ZOMBIES

By the numbers
The Writer’s Cut

From the author so B-rated

that he doesn’t have the
budget to afford a real cover!

by Tim Sprague
Zombies by the
Numbers
The Writer’s Cut

By Tim Sprague
PROLOGUE

So you want to know what it’s like to be crazy.

No, no, don’t try to deny it, it’s true. After all, dear reader, why would you be wasting
your eyeballs’ finite energy absorbing the words on this page if you weren’t seeking some sort
of answer? And if you’re looking for an answer, doesn’t it stand to reason that you must have a
question to attach that answer to? Following that particular train of logic (assuming that it
hasn’t derailed a few stations back), there can only be a few questions that you are looking for
answers for when you come to me.

I suppose that the most common question I get is, “Why did you do it?” It’s a simple
one, one so short that even your typical cop can understand it (hiya Mr. Police Officer Guys, I’m
your biggest fan!). Unfortunately my usual even shorter answer of “Why not?” doesn’t tend to
go over so well with the donut dunkers. They get all pissy, and the blood rushes to their faces
and they scream and spit and snort that they want the truth. Guess what, chief, I just gave it to
you. I do the things I do because they amuse me. They take away my boredom and fill me
with anti-boredom.

The question that the shrinks tend to vomit up at me is, “What occurred in your life to
make you this way?” They try to delve into my childhood in an effort to find an abusive father,
or a trip to the zoo where a kangaroo bent me over a rock waterfall and nailed me up ze
buttholz. You want to find someone that gets really angry when you laugh at them, go find
yourself a psychologist. I can’t help but find them amusing. They try to shove my squirming
brain into some category that a dead German who wanted to sex up dear old mum came up
with, all the while holding notepads firmly in their grips so that they won’t miss the
opportunity to record their amazing brilliance for posterity. My particular type of nuttiness
(scientifically speaking) seems to elude their best attempts at categorization, however.

Personally, I think that’s kind of cool.

It makes me unique. A lone wolf. A rebel without a cause. The Lone Ranger without
Tonto. A burrito without a colon.

Do me a favor, catch that analogy if it goes springing past you. I seem to have let it get
away from me.

Cops and shrinks, two peas in a pod constructed of stupidity and misunderstanding.
They try to understand what exactly it is that’s sitting across from them and chained to a rather
uncomfortable chair, bless their hearts they really do try, but they just don’t get it. They just
don’t get me.

I am. That’s all there is to it. I am. As far as I can tell, nothing made me this way, I just
am this way.

I’m a storm brewing over the dusty emptiness of the desert. I’m the seas crashing into
the rocks. I’m simply a part of nature that can’t quite bring itself to be civilized, or hell, even to
give a shit about being civilized. I’m the dog that bit you when you were eight that makes you
terrified to go near a miniature poodle.

Remember that time when you were in the kitchen and you burned your hand while you
were making spaghetti, something that you had done a hundred times before, but somehow
this time, this time that’s no different from any other, you managed to burn a layer or two of
precious skin off? I was the heat. More than that, I was the coin God flipped when he was
deciding whether or not to teach you a lesson since you REALLY LOOKED LIKE YOU NEEDED A
LESSON AND DON’T YOU EVER DO WHAT YOU DID AGAIN AND I DON’T HAVE TO TELL YOU
WHAT YOU DID BECAUSE YOU KNOW WHAT YOU DID.

I am a random act of violence in the night, the terrified shriek that echoes off the
alleyways, the drip drip drip of blood on the pavement. I am simply a part of this universe with
no rhyme or reason or definition. I simply am.

Why yes, I am a little off my rocker, thank you for noticing.

So back to your question that you may or may not have even known that you had.
What’s it like to be crazy?

It’s not bad.

There’s cake.

In all seriousness, or in as much seriousness as I can actually wrap my thoughts around, I

imagine that it’s quite a bit like how it feels for you to be normal. Well, not you, but other
people. Because you’re not really all that normal, are you?

Oh, come on, you can be honest with me. You and I are going to be the closest of
chums, after all. Tell Uncle Screwloose all about how you don’t really feel like your life’s thread
fits all that perfectly into the world’s tapestry.

It’s okay to feel that way, you know. It’s perfectly natural to not understand what the
hell your bio-donor parents got you into when Daddy convinced Mommy that, since it was his
birthday, the universe demanded that they dispense with the condom and go rawhide for the
evening. Or if you’re one of those test tube babies that seem to be springing up more than
Ryan Seacrest’s pants crotch around an all men’s prison, say hello to both your mothers and/or
fathers for me before you sit back down and admit to me that, no, you’re really not all that
normal at all.

This is why you and I are destined to be the absolute best of friends. I’m you. I’m you
with the volume turned way up. My inner music is blaring so loudly that when I sit back and
pay attention to it, I can almost feel my teeth rattling in their gummy container. The sound
pushes my skin flat against my skull. It digs its hooks into my muscles and pulls hard.

I guess being bonkers is a lot like sitting next to the speaker at a Korn concert.

You know those self-help commercials that come on television around four in the
morning that preach about how they can help you become a better person and show you how
to like who you are? I take that to a whole new level, and it didn’t even cost me twenty-six
easy payments of $19.95. Admittedly I didn’t get the free set of knives that cut broccoli into
the shape of the White House, but hey, what can I say. I didn’t call in before the commercial
was over and thus I don’t deserve to have those knives. Instead I have to solace myself with
the fact that I don’t just like who I am.

I enjoy being who I am. I love who I am. I would totally put out for who I am.

Do you have any idea what it’s like to be this free? No, what am I thinking, of course you
don’t. After all, you’re simply sitting here reading the ramblings of a self-professed lunatic
instead of, I dunno, kicking a male cheerleader in the testicles or something. You still have all
those restraints tied to you, weighing you down, and the truly sad part of it is you put those
chains on yourself, big fella.

You and I are such new acquaintances that I don’t want to risk what I’m sure is going to
be a beautiful friendship, but I feel that as someone that cares about you, I must point out
what I see to be the truth. You’re an asshole. There, I said it. Whew, boy, I can’t tell you how
much better that makes me feel to get that off of my chest.

Hey, don’t shoot the messenger. It’s not my fault that you’re an asshole. It’s your fault.

Don’t believe me? What kind of a person shackles his or herself (sorry, from here I can’t
really tell which you are, but that’s okay, I’m an equal opportunist) to rules and regulations that
he/she/it didn’t even come up with? Society tells you what it takes to be normal; we’ve
already established that you’re not normal, however, so what kind of person would think that
you have to be a friend to society when you’re not really a part of it?

I’ll tell you what kind of person would do all that: an asshole. Thus, mathematically
speaking, you’re an asshole.

Oh, whoops, wait, I didn’t divide by pi in the equation.

…..

Good news! You’re still an asshole.

Me, I’m a multitasker. I manage to be an asshole and not be an asshole all at the exact
same time. I’m an asshole in the sense that, yes, I would indeed find it funny to pull down my
pants and take a leak on the grave of your dead dog Fluffy. I’m not an asshole in the sense that
I realized early on that “society” is merely a way for “the man” to keep “me” down. Society is
racist towards my people.

Society is racist towards insane people.

I don’t want to imply that I’ve turned my back on society and all of its stupidly smiling
population that seems to think that American Idol should be termed “reality”. There wasn’t
some point in my life when I came to the decision that, boy howdy, I done had it up ta here
with this Society varmit, and shoot, I’m gonna jump on my horse and ride off into the sunset.
Nothing of the sort. I just blatantly ignore it and its supposed norms. Hey, if you want to be a
sheep, that’s your business.

Just understand that it makes you an asshole.

Like, a huge asshole.

Insert joke about huge assholes and fat people here. Maybe a little political
commentary by making it about a huge asshole and Bill O’Reilly. Oh my, what a zinger that
would be. I could even tell it to the guys at the water cooler when I go into work.

After all, it won’t offend them. They’re all Democrats and Libertarians and other words
you don’t use in polite conversations. Or was that Republicans? I can never keep them
straight. It’s the one whose party makes all these promises during the campaigns then decides
to fuck over all the people that voted for its members while receiving a blow job from an
underage male prostitute in a bus station bathroom stall.

But fear not, my stalwart companion! As your bestest buddy I don’t want you to be
doomed to a life of assholiness. I want you to rise up from your mundane life in which you, an
asshole, current reside and become so much more than you are! I will be your guide through
the Land of Asshole, show you the way through Asshole Tunnel, and hold your hand as you
emerge into the complete and total freedom that I so enjoy myself. Won’t that be great, pal?
Just you and me against the world. Amigos. Compatriots. So take those hands off the throttle
of your miserable asshole existence and let me take a stab at them.

I promise you won’t feel a thing.

P.S. You’re an asshole.
CHAPTER ONE

Ah, dear reader, I see that you have managed to find yourself a corner of the world to
hide in. What a very special corner indeed if you have managed to pick up this document so
that we may become such special friends! The introduction thingamabob that I’m sure you’ve
plowed through during your descent to this, the first chapter, was of course written before our
world’s little “issue”. More specifically it was written in a wonderful little padded cell in a
wonderful little asylum mere months before IT happened. Ah, tears of longing fill my eyes as I
reminisce about the good old days when all that I needed to entertain myself was small
portion of dynamite and some scraps of imagination.

This not being a novel of the graphical persuasion you can’t see the tears. How sad for
you not to be able to see raw human emotion at its most sincere. You also can’t see the rather
large grin that has spread across my face since I realized that nothing much has actually
changed.

In a way I was tailor-made for this Brave New World that we live in. I loved the act of
snuffing the life from some poor sap that I happened to watch walk down the street while in
the right kind of mood, but I didn’t actually get any enjoyment out of knowing that I had killed
someone. In fact, if we’re being completely honest with each other, pal o’ mine, and I know
that I’m safe with divulging my secrets to someone such as yourself, there were times that I
even felt a little guilty about it. It was the act of murder that made my pace quicken and my
day brighten ever so much. The results of the act, however, were always a separate issue
entirely.

See what I’m saying? Clear as mud? Excellent, let’s move on.
 Oh, but this world that we live in now, how glorious it is! I can ply my craft in so many
ways, both oldie but goody ways and brand new innovative ways, without the taking of a single
human life! In fact, I’m often in the company of honest-to-goodness real live human beings
and they not only seem to usually enjoy my company, but they also praise what I do. How
mind-twistingly superb is that? The people that I spend my time with appreciate the depth of
my artistic talents and even encourage me to expand my creative horizons. In return for finally
getting the respect and admiration that I so richly deserve (I say that in the most self-
deprecating and modest way that I can) I don’t even think about making that special light fade
from their eyes. It hasn’t even crossed my mind a single time. There are times that, while
lying in bed at night, I can almost convince myself that this world was made by God specifically
for me and no one else.

I bet that you haven’t run across many people that were actually thankful for the
undead hordes covering the surface of the planet, have you? Ah, see, that makes me a rather
special and unique acquaintance that you can be sure will give you quite a few stories to tell
your grandchildren someday when you’re old and grey. Well, assuming that some pack of
zombies hasn’t eaten your face off before you have a chance to grow old. If you already
happen to be old, hey, congratulations, you’re doing better than about ninety-nine percent of
the population! Have a drink on me!

I wish that I had more answers for you about how all of this started, friend, but just like
everyone else I’m in the dark as to how this whole zombie apocalypse shindig got started. Oh,
there were those rumors on television about that secret laboratory in Iran that was trying to
create some sort of super soldier and accidentally released the zombie virus into the public,
and I’ve heard the whole spiel from the religious sectors saying that this is God’s way of
beginning the Rapture like He warned us about somewhere in the back of the Bible (unless
you‘re Jewish, of course, in which case you won‘t find the Book of Revelations no matter how
hard you search your Bible). I suppose that either one of those are possibilities. My personal
opinion is that it’s something manmade; I base this on the fact that I can’t believe that God
would be cliché enough to send zombies of all things to finish us off. It seems like He would
have a tad more imagination than that.

What is known is that the undead managed to bump off the world’s governments in just
under six months once they got started. They obviously didn’t plan to do that since they don’t
seem to be able to even plan to change those rags of clothes they tend to wear, but when you
have millions of friends backing you up and the ability to make even more playmates simply by
transferring body fluid through biting or any other number of ways, you tend to make
bureaucrats get the hell out of your way by default. You probably know more details about it
than I do since I was locked away in the nuthouse while the initial stages were taking place.

The only reason that I didn’t rot away in that comfy padded cell is because the warden
had a bit of a conscience. He let us go free when the wave of undead suitors arrived to plant a
nice toothy kiss on us. I had always rather liked the guy although I was far too manly to tell
him so; it really was a shame when he ended up sprawled on the asylum’s entryway floor.

Well, if we’re being completely accurate, half of him ended up there, and the other half
ended up going the way of cheap sushi.

Most of the other patients attempted to run screaming and hollering out the front gates
of the asylum, where they of course came face to face with the army of undead. It was like a
scene out of 300. A small band of nutjobs, armed only with their soft-soled shoes and a whole
basket full of crazy, stood strong against overwhelming odds.

For roughly four seconds.

 I, only the other hand, was not really made of Spartan material and had ignored the
main gate. Instead, I opted to explore the private parking lot reserved for asylum employees.
There I found a car to hotwire (Hotwiring Cars 101 is a required course during the first
semester at the University of Psychopath) and drove into the nearby town. The entire town
was pretty much abandoned by the time that I got there, and it was relatively easy to
rummage around the abandoned homes for new clothes and a modest stockpile of supplies to
go with my brand new 1976 Chevy.

My first real up close and personal encounter with someone of the zombie persuasion
was when I accidentally kind of sort of on purpose kicked in the kitchen door of a house while
in search of food. I came through the now-splintered doorway and there he was, standing on
the other side of the breakfast table and looking right at me. A good portion of his skull was
missing and his lone remaining eye swiveled wildly in its socket. It was something of a shame,
really, because all that gore had ruined the rather expensive Armani suit that he was wearing.
Such a finely tailored garment adorning such an ill-mannered brute bordered on being
offensive.

Okay, fine, you dragged it out of me, I’ll fess up. I was indeed a bit frightened at this
point. Earlier that day I had been perfectly content leaning against my cell’s soft walls and
waiting for my daily mixture of blue and purple pills. Now I was standing smack dab in the
middle of the end of days and surrounded by the living dead. To make matters worse there
was one of these fine folks not ten feet in front of me and he seemed to be taking far too much
of an interest in my admittedly tasty-looking flesh.

I really needed a hug. And not the kind of hug that this gentleman would be only too
happy to provide me with.
 I set my jaw and stared this abomination right in the eyes, erm, eye. What was there for
me to be afraid of? He was a rotting corpse brought back to life to devour human kind, sure.
But I was a fucking serial killer! When I was arrested a couple of years back all the papers said
that I was ruthless and cold and twisted. I had a reputation to maintain, dammit, and some
undead freak wasn’t going to show me up! This was my yard, and I’d be damned if some
rotting puppy was going to come in and get rid of me, the Big Dog.

As he began to lumber towards me, slowed a bit by the fact he was trying to go through
the table instead of simply around it, I looked around the kitchen and got a sense of my
surroundings. Hadn’t I always loved kitchens? So many sharp objects to poke with, so many
blunt objects to thump with, so many hot objects to burn with. The average home’s kitchen
was a playground for someone of my particular brand of creativity.

In the time it took me to blink I had over a dozen different ways figured out to make this
zombie rue the day that he ever stepped foot into my kitchen (although the odds were pretty
good that I had probably stepped into his kitchen since he was already inside the house, but
who’s keeping track). None of these options really called to me, however. They all seemed
so…mundane. This was the first time that I was going to be killing someone that had already
been killed, and I wanted to mark the occasion with something special.

Then my eyes fell on the cordless blender sitting on the counter within easy reach and
bingo, we had a winner.

The zombie didn’t seem to be able to move very fast. It propelled itself with an odd
cross between a walk and a shuffle, its arms stretched out towards me and a constant moaning
sound emanated from what used to be its lips. I struggled to remember why I had felt
threatened only moments before.
 I allowed it to get almost within arms reach before I shattered the thin plastic casing of
the blender and jabbed the blades deep into the empty eye socket. The moaning seemed to
change almost from a statement to a question, but then I flipped the On switch and the sound
stopped completely as its brain was puréed. I turned off the device and whistled a few bars of
“You Spin Me Around” while I went about my business of searching for food supplies to take
with me to…well, wherever the hell I was going.

The few newscasts about the Crisis (remember when the news stations were calling the
zombie apocalypse a “Crisis” like it was on par with a hurricane or a stock market crash?) that I
had been allowed to watch in the loony bin had talked about how the undead didn’t seem to
have any coherent thought process, just a compulsion to kill and devour the living. The
zombies didn’t seem to communicate with one another and barely registered that others of
their kind were around them. The news anchors had also heavily emphasized that they were
rather slow and easy to outrun, and that a calm retreat was the best way to handle an
encounter.

Well that was all fine and dandy, but retreat to where? If the swarms were all around,
where was there left to flee towards while screaming like a three year old girl? To complicate
matters, even if I managed to find some semblance of a safe shelter, the time would eventually
come where I would have to emerge back into this fun world of slaughter and carnage if for no
other reason than to acquire more supplies. Besides, was I really the kind of person that
would just hunker down in, say, a bomb shelter when there were so many opportunities to ply
my wonderful craft? As I navigated my Chevy over a series of speed bumps (read that as
“undead”) at the outskirts of town I put my always present but never dull mind at work on the
problem.

The first conclusion that my brain came to was that I would need to track down other
human survivors. There was safety in numbers and having a few chums around would open up
more opportunities for not only safety, but playtime as well. This would mean that I would
have to swear off the murdering that had always come so easy to me, but that wasn’t a
problem. I genuinely enjoyed the company of other people even when I was known as the
Raincoat Killer (point in fact, it was a trench coat and not a raincoat, but leave it to terrified
witnesses that barely escaped with all their limbs attached to get such an important
differentiation incorrect). And besides, it’s not like I wouldn’t have a chance to employ my skill
set elsewhere.

My second conclusion was that I needed to be smart in how I went about meeting folks.
It’s not like I could hop on Facebook. I knew that the public’s attention span was right up there
with a fruit fly’s so I wasn’t really concerned about someone recognizing me from my rather
public trial. The end of civilization as we know it can be a tad bit stressful, though, so I knew
that most people wouldn’t really be thinking straight and thus would make some bad choices.
I didn’t want to get accidentally shot by some Joe Schmoe who panicked and thought I was a
zombie, for example.

I also didn’t want to hook up with people that were, well, there’s no nice way to say this,
but people that were absolutely fucking retarded. Other people being stupid and getting me
killed wasn’t exactly high on my priority list. So I needed to find people that I could count on
and that could count on me. I’m pretty sure that took the states of Alabama and Mississippi
right out of consideration.

Third, I would need to get my hands on some weapons more substantial than those that
I could find sitting around the kitchens of the world. Actually, I corrected myself, I would need
to find both weapons and equipment that would allow me to survive on the move if necessary.
I had no idea how long I would still be able to find gas for my trusty car, but inevitably I would
end up on foot. I would need something to carry supplies and weapons and other odds and
ends, like a backpack or a duffel bag. The easiest place to find such a thing would be one of
the large superstores that seemed to dot America’s landscape like puss-filled boils. I figured
that those would be something of a buffet for zombies right now, though, as people tried to
stock up themselves, so that was out of the question.

Ah, but what was this! On the dashboard of my completely legally-obtained Chevy sat a
GPS unit, one of the fancy kinds that allowed you to search for different kinds of restaurants
and stores as well as get directions. Keeping one hand on the wheel, I keyed in a search for the
nearest sporting goods store and was pleased to see that I was only a couple of miles away
from one. As a bonus it was located away from the main town roads. The streets were
beginning to become cluttered by abandoned vehicles and the shuffling forms of the undead,
meaning that it was probably a good idea to get off the busier streets sooner rather than later.

I still hadn’t seen another living person since Leonitus led his men into battle back at
Shaded Grove Asylum and I began to wonder if anyone else had actually managed to escape. If
it turned out that I was the only person still alive, I wasn’t sure how to feel about that. I would
be proud of being better than the rest of the population of the planet, of course, but I would
also feel downright embarrassed to be part of the human race.

I reached the sporting goods store, aptly titled John’s Sporting Goods, and pulled into a
space near the front of the parking lot. Notice that I made it a point to park in a space as
opposed to next to the curb, and also note that the space was not reserved for the
handicapped. Just because society had collapsed didn’t mean that I should ignore proper
driving etiquette.

I got out of the car and looked around. It was relatively silent in the parking lot and the
only zombies that I could see were quite a distance away and not heading towards the store,
but to be on the safe side I popped the car’s trunk and rummaged around for a moment before
producing a tire iron. I knew from experience that a tire iron isn’t nearly as hardcore of a
weapon as cop dramas would have you believe. Better than nothing, though.

John’s Sporting Goods was abandoned; not even John himself walked the aisles. The
store had already been picked over by looters and fellow survivalists, but I managed to find a
large hiking backpack underneath a tipped over display and a long length of rope that I figured
might come in handy. I glanced longingly at the display case that, according to the sign, had
once housed any number of guns, but those were of course all gone and the shelves were
devoid of any boxes of ammunition. On a whim I walked over to the door marked Office and
eased it open.

Ah, John, THERE you are. Apparently John wasn’t a Catholic since he had put a pistol in
his mouth and pulled the trigger. I tell you, some people just aren’t cut out for the undead
rising from their graves and wiping mankind from the face of the Earth. The pistol was still
gripped in his hand and, since Johnny Boy would have a hard time aiming it in his condition, I
liberated it and checked the clip.

There were still five shots left. I rummaged around the office for a few more minutes
and managed to find a small carton containing bullets in his filing cabinet. All in all it had been
a fine shopping experience, and I’d like to take this opportunity to thank the thoughtful staff of
John’s Sporting Goods for really going that extra mile and blowing off their heads to help me
find exactly what I needed.

I returned to the car and found that some of those zombies that I had spotted off in the
distance were now a lot closer than they had been when I went inside the store and were
headed my way. Time to be going. I got back behind the wheel, gunned the engine, and
headed off in search of a good time.
CHAPTER TWO

Kill Counter- 1

I finally started encountering other survivors as I continued down the road. At first it
was just individuals and families that passed me (hey, I wasn’t going to let something as silly as
the zombie apocalypse make me break the speed limit), but the further I went, the more I
began to see people walking down the side of the road or frantically inspecting broken down
vehicles of all shapes and sizes. Despite my new-found Don’t Kill the Nice People philosophy
and my desire to find companionship I didn’t really pay these folks any attention. I had no way
of being sure that they weren’t infected for one thing, but mostly it was because I didn’t want
to saddle myself with anyone that was whiny or panicky. Not so much for my survival purposes
as much as theirs, if you catch my meaning.

I had been driving for about four hours when I reached a ramp leading down onto the
freeway. Instead of turning onto it, I continued on for a few hundred feet and brought the car
to a halt. I was parked on a bridge that went out over the highway itself, and I figured that
getting an eagle’s eye view of the situation down below couldn’t hurt. After all, if things
weren’t completely gridlocked I could get on it for a few exits. I wasn’t really heading to any
place in particular, but a part of me deep in the back of my rotten brain was insisting that I had
to get out of the general area soon or bad things would happen. I had learned a long time ago
not to ignore that little voice.

The moment that I opened the door I knew that getting on the freeway wasn’t going to
be a good idea. The air was full of screams that echoed across the evening like a serial killer’s
wet dream. Well, not my wet dream, I didn’t really enjoy making someone scream and my
personal wet dream involved Jessica Alba holding a chainsaw, but you see where I’m going
with that.

The sky was lit with the glow of fires and the occasional explosion. Any number of other
noises could be heard, everything from the shriek of metal on metal to children crying, but
above everything was a constant moaning that seemed to almost shake the bridge with its
force. Unless the troll living under the bridge was having a massive orgasm, I couldn’t imagine
that being a good sign.

I stepped to the guardrail and peered down. If I was to imagine a cross between Hell
and downtown Los Angeles after a Lakers title victory, it would look something like what I saw.
Cars and trucks were bumper to bumper as far as I could see. Some people still sat in these
vehicles, either because of sheer terror or, in many cases, the inability to open the doors due
to the close proximity, but the majority of the former drivers had become current runners.
Men, women, and children were dashing between the cars and on the embankments in an
attempt to escape the horror that was behind them.

There must have been over a hundred thousand of the undead slowly making their way
down the freeway, stopping only to swarm under any motorist that didn’t manage to get out of
the way in time. Every so often a car’s fuel tank would explode and send a plume of flame and
smoke up into the sky; there was more than a few zombies that were completely engulfed in
flames. They just continued their merry march like it was a Sunday stroll in the suburbs,
though, and it was only after basically every part of the body was incinerated would they die
(re-die?).

I heard a dull thumping in the distance and turned in time to see a news helicopter rise
up over a hill. For a moment I wondered if the news crew was actually going to attempt to get
an interview with the zombie horde, which would probably sound about as coherent as a Ted
Kennedy monologue there towards the end. Then I realized that I was actually seeing an act of
attempted heroism in progress.

The helicopter’s pilot brought it in low over a small family that was trapped on the roof
of their minivan and opened the passenger side door to allow them to get in. What he hadn’t
counted on, though, was the sheer insanity of the crowd at that point. I know a little
something about insanity, and even I cringed at the look of desperation that I saw in each and
every face. Let me tell you, it’s a odd experience for me as a convicted serial killer and certified
nutcase to feel like the only sane person left on Earth.

The family got in the chopper, sure enough, but twenty or so other people lunged at the
open door and landing skids. The pilot gave it everything he had at the stick to attempt to get
altitude, but the added weight was too much for the craft and it slowly but surely fell from the
sky. People screamed as the rotor blade tore through the crowd, tossing life and limbs in all
directions. Something must have caught the fuel line because with a strange popping sound
accompanied by the much more expected roaring sound, the helicopter exploded.

I ducked behind the guardrail instinctively even though I knew logically that the debris
wouldn’t be able to reach where I was standing. A number of nearby cars also went boom as
their gas tanks ruptured. The only real positive of the situation is that a few members of the
undead persuasion were taken out by the devastation.

All that scene lacked was Bruce Willis diving away in slow motion, I mused.

I glanced around to make sure that I was still alone on my little slice of heaven.
Confirming that this was indeed the case, I made my way across the bridge to the other side.
Now, I am not what most people would consider an emotional man, but let me tell you friend
to friend, mano et youo, what I saw made bile rise in my throat.

Far off in the distance was a second mass of the undead that was at least as large as the
first one. The people down in the freeway were trapped between two armies of zombies that
were looking to make them all members of the human race in the past tense only. The
concrete walls of the highway were too high and steep for most people to climb out of the
way; there was going to be a massacre and, even if the terrified crowd saw it coming, there
was nothing they could do about it.

There was nothing that I could do about it either, for that matter. I briefly toyed with the
idea of picking off a few of the zombies nearest my vantage point just on principle, but really,
what was the point? To up my zombie kill count (now conveniently placed at the beginning of
the chapters so that you, my dear friend, don’t have to worry about doing the math yourself
(which you should really thank me for if you came up through the public educational system
(inserting random thought here so that I can see three parentheses In a row)))?

Behold my amazing grammatical prestidigitation skills! Marvel in amazement as I bring

you wonders that not even the Harvard English department would dare release onto the
public! But wait, the show is not over! Later, stare in astonishment as I treat the bibliography
like a three dollar hooker!

I turned back towards the car to continue on my journey to…wherever. I came to the
conclusion that I probably should figure out exactly where I was driving to before I got much
further. Obviously the sense of foreboding that I had felt was due to about a gazillion undead
arriving in the immediate vicinity and I needed to get the hell out of Dodge (ironically in my
Chevy) before any of them realized that I was right above their heads like some rack of lamb in
a butcher shop window. I did need to actually have a actual destination in mind so that I
wasn‘t simply running around like a moron, however. A sociopathic moron, but a moron
nonetheless.

I snorted as I realized that the asylum that I had left earlier in the day would actually
have been perfect if it wasn’t for the patients-turned-zombies wandering the halls at the
moment. Heavy security doors, multiple layers of secured areas to barricade, its own water
supply, and enough food supplies to last for years, it would have been both safe and
moderately comfortable. Well, no use crying over spilled prisoner blood. What was somewhat
nearby that offered a similar degree of safety?

A local prison? Probably not the best idea; I had enjoyed a small vacation at both of the
closest penitentiaries when my section of the asylum was being renovated and there was
always a chance that one of the guards would recognize me. There was a military base a few
hours away, wasn’t there? It was a thought, but there was no guarantee that even if the base
wasn’t overrun by now that it wouldn’t be on total lockdown. Even if I did manage to
somehow gain access to the base, there was always the ugly possibility that they would run an
identity check on me. I had no idea if the military actually did that sort of thing in this kind of
crisis (assuming that they had a contingency plan for the dead rising to attempt to consume
the living in the first place; if they didn’t maybe they could just do the exact opposite of the
Afghanistan plan to be successful). There didn’t seem to be any perfect options here.

Well, if there wasn’t a perfect place to take up residence, I would simply have to make
do with an imperfect one. Keeping my eyes peeled in a non-literal way, I drove on and put the
freeway behind me. Despite the noise of the road and engine I could still hear the moaning of
the zombie hordes for quite a distance.

I suppose that sound would have been terrifying or at the very least intimidating to most
people, but I found it a bit pitiful. It must suck to have such a limited vocabulary. How are you
today? Uhhhhhhhh. Where did you get that new shirt? Uhhhhhhh. Would you like one lump
or two in your tea? Uhhhhhhh. You’re not going to tell my wife, right? Uhhhhhhhh.

Maybe the zombies didn’t actually hunger for human flesh. Maybe they were just
jealous of everyone that didn’t have their lack of communicating skills. If that theory was
correct one could only assume that most of Texas was free and clear.

I would rather take refuge in a zombie infested house made out of more zombies with
even more zombies are coming in through the front door, the back door, and the windows
(which, of course, are all also made out of zombies) than go to Texas, though, so that was out
of the question.

Perhaps it was the thought of needing something the exact opposite of Texas that made
me think of a museum. You may not notice when you walk into one since odds are (unless
you’re an art thief) that you aren’t paying attention to these particular details, but many
museums are built like fortresses. There are thick steel gates and screens that can be dropped
to cover the doors and windows. Any number of objects can be used as weapons in a pinch.
There are multiple levels so even if one is compromised you can move onto the next one. The
cafeterias are stocked full of food and water, both perishable and non-perishable.

Best of all, if there’s still power, the guard stations can be used to see every nook and
cranny of the place, meaning that it would be extremely difficult for you to be caught with your
pants down. If some other people in the building decided to drop their pants, however, you’d
be able to check out that action from multiple angles.

Secure structure, plenty of supplies, the chance for naughty voyeurism…I’d be stupid
NOT to head for a museum.
 Now, the downside to this entire plan was that I would be heading into a heavily
populated area, which meant that the undead swarms would be everywhere. The safety of a
museum wouldn’t mean anything if I got turned into a tasty treat before I managed to reach it.
If the freeway I had just left was any indication, the streets of every major city would be almost
impassible. So unfortunately it appeared that my awesome idea was actually equal parts
awesome and stupidity.

Ah yes, awesome and stupid, the most bitter of all cocktails. Throw a little vodka in
there and you were guaranteed to get sloppy drunk and pay for it the next morning. There’s
no telling who you’d wake up next to the next day or what doctors might find in your
bloodstream afterward.

“Maybe the destination is wrong, but the features are right,” I muttered to myself.

What, you’re surprised that I started talking to myself? I’m a certified wackjob,
remember? Just be glad that I wasn’t trying to spell messages out of my alphabet soup or
having sex with dead ducks to see the future.

“Where else has all of it?” I asked myself, not really expecting a response. So imagine
my surprise when I responded, “Basically any high school nowadays, right?”

Ah, yes, the very public education system that I openly mocked in this very same chapter
did indeed provide an answer to my conundrum. A high school in a low population town could
be turned into my own personal Castle Greyskull. It would probably be even more secure than
Castle Greyskull since Skeletor wouldn’t be attempting to get all up in my business. I would
have the power (yes, that also was a He-Man reference if you’re playing along) to shape my
own destiny in the place where so many lucky teenagers managed to flush their destinies
down the poorly-maintained urinals.
 I opened the car’s glove compartment and dug out a map. A glance out the windows
told me that it would be a poor decision to stop the vehicle while I worked it out; zombies
were going from house to house on both sides of the road, and being a stationary target right
in the middle of things probably wouldn’t work out well for me. It took a while, but eventually
I managed to work out where I was and find the sort of town that I was looking for without
crashing into too many objects.

Haven, Ohio, you were about to stock up on your quota of crazy.

No, wait, that sucked, let me try again.

Ready or not, Haven, Ohio, here I come.

Bah, that one sucked even more. One more go at it.

Haven, Ohio, wait until you get a load of me.

Okay, you know what? I can’t come up with a good line to use to close out the chapter
here. So I’m not even going to try. Those writers that spend hours thinking about every single
turn of phrase and which sequence of words sounds the best out of all the possible iterations
can bend over and accept the presence of my boot heel deep within their now exposed cavity.

I was going to Haven, Ohio, and I was going to find a place to crash and kill some shit.
Lots of shit. Mountains of shit. I was going to enjoy every single second of maiming and killing
anything undead that either got in my way or I just happened to spot and think, “Hey, you
know what, I want to kill that one. Yeah, that one right there. No, no, not that one, the one
next to it. The one wearing the thing. Not that thing. Yeah, that one right there. The one in
the place doing the stuff. I’m going to kill it just because I can.”

That’s the end of the chapter. Move along, nothing to see here.
 Oh, wait, no, nothing got added to the Kill Counter this chapter. That can’t be right.

Ah yes. As I turned down a side street I rolled down my window and saw a pair of
zombies, one a tall college-age girl with a chunk taken out of her side and the other an old man
that appeared to be relatively untouched, walking down the middle of the street towards me.
They seemed to simply be wandering around until they spotted the lights of my car. They
raised their arms slightly and that familiar moan began to flow from their blood-covered
mouths.

Running them over seemed like a good way to accidentally blow a tire or crack an axle,
so I stopped the car and stepped out into the road. Something in an overturned trash can had
caught my eye, and sure enough, when I walked over to it at a brisk but hardly rushed pace I
found what I had thought I would: a discarded frying pan. It was old school Three Stooges
time.

The girl reached me first, her neck twisting in anticipation of the gnawing that, sadly for
her but happily for me, would never come. I swung the frying pan as hard as I could and was
rewarded with a wet yet solid crunch sound. The zombie went down hard and remained
motionless.

I turned my attention to the old man. The frying pan was the kind made of cast iron that
was meant to live forever. There was barely a scratch on it from its impromptu use as a
Whack-a-Mole hammer. That’s why I wasn’t really all that surprised when my blow actually
caused his head to explode in a shower of blood and gore. Quick, simple, and efficient, just
like the Stooges would have wanted.

Okay, this is really the end of the chapter now.

CHAPTER THREE

Kill Counter- 3

I told you that really was the end of the chapter. You didn’t believe me, though, did you?
Even after all we’ve been through, dear reader, you still don’t trust me to tell you when
something is going to occur. That’s a shame, really, because friendship is based in a foundation
of trust. It takes the seeds of belief to grow the tree of camaraderie.

Do you get the point? If not I can keep going. You have no idea how many hours of
Oprah they make you watch in a sanitarium. They seem to think that she will have a positive
impact instead of what she actually does: increases the urge to go out and murder someone by
at least tenfold. I can’t tell you how many other patients confided in me that they wanted to
either kill Oprah or themselves simply to make the pain stop.

I drove on in my trusty Chevy while ignoring the need to eat, sleep, urinate, and weird
combinations of the three until around two in the morning. That’s when necessity forced me
to take a slight detour. Necessity and the light that had started glowing orange on the dash; I
was almost out of gas.

