, but it was a small offence. Not worth the same punishment as me, right?”

Marshall looked at me for a long time, studied me. Probably thinking of the response that would upset me the most.

“I’m not going to decide now. Either way, it won’t be anything you’ll need to worry about, will it?”

That brought laughter from Jansen and I was urged forward by a boot in my back. The rest of the security team fell in behind us, Dawn and Jack still in their possession as prisoners. We marched to the wall as a group.

“Thanks for trying,” I said without looking back.

“Quiet,” Jansen barked.

A ladder stood propped against the wall. Near the top was the small platform that reminded everyone not to step too far out of line. Days like today increased the power it held over the people of Sisco.

I stood at the bottom of the ladder and tried to push the fear away. I had seen others stand in the same spot and beg for their lives. Down on their knees, sobbing in the dirt, the result always the same.

It would be over shortly. Prolonging it only made it worse on myself. I grabbed a rung and started to climb. Not quickly, but not at a slug’s pace either.

People can look at a situation a hundred times and think they know it intimately, until they’re the ones in the situation and then everything seems vastly different. Stepping foot on the platform was one of those times for me. The ground looked farther from the platform than the platform had looked from the ground. The noise from the dead from below sounded like it was from millions instead of hundreds. They had gone into a bit of a frenzy when I started climbing the ladder. Almost like they knew it was time for breakfast.

The platform itself wasn’t much bigger than a coffee table. Not enough space for someone to lie down, though I had seen people try. People got up here and had all kinds of crazy thoughts. Some of them just jumped back into Sisco, sometimes breaking a leg in the fall. But they’re quickly deposited back on the platform, broken leg and all.

One man tried to live on the platform. He wouldn’t have lasted long without water, but the rumor said he rolled off the platform while trying to sleep.

The whole concept of being walled was that Marshall wasn’t killing anyone. In his mind, people had a choice once they were up there. Like choosing between a poisonous spider and a venomous snake. If they died, he could claim it wasn’t by his hand. No one bought his crap, but no one had been willing to do anything about it.

That was the one freeing thing about being up on that platform. I didn’t have to be afraid of Marshall’s wrath. What more could he do to me?

“Hey, Marshall,” I called, not even needing to fear using the nickname. “This remind you of anything? Of anyone? When’s the last time we did this whole thing?”

“The prisoner will be quiet!” Marshall shouted.

My walling was the first since Amy. She had been Marshall’s girlfriend for a short time. It didn’t work out and suddenly she was being punished every few days. Small things at first, until she started fighting back. But that only snowballed into worse punishments.

On the day she was walled she stood on the very same platform I stood on now and laughed at him.

“I’m going to hell, and I’m taking your baby with me,” she had screamed just before throwing herself into the army of dead. Her laughs had quickly turned to screams.

There was an unusually long term between that walling and mine. Some people began to hope there would never be another, but most of us knew better.

“Yeah, yeah,” I said. “No need to bring up the past. I wouldn’t want you feeling any guilt on the day I die.”

He had no response, but I saw his face go red far below me.

I looked at Dawn and Jack and gave them a wink, hoping they couldn’t see the tear rolling down my cheek. A bit of movement from the corner of my eye made me glance over at Daffodil. He was waving at me. When our eyes locked, he awkwardly pointed to the bottom of his shoe. Then he pointed to his chest and mimed raising something above his head. Then, again, he pointed underneath of his shoe.

When I didn’t move, he pointed to me, and then again under his shoe. I looked down at my own shoes, but there was nothing beneath them except the platform. If there was anything underneath me, it would have to be under the platform. My eyes widened. Daffodil put something under the platform.

I nearly dove onto my stomach reaching and arm underneath the platform and feeling around. Wood, wood, wood, then something else. Duct tape? I felt along the line of tape. There was definitely something there. A few inches further I grasped a very familiar handle. With a heave, I ripped free my machete and held it high for everyone to see.

“What the hell?” I heard Marshall asking those around him. “How did that get up there? Who put that there?”