I was basically in the middle of nowhere. To my left was corn. To my right was corn. If I
tilted my head up and looked into the night sky I would probably see corn. As much as
Nebraska is associated with the stuff, Ohio has more than its fair share of corn-based farmland.
It took me about half an hour to find a gas station. My streak of good luck continued as it was
abandoned but not yet picked clean. I was able to fill the car’s gas tank and empty my own
pee tank in peace.
 As I was making my way back to the car after presenting my golden offering to the side
of the building (I may be crazy, but I’m not insane enough to go into a gas station bathroom), I
made a quick U-turn and went into the convenience store itself. The door was surprisingly
unlocked, and, having been the person responsible for a number of highly suspicious scenes
myself, I knew better than to chalk that up to pure dumb luck.

I pulled the pistol from my belt and checked to make sure that the safety was off. I knew
that I should really get back into my vehicle and continue onward, but I’ll be damned if a
Slushie didn’t sound extremely good at that particular moment, so I moved forward out of the
doorway.

I reached the counter where the cash register was mounted and stopped to listen. The
only sound that I heard was my own breathing. Despite my misgivings about the situation I felt
my pulse begin to quicken.

This sort of thing really got my blood going. I didn’t fell anything resembling fear; au
contraire, if anything I was feeling exhilaration. I was the hunter, the predator, the non-
accident prone Wile E. Coyote. If there was a road runner in this gas station I was going to find
it, and when I did, all the painted-on tunnels in the world wouldn’t allow my prey to escape.

To my delight there was a sudden rustling from behind one of the aisles. Without
pausing I lunged around the corner and brought my gun’s barrel to bear on…

Wait, what the hell was I looking at exactly? A woman in her mid-twenties, garbed in a
police uniform and very much alive despite the amount of blood (none of it hers; I could
explain how I knew that to you, but it would be a long and somewhat disturbing process for
you and I certainly wouldn’t want to take away from the events unfolding to go through it)
covering her clothes, was hunched down at the end of the aisle and brandishing what
appeared to be a broken mop handle. An open bag of chips and a half-consumed bottle of
water were on the floor at her feet.

“Oh, I apologize, I didn’t realize that I was interrupting your meal,” I said good-
humoredly. I made some show of putting on my gun’s safety and pointing it away from her. “I
hate it when people come calling when I’m eating. I’ll leave you to it.”

“Wait!” the woman nearly shouted as I began to turn away. “Wait, please,” she
continued in a much quieter tone as she peeked out over the aisle towards the door. “You’re
alive, aren’t you? I mean, you’re not one of them? You’re not bitten or anything?”

I shook my head and gave her my most charming smile. “I’m very much alive,” I assured
her. “As alive as you are. Although from your clothes it looks like you’ve been a lot closer to
having that not be the case than I have, officer.”

She lowered the ever-so-threatening mop handle. “It’s been a fucking nightmare of a
day,” she answered. “Those…things are everywhere. All day it’s been one long running fight,
moving from place to place to save as many civilians as we could.” She stared at the floor for a
long moment before she whispered, “I’m the only one left.”

“The only person in your squad left?”

“The only person period. The other cops, the civilians we were trying to save, the
National Guard troops that got called in…all of them are gone. Turned into one of those
fuckers out there or…or fucking eaten. I got away when they overturned our SWAT van and I
just started running. I ended up here. I was exhausted. I needed to eat something or I was
going to pass out.” She said this last part almost defensively.

“Hey, officer, no need to worry about me turning you in for Grand Theft Gas Station. It’s
the end of the world, nobody is going to care about a bag of Doritos and some bottled water.
Where are you headed to when you leave here? Is there some place that’s safe?”

She stared at me for a long moment, and I was surprised at how old her eyes seemed. “I
don’t think there’s anywhere safe. We lost all communication towards the end. Nobody
responded on the police or National Guard frequencies. Hell, we couldn’t even pick up any
military traffic or anything from the Emergency Broadcast System. I…think the people that are
left are on their own.”

In the old days, as in, you know, the day before, I probably would have taken advantage
of this unique opportunity to see exactly how many times this brave officer’s body could take
having a cooler door slammed on it before it decided to shut down. I was a changed man,
however. Completely and totally reformed. Instead of using my powers for evil, I was now
using them for good. Or at least something marginally less evil.

I felt something welling up in my chest, something warm and inviting. Why, this must be
that compassion thing that I’ve always heard so much about! It had to be that fuzzy feeling
you get from helping out another human being in a time of need. What other possible
explanation could there be?

I belched.

Oh, never mind.

But hey, she was one of those kinds of people that I had realized that I needed to try to
hook up with, right? She was holding together pretty well for having just gone through quite
the massacre, and as a cop she would be at least passable with a firearm. Hadn’t she tried to
fend me off with a broken cleaning device when she first saw me as well? That showed a bit of
inventiveness and a keen survival instinct. It wouldn’t have worked on a human unless there
was some sort of tripping incident that ended with impalement a la those poo-tipped stick
traps in Vietnam; it might have been enough to take down a zombie, though.

It didn’t hurt that she was easy to look at, too. That uniform was pretty tight against a
rather full chest and the pants were showing some pretty flattering things. Her brown hair was
tied up in an apparently quickly-assembled bun, somewhat reminiscent of a librarian or 1800s
school teacher, and that wasn’t necessarily a bad thing depending on how your sexual
fantasies swung.

Hey, why are you looking at me like that? Were you working under the assumption that,
just because I’m a cold blooded serial killer, I don’t have a sex drive? Hey, you’ve got me
confused with someone else if you’re thinking that. I like the ladies just fine, thank you very
much. It’s hard to see through the page to confirm this no matter how hard I squint, but if
you’re a guy I’m sure that you’re nodding your head in agreement. If you’re a woman…how
YOU doin’?

“I’ll tell you what, officer, why don’t you come with me?” I suggested. “I’ve got a car
outside with a full tank of gas, and we can load up on enough supplies for both of us if we
shove a bunch of the stuff from this store into the back seat. I’m told there’s safety in
numbers.”

The cop looked suddenly wary. “Why should I trust you?” she asked in a rather flat tone.

I shrugged. “If I were in your place I wouldn’t trust me. I might be a homicidal maniac
or something. If you want to stay here I certainly won’t blame you for that decision. It’s up to
you. I’m going to go grab a box of Twinkies and a Slushie, and then I’m going to head out. I’d
decide fairly quickly if I were you.”
 She immediately dropped the mop handle and nodded. “Okay, I’ll come,” she said,
rather unnecessarily if you ask me. “Where are we going?”

“Let’s talk about that when we’re on the road. You can be my navigator. I’m not the
safest driver in the world when I’m swerving all over the place while I’m trying to read a map.
You wouldn’t believe the look on this deer’s face earlier when I almost plowed into it.”

We gathered up as much of the food as we could, focusing on non-perishable products

as opposed to things that would quickly go bad. Once everything was tossed into the back
seat, I made one last trip back inside the store and finally poured myself a sweet, sweet
Slushie. Cherry, of course. It’s a classic and, truth be told, in my opinion the people that say
they prefer the Blue Raspberry are either living in a dream world or have fallen victim to the
Blue marketing machine. It’s true. It’s all part of a conspiracy engineered by the people that
invented the color Blue to take over the world. It started with putting the Smurfs on television
to corrupt our children and has now reached even into our tasty frozen drinks. The Blue
Slushie is right up there with the Grassy Knoll and Roswell.

The cop was leaning against the passenger side of the car and was looking around
nervously. “Can we get going now?” she almost pleaded.

I’m a good judge of character and I knew right away that she would prove to be a rather
calm and brave individual, but she was clearly pushed past her limits on this particular night. If
I was something close to normal I probably would have been, too.

“Sure,” I replied, taking a drink from the Godly nectar that is a cherry Slushie. “I never
did catch your name, officer. If we’re going to road trip together we should probably know
what to call each other.”
 She opened her door. “My name is Heather Davenport.” She got in the car and shut the
door.

I walked over to my side and got in as well. “Well, Heather Davenport, my name is
James Pool.” A fake name, of course. James Pool was the name of one of my classmates in
high school. It didn’t seem prudent to give my real name to a police officer even if the police
didn’t seem to really exist anymore.

Besides, with my desire to make the lives of human beings go bye-bye gone, it was kind
of like I was starting a new life, right? From that line of reasoning it only made sense that I
would begin to do so by first removing everything from the old life, and that included my
name. So here I was, embarking on a new life in a Brave New World with a brand spanking
new name. Hello world, my name is James Pool, and I’m a reformed serial killer. Well, not so
much reformed as refocused. The point still stands.

I pulled the car out onto the road and told Heather of my plan to become King of the
School in Haven. She almost immediately agreed with my train of logic, which was nice since I
was a bit afraid that my logic train might have derailed three stations back without me knowing
it. She disagreed with my actual choice of location, though.

“Haven is a small town that is, well, was populated by mostly rich and middle class
families,” she explained as she poured over the map. “The high school there isn’t set up to be
locked down prison-style like you could with an inner city school in a poor neighborhood. This
part of Ohio is mostly farmland and country folk. We won’t find any buildings designed to
handle vandals and gangbangers.”

I had to admit that she had a point. My old haunts were almost all in large cities. The
thought that some schools didn’t have to armor up at night had never even occurred to me. It
seemed that I had been right to bring her with me instead of leaving her at the gas station to
threaten undead tormentors with half a mop. I thought about asking her what had happened
to the other half, the part that was not only a weapon but could even double up as a, gasp,
cleaning device, but decided that it was mostly irrelevant. It was something that I could bring
up down the line when we were old and sitting on a porch discussing how kids these days
didn’t know how to kill a zombie and, even if they did, they really needed to get off our lawns.

“I’m open to suggestions, Heather,” I assured her. “If you know of a better place, I’m all
ears.”

There was a long silence. “I’ll be honest, James, I can’t think of anywhere in Ohio that’s
going to be secure. I mean really secure. No matter where we go, we’re going to have to
restock supplies at some point. That‘s going to mean going outside. It won’t do us any good if
we fort up in a school or something but can’t ever get back out again.”

Another silence. This time I was the one to break it. “I suppose you’re right,” I agreed.
“I’ll tell you what, turn on the radio and see if you can get a signal. Maybe they‘ve got the
Emergency Broadcast Station up and running again. We need more information about what’s
going on. If there’s a safe zone or something I can drop you off there if you want.”

“Why wouldn’t I want to go to a safe zone if there is one?” she asked, looking more than
a little confused as she turned on the radio and began to slowly turn the dial. “And why
wouldn’t you stay?”

You’re probably asking yourself the same questions, aren’t you? Well, be patient,
because I’ll answer both of you…..

….
 ….

….now.

“Put yourself into the shoes of one of these undead things,” I told her. “If there’s a place
where humans are gathering en masse in an effort to protect themselves, to find safety and
security, what’s the one place that you’d want to be? Where all the food has been
conveniently been shoved into one spot, right? Oh, but those humans are so very tricky, how
would you know that such a place existed, especially with your apparently limited mental
faculties?”

Heather snorted. “By following the big groups of people fleeing right to the safe zone.”

“Exactly. This whole thing started, what, a week ago? Maybe a week and a half? And
it’s been in this area of the country for a day or so? It would take an awful lot to convince me
that the government has managed to set up places that can hold up against huge groups of
zombies this quickly. Sure, they might be able to stay safe for a little while, but only for a little
while.”

“Not to mention the logistics of it. If you have every live man, woman, and child for
hundreds of miles around packed into one place, you’ll have to find shelter for all of them and
feed and clothe them.”

I glanced over at her. “I think Katrina proved that kind of logistics isn’t exactly our
government’s strong suit. Besides, we’re assuming that there’s enough of a government left to
do anything. You’re almost at the end of the radio frequencies and there hasn’t been anything
but static.”

“So what are we going to do?”

 “That depends. You’ve been up close and personal with these things more than I have,
what can you tell me about them?”

Heather leaned back in her seat and rubbed her eyes wearily. For a moment it seemed
like she wasn’t going to respond, so I took another glorious sip of my Slushie. She surprised
me by opening her eyes and setting her expression in a determined sort of way.

“They aren’t alive, which you already know,” she began. “That means that they don’t
function or even breathe the same way that we do. At first we tried tear gas. That did exactly
two things: jack and shit. They just kept coming. Even worse, the smoke ended up making
things even more difficult for us because it made it hard to see them when the shooting
started. Next we tried the Shockwave. Do you know what that is?”

I shook my head.

“It’s this…well, it’s kind of like this large series of boxes mounted on top of a tripod. You
press and button and the boxes each fire one taser dart. It’s used to take down multiple
targets at once with non-lethal force. You know, for crowd control and prison riots and such.
Anyway, it didn’t even slow them down, and I’ve seen the voltage from just one of those darts
take down a drunk guy that was full of steroids. So I guess that means that electricity doesn’t
work on them either.

“Destroying the brain seems like the only thing that’s a definite kill. I saw one zombie
get its chest torn off by a shotgun blast and it kept coming. If you take out a leg it will just keep
crawling after you. Even if you cut the damn thing in half it just keeps coming.

“Once we figured out you had to aim for the head it made things a little easier, but do
you have any idea how hard it is to hit a headshot? It’s one thing to do it at a practice range
when you have all the time in the world and no pressure, but in the real world, when it counts,
it’s so goddamn hard.

“Most of us ran out of ammunition by the time our positions were overrun and we had
to resort to our nightsticks. It was easier to hit the head and the sticks were pretty effective. It
was a lot more tiring, though, and when you’re that up close and personal with the bastards
there’s not any room for error.”

“I see,” was all that I responded with.

“I’ll tell you one thing,” she continued. That seemed to be an awkward thing to say since
she had already told me quite a few more things than just one. “They’re graceless bastards.
They move pretty slow and they can’t really climb over anything more than four or five feet
tall. If there are enough of them they can still get over walls and such simply because they pile
up on each other trying to get to you, but a single zombie isn’t hard to outmaneuver.”

I started to say something but was cut off when she kept talking. I thought that was a bit
rude, especially since she had just got done stating that she was only going to tell me one
thing. It’s not nice to lie like that. I’m sure that you, my faithful reader, are above telling little
white lies like that, but evidence would indicate that Heather was not.

“Does any of this help?” she asked.

Oh, okay, I guess she wasn’t going to actually tell me anything else. She was, in fact,
asking an interrogatory. Well then, it appeared that I was wrong about one Ms. Heather
Davenport. Completely ignore what I said in that last paragraph. I would cover it up with
liquid paper if happened to have some, which I don't, and crossing out a section just looks so
ugly and amateurish. So I guess you’ll just have to forget what I wrote.
 Go ahead, forget. I’ll wait.

Hiya! Welcome back. We now join our regularly scheduled program already in progress.

I nodded. “Yeah, it definitely does,” I answered in the affirmative. “Them not being able
to climb means we’ve got a lot more options for places to stay, even if the place is just
temporary. If it comes down to it we could always destroy the staircase in a house or
something. We just need to-“

I slammed on the breaks. Heather cried out in surprise and gripped threw her hands out
onto the dashboard to keep herself from smacking into it. See, you never know when the
maniac at the steering wheel is going to bring the vehicle to a sudden stop, that’s why you
should always wear your seatbelt. The car swerved slightly before coming to a halt.

“What the FUCK!” Heather demanded as she looked at me a bit wild-eyed.

Without saying a word I motioned with my chin towards the windshield. Blocking the
road completely was a large group of the undead. I did a quick count and stopped at thirty; I
estimated that the full number was at least a hundred. Probably more than that since the
headlights could only penetrate so far into their ranks before the bodies blocked them entirely.
For a moment we looked out at zombies and they looked in at us. Then almost as one they
began shuffling towards us with that trademark moan.

“Let’s just turn around and head back,” Heather suggested quietly.

“I don’t think that’s going to be possible,” I informed her, opening my car door and
stepping out. “They’re coming out of the corn field behind us. We’re cut off.”

I popped the trunk and went around to the back of the car where she joined me. “We’re
in trouble, aren’t we?” she asked, obviously already knowing the answer.
 “Looks like it,” I confirmed, pulling my hiking pack out and putting it on. It was fairly
heavy at this point; I had put a number of supplies including food and flashlights in it after
pillaging the gas station clean. Still, I had made sure that I would be able to carry it and still
move at a brisk pace so the added weight wasn‘t overwhelming.

“Oh, shit,” I swore suddenly.

“What? What is it?”

“I almost forgot my Slushie.”

I reached back into the car and snatched up my tasty drink. The zombies were within a
dozen yards of the front of the car now, and the ones coming up from the rear weren’t much
further back. There was clearly no communication or even rudimentary cooperation going on
between the two groups, but as (bad) luck would have it, they had managed to cut off any
good chance of escape. On a whim I snatched up the tire iron that I hadn’t had a chance to use
earlier and shifted the pack a bit to allow it to rest more comfortably on my shoulders and
back.

“Well, no helping it, I suppose,” I muttered to myself. I turned to Heather. “Into the corn
we go.”

Running through a cornfield is nothing like it seems on movies or television. The stalks
are hard and don’t really bend easily, and there’s the always fun “Smack the people in the
face” game some of them seem to like to play. Holding hands so that we didn’t become
separated, we moved deep into the corn. There was an almost deafening crashing sound
behind us that said louder than words that the undead were following pursuing. We pushed
onward.
 We had only been fleeing for a minute or so when the face of a zombie suddenly
appeared between the stalks to our left. Without breaking stride, I swung the tire iron and
connected with the side of that face, making it look almost like a catcher’s mitt. It gurgled and
fell out of view. I glanced back as we continued on and saw a dark shape on the ground that
wasn’t moving. Nice, another one to add to the counter. Twice more this happened, and twice
more the tire iron came down with authority.

At last we reached the other side of the cornfield. We were standing near a chain link
fence that blocked us from going any further. In the bright moonlight I saw that on the other
side of the fence was an embankment leading down to a highway. I thought back to my
studying of the map (which we had conveniently left inside the car, yay for us) and realized that
it must be the turnpike. After what I had seen happen on the freeway the day before, I was
understandably skeptical about our chances down there, but the load noises growing closer
from behind us made me even more skeptical about our chances if we stayed where we were.

“We’re going to have to climb the fence and cross the highway,” I whispered to Heather.
“We need to stay as quiet as we can so if there are any of our playmates down there they
won’t know we’re within hugging distance. Got it?”

She nodded, and we began the tiresome activity of climbing the fence. She reached the
top first and climbed down the other side. Burdened by the weight of the pack I was slower
going up, and I can’t begin to describe how thankful I was that there wasn’t any barbed wire
strung across the top. Finally I reached the other side and we continued forward cautiously.

The turnpike was much like the freeway had been: abandoned vehicles ran as far as the
eye could see in both directions, and bodies (along with their various parts) were everywhere.
The car drivers and their passengers seemed to have put up a better fight here, though, as for
every human casualty there were three or four deanimated (I assume that’s a real word as ‘un-
reanimated’ just sounds so clunky) zombies. Hey, good for them. If you’re going to go down,
take as many of them down with you as you can, give ‘em hell, cowboy up, all of that jazz.

We had just reached the first of the cars when a loud crash and the sound of metal
groaning in protest came from behind us. After running a multitude of experiments for
months in one of the finest laboratories in the country and consulting with some of the top
minds that humanity had to offer, along with God only knows hour many hours of research and
fundraising events, I came to the conclusion that the zombies had more than likely reached the
fence. Still, we continued on at the same cautious pace, carefully making our way out onto the
highway.

That little voice in the back of my head was screaming a warning at me. More than that,
it had managed to find a tiny little megaphone somewhere to amplify itself even further. I
scowled and firmly told it that I got the point.

Heather spotted something on the ground and held up her hand to call a halt. She
reached down and picked up what appeared to be a revolver. She quickly and professionally
checked the rounds remaining and nodded her head in approval.

I barely noticed this, however, as I was too busy exchanging my now oddly-shaped tire
iron for an aluminum baseball bat I had discovered in the back of a pickup. Now this was more
like it. Nice length, good solid weight, everything that a would-be bludgeoner could ask for. I
took a practice swing and licked my lips. Oh yes, this would be just fine.

We continued on.

With all the moaning coming from the horde I barely heard the crunch of glass being
crushed, but apparently Heather had better hearing than I did. She spun and fire a single shot
into the forehead of a zombie that was trying to reach us from between a Volkswagen and
what appeared to be the remains of a Mustang. There was movement from the other side, but
with a swing of my mighty beatstick and a satisfying explosion of undead skull and gore that
movement stopped rather abruptly.

Now the moaning was coming from all around us.

“Forget the subtle approach,” I told Heather. “We need to get out of here now.”

She nodded as she put down another of our would-be suitors. “There’s probably a fence
on the other side,” she pointed out. “I think I see an off ramp just west of us, though. We’ll
have to make a break for it.”

Ah, our first carnage-filled race against time with each other. How well I remember it. It
was a magical evening. The moon was full, the stars dotted the sky, and we were as one as we
moved steadily towards our only hope of escape.

It seemed like they were coming from everywhere at once, marching towards us from
between cars and occasionally smashing their way out of a wide assortment of vehicles. When
Heather’s revolver was empty she flipped it around in her hand and beat down one of our
dance partners with the handle. She then discarded the weapon and grabbed a piece of piping
off the road to join me in my brutal ballet of blunt object beatings. I’m pretty sure that if she
had a way to pick up the alliteration in that last sentence she would have assaulted them with
that as well. Truth be told, I hadn’t had that much fun in quite a while.

When we finally reached the off ramp we found it strangely absent of the undead. Not
looking a gift horse in the mouth, however, we picked up the pace and jogged up to higher
ground. The top of the ramp was clear as well. I looked back down towards where we had
come from and realized that wasn’t going to be the case for long. Between the group that had
chased us out onto the turnpike in the first place and the other smaller groups that had been
milling around the highway itself, we at least three hundred zombies begging for our attention.

It was Heather that spoke first. She looked strangely radiant in the moonlight as she
stood there covered in blood and whatever else. “Let’s go find a car and get the hell out of
here.”
CHAPTER FOUR

Kill Counter- 31

As we continued our night trek across the foreign and wild terrain of central Ohio, I
inspected my newly acquired weapon of not so mass destruction. The aluminum bat had
certainly seen better days; the metal almost resembled a question mark at this point. Blood
and bits of flesh and bone clung to it. If I didn’t have the stomach for just this sort of thing I
would probably be depositing its contents all over the pavement.

I sighed and took the last drink from my Slushie. By some miracle I had managed to
keep hold of it during the pay-per-view-esque Trouble on the Turnpike (live this Sunday for
only $49.95, call your provider today), but now, alas, it had come to an end. With a second
sigh, one of longing and unspeakable loss, I tossed the cup into a nearby trash can. After a
moment’s thought I sent the bat in to join it. I would have to find another toy before I waded
into another killing pit of doom, but until then I’d have to settle for my firearm.

No more thwack-thwack, only pew-pew. Ah well.

After leaving the off ramp behind us, we walked for just over a mile before we came
across a burger joint. I’m sure that it had a name, it would almost have to have had one, but
where the sign should have been on the roof there was instead a gaping hole. I could only
imagine what chain of events led to that happening. I was fairly certain it involved a rocket
launcher, a disgruntled IRS agent, and a UFO piloted by a drunk Wookie. What else made
sense?

More important than the unexplained mysteries of the universe, however, was the old
pickup sitting in the restaurant’s parking lot. We cautiously approached it; well, truth be told,
Heather cautiously approached it. I sort of sauntered over without any real sense of urgency.
The undead didn’t seem to be following us anymore, so why be in a hurry? That was a good
way to accidentally skin a knee.

Wait a second, hold up. Why wasn’t the pursuit continuing, anyway? Zombies didn’t
strike me as the type to simply admit defeat and give up. In fact, they seemed rather tenacious
and single-minded. Like a cat chasing after the red dot of a laser pointer, they would keep
going after their target even after it should have been obvious that the would-be prey was out
of reach.

So what had changed? As Heather opened the pickup’s door and demonstrated her
amazing thief skills by hotwiring the vehicle, I gave our surroundings a once-over. There was
the restaurant which, from the looks of things, was almost guaranteed to land its customers in
the bathroom in short order. Just down the road was a gas station. Its power seemed to be
out as not a single light was lit. That was no way to run a business. Beyond that there was
only the road and some trees. Hardly anything threatening.

OR WAS THERE?!?

No, actually, there wasn’t.

OR WAS-

No, stop it. There wasn’t anything even remotely threatening in the immediate area.

“This isn’t working,” Heather called to me in obvious frustration. “I think the battery is
dead.”

“We should call AAA,” I suggested absently.

 “I’ll get right on that just as soon as we find a phone.” It was a wonder she didn’t slip on
all that sarcasm she was dripping. She slammed the car door shut. “It looks like we’re back to
walking.”

“Looks like it.”

As we continued down the road I returned to my pondering about our suddenly zombie-
free environment. No matter how much I rewound the scene in my head I couldn’t figure out
why they had broken off their pursuit. Heather had mentioned that they didn’t seem to be
able to climb but the ramp had only sloped gently towards the road above. It wouldn’t have
presented much of a challenge. If it wasn’t a terrain issue, there must have been a different
reason. What would be more important to brainless people eaters than two of the very people
they wanted to brainlessly eat?

Be sure to present your Final Jeopardy answers in the form of a question.

Doo doo doo doo doo doo doo… doo doo doo doo DOO… da doo doo doo doo…

Time’s up, contestants, put down your pens. Let’s see what you came up with.

What are more people, Alex?

There must have still been a number of people, as in living, breathing human beings,
hiding inside cars on the turnpike. It was the only thing that made sense. If Heather and I
were the only buffet in town we would have been number one on the eat list, but if there was
more of a selection of already nicely wrapped meat pies where they were, why bother to leave
the house to eat out?

That made more sense in my head.

 When we reached the gas station we briefly stopped to check for a possible mode of
transportation. There wasn’t one, unfortunately, but we did manage to get our hands on some
nifty parting gifts. I hefted my new crowbar a couple of times. It didn’t feel as natural as the
aluminum bat had, but I knew from personal experience that one of these bad boys could do
quite a bit of rather unique damage. Blunt trauma from the main body, piercing capabilities
from the hooked end…the crowbar is a classic murder weapon for a reason.

I had never had the opportunity to end a life with one, so having one now for the
express purpose of killing was more than a little cool. It was kind of like an homage to those
brave murdering sociopath pioneers that had come before me.

“You know what I think freaks me out the most?” Heather asked as we continued on our
way. “How quiet it is. No birds, no crickets, no bugs, nothing.”

I nodded, belatedly realizing that she probably couldn’t see the gesture in the darkness.
“The animals know things,” I replied. “They sense something is wrong and they’ve either
hidden or fled.”

“All of them, though?” She sounded unconvinced.

I hesitated. “Only if the threat is nearby.”

“Oh. Great.”

Almost on cue the now familiar moaning began. This time, though, it was coming from
somewhere in the distance and didn’t seem to be heading towards us. A minute or so later
there was the sound of gunfire. Not small arms fire, mind you, but the unmistakable sound of
heavy automatic weapons.

“That’s some serious ordinance,” Heather commented. “More than we use. It has to be
military.”

A red light suddenly illuminated the northern sky, almost immediately followed by the
boom of an explosion. The gunfire continued, only occasionally silenced for a moment or two
before resuming. During these breaks I could very faintly hear people shouting. It was
impossible to tell if the Army/Navy/Air Force/Marines/National Guard/CIA/FBI/Homeland
Security/Super Secret Ninja Assault Task Force or the undead were winning the conflict.

“Maybe we should make our way towards that,” Heather suggested hopefully. “If the
military is there, we could help them or at least hitch a ride with them.”

“We don’t know how many zombies are between us and them,” I disagreed. “And I can
guarantee that there’s a ton of them at the battle itself. All that noise must be attracting them
from miles away. The smart money wouldn’t be on us making it through alive.”

“And even if we did we might get shot to death if they thought we were undead.
Goddammit, you’re probably right. So where do we go?”

What did I look like, a travel agent? For someone that was supposed to be a cop, she
sure was wanting to follow my lead quite a bit. I had to remind myself that this is what I
wanted. I was always a bit of a control freak, and I would have found not being in charge
rather unacceptable. That sort of thing might have led to an unfortunate (not for me) breaking
of my new Leave the Nice Breathing People Breathing oath.

Hey, I need you to do me a favor. Yes, you, reader. Walk over to your computer and go
to MapQuest. Then stick this book up against the screen for a few minutes. If you’re reading
this on a computer or reading device or some sort of magical vision quest, open your browser
and do so. Good to go? Excellent. Okay, let’s see here. Zombies don’t function well in the
cold, so maybe we could head north to Canada. Gah, wait, no, I don’t know about the cold
thing at this point. Maybe we could go to Colorado. It’s pretty high up and the undead have
that bad climbing thing going on. No, no, that won’t work, most of Colorado was overrun fairly
early on. I don’t know that yet, either, but I’m not going to send Past Me to his death or else
Current Me won’t exist. Now where the hell could we go…

Ah, there we go.

“California,” I told Heather. “We should go to California. From there we head north into
Oregon, or maybe Washington.”

“I don’t get it,” she admitted. “I get California because yesterday morning the news said
that there were only very minor outbreaks west of the Mississippi River so far, but why
Oregon?”

“Oregon is sparsely populated, but not so much that supplies would be impossible to
find. There are a lot of places to hunt and the soil is fertile enough to grow fruit and
vegetables. The towns in some places are so far apart that we’ll have plenty of warning before
a swarm of zombies could reach us. Lots of places to hide, lots of things to climb, it seems
perfect.”

She looked at me with an expression that somehow managed to mix incredulousness

with awe. “How do you know all of that?”

“I checked out Wikipedia while MapQuest was loading.”

“What?”

“Never mind. I figure that if we find a better place on the way, we can always call it a
day there.”
 We walked in silence for a while before Heather said anything. “Why go through
California instead of through the northern states?”

“It’s the most populated state in the country. If the United States is going to stage some
sort of offensive to try to stop this from getting worse it’s probably going to be run from
California. We might get there and find out that we don’t have to move to the middle of
nowhere after all. Besides, I’ve never been to California before and I’ve heard good things.”

Despite herself, Heather laughed. “You are the strangest person that I’ve ever met,
James, you know that?”

I took a small bow. “That’s ever so kind of you to say, madam.”

“Alright, fine, you’ve convinced me. Let’s do it.”

Whoo hoo, road trip!

My reasons for wanting to embark on a quest of epic proportions were a bit more
complicated than I had told Heather. Well, not complicated so much as there were a couple of
things that I oops kinda sorta left out. It was completely unintentional, I assure you.

There was no doubt in my mind that it was only a matter of time before the undead
plague spread and took over the vast majority of the country. The United States simply wasn’t
prepared to fight such a battle of such magnitude on its own soil, especially since the majority
of our military resources were devoted to the so-called War on Terror across the globe.
Combine that with the ineffectiveness of so many of the military’s usual tactics against
something that couldn’t feel fear or be killed except in very specific ways, and it all added up to
spell doom (assuming Math and Spelling were somehow related, which they might be given my
attention span in school). Things would be even worse in other countries that didn’t have the
weapons or personnel to really defend themselves. We were looking at a snowball effect that
would eventually lead to the fall of humanity as the dominant species for a good long while if
not forever.

That’s why getting ahead of the zombie hordes was so important to me: I needed time
to make preparations. My plan was to have as much time as possible to set up my home turf
somewhere remote. Once that was done, I could lure the undead to me and fight them on my
own terms. I wasn’t one of those sloppy serial killers that did everything on emotion and
adrenaline rushes; I liked to tilt the odds in my favor before settling in for a nice killing spree.
Given enough time I could construct a home that could not only protect me and those I
allowed inside, but could also be a deathtrap for those attempting to barge in.

The word “time” is the important word here, though. It was impossible to guess just
how soon we’d be living in the United States of Uhhhhhhhhmerica, so we needed to hurry so
that we could give ourselves as much time as possible. That meant getting ahead of the
outbreak. After all, I wanted to do everything that I could to become known as the greatest
mass re-murderer (can’t really say mass murderer since, you know, they’re already technically
dead) in history. I was already clearly behind the guy that had set off the explosion a few
minutes ago.

Was that a weird goal, do you think? Do you think it’s any stranger than a fat person
making a New Year’s resolution to lose weight? Or how about a young college student making
a vow to become a millionaire within the next twenty years? Everyone has to have goals.
Otherwise they’d simply be floating through life without any sort of purpose. Mine just
happened to be to go down in the record books as the guy that ended the un-life of the most
flesh-devouring reanimated bodies.
 To achieve this modest goal, however, I would first have to insure my own survival and
the survival of those that could further my activities. If it seems to you, dear reader, that I was
leaving the place where all the action was or, worse, making a break for it, let me assure you
that I am no idiot and I’m certainly no coward. I was going to make sure that I had fun on my
own terms, not someone else’s.

“Hey, do you hear that?” Heather asked, jerking me out of my silent introspection. “The
fighting has stopped.”

I listened for a moment and learned that she was right. The gunfire and shouting had
fallen silent. We walked on in complete silence except for the sound of the night breeze
blowing through the trees.

“What do you think happened?” she finally asked in a voice barely above a whisper. She
was clearly feeling uneasy.

“I don’t know,” I admitted.

More silence. We went about another two miles before I became aware of faint
humming coming from a side street. I motioned for Heather to stop and we moved out of the
road and into the grass. A minute or so later it clicked: it was the sound of a car engine. It’s
strange how it seemed like such a foreign sound on this particular night. Eventually the glow
of headlights became visible.

“We should flag the driver down and hitch a ride,” Heather murmured.

“We might as well,” I agreed. “Just be sure to make a lot of noise and exaggerate your
motions. We don’t want him to think that we’re zombies and run us down.”

Thirty seconds later, we found ourselves back in the middle of the road, yelling and
waving like a couple of drooling idiots. The rather odd thought that I now knew what it was
like to be a Packers fan flittered across my brain. At first it didn’t seem like the vehicle was
going to stop, and I began to tense to fling myself out of the way. Finally our gorilla-like
dancing and screaming seemed to do the trick, and it came to a stop about fifteen feet in front
of us.

It didn’t take a car genius to see that it was the military. The Jeep looked like it had
driven right out of stock news footage of any number of desert conflicts. A man dressed head
to toe in camouflage fatigues jumped out of the driver’s side and pointed a pistol at us. I heard
a little voice in my head coo at the thought of G.I. Joe wanting to play a game of Who Can Kill
Who. I told the voice to be quite and go back to sleep. We had other things to worry about.

“Who are you?” the man demanded in a gravely voice. I wondered if it always sounded
that way or if it was hoarse from shouting.

“Nobody here but us chickens, sir,” I answered brightly.

Heather shot me a look that made even me cringe slightly. “I’m Heather Davenport. I’m
a detective with the Canal Logan police department. My companion is James Pool. He’s a
civilian.”

‘Civilian’ didn’t really quite hit the mark, but I let it pass.

“We’re alive, obviously,” she continued. “Neither of us is infected. We’re just trying to
make our way west and get the hell out of this nightmare.”

This seemed to satisfy the soldier, or at least placated him enough to lower the gun.
“Sorry about that, detective,” he apologized in a much friendlier tone. “We can’t be too
careful with these NLCs running around. We’re headed west ourselves. Why don’t you folks
toss your gear in the back and hop in?”

“We’d really appreciate that, sir.”

Two minutes later Heather and I were sitting in the back seat of the Jeep as it drove
onward. The driver told us his name was Corporal Steven Banks of the US Army. His passenger
was Private First Class Martin Perkins, and he wasn’t doing well at all. In the darkness it was
hard to tell, but I sort of got the impression that something wasn’t quite…right with Perkins.
Every time we hit a bump he would cry out ever so slightly, and more than once he gripped the
door as if for support.