Daffodil was still pointed under his shoe. My knife! I felt around more until I found the hunting knife as well and pulled it free. The sneaky little dress-wearing ninja had found them!

“Stop him,” Marshall said. “Do something!”

Part of me wanted to jump right on top of Marshall. I would die, but maybe I’d have enough time to take him with me.

I looked at the horde of zombies. Their jaws were snapping, they were reaching for me. My chances were dog shit, and still slightly better than jumping back into Sisco. I jumped.

I always thought a fall to my death would turn all slow motion, like in the movies. Seconds stretching to minutes to give me time to regret my decision along with every bad decision I had made my whole life. Jumping from the wall wasn’t like that at all. It was quick, and my life didn’t flash before my eyes. I found that to be encouraging.

The landing was soft enough, I guess. Without landing on corpses, the fall would have killed me. The instant I made contact I turned into a dust devil with blades. I didn’t even look at what I was slashing. I flailed my arms and pushed like I was on the defensive line.

I felt fingers constantly grasping at me. Grabbing hold and then slipping away as I turned again and again. My body grew numb, but I refused to stop. If I hadn’t already been bit, stopping would guarantee it.

After what felt like an hour, I broke through the ring of dead surrounding the walls. I was covered in blood, filled with adrenaline and unsure if I had been bitten. There wasn’t time to check.

I ran and ran until I was surrounded by trees and an eerie quiet that left me with no doubt that I was completely and utterly alone.

Jansen’s men were on me in a second. They pulled me out of the chair I sat in and dragged me away from a crowd that was still in shock over me being condemned to a walling the following day at dawn.

The only thing worse than being walled was having to wait almost 24 hours for it.

I was dragged to Marshall’s garage and thrown into the cell he had built there. Made up of bits of sheet metal and chain link fence, it was pathetic looking, but it was strong.

After the security team taunted me mercilessly for a few minutes, I was left alone in my cage. The boredom was torture, but it was better than being lectured for hours by Marshall, which is what I had expected.

A figure slipped into garage with an uncanny grace. It walked the least noticeable path without even trying to be stealthy. A natural assassin, though I wasn’t worried. Daffodil sidled up to my cell and stared at me. Felt like being watched by a bird.

“Look at you,” I said. “Did you come to break me out of here?”

He looked at me, then examined the cage door.

“Can I have your machete? And your knife?” Daffodil asked.

“Uhh… They took ‘em from me.”

He considered this for a moment, but didn’t respond.

“I don’t even know where they are.” The look on his face told me that my words weren’t getting through to him. “Fine! They’re yours. Whatever, man.”

He nodded, with a small forced smile.

Jansen entered the garage then.

“Hey!” Even as Jansen shouted, Daffodil was streaking toward the exit. “Yeah, that’s right. Run, little girl!”

He walked back to my cage, chuckling to himself. When a guy like Jansen was smiling, it wasn’t a good thing for anyone.

“You’ve been a pain in my ass for some time. Looks like that time is over, huh? Smooth sailing from here on.”

I shrugged. “Nah. You’ll find someone else who suddenly seems to get on your nerves. Give a guy like you enough time and you’ll find a problem with every person in the world.”

He actually nodded. “It’s true. Most people are a pain in the ass.”

“My pop used to say that if you have a problem with everyone, you’re the problem.”

“Cute. But wrong.”

He continued to pace.

“Jansen, you’re getting what you want, can’t you just leave me alone until dawn?”

“Hey. My world’s not perfect. Do you know how much ammunition my men and I had to waste cleaning off the overpass because of your screw up?”

“You could have released them slowly, one or two at a time, and taken them down without spending a single round.”

“Cause that worked so well for you?”

“Leave him alone, Jansen,” Jack said, walking into the garage.

“Or what?” Jansen asked, taking a step toward Jack.

“Or nothing. Just leave him alone.” Jack walked past Jansen like he was nothing more than a clothing store mannequin, which I know pissed him off. He’d find some way to do something back later on, but for now Jack won.

“Fine,” Jansen said. “I guess I can’t deny you one last visit with your boyfriend.”