“Were you two with the group we heard to the north?” Heather asked as she tried to
find a comfortable sitting position on the hard seat.

“Yes ma’am,” Banks confirmed with a nod. “We were part of a joint military operation

designed to cut off the NLC advance towards Columbus. Perkins and I are part of the 28 th
Infantry Division out of Pennsylvania. Technically we’re part of the Pennsylvania National
Guard, but when the armed forces withdrew from the state, we were absorbed back into the
Army itself.”

“How did the battle go?”

He surprised us with a vehement curse. “It went like shit, that’s how it went. Our group
took up positions in the Horseshoe. You know, the Ohio State stadium where the football team
plays. The plan was to form a loose perimeter all around the city, kind of like a reverse siege,
and just pick off the NLCs as they came to us. No close contact with them, no need to worry
about being infected by the bastards.

“Everything was going all fine and dandy until some of us started realizing that they kept
coming. It was hard to see because the flood lights only reached so far, you know? But I’ll be
damned if for every one I shot the fucking head off of three more didn’t take its place. They
just kept coming and coming. No fucking kidding, there had to have been at least a million
NLCs coming towards us.”

“You keep saying NLC,” I observed.

“Oh, yeah, sorry, it’s slang that the officers were using. It stands for Non-Living
Combatants. What a fucking name, right? Like they’re terrorists that just happen to be dead
and still walking around. Most of us grunts just called them zombies. I mean, come on, that’s
what they are, aren’t they? They can’t possibly be anything else. God, to think I used to watch
those George Romero flicks with my buddies in school and we’d rag on them for being so
stupid. Now, though…Christ, real fucking zombies. Jesus fucking Christ.”

“The battle,” Heather nudged him gently.

“Let’s call it what it was: a massacre. It wasn’t a fucking battle, because that sounds like
we gave as good as we got. Fact of the matter is we had no way to take down that many. They
kept coming and coming. They just ignored the exploding heads around them and kept
pushing their way into the stadium. I’ll never forget the sound of those huge metal gates
crashing down. They actually did a damn fine job, but there’s only so much of a beating a gate
can take, and with that many zombies they didn’t stay in place long.

“The zombies poured into the stadium like…well, have you ever seen a cave on the
beach when the ocean comes in? It’s all empty and dry, and suddenly these waves fill it full of
water? It was a lot like that. The officers tried to maintain some order, but the boys knew that
they were trapped like rats and weren’t having any of it.
 “I got lucky. I was able to slip through one of the exits that the assholes weren’t
assaulting. Perkins here got caught in the side with one of the metal gates when they fell. We
think it busted up some stuff inside of him, but he’s a tough son of a bitch and he managed to
get out with me. We found this Jeep abandoned and, well, here we are.”

“We saw what happened to our unit commander,” Perkins unexpectedly put in. His
voice was weak and strangely slurred, almost like he was talking underwater. “Four of the
bastards got him pinned up against the wall. The first one grabbed him by the shoulder and bit
off his jaw. Just leaned right in and tore off the bottom part of Wilkins’s face. The other three
ripped him open and…”

He suddenly went into a coughing fit. When he regained control he whispered, “Wilkins
had a wife and kids, and the bastards ripped him to shreds.”

“Just be glad we didn’t see him come back, Private.” Banks glanced in the rear view
mirror at us. “That happens, you know. If they don’t eat or destroy the brain, the person
becomes one of them.”

“We know,” Heather confirmed, her jaw set. “I had to put down some good friends
yesterday.”

“I’m sorry to hear that, ma’am.” There was an awkward silence before Banks continued.
“We’ve been in contact with a few other survivors over the radio. It seems like the entire force
was decimated. As far as we can tell, nobody in charge made it out. Those of us that did make
it out are making a break for Fort Leavenworth in Kansas. The plan is to stay in small groups so
we don’t attract any more NLCs than we have to. I figure that we can cross the Mississippi
somewhere near St. Louis and head into Kansas from there.”
 Heather nodded her approval. “Sounds like a plan. James and I are headed,” I shot her
a warning look, “further west, so if you don’t mind, we’d like to bum a ride off you until St.
Louis.”

“That’s fine by me if it’s okay with you, Perkins.”

“I’m for anything that means I don’t have to look at your ugly mug all the way there,
Banks,” Perkins rasped out.

Even without being able to see their faces, I knew that they were both smiling. Despite
the insanity of the ordeal they had just gone through and the obvious severity of Perkins’s
injuries, they were clearly keeping things together. I have to say that I was impressed. Most
people would have been rendered useless by the situation, little more than blubbering
quavering gelatin molds weeping all over themselves and begging for Mommy dearest to come
save them. Just because they were soldiers didn’t make it any less of an accomplishment. One
of my fellow inmates at the asylum, a charming fellow by the name of Elijah Turpin, was known
for making cops and military folks piss themselves before cutting out their hearts and eating
them. I never really got the point of the cardiac cannibalism, but hey, to each his own. My
point is there are weak willed people in every walk of life. These two did not walk among
them.
CHAPTER FIVE

Kill Counter- 31

Actually, I killed a zombie when we stopped for a bathroom break just before dawn, but I
figured you wouldn’t want to read about my exploits while pissing. You should thank me for
looking out for your best interests.

Kill Counter- 32

There we go. That’s much better. And you’re welcome.

We drove on steadily, only stopping for short breaks to stretch, relieve ourselves, gas up,
and forage random stores for food. Usually the stops involved at least two of the above,
sometimes as many as all four at once. We took turns driving with the exception of Perkins,
who could barely get out of his seat for the breaks let alone attempt to operate a vehicle.

In fact, he seemed to be getting worse. Every so often he would go into another fit of
coughing, and during these attacks he was spitting up blood more and more. I had seen these
injuries before. Hell, I had caused them before. I knew that without medical attention soon,
this particular cowboy was going to be riding off into the sunset.

Banks was back in the driver’s seat when we finally reached the Mississippi River.
Frankly I had begun to have some doubts that we were going to ever actually find the thing, as
we were going off of Banks’s memory (it left something to be desired). Around hour ten,
though, lo and behold, there it was in all its glory. The large stone bridge directly in front of us
was packed with cars trying to make it to the other side ahead of what we all knew was coming
and coming soon.

Armed military guards were stationed on both sides, and they were inspecting each car
individually to presumably weed out any infected. There were a group of men in biohazard
suits that were waiting nearby. They stood next to a number of what appeared to be medical
tents. I was pretty sure I had seen this same thing during an in-flight movie a few years ago,
except it involved Dustin Hoffman and a monkey.

It took us nearly an hour to go the half a mile or so to reach the bridge itself. When we
did, a rather burly man in combat gear ordered us to stop the Jeep and pile out. Banks glanced
over at Perkins and seemed about ready to argue, but instead he nodded and we all stepped
out to the side of the road.

“Where are you headed, soldier?” the man asked Banks as a doctor of some sort walked
over to us with a kit in his hand.

“Fort Leavenworth, sir,” Banks answered his apparently senior equivalent. “We were
part of the Columbus campaign. Now we’re heading to Leavenworth for medical attention and
to receive new orders.”

I saw the soldier’s grip visibly tighten on his rifle. “Part of the Columbus campaign, you
said? And you’re wounded?”

“Not me, sir, no. Private Perkins here is.” Seeing the expression on the soldier’s face, he
hurriedly added, “He hasn’t been bitten, sir. A metal gate fell on him.”

The soldier relaxed slightly as his gaze remained on Perkins. “Ah, sorry to hear that,
Private.” He looked at Heather and me. “You two aren’t military.” He said it almost accusingly.

“Right in one,” I replied with a smile. “These two gentlemen were kind enough to give
us a lift out of Ohio and across this river.”

He nodded. “All right. Here’s how it works. Dr. Hampton here is going to draw some
blood from you. He’s going to use it determine if any of you is carrying the Orpheus virus.”

The Orpheus virus. What a clever little name. I assumed that it referred to the Greek
myth of Orpheus, the man who had walked into Hades to retrieve his wife Eurydice and
managed to return to the world of the living (still without Eurydice, though, so, yeah, sucks to
be her). It didn’t necessarily role off the tongue, but to be fair, there were a lot worse names
that they could have gone with. Something like, oh, say, the DeadMoFo virus wouldn’t have
carried quite the same amount of weight.

“How can you tell from a blood sample?” Heather asked curiously as she rolled up her
sleeve.

“It’s actually surprisingly easy,” the man known as Dr. Hampton assured her. He dug
through his kit and produced a small plastic-sealed syringe. He tore the package open.
“Infected blood clots extremely quickly once it leaves the body, so all we have to do is take a
blood sample and wait about a minute or so. If the person is infected, the blood will blacken
and begin to crust over.”

Ten minutes later we were all piling back in the Jeep and nursing small puncture
wounds. I knew it was irrational, but I had feared that the good doctor might have taken
things a step further and run a DNA test, which of course would have sounded all sorts of bells
and whistles for my particular sample. I had been relieved to see that all the samples were
incinerated after being checked for signs of infection.

Banks, Pierce, and the soldier that had escorted us from the Jeep all participated in
some sort of salute orgy before we started out once again and crossed the bridge. It seemed
almost strange to see normal everyday life going on around us, such as restaurants that were
open and doing steady business and gas stations that didn’t feature young female police
detectives huddled behind display racks with mop handles. We drove for about half an hour
before we came to a stop in a school parking lot.

“Perkins and I have to head southwest from here to reach the base,” Banks told us. “If
you still want to head directly west, this is where we part ways. You’re welcome to come with
us to Leavenworth, though, it’s about as safe of a place as you’re going to find.”

I glanced over at Heather. “We appreciate the offer, but we’re going to have to pass,” I
replied. I really did appreciate the offer, too, but there was no way I was going to find myself
trapped on a military base and waiting to get overrun instead of being out and about in the
world waiting to get started on my Guinness Book record. “We’ve got places to go and people
to see. You know how it is. Thanks for the ride, though.”

“Hey, don’t mention it.”

A few minutes later, I was once again burdened with the weight of my pack as we walked
down the street. We stopped for a bit while Heather purchased a change of clothes from a
clothing store before we continued onward.

“That’s basically all the money I had,” she said almost apologetically. “I kind of live
paycheck to paycheck. I couldn’t stand wearing that blood-soaked uniform anymore, though.”

I grunted. “I know exactly what you mean,” I assured her. “Don’t worry about it. I used
to do a lot of survival training” -which I used to hide from the authorities for long periods of
time- “so we’ll get by. Besides, I have a feeling that we’ll start running into abandoned homes
and stores before long.”

“Oh?”

“I’m betting that all of these nice open establishments are still doing business because of
how close they are to where thousands of people are making a run for it every day. I think
we’re going to find that the businesses that aren’t bringing in huge amounts of money have
been shut down and the owners are long gone.”

Heather sighed. “There isn’t anywhere that’s really safe, is there? There’s nowhere for
these people to escape to.”

I shifted the pack slightly. “I doubt it. You heard what Banks said about how easily his
group was overrun in Columbus. There are too many zombies out there for us to stop them
from taking over the country at this point. Maybe if the government had stepped in sooner
things would be different, but now…” I shrugged.

“So you’re saying you think it’s hopeless.”

I think I surprised her as I laughed loudly. “Things are hardly hopeless, Heather. The
world might become completely infested with the undead, but that doesn’t mean that we
can’t still live in that world. It won’t be the same by any stretch of the imagination. No more
NFL playoffs, no more celebrity mug shots, no more logging on to check Facebook at work,
none of that sort of thing. We’ll still have our lives, though, and we’ll still have joy and sorrow
and pain and pleasure. Things are always changing, and this is the biggest change I can
possibly think of, but it’s certainly not hopeless.”
 Her face broke out into a grin. “Has anyone ever told you that you’re a disgustingly
optimistic person?”

“It’s come up from time to time, yeah.”

It was sometime in the early afternoon that my prophesy began to come true. Not the
part about the world being totally consumed by the undead. That part took a bit longer. I
mean the part about finding large amounts of abandoned property. We started passing homes
and businesses that were completely boarded up; I was reminded of pictures of people
solidifying their homes against coming hurricanes. By early evening, we found ourselves
walking through a virtual ghost town. Other pedestrians were a rarity, and even the amount of
motorists zooming by at high speeds began to dwindle to almost nothing.

“’Welcome to Yorkshire’,” Heather read as we entered the city’s downtown area, which
there wasn’t much of. “I don’t think we’re going to find a lot of people to welcome us here.”

She was quite right about that. We didn’t encounter another living (or un-living) soul
until we reached the other side downtown. What sounded like a group of boys laughing came
from behind a one hour photo shop, almost immediately followed by an angry female voice
saying, “The first one of you fuckers that touches me loses his dick.”

“That can’t be good,” Heather muttered, her hand instinctively going to the gun that was
no longer at her side.

“Do you want to go check it out?” I suggested. “If your Cop Sense is tingling we can see
what’s going on.”

Without answering, she untied the pistol from the side of the pack I was carrying and
started towards the voices. I didn’t really have much of a choice, so I followed behind her. She
stopped at the side of the photo shop and cautiously peered around the corner. The laughing
was growing louder and more mocking by the second. There was a brief shuffling sound, and
the female voice gasped in surprise or pain, I couldn’t tell which. With a curse, Heather
stepped around the corner and leveled the gun at presumably targets of the male persuasion.

“Get your hands off of her and step away,” she ordered as I dropped the pack on the
ground and moved to her side.

Four boys, no older than seventeen or eighteen, were surrounding a girl of a similar age.
She was dressed in jeans and a black hoodie despite the warm evening, and the locks of hair
that stuck out from under the raised hood were clearly dyed red. One of her arms was pinned
behind her by the tallest of the boys, a charming fellow with a shaved head and multiple
piercings around his rat-like face. She looked concerned but not actually frightened. That
certainly wasn’t the normal response to being the main event of a would-be gang rape.

“I said let her go,” Heather repeated, cocking the hammer of the pistol back to
emphasize her point.

“I’ve got a better idea,” Mr. Piercings said in a voice that left no doubt in my mind that
he was currently on something. “Why don’t you wait your turn and we’ll get to you after this
dumb bitch?”

The other boys laughed. Yeah, there were definitely some drugs involved here.

“Why don’t you let me handle this, Heather?” I suggested. I went back over to the pack
and untied the rope binding one of the crowbars to it. Whistling a random tune (my whistling
was quite flat, sadly, as I don’t possess much in the way of musical skills), I stepped back into
the gang’s line of sight and flashed them a large smile. The grins were slowly slipping off of
their faces as they stupidly looked back and forth between me and the crowbar. Without
saying a word, I walked slowly over to Mr. Piercings and looked him over for a few moments.

“You see anything you like, homo?” he sneered at me.

“Not yet,” I admitted.

With no warning, I snatched up the crowbar in both hands and drove it into the side of
his leg as hard as I could. There was a satisfying crunch as it snapped the bone like so many
twigs. Mr. Piercing’s mouth opened in a silent scream, his eyes bulging and the tendons in his
neck going taunt, and he slowly crumpled to the ground in a heap. Everyone else on the scene
was shocked into complete stillness. I noticed that one of his hands was grasping at the
concrete in an odd way. Probably just an involuntary spasm from the pain, I deduced. Still, it
kind of took away from the scene in my eyes, so for good measure and for the sake of the
artistic quality of the moment, I went ahead and brought the crowbar down on it with enough
force to basically turn the bones to powder.

“Now I see something I like,” I told him as he rolled around whimpering. I turned to the
other three boys. “Here’s the deal, gents. Either you leave now, or I show you what a crowbar
can do to other sensitive areas of the body.” I lowered my eyelids dramatically to slits.
“Maybe I’ll start with the eyes.”

Magicians can’t disappear as quickly as they did.

I leaned over Mr. Piercings and favored him with another smile. I brought my mouth
down close to his ear so that we could have a private conversation. To be more precise, it was
so that I could talk and he could listen.

“I’m going to tell you a little secret, my friend,” I whispered to him. “I’ve done a lot of
sick things in my time, things that would make you slit your wrists just to get away from them.
I have no problem with forcing the hooked end of my little toy here up your nose and using
your face as a flesh puppet. As it stands, you’ll probably heal. If you ever come near this girl
again I’ll make sure that you won’t. Do we have an understanding?”

Without waiting for an answer, I rapped him in the temple with the top of the crowbar
to knock him unconscious.

“I think we have an understanding. Thank you for your time, and have a great day.”

“Was that really necessary?” Heather asked with a hint of disgust in her voice. She
flipped the safety back on the gun and put it in her pocket.

“Would you rather have shot him in the head?” I retorted with a shrug. “There will be
plenty of cops and army men coming through here in a couple of days. He’ll be fine.”

“I guess.” She didn’t sound convinced, and I had to remind myself that not everybody
saw the word in my unique color-filled blends of black and white. She turned to the girl. “Are
you okay?”

I took a better look at our little hooded would-be rape victim. She was actually slightly
older than I had originally thought, right around eighteen or nineteen. She had a slim face
with pouty lips and ice-blue eyes that were fully locked on me. A quick glance at her slender
yet full figure made it obvious why a group of teenage boys would have been interested in
playing a game of Make the Slut Moan Whether She Wants to Or Not.

I’m no rapist and frankly the thought of being one disgusts me, so don’t get the wrong
idea. I’m just saying that I could see why the idea of sex with her would have entered their
teensy weensy little brains. Her silent staring was a bit unnerving, however.
 “Um, is there something I can help you with?” I queried.

“You just broke this guy’s leg and hand,” she answered.

Well, she certainly had a talent for stating the obvious. Yeah, well, two can play at that
game!

“Yes, yes I did. Is that a problem?”

She shook her head. “Not in the slightest. You should break a few ribs. You know, just
to make a point.”

Oh ho ho, what did we have here?

“Nobody is breaking any more bones,” Heather interjected firmly. “He might already be
crippled. Whatever point there was to make has been made.”

The girl’s eyes flicked to her. “You’re no fun.”

I liked her. “What’s your name?” I asked with genuine curiosity.

The eyes focused on me again. “Sarah Ross.”

“Well hello, Sarah Ross. I’m James Pool, and my gun-wielding sidekick is Heather
Davenport. I have to say, Sarah, that the four gentlemen you chose to spend your time with
don’t really seem like the kind of people that a proper young lady should be associating herself
with.”

A smile tugged at the edges of her lips. “I’m hardly a proper young lady. Besides, I was
just walking down the road when they dragged me back here.”

“Where are you headed?”

 “I don’t know. Somewhere. Anywhere. In case you haven’t heard, the dead have
decided to rise and are coming to eat us. I figured that wasn’t something I was interested in
having happen to me, so I started off in the opposite direction.”

“What about your parents?” Heather asked.

“My family lives in Boston. Well, lived in Boston. I guess one way or another they aren’t
there anymore. I’m a student at the University of Missouri, so here I am. I suppose I won’t
have to finish that term paper after all.”

This, my friend, was a rare breed of human. While dealing with the probable zombie
consumption of her family and the very real fact that she was heading into parts unknown with
very little (if any) supplies, she was accosted by four larger and stronger boys who made it very
clear that they were going to rape her and, if she resisted, hurt her. Then two complete
strangers show up, one with a gun pointed in her general vicinity, and she witnesses someone
her age brutally beaten and knocked unconscious by a someone that, for all she knew, was
completely psychotic (if she did guess that, Johnny, tell her what she’s won!).

Yet here she was, cracking jokes and completely calm. I don’t mean that she was
outwardly faking calmness, either. As someone that’s looked into the eyes of many people
that are terrified for their lives, I pride myself on being able to spot false bravado. This Sarah
Ross was the real deal.

“How would you like to walk with us for a bit?” I suggested. “While we walk I can tell
you all about the wonders and majesty of a little place I like to call Oregon.”
CHAPTER SIX

Kill Counter- 32

I really do apologize for not adding to the Kill Counter during that last chapter. It’s hard
to kill the undead when there aren’t any undead, but hey, I’m not the kind of guy that falls
back on excuses instead of owning up to what he’s done. So, from me to you, I give you my
most sincere apology. I’m afraid to admit that there may be at least a few more chapters
written before this is all done that will have the same lapse in (un)life snuffing. I promise that
I’ll find some way to make it up to you though. You’re an important person in my life, and I
wouldn’t want you to be discontent.

It’s not all bad, you now. Did you see what I did to that guy’s leg and hand? That
seemed like it would hurt, didn’t it? He was all like, “Look at me, I’m an angst-filled teenager
that doesn’t know that the world can hurt me yet.” And I was all ninja like, “My Kung Fu is
stronger.” Then he was all like, “Nu-uh!” Then I went all, “Feel my wrath in heavy metal stick
form! Wa cha! Kapow!” Then he was all like, “Ow! Why ya be hatin’ on ma leg?” Then I was
all like, “Kneel before Zod!”

The views and event recollections in the preceding paragraph may or may not have
actually happened. It does not necessarily reflect the views and event recollections of the
author or book publicist. For more information, visit your local library.

The sun had almost completely set when we decided that it was time to call a halt for
the day. We managed to procure adjoining rooms from a rather well kept motel (and by that I
mean we broke into a small motel we found abandoned and boarded up just off the main
road). There was a grocery store just across the street, so we also procured access to it as well
(replace the word “motel” with “grocery store” in my previous clarification and you’re not far
off from the truth). We managed to scavenge for dinner and reloaded our supplies all in one
trip. The sign out front declared it ‘One Stop Shopping’, and I had no reason to decry it as false
advertising.

I had been lying in bed less than an hour when a knock came at my door. I’d be lying if
the interruption didn’t come as something of an annoyance; I hadn’t slept for over two days at
this point, and even the crappy motel mattress was feeling amazing. Sure, I was probably
bedding down with more than my fair share of bed bugs and dust mites by sleeping on it, but
having a few annoying itches was a minor price for a quality rest.

“Who do I have to kill around here to get some shuteye?” I grumbled to myself as I went
to the door to answer it.

Standing on the other side, looking a whole lot more awake than I probably did, was one
Ms. Sarah Ross. Her hood was down now, revealing that her red dyed hair was cut fairly short,
but this rather trivial fact was secondary to the look in her eyes. It was a look of nervousness
and of burning curiosity. I motioned her into the room and closed the door behind her before
plopping back down on my bed.

“I’m sorry for bothering you,” she said as she glanced at the rather ragged chair in the
room before apparently deciding that standing was preferable to sitting. “I have to ask you
something.”

“Something that couldn’t have waited until I got some sleep and a few dozen pots of
coffee into me?” I asked pointedly.
 “Yeah, actually. I have to know something.”

“What’s that?”

She didn’t reply. Instead, she chewed on her bottom lip as she looked everywhere but at
me. I suppressed a smile as I watched her stew in her nervousness.

I knew what she wanted, of course. I had known ever since she offhandedly suggested
that I break a few of that punk’s ribs ‘just to be sure’. Unless you’re someone like myself, you
may not understand this, but there’s a certain kinship between those of us that have our
particular outlook on life. More to the point, there’s a connection between those of us that
have our particular outlook on ending life. It’s kind of a like a sixth sense, an internal radar that
alerts us to the presence of people like ourselves.

“You want to know how I could just walk up to a person and assault him like I did,” I said
finally. “You want to know what it felt like to feel the bones crushed by the crowbar when I
made contact. Most of all, though, you want to know if I’ve ever gone further than that. If I’ve
ever killed someone and if so how it felt to end a life.”

Her eyes returned to mine, and she nodded silently.

“Then let’s go through them in order, shall we? I can walk up to someone and assault
him without a second thought because I’m not like your average everyday run-of-the-mill
person. I see the world just a little bit differently than everyone else, and I feel that little sting
of morality just a little bit less than everyone else.

“It felt quite good, actually. There wasn’t much resistance from the bone when I struck
it. When you combine the weight of the crowbar with the power of the swing, there isn’t a
whole lot that the human body can bring to the table to protect itself. If you’ve ever used one
of those little mallets to break open a crab or lobster shell, you’ve got a pretty good idea of
what all is involved.

“The next part is where things get a bit complicated, of course. This is where you get to
make a choice, Sarah. Either I can keep going, or I can stop. If you tell me to keep going, I’ll tell
you everything and you may not like it. Most people of good taste wouldn’t. If you tell me to
stop, this all ends and we can both go back to sleep and rest up for the busy day we’ve got
ahead of us tomorrow. It’s up to you.

“What I will say is this: the situation has changed dramatically from the time when I may
or may not have done things you might find…distasteful. For me the focus is completely on the
zombies we’ve got heading our way. I’d like to say more than that, but I can’t because of that
choice you’ve got to make.”

There was just the briefest of hesitations before she said, “I want you to tell me
everything.”

I nodded and laid back down with my hands clasped behind my head. “I figured that’s
the option you would go with. All right, here goes. As you may have guessed, I have indeed
taken a life before. You probably think I was in the military or I was a cop or something like
that and had to kill someone during the line of duty. Or maybe you think that it was some sort
of accident, something that I regret deeply and have been forever changed by. Here’s the
thing, though: I killed someone simply because I wanted to. Several someones, truth be told.”

“How many?”

“Oh, really, who keeps track anymore? I really don’t remember. If I had to take a guess
I’d say it was around twenty-six or twenty-seven. That might not sound like a lot, but keep in
mind that the average amount of slayings performed by a serial killer, not a bomber or a
terrorist or anything like that, an actual serial killer that gets up close and personal with each
victim individually, is something like three or four. The prosecutor was only able to prove a few
of those killings to a jury of what was laughably called my peers, but the actual amount was
somewhere in the mid to high twenties.

“I had no real MO. That drove the police crazy when they were trying to track me down.
Stabbings, shootings, decapitations, bleedings, electrocutions, I dabbled in them all. The
prosecutor called me ‘the true face of evil in America’ during his closing arguments; I think
that’s rather flattering, don’t you? Since I didn’t show any remorse and I took the whole court
proceedings with such good humor, I was ultimately sentenced to life in an asylum for the
criminally insane instead of some random prison that probably couldn’t have held me anyway.
They didn’t seem to understand the fact that, when I killed, it was just something that I
seemed to be programmed to do. There weren’t any underlying emotions, no abuse or bad
parenting on my family’s end. I just killed to kill, basically.”

I sat back up and stared deep into her icy blue eyes. “Here’s the thing, though. Now
that I’m out and about in the world again, I don’t think that I’ll be taking any more human lives.
I could have easily tenderized that kid’s brain with a crowbar today. I could have killed him in
any of a dozen ways, and there would have been nobody to stop me or hunt for me afterward.
I didn’t, though, because I realized something. This undead invasion, no matter what caused it
or what it will lead to, is a curse to most people and a blessing to me. I can do whatever I want
to these so-called zombies without consequence, and there are times that I’ll probably even be
praised for it. The world is becoming my own personal playground, and if I can make some real
live people safer and happier while I’m enjoying myself, so much the better.

“So. Now you know.”

 She was chewing her lip even harder now. She nodded slightly. “Now I know.”

“Now that you know, what do you plan to do? There’s a cop, I guess former cop now,
sleeping two doors down that has no idea about any of this. You could always run out the door
and go wake her up to inform her about my colorful past.”

I knew that she wouldn’t take me up on that particular suggestion, but I certainly wasn’t
expecting what happened next. Without a word, she took off her hoodie to reveal that she
was wearing a rather thin and tight white shirt that left it quite obvious that her bra was lacey
and black. She tossed the hoodie in the chair (hopefully whatever was living in the furniture
wouldn’t devour it), and laid down next to me on the bed. She curled up tightly against me
and slowly ran her hand over my chest while her thigh rubbed against mine.

“Is this okay?” she asked almost shyly.

“Uh, yeah, sure,” I managed to stutter out.

“Good.” She nuzzled her nose at my neck. “I don’t want you to think that I’m some
giant whore or a slut or something like that. I’m not. This is the first time that I’ve ever gotten
into bed with a guy that I just met. I want you to know that.”

“If that’s true, why are you doing it now?”

“Because you’re just so damn real. Does that make any sense? You’re the most real guy
that I’ve ever met, and there’s this…this connection that I feel to you. I’ve had thoughts, you
know, thoughts about killing and death and blood. So much blood. I never acted on them, of
course, but I had them all the same. I’ve always felt so trapped, like my skin was too tight for
my body and my full potential could never be reached. After watching you with that crowbar
today, I got this little thrill that went up my spine and I thought, ‘That’s what has been
missing.’”

“You felt inhibited.”

“Exactly. But you’re right, you’re absolutely right. This whole thing with zombies taking
over the world is a chance for people like you and me to be free. Teach me what it’s like to be
free. Teach me how to be like you, to be as good as you are.”

An apprentice? I had never really considered the possibility before. In general, it was
inviting disaster for someone in my line of work (or pleasure, depending on how you saw
things) to bring another person into his or her little dark corner of the world. It made it easier
to slip up and leave behind some scrap of evidence that would allow law enforcement to move
in and ruin your day.

The situation had certainly changed, though. It was amazing how something as tiny as
the end of civilization as we know it could shift the normal way of things.

Well, hell, why not? I had seen that little spark of somethin’ somethin’ in Sarah’s eyes
when I had let my crowbar do the talking. If I was a betting man, I would put odds on her
being able to become quite the sexy little killer. From a personal standpoint, it would be nice
to have someone to carry on certain conversations with that I couldn’t have with, say, Heather.
Or 99.9999% of the population, for that matter. Besides, there would be plenty of zombies to
go around. Two hands were better than one according to the old saying.

Well no shit two hands are better than one. Have you ever seen a guy missing an arm
try to lift a barbell?

“All right,” I agreed. “I’ll teach you what I know. Then we can brainstorm up some new
ways to have fun together.” I paused. “You don’t have to be all super hot sexy with me to get
me to show you the ropes, you know.”

“Don’t you like it?” she whispered.

“Um, I didn’t say that.”

She playfully nipped the side of my neck. “Good. This is…unrelated. It has nothing to
do with trying to convince you to teach me. This is something else entirely.”

I turned my head to get a better look at her face. “Which is?”

“It’s something I want.” She rolled over on top of me and kissed me in a rather serious
way.

Somewhat out of breath, I gently pushed her away. “We can come back to this later.
And believe me, I definitely want to come back to it. There’s something we need to do first,
though.”

She nodded and stood up to allow me to get out of the bed. I went over to the chair and
I tossed her hoodie to her.

“What do we need to do?” she asked as she put back on the piece of clothing.

“We need to go break into a few stores and get you some things that you’ll need.”

“Supplies?”

“Among other things, yes.”

We crept out into the night with flashlights in hand and went back to the grocery store
that we had completely and legally thank you very much officer acquired our dinner from. It
was one of those newer styles of grocery stores that seemed to combine being a food provider
with being a mini-mall. You know, one of the ones where you could pick up a roasted turkey
and patio furniture all in the same trip. We ignored the outdoor grills and inflatable pools,
however, and went to a section that was advertising Back to School merchandise. I searched
through the racks until I found one with backpacks and handed two to my fellow accomplice.

“One each for you and Heather,” I explained. “I was going to wait until morning to do
this, but I think we’ll want to keep the exact contents of your particular backpack private now
that you’ve decided to learn the trade. The black one is yours, and the red one is hers. Don’t
get them confused. All right, let’s get yours ready to go first.”

I continued talking as we scoured the aisles. “Heather is a rather strong woman and she
strikes me as a realist. She knows that there’s going to be times in this Brave New World that
savagery and brutality are going to be called for. Knowing and doing are two very different
things, though. I’m going to let her do things at her own pace, sort of ease her into the realm
that I inhabit and you’re camped on the edges of. Until then, though, you and I will have to
keep our particular brand of thoughts to ourselves.

“If we were dealing with the typical victim, a nice living bag of flesh with blood flowing
through it and usually no tendency to try to eat your face, we’d be focusing on things that
pierce and stab. Things like knives, broken bottles, and so forth. Anything with a sharp tip.

“That kind of thing won’t work very well when you have to destroy the brain. Oh, sure,
you might get a good shot in through the eye or ear canal, but let’s face it, if there are a bunch
of zombies trying to snack on you all at once, that’s not a strong plan.

“That’s why we’re going to focus on weapons that can smash or cut through a skull.
Preferably the smashing route because cutting through bone can take a lot of strength and
usually more than one strike to do it. I’ve got a few other ideas that I want to test out before I
say definitively that they are going to work, so let’s just go with what I know does.”

I led the way back to the grocery store’s meat department and walked behind the
counter. It took me a few moments of probing with my flashlight to find what I was looking for.
I produced the object of my search and handed it to Sarah.

“That is a meat tenderizer,” I explained as she examined it. It had a long wooded handle
that ended in a rather wicked-looking metal head, one side with small bumps and the other
with larger protrusions. “They’ve kind of fallen out of favor since there are machines that can
tenderize meat now, but most butchers keep one on hand just in case. It’s a fine bludgeoning
weapon for when you have to get up close and personal with someone. You can crack a skull
like an egg without a whole lot of effort.”

Without a word, Sarah slide the mallet into her backpack and followed me as we
continued on with our shopping (stealing). Along the way, we picked up food supplies and
distributed them between the backpacks. I made it a particular point to get a few boxes of
powdered milk; I doubted that dairy items were going to be easy to come by in the rather near
future. As we were walking to the next Sarah-specific section, I made a slight detour back to
the rack of backpacks and picked up another one. We filled it with medical supplies and
bottles of vitamins from the pharmacy. Finally, we arrived at our destination: the small Home
and Garden display set up near the frozen food cases.

No, I don’t have any idea why Home and Garden was next to Frozen Foods, either.

“Pick out a shovel,” I instructed her. “Choose one that’s fairly long but you can swing
easily. A shovel isn’t as durable as the crowbars that Heather and I have, but it will do until we
can find you something a bit stronger. You don’t have to do anything fancy to kill with one of
these. Just bash your target over the head or use the edges to cut into the skull.”
 While Sarah was carefully selecting her instrument of death and destruction much like a
girl would try on dresses for prom, I took two small portable tanks of propane off a shelf and
put them into her backpack. I would make it a point to transfer them to my own pack once we
got back to the motel. You’d be surprised how often a well-timed explosion could work to your
benefit.

“I don’t see why Heather can’t know about what we’re putting in my pack,” Sarah
commented as she sent another shovel whistling through the air. Apparently deciding that it
wasn’t to her liking, she moved on to the next one.

“There’s nothing in there right now that she’d question,” I agreed. “She would probably
have an issue with this since she’s a cop, though.”

I showed her the item that I had just taken out of its packaging. It was a brush knife, the
kind used to cut down bushes and hedges. The blade was around nine inches long with a
razor-sharp hook at the end. I let the light of my flashlight dance off of the metal for a
moment before pushing it into the leather sheath that it came with and putting it in her pack.

“A knife like that won’t do much good against the undead,” I said thoughtfully. “It might
be good for one or two kills, but it wouldn’t be long before it would get stuck or would fail to
make a kill. That would be the end of you. When it comes to our situation, it’s good for one
thing and one thing only: to kill another human being. Hopefully it won’t come to that, but
you never know. I don’t think Heather is ready to accept that things like that might have to
happen. Not yet.”
CHAPTER SEVEN

Kill Counter- 32

We started out early the next morning. Heather was surprised at the appearance of
three new backpacks full of medical and food supplies, but I explained it away by telling her
that I had been restless during the night and had figured that I might as well make myself
useful. Despite my unplanned preparation of my newfound apprentice, I had actually
managed to get some quality sleep when we had returned to the motel room. Sarah had
curled up against me and fallen quickly asleep, and I had found her rhythmic breathing to be
rather relaxing as I drifted off myself. I wasn’t sure how this whole relationship with her was
going to work out, of course, but so far I found myself growing rather fond of her.

Don’t worry, reader, I haven’t forgotten about you. You and I have a different sort of
relationship, one based in both intimacy and intellectualism. After all, I can write and you can
read. We have so much in common! That’s the sort of thing that leads to fulfilling long term
relationships.

I had borrowed without the possibility of return a map from the grocery store, and we
poured over it while we walked. Heather and I had a good laugh when we realized just how far
north we were from St. Louis; Banks’ internal guidance system appeared to have been on the
fritz. We decided to keep heading directly west and cross into southern Nebraska, and once
there we would need to find a new map to figure out where to go.

The morning had dawned clear and bright, but as the day went on clouds started
building in the sky and it became obvious that there was rain in the forecast. We picked up the
pace a bit, Sarah and Heather carrying one backpack each while I had the larger hiking
backpack on my, well, back and the pack containing the medical supplies tucked under one
arm. As a little sprinkle of rain began, I found myself questioning how I had become the small
group’s designated mule. Wasn’t a part of gender equality about having to do the same
amount of work?

Still, we were making fairly good time, and the light rain felt pretty good in the
sweltering summer heat. I turned my face up towards the sky and closed my eyes, enjoying
the droplets splattering against my skin and the hint of a breeze that ran through my hair.
After nearly two years of being cooped up in an asylum, even this small amount of communing
with nature felt absolutely fantastic. I like to think of myself as a strong-willed person, a
person that can not only live with any given situation but also thrive in it, but being cut off
from the natural world had been truly unpleasant.

When I was a little boy, my father used to take me camping at least once a month. It
didn’t matter if the temperature was over ninety degrees or if there was three feet of snow on
the ground. We would hop in the station wagon with our sleeping bags and tents and head
over to one of the three state parks that were close to where we lived. It was during these
trips that I learned to appreciate the real world. Not the world that mankind has created for
itself, a world of concrete and glass and metal. I mean the real world. The world of trees and
open spaces and wilderness. I wasn’t a fanatic about it, and I certainly wasn’t going to run off
to join Greenpeace any time soon, but I really did love the outdoors.

Imagine, dear reader, that you are placed inside of a small room with no windows and
stale recycled air. The walls and ceiling are a uniform gray, and there is nobody to
communicate or have any kind of human contact with. You are left inside this room for
months or maybe even years. How badly would you want to be free again? Is it any wonder
why I loved the rain so much? I mean, I didn’t love it enough to make a commitment to it or
even take my relationship with the rain to the next level (I won’t give away my weather flower
until AFTER the wedding), but you can’t blame me for enjoying it.

I found myself repeatedly glancing over at Sarah, who despite the heat was once again
wearing her black hoodie. As a concession to the temperature she had rolled up the sleeves. I
supposed that was progress.

The thought of having an apprentice was an odd one, and yet I had to admit that it kind
of appealed to me. Forget the fact that she was hot (and holy crap she was). Forget the fact
that she was into me (for some inexplicable reason). Here was an opportunity to personally
indoctrinate another person into the League of Extraordinary Killers, of which there were very
few members, and have someone to share the actual person that is me with. What would it be
like slaughtering legions of the undead side by side with someone that took the same joy in it
as I did? I could hardly wait to find out.

This line of thought, of course, brought up the interesting question of whether or not to
measure her kills as mine on the Kill Counter. After all, if I was going to train her in the fine art
of mass murder, didn’t that sort of make her a weapon of mine, an extension of myself? I
pondered it for couple of minutes before I decided to not count any kills that she made. I
wanted every death that added to the total to be completely undisputed. No asterisk next to
my record, thank you very much. No steroids, no illegal betting on the outcome, no potentially
questionable murders.

Every so often a car would pass, and I would wonder if the passengers had some sort of
plan that they were following or if they were just fleeing in blind panic. This so-called zombie
apocalypse would be a sociologist’s nightmare. All the habits and tendencies that the majority
of society had were basically being thrown out the window in favor of the rather basic desire
for survival. Civilization was collapsing all around us, and the undead hordes hadn’t even
reached this part of the country yet. A few of my now-eaten colleagues that subscribed to the
anarchist way of life would be thrilled with the way things were going.

You know, if they hadn’t been eaten and whatnot.

We walked in silence as the rain and wind picked up a bit. From inside one of her hoodie
pockets Sarah produced an iPhone. She tapped on the screen a few times before shaking her
head.

“I haven’t been able to get any of my online apps to work since yesterday,” she
explained. “And forget about making any calls. The circuits are all busy. So much for checking
the local weather report.”

“That’s okay, I already know it,” Heather said mischievously.

“You do?”

“Yep. Today it’s going to rain.”

Sarah snorted and smiled slightly. “I’m not sure why I didn’t see that one coming.”

Despite the worsening weather, it was a rather enjoyable day. I found myself enjoying
Heather and Sarah’s company quite a bit. They were polar opposites in some ways: Heather
was a somewhat conservative person that lived in the here and now, and Sarah showed herself
to be quite liberal in her views and very creative in her thoughts. I would join in the
conversation from time to time, but for the most part I walked in silence and listened to them
banter back and forth. It really was a pleasant way to pass the time.
 It was late afternoon when I began to notice that something was odd with the sky. At
first I couldn’t put my finger on it; everything certainly appeared to be the same as it had been
all day. As we walked steadily west, however, I realized that there was a very slight red tint in
the sky up ahead. It was barely noticeable and I almost dismissed it as either my imagination
or a trick of the light. Another car passed by as I tried to silence my slowly growing worry.

“Guys, I think something is going,” Heather spoke up. “That car just passed us.”

“We’ve had cars passing us all day,” I pointed out.

“Yeah, but they were all headed west. That one was going east.”

I looked back over my shoulder and realized that she was right. The car was headed
toward the undead threat as opposed to away from it. I called a halt and set my packs on the
ground to think for a moment. The more I stared at the sky, the less I thought that my eyes
were playing tricks on me. There really did seem to be a red glow just above the horizon. No,
scratch that, it was more of a reddish orange than a red. I took the map from Heather and
looked at it intently.

“There isn’t really much ahead,” I told my companions finally. “Mostly just small towns
and open country until you reach the city of Lincoln in Nebraska.”

Heather was staring off into the distance. “Does anyone else see kind of an orange glow
in the sky?”

I nodded. “I thought it was just me.”

“No, it’s definitely there.” She paused. “When I was six, I was on vacation with my
parents in California when the hotel we were staying in was evacuated because of a wildfire
nearby. You could see the fire reflected off the clouds. It looked a hell of a lot like that up
ahead.”

A second car went zooming by and disappeared behind us.

“I don’t like this,” Sarah stated, frowning.

When a third car, a late model convertible with the top up, approached us from the east,
I quickly stepped in the road and waved my arms for the driver to stop. He had to swerve to
avoid hitting me, and I’m sure he was rather relieved that there wasn’t any oncoming traffic to
speak of. The car finally came to a stop right before it mounted the opposite sidewalk.

“What the FUCK!” the driver yelled. He was a balding man in his early fifties, wearing
thin glasses and a sweat-stained t-shirt. His passenger was a blonde woman that was clearly a
beneficiary of modern medicine and generous applications of large amounts of money.

“Oh, sorry, didn’t see you coming down the road,” I told him brightly. “But hey, since
you’re stopped anyway, I was wondering if you could tell me what’s going on up there?”

“It’s a fucking deathtrap, that’s what’s going on! Some retard in the military thought it
would be a good idea to napalm the shit out of the place, and all the crops and farmland are
on fire! They can’t stop it from spreading!”

“Why would they drop napalm?” Heather asked.

The man seemed to be calming down a bit as his blood pressure began to lower back to
a recommended level. “There’re zombies up ahead, little lady. Lots of them. They say that
California is completely overrun and they’re spreading this way. You should get your asses out
of here before either the fire or the zombies get you.” With that, he turned the car back onto
the road and sped away.
 “We’re trapped between the two groups of undead,” Heather observed. “Not to
mention there’s apparently a giant fire headed our way now. Just fucking great. What do we
do now?” She collapsed to the sidewalk and leaned against the building behind her.

I sat down across from her and spread out the map on the pavement. “What we do is
figure this out calmly and rationally,” I told her. “We can’t go west and we can’t go east. That
leaves north or south. Or we can find a place nearby to fortify and stay put for a while.”

“We’re too close to that glow to stay here,” Sarah said. “We’ll have to find somewhere
else to go.”

I nodded in agreement. “Let’s see here… Ah, here we go. Perfect. We’re just south of
the Rebel’s Cove Conservation Area. It’s a designated hunting area according to the map
legend. The Chariton River runs through it and there are a bunch of smaller ponds there as
well. That sort of environment means that a lot of it is going to be wetlands, which should
help if the fires get that far north. That glow seems to be more to the southwest, though, so I
don’t think we’ll have a problem with it at Rebel’s Cove.”

“That’s great for burning to death, but what about being eaten?” Heather asked.

“I can’t imagine the area is heavily populated, so why would the undead pay much
attention to it? Besides, it’s a designated hunting area. That means there’s got to be hunting
cabins and ranger stations. We can probably find guns and ammunition if we dig around
enough. There will be deer and fish that we can use to supplement any supplies that we find,
and there will always be water available. I think this is our best choice given the
circumstances.”

She sighed. “Yeah, I guess Oregon is kind of out of the question at this point.”
 “Unless you want to single-handedly take on millions of zombies with nothing but a
crowbar and your wits, yeah, I think we have to abandon that particular plan.” I stood and
folded the map back up. “We’re going to have to hurry if we do this. I doubt we have much
time before those two hordes meet up.”

The somewhat leisurely pace we had been keeping up was now gone; we turned north
and walked hurriedly through the streets. Sometime in the next few days it was really going to
happen. Those two swarms of zombies, one from the East Coast and one from the West Coast,
were going to converge and that was going to be the end of the United States for the
foreseeable future. The vast majority of the country’s population was either going to be killed
or, worse, turned into the undead and join their ranks. Things such as tax increases and the
national deficit were going to become meaningless, as the only thing that would be important
would be survival. The weak would be slaughtered and the strong wouldn’t have much better
odds.

Ignoring the painful protests of my feet, I marched onward with the ladies. I reflected
on what things from the old way of life I would actually miss. The Slushie that I had managed
to obtain back in Ohio was likely to be my last. That kind of sucked. No more corny horror
movies to go see on a lazy Saturday afternoon. I would be basically living in one, of course, but
that didn’t count. I had always enjoyed touring museums and science centers; even if some of
those managed to survive being destroyed by what was happening to the world, they would
probably be filled with the undead and thus not accessible. Sure, human civilization could be
cruel and barbaric at times, but there had been also been a lot of good things that had come
from it.

Instead of stopping for the night, we rested for an hour or so, ate a small meal, and
continued on. We could be reasonably certain that the zombie horde from the east was still at
least a few days away, if not more. We had no idea how close the western horde was, though,
and it wasn’t something that we wanted to learn while caught out in the open. At daybreak
we did the same. The glow of the raging fires was now firmly to our south and didn’t seem to
be coming any close. By noon we couldn’t even see the faint reddening of the clouds anymore.
The sky continued to pelt us with rain, and by this time I was no longer considering it a
blessing.

That afternoon, we began to see signs of the undead. At first there was nothing more
than a small smear of blood on a mailbox or a smashed in door, but it wasn’t long before we
came across four zombies wandering across the front yard of a house. When they spotted us
they began their trademark moan and stumbled towards us. These were much more decayed
and rancid than the ones that Heather and I had encountered in Ohio. They had clearly been
dead for a while now.

I dropped the packs I was carrying to the ground and motioned to the others to do the
same. Armed with my trusty crowbar, I moved forward quickly and struck the lead zombie, a
man with only a stub of flesh and bone for a right arm dressed in overalls, right between the
eyes. The impact caused blood and tissue to spray out from his ears and eyes, and he
stumbled backward but did not fall. I swung the crowbar again, and this time the entire side of
his head caved in before he dropped to the ground in a heap.

I turned to the next closest zombie. It was a woman in what appeared to be a

bridesmaid’s gown. At least that was the only thing I could think of to explain the gaudy (yet
poofy) lavender dress she was wearing. It was the kind of dress that a woman will never pick
out for herself but seems to want to always inflict on others at her wedding. I readied my
crowbar for another little bop on the head.
 Sarah stepped in front of me with her shovel and smoothly sliced through the top of the
undead woman’s head before I could take my swing. The zombie kind of flopped around for a
moment before coming to a rest in a puddle of her own brain matter. I was about to protest
this rather impolite kill steal when I saw the look on her face.

It was radiant. It was the face of someone that had finally found that something that
made him or her special. How could I stay mad when she was having a reaction like that? I
thought back to my own first kill and remembered how magical it had been. Ah, what the
heck, let her have her moment.

I did, however, take the next one. The man had apparently been a priest in life, as he
was wearing a black shirt and pants and one of those white collar things that men of the cloth
wear. I smashed the crowbar’s hooked top into his temple and managed to tear the head clear
off of his body. The head got stuck, and I had to strike it on the ground like I was splitting a log
to get it to release. The last of the undead met a rather painful end as Heather repeatedly
struck it with her own crowbar until everything above the shoulder area was a pile of pink and
black mush.

“That was incredible,” Sarah whispered to me, her eyes alight as she struggled to fight
back a wide grin.

“Later,” I muttered back warningly. Speaking up so that Heather could hear me, I said, “I
think this means the main group is getting closer. We need to leave right now. We don’t know
if all that moaning got the attention of more of them.”

We gathered back up our belongings and picked up the pace to a near jog. We were
hearing the telltale moaning from all directions, although none of it was directly in our path.
Every so often a scream of fright or pain would rise up before quickly falling silent. Once we
heard a series of gunshots, and we instinctively ducked down. When nothing else happened
after a moment, we got back to our feet and started off again. Finally, just when I thought that
my legs were either going to fall off or spontaneously combust from exhaustion, we reached a
sign that said, “Welcome to Rebel’s Cove Conservation Area”.

“Oh thank God,” Heather gasped as we stopped to catch our breath.

“We have to keep going,” I urged. “We need to find shelter and do what we can to
fortify it. It’s going to be dark soon, and I get the feeling we’re going to have a busy night on
our hands.”

A few hundred yards from the sign, the road went from concrete to gravel and wound its
way back into the woods. We hurried along as we kept our eyes open for a place to stay. We
passed a few cabins but continued on after quickly inspecting them and finding that they
wouldn’t hold up to any sort of assault without reinforcement that we simply couldn’t provide.
When we came to a sign pointing down a side path marked “Ranger Station”, we looked at
each other and immediately went in the direction that it indicated. A mile and a half or so
down the path, we reached the station and I immediately nodded in approval.

The station was actually two buildings, the main office building and a lookout station
that was built on a tall platform a good forty feet off of the ground. The only way up to the
lookout station was a metal ladder that was bolted to the side of the platform and was set it a
concrete slab at the bottom. Since the undead seemed incapable of climbing, it would be
almost impossible for them to reach us up there.

I instructed the ladies to take the packs up to the lookout station while I went over to
the door of the office building. The door was locked, of course, but I kicked it hard below the
bolt and the frame splintered. A second kick made the lock break free of the wood casing, and
I stepped inside. The rangers that worked here had apparently left in quite a hurry as papers
and file folders were thrown all over the place. I wasn’t interested in a hunting or fishing
license, though. The only object of my attention was the large metal cabinet at the back of the
room, clasped shut by a large padlock.

A quick application of my crowbar to the padlock gained me entry, and sure enough, my
suspicions were proven true. It was the gun closet. Four well-maintained hunting rifles with
leather shoulder straps stood in a rack with boxes of ammunition and cleaning supplies on a
shelf above them. I slung two of the rifles over my shoulder and loaded as many boxes of
ammunition as I could into an empty wastepaper basket. I hurried back outside and set down
the rifles and wastepaper basket on the concrete slab. I went back inside and repeated the
process. This time, I also tossed some of the rifle cleaning supplies into the basket.

We managed to get everything up onto the suspended platform, and I told Heather and
Sarah to rest for a few minutes while I checked out the lookout station. This door was not
locked; a twist of the handle was all it took to gain access. It was obvious that it would work
out perfectly. There was a main room with a couch, two chairs, and a large CB and shortwave
radio. Wires ran out of the radio and through a hole in the wall, which I assumed led to a
generator. A quick look out a nearby window confirmed that there was indeed a gas-powered
generator situated on the platform outside. Three doors led off of the main room: one led to a
small bathroom, the second to a large storage closet, and the final door opened into a sleeping
area with two cots. It would be cramped, but doable.

I was turning around to leave when I noticed a small table with two sets of binoculars on
it. I picked up one of sets and was surprised at the weight. A quick test showed that they were
of very good quality. I was confident that we had found the perfect place to go to ground (so
to speak) for a while.
 We brought in the packs, and Sarah plopped down on the couch while I put away the
supplies and ammunition and Heather inspected the rifles. “Well, I have to admit, this was a
good idea, James,” she said, taking off her hood and shaking the water out of her hair.

“You say that like you had some doubt,” I teased her. Truth be told, coming here had
been a risky proposition and we were lucky that it had worked out so well. Better than I would
have ever dared hope for, actually.

“I never had any doubts,” she corrected. “I just didn’t think we would find a nice cozy
place like this to be trapped in.”

“Well, enjoy the good life while you can, Sarah. I’m going back down to the office and
see if there’s anything else we can use before it gets too dark out.” After a moment of
consideration, I pulled the pistol out of my pack and put it in my waistband before returning to
the ladder.

There wasn’t much else of use in the office building. I couldn’t see myself needing, say,
a stapler any time soon, and while I’m sure that hanging file folders are great for separating
office paperwork, I had some serious doubts on their effectiveness as weapons. Maybe we
could use them to deliver a serious paper cut.

The large copier brought a rather amusing image into my head of me dropping it off of
the roof like a cartoon anvil, but I reluctantly filed the idea under the “Unrealistic” label. I
glanced back at the file folders. If I was going to start mentally filing away ideas, I might be
able to use them after all. Not knowing where my mental file cabinet was located, I continued
on.

I noticed a small glint of metal on one of the desks and went over to it curiously. To my
surprise, I discovered a set of keys…complete with a car key. I scooped up the keys and went
back outside. If a key was here, it was possible that there was a working vehicle somewhere
nearby. There was always the possibility that this was an extra set of keys, of course, but it
didn’t hurt to check. I went around to the back of the office building and found what appeared
to be either a garage or storage shed. Like had been the case with the office, there was a
heavy padlock protecting the contents. This time, though, I didn’t have to resort to human-on-
lock violence, as I simply popped it open with one of the keys. I reached down and pulled up
the metal door.

Inside was a Jeep Cherokee; it appeared to have seen its share of use, but it had
obviously been maintained. It was painted black with a green Rebel’s Cove Conservation Area
logo on the driver and passenger doors. I got in and was pleased to see that the gas tank was
full. Things were getting better and better all the time. I would have to remember to
recommend Rebel’s Cove to my friends and family for all their zombie apocalypse outings.

I locked the garage down again and went back into the office one final time. I set the
keys back where I had found them and took another good look through the building. After
rummaging around, I dug up a couple of walkie-talkies with rechargeable batteries and not
much else. That was slightly disappointing until I reminded myself of just how much we had
managed to find up to this point. It really wouldn’t do to become ungrateful at this stage.

Heather appeared in the doorway. “You need to get back up to the lookout station,” she
said hurriedly. “Now.”

I tossed her one of the walkie-talkies. “What’s going on?” I queried as I joined her
outside.

“That’s what’s going on.” She pointed towards the far side of the clearing.
 I looked in the direction that she was indicating and saw something moving. It was
difficult to see in the failing light and it took me a few moments to figure out exactly what I was
looking at. When my eyes adjusted, I immediately understood: we were out of preparation
time. The first of the undead were here.
CHAPTER EIGHT

Kill Counter- 34

You know, I just realized that I’ve been completely hogging the conversation. Just
because this is my book, it doesn’t give me the right to be a poor listener. What sort of friend
would I be if I didn’t take an interest in what you have to say?

So tell me, what’s your story? What twists and turns has your life taken to bring you to
the here and now? What led up to you picking up this particular piece of writing? I’m serious,
I want to know everything that there is to know about you, dear reader. You know so much
about me, and I feel like I hardly know you. Open up to me and spill your guts. Don’t worry, I
mean that figuratively, not literally.

Huh, I never would have guessed that would be your life story. I’m not sure what I really
expected, to be honest, just not that. You know how you sometimes form opinions about a
person without knowing the facts? I’m ashamed to say that I did that when it came to you.
Can you ever forgive me, pal o’ mine? Pretty please with sugar on top?

While you consider our possible and most likely probable reconciliation after my
inexcusable faux pas, why don’t I continue on with my story?

The first group of zombies that stumbled out of the woods towards our little slice of
heaven was a baker’s dozen strong. They followed the standard undead procedure of heading
directly towards us as they spotted Heather and I, raising their arms in a silent plea and
opening their mouths with a not-so-silent moaning. I noticed that they seemed to be rather
coordinated in their appearance, and as they drew closer I found that they were all men and
dressed in hardhats and safety vests. Either we were being stalked by an infected group of
construction workers, or the Village People had finally begun to exact their revenge upon the
Earth.

“Let’s see how hard those hats really are,” I said as I walked directly towards the undead.
I pulled the pistol out of my waistband (that sounds kind of dirty, doesn’t it?), planted my feet,
and waited patiently.

When the first zombie was less than ten feet away, I pulled the trigger and felt the gun
kick as it sent a bullet on its merry way towards the target. The bullet not only penetrated the
front of the hardhat, but it also went out the other side of the head and struck the zombie
behind my target in the arm. That one kept coming after regaining its balance, but the first
gunshot victim was quite dead (erm, again). I turned and jogged back over to Heather, who
was now standing at the base of the ladder leading up to the lookout post.

“You would think the designer of those hardhats would have taken something like this
into account and made them bulletproof,” I commented as we climbed.

“I’m guessing that they aren’t really intended to be used as protection in warzones,” she
replied dryly. “I take it we’re going to get the rifles and clear these things out?”

“That would be my vote. We’ll have to hurry before it gets totally dark out. We won’t
have much success shooting blindly at the ground.”

Sarah had already set the rifles down near the edge of the platform and was bringing
out a few boxes of bullets when we reached the top of the ladder. I nodded my thanks and
quickly loaded one of the rifles. The park rangers had certainly kept the weapons in excellent
shape. I sighted down the barrel for a moment to get a feel for the sight and weight. Satisfied,
I pointed downward, aimed, and pulled the trigger. One of the approaching zombies was flung
off his feet as the round impacted with its face. After a brief pause it tried to climb to its feet
once again, paying no attention to the fact that it was now without a cheek, so I fired once
more and this time it laid still.

“How does it perform?” Heather asked as she loaded one for herself.

“Extremely well,” I assured her. “There’s more kick to it than I expected, but other than
that it works great.”

Done loading, she chose a target and took aim. She fired the rifle and struck a zombie
for a kill on the first shot. “I wish it had a scope,” she admitted, “but you’re right, it’s a smooth
shot.”

The remaining nine undead reached the bottom of the ladder and milled around it,
unable to climb up. Hell, they seemed incapable of even considering the possibility of
climbing. They just kind of stared up at us with their arms raised and continued to moan. I
thought back to the copy machine that I had entertained a Looney Tunes fantasy with, and
once again I regretted that there was no way to bring it up to the lookout station. I was quite
sure that hilarity would have ensued if there had been.

“This is great for you guys, but I don’t know how to shoot a gun,” Sarah complained as
she leaned against the station’s doorway.

“There’s no better time to learn,” Heather told her.

While the zombies congregated at the bottom of the enigmatic and impossible to
operate entity known as the ladder, Heather showed the younger woman how to load and fire
a rifle. Sarah quickly mastered reloading the weapon, but she had a harder time get used to
actually firing it. She seemed to have a hard time accounting for the recoil properly. As she
started loosening up and stopped trying to fight it, she began to make contact with the
undead. None of the shots were kills, but she was having a great time blowing chunks out of
their bodies. When the first zombie went down with a bullet in its brain, she let out a little
cheer and hugged Heather.

“You’re a good teacher,” Sarah told her.

“I thought about becoming a high school teacher when I was little,” Heather admitted.
“My father, mother, and brother were all cops, though, so I ended up going into the family
business.”

“That seems like it was a lucky break when you consider what‘s going on now.”

We quickly dispatched the remaining zombies. Heather proved to be a superb

marksman and killed more than Sarah and I combined (still, adding a total of four kills to the
Kill Counter in one engagement was good progress). I told the ladies to keep a watch out and I
hurried down the ladder to move the bodies. In addition to making it easier for us to go up
and down the ladder, it also quieted one of the fears in the back of my mind: the possible
health hazard of having to walk through rotting corpses. I dragged them fifty yards or so away
and climbed back up to the platform before collapsing in exhaustion. If you’re wondering why I
was so tired, why don’t you go attempt to move the dead weight (pun intended) of ten human
bodies fifty yards and see how you feel. Go ahead, I’ll wait.

Oh, who are we kidding. You and I both know you won’t. Just take my word that it’s not
as easy as you might think.
 “This might be the last chance we have to go back down safely,” Heather observed. Her
demeanor was all business. “We’ve got enough food to last for a while, but we’ve only got
enough water for a couple of days. How long do we think we’ll be stuck up here?”

“This isn’t an urban area,” I pointed out. “There isn’t much reason for the zombies to
come this way. I think we’ll just get small groups like this one was, at least in the beginning.
Once they main hordes have had a chance to clear out the survivors in the surrounding towns
we’ll probably have a much bigger problem on our hands.”

She nodded. “We’re not going to be able to stay here forever. This lookout station will
be great for a while, but if you’re right and eventually the hordes, as you call them, come
calling, we’re going to be trapped up here to starve to death.”

“There’s a Jeep in the shed behind the office building. The gas tank is full. When the
time comes for us to move, we’ll at least have some transportation. We shouldn’t move for at
least a couple of weeks, though.”

“I was thinking the same thing.”

“I don’t get it, why do need to wait a couple of weeks?” Sarah asked.

Heather glanced uncomfortably at me. It was obvious what was running through her
head: she was trying to figure out how to tell a young woman a very morbid truth without
upsetting her. Of course, if she knew the kind of person that Sarah was currently and would
become with time, she wouldn’t have seen any need to be gentle. Still, it really did show how
compassionate of a person Heather really was, and that humanity was something our little
group would probably need some day. God knows I had a hard time faking it sometimes.

“When the horde coming from the east and the horde coming from the west meet, it’s
going to get ugly,” I told her. “The people that were trying to evacuate to the opposite coast
are going to be trapped between them, and it’s going to be a slaughter. There won’t be many
survivors. The undead will be concentrated on the places where the living are until everyone is
dead or escapes. Then they’ll probably disperse a bit.”

“Although the major cities will probably always been packed with them,” Heather added.

“Yeah, most likely. Anyway, we don’t want to accidentally run into the hordes when
they’re combined like that. We’d be facing millions of zombies at once. It would be suicide to
try to go through them. Even worse, if we retreated and they followed us back here, we’d be in
the exact situation that we’re trying to avoid.”

“I hadn’t thought of that,” Sarah admitted. “How do you two always have this stuff
figured out?”

“I don’t know about James, but my dad was kind of a war history buff,” Heather said.
“He used to talk to my brother and me for hours about battle tactics and famous strategies and
stuff like that.”

“And I simply read ahead in the book and found out what would happen if we didn’t stay
put for a while,” I supplied.

Heather rolled her eyes. “That’s an awful joke, James.”

Yeah, right, joke.

Wink.

The rain began to fall again, this time skipping the whole concept of sprinkling in favor of
the more dramatic torrential downpour. We headed back inside the lookout station and
watched the lightning play across the blackening sky and listened to the thunder rumble. For a
while I scanned the clearing and nearby lake for signs of any undead callers, but within an hour
it was simply too dark to see any significant distance and I gave it up as futile. Heather had
begun to fiddle with the radio, and to everyone’s surprise she managed to find a frequency
that someone was actually broadcasting on.

“-peat, we are under attack and suffering heavy losses,” a male voice was saying. The
static was annoying, but it was still possible to make out the words. “Alpha and Bravo teams
are both gone. As far as I can tell, there’s only myself and Private Criken left from Delta team.
We have taken shelter in a farmhouse and are requesting immediate evacuation. Repeat, we
require immediate evacuation. We are…”

The man was cut off by the sound of automatic weapon fire. The static became more
pronounced, and I suddenly realized that it wasn’t static at all. It was the noise of countless
zombies moaning. There was a shrill scream of, “JESUS CHRIST, GET THE FUCK OUT HERE,
CRIKEN!” before the moans became too loud to hear anything else. The blood had drained
from Heather’s face, and she looked physically ill as she quickly changed the frequency.

For a few minutes there was nothing but dead air (no pun intended, thus completing the
set). Eventually we began to hear very faint voices, so Heather adjusted the dial with
excruciating slowness until we were able to make out what they were saying. The actual voices
sounded strangely metallic, almost like they were echoing down a pipe.

“Please,” a woman’s voice begged, “if anyone is out there, please respond. My husband
and I are stuck inside our mobile home on Bassett Road. I think it’s Basset Road. These things
came out of nowhere and we tried to drive away, but there were more coming from every side
and now we’re surrounded. They’re breaking through the doors, we don’t have much time,
please, for the love of God, if anyone can hear my voice, respond! Please, we don’t know what
to do and we’re going to die!”

I put my hand on Heather’s shoulder. Tears were welling up in her eyes, and she had the
microphone in her hand as if to respond to the woman’s pleadings. I shook my head and took
it from her, placing it gently on the desk before turning the frequency knob slightly to cut off
the voice.

“We can’t do anything for them,” I told her gently. “Even if we were able to talk them
out of their situation and get them here, the zombies that are attacking them would follow.”

Heather sniffed loudly. “I know,” she said in a choked voice. “It’s just that…”

“I know. Listen, why don’t we just turn off the radio for a while and you can collect
yourself before we start again.”

She shook her head and wiped fiercely at her watering eyes. “No. No, it’s okay, I can
keep going. We have to know what’s going on.”

The next communication only took a few seconds to find. There was the loud roar of an
engine in the background, and the constant bumping sounds made it seem as if the radio user
was driving rather fast. That wasn’t exactly a surprise given the circumstances. I was willing to
bet that there were two kinds of drivers in the world at the moment: those that were driving
fast, and those that were dead.

“-an pick up,” a man was saying as we joined our regularly scheduled programming
already in progress. “I’m at the main entrance. Where the hell are you? Okay, look, if you can
hear this but can’t answer for some reason, I’m headed into the park and up to the lookout
station. There are a lot of these zombie bastards out here, so be careful if you’re not already at
Rebel’s Cove.”

“That person is coming here?” Sarah asked in surprise.

Heather scratched her arm. “I think we need to radio back,” she said. “If he’s armed and
we’re armed, there’s a lot of potential for misunderstanding here. We don’t want anyone to
accidentally get shot.”

“What if he doesn’t want us here?”

“He doesn’t have a say in the matter,” I told her firmly.

Heather picked up the microphone. “This is Heather Davenport,” she said into it. “I am
receiving your transmission at Rebel’s Cove Conservation Area in the ranger lookout station.”

“Heather Davenport?” the man repeated. “Is Stan Underwood there with you?”

“Nobody is here except for myself and my two companions.”

He didn’t answer for a long moment. “My name is Jonathan Calloway,” he replied finally.
“I’m a ranger with the Parks and Recreation Service. I’m en route to your location with my wife
and two children. I was supposed to meet up with a guy that I work with and his family, but it
doesn’t look like that’s going to happen. Is the path clear to where you are?”

I motioned to Heather that I was going outside. She picked up the cue. “One second,
we’re checking now,” she told him.

Taking one of the loaded rifles that were leaned against one wall, I opened the door and
stepped out into the storm. It seemed to have picked up in intensity; I was uncomfortably
reminded that we were in a part of the country that was known for having tornados. Being
careful not to slip on the wet wood I crept out to the edge of the platform and peered down. A
crack of lightning showed me all that I needed to see.

There were a hundred or so zombies milling around the clearing. They weren’t focused
on the lookout station or the office building or anything else for that matter. It appeared as if
they had simply wandered into the general area and hadn’t found a reason to leave.

“There are a lot of them down there,” I reported when I got back inside. “I think they’re
just passing through, but he’s going to have to go through them to get to us.”

Heather took a deep breath. “It’s not good news,” she said as she pressed the
microphone’s broadcast button. “There’s a lot of undead between you and us.”

There was a pause. “I’m open to any suggestions,” came the reply.

“If we want to get them here alive, I can make an opening for them,” I said confidently.

“What do you mean, if we want to?” Heather asked suspiciously.

“We don’t have all that much in the way of supplies,” I pointed out. “It’s going to tax our
resources to have a family of four here.”

“We can’t just let them die, James. We can’t.”

There was simply no logically arguing with some people. “Okay, then. Tell him to come
to the edge of the clearing and to let you know when he’s there. I’ll distract the zombies down
there and signal him when to make a break for the ladder.”

“How will he know what the signal is?”

I grinned. “Oh, don’t worry, he’ll know.” I turned to Sarah. “Grab your pack and come
with me."
 “Why are we doing this?” Sarah asked once we were alone outside. Well, alone except
for the raging storm and a bunch of undead fiends that wanted to hug us until we stopped
moving. “We should just let the zombies kill this guy and his family off. It’s like you said, we
don’t have the supplies for four more people.”

I took her pack and began to rummage through it. “Well, you have to keep in mind not
everyone thinks as rationally as you and I do,” I reminded her. “As much as some people would
call us crazy, we’re a lot more logical than most so-called sane people. Heather is a member of
our group and she wants to save these folks. At the end of the day, she’s a cop, remember.
They have this unhealthy desire to save lives. Let’s just humor her this time. There will be
plenty of opportunities to ignore her morality later.”

From the pack I produced the two propane canisters that I had taken at the grocery
store. They were surprisingly heavy for their small size. “Okay, here’s what I need you to do,” I
instructed her. “Go over to the far side of the platform and make as much noise as you can.
Do whatever it takes to get the attention of every zombie you possibly can. I’m going to go
down to the office. Try to keep them off of me the best that you can.”

Sarah nodded before breaking into a wide grin. “Is it weird that this is turning me on?”
she asked impishly.

“It absolutely does make you weird. Never change.”

She went around the lookout post and disappeared from view. As I waited for my
opening, I slung my rifle over my shoulder and looked down into the mass of undead bodies. A
few of them were passing extremely close to the ladder, but they simply ignored it and never
once looked up. I wondered if this was because of the storm or if they simply weren’t aware
that we were above them.
 Barely audible through the driving rain, I heard Sarah’s voice yelling on the other side of
the platform. A few of the zombies began the almost ritualistic moaning and headed towards
the sound. There weren’t enough moving away for me to attempt to descend the ladder,
however; she was going to have to try something else.

A flash of light flickered from around the corner. At first I thought that it had been
lightning, but as the flashing continued I realized that Sarah was shining a flashlight at the
ground and was flicking it on and off. This worked much better than the shouting, and soon
the majority of the undead were shambling towards the impromptu light show.

The few that remained were far enough away to not present an immediate danger. I
grasped the ladder and began my descent with one hand on the rungs and the other holding
the propane tanks. The metal was slippery from the rain, and I took my time to ensure that
there wouldn’t be a meeting of the minds between my head and the muddy ground.

I reached the bottom and immediately headed for the office building. My actions had
attracted the interest of a few zombies, and my trigger finger was itching to show them that I
preferred my privacy, but there was no way for me to undo the rifle and fire with the propane
in one hand. Hopefully they would be patient and allow me to do my chores before I came out
for playtime.

Once I was inside the office, I closed the door as much as possible. I had been a bit too
enthusiastic with my breaking and entering earlier, and the door wouldn’t latch. After a
moment I gave up and set the propane tanks down on one of the desks. Cursing my stupidity
for not bringing my own flashlight, I groped around in the dark for what I was looking for.
Finally my hand fell on the set of keys, and I quickly snatched them up.

Reclaiming the propane, I opened the door only to find myself face to face with a newly
arriving zombie. I backed up and gently set down the tanks. Now I was able to use both my
hands, which meant that I was free to play Cowboys and Indians with my rotting friend here.
Sadly, he wasn’t up for games today as the very first shot brought him down.