“Hey,” I called. “Don’t you want to stay and watch? We do some mean tongue kissing.”

Jansen quickened his step through the door into Marshall’s house, slamming it behind him.

Jack avoided looking at me, much the way I avoided looking at him. Spend enough time with someone—the way Jack and I had—and you start to share a brain. He wanted to tell me how it wouldn’t be the same without me and that he would miss me, but he didn’t want to sound gay. It was fine. Nothing like that really needed to be said. I knew it all.

“It wasn’t your fault the plan didn’t work,” Jack said after a long silence. “It could have been any one of us that tossed a still live zombie behind us. I’ve been thinking it over and over, and I know a better way.”

I smiled. A plan that wasn’t his, one that he was half-against in the beginning, and he still found ways to support it and improve it. “Tell me.”

“We pull the funnel back, so it’s just sitting on the cusp. That way when you kill one it fall down the decline on its own. One or two people stand back watching the zombies at the bottom of the hill, and finish any that get back up.”

“Sound like a hell of an improvement, but it’s not much of a consolation. No offense.”

Jack stepped closer, and lowered his voice.

“Maybe this’ll make you feel better, then. You’re not going to be walled.”

Jack must have sensed that I was about to shout What? Because he stuck a finger to his lips and motioned toward the door to Marshall’s house.

“When they go to bring you to the wall, we’re going to roll up with the truck, you jump in the back, and then we’ll smash our way through the gates. And we’ll go…anywhere. Who cares, right? Anywhere has to be better than here.”

“If they catch you—”

“They won’t.”

“You’re pretty sure,” I said.

“Of course. It’s my plan, not yours.”

The thing about making a mistake—a really big mistake—is that afterwards, everyone looks at the one who screw-up differently. That screw-up is me.

Enemies that used to stop what they were doing to give me their worst glare walked past me with a smile on their lips and a twinkle in their judgemental eyes.

The people that used to trust me to do them favors began avoiding making any kind of eye contact when they walked by. Better to pretend I don’t exist than to figure out how they feel about the situation.

My friends showed the worst change by far. They smiled at me, but their eyes didn’t match their lips. The eyes held disappointment, mixed with sadness and fear. Fear for me, for my life, because they knew just as well as I did that it was likely over.

The entire camp was gathered near the second gate. In the center of crowd was a single chair, where I sat, hands tied behind my back.

Marshall and his security thugs stepped out from the crowd. One of the thugs put a table in front of me, while the others placed a trio of bowls and a jar full of pebbles on top of the table. Jansen and his team disappeared back into the crowd, leaving all eyes on Marshall.

“Laws died with the world,” Marshall began. “In this new world, we still need a sense of order. A way things are done, for the benefit of all. Those who do not work for the benefit of everyone, must be deterred and, in some cases, punished for the things they’ve done. A man is dead, a citizen of our developing settlement whose value was unknown, his potential unknown.”

Yeah, right. He’d be real handy once tax returns made a comeback.

“Now we have the difficult job of passing judgement. Punishment, or forgiveness. Each one of you will come up here, take a pebble and drop it into a bowl. The blue bowl is forgiveness, red for punishment. I encourage you to pick one of those, but if you can’t choose, put your pebble in the black bowl.”

He picked up one pebble and turned to me. “This one is yours. Can I assume it is to go in the blue bowl?”

I nodded and he dropped it in. “Now the rest of you. Come on up.”

As people shuffled up to the table in a sloppy line, a part of me wanted to laugh at how zombie-like their approach was.

The fact that my fate was being left to a democratic vote was a surprise. I had expected Marshall to declare his own judgement like the monarch some of us knew him to be.

Most of the people coming up to vote still couldn’t bring themselves to look at me. After watching the first few people cast their vote, I found I couldn’t look at them either. I couldn’t watch my fate being decided one pebble at a time. I closed my eyes and tried to block out the sound of pebbles dropping into bowls. Each resounding clink, in my mind, was another step closer to the wall.

My friends would vote to save me. Probably. If they still considered me a friend. I hadn’t talked to any of them since sitting with Wes as he died. Shortly after that, Marshall came for me, with Jansen and his entire team.