Leaving the Office Building, Take Two. Aaaaaaand…action! This time there wasn’t the
ugly mug of a recently deceased and yet somehow walking person to block my path, so I ran
around the back of the structure to the garage behind it. Unlocking the door was nowhere
near as easy as it had been earlier in the day. The padlock was covered in mud and as the rain
splattered down on the keys it made them slippery. I got the door open and stepped inside.
The Jeep had not somehow magically flown away, so it was sitting there just the way that I had
found it.

I got inside the Jeep and tried to start the engine. Nothing happened. I tried again.
Same result. Well this certainly wasn’t good. I popped the hood and got back out. I knew very
little about how a car or truck worked, but hey, I was a guy. When a car doesn’t start, we pop
the hood and take a look even if we have no idea what exactly we’re looking at.

Luckily, it turned out to be something simple as the battery had been unplugged. It
made sense since the Jeep was in storage and it probably should have occurred to me sooner.
I got it reattached and closed the hood before jumping back into the driver’s seat. This time
the engine turned over on the first try, and I pulled out of the garage.

I had been worried that driving would be difficult because of the storm, but the Jeep
seemed tailor made for this sort of driving condition. The tires almost instantly found traction,
and I headed to the farthest side of the clearing. Along the way, a brave zombie attempted to
bar my path in an almost grotesque parody of a traffic cop, but when animated corpse met
three tons of Jeep Cherokee, there wasn’t any doubt who won the fight. It actually made such
a satisfying crunch followed by a somewhat humorous popping sound that I went out of my
way to squish another one before reaching my destination. I brought the vehicle to a stop and
jumped out.

I ran with the propane tanks about twenty yards before stopping and setting them down
on the ground. I placed them right up against each other, and then I headed back to the Jeep.
Retrieving the rifle from the seat, I turned around and waited for a flash of lightning to show
me where I had put the tanks. Apparently Zeus had my back, as I didn’t have to wait long for
the illumination.

I took aim and fired the rifle. The first shot missed and I guessed that I had probably
undershot my target. The second shot also was a whiff. After the third shot, though, there
was an audible clang right before the propane tanks exploded.

The explosion wasn’t overly spectacular since the tanks hadn’t been very large, but in
the dark it looked bigger than it really was. It also had the desired effect, as the zombies in the
immediate area started heading for it. The blinking of Sarah’s flashlight also stopped, which I
took to mean that the group she had been distracting was coming my way as well.

I counted to a hundred to allow the undead time to get a decent distance from the
lookout station. When I reached the big one-oh-oh, I jumped back into the Jeep and headed
back. In the distance, I could see a pair of headlights making for the same place I was and I
knew that must be the park ranger and his family.

Their minivan was already at the base of the ladder when I reached it, and they had
begun their ascent. I couldn’t make out any features in the darkness, but I assumed that the
two smaller black shapes almost at the top were the children, the slender blob just below
them was the mother, and the large outline standing protectively at the bottom was the father.
 That last part was proven correct when I got out of the Jeep and hurried up to him. He
was a man of about forty wearing pair of jeans, a leather jacket, and a wide-brimmed park
ranger hat on his head. The rain running off of it made the hat bear an uncanny resemblance
to a waterspout. He shook my hand in a rather strong grip.

“I’m Jonathan Calloway,” he told me. I’m not sure who else he thought I might have
believed him to be. “I don’t know how we can ever thank you enough for this, Mr…?”

“James Pool,” I answered. “We can talk about payment and make introductions later.
Let’s get up to the lookout post. The fire is already almost completely died down, and they’ll
be coming back once it is.”

He nodded and started up the ladder. I started to follow when I noticed a straggler
zombie coming around the family’s van. I raised the rifle and emptied the last of my rounds
into its head before beginning to climb.

At the sound of the weapon firing, the ranger looked back down at me, but I simply
shrugged and said, “I didn’t want it to scratch your van’s paint.”
CHAPTER NINE

Kill Counter- 42

The Calloway family was a study in contrasts. Jonathan (or John, as he preferred to be
called) was a mountain of man that I was sure would have been intimidating to most people.
In fact, he looked a lot like Michael Clarke Duncan, except not quite as tall and not quite as
bald. His wife Melissa had apparently decided to go the exact opposite route. She was short
and slender with a pair of thin glasses perched on her face. Their children, David and Malcolm,
were twin boys that seemed absolutely terrified. That was understandable under the
circumstances.

“We can’t thank you enough for what you folks did for us,” John said as they stripped off
their soaked jackets. “There’s no way we could have gotten through those things without your
help.”

“Think of it as paying our rent,” Heather told him with a smile. “We probably wouldn’t
have survived if we hadn’t taken shelter here.”

He smiled back. “Fair enough.”

Melissa took the twins’ jackets and hung them up in the storage closet before collapsing
into one of the chairs. “What a day,” she muttered in a barely audible voice. “I can’t believe
this is happening.”

“We’ll figure out something,” John assured his wife. He didn’t look all that convinced,
however.
 “How, John? There are zombies out there, zombies, for God’s sake. How do we figure
something like that out?”

“I don’t know, honey. We have to have faith, though. Isn’t that what you’re always
telling me?”

She watched her sons for a moment as they peered out one of the windows into the
stormy night. “You’re right,” she conceded finally. “We have to stay strong. Things have a way
of working themselves out. We just have to stay calm and come up with a plan.”

“That’s why we’re here, dear. We’re safe up here for the moment.”

Heather was scanning through the radio channels once again. This time, as a concession
to the children in the room, she had put on the headset. She had produced a pad of paper and
a pen seemingly from thin air and was frantically writing. I reloaded the rifle so that it was
ready to go when I needed it next and walked over to the desk to see what she was working
on. On the paper was written a number of small notes and what appeared to be a series of
random numbers.

“There are three or four people transmitting at a time on the public shortwave stations,”
she explained as she continued to write. “I figured that if I can work out where they are and
what’s going on around them, we might be able to track some of the horde moments.”

“What have you found out so far?” I asked, more than a little impressed.

“Not a whole lot,” she admitted. “Almost everyone that I’ve come across is panicking
and not really making a lot of sense. The two undead hordes have almost come together,
though, that much is obvious. If I’m interpreting what I’m hearing right, the highways and
main roads have become total deathtraps. The military has been forced to pull out of the area
completely.” She paused and took a deep breath. “We’re alone out here, James.”

“There’s no resistance whatsoever?”

She hesitated. “Well, not exactly. There are a few groups, mostly local law enforcement,
that are trying to set up safe areas for people to gather at. It’s not going well, though. Most of
them have already been overrun, and the ones that haven’t been are in a lot of trouble.”

“Is there any word out of Mills Creek?” Michelle asked suddenly.

Heather turned to her and shook her head. “Not that I’ve heard of, no. Why?”

“I’m a physicist at the nuclear power plant there. There were a lot of people planning to
barricade themselves in at the plant when I left with John and the kids.”

“I’ll let you know if I hear anything,” Heather promised.

Michelle turned to her husband. “I think the kids should lie down and get some sleep if
they can,” she suggested.

John nodded. “Yeah, you’re probably right. Okay, kids, bed time. You can sleep on the
cots in the bedroom tonight.”

As the family went into the sleeping area and closed the door, I picked up a pair of
binoculars and stepped to the window. This brilliant plan was foiled by the obvious-in-
hindsight fact that there was a severe storm raging outside in the pitch black night, which
meant that visibility was zero. I tried the same trick I had used earlier by waiting for a lightning
flash to provide some much-needed illumination (both literally and metaphorically), but the
reflection on the glass thwarted this attempt at improved vision.

“I’m going outside again to take a look around the platform,” I informed my two original
companions. “I want to see how the zombies out there are responding to our presence here.”

“I’ll come with you,” Sarah offered, picking up two of the rifles.

“All right.”

When I got outside I found that all the zombies were gone, the rain had stopped, and
there was a parade driving through the clearing declaring me the winner of the zombie
apocalypse.

Nah, I’m just fucking with you. I’m sure you realized that about halfway through the
sentence. Incidentally, if you did not, in fact, realize that I was joking, I would suggest that you
set this book aside for a bit and pick up the works of Theodor Geisel. His classic works will
teach you so many life skills that are applicable to understanding the world around you. You’ll
marvel as he describes the feeling of joy and love as a Grinch learns the true meaning of
Christmas. You’ll stare in wonder as a cat prances about a house wearing a hat. You’ll feel the
desolation and unbearable rejection as one man tries to expand the horizons of another, only
to be cruelly told that his green eggs and ham will not, under any circumstances, be consumed.

Translation: if you didn’t know that I was joking, go pick up some Dr. Fucking Seuss and
come back when you have some fucking reading comprehension.

Random thought for the day: a zombie Horton would probably be an unstoppable killing
machine. The name of the book would probably have to be rewritten to Horton Hears You
Scream.

The rain had turned a bit colder, but let’s face it, I was so soaked at this point that it
didn’t really matter. I wondered briefly if there were any parkas or ponchos in the lookout
station’s storage closet, wondered a bit longer about why my brain hadn’t decided to ask that
particular question before I had become a human sponge, and then dismissed both of these
wonderings as more than a little irrelevant now. I leaned over the side of the platform and
found that not only was there no celebration parade going on, there also seemed to be more
zombies than before. Not a whole lot more, mind you, maybe about fifteen or twenty, but it
was significant enough to be noticeable. They were all gathered around at the bottom of the
ladder with their arms stretched upwards and moaning as only the undead can.

Sarah handed me one of the rifles.

“Do you want to start taking care of them now, or do you want to wait until morning?”
she asked as she gripped her own weapon.

“It would be smarter to wait until morning,” I answered after a moment’s thought. “We
can be more sure of the kills when we can see better. We’d also have at least two more people
helping us, so the job would go a lot faster.”

“I guess you’re right.” She pouted a bit.

I grinned wolfishly at her. “Hey, I said that would be the smart thing. I didn’t say that’s
what we’re going to do. Be a dear and run inside to grab us a couple of flashlights and some
duct tape, along with as much ammunition as you can fit in the trash can.”

She let out a little squeal and threw herself into my arms. We kissed rather passionately
for a minute before she hurried into the lookout station to get what I had requested. It really
was amazing how the little things in life like slaughtering large amounts of the undead could
bring people together.

I took a deep breath and slowly let it out. This was the first time in a while that I was
alone (with the exception of the grasping denizens of Bottom of Ladderland) and able to
collect my thoughts. I looked at the zombie social going on down below. I had seen quite a
few of them at this point, of course, but this time I really looked.

Some of them would have still been able to pass for humans if it wasn’t for their telltale
actions, but most were sporting at least some wounds that would have been a dead giveaway
(see what I did there?). They were killing machines that would, over time, become more
disturbing in appearance as flesh decayed or they suffered damage from encounters with
survivors. I was reasonably sure that those encounters would become less and less frequent as
time went on, however.

In a strange moment of clarity, I realized that these creatures were like flawed
recreations of me. Driven by forces that they didn’t seem to have the capacity to understand,
they sought to devour the living. While I certainly didn’t eat my victims the way these fine
folks did, the actual act of killing was the same. There was a very real school of thought that
said that they were what I would have become if it wasn’t for my vaunted intellect and the
shreds of humanity that I still had clinging to me. It was a sobering thought.

It was strange, but this hostile takeover by the undead seemed to be making me a better
person. Well, maybe not a better person, but maybe more of a person. I found myself actually
liking my two companions, and it made me proud that I was able to use my unique skills to
assist them. That sort of human connection had never been important to me before. Now
that I wasn’t looking at every living thing and mentally running scenarios of how I would make
them non-living things, I found that I was enjoying the company of others quite a bit more than
I used to. Was this growth as a human being, or was I regressing to something less evolved?

I smiled as I peered down at the zombies. I still have you as a pleasurable hobby, my
friends, I thought. Indeed, while the act of killing other people was now becoming slightly
distasteful, the re-killing of the undead was still quite the happy thought. So happy, in fact,
that if I needed a happy thought to be able to fly to Neverland, that would be the one that I
would choose.

When Sarah returned with the goodies, I went about duct taping the flashlights to the
rifles. This way whatever direction we were pointing in would be illuminated enough for us to
get a good bead on the target. It wasn’t perfect, but it was good enough for a little night
hunting.

“I used to watch zombie movies when I was younger,” Sarah commented as we fired our
first shots into the crowd. “It was kind of an addiction, really. I wasn’t into the newer stuff so
much, but the classic George Romero movies were some of my favorite films ever. Did you
ever watch any of those?”

I thought about it for a moment. “I saw Night of the Living Dead when I was a kid,” I
answered. “It was pretty good.”

“Yeah, it was. Did you ever see the sequel, Dawn of the Dead?”

“I don’t think so, no.”

She stopped firing to reload. “The main characters hide in a mall to try to ride out the
zombies. They barricade the doors and kill all the zombies that are still inside the mall. Then
they just kind of enjoy themselves in all the stores. They have access to everything they’ve
ever wanted to buy, after all. After a while, though, they get bored of it and get depressed and
whatnot. Some people think it’s a metaphor for the pointlessness of materialism and that
Romero was trying to make a point about society.”
 “I’ve never heard that,” I confessed.

“Do you think there’s a lesson in all of this that’s happening?”

“I don’t know. Do you?”

She thought about it for a moment as she raised her now reloaded rifle and sighted her
next target. Before answering, she pulled the trigger and brought down a zombie with a clean
shot through the forehead. “I think the lesson is if you’re going to become the undead, be sure
to wear protective headgear.”

I nodded in agreement. “That’s pretty deep.”

“I’m a very deep woman.” She fired another round. “I thought it was a joke when the
news starting telling us that zombies were coming to kill us all. I mean, come on, zombies?
Terrorists, sure, I could see that. I could have bought another country invading us. But
zombies? Those were just fake monsters in books and B-movies.”

“Really? I wasn’t all that surprised that, if something like this happened, it would involve
zombies.”

Sarah looked at me in surprise. “You weren’t?”

I shook my head. “Nope, I sure wasn’t.” I collected my thoughts as I dropped another

willing participant in the Rebel’s Cove Ladder Shooting Gallery Contest (you can’t win if you
don’t enter!). “Look at what’s been going on over the last couple of decades. There’s been
this huge push in bioengineering. Everything from stem cell research to designer biological
weapons has been at least looked into. Is it really so hard to believe that, with everything that
science has been doing, a virus may have been created to reanimate dead tissue? Our bodies
are biological machines, after all. Does it really seem so impossible that the machine could be
restarted somehow?”

“I guess I never really thought about it like that.”

“That’s assuming that this really is some virus, of course. The doctors and soldiers
stationed at the Mississippi River said that it was; they called it the Orpheus virus. They could
have been wrong or misinformed, though. It’s not like the military has shown itself to be
infallible in the past.”

For a while we were silent as we simply enjoyed each other’s company (and the act of
putting bullets in the heads of swarming zombies). The entire experience of killing with
someone besides the victim present was still a bit new to me, but I found that it wasn’t as
uncomfortable or embarrassing as I would have thought it would be. On the contrary, it was
rather enjoyable. I had been a bit busy to assess my feelings back when Heather and I had
crossed the turnpike full of undead; however, looking back on it, I was sure that I had felt the
same way then. Apparently mass murder was doable individually but was really intended to
be a team sport.

“You’ve been kind of quiet during the times Heather and I are making plans,” I said
during a reload. “What are your ideas for what you think we should be doing?”

Sarah lowered her rifle and rubbed at her trigger finger. “What do you mean?”

I shrugged. “You’re a smart person that isn’t afraid to speak her mind. What do you
think our next move should be?”

She pursed her lips slightly. Once again she looked rather adorable. “I don’t really
know,” she confessed. “I think you’re right about things being a lot more dangerous outside of
Rebel’s Cove. The undead that have come here are probably stragglers from the large hordes.
Ones that weren’t drawn towards higher population areas for some reason, like they didn’t
come across humans to chase or something. I don’t think we can stay here nearly as long as
the two of you were talking about, though.”

“Why’s that?” I asked, curious.

“With this new family here, we don’t have the supplies to last long, for one thing. We
might be able to hunt game or something, but with these zombies roaming around killing
anything that moves I don’t think we can count on that. I also keep thinking about what
Melissa said about people taking shelter in the nuclear power plant.”

“What about it?”

She shook her head as if to clear it. “I’m not sure,” she admitted. “I just keep thinking
that if there’s some sort of fight there, actually inside the plant, I mean, it could cause a lot of
trouble. What if the reactor is breached, or some key system is damaged or something? There
could be radiation leaking from it, or even a meltdown. I don’t know how close we are to it,
but if we’re close enough…” She left it hanging.

“We should ask Melissa about that when we get back inside.”

Over the next hour, the storm finally started to wind down. At this point the ground was
a slushy mess and was hindering the movements of the zombies. A few even seemed to be
unable to pull their feet out of the mud, and they simply extended their arms and continued
moaning up at us. The bottom of the ladder disappeared into a rather large pile of bodies.
This pile was high enough to form a kind of natural wall that kept the undead back near the
Jeep and van. By the time we were done, silence had once against returned to our corner of
Rebel’s Cove. The clouds parted, and for the first time that night the moon was able to shine
down on the clearing. We turned off our flashlights and gazed out upon our handiwork.

“I could really use a towel and a change of clothes right about now,” I eventually said.
“I’m also kind of hungry.”

Sarah smiled as she looped her arm through mine. “Then let’s go inside and eat,” she
suggested.
CHAPTER TEN

Kill Counter- 116

I like to think of myself as a fairly reasonable guy. In the short time that you and I have
known each other, I believe that I’ve proven to be someone that likes to gather all the
information that he can and then make a decision based on these facts. I don’t like to jump to
conclusions or make snap judgment calls. Some people would probably classify this as
indecisiveness, but I call it prudent.

This isn’t to say that I can’t make immediate decisions when the situation calls for it. I
had to make such a call back in Ohio when Heather and I found ourselves trapped between a
mass of zombies and the deathtrap known as the turnpike (I’m not really sure that it didn’t
qualify as a deathtrap before the undead walked the Earth). It’s just that, given the choice, I
will always prefer to sit back and really think through a situation. Once I’ve got all the angles
figured out, I will then make the most logical choice.

Both Heather and Sarah were cut from this same mold. Oh, sure, Heather was prone to
sudden emotion at times and Sarah was a bit impetuous, but they both possessed strong
deductive reasoning skills that they put to use. John Calloway seemed to be a man that had
this sort of mindset as well.

Melissa Calloway, however, most certainly did not have the same mindset. Over the
next few days, she proved herself to be something of a hothead, taking offense at remarks
where no slight was intended and often storming out of the lookout station when a
conversation wasn’t going her way. She didn’t dare go down the ladder so it wasn’t like she
stormed off far, but having to listen to her ho-humming and not-so-muttered curses wasn’t
exactly good for morale. Right around the fourth time this happened I began to think that
maybe, just maybe, my decision to stop killing living people had come a bit prematurely.

Two things were obvious almost from the get-go: she didn’t like having zero control over
her current situation, and she thought that the non-family members of our little group were
idiots. That includes me, if you’re keeping track. This was no more apparent than the morning
of the fourth day together.

Heather had become our little group’s official radio user…uh…listener…um…person, and
around five that morning she picked up a transmission from Melissa’s old place of
employment, the Mills Creek Nuclear Power and Research Center (I guess that brought up less
terror from the nearby occupants than calling it what it really was, a nuclear power plant). The
plant had been surrounded by a huge number of undead, and apparently some of them were
actually able to gain access inside the walls by breaking through a security checkpoint. The
survivors seemed to be safe for the moment, but the fact that zombies were now wandering
around a facility that had the potential to make a very big boom that would do bad things for a
very large number of miles reminded me of Sarah’s concern.

“That’s absolutely ridiculous,” Melissa dismissed when I brought up that particular line
of thought. “There’s no way they could reach the core, and even if they did, there are safety
measures in place.”

“There are safety measures in place for an assault by the living dead?” I asked mildly.

Her eyes narrowed. “Of course not. However, there are a number of safety measures
and protocols that have been developed over the years for use in the event of a terrorist attack
or takeover. Those safeties can certainly stop something as brainless as a zombie.”
 “We’re not talking about a single zombie here,” Heather pointed out. “According to the
last transmission I received, the remaining people at Mills Creek think that there are almost a
hundred thousand of them at the power plant.”

Melissa sniffed. “It doesn’t matter. The core will be perfectly safe, and we’ll be perfectly
safe here.”

I could already feel a headache coming on. “Okay, hypothetically speaking, let’s say that
something goes horribly wrong.” She appeared to be ready with a comeback, but I pointed a
finger at her to make her remain silent. I had picked up the trick from my fourth grade teacher.
“I said hypothetically speaking. If the plant did suffer a meltdown, would we be far enough
away to survive it?”

Her mask of certainly seemed to slip. It was just a bit, but it was noticeable. “Well, no,
hypothetically speaking, any explosion wouldn’t reach us but the radiation would.” She
seemed to collect herself. “That won’t happen, though. I’m not sure how many ways I can
assure you of that. We are going to be fine.”

Later that morning, Heather, Sarah, and I went outside with the excuse that we were
going to have a look around. The sun was brightly shining, and the day was on its way to
becoming hot and muggy. By now all the bodies from Sarah and me’s nighttime rampage had
been moved out of sight behind the trees at the edge of the clearing, but there was still a
rather large red stain on the trampled grass and earth at the bottom of the ladder. There
hadn’t been more than the occasional one or two zombies since, which was probably part of
the reason that Melissa was feeling so confidant about our overall safety. Personally, I believed
that it was a false sense of security.

“So what do you think?” Heather asked no one in particular.

 “I think she’s full of crap,” Sarah replied bluntly. “You can’t tell me that you think that a
hundred thousand zombies in a nuclear power plant is a situation that is going to end well.”

“I completely agree. James?”

“Well, to be fair Melissa is the physicist that worked there, not us,” I pointed out. “She’d
know better than us what the odds of something going wrong are.” I shook my head. “With
that being said, the problem I see is that she wants to be right more than she knows she’s
going to be. When she says that everything is going to be all right, it sounds like she’s trying to
convince herself.”

“So what do we do? Your instincts have been good so far, James, what do you think our
next move should be?” Both she and Sarah stared at me expectantly.

I considered the matter for a moment before responding. “We can’t stay here,” I
answered finally. “If Melissa is right, we’re leaving a very safe place, but if she’s wrong we’re
absolutely positively dead. I don’t think that’s a coin flip that we want to even make, let alone
lose.”

“What about them?” Sarah queried, meaning the Calloway family.

“They’ll stay here,” Heather said confidently. “John is a good man, but he defaults to
whatever Melissa wants if there’s a difference of opinion. They’ll keep the kids and stay here
because she’s being stubborn.”

“But if the plant does have a meltdown…”

“They’ll have the radio,” I finished for her. “It might give them enough warning.
Probably not, but at least they’ll have a chance. We can’t force them to do something that
they don’t want to.” I paused while I thought things through. “We’ll take two of the rifles, half
the ammunition, the rest of the supplies that we brought, and one of the two binocular sets.
We can load everything up in the Jeep and head out in an hour or so.”

Heather blinked. “So soon?”

“If those zombies are already swarming around the power plant, we want to be out of
this general area as soon as possible. We can hope that the roads are somewhat clear by now.
I think we have a good chance of that since there are so many of them at the power plant
itself.”

Forty-five minutes later we were loading the last pack into the back of the Jeep while the
Calloway family saw us off. When we had told them of our intentions, Melissa had tried to
make an issue of us taking the weapons and the Jeep itself since they were technically park
property. John had stepped in and told her that they owed us at least that for saving their lives
on that stormy night. Now, as I opened the driver’s side door, he shook my hand and nodded.

“Good luck, James,” he said sincerely. “You too, Heather and Sarah. I’m sorry that we
have to part ways so soon after meeting. You’ve got a CB radio on the dash there. Don’t
hesitate to call if you need anything or if you’re heading back this way.”

“Good luck to you too, John,” I told him. I surprised myself by actually meaning it.
“Hopefully we’ll meet again somewhere down the road.”

“God willing, James. God willing.”

The trail leading away from the clearing was empty, as was the gravel path leading back
to the main road. As we were packing up, we had decided to continue our original trek west.
Now that the two hordes had come together there wasn’t really any direction that was safer
than the other. We had briefly discussed the possibility of heading north to Canada but had
dismissed it as being impractical. None of us knew anything about the country let alone the
areas that we would be crossing through; there was no way to know where shelter might be
found or supplies obtained. The areas that we were heading into might be more populated
with the undead than our neighbor to the north, but at least it was somewhat familiar
territory.

Okay, okay, you got me, I really didn’t want to go to Canada because, well, it’s Canada.
This isn’t some sort of verbal (written?) attack on the country. I just couldn’t fathom the
possibility of encountering a zombie Mountie riding a zombie moose. Sure, I had no idea if
zombies could turn a moose into one of them. In fact I was pretty sure that they wouldn’t be
able. Could we really take that chance, though? Just the thought of having one approach with
its telltale “Uhhhhhhhhh, eh?” moan…it was a terror beyond comprehension.

Okay, okay, you got me again, that really was a barely veiled shot at Canada. Hey,
Canada, you’ve got someone else’s queen on your money, you hosers! Hockey is for people
that can’t play football! Free health care? Who the hell do you think you are? And what the
fuck is up with that Bonhomme snowman thing in Quebec? He scares the bejeesus out of me,
and I’m a serial killer!

Who am I to judge, though? My country was screwed up enough to produce me.

“I noticed a few gas cans in the back while we were packing up,” Heather said as she
searched the Jeep’s glove compartment for something. “They were both filled to the top, so
we should have enough gas to get a pretty good distance before we have to find more.”

“Good,” I said with a nod. “We should make as few stops as possible before we get to…
wherever it is that we’re going.”
 “I’ve been thinking about that,” Sarah said from the back seat. “My uncle owns a bar in
northern Montana. Wouldn’t that be just about perfect? I remember reading that Montana
has less than a million people total in the state, so we should be able to find a place away from
any populated areas. With all the ranches and farms up there, we could probably track down
any supplies that we needed.”

We mulled it over. “That really does sound like it’s what we’re looking for,” Heather said
thoughtfully. “It’s kind of like Rebel’s Cove on a larger scale.”

“If we decide to do it, we’ll have to get some things beforehand,” I mentioned.
“Montana is a lot farther north than we are now. We’ll need to get our hands on winter
clothes and gear. That kind of stuff will be easier to find before we get there. I doubt many
people would have thought to take that sort of thing with them while they were busy fleeing in
terror.”

She finally found what she was looking for, a road map, and opened it. “Thinking long
term is a good idea. We can’t afford to put ourselves into a situation where we escape the
zombies only to die to the elements.” She pored over the map for a bit. “There’s a small town
just up ahead called Lewiston. We might be able to find what we need there.”

“I don’t like the idea of going into a town, to be honest, but I guess we’ll have to. We
have to pick up more food supplies anyway.”

Ah, ‘to be honest’, what a wonderful phrase. It really does make the listener believe that
you’re speaking the truth when you say it. It kind of feels like the speaker doesn’t really want
to admit the reality of the situation, but is forced to do so because you’re just so dang special.

You want the actual honest truth, not the so-called honest truth that I had just given
Heather? I most definitely did want to go into a slightly populated area to scavenge around. I
had certainly upped the ol’ Kill Counter during our stay at Rebel’s Cove, but it felt so…cheap.
The zombies at the base of the ladder hadn’t had a chance. There was no thrill in the kill, no
feeling that I had bested a worthy adversary on a level playing field. I couldn’t wait to see
some real action.

Now, don’t go thinking that I would risk my companions just for the sake of some
excitement, friend. If there weren’t other valid reasons I never would have agreed to go into
Lewiston, or any other town or city for that matter. We really did need supplies, however, and
we really did need gear that we hadn’t previously picked up. Those needs just happened to
happily coincide with my unique brand of bloodlust.

“I think our first order of business should be to swing by the town’s police station,”
Heather continued. “We might be able to find some weapons and ammunition there if it
hasn’t all been picked over by now.”

“The rifles and boxes of ammo in the back aren’t enough for you?” Sarah teased.

Heather laughed. “They’re fine. I’m a cop, though, I feel naked without a standard issue
sidearm on me. Besides, I’m a better shot with a pistol than I am with a rifle.”

“Heather, I don’t think I saw you miss at all while we were at the lookout post.”

Her smile broadened. “You should see me with a Glock 22 or a Colt .45.”

“I have some experience with Colt 45, too, but I doubt it’s the same kind of experience
as yours.”

It wasn’t long before we arrived at the outskirts of Lewiston. It was obviously a family-
based town. We passed quite a few houses that showed evidence of children having lived
there, everything from swing sets to above ground pools. There was even one house that still
had a small trampoline set up in the front yard that was I highly tempted to go jump on. I
hadn’t been on a trampoline in years, not since I had landed awkwardly on one and fractured
my leg.

On second thought, maybe using one now wasn’t a great idea.

Some of the homes and businesses were on fire or showed evidence of having recently
been in such a condition. We caught glimpses of a number of undead wandering the buildings
and streets, but there were fewer than I would have expected. A large portion of them must
have followed survivors that had fled the town. When I caught sight of the police station, I
pulled over and stopped the Jeep. A few zombies began to head towards us. They were far
enough away that we would have plenty of time to prepare for them, however, so it wasn’t like
they were all that threatening.

We stepped out of the Jeep and I opened the back door. Both Heather and Sarah picked
up a rifle each. I, on the other hand, lovingly extracted my precious crowbar from its place
under the packs. If I wasn’t going to be invited to the firearm party, I would just have to start
my own bludgeoning soiree. To be honest (for real this time!), even if we had a third rifle I
probably would have gone with the crowbar anyway. Being indoors meant the possibility of
close-quarter fighting, and if that should happen I would rather have a weapon that didn’t
require me to reload.

“I count six targets approaching us,” Heather said professionally. Apparently the close
proximity to a police station brought out the inner cop that resided in her. “Let’s get inside
before they have a chance to get closer. If we fired our guns now, it would probably just attract
more of them.”
 There had obviously been a fight at this location. One of the large front doors was
broken off the hinges, no small feat when you realized just how heavy the things were. The
glass on both it and the still standing door had been shattered. Judging by the blood mixed in
with the glass shards, it was obvious that the act had come with a price, although it was
impossible to tell if the price had been paid by humans or zombies. As we entered, I noticed
that the receptionist’s desk was missing large chunks of wood; I attributed the damage to
shotgun blasts. Smaller caliber weapons would have left multiple holes, but these were large
areas that had been blown off.

To the right of the desk was another glass door that had been unceremoniously ripped
from its frame. It led into a hallway that contained quite a few corpses, some of which were
wearing police uniforms. I began to mentally piece together what had happened: the zombies
had come knocking at the police station’s front door, and the cops had pulled back into the
hallway to create a chokepoint so that they could take on their attackers one or two at a time
rather than all at once. The destroyed receptionist desk was more than likely the result of
missed or panicked shots. It had been a good plan, probably one that I would have employed
myself, so what had gone wrong?

We continued on down the hallway with Heather in the lead, Sarah in the middle, and
me watching our rear. We proceeded slowly and methodically, making sure to check each of
the rooms that we came to before moving on. The first two offices appeared to have escaped
the obviously violent struggle completely, but the third one was a much more grizzly sight. The
desk had been turned over in a sort of makeshift barricade, and the tipped over filing cabinet
near the door was evidence of an attempt to fortify the room.

These observations were completely secondary to the scene going on in the far corner.
Two zombies, one a woman who appeared to have been a businesswoman of some sort and
the other wearing the distinctive uniform of a police officer, were hunched over a body that
was missing most of its head. The gun still grasped in one hand made it likely that the head
wound was self-inflicted. The zombies were tearing chunks of flesh from the body’s stomach
area with their teeth and ravenously consuming them. As we watched, one of them ripped a
hole in what appeared to be an exposed liver.

I motioned for my companions to be quiet and I crept into the room. The zombies had
their backs turned towards me and their attention was completely focused on their feast.
With a sudden burst of movement, I swung the crowbar at the female and pierced both the
skull and brain with the hooked end. Even before it had a chance to topple over, I had the
weapon free and smashed the blunt end into the nasal cavity of the former-cop-turned-
zombie. The impact smashed its head into the wall hard, but it seemed to ignore the blow and
attempted to stand. With the front of its face now ruined, however, the second strike from the
crowbar hit home, and that was the end of that.

I retrieved the pistol from the remains of the zombie meal and handed it to Heather.
She took it and gave it a quick inspection. Apparently satisfied with her findings, she flicked on
the safety and stuck it through her belt. We resumed our walk down the hallway and soon
came to a much larger room than the offices that we had passed. A number of metal desks
were shoved up against each other. All of them had a computer and phone set on top of it.

“We’re in the bullpen,” Heather explained quietly. “This is where the police take calls
and file reports. I’m surprised that a town this small has one of these. Usually they just have
one or two officers on duty at any given time.” She took a moment to orient herself. “The
weapon storage area should be somewhere between here and the locker rooms.”

“Isn’t that sort of thing usually kept locked?” I asked.

 “Do you really think they took the time to lock things back up while they were being
assaulted by zombies?” she retorted.

“Good point.”

We found the cage-like section that contained the weapons and other equipment just
past the bullpen. It had obviously been quite a bit fuller at one point, but there were still a
number of things that any survivor of the zombie apocalypse could find useful.

Heather was particularly happy that her apparent pistol of choice, the Glock 22, was
available. She took a pair of them down from the rack and tossed the magazines that were left
into a black duffel bag that was sitting on the floor. She then began to gather up a number of
other items and shoved them in as well. This was more her area of expertise than mine, so I
sat back and allowed her to take charge.

“Sarah, I’m putting a compact 9mm in here for you,” she said quietly. “It doesn’t have as
much of a punch as some pistols, but it’s easier to carry and a hell of a lot easier to shoot
straight than anything else in here. I’ll teach you how to fire it properly when we get a chance.
You seem to know your way around guns, James, what’s your preference?”

I gave the storage area a quick once-over. “I saw the shotgun blasts out in the
entryway,” I said. “Are there any of those left?”

“Yes indeed.” She sounded almost like a kid in a candy store. She handed me a black
pump action shotgun from a bottom rack. “You can get seven rounds in there standard, and it
features a two shot extension. I once saw my commanding officer blow his way through a wall
with one of these things.” She tossed a couple of large white boxes into the duffel bag.
“Plenty of ammunition for it, too.”
 “We should take a few of these, too,” Sarah suggested, pointing at a series of police
batons. “We can carry those a lot easier than something like a crowbar.”

Hey, was that a shot at my crowbar? Them’s fightin’ words!

Unfortunately, she was actually right. I certainly wouldn’t be able to operate a shotgun
while fumbling around with a large metal crowbar. The police batons wouldn’t be nearly as
lethal in close quarters, but they were easier to transport and weren’t as taxing on the muscles
to swing. I reluctantly set my lovely crowbar down on a shelf and said my goodbyes. Oh well,
we’d always have Ohio.

Apparently I was once again the designated pack mule because Heather handed me the
duffel bag to carry. I had assumed that we were going to head back outside, but she led us
down another hallway into the locker room area. She went to the back of the room and
opened a wooden closet door. After a moment, she produced a police duty belt that she
strapped around her waist. She slid one of the Glocks into the gun holster and loaded up the
magazine pouches.

“This is the only belt in here,” she informed us. “We can pick up a couple more from the
dead officers out in the main hallway if you two want one.”

Sarah and I glanced at each other. “We’ll pass,” I informed her.

“Suit yourself.” She pulled three plastic bags containing something black off of the top
shelf of the closet. “These are rain ponchos. Why be uncomfortable or get sick if we don’t
have to, right?”