“Hey,” came a whisper.

I opened my eyes to see Jack standing in front of the table with a pebble in his hand.

“Don’t lose hope,” he said, dropping his pebble in the blue bowl.

I smiled at him, but I could feel how unconvincing it was. I could barely make my face move. I wanted to put on a big, toothy grin, but my mouth wouldn’t listen.

Dawn was next in line. Shame made me look away, but my eyes returned to her immediately. Her eyes were red and puffy. Had she been crying? I had never seen her cry. It should have been endearing or flattering, but it only convinced me further that I was a goner.

Beyond her was Ramona, who looked confused, and Daffodil, who seemed to be studying me. Near the end of the line I could see the security team, except for Ferguson. He was in the middle of the line, and his face looked bruised and swollen.

I put my head back down and closed my eyes until the voting was done.

Marshall took center stage again, picking up the black bowl. He flipped the bowl over, letting the pebbles fall uncounted.

“While I can appreciate your right to vote, or in this case not vote, these pebbles were completely wasted.”

There were quite a few. Based on the crowd around me there wouldn’t be many pebbles in the other bowls. I began to hope.

He removed the stones from the red bowl one by one, counting aloud as he did. “A total of six votes for punishment.”

Six votes? The security team would have counted for seven. Eight if Marshall voted with them.

He began counting the pebbles from the blue bowl, pronouncing each number with more and more disgust and disbelief. “Seven?”

Did he say seven? Was I really going to live? Dawn was hugging Daffodil. Jack smiled and gave me a ‘told you so’ shrug.

Marshall cleared his throat. “The vote tallies at six to seven, however, since I’m a member of this community as well, I also have a vote.”

He picked up one of the pebbles that he had dumped on the ground and added it to the punishment pile. I should have expected something like this. Why did I let myself believe that I was going to be okay?

“Now we have an unprecedented situation. A tie.” He looked at the two small groups of pebbles and struggled mentally. He wanted to punish me, but he had started down the road of democracy and it was too late to change his mind.

Finally he snatched a pebble from the forgiveness pile and held it high above his head. “From this day forward, in the event of a tie, the vote of the accused shall be forfeited.” The pebble fell to the ground, and so did the the hope that had been cautiously building.

“Clark Ellers,” Marshall said. “Your peers have spoken. Tomorrow at dawn, you will be walled.”

I approached the inner gate of the overpass and peaked at Ferguson, who was on guard duty. He was lounging in his chair, studying a porn magazine. I signaled Dawn, who gave me the finger before climbing the stairs to Ferguson’s gated booth.

Ferguson stood in a hurry, the magazine disappearing behind his back. She began to speak and it was clear that all of his attention was on Dawn. I can’t say I liked the idea of him feasting his eyes on her for as long as we needed, but Dawn insisted on helping. Especially when she saw the bruises covering most of my body, compliments of the security goon squad.

She laughed more than I had ever seen her laugh, and made all kinds of gestures that I had only seen other women make. Strange as it was to see a woman like Dawn do it, she still did it well. I found myself wishing I was up in that booth instead of Ferguson.

Dawn leaned into Ferguson to speak into his ear and pushed the button for the inner gate.

“Let’s go people,” I said. Jack, Ramona, Wes, Daffodil and I scrambled to the top of the overpass, pulling wagons of materials behind us.

Jack had each sheet of metal and wood labelled. He had put the whole thing together in his garage, only tearing it down the previous night for transport. Jack directed the reassembly while the the rest of us grabbed pieces and put them where we were told to.

“Looks about right,” Jack said. “Everyone take some screws and a screwdriver.”

“Screws?” Ramona asked, fists on her hips. “Give me a good hammer and nails any day of the week.”

“Don’t you think that would attract a little attention?” Jack asked.

Ramona sulked, but took some screws and a screwdriver anyway.

When we were finished, I gave Dawn the signal. She stepped in close to Ferguson again and the outer gate began to open. The dead spilled in through the gate as soon as it was open wide enough for a single body.

“Oh, God,” Wes gasped.

“Keep ahold of yourself,” I said. “Stick to the plan. We take them down, you drag them out.”

Wes and Ramona moved behind Jack and me. I looked at Daffodil who smirked.

“I’d like to help with the killing, if you don’t mind,” he said.

Jack gripped his baseball bat and shrugged.

“We only brought weapons for ourselves,” I said.

“So did I.” Daffodil hiked up the skirt of his dress and pulled a pair of pipes he had tucked into his pantyhose. He pulled the pipes apart. They were joined by a thin, metal wire.

“Nunchucks?” Jack asked with disbelief.

“Not quite,” Daffodil said.

I held my machete in one hand, and my new hunting knife in the other. We were ready, but the horde of zombies was in no rush.

“Damn,” I said. “We should have built the funnel at that end.”

When the first one finally entered the funnel, I felt a pang of excitement. Those who doubted his plan, my resolution, were about to see I was right. Especially Marshall. He’d get an extra piece of humble pie.

The first zombie exited the funnel and lunged for me. I pushed the tip of my machete through the face and into the brain, then spun and tossed the corpse behind me. Ramona grabbed the zombie’s feet and dragged it until it rolled down the overpass.

The next one through fell with a crushed skull from Jack’s baseball bat. Wes reluctantly grabbed its feet and dragged it away.

Jack and I both stepped back and watched with interest as Daffodil waited for the next zombie to come through. It approached slowly, arms outstretched. He whipped one half of his strange weapon. The wire seemed to grow longer as the thrown half encircled the zombie’s neck twice. Daffodil gave a quick pull on the other half and the zombie’s head dropped onto the ground. The body dropped a second later.

“Damn! He’s some kind of ninja,” I said with a chuckle.

We continued on like that for some time. One of us would kill a zombie, step aside, and let the next guy make his kill. Wes and Ramona fell into a pattern as well, dragging and rolling.

“What the hell?” Ferguson called out. He had finally spotted us on the overpass and slammed a fist against against one of the buttons causing the inner gate to close behind us. The outer gate closed next, slower from all the bodies in the way.

“No,” I called out. “Keep the gates open!”

“Not a chance,” he called back.

“Clark! Get your head in the game.”

Jack and Daffodil were killing and throwing zombies aside much faster. The funnel was still doing its job, but it was full and the stream of zombies exiting was constant.

Daffodil was an artist with that odd weapon of his. He seemed to flow from one kill to the next. He was much closer to the zombies than anyone else, yet never seemed to be any kind of danger.

I jumped back into the rotation. Stab. Toss. Stab. Toss. They were coming faster and faster. Too fast. They were coming too fast.

Wes screamed behind me. I whipped around in time to see a zombie biting off a chunk of his arm. One of us had tossed a zombie that wasn’t completely dead.

I ran over and finished the zombie off with my knife and grabbed Wes.

“It bit me!” he yelled.

He tried to sit down, but I threw his arm around my shoulders and held on tight.

“Everyone to the inner gate! We’re done!”

I couldn’t run and carry Wes, but we still moved faster than the zombies. When we got to the inner gate, it didn’t open.

“Ferguson! Please. You gotta open this gate.”

“I–I can’t.”

I looked to Dawn, but she was outside of the booth now, on the other side of a closed door. Daffodil and Jack took out the few zombies getting close, but in another moment we’d be overrun.

“I screwed up, Ferguson, but these people shouldn’t die for it. Please!”

“Is he bit?” Ferguson pointed to Wes.

“Yes.”

“Leave him. Leave him and I’ll open it.”

I nodded and lowered Wes to the ground. He didn’t seem to know what was going on anyway.

“Clark, you can’t,” Jack said.

“There,” I called out. “Now open the gate before we all get bit.”

The gate began to open. Ramona slipped through as soon as there was enough room. I waved Jack through next, and then Daffodil. I stepped into the opening and looked down at Wes.

I was wrong. He knew what was going on and he looked up at me with equal amounts anger, fear and grief. The gate had only parted a small amount, but it stopped and began to close again.