We made our way back to the first hallway and found that our zombie amigos from
outside had now become our zombie amigos from inside. They were approaching the first
office door when we saw them. For a moment our group stared at their group and there was
silence. They began to moan and shamble towards us, though, which ruined the somewhat
comedic staring contest.

I raised the shotgun in preparation to turn the undead into some sort of fine mist, but
Heather’s hand suddenly pushed down the barrel. I turned to protest, but stopped when I saw
the expression on her face. This was her home turf, we were in her element, and we needed
to let her take the lead for now.

“If we fire in here, the noise will just attract more of them,” she explained. “I think that’s
what happened to the officers here. Every time they fired a gun, more and more of the
zombies converged on the building.”

“What’s the call, then?” I asked, reluctantly lowering my big shiny toy.

“I saw an exit back by the locker rooms. It probably leads out to the parking lot. We can
go out there and walk around the building to get back to the Jeep.”

I nodded. “Aye aye, captain. Lead the way.”

Let me tell you, going from the hallway through the bullpen was the hardest two
minutes of my life. Do you have any idea, any whatsoever, what it’s like for a guy like me to not
be able to kill who or what I want to kill? If there were only a couple of zombies I probably
could have reclaimed the crowbar I had left behind and made a mess of their heads, but with
at least half a dozen all tightly packed together it would be suicide. So instead I found myself
holding a high-powered shotgun, fully loaded and ready to unleash its fury, but I had to simply
walk away from the fun. I felt like a little kid at Christmas that was given the biggest present
from under the tree and told that he couldn’t unwrap it until New Year’s.
 Still, as I said before, it was Heather’s call, so I kept my mouth shut and my frustration
bottled up.

We retreated past the bullpen and back past the weapon storage area. Sarah reached
the exit door first and turned the doorknob. It didn’t budge. She tried again, this time more
fervently, but it the door remained closed. I looked out into the bullpen and saw that it wasn’t
just six or seven zombies that we were dealing with; a good two dozen had come into the room
and were making their way towards us. I moved Sarah out of the way and gave the door a
solid kick right below the lock. All that it accomplished was making a dull thunk sound and
sending a painful jolt up my leg.

“I think we’re in trouble,” I announced, rather calmly I thought given the circumstances.

“Shoot off the lock with the shotgun,” Heather instructed as she drew her Glock and
took up a shooting stance. There wasn’t much point in holding down the noise at this juncture
as the moaning was loud enough to, pardon the pun, wake the dead.

I put the shotgun mere inches from the lock and pull the trigger. There was a
thunderous boom as the weapon fired, and the section of the door I had been pointing at
basically dissolved. The door swung open and…

…came to a stop suddenly as it struck a zombie that was standing only a few feet from it.
The exit did indeed lead to the fenced in parking lot where the squad cars were parked. That
was the good news. The bad news was that it was infested with quite a few undead. So many,
in fact, that there was no way that we would be able to make it through the gate or up and
over the fence before we were swarmed under.

“Get into the locker room!” Heather shouted as she emptied an entire clip into the
approaching zombies.

We dashed through the locker room door and immediately closed and locked it behind
us. There was no way that the door was going hold for long, though, not with that many
bodies trying to break through. The wood was already starting to splinter near the hinges.

“So now what?” I asked, not really expecting an answer.

Except for the undead pounding on the door and that groaning we had come to know so
well, there was silence.
CHAPTER 11

Kill Counter- 118

There are quite a few downsides to being trapped in a locker room while a large group of
zombies try to break in to devour you. In fact, I would go so far as to say there aren’t a whole
lot of upsides to that particular situation. I know, I know, it’s a shocking revelation and one
that I’m sure you’re prone to dismiss on principle, but let me state my case before you set your
beliefs in stone.

Take, for example, the inability to barricade the door. The only thing we had to place
against it was a lightweight plastic trash can that had zero chance of having any effect
whatsoever. What’s that? Oh, yeah, sure, there were plenty of lockers. They actually would
have been great at acting as a second line of defense. Unfortunately, they were bolted to the
ground. The benches were the same way. We did manage to drag the wooden closet in front
of the door to buy ourselves a bit more time.

Emphasis on the “a bit” part.

Next up on the list of reasons why you should never trap yourself in a locker room is the
issue of the windows. There were indeed windows on one side of this particular locker room.
The sunlight coming through them illuminated the room in a soft yellowish glow that really
was quite soothing. Of course, it was streaming through incredibly thick glass that was treated
to not allow someone to see in or out, the windows were only about a foot and a half tall and
located roughly fifteen feet off the ground, and a black metal mesh was bolted between us and
the glass. Not exactly a path to freedom.
 Last but not least, your average locker room has a total of two scents. The first is that
smell of bleach and chlorine right after the room has been cleaned. It is often overpowering
for hours after the chemical products have been applied. The second is harder to describe, but
it’s kind of like if you mixed the smell of old sweat socks and rotting fish.

The latter is what we got.

“I need the shotgun,” Heather suddenly said to me.

Wordlessly, I handed it over to her. She pumped another round into the chamber and,
to my surprise, pointed it at the ceiling above the nearest set of lockers. It roared as she fired,
blasting a fair-sized hole in the roof. I threw a hand up protectively to shield my eyes as bits of
ceiling rained down. Another pump, another hole, this one overlapping with the first one. She
was shooting us a way out.

When the gap was maybe four feet wide, she lowered the weapon and turned to me.
“Okay, James, you’re the strongest. Sarah and I are going to boost you up on top of the lockers
then hand you up the duffel bag. You can pull us up and we can repeat the process up there to
get onto the roof.”

There was a loud crack as the door began to split away from the frame. The ladies
quickly boosted me up onto the lockers and I hauled up the bag of goodies and the shotgun. I
tossed the weapon into the duffel bag and zipped it back up.

I reached down and grasped Sarah’s hand, and with a few choice curses and a scratch on
her elbow she managed to climb up next to me. She had slung the hunting rifle over her
shoulder without tightening down the shoulder strap, and it swung painfully into my knee.

With a sound not unlike a sheet of paper tearing, the door splintered inward and the
sheer weight of the bodies pressing against it sent the closet sliding away. Heather took a
deep breath and jumped with her arms extended upward. We caught her and half pulled, half
dragged her up with us.

They boosted me up through the hole in the roof and I violently swore as I cut my hand
on the sharp edge. The duffel bag came next; it was a trickier task this time because the roof
wasn’t flat. There was a gentle slant that made the bag want to slide down and off. I solved
the problem by tossing the shoulder strap over a vent. I reached down for Sarah and carefully
helped her up. The blood on my palm was really flowing and it made it difficult to get a firm
grip, but after two tries we managed to get it right.

Heather let out a surprised cry and I looked down to find that the lockers were swaying
slightly. The undead had surrounded the bank of lockers and were pressing up against it as
they futilely grasped towards her. The force of the assault was enough that it was rocking back
and forth, and the bolts were slowly working their way out of the floor.

“We’ve only got one try at this,” I called down to her. “Make it good.”

She nodded and quickly readied herself. She took a deep breath and flexed her knees in
preparation. Her eyes closed briefly and her mouth worked silently in what could only have
been a prayer. Then, without opening her eyes, she jumped just as the bolts on the lockers
came loose on one side and the entire section tumbled over into the wall with a deafening
crash.

I caught her just below the wrist with the hand that was bleeding. Almost immediately I
could feel her starting to slip. Sarah attempted to grab her other hand, but her arms weren’t
long enough to reach. I glanced over my shoulder to see where the duffel bag was and stuck
my foot through the loop. I flattened myself on the roof and grabbed her with both hands.
Down below, the zombies were in a frenzy as they filled the room from wall to wall. Grinding
my teeth together so hard that they hurt, I pulled with every ounce of strength that I had in
me. Slowly, miraculously, she began to rise. When she was high enough, Sarah caught her
other arm and together we heaved her onto the roof. I collapsed flat on my back with
exhaustion.

“Holy shit,” Heather gasped out as she rubbed her arm. There were bruises where my
fingers had gripped her. “Holy motherfucking shit.”

Sarah carefully inched towards the edge of the roof and looked down. “I hate to be the
bearer of bad news,” she called back up, “but we’re not out of the woods yet. The entire
building is surrounded.”

I painfully rolled over and got to my feet. This simple action made me feel like I was
going to vomit, but the roof was painfully hot from the sun and I didn’t want to get burned.
Even though I couldn’t see the area immediately around the police station from my vantage
point, what I could see told the story well enough.

Zombies of all shapes and sizes were coming out of houses and businesses and heading
in our direction. I remembered how I had been surprised at just how few of the things we had
seen as we drove into town. Obviously, that had been because they had been busy with other
things, such as wandering through buildings. Now, though, the noise of either the moaning of
other zombies or the shotgun blasts (or, more likely, a combination of both) had alerted them
to the presence of living beings, and they were approaching our position en masse.

When my breathing began to return to a regular rate and my stomach apparently came
to the decision that it was going to bogart all the bile and stomach acid (it’s kind of a stingy
bastard like that), I unhooked the duffel bag from the vent and put the strap over my shoulder.
It was fairly heavy and I knew the spot where most of the weight rested was going to be raw
the next day, but after adjusting it a bit I was able to carry it without too much trouble.

After a brief pause I set it back down again. I thought about getting the shotgun out of
the bag, but rejected the idea when I realized that it would be almost impossible to aim it
properly with one of my arms weighed down. Instead I opted for one of the pistols and slid a
couple of extra magazines into the pockets of my pants. I picked the bag up once again and got
it back into place.

Heather had regained her composure by now and had joined Sarah at the edge of the
roof. “It’s too high for us to jump down safely,” she concluded, pushing her sweat-soaked hair
out of her face. “Even if it wasn’t, they’re three or four bodies deep down there. We’d never
make it.”

“We’re on the opposite side of the building from the Jeep,” Sarah pointed out. “Let’s
head over and see if that side is the same way.”

They seemed to have little trouble traversing the roof, but with the added weight of the
duffel bag I found myself having to concentrate on every step to avoid plummeting off the
building. Imagine my relief when the roof flattened out over the bullpen and entryway areas.
Now that there was no risk of our entire cache of weapons falling into the hands of the enemy
(who, admittedly, would have no idea how to open the bag, let alone use the guns) I set it
down with a sigh of relief. I worked a sudden crick out of my neck with a satisfying pop and
went to join the ladies at the edge.

If anything, this side of the building was even worse. We hadn’t exactly been able to use
ninja-like stealth to get across the roof, and the noise of our walking had worked up the
zombies below. They reached up at us and moaned in anticipation. To make matters worse, a
number of them were packed together near the Jeep. Even if we were able to get to the
ground somehow, we’d never be able to reach our only means of transportation without being
swarmed under.

Quite the predicament, wouldn’t you agree? It was sort of like being trapped on the
roof of your house when a local dam breaks and floods the streets. There were two major
differences between that scenario and what was happening to us, of course. First of all, we
were perfectly dry. Second, during a flood the water doesn’t try to eat the people. Beyond
those two minor snafus, I think it’s a fairly good analogy and I’m kind of proud of it.

You’ll notice that I’m starting to wander away from the situation a bit. I’ve noticed that
if I actually focus on a problem I tend to reach a sort of mental wall, but if I allow my mind to
wander a bit, to run around the backyard of my consciousness yipping and wagging its tail in
excitement instead, it tends to find an answer and bring it back to me. My mind is a good boy
like that. Yes, mind, you’re a good boy. Yes you are! Who’s a good boy? Who’s a good boy?
Who wants its tummy rubbed?

“The only way out of this is for one of us to go down there and distract them,” I suddenly
burst out. There, see? My mind dog had returned my mental Frisbee to me along with an
answer. And a bit of drool.

“James, that’s suicide,” Heather said, shocked.

I shrugged. “Possibly,” I acknowledged. “That doesn’t change the fact that it’s the only
way. We have to give these zombies a reason to leave the general area of the police station,
and the only thing I can think of that will do the trick is to dangle some fresh meat in front of
them.”
 There was a long moment of silence. A nice summer breeze was flowing through the air,
and the sky was clear with the exception of a few white puffy clouds that drifted lazily across
the heavens. If it wasn’t for the possibility of being torn to pieces and devoured by a large
crowd of reanimated corpses, it would have been a rather pleasant afternoon.

“Let’s say that we went along with this insane notion of yours,” Heather said slowly.
“How would one of us get down there without being killed instantly?”

“We have a giant bag of guns and ammunition,” Sarah pointed out. “Why don’t we just
kill them all off and be on our way? It’s not like we’re on some sort of schedule we have to
keep.”

“There’s not that much ammo in the bag. Most of it had been used by the cops that
died in the station by the time we got to it. The bag has mostly things like flares and
plastique.”

“Plastique?”

“Plastic explosives. The S.W.A.T. teams sometimes use it to gain entry into areas where a
battering ram won’t do the job. Don’t ask me why a town this small has so much S.W.A.T. level
gear, but it does.”

Oh ho ho ho, plastic explosives! Just the sound the words make when you say them out
loud makes me smile. Oh, sure, to some people it may seem like a brute force weapon,
something that requires little skill or finesse. To a point this is true. Even an amateur could do
a lot of damage with plastic explosives after simply reading the instruction manual. Like many
things, though, it may be easy to use, but it’s highly difficult to master. If you want to make the
explosions work for you, to make them dance to your tune and do just the exact right amount
of damage for the job, you have to spend time perfecting your technique.

I love me some plastic explosives.

That had absolutely nothing to do with the current issue, of course.

“What we do have enough ammunition for is to clear out the fenced-in parking lot,”
Heather continued thoughtfully. “We’d have to be fast, though. James really did a number on
the door leading into the station. The zombies inside could simply come out into the parking
lot if they realized something was going on.”

“You told me to shoot the lock off that door,” I reminded her.

She ignored that. “You’ll have to climb the fence at the back to get out of the parking
lot. If you go any other way, there will be zombies waiting for you.”

I raised an eyebrow. “Me?”

“Hey, it was your idea. Besides, you’re the only one that makes sense. I’m the best shot,
so it makes sense for me to cover you from the roof, and Sarah’s never shot a pistol before so
she wouldn’t be able to defend herself very well. You don’t expect to be able to climb that
fence with one of the rifles or the shotgun, do you?”

Well, I had wanted a challenge when I agreed to come to Lewiston in the first place. Two
minutes later, I found myself standing at the edge of the roof overlooking the private parking
lot and looking down at quite a few zombies that were looking right back up at me. The gate
was too close to the building for that to be a viable escape route; unfortunately Heather had
been right and the only realistic chance of survival was to go up and over the fence at the back
of the lot.
 Heather and Sarah gathered at one side of the parking lot, Heather wielding the shotgun
and Sarah sticking with her rifle, and I stepped back out of view on the other. They began to
fire down into the crowd. I counted to ten before Heather waved at me, the signal that my
side of the lot was as empty as it was going to get. Gritting my teeth I rushed to the edge of
the roof and, seeing that the nearest zombie was ten feet away and not paying any attention to
me, lowered myself gently down and made a break for the back fence.

“We’re out!” Heather called as the distinctive sounds of gunfire ended. “They’re
heading your way, James!”

I threw a glance over my shoulder and saw that she was right. The door leading into the
police station had been flung open, and the mass of zombies that had previously infested the
locker room were now dragging themselves outside with all their attention focused squarely
on me. I turned back to the task at hand and hit the fence at a run.

It was hard to get a grip with my injured hand, and the blood started to flow out of it
again as the metal bit into the cut. I also found that my feet were too big to gain purchase in
the gaps, which meant that I had to haul myself up with just my arms. They were already tired
from pulling Heather out of the hole in the roof and they didn’t seem to want to respond now.
I forced myself to forget the pain and just get up the fucking fence before my bottom half
became indigestion for the undead.

The fence itself was about fifteen feet tall, but it might as well have been Mt. Everest at
the rate I was climbing. Finally, though, I reached the top just as the first of the zombies
reached the base. I swung my leg over the top, being careful not to literally tear myself a new
one on the barbed wire that ran across, and started to lower myself down when my arms
finally gave up on me.
 I fell the rest of the way and hit hard at the base of the fence. The wind was knocked
out of me, and I could feel hands grasping at my back and side through the links. I quickly
rolled away and forced myself to my feet. All it took was one step to inform me of something
rather unfortunate and potentially dangerous: my leg was hurt. Not so much that I couldn’t
walk on it, but there was a definite limp and I doubted that running any real distance was in
the cards at this point.

I pulled the Glock out of my waistband. It was a good thing that the Glock 22 had a
couple of internal safeties, or that fall might have ensured that I would never be able to
procreate. I proceeded according to the plan, gimping my way around the building and making
a lot of noise to draw the undead away from the police department’s walls. At first they
seemed hesitant to follow, but finally their base instincts kicked in and they lurched towards
me. More and more of them were coming out of the surrounding buildings, and at one point
there was a giant crash that said louder than words that the parking lot fence had been
brought down. I reached the front of the building, maintaining at least twenty feet from the
zombies at all times, and slowly walked down the street like some sort of parade conductor.

This was the really dangerous part, I knew. Between the zombies following me from the
police station and those that were slowly making their way out of the houses and places of
businesses, I had to make sure that I wasn’t caught between them. Blocking my path was an
undead specimen that had been a nurse in life (or perhaps was just into some really kinky
stuff), and I raised the gun and fired. The first shot was low but had the interesting result of
stopping the moaning as it shredded its throat. I was rather impressed that it wasn’t knocked
off its feet by a shot like that. I wasn’t so impressed that I didn’t finish it off with two more
shots, though. For that level of impressed, it would have had to do a backflip and break into a
selection from The Music Man.
 I risked a look back at the roof. Heather and Sarah were lowering the duffel bag to the
ground in preparation of soon joining it. This momentary distraction allowed a zombie fireman
to almost grab me as he came out from behind a car, but at the last second I saw its reflection
in a car window and jerked away. I had nothing but the utmost respect for the men and
woman that risked their lives as firefighters, but again, not enough to stop me from putting it
down with a hole through the face.

Things were starting to get out of hand. Slowly but surely, I was being forced into the
center of a ring of not-so-living fellows looking to give me a rather lethal embrace. The sheer
number of bodies made it impossible to break through one of the masses. There was still a
gap on the other side of the street, so I began to head towards it as quickly as I could. My leg
throbbed in protest and nearly collapsed when I stepped up on the curb. I told my body to
stop being suck a fucking pussy and continued on at a near jog.

There was no room to make it back to the police station at this point. I couldn’t even see
far enough to make out the Jeep; I could only hope that the ladies had managed to get off the
roof without incident. Deciding that there wasn’t anything I could do about it either way, I
brought my full focus back to the problem at hand.

I hurried up a walkway and painfully mounted the porch steps of a two-story house. A
zombie was stuck on the remains of the screen door, so I helped it out with three squeezes of
my gun’s trigger. I stepped over the body and into the house’s entryway. Almost immediately
there was movement to my right. I turned and emptied the weapon into the undead remains
of a businessman. Its female equivalent shambled out of the kitchen. I ejected the empty clip
and for no apparent reason I flung it at my assailant. It didn’t do anything as it smacked the
zombie in the face, of course, but I was running on adrenaline and it just seemed like the thing
to do at the time.
 I pulled another magazine out of my pocket, but the zombie was too close for me to
have time to load the gun. Ducking under its grasp, I stumbled into the kitchen behind it and
jammed the clip home. I turned back to my playmate and made its brain turn from barely
functioning to an unusable pile of mush.

At the back of the kitchen was a door leading to the backyard. I flung it open and
stepped outside. The yard was surrounded by a short brown picket fence, and there was a
metal swing set that spoke louder than words that a child had once lived here. My leg felt like
it was on fire, and it protested the abuse as I walked down the steps and rushed over to the
gate. The only undead I could see were a few yards over. I had finally found some breathing
room.

From behind me came the sound of glass shattering and wood breaking as the zombie
horde began to flood into the house.

So much for that breathing room.

I opened the gate and politely closed it again (the complete and total collapse of society
isn’t an excuse for bad manners) before surveying my options. I was standing in a gravel
driveway that led out into the street where zombies were still swarming like locusts of Biblical
proportions, and the end closest to me terminated at a detached garage. There was always
the option of hiding in the garage. Of course, that particular option would inevitably lead to
the same result as if I ran back into the kitchen, doused myself with barbecue sauce from the
fridge, and proceeded to simply lie down on the tile floor. Modern garages were designed to
house the family’s grocery getter, not put up resistance against the undead. It was clearly a
design flaw, and I would have to put a suggestion note in the appropriate box when this was all
over.
 I felt a tug at the cuff of my pants and looked down. There was a zombie, completely
missing anything below the belt line except for a few straggling internal organs, that had
crawled unnoticed up to me and was pulling itself towards my leg. I knelt down and shot it
point blank in the eye. Kicking the still-clutching hand off of me, I shook my head in disgust.
Some people were just so rude. Couldn’t he see that I was trying to concentrate?

The first of the zombies appeared at the kitchen door, and just like that my personal
thinking time was over. I hurried around the side of the garage and found that there was only
another small section of picket fence separating it from the neighbor’s yard behind it. My leg
had apparently decided that it wasn’t worth the effort of informing me that it was hurt
anymore and had simply gone numb with an odd throbbing sensation. This was great for me
not feeling like I had to scream with every step, but it was bad for boosting myself over the
fence. I took extra care not to accidentally neuter myself on one of the boards, but eventually I
was over and headed through the grass towards the next street.

There were certainly quite a few undead populating this road, but it wasn’t nearly as
condensed as the street I had just come from. I stumped along as quickly as I could manage,
making sure to leave any zombies in my path with a wonderful parting gift of a lifetime supply
of 100% all natural death, and came to an intersection. One way led back towards the police
station, the other led into parts unknown. From somewhere smoke was billowing out in thick
black clouds, making it difficult to see, but from what I could make out both ways seemed to
be fairly clear. I chose the path back towards the Jeep and its promise of four-wheel drive
freedom.

As I limped in the general direction of my destination I found the source of the smoke:
what appeared to have once been a ranch-style house was on fire. I was no expert on the
subject, but it seemed to me that the fire hadn’t yet reached the stage where it couldn’t be
controlled. If firefighters arrived on the scene in the somewhat immediate future, the home
could probably be saved with only moderate damage. There weren’t any professionals
coming, of course, so this currently tame fire would more than likely become a blaze that
would consume most of the neighborhood before it burned itself out. Remembering the
firefighter zombie that I had shot minutes earlier, I idly wondered if it would have attempted to
put out the flames if it had been aware of what was happening just a block away.

A zombie attempting to save property instead of destroying it to get at a meal. Now

that kind of thinking could get a guy committed.

Or committed again, depending on who’s doing the thinking.

But hey, being locked up inside of a padded cell couldn’t really happen in this Brave New
World. There weren’t any organized police to handle the manhunt for an individual of the
crazy persuasion, there weren’t any orderlies to keep, well, order, and there weren’t any
psychiatrists to be called in to evaluate and “cure” the patient. It wasn’t just the world’s social
system that had failed. The entire justice system had jumped off the same bridge, too. It was
kind of funny that even though a person now had more personal freedom than ever before,
exercising this newfound freedom would probably get that individual eaten alive by the living
dead.

Just before I reached the street that I was heading for, I came across a giant blood smear
that ran from the front door of one house all the way to the front yard of another on the other
side of the road. The blood couldn’t have been from a single person. There was simply too
much of it; the human body didn’t contain enough of the red stuff to make something this long
and wide. Trust me, I am something of an expert on the subject, after all. Using my amazing
detective skills garnered from my days of chasing Moriarty through the streets of turn of the
century London, I determined that a group of people, bleeding heavily from multiple wounds,
had made their way into the house and closed the door. By jove, Holmes, I think you’ve
cracked the code!

What made this so interesting was that the blood was fresh. It was still wet and had
barely begun to soak into the pavement. Depending on how many people were in the group to
begin with and how series the wounds were, there was a good chance that somebody might
still be alive in that house.

I shrugged and kept walking. It wasn’t my problem, after all. I needed to concentrate on
my own survival so that I could hopefully meet back up with Heather and Sarah and get the
hell out of here. My body needed time to rest, and I could already feel the adrenaline wearing
off. I knew from experience that, once it was completely gone, I wouldn’t have enough energy
to do anyone any good. If there really were any survivors inside, they would need to fend for
themselves.

Okay, if I figured this all out logically, why did my body turn towards the house in
question? Why exactly had my feet and legs rebelled to start me moving towards it? For God’s
sake, why was I pulling my last magazine out of my pocket in preparation for reloading if my
gun ran out of bullets while I was inside?

Who was in charge here, my brain or my body?

Apparently my body was. I heard my brain sigh in resignation as it began to ready itself
for another possible combat situation.

The irony that the zombie apocalypse was making me more human while it made pretty
much everyone else less of one was not lost on me.
CHAPTER TWELVE

Kill Counter- 129

The house was a two story home done in a style that was reminiscent of the early 1980s.
The porch roof was supported by four white pillars, which were matched in color by the
house’s siding. A screen door was fixed in place in front of the actual front door. There was a
wooden porch swing set off to the side of the doorway; it wasn’t until I had climbed the stairs
that I noticed that there was a body lying on the seat. Its left arm was torn in half and the right
leg was missing completely. A large piece of metal piping was lodged firmly in its head, almost
as if someone had planted a flag claiming it as property of his or her sovereign nation.

Human or zombie, that had to have hurt.

I cautiously opened the screen door. It made a rather hideous screeching noise and
popped right off of the hinges in my hand. Wasn’t there a single door in this town that wasn’t
constructed with shoddy craftsmanship? I gently set it down on top of Pipehead and
considered the front door for a moment. I had no idea what was on the other side. There
could be an entire house full of zombies, or aliens, or zombie aliens for all I knew.

More importantly and more likely than zombie aliens, there could be survivors in there
that were guarding the door against undead intrusion. If I just opened it and burst into the
room, I ran the risk of being mistaken for a zombie and shot to death before having a chance to
get a word out. There were any number of awesome action movie-esque options that came to
mind, but I went with the simplest and most effective that I could come up with.

I knocked on the door.

 “Hello?” I called to any unseen listeners.

For a moment there was nothing. Then slowly, ever so slowly, the door began to swing
open. I gripped my gun tightly but kept it lowered so as not to provoke any potential humans
inside.

“Who are you?” a deep male voice said from the other side of the door.

I briefly considered telling him that I was a Jehovah’s Witness, but then I remembered
that I was trying not to get shot. “My name is James Pool,” I said instead. “I was headed back
to my car and saw the blood in the street. I wanted to make sure that everyone was okay.”

There was a slight pause. The door opened all the way and I found myself face to chest
with an absolute monster of a man. He was nearly seven feet tall and covered in muscles that
were bigger than my head. He was dressed in jeans and a T-shirt that, like his dark skin, were
covered in sweat and blood. Most striking, though, was the strip of cloth tied across his bald
head and over his left eye.

“Come on inside and have a seat,” he told me in a surprisingly refined voice. I would
usually have associated that almost genteel tone with eighty-year-old men sitting in front of a
fireplace drinking brandy from a snifter. “Whoever lived here had rather poor taste in décor,
but it’s comfortable.”

“Thanks, I appreciate that.” Extreme politeness seemed to be called for.

He closed the door behind me and locked it. When he saw me watching, he smiled.
“Locks won’t really keep the undead out for long, but every little bit counts, right?”

I smiled back and nodded. We headed down a short hallway into the house’s living
room. Lying on the couch was a woman covered in layers of blankets and coats. Her face was
twisted in agony and her breathing was labored. Kneeling next to her was a clean cut man
wearing glasses, his face full of concern. Judging from the wedding ring on his finger, I
assumed that he was her husband. Beyond them, sitting in a chair with a doll in her lap and
her hands clasped in front of her, was a little girl no older than five. She was watching the
adults gravely.

“This is the Watson family,” my guide informed me. “Her name is Janice, and his is
Mark. And that little angel over in the recliner is their daughter Margaret.” He smiled slightly.
“She prefers to be called Maggie, however. Isn’t that right, Miss Maggie?”

The girl smiled and nodded, her blonde ponytail bouncing in time with her bobbing
head.

“My name is Matthew Ducard,” he continued, shaking my hand. Once again he

surprised me as his grip was surprisingly gentle. “The Watsons and I are refugees from Kansas
City. We barely escaped with our lives, but when we arrived here to search for supplies we
found the town completely overrun with the undead.”

He put an arm around me and led me into the dining room. “Mrs. Watson was gravely
injured in an attack we suffered about half an hour ago. We managed to make it inside this
house, but the zombies were everywhere. We certainly would have been killed if they didn’t
leave on their own for some unknown reason.”

A reason like a stupid injured man that had jumped off a roof and was making a
spectacle to draw attention to himself, perhaps?

“There was more blood out there than could have come from one person,” I pointed
out.
 Matthew nodded. “You saw the gentleman out on the porch swing?” I nodded. “That
is the remains of Carl Worthington. He took the brunt of the attack from the group of undead.
I managed to drag him to the house, but his wounds were too serious and he died. I…I had to
do what I did to his head to keep him from…coming back.”

“How bad is Mrs. Watson?”

He scratched his chin. “Bad enough. She was bitten multiple times and her side was
torn open. She lost a lot of blood.”

“If she was bitten…” I left it hanging.

He looked back into the living room for a long moment. “She’s going to die,” he finished
finally. “She’s going to die and reanimate. She’ll be one of them. I know. Mark knows, too,
but he’s trying to stay strong for his daughter.” He sighed heavily. “These are good people.
They don’t deserve this.”

I didn’t know what to say to that, so I remained silent.

“You said that you have a car, didn’t you?” Matthew asked after a moment. “Is there
room enough in it for all of us? Our car ran out of gas before we made it into Lewiston.”

My first instinct was to say no, that there wouldn’t be enough room and that neither he
nor the Watsons were welcome to come along for the ride. Instead I found myself nodding
and saying, “It’s a Jeep Cherokee. I’ve got two companions that I hope were able to make their
way back to it, so it will be tight, but if someone rides in the back we can all squeeze in.”

“Thank you. I know you’ve just met us and you have to be a bit wary about helping
strangers with the way the world is.”
 I hesitated. “We have to hurry. If we don’t get back to the Jeep soon, my friends might
decide that I didn’t make it and leave for safer pastures. We have to-“

“Leave my wife behind,” a voice finished from behind me. I turned and found that Mark
had left his wife’s side and had come into the dining room to join us. “It’s okay,” he assured
me. “I…I know what’s going to happen to her. We…I have to do what’s best for my daughter.
Let us say goodbye and we can leave.”

Matthew and I waited outside while the Watsons said their final farewells. Maggie came
out first, her blue eyes filled with tears and her Raggedy Anne doll clutched against her chest.
Without a word, the huge man knelt down and scooped her up into his arms. She sniffed
loudly.

“My mommy has to go to sleep now,” she said in a tiny voice. “Then she’s going to be
with God.”

“That’s right, little angel,” Matthew told her, his own eyes quivering. “Your momma is
going to be with God in Heaven and she’ll be watching over you.”

From inside the house came the crack of a gun firing. A minute late, the door opened
and Mark joined us on the porch. In his hand was a revolver, which he slid into his belt. His
eyes met mine, and I knew that I was looking at a man that had just made the hardest decision
of his life. His face spoke of unimaginable emotional pain, but at the same time it reflected the
knowledge that he had made the right choice. I nodded gravely at him in understanding, and
he nodded without a word. He took his daughter from Matthew and held her tight.

We headed towards the police station quickly but cautiously. Most of the undead
seemed to be preoccupied somewhere else; I hoped that they were still following my now-cold
trail and not going after Heather and/or Sarah. When we reached the street corner, I was
immediately relieved to see that the Jeep was still right where I had parked it. I belatedly
realized that this could be a bad thing: if they hadn’t moved the vehicle, it might mean that
they didn’t actually make it into the vehicle. My fears were allayed when the Jeep’s engine
suddenly started and the two front doors opened.

Heather stepped out of the driver’s door and immediately went around the car to open
the other doors while Sarah took up a defensive position with a rifle clutched in her hands. We
reached the Jeep and I flashed Heather a smile.

“Did you miss me?” I asked roguishly. I was suddenly in a great mood for some reason.

“Not as much as those zombies that were chasing you did,” she replied with an
answering grin. “Who are they?” She indicated the group of refugees that I had brought
along.

“We can do the introductions later. Let’s get everyone inside and put some miles
between us and this town. There are a lot of zombies out there.”

While Heather helped the others into the Jeep, I limped around to the other side and
smiled at Sarah. “How about you, did you miss me?” I asked.

She embraced me fiercely. “I was desolate,” she teased. “Don’t you go getting yourself
killed before you’re done teaching me what I need to know.”

“I don’t plan to. Were there any problems?”

Sarah shook her head. “Nothing that we couldn’t deal with. A few of them didn’t leave
when you led the others off, but we got rid of them easily enough. We thought you were a
goner when you disappeared behind a wall of zombies.”
 I shook my head. “You can’t get rid of me that easily. I’ll admit that I started having
doubts when my leg gave out on me, though. I think it’s just a mild sprain since I was still able
to move around on it okay. Someone else is going to have to drive.”

“You’re such a wuss.”

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Kill Counter- 129

If there’s one thing that I take pride in (besides my absolutely astounding William
Shatner impression), it is being the kind of guy that doesn’t just sit around watching life pass
him by. I absolutely detest not having anything to do; whenever the creeping death of
boredom begins to make itself know, I go out and find something to keep me occupied. Some
people are perfectly content with relaxing and letting furniture discolor under their never-
moving asses, which is fine. To each his own and all that. Because of my personal philosophy,
however, I’m going to do you a favor.

I’m going to skip ahead.

When I started writing this, I made a conscious decision to gloss over the boring parts
and bring you, my literate stalker, only the good parts of my story. Sure, I could have gone into
a long description of my stay at the asylum for a bit more backstory, but would you really like
to read about long days that were exactly the same as the one before, mostly filled sitting
around and waiting for the next meal, medication, or chit chat with a therapist? Of course not,
that would be atrocious. If you want nothing but excruciating boredom out of your books, go
read Wuthering Heights.

The truth about the zombie apocalypse is that, while the exciting parts tend to get really
exciting, there’s a lot of time-consuming planning, hiding, and, yes, waiting involved. You’re
not under attack every second of every day. Someone like myself might prefer that, but hey,
the theory of survival of the fittest never claimed to apply to everyone.
 So I figure instead of boring you with all the tedious details of the next year, I’ll simply
summarize so that we can get back to the good stuff. You can thank me later, preferably with
flowers or those little tiny chocolates that come in a heart-shaped box. Nah, I’m just kidding, if
you want to get me a gift you can’t go wrong with, buy me something that explodes.

On the long drive from Kansas to Montana, I learned quite a bit about our new
companions. The now-widowed Mark was an agricultural engineer that specialized in the
design of farming machinery and equipment. He had been pitching a new tractor motor to a
potential client in Kansas City when the world had decided to go insane. For the first few days
he kept mostly to himself, only breaking his silence when his daughter would ask a question or
he absolutely needed to. Usually the latter happened when he needed to use the potty.

His daughter Maggie was, quite possibly, the cutest little girl in the whole wide world. I
was informed of this fact by Heather, who seemed to take to her immediately. Even my dark
accomplice Sarah didn’t seem fully immune to her unstoppable powers of cute. Maggie’s
occupation wasn’t nearly as impressive as her father’s. In fact, as far as I could tell she was
unemployed. See, that sort of thing is what brought our great country to its knees. Just
another five-year-old that couldn’t hold down a job, making the rest of us taxpayers foot the
bill for her through the Welfare system.