With a curse I reached down and grabbed Wes, pulling him through the gate just before it clanged shut.

My plan had failed. There were still hundreds of zombies outside our walls and now the overpass was full as well. Whether Wes had helped me out of a feeling of obligation or because he wanted to, I let him down the most. Most days it seemed like none of us had very long to live, but for Wes it was much, much shorter.

Jansen and the rest of his men appeared, staring with open mouths at the overpass. He looked down at me and my team, lying on the ground like a pile of failure. Wes clutched his bleeding arm.

Dave showed up next. I expected him to look at me with pure rage and tell me how stupid I was. Instead, I saw pity. He crouched down beside Wes and looked at the wound. Then he looked at me.

“Take him somewhere,” Dave said. “Sit with him until…you know. You owe him that much.”

The anger that was missing from his face was in his voice. It was quiet and measured, but it was there. There would be time later for him to let it out.

I took him to my house and we sat in my garage. I put on some music and opened a bottle of whiskey that I had been saving for a special occasion. Not an occasion like that, but like Dave said, I owed the guy.

I poured us both a glass and we sat.

“I can’t even say how sorry I am, Wes. Can I do anything?”

“Take my place.”

I sighed. That stung, but I deserved it.

“I wish I could. It should be me.” Did I really mean that? If someone could take the bite from Wes and give it to me, would I let it happen? I couldn’t tell.

“At least you didn’t let me die getting ripped to pieces. That was nice of you.”

“You don’t have to try and make me feel better.”

“Okay, fine.” He stopped to cough up a wad of blood. “You’re an asshole.”

I nodded. He was right.

He told me about where he had grown up, the story of his life and everything that happened before the world as we all knew it changed.

“Funny thing is,” he said, his words coming slower and his breathing become more labored. “Before the world ended, I can’t think of a single interesting thing that happened to me. It wasn’t until I was forced to fight for my life every day that I really started to live.”

The worst part about sitting with Wes, waiting for him to die, was wanting it to be over. It was a terrible thought to have. How could I want someone’s life to be over sooner than it was already going to happen? But I did.

He slumped in his chair more and more as the moments went by. The glass rolled off of his fingertips and shattered on the concrete floor. His breathing grew slower, and slower, then stopped.

I grabbed my knife, stood, and spoke to any deity that was willing to listen. “Next time, make sure it’s me.”

I planted my hunting knife in Wes’s skull before he come back to life. A part of me was convinced that it was better that way. Cleaner for the soul, or whatever is in most of us.

As I brought Wes’s body to be burned, I vowed not to let anyone else get killed because of me. I couldn’t handle having to sit with someone while they wait to die. Not again.

We filled the boat we found in the Megamart parking lot with supplies and any building materials we could find. A storage trailer would have been better, but it gave us more room than a pickup bed.

“Is it going to be enough to make our funnel?” I asked Jack.

“Hard to say,” Jack said, looking through the rear window. “I can use pieces of the boat itself, so that’ll help. We’ll just have to wait and see.”

I had agreed to tell Jack all about my plans, so I laid out all the details I had on the funnel plan on our way back to Sisco.

“Risky,” Jack said.

“Not if we follow the plan.”

“Still…”

“When have I been wrong?”

“Since I’ve know you? Or in the handful of days since you started this war on the dead?”

“Pfft! Seems to me like I was born for this.”

“I’d feel better if it wasn’t just the two of us on this one.”

“It won’t be,” I said. “We’ll need to find someone to get the gate open.”

I honked the horn as we approached the very gate we were speaking about. It swung open and we drove through to the top of the overpass.

“Is that a boat?” Ferguson called from his booth.

“For now. How many slipped through?” I asked, stepping out of the truck.

“None this time. Closed the gate just in time.”

I got back in the truck and let out a big sigh.

“Don’t look so miserable,” Jack said. “You can always climb over the wall with your machete.”

After dropping all the supplies off to the proper places we hauled the boat, along with the building materials inside it, to Jack’s garage.

Jack showed me what he had done on the funnel so far. It seemed pretty simple to me, but Jack got on talking about gap control and resistance testing. I listened and nodded, for the most part. It didn’t seem like something I had to know much about. Jack knew it, and I knew Jack. That was good enough.

I glanced toward the front of the house and noticed Daffodil wandering down the street.

“Still want more people in on the plan?” I asked Jack. “Hey! Daffy!”

Daffodil turned and drifted toward us.

“What are you up to?” I asked.

“Absolutely nothing. Which is why I’ve been looking for you. Aren’t you supposed to find me things to do around here?”

“Damn, boy. You’re the first person in this settlement that wants to work to do.”

“Might as well. It’s boring here.”

“That’s all about to change. Where are the other two?”

“I don’t know.”

“Go find them. Tell them to meet back here so we can talk about some work we’re going to do together.”

“Is this going to be like that truck engine?”

I gave him a playful boot in the ass.

“Go on, get! Don’t come back without the other two.”

I turned back to Jack with a smile on my face. He was already removing mouldings from the boat.

“Why do I get the feeling that you’re making this up as you go along?” he asked.

“Cause you’re a smart guy? I gotta go do something real quick.”

“What? You’ve got Daffodil bringing people back here and you’re leaving?”

“I’m coming right back.”

He started to argue again, but I closed the garage door from the outside. I jogged down the street, heading for Dawn’s place with a backpack full of the supplies she had asked for.

I turned a corner and nearly ran into Jansen, Ferguson and five other guards.

“Look, boys,” Jansen said. “It’s the errand boy. Anyone order groceries?”

They laughed. I held back the urge to start punching.

“Where you headed, grocery boy?” Jansen asked.

“Wouldn’t you know it? I’m just delivering groceries.”

I tried to walk past them, but Jansen reached out and put a hand on chest.

“I’ve been looking for you,” he said. “Ferguson tells me you’ve been treating him poorly. Names, insults, and a physical assault? I told him it couldn’t be true, but he’s persisting.”

“He ain’t lying. But I’ll bet that he didn’t tell you what he did to deserve it.”

Jansen and Ferguson exchanged a quick look that said they’d be having words later.

“Who are the supplies for?” Jansen asked.

I considered telling him to mind his own business, or to lie, but I just wanted to be done the clowns.

“Dawn.”

Ferguson stepped forward. “Nice. I’ll take them to her.”

“Nah, I got it.”

“Give him the bag,” Jansen said.

I hesitated, looking from Jansen to Ferguson, who had an infuriating smile on his face. I handed bag over, holding one of straps tight enough that Ferguson had to yank it away from me.

“I’ll make sure she gets it,” Ferguson said.

They all laughed again.

“I think I smell a romance blooming for old Fergie. What do you think boys?” Jansen said.

More laughter.

I turned to head back to Jack’s.

“One more thing,” Jansen said.

One of them kicked me in the back of the leg. Then I was curled up in a ball, on the ground, just waiting for the honourable Sisco security team to get bored of beating my ass.

“Come on,” Jack said. “You’re acting like you got a plan, so what now?”

Standing on top of Megastore shelves in a dark store surrounded by zombies made me think about giving up, curling into a ball and hoping that someone else showed up to save me, but that was no longer my policy. I forced a smile at Jack. Half-forced.

“Let’s check the sports aisle,” I said.

I grabbed the plank we had used to get on top of the shelves and placed it as a bridge between our current set of shelves to the one across the aisle. We hurried across and brought the plank with us as we jogged the length of the aisle to the other side of the store.

We crossed a few more aisleways until we were flanked by hunting gear and sports equipment.

“Here,” I said bridging the two sides with my increasingly useful plank. “Head on over and grab us some hockey sticks.”

“Hockey sticks?”

“Yeah. We’re going to make us some harpoons.”

A new gathering of zombies started to form around us. The aisle that was almost empty a moment before was getting busier by the second.