Matthew was the biggest surprise. I don’t mean that literally, of course, although with
his massive size I might be inclined to change my mind on that. Matthew, all six foot ten and
three hundred pounds of him, was an English Literature professor at the University of Kansas.
No, seriously, he really was. I could only imagine how intimidating of a teacher he had made.
If he told a student to read A Midsummer Night’s Dream, that student had damn sure have
read A Midsummer Night’s Dream or there was going to be a world on pain coming down the
pike. You wouldn’t be able to hide from him, either, because his minor was in some form of
Geography that I had never heard of before. He would track you down with his amazing map-
reading skills and fuck you up with the complete works of Charles Dickens if you ever crossed
him. The fact that he had lost an eye in a hand-to-hand skirmish with a zombie and had not
only walked away from that fight alive after bludgeoning it to death with his bare hands, but
had also simply tied a bandage around that ruined eye and led the Watsons out of the
mayhem of undead-filled Kansas City, proved he was a giant badass in scholar’s clothing.

Our Jeep was fine for a family trip down to the local carnival or the occasional
emergency escape from walking corpses looking to munch on our faces, but it wasn’t really
large enough to carry all six of us and adequate supplies. Luckily the answer to this vexing
problem was only a few miles away from Lewiston. We happened upon a used car lot
conveniently located across the street from a gas station. A couple of crossed wires and some
filled gas canisters later, and we had a little caravan going with the girls and Mark in the Jeep
and Matthew and I bringing up the rear in our brand new pre-owned van. The good luck kept
on coming as we found a strip mall a bit further down the road, which allowed us to not only
pick up food supplies, but also get our hands on the heavier clothing that we had surmised
that we’d need in Montana. All in all, things were really coming together.

That was until we actually reached Montana, of course. When we arrived at the bar that
Sarah’s uncle was the proprietor of, we found that it had certainly seen better days. The
obvious joke response to that statement is “Haven’t we all?” if you’re searching for one. While
this is certainly true, I’m pretty sure that most of us doesn’t have zombies crawling around
inside of us and, worse yet, have precious beer spilled all over the place. I’ll admit that at first I
didn’t see much of an issue when we walked into the establishment. It was only after I realized
that the bodies ambling towards Heather with their mouths open and guttural moans escaping
from their mouths were, in fact, not just your typical mid-day bar patrons and were in actuality
the living dead that I knew we had an issue.

Gather round, children, and hear the tale of six mighty warriors (or five, if you don’t
classify a five-year-old girl with pigtails a mighty warrior) who stood against the endless legions
of the underworld. That day, the sun scorched the world with its heat. Truly it was hell on
Earth as these warriors gathered to do battle with the accursed undead. Long the war was
waged, and many fell upon the field that day before the sun set behind the hills. With a great
cry the warriors stood triumphant upon a mountain of slain enemies, and the legend of their
deeds shall live until the final days.

That sounds so much more impressive than what actually happened. In reality, we
simply left the bar and drove away. See what I mean about a bunch of boring stuff happening
and there being a need to simply move ahead in the timeline? This is why I’m always right,
even when I’m wrong.

Especially when I’m wrong.

We drove around aimlessly for a while before we found a safe place to stay. On our third
day in the great state of Montana (assuming that there were still “states” without a federal
government in place), we found an abandoned cattle ranch. No, there wasn’t any actual cattle
there anymore, but it was what the facility had been used for previously so the name still
stands. The house was large enough to accommodate us all comfortably, and there was a
nearby barn that we used to house our vehicles. Even better, there was a river within walking
distance that we could use for both clean water and fishing.

The nearest town was almost fifty miles down the road, meaning that it was close
enough to drive to if we needed to forage for supplies, yet far enough away that we weren’t
likely to have much zombie foot traffic trampling down our lawn. Our first couple of trips to
the town, which we learned was named Parkersburg, made it clear that there wasn’t nearly
the overwhelming undead population that we had encountered in Lewiston. Between the
town’s police station, convenience stores, sporting goods stores, and a number of houses, we
managed to build up a wonderfully large supply of guns and ammunition.

There were two main orders of business that took precedent over all others: fortify the
ranch in case of a large-scale zombie attack, and do what was necessary to ensure our survival
in the long term. The first goal was actually fairly easy to accomplish. It appeared as if the
previous owner of the home had been one of those militia nutjobs that cropped up from time
to time on the news; not only were the walls reinforced and the windows made from
bulletproof glass, there was even a bomb shelter in the backyard and some sort of cross
between a tree house and hunting blind near the river. All of this was obviously constructed by
a paranoid and potentially dangerous individual. In other words, I approved wholeheartedly.

Creating an environment that we could survive in was a much bigger chore. Sure, we
could make a life for ourselves relatively easy during the summer, but what would happen
when fall and inevitably winter came? How would we be able to sustain a food supply if the
vehicles broke down or if we were unable to secure nonperishable goods from Parkersburg?
Also, since the power was now out everywhere, how could we, six people that had always lived
with modern day conveniences, find a way to live without them?

It was when these questions popped up that Mark proved to be something of a genius.
He deduced that the first step towards solving the problem was for us to acquire a working
generator. A generator would be able to provide power for the house and act as a power
supply to charge rechargeable batteries, thus allowing us to use power tools and the CB radio
that was taken out of the Jeep. He made it a point to go with Matthew and I into Parkersburg
on our first trip there and managed to find a one that he deemed suitable. We loaded it up on
a small trailer that we located in parking lot. We then attached the trailer to the back of the
van and took it back to the ranch with us.

“This won’t really do us any good if we’re not able to secure fuel for it,” Matthew had
pointed out on the trip back.

Mark had simply nodded slowly and stared off into space. “I know,” he had admitted.
“I’m working on it.”

What he came up with was morbid even by my standards. I was awoken one morning to
the sound of pounding and something breaking. Quickly throwing on some clothes, I
meandered towards the source of the noise and found Mark and Matthew removing the
bathtub from one of the spare bathrooms. When they saw me standing there in the doorway
staring at them blurry-eyed, they stopped for a moment.

“We’re sorry if we woke you,” Matthew apologized. “We just wanted to get started on
this early. It looks like there’s going to be rain later on today and we don’t want to have to
walk this through mud.”

“Get started on what exactly?” I asked. “Are you thinking of installing an outdoor hot
tub or something?”

“I worked out the fuel problem,” Mark said with the first genuine smile I had ever seen
on his face. “The bathtub is part of the solution.”

“You lost me.”

He took a deep breath. “Okay, so, you know how we got that generator while we were
in town and hooked it up to the house? It works on a diesel engine. That might not seem like
it is important, but in this case it’s absolutely necessary. Diesel engines work better with oil-
based products as fuel than standard engines.”

“I’m with you so far.”

“So we‘ve got an engine that can run off of mostly oil, but where do we get the oil,
right? Well, I was at a conference last year where one of my clients mentioned that his wife
worked for a major beauty products manufacturer. Her company was looking into using oil
from pig fat for a few of their products. You see, if you heat up fat enough, the oil will separate
and it can be drained out of the container. We can melt down fat, run the liquid through a
strainer, and use it to power the generator.”

The idea was certainly unique. “Where are we going to get that much pig fat?” I asked
dubiously.

Mark’s grin broadened. “Oh, I doubt that we’ll be able to find any pigs to harvest their
fat. The same goes for cows and horses and whatever else. Luckily we have a readily available
source of fat at our disposal.”

I stared at him blankly.

“The zombies,” Matthew supplied. “We can harvest the fat from the bodies of dead
zombies to make the oil we need.”

“So let me get this straight,” I said slowly. “You want us to go kill zombies so that we can
harvest their body fat and turn it into fuel for our generator. And we’ll need to do this ever
time we start running low on fuel.”

They looked at each other. “That’s pretty much what I’m saying, yes,” Mark confirmed.

Without hesitation, I blurted out, “I’m in.”

 It was this simple little conversation that gave new purpose to my personal goal of
becoming the world’s foremost expert on zombie slaying. Instead of simply being for fun, it
was now for fun and profit! It was something akin to playing a sport professionally. That’s
right, I was now an amateur serial undead killer turned pro. It was like I had been drafted out
of college after a strong senior season of murder. The only things missing were the labor
disputes and the hot groupies.

Wait a minute, I forgot about Sarah. I did indeed have a groupie! Now then, where was
my multi-million dollar signing bonus?

Not that money really has any relevance in a post-zombie apocalypse world. There isn’t
anywhere to spend it, after all, and at the end of the day the only thing it’s good for is wiping
your ass or using it to make a fire. Sometimes when you’re desperate you can use it for both.
If you do, however, I would recommend using it to remove the filth from your bum first, and
then use it as kindling. Doing those two things in the opposite order might result in the
universe proving to you that your buttocks are indeed flammable.

As summer came to an end, the inevitable cool temperatures and mass botanical death
of fall began to settle in. I was willing to bet that we were one of the few groups of survivors in
the world that had access to such luxuries as working lights and central heating. We had to be
very frugal with the heating since we were trying to build up a surplus of zombie oil for the
winter, but we did run it enough to keep the pipes (and us) from freezing. We took to wearing
layers of clothing and partaking of the occasional mug of hot cocoa to keep warm. At the risk
of losing most of my street cred as a killer, it really was quite pleasant.

The now six-year-old Maggie really started coming into her own that fall. While most
children would have been terrified at the horrible events going on in the world, she seemed to
be made of stronger stuff and simply took the whole thing in stride. Granted, we shielded her
from as much actual contact with the zombie populace as we could, but when one would
wander onto the ranch and she spotted it first, she would calmly sound the alarm and even
make suggestions as to how to deal with it.

Okay, yes, I admit it, she was growing on me. So sue me. Good luck finding a lawyer
that hasn’t been converted into the living dead, though.

It was during this same time period when the physical aspects of my relationship with
Sarah came to an end. The occasion visits to Parkersburg had given me a chance to show her
some of my tricks of the trade, and she was really blossoming as a killer. What we found,
though, is that outside of our love of the murder game we actually had very little in common.
We began to drift apart until one day we had a nice calm talk about our relationship and
decided that while we made an excellent student/teacher pairing and valued each other’s
friendship, we just weren’t clicking as a couple. It was a somewhat strange experience, as
usually there are at least some hard feelings after a relationship ends, but we barely seemed to
miss a beat as we moved on.

Winter rolled around, and suddenly we were facing our first Christmas together. After
much discussion it was decided that yes, we were indeed going to celebrate the holiday, and
yes, there would indeed be gifts. Snow had already been falling by the ton for a couple of
months, so I wasn’t really sure how feasible this would all be, but we attached snow chains to
the Jeep and managed to make it back into Parkersburg to forage for presents.

As I trudged through the snowdrifts, I noticed an odd lump leaning against one of the
storefronts. Closer inspection revealed that it was a zombie that had frozen solid. It was cold
outside, certainly, but not cold enough that a human would have become physically hard from
it. That implied that for some reason zombies had a higher freezing point than use regular
folks. It was good to know that during the winter months there would be less chance of an
attack, and it would be good to know for the rest of the year if I ever invented some kind of
freeze ray. I really should get to work on that freeze ray, as you never know when a British
secret agent is going to drop in unexpectedly.

Since this was such a rare opportunity to study a presumably living specimen, I got up
close and examined the popsicle demon. The level of decay was much more advanced than
the ones we had been turning into power for our blender: much of the facial tissue was gone,
including the lips. This left it with a rather grotesque grin-like expression that displayed the
rotting teeth. Apparently dentistry was a lost art to the undead.

There was something else that just seemed off about the face, but I was unable to figure
out exactly what it was. After a long moment’s consideration I realized what was bothering
me. The eye sockets seemed more sunken into the skull. Not a whole lot more, mind you, but
enough to be noticeable. The eyelids were completely missing, but the eyes…well, the eyes
were still there. They were completely clouded over and resembled silver orbs. If I was a
normal person, I would have shuddered. Since I wasn’t, though, I mustered up a manly shake
of my head. This particular zombie looked a lot less like a reanimated corpse and a lot more
like a true undead predator. I didn’t have a frame of reference for this observation, of course.
That didn’t make it any less true.

I managed to finish my Christmas shopping after some blatant breaking and entering. To
my surprise, I even found some seasonal wrapping paper to go with the presents. As I loaded
my gifts into the back of the Jeep I felt my heart grow three sizes. Now, I didn’t have a sled led
by a dog in antlers or a warm roast beast to celebrate Christmas with, but I certainly had a
frozen zombie on which to demonstrate my turning over a new leaf to Cindy Lou Who. When
the others were done with their shopping/scavenging, they returned to the Jeep only to find a
member of the undead sporting a Santa hat and fake beard nearby. It was enough to make
one want to burst into Christmas carols and throw another Yule log on the fire.

Pointless rant incoming in 3…2…1…

You know what I never understood about Christmas? The song It’s the Most Wonderful
Time of the Year. Yeah, yeah, Andy Williams, blah blah blah. The part that I don’t get is the line
that states, “There’ll be scary ghost stories and tales of the glories of Christmases long, long
ago.” What “scary ghost stories” is the song referring to, exactly? Let’s see, let me get out my
Common Themes of Christmas checklist. The birth of Jesus, check. Santa magically flying
around the world on a sleigh pulled by airborne reindeer that apparently don’t poop all over
the populace below, check. Families getting together for the holidays and inevitably wanting to
kill each other, check. Nope, sorry, I went through the entire list and there’s nothing about
ghost stories.

Oh, but wait, what about the classic Charles Dickens novel A Christmas Carol? That’s got
ghosts in it, right? You have a point there, my worthy debating adversary, but the contention
in the song is ‘scary’ ghost stories. Do you really consider A Christmas Carol to be frightening
in any way, shape, or form? I would submit that any story, no matter how ghastly, that is made
into a movie by Disney doesn’t qualify as scary. You could have a tale of a bear that tore the
head off a hunter then proceeded to use the entrails to strange the hunter’s wife while
sexually molesting their dog, and it still wouldn’t be horrific if it was turned into an animated
movie. Hell, the bear would probably tap dance and sing a song about canine molestation
before performing the act and it would make millions.

Admit it, dear reader, where else in literature, modern day or from volumes past, would
you be able to find a mention of a bear having forced sex with a dog after committing a double
homicide? I guess I’m just a trailblazer like that.

Spring eventually came around, as is the custom, and the snow began to melt. We made
it a point to procure a number of bicycles and bring them back to the ranch. Our gas supplies
were beginning to run out, and because neither vehicle possessed a diesel engine we couldn’t
use our patent pending zombie oil as a substitute. Besides, while Mark was extremely handy
with machinery, he was the first to admit that he wasn’t a car mechanic and he wouldn’t be
able to do much if the Jeep or van broke down. Bicycles would provide us with a means of
transportation that wasn’t reliant on gas. Unfortunately, this also meant that our travel
distance and cargo capacity would be greatly reduced. We were going to have to become
more self-sufficient.

On one of our last trips into Parkersburg, we loaded up both the van and jeep with all
the farming tools and fruit and vegetable seeds that we could. There was some game to hunt
and fish in the river to catch, so the meat portion of our diet would be taken care of, but we
would have to figure out how to be successful farmers in a hurry if we wanted the necessary
vitamins they provided. I, however, was not a part of this process. It turned out that I and my
lovely assistant Matthew had another job ahead of us.

Without being able to drive into Parkersburg much (if at all) anymore, we were faced
with the issue of not having nearly as many zombies to harvest for their fat. If we wanted to
keep our supply of oil going, we were going to have to find a way to get our hands on more
undead victims.

This is where we hop back into things.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Kill Counter- 313

Admit it, you think it’s sexy how the kill counter got so high. That’s what happens when
you’re asked to murder a bunch of zombies so that you can cook the oil out of their fat.

I’d like to say that I had thought long and hard about how to acquire more zombies for
this activity without being able to go into town, but in reality I just simply ignored the problem
and allowed my subconscious to do all the work. When you broke the problem down enough,
it became apparent that there were only two ways to go about things: go to where zombies
were, or lure them to us. At first I dismissed the first possibility completely since there wasn’t
a way to transport the corpses back, but I eventually realized that we wouldn’t have to. All
that we really needed to do was carry the fat back.

Luring the undead to us carried the risk that more might show up than we could handle,
so the whole “take the harvest to them” scenario was looking better and better. Two things
were necessary to make this happen. One, we would have to find a way to bring back our hard
earned fat, and two, we needed a place that would be full of zombies. I went looking for Mark.

I found him in the living room reading a book about farming that he had taken from
Parkersburg’s small library. He had a legal pad in his lap and was scribbling down notes, but he
set the book and pad aside as I laid out the issue of fat transportation. When I finished, he
nodded thoughtfully.

“I think I remember seeing a bunch of plastic containers down in the basement,” he said
slowly. “You know, like those plastic buckets that rock salt comes in. You could probably use
those to store the fat. But how are you going to carry all those?”

He stood up and started pacing, something that I had come to associate with him being
in deep thought. In fact, he had been doing it so often in the last few months that I was
surprised that there wasn’t a trench in the carpet formed by his going back and forth. I knew
that if I gave him enough time he would come up with the answer, though, so I sat down in a
chair and picked up an old copy of Sports Illustrated I had found in my room.

Huh, would you look at that, according to analyst Peter Shaw, the Royals had a shot at
the pennant this year. I raised an eyebrow. Even before the whole zombie apocalypse thing
more than likely resulted in the Royals team being eaten and turned into the undead, the
Royals had never had much of a chance at winning anything. I checked the date on the
magazine cover. Ah, that explained it, George Brett was still on the team when it was
published.

“The river,” Mark suddenly exclaimed as he came to a halt.

“You’re going to have to expand on that,” I told him as I continued to thumb through my
magazine.

“We can build a boat or raft so that you can go up and down the river with the fat.
Something small enough that one or two people can sail it, but large enough to carry what we
need.”

Enlisting Matthew’s help, we began to craft a rather crude but seaworthy (riverworthy?)
vessel. Our finished product ended up being a medium-sized raft that two people could
comfortably stand or sit on. We first tried to craft paddles to move the raft, but they turned
out to not be feasible. Since the river was so shallow, only about eight or nine feet deep, we
instead made poles that allowed us to push it along. This worked out much better, and by
sunset we had everything working smoothly.

The next morning dawned cool and clear with the promise of a return to my killing ways.
I felt like Huckleberry Finn preparing to head down a mighty river in search of adventure. I was
almost whistling as I collected the white plastic buckets from the house’s basement and
brought them outside to the riverbank. Matthew had volunteered to join me on my quest for
zombie fat, and while he wasn’t my usual partner in crime I certainly welcomed the extra
muscle when it came to poling the raft. We didn’t have an actual destination in mind; this was
more of a scouting mission than anything else. Still, we took the rifles just in case.

We pointed our craft upstream. We had decided that this made the most sense. The
raft was fairly light and easy to move when it contained just the two of us, but once it was
loaded down with the additional weight of zombie fat it would be much easier to deal with if
we were headed downstream. We kept an eye out for anything that might have an abundant
supply of undead. A potpourri of zombies, if you will. A bonanza of the living dead. An
assload of reanimated corpses.

Hey, I wrote this haiku for you while we were busy poling.

We needed zombies

To melt their fat into oil

The moon ate some rice

Notice that it’s a traditional haiku. You know, the old ones that you read in grade school
English textbooks that don’t make any sense. Bears raping dogs, haikus discussing the very
real overeating problem that the moon has tried to hide from the public, I really am trying to
shine a light on society’s biggest problems with this book.

I am, of course, allowing this to drift a bit away from the journey upstream because it
was so damn boring. Painfully boring. Excruciatingly boring. Matthew and I kept up a steady
stream of chitchat, but there’s only so much you can talk about when you’re not getting any
topic help from the surrounding area. I even had enough free time to create Japanese poetry
just for you. You’re welcome.

About four hours into our excursion, we found that our poles were no longer touching
the bottom of the river and the current was becoming quite a bit stronger. We pushed the raft
up onto the east bank and continued on foot. We could have simply gone back, of course, but
we had come this far so we figured that we might as well have a look around. I slowly became
aware of what almost sounded like a constant rushing of air, but I couldn’t figure out what it
was. When we came to the top of a small hill, though, I no longer had to guess.

From our vantage point, we could see that the river terminated (or began, depending on
which way you were looking) at a lake blocked on one end by a huge granite dam. Three large
waterfalls poured out at a tremendous rate. With the amount of water being put out, it was
easy to see why we couldn’t hit the riverbed with our poles. Three rivers intersected at the
lake, each going off in a different direction.

“I don’t hear any humming that I would associate with machinery,” Matthew observed
calmly. “The turbines have probably been shut off or have broken down. That’s why we don’t
have any electricity at the ranch.”

“What do you mean?”

“We’re at the bottom of a hydroelectric power plant,” he explained. “Those waterfalls

are used to spin turbines, which in turn generate electricity. I’ve read about them, but I’ve
never seen one up close before.” He paused. “I don’t think it’s likely that we’ll find any
undead wandering around here. I doubt that there’s much in the way of food to keep them
here.”

“I wouldn’t be so sure about that,” I disagreed. “It’s extremely noisy here, and they
seem to be attracted at least in part by noise. Let’s take a look.”

We walked on. When we reached the dam wall, we began to follow it away from the
river. We eventually reached a ladder that went from the ground all the way up to the top of
the dam. Being careful not to slip, we climbed towards the heavens and the promise of…
whatever the hell was at the top of a dam.

After what seemed like forever but was probably only a couple of minutes, we made it
to the top and looked around. The top of the dam was about forty feet thick and, to my
amazement, it was actually a road. I don’t know why it surprised me that it was designed for
cars to drive over top, but it did. When I brought this up to Matthew, he simply nodded.

“It definitely seems odd that traffic would drive over something like a dam,” he agreed.
“It’s not unheard of, though. Hoover Dam is constructed the same way.”

While the general area seemed clear of both zombies and vehicles, I knew that we had
found what we were looking for. A road meant traffic, and if I had learned anything from the
highways that I had seen since this whole thing had begun, it was that traffic meant a large
population of undead. A scheme was beginning to form as we cautiously walked down the
street. By the time we reached the inevitable traffic jam that I knew was coming, the entire
plan had been worked out.
 “We can use these zombies,” I said confidently as pointed at the undead wandering
aimlessly through the abandoned vehicles.

“How do you propose that we get them back to the raft so that we can harvest the fat?”

I grinned viciously. “We’ll use gravity. We can kill them one at a time and push them off
the dam. Someone will be at the bottom to remove the fat, and when the buckets are full we
can take them back to the ranch. If we ever find ourselves running low on zombies, we’ll
simply set off a car alarm or blow up a car’s gas tank to attract more.”

“You really think that will work?” he asked dubiously.

“Trust me, it’ll work.”

Our talking had apparently drawn the attention of the closest zombies, and they turned
towards us with the usual moaning and outstretching of arms. Judging from the scraps of
clothes that remained on their bodies and the generally deteriorated look that they had about
them, I guessed that winter must have been harsh for them. Still, they were alive (so to speak)
and moving, so apparently even after being frozen they could keep going like some demonic
Energizer bunny.

“Let’s just head back,” I suggested. “We don’t want to kill any of them now, not until
we’re ready to scrape any fat they have left off of them.”

I had just gotten the words out of my mouth when the universe decided, “Hey, you know
what? Let’s go ahead and shake things up a bit. These motherfuckers are getting a bit too
comfortable for my taste.”

It all started with a hissing sound. At first I thought it was a car tire losing air, but it
quickly defined itself into a shriek. All the alarm bells in my head started going off at once, and
I raised the rifle instinctively. A zombie, female in life with long black hair and what had
probably been an attractive figure, jumped onto the hood of a station wagon. Its facial skin
was so tight and torn off in so many places that it almost appeared to be a mask. Like the
zombie that I had dubbed Kris Kringle in Parkersburg, this one was missing its lips, and its eyes
were that same eerie silver color.

Wait a second, rewind the tape, brain. I missed something back there, something
important. I’m not sure what, but…

Oh hell.

It had jumped up onto the car.

“James…” Matthew whispered warningly.

“I see it,” I responded shortly.

The zombie regarded us for a moment while the more commonplace ones began to
head towards us. It turned its head from side to side in an almost human gesture of
uncertainty. Its mouth opened wide, and that shriek came out again right before it jumped
back off the car and came at us at a run. It didn’t shamble, it didn’t stumble forward in that
slow gait that others of its kind did. It actually ran at us as fast as any human that I had ever
seen.

I opened fire with the rifle. Firing at this particular target was much more difficult than I
was accustomed to. It wasn’t moving slowly enough to take the time to carefully line up a kill
shot. The first shot missed completely. The second struck the zombie in the shoulder and
knocked it off of its feet, but even before I could squeeze the trigger again it was back up and
charging once again. The third shot buried itself in its neck, and suddenly it was too late to fire
the weapon again because the undead sprinter had closed the distance and was right on top of
us.

Matthew had been slower bringing his weapon to bear, but he managed to fire one
round before friendly fire became an issue. Perhaps perceiving him as the biggest threat or
simply the biggest meal, the zombie went after him with mouth open and claw-like hands
reaching. He turned his weapon sideways and pushed out with it to once again knock down
our assailant. Just like before, though, it was back up in an instant and continuing the assault.
I swung my rifle like a club and caught it in the side of the head, and it shrieked as it stumbled
backwards. Matthew’s rifle fired again, and this time the round hit right between the eyes.
The nightmare slumped to the ground and did not move.

“Go!” I ordered. “Get back to the ladder!”

We turned and ran as fast as we could. What the hell was going on? How the hell had
that zombie jumped and run like some sort of Olympic athlete? Never before had we
encountered undead that didn’t move at a snail’s pace. We reached the ladder and climbed
down for all we were worth. Once I felt my foot slip off of a rung and had to physically slow
myself down. It didn’t matter what new abomination the world had spit out if I plunged to my
death. Eventually, we reached the bottom without incident and craned our necks upward to
view the top of the dam. Unfortunately, from our vantage point we couldn’t see anything, and
after a few minutes we began the hike back to our raft.

“Did you see its eyes?” Matthew asked quietly. “They were shining in the light, almost
like silver or pearls.”

“I saw,” I confirmed.
 “And when it came after us…” He shook his head as if to clear the cobwebs, and he
adjusted the eye patch that covered his missing eye. “It was like a wild animal, James. Its
behavior was completely different from the undead that we’ve come across. The normal
zombies are only really dangerous when they’re in groups or in extremely close quarters. That
one, though…” He trailed off.

“It wasn’t just that one. Remember Santa Zombie back in Parkersburg? It had the same
eyes. We have to assume that there are more of them out there.”

“What do we do about it?”

“What can we do about it?” I countered. “Until we know more about what’s going on
and how many of them are out there, there’s nothing that we can do. You saw the regular
slack-jawed yokel zombies back there. If they’re still around, I would guess that Wonder
Zombie isn’t the new status quo, at least not yet. She was definitely a step up the food chain,
though.”

Matthew considered things for a moment. “Do you think it might have been some
change in the virus that’s creating the zombies? That the virus is possibly evolving?”

“If it really is a virus, it’s possible,” I conceded. “The only thing we know for sure is that
if we start seeing these new zombies in packs as large as the ones we saw in Lewiston, we’re in
a hell of a lot of trouble.”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Kill Counter- 313

That evening, Matthew and I told the rest of the group about our encounter as we were
eating dinner. The news that there were now zombies out there that weren’t limited to simply
shambling towards us like a senior citizen approaching a pharmacy was met with more than a
little chagrin. All of the tactics that we had come up with, all of the instincts that we had
developed, were appearing as if we’d have to chuck them right out the window. I let the
others continue the discussion while I sat back and consulted someone that I hadn’t had a
good long conversation with in a while: myself. Not just me, but that little part of me that sits
quietly in the back of my mind until some killing needed done.

I had mostly been working on autopilot ever since the so-called zombie apocalypse had
begun. Truth be told, there wasn’t much difficulty in bringing down an average zombie. Oh,
sure, in large groups they were formidable, but a single member of the undead species was
hardly a cause for alarm. There wasn’t much reason to flex the murdering muscles.

This new kind of zombie, this… Huh, what was I going to call it, anyway? There had to
be some way to differentiate it from the average Joe Schmoe zombie. I finally settled on “apex
zombie”, not only because it inferred that it was at the top of the undead food chain, but also
because it sounded kind of badass. Back when the Discovery Channel hadn’t gone off the air
with all the rest of the stations, I had watched a documentary that declared the great white
shark the apex predator of the ocean. So, yeah, apex zombie. Now that I had a name, I could
restart the paragraph.
 This new kind of zombie, this apex zombie, was a whole other kettle of fish. These
things came right at you with all cylinders pumping in an effort to do a lot of damage in a short
amount of time. Unhesitating action and reaction speed were going to mean everything. If I
was honest with myself, I was a bit out of shape. That was going to have to change. I wasn’t
going to give up my title of alpha dog without a fight.

Does it seem vain when I say something like that? When I imply or outright state that
I’m the best, I mean? Just because it’s coming from the horse’s mouth doesn’t mean that it’s
not true. If you want to be in the upper echelons of any sport you have to have some swagger.
You have to possess the confidence that you’re better than your opponents at what you do.
Besides, I have facts to back up my ego.

Fact One: During my trial, the district attorney, a man that had been working
prosecution law for over three decades, called me the single most disturbing individual he had
ever come across.

Fact Two: Also during my trial, a retired FBI agent that had been on countless task forces
designed specifically to hunt down serial killers referred to me as, and I quote, “the most
efficient and dangerous murderer in the history of the United States”.

Fact Three: This one is my personal favorite. During one of my sessions with my
assigned psychiatrist at the asylum, the officer that had arrested me, one Detective Daryl
Coffman, was asked to sit in. According to the shrink, it was so that I could confront what I had
done and the consequences of these actions. This was ridiculous, of course, since I knew full
well that ending someone’s life had repercussions, but the doctor seemed so excited about the
whole thing that I didn’t have the heart to tell him he was an idiot.

I was actually quite fond of Detective Coffman. Even though his face betrayed his horror
at the atrocities that I had committed, he was always cordial and respectful towards me (and
everyone else, for that matter). What little relationship we had was almost like two worthy
adversaries that, now that the game was over, treated each other like colleagues. He had even
sought out my advice on a few cases he was working on; he was kind of the Clarice Starling to
my Hannibal Lector. Unlike the Anthony Hopkins-portrayed cannibal, however, I hadn’t really
had much insight to share with him on those occasions. Serial killers, real ones, never really fit
into nicely defined parameters like entertainment sources would have you believe.

Coffman was sitting in a chair on the opposite side of my table. He was dressed in a
black suit and tie, and when I was brought into the room dressed in my equally snazzy white
cotton uniform, he politely nodded at me. I returned the gesture and sat down, waiting
patiently as my restraints were locked into place on my chair. The psychiatrist launched into a
longwinded explanation of why he believed that I felt the need to kill and how my almost
random methods reflected an internal need to rage against society.

No, seriously, that was his ‘professional’ diagnosis. That all the killings that I had
performed were simply me crying out against society.

To his credit, Coffman was silent during this, and he even managed not to crack a smile
somehow. He just listened to what the doctor had to say while staring directly at me. At one
point I raised an eyebrow at a particularly stupid observation. I saw the miniscule movement
duplicated on the police officer’s face. When the doctor had finished, he asked Coffman’s
opinion on his findings.

“Well, it’s certainly an interesting theory,” Coffman began, his eyes still on me. “I have to
say that, while I respect your credentials and I don’t claim to be an expert on the matter, I
disagree with your findings. This gentleman is many things, and he’s certainly committed some
heinous acts, but I don’t believe that he’s nearly as crazy as you or the courts make him out to
be.”

“Oh?” the shrink asked with genuine curiosity. “Why do you say that?”

“Because I believe that he knows full well what he’s done and the chain of events that
those actions have caused. I just don’t think that he cares. That’s evil, certainly, but it’s not
insane.”

“There’s been no indication since he’s been a resident here that he’s ‘evil’, as you put it,
Detective,” the doctor said in a superior tone. “He hasn’t shown himself to even be a threat to
himself or others since he came under my care.”

Coffman’s eyes finally left my face and turned to look firmly at the psychiatrist. “Let me
give you a piece of advice, Doctor, man to man. Don’t ever make the mistake of thinking that
he isn’t a threat. He is incredibly intelligent and an incredibly effective killer. I don’t claim to
know his motives, but if he wanted you dead, you’d be dead.”

Ah, there’s nothing better than high praise from a person you greatly respect.

Well dammit, to show that Coffman’s trust in my l33t murdering skillz wasn’t misplaced,
I needed to show this apex zombie scum who was boss.

Before I forget, I’d like to give a shout out to Detective Daryl Coffman. If you’re still alive,
buddy, great job. If you’re dead, you’re not reading this, so it doesn’t really matter what I put
here.

Back to the matter at hand we go. In the past I had hunted both humans and zombies,
but the apex zombie didn’t seem to fit snuggly into either category in terms of killing methods.
It had the speed and dexterity of a human, but it had the thought process and incredible
durability of a zombie. The only silver lining that I could see was that it was still completely
enslaved by its desire to kill and consume living beings. That might sound like a rather odd
silver lining, but consider how much more dangerous the apex zombie would have been if it
had the need to kill AND the patience and rationality to create plans and traps. It basically
would have been nearly unstoppable at that point.

Okay, so, let’s not put the cart before the horse here. What did I know about these so-
called apex zombies, which had recently been given that name by one amazingly sexy guy?
They had the typical zombie hunger for the living. They were far faster than usual, and things
like climbing and jumping that would normally perplex a zombie were well within its level of
understanding. Both specimens that I had seen had the same oddly silver eyes, almost mirror-
like in their constitution. The lips had been missing from both of them, but I had the feeling
that was something of a coincidence, or maybe a product of biting down too fast and hard
(accidentally biting off your own lips while eating someone…that has got to hurt).

The female apex zombie that Matthew and I had encountered hadn’t moaned, either.
There had been some kind of shriek instead, a high-pitched sound that had been louder than
any individual zombie’s moan. I had no idea why it had done that, but what worried me was
that the louder sound would draw the attention of more zombies from a larger radius.
Theoretically it would be possible to take out an apex zombie rather quickly only to find
yourself surrounded by a bunch of regular ones. It was something to keep in mind.

Now the brain wheels were turning. Firearms wouldn’t be nearly as effective at a
distance against this new breed of zombie since it was able to close the gap much faster, and
quicker targets were more difficult to shoot in specific body parts anyway. There was always
the option to take them out from extremely far away before they even knew what was
happening, but this was dependent on knowing where they were, and besides, I didn’t have a
sniper rifle hidden up my ass that I could just fart into my hand on command. No, it made
more sense to go with weapons that allowed me to fight at range while still having the ability
to kill in close quarters.

The bigger problem was figuring out what to do if apex zombies attacked in groups as
opposed to individually. Matthew and I had been lucky that there had only been a single apex
zombie on the road that ran over the dam, but I had to assume that wouldn’t always be the
case. Having to fight off four or five of these things would be more difficult than going up
against twenty of the regular kind. At least against large amounts of standard zombies you
could usually maintain distance and make a run for it if things weren’t going well. There was
no running from Zombie Premium, though.

Hrmm, quite the conundrum. I gradually began to realize that while, yes, there were
certain precautions that could be taken and specific gear that could be used, going up against
apex zombies with a group as small as ours wouldn’t come down to tactics or even luck. We
would have to rely on our instincts. If our survival instincts were strong we’d have a decent
chance of survival. If we had lousy ones we shouldn’t have been in the fight to begin with.

I mentally ran through the attack one more time. My gun had been raised and ready to
fire before the true nature of the threat had revealed itself, and I had switched from shooting
the rifle to swinging it like a club without hesitation. Matthew had been a bit slower but had
still adjusted fairly quickly. It was safe to say that our instinctive reactions to new and unique
threats were quite strong.

Would the others be the same way? I looked at each of my housemates in turn. They
had all survived through any number of dire situations and stayed alive in circumstances in
which most people would have become zombie chow (now with more liver!). They had even
begun to thrive in this Brave New World. I nodded to myself. We had a better shot against the
apex zombies than most people would have.