Jack laid on his stomach to reach down and grab stick after stick until he had attracted too much attention for his comfort. He crossed back across the aisle with an armful of sticks, and a few rolls of hockey tape. The knives were right below us, locked in glass display cases. The glass had been shattered long ago, but I could see a few blades left among the shards. The only problem was that we had no way to reach them from the top of the shelves.

“Okay. You’re going to have to climb down and pass the knives up,” I said.

“No. You’re going to have to climb down and pass the knives up. This is your stupid plan.”

The display case was U-shaped, with a small area where a minimum-wage drone would stand to pass out weapons to anyone who looked old enough. There were only two zombies behind the counter. The rest were clear. I grabbed one of the hockey sticks and reached down closing the little divider that kept the public out of the employee area.

Then I jumped down, machete coming down hard into a zombie skull. It was so deep, I couldn’t pull it free. The other zombie behind the counter slowly turned toward me. Panic set in as I couldn’t take my eyes off of the live zombie, and couldn’t pull my machete free from the dead one.

Zombie arms came up, and it snarled at me. Just before it lunged, the blade of a hockey stick came down and slapped it in the face. It growled at the hockey stick and tried to grab it. Again and again, the blade made contact and retreated like a persistent mosquito.

I gave up on my machete and found the closest blade—an 8-inch hunting knife—and buried it in the top of the zombie’s head. I fell to the ground panting—half from the effort, half from the fear still pumping blood through my body.

It was a good reminder to respect the danger of these things, regardless of their appearance.

The zombies on the other side of the counter were staggering over, reaching with clumsy hands.

I found five knives and passed them up to Jack. The ammunition that was normally kept behind the counter was gone. That wasn’t a surprise. Ammo was almost impossible to find since the first few months of the end.

I grabbed my machete handle and pulled while wiggling back and forth. It finally came loose. The knife I had used on the second zombie came free easily. I cleaned it and admired it.

“Nice to have a back up.”

I found a sheath and tucked it into my belt. I wanted to keep searching, but the dead on the other side of the counter were reaching more aggressively. I scrambled up the shelves to find Jack sharpening the end of a hockey stick with one of the knives.

“Why don’t you just tape the knife to the end of the stick?” I asked.

“We’ve got more sticks that knives. Waste not, want not, and all that.”

I slapped Jack on the shoulder. “Atta boy!”

We wandered down the aisles spearing zombies in the head as we went. They were easy targets from up there. Like spearing fish, if the fish swam into the shallows and beached themselves.

“Here,” Jack said. “I grabbed you a backpack.”

“For what?”

“Supplies.”

“I plan on grabbing a shopping cart for supplies.”

“But…” Jack looked at the pile of dead zombies below us and the ones shuffling around the rest of the store. “Right. You’re going to try and kill every one of these zombies, aren’t you?”

“You remember what Yoda said about trying, right?”

I yelled and banged my hockey stick spear on the edge of the shelves. Jack walked away, pulling a list from his back pocket. He was only a few steps away when he tucked the list back into his pocket and came back. He gave a shout and stomped his feet.

We stabbed and jabbed until we had to move due a build up of bodies below us. We speared until there were no zombies left in the aisle, then we moved on to another aisle.

When we couldn’t see any more zombies, we climbed down and grabbed grocery carts. We raced down the aisles, laughing and playing bumper carts as we gathered supplies.

We came across a few zombies that had been stuck in remote parts of the store, but they were taken down with ease.

Once the carts were full, we headed for the exit and loaded them into the truck, carts and all. Someone would make use of the metal.

“Thanks for the help, Jack.”

“I don’t always like the way you do things, but I’m starting to understand them.”

“Good.”

“What I hate, though, is that you don’t tell me about whatever insane plan you’ve got rattling around in your head. You want my support? Fine. You’ve got it. But only if you tell me everything.”

I nodded. It was a fair request.

“I’m going to be honest with you. I don’t always have a plan. But when I do, I’ll tell you all about it.”

“You better.”

“I will. Now let’s get out of here. I saw a boat on a trailer in the parking lot. We’re going to bring it home.”

“What are we going to do with a boat?”

“I’ll tell you on the way.”