We would have to fortify the ranch more, of course, especially the house itself. We had
gone through the motions of boarding up the windows and turning the attic into a fallback
shelter, but apex zombies might be able to accomplish previously impossible things such as
climbing onto the porch roof to gain access to the second floor, and they could certainly
hammer down lines of defense faster than usual. With the increased chance of a home
invasion, it would be prudent to leave weapons in different places as well. Not necessarily
firearms, but things that would work well for close quarter combat.

My eyes fell on Maggie. Heather had been teaching her the ins and outs of firing a gun
for a few months now. What, you have a problem with a six-year-old owning and operating a
firearm? Get with the times. This isn’t a world where the biggest threat to your safety is an
armed burglar breaking into your house in the night. Nowadays, almost anything that walks
upright is attempting to tear you to pieces for its dining pleasure. The choice was to either
teach Maggie how to defend herself with lethal force, or have her be helpless if the worst case
scenario happened. As you can see, there wasn’t really much of a choice there at all.

All the training in the world wouldn’t help her if she was confronted by a group of apex
zombies. She was actually becoming a fair shot with a light pistol, but when they closed the
gap she would be defenseless. At such a young age she wasn’t physically equipped to
bludgeon or stab with any real force behind it. Mark would fight to the death for her, and so
would the rest of the group for that matter. That kind of conviction would mean, to steal a
Heather phrase, exactly jack and shit once we were gone or if we were somehow separated
from her. We would have to play this smart for all our sakes in general and her sake in
particular.
 The responsibility for that would be on my shoulders, I realized. When you got to the
heart of the matter, these people were good people. They had come together during a crisis
the likes of which had never been seen before in history and had thrived as a unit. I
considered each and every one of them a friend, which something that I couldn’t say about
many people in my life. Even thinking that might have damaged my sterling reputation as a
psychopath, but so what, it was the truth. This was my new family now.

What they didn’t possess, not even Sarah, was my talent for sheer brutality when the
situation called for it. The reason that I was so well equipped to survive in the post-apocalyptic
world was that I was willing to mentally go to places that others were not. Not only did I not
mind extreme amounts of violence, I excelled in that particular field of work. If I was a
religious man, I might have made the claim that I was created the way that I was so that I could
help these people that I regarded as family during this trying time.

I am not, however, a religious man, so I won’t make that particular claim. It might have
been comforting to feel that there was a purpose behind everything that happened. From my
perspective, though, the smart money was on sheer dumb luck.

Over the past year, I had become almost docile (at least by my standards). The
introduction of the apex zombies demanded that I shed this domestication and bring a little of
the old fire back. It was time to stop thinking like a survivor and go back to thinking like a cold-
blooded predator.

“I’m going back to the dam,” I announced suddenly, interrupting whatever it was that
Heather was in the middle of saying.

“You’re what?” Sarah asked, shocked.

 “I’m going back to the dam,” I repeated. “Tomorrow I’m going to pack up enough
supplies to last me for two or three days and make the trip on foot. Don’t worry, I won’t be
taking any of the guns or ammunition.”

“Are you fucking insane?” Heather demanded.

“That’s a bad word!” Maggie chided her.

“I’m sorry, honey, I didn’t mean to use a bad word. Now answer the question, James.”

“Maybe a little,” I conceded in that way that made people think I was joking when I
really wasn’t. “We need more information about what’s going on out in the world, especially
what’s happening nearby. Matthew and I were taken completely off-guard by one apex
zombie. What would have happened if there had been more? It was a brand new threat that
we never saw coming. We got lucky. It’s that simple. We got lucky.”

“Apex zombie,” Matthew said thoughtfully. “That’s a good term for them. Also, I
happen to agree with what you’re saying, but I don’t understand why you feel like you need to
go alone. There’s strength in numbers.”

“Usually, yes. I’m going to be blunt here, though. Having someone else with me would
only slow me down. It would also double the risk of being seen or heard by the undead. I’m
not sure how long I’ll be gone, but I should be able to find enough supplies to keep me going
while I’m out and about.”

They argued with me, of course. I was fairly sure that they would. My mind was made
up, however, and when I made up my mind, it stayed made up. I’m pretty sure that last
sentence made sense. Whether it did or not, there was no question that I heading out the
next morning.
 The reasons that I had given were all valid ones, but they weren’t the only ones. One of
my greatest assets as a serial killer had been the ability to predict what a potential victim was
going to do and how it would react to certain circumstances. Zombies were completely
different from humans, though, and I needed to start learning all there was to know about
them. Their habits, how exactly they find and stalk their prey, that sort of thing. I particularly
had to find out everything I could about the apex zombies. They were the real threats to life,
liberty, and the pursuit of not being eaten alive.

There was one small issue, however.

“Okay, fine, your reasons make sense,” Heather said at one point. “We’ll both pack up
some supplies tomorrow morning and I’ll go with you.”

“I’m pretty sure that we’ve been over this already,” I answered stubbornly.

“Yes, we have. That doesn’t change the fact that I’m coming with you. There will be a
better chance of gathering information and staying alive at the same time if there’s someone
watching your back.”

“You’re needed here, Heather.”

“For what? We’ve already established that I’m piss poor as a farmer, so I can’t do much
to help with the attempts to grow food. It wouldn’t be safe to go hunt zombies for fat without
finding out what’s going on with these, what did you call them, apex zombies, so I couldn’t do
that. It just makes sense.”

I was going to argue further, but she gave me a look that said volumes. There was
something else going on here that I either wasn’t aware of or wasn’t understanding. I gave her
a questioning look but said, “All right, you came come along. You’re the only one, though. Any
more and the work that needs to get done here won’t get done.”

With that settled, we retired to our respective bedrooms. I didn’t have a chance to
speak privately with Heather about that strange look she had given me, but I figured that we
would have plenty of time to talk when we left the ranch at daybreak. I had a hard time falling
asleep that night. It wasn’t because of nervousness, although I admit that there was a bit of
that. I was actually excited to be getting back out into the world again instead of sitting around
the ranch waiting for something to happen. I was a very proactive person, and while I had
come to truly care for my housemates, I had begun to feel a bit confined. The next day that
would change, though. With that happy thought, I snuggled down into my warm pillow and
drifted off.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Kill Counter- 313

The sky was a bit overcast when I woke up the next morning. There was a promise of
rain in the air, and I was reminded of the storm back in Kansas that Heather, Sarah, and I
endured at Rebel’s Cove. This time Sarah wouldn’t be joining us for the potentially wet trek
into the great unknown, but the stir of memories came just the same.

I went downstairs and found that I was the first one up. This wasn’t an uncommon
occurrence, as I tended to keep strange hours. Being careful not to make too much noise, I dug
around inside the closets until I found one of the black backpacks that we had procured way
back when. I probably could have taken the larger hiking pack, but I wanted to have as much
freedom of movement as I could. Being weighed down during an up close and personal
conflict with an Apex hardly seemed like a winning formula.

Notice that I shortened “apex zombie” to “Apex”. “Apex zombie” was just becoming
annoying to write. Remember what I always say, work smarter, not harder. I came up with
that saying all by myself. I invented it. It was all me. Nobody else. Me. I also decided at some
point to capitalize “Apex” since, quite frankly, a predator of that stature deserves the respect. I
tip my hat to you, super crazy kamikaze zombies. Kudos.

I loaded up the backpack with supplies, including a couple of flares just in case. I wasn’t
sure who I’d potentially be able to signal with them, but that would be where the “just in case”
part would come in. You never knew what would happen in the future.

As I was about to descend into the daunting depths of the basement, Heather came
down the stairs with an already-packed backpack slung over one shoulder. She wore the jeans,
black t-shirt, and baseball cap that she jokingly referred to as her ‘working clothes’, and her
hair was tied back in a ponytail.

“Morning,” she greeted me. “Are you ready to go?”

“Almost,” I assured her. “I’m just going to grab something from the basement and I’ll be
all set. I’ll meet you out on the porch.”

The item that was the subject of my search was located in a far corner of the basement.
Leaning up against the wall was a long-handled axe. It was a pulaski, a tool used by the fire
department, most commonly in the case of a forest fire. One side of the head had a broad axe
blade, and the other featured an adze. I had taken it from the Parkersburg fire station back in
the fall but I had never had a chance to use it. Now, though, it fit my needs perfectly. Both
sides of the head could be used to kill, and the length of the handle meant that I could shove
an assailant back with it in a pinch. It never needed to be reloaded, either, which was a huge
plus.

I picked up the vicious-looking tool and gave it a few practice swings. It made a pleasant
whistling sound as the blade passed through the air. Even though it wasn’t actually designed
for killing, the potential for a lot of damage was certainly there. There was no safe way to
attach the axe to my person, meaning that I would be obliged to carry it the entire trip, but
that was such a minor issue that I dismissed it as being a problem entirely.

“That thing looks hideous,” Heather commented with a shudder when I joined her on
the porch. She had brought one of the rifles outside with her and was wearing her police duty
belt complete with a Glock in the holster. She apparently didn’t share my philosophy on
weapon choices.
 “It could be pink and fluffy all over as far as I care,” I told her. “All I care about is that it
gets the job done.”

“I suddenly have the mental image of you assaulting a zombie with cotton candy. It’s
quite the image.”

We didn’t bother to wake the others before we started out; we weren’t going to be gone
all that long, and besides, I found drawn-out goodbyes tedious. Since there was no real rush,
we walked at a leisurely pace along the bank of the river. For the first couple of hours we
proceeded in near silence. It wasn’t because of any tension or awkwardness, mind you, there
just wasn’t a whole lot to say.

I had gone on a lot of wilderness hikes in the Boy Scouts as a kid. What, you think that
serial killers couldn’t have been in the Boy Scouts? I’ll have you know that I had a sash full of
badges. There was one for tying knots, one for rifle shooting, one for shotgun shooting (I kid
you not, look it up if you don’t believe me), one for archery, and one for crime prevention. Do
you see a pattern emerging there? Before you start thinking that the Crime Prevention badge
was earned due to research on how to avoid law enforcement, I actually took the time to earn
it because, as a child, I considered a career as a police officer. There’s so much irony there that
you’d have to rent out an entire warehouse to contain it all.

Sadly, despite my amazing badge-earning capabilities, I never progressed passed the

First Class rank. As I recall, that was because my scout (unnecessary dirty joke incoming)
master(bater) wasn’t convinced that I showed enough ability to succeed. So, Mr. Jenkins, do
you think that I’m showing it enough now? I survived the fucking zombie apocalypse. The
zombie motherfucking apocalypse! Ooh, oh God, no, I can’t get this latch to work correctly on
this tent pole. Guess I’d better just survive the zombie apocalypse! Whoops, I didn’t serve
barely edible soup to enough old people. There’s nothing else to do now but SURVIVE THE
ZOMBIE APOCALYPSE!

On the off chance that Mr. Jenkins is alive and reading this (which there’s no way he did,
as he’d be too busy trying to tie his little neckerchief and zipping up his feces-colored scout
shorts to run from approaching death), I hope that you get tetanus from the corkscrew on your
pathetically tiny pocketknife.

I had gone on a lot of wilderness hikes in the Boy Scouts as a kid. My current Montana
surroundings reminded me a lot of a place called Wolf’s Run Park where we camped every few
months. It was quite the misnaming as there hadn’t been a wolf spotted in the area since
around the time Andrew Jackson was having his turn in the White House, but anything more
accurate would have just been boring. Annoyingly Loud Chirping Bird Park just doesn’t have
the same ring to it.

Wolf’s Run Park had a long stream that tended to flood in the spring. The adults always
warned us kids to stay away from it, but it goes without saying that we simply ignored them. It
wasn’t a very deep or fast moving stream even during the flooding season, but to us it seemed
like the raging Mississippi River that had been forced down our throats from reading school-
required Mark Twain novels. We used to carve small boats from twigs and sail them on the
water.

What? You expected that to have more significance with current events? Hey, look, I
said that it reminded me of Wolf’s Run Park. I never once implied that the story would be
applicable in some way. I was giving you a look into my childhood, the precious years when I
was shaped and molded into the man I am today. Growing up is both painful and difficult, and
yet I still let you in to catch a glimpse of my own personal experiences. You can be such an
ungrateful bastard at times.

Aww, I can’t stay mad at you, reader. I forgive you. Hug?

You know what we should do as sort of a makeup date? Let’s go bowling. Oh, wait, no,
how about mini-golf instead? A nice relaxing round of putt-putt sounds like just the thing to
renew the flame of our friendship. If you’re a guy, that would make us bros again and we can
go grab a beer afterward. If you’re a woman, I know this great out of the way motel that we
could hang out at for a few hours, if you catch my meaning. If you’re a kid of either the male
or female persuasion, stop reading this book and go home and find Jesus!

Seriously, if you’re a chick, I can have a room ready to go in like twenty minutes. Just let
me know.

In a slightly longer amount of time than it had taken Matthew and me via raft, we
arrived at the hill overlooking the lake at the base of the hydroelectric power plant. So far the
weather had held, but it didn’t seem like that was going to be the case for much longer. We
were on the opposite bank from I had been the last time, so unless we wanted to go for a
swim, we were going to have to find another way up the dam. Thunder rumbled in the
distance.

“Matthew and I climbed up a ladder to reach the top yesterday,” I told Heather. “I’m
pretty sure we don’t want to do that in the rain, though. We should find shelter to wait out
the storm.”

She pointed towards the dam. “I think I see a door at the base of the wall,” she said.
“We might be able to go inside the dam itself.”

“If there are undead inside, we might have some issues.”

 She shrugged. “If there are undead inside, we’ll just come back out, shut the door, and
look for shelter elsewhere.”

“Fair enough.”

It took us about ten minutes to reach the door that she had seen. Apparently she had
amazing vision because it almost totally blended in with the wall. I couldn’t spot it until we
were almost right on top of it. The door was chained shut, which was actually a good thing as
it meant that this particular entrance to the plant had been penetrated by zombies.

Heh. I said penetrate.

The bad thing about a chained door, of course, was that it made it difficult for us to get
inside ourselves. Heather surprised me by pulling two twisted metal pieces that appeared to
have once been a part of a coat hanger out of her duty belt and went to work on the lock with
them. A few minutes passed, and I was just about to offer to open the door my way (it was a
very complicated and involved process, but the short version was that I would take my axe and
hit the lock as hard as I could) when there was an audible click as the lock released.

“I had a roommate at the police academy that showed me how to pick locks,” she
explained as she pulled off the heavy chain. “I asked her to after I watched her do it one night
when we snuck into a public pool and…” She trailed off with a sheepish smile.

“And?” I prompted.

“Let’s just say that I was experimenting a bit back then.”

Oh.

My.
 God.

“Heather,” I said after a moment of speechlessness, “you are quite possibly the hottest
woman that I have ever known.”

She blushed. She actually blushed. “Let’s get inside before the rain starts.”

When we stepped inside I was shocked to find that the lights were on. The power at the
ranch and Parkersburg had been off almost since we had arrived. Then I thought about it for a
minute and realized that it wasn’t so strange after all. It made sense that there would be an
emergency power system in place, and it made sense that it would be powered by some of the
turbines that Matthew had mentioned the previous day.

We were apparently in some sort of maintenance room. There were countless pipes
running in every direction imaginable, and a closer inspection of the floor revealed that it
wasn’t actually a floor at all, but was instead a catwalk. The lights themselves were large bulbs
hanging from the ceiling inside of black cage-like holders. It wasn’t hard to imagine that we
had somehow wandered into the bowels of a ship. After satisfying ourselves that we weren’t
surrounded by rampaging undead wielding chainsaws and wearing masks made of human skin,
we sat down on the catwalk and rested our aching legs.

“I’m almost disappointed that there aren’t any zombies,” Heather told me as she
massaged her neck. “I’m morbidly curious as to what you can do with that monstrosity of an
axe.”

“I am myself, actually,” I replied with a smile. “Theory is one thing, but putting it into
practice is quite another.”

“It certainly looks like it can do some damage.”

 “Yes, yes it does.”

The rain continued for several hours. More out of boredom than any real need, we
wandered through the maintenance room and began to look at things more closely. You don’t
really have to go over things with a fine-tooth comb when you’re looking for undead; they tend
to stand out pretty well from the surrounding environment. Now, though, what the hell, right?
It was better than sitting around doing nothing.

There wasn’t much to see. On one wall was a series of gauges that I’m sure would have
made sense to someone that was actually familiar with the dam, but they could have been
complicated thermostats for all I knew. Each one of them could have been round little meters
counting down to the end of the world, and I would have simply stared at them blankly. I
could only hope that doomsday meter technology had not been invented yet and, if it had,
that the world’s fate was hinging on my ability to decipher such a device. The odds were good
that it wasn’t, but hey, what were the odds of the zombie apocalypse happening?

What did interest me, however, was the door we found on the opposite wall. It was
locked, although this one didn’t have a padlock and chain like the outside door did. There was
a simple keyhole in the doorknob and that was it.

“Someone’s opened this door recently,” Heather observed.

I raised an eyebrow. “How can you tell?”

She pointed down at the floor. “Look at the dust. There’s a trail left from the door
brushing against the floor. The rest of the area is undisturbed except where we’ve been
stepping.”

“I can definitely see how you made detective,” I told her, genuinely impressed. At the
same time I was mentally kicking myself. I should have made the same observation. I really
was out of shape, and not just physically. “So someone opened the door, but didn’t actually
step out onto the walkway.”

“I don’t think it was necessary. You can see the door leading outside from here. The
person probably just opened this door, glanced over to make sure that the other one was still
closed, and moved on.” She paused. “Do you think we should check it out?”

“You mean open this door and go inside?” I thought about it. “We don’t know what’s
inside, you know. We could open the door and find the room behind it packed full of zombies.”

“Zombies that open and close doors?” she asked pointedly. “I think it’s more likely that
we’ll find other survivors inside that have barricaded themselves into the power plant.”

“I’ll tell you what, let’s make it your decision. If you’re right about there being people
inside, we might be able to get some information, and if you’re wrong I’ll get a chance to try
out my spiffy new axe. It’s all the same to me. So, yeah, your choice.”

Heather thought about it for a moment before shaking her head. “No, let’s just leave it
alone. You’re right, there might be undead swarming the place for all we know, and even if
there are survivors, they might not be inclined to be friendly towards us. There’s no sense in
taking chances.” She glanced over my shoulder. “Besides, it looks like the rain is finally
stopping.”

We waited a few minutes to make sure that the rain actually was abating and it wasn’t
just a pause in the action. Once we were satisfied that we wouldn’t get soaked, we continued
our search for a way to the top of the wall. It took nearly an hour, but finally we came to a
bolted-on ladder identical to the one that Matthew and I had climbed the day before.
 The climb was quite a bit more difficult this time around, and I was glad that we had
waited until the storm had passed to attempt it. I was only able to use one arm as the other
was busy holding the axe, and since the rungs were still a bit slick I had to go excruciatingly
slow. Meanwhile, Heather, who had started up first, climbed like a squirrel and reached the
top well ahead of me. She took a look around and, apparently satisfied that the legions of the
dead weren’t close enough to cause problems, started looking down at me impatiently. Finally,
after an amount of time that would have made a thousand-year-old oak tree cringe at the
length, I arrived at the top of the dam and caught my breath.

Not only were the legions of the dead not close enough to cause problems, there
weren’t any. I reflected that it was a probably a good thing that they weren’t here to greet us,
as my arms and legs were fairly sore at this point. As I leaned against the safety railing,
though, I felt the strength start to flow back into them, and my chest stopped heaving as I
returned to a more normal breathing rate. I stood up straight and took a better look around.

This section of the dam’s top had also been turned into a road, although there weren’t
more than a few abandoned cars nearby. Unlike the section that Matthew and I had briefly
explored, however, this part was cut even with the surrounding countryside. Heather and I
stepped over the guardrail on the opposite side of the street and walked parallel to the road.
The ground was soggy and squished under our feet, but we both remembered our stroll
through the turnpike back in Ohio and wanted to keep our distance from the vehicles
themselves.

After walking for a bit, we came to a town that, according to the wooden sign standing
next to the road, was named Aurora Falls. The sign itself was tilted backward as if something
had struck it, and whatever it was had left a bloody smear across the white paint. There was
no body to be seen, however, so either someone had collected it or it had simply gotten up
and walked away. Come to think of it, both of those possibilities were valid in this day and age.

“Well, no point in standing around here,” I told my companion. “Let’s go see the sights
of scenic Aurora Falls.”
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Kill Counter- 313

“Scenic” might have been the wrong word to use. As it turned out, Aurora Falls didn’t
have all that much to see. It was a small town that seemed like it would have been more
appropriate somewhere in New England than in Montana. The homes and shops all appeared
to have been transported from the late 1700s, although they were all still in fairly good shape.
The rain from earlier was gone, but a light fog had begun to cover the ground.

“I feel like I’m in a M. Night Shyamalan movie,” Heather commented as we moved

deeper into the city.

“Is it because sometimes you see dead people?” I asked innocently.

She snorted. “Yeah, sometimes I see dead people that are trying to eat me. I mean
because of the way this town looks. It just seems so…out of place.”

“I know what you mean. I keep expecting to run into undead lobster fishermen. There
are towns like this all over the place, though. When I was a kid, I visited a place that looked
kind of like this in Utah. Besides, we’re not here for the architecture. Let’s keep looking.”

“What exactly are we looking for?” Heather asked suddenly. “You don’t really expect me
to buy that bullshit about needing more information, do you?”

I shook my head with a smile. “Always the detective,” I replied ruefully. “We actually
should get some information about the surrounding areas and these new Apexes, but no, that
wasn’t my real reason.”
 What was my real reason, anyway? The old way of thinking screamed at me that it was
because I needed to become a more effective killer, and for that I needed to know everything
there was to know about my prey. But was that the real reason, the bottom line reason? If I
was honest with myself…no, no it wasn’t. Ah hell, I really was going soft.

“It’s a matter of our little group’s survival,” I told Heather truthfully. “If we start finding
Apexes in greater numbers than one or two at a time, we won’t survive. Not if we’re living the
way that we are now. The people back at the ranch…they aren’t trained fighters. They don’t
have that killer instinct that you have to have when something is coming at you with murder in
its eyes. Don’t get me wrong, they’re good people, and I consider them all to be family, but
the only possible outcome in an encounter with a large group of Apexes would be death.”

She regarded me with an unreadable expression on her face. “So we’re here…?”

“We’re here to find other survivors, people that can help protect them.” As I said it, I
realized that it was the truth. Damn this zombie apocalypse, it was turning me into a caring
human being! I sighed internally. Oh well, there were worse things in life. I could have turned
into a lawyer. “At this point there’s a lot of truth in the old saying that there’s safety in
numbers.”

“Why didn’t you just say this in the first place at the ranch?”

“I didn’t have the heart to tell everyone that they were potentially fucked.”

I turned to continue walking, but she reached out and took my hand.

“James, you said that they don’t have a killer instinct,” she said with that same
indecipherable look. “That implies that you and I do. I do because of my police training. Why
do you?”
 Uh oh, this wasn’t good. I couldn’t just tell her the truth, now could I? I couldn’t tell her,
“Well, you see, before all these zombies came and I put them at the top of my priority list, I
was a notorious serial killer, but don’t worry, I don’t want to kill people anymore.” I would
imagine that would be a bit off-putting, to say the least. How should I respond?

She took the need for a lie away from me. “Okay, you don’t have to answer that,” she
said, perhaps noticing my hesitation. “I…I get the feeling that you did some bad things before
all this happened, or you had some bad things done to you, or maybe both. You don’t have to
tell me about it. But I know the person that you are now, James, and you’re a good person.
You could have just left me at that gas station, but you didn’t. You could have told Sarah that
she couldn’t come with us, but you didn’t. You could have left Matthew, Mark, and Maggie to
fend for themselves in Lewiston, but you didn’t. What you did in the past doesn’t matter. All
that matters is that you’re here for us now.”

I stared at her for a long moment, not able to find my voice. Finally I said, “They were
some really bad things.”

Heather nodded slowly. “I figured. It doesn’t matter now, though. You’re using the
experience from those…things to help people that you care about. We’re all grateful for that.”
She made a face. “Even if you’re kind of fucked up in the head sometimes.” She was teasing, I
knew.

I wasn’t sure what to think as we made our way into Aurora Falls’ downtown area.
There had never been any doubt in my mind that Heather was rather intelligent and highly
observant, but for her to put the pieces together as tightly as she had made me realize that I
had been underestimating her. I had focused so much of my attention on Sarah while trying to
craft her in my own image (which I now realized would never really happen) that I hadn’t
noticed anything amiss with Heather. Score one for the ex-cop.

Even more mindboggling was that, after coming to the conclusions that she did, she
wasn’t repulsed by them. She simply dismissed all of it as old information and chose to focus
on the current data streaming into her brain computer. She even took it a step further and
chose to tell me all of this. She could have kept her thoughts and opinions to herself, but
instead she had gone out of her way to tell me that she was fond of me and grateful for the
things that I did for her and the others. I had no idea how to feel about that kind of reaction.

Aurora Falls’ main road ended at the steps of a large church that was easily the largest
building in town. Like the other structures, it was distinctly reminiscent of New England-style
architecture, right down to the tall steeple complete with bell. The large wooden doors were
closed and locked, but through the stained glass windows we could see some sort of flickering
light much like a candle would give off. Knocking on the door didn’t produce any results. I
examined the sign next to the right door.

“’The Church of the Undying Spirit’,” I read quietly. “How cheerful.”

“I’ve never heard of it before,” Heather commented as she glanced nervously over her
shoulder. “Does it say which denomination it is?”

“No. It just lists the name.” I looked closer. “This sign is actually carved out of wood.”

“Why is that important?”

“I think it means that this isn’t the original sign. The original was probably manufactured
like most church signs are.”

We walked back down the stone path to the street and backtracked to the nearest
intersection. There was only one way to turn, left, so we continued in that direction. There
was evidence of a massive attack from the undead all around us. There were more of the
same kind of bloody smears we had seen on the welcome sign on the outskirts of town, and
almost every ground floor window seemed to be broken. More than a few doors had been
broken off the hinges and were lying wherever they happened to fall. Five or six cars had been
flipped onto their sides or roofs. They were like silent statues lining the street.

As was the case at the church, the road dead ended at a building, only this time it was a
public library. Its doors had been reduced to twisted heaps of metal and glass. We climbed
the steps and found that just inside the entryway were a number of bookcases that had been
pushed over and nearly broken in half. It appeared as if someone had attempted to barricade
themselves inside the library, but clearly the defenses hadn’t worked. Wordlessly, I climbed
over the wreckage and stepped inside before turning and helping Heather to do the same.

There was blood everywhere. Bookcases and the tomes that they contained were
covered in the red stuff, although it was old enough to have turned black at this point. The
desk that the librarian would have used to check out books for people was particularly nasty. It
was almost as if someone had decided that the local paint store didn’t offer quite the right
color, so they decided to simply redecorate with buckets of blood instead. There were no
bodies to go with the gore, however. We searched the entire library from front to back, but
besides more blood we didn’t find anything.

“There’s something very wrong with this place,” Heather commented nervously as we
returned to the library’s lobby area. “You realized that there are no bodies, right?”

I nodded my confirmation.

“Do you think that the Apexes did this?” she followed up, unconsciously using my term.
 “If they did,” I answered slowly, “we’re in more trouble than we thought. All this blood…
there were a lot of people in here.” I looked out the remains of the library’s front door and I
felt my eyes widen slightly. “Maybe they can tell us what happened.”

Standing just at the top of the stairs leading down to the sidewalk were six men, all of
whom were dressed in long black coats and black wide-brimmed hats. They weren’t moving at
all, just standing there looking in at us. At least I thought that they were looking at us. The
hats that they were wearing completely covered their faces in shadow. For what seemed like
hours we simply stared back at them, neither group apparently wanting to make the first
move, when finally one of the mystery men stepped forward and removed his hat to reveal a
face of about sixty with a short white beard.

“Greetings, friends,” he said in an oddly formal tone. “We’re sorry if we startled you.
We saw you go into the library and wanted to be sure that you were truly alive before we
approached you.” He smiled wryly. “These are troubled times, after all. Very troubled
indeed.”

“We can understand your hesitation,” Heather replied diplomatically. She shot me a
look that said something along the lines of, There’s six of them and two of us, we have to be
careful. “May I ask who you are?”

The old man motioned towards his companions. “We are members of the Church of the
Undying Spirit. My name is Father Ezekiel, and I’m the reverend of our branch of the Church.
And you are…?”

She looked at me again, and I gave her a small nod. “My name is Heather, and his name
is James. It’s good to meet you, Father.”
 “What brings you folks to our little town?”

The tone he used was nothing more than a mixture of politeness and curiosity, but I
caught a whiff of something else in the brew as well.

“We’re just refugees, Father,” I answered with a shrug. “We were separated from the
rest of our group by a pack of undead and have been wandering around ever since. We just
came in here to find a place to rest, but it looks like this isn’t as safe of a building as we
thought.”

He smiled at us again. “Oh, well then, please, come back with us to the church. We
have food and water to share, and warm beds for you to rest in. It isn’t far.”

Heather and I exchanged yet another look. All this non-verbal communication was
starting to become something of a habit. I suppose that it was more convenient than, say,
smoke signals. What my psychic mindreading powers were telling me this time was that
neither of us felt like we had much choice in the matter.

“We would be glad to,” Heather told our would-be host. “Thank you for the hospitality.
It’s rare these days.”

He motioned for us to follow as he put back on his hat. “As I said, my dear, these are
troubled times. That doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t give charity where it’s needed,
however.”

As we all made our way back to the church that Heather and I had visited previously, the
five men accompanying Father Ezekiel remained silent. The good reverend, however, didn’t
seem to be bothered by the prospect of zombies overhearing the noise and continued talking
as we walked.
 “We just recently came to Aurora Falls ourselves,” he stated as we moved through the
silent fog. “The Church of the Undying Spirit is mostly based out of the southeast, but when
the dead began to rise, a number of us were sent out on missionary assignments. It’s in times
of crisis that the word of God must be made loudest, after all.” He looked at me and smiled,
and I returned the sentiment just to keep him talking.

“Anyway,” he continued, “we arrived here a month or so ago and found that most of the
townspeople had already left or been consumed by the undead. The church was relatively
undamaged, so we took up residence there and have been performing our missionary duties
from there ever since.” He shook his head with a chuckle. “Not that there have been many
poor souls to help yet. I’ve sent people into the surrounding towns to pass along word that
we’re here. News travels rather slowly without the assistance of electronic devices, I’m afraid.”

We reached the church and walked up the stairs to the locked doors. One of the silent
men reached into the folds of his coat and produced a key, which he turned in the lock with a
loud click. He pushed the door open and held it for the rest of us. We stepped into the
entryway, and he closed the door behind him.

Father Ezekiel seemed to notice the axe I was carrying for the first time. “I’m afraid that
we don’t allow weapons past this point,” he told me apologetically. “Don’t misunderstand me,
I completely understand the need for them in the outside world, but here this is still a house of
the Lord. You can put it in one of the coat closets if you like.” His gaze moved to Heather.
“The same goes for your rifle and sidearm, my dear.

I actually didn’t like it at all, thank you very much, but I was careful to keep my face
neutral as I set the weapons just inside the door one of the indicated closets. Normally I would
feel naked without the presence of a weapon, but unbeknownst to Father Ezekiel and his
followers (and Heather, for that matter), I wasn’t totally unarmed. Tucked away safely in my
pack was the brush knife that I had borrowed from Sarah. Well, borrowed might be
misrepresenting things just a tad. “Blatantly stole” is probably closer to the mark. She had
never used it anyway, and I doubted that she even remembered that she still had the thing.

A pair of wooden doors stood open in front of us, and I looked inside. The sanctuary
looked like pretty much every other sanctuary that I had ever been in. There was a long carpet
that ran from the door to the foot of the pulpit. A small series of raised benches sat on one
side, most likely for a choir, and in the center stood a wooden podium. Rows of stained glass
windows lined the walls, and twenty pews, ten on each side of the isle, faced towards the
podium like they were eagerly awaiting a sermon. Tucked into slots on the back of each of the
pews were copies of the Bible and red-covered books that I assumed were hymnals.

“We have a service every morning just after dawn if you would like to attend,” Father
Ezekiel told me as I looked into the room. “Attendance isn’t mandatory, of course, but it’s
there if you need it. I find it can be rather comforting to look to your soul for answers when
the world has gone topsy turvy.”

That was a unique way of putting it.

“We’ve got sleep areas set up in the basement,” he continued, waving a hand towards
the stairs to our right. “If you’d like to go down and relax for a bit, maybe freshen up in the
bathrooms, feel free. We don’t have electricity, of course, but we’ve set up some water basins
in the bathrooms that we change daily and there are candles lit downstairs that you can take in
with you.” He took off his hat once again. “I’ve got some church business to attend to for a bit,
but I’ll be down in about an hour to join you for dinner.”

The six coat-wearing men went into the sanctuary and closed the doors. I immediately
darted over to them and pressed my ear up against the hard wood, but it was thick enough
that I couldn’t hear anything through it. Ah well, it was worth a try. Before we started down
the stairs, I opened the coat closet door and withdrew my axe from its extremely temporary
place of storage.

“I’ll feel better if it’s hidden somewhere nearby,” I muttered to Heather as we descended
the stairs into the church basement. “I don’t want to have to coming running all the way
upstairs for it if there’s a problem.”

“Father Ezekiel won’t like it if he finds out,” she warned me.

“I can always apologize later. He’s a man of God, he’s required to forgive me.”

We reached the bottom of the stairs and found ourselves in a long hallway lined with
doors. Candles had been set up in holders down the length of the corridor, providing enough
light to see and enough shadows to give off that creepy horror movie vibe. I walked around
the side of the stairs and found nothing but a brick wall. I opened the men’s room door and
took a look inside. When I didn’t see what I was looking for, I moved on to the ladies’ room.
Perfect. There was a small couch that had been placed inside for whatever reason women
needed a couch in the bathroom. I slid the axe under the couch and went back out into the
hall.

I felt a burning need to know something. “Heather, why is there a couch in the women’s
bathroom?” I asked. “I mean, in places like churches and office buildings there always seems
to be furniture in them. Why is that?”

She shrugged and half-smiled. “Sometimes we need a comfortable place to sit while we
bitch about guys,” she stated matter-of-factly.
 She was kidding. Wasn’t she? I looked closer at her face as it was illuminated in the
candlelight. Yeah, okay, she was joking…wasn’t she? Once again I felt like being born with a
penis meant that men were left out of some universal joke.

The sleeping areas appeared to have been small classrooms that were converted into
what could loosely be termed bedrooms. They each contained four cots with pillows and
blanks neatly folded on top; we chose one that appeared to have been used primarily for
toddlers. The sun and white puffy clouds were drawn on the walls, and there were handprints
painted on the back of the door. There were even a few pairs of tiny shoes in some of the
cubby holes.

“It’s hard sometimes,” Heather stated in a weary voice.

I set down my backpack and plopped down onto one of the cots. “What is?” I asked.

“Knowing that so many lives have been ended during this nightmare.” She walked over
to one of the cubbies and removed a small tennis shoe. She held it almost tenderly. “There
were children here for Sunday school. They painted their handprints on that door.” Her lower
lip began to quiver slightly. “They must have loved doing that. Every day they were told by
their parents not to draw on the wall, but this time they were actually allowed to paint on
one.”

I remained silent. This was a side of Heather that I hadn’t really had many glimpses of.
Most of the time, she exuded that aura of strength that you only felt when in the presence of a
soldier or officer of the law. She was a woman, yes, and an attractive one at that, but the first
thing that came to mind when your eyes landed on her was that she wasn’t a person that you
wanted to mess with.
 Every so often, though, her emotions showed through the armor, and it was at those
times that I most appreciated her humanity. In fact, I was extremely glad for it. She proved
that just because I was becoming more of a human being, it didn’t mean that I was going to
turn into a pussy.

“If there are shoes on the shelves, it that means that they were here, in this room, when
something happened that made them leave,” she said quietly as she closed her eyes. She
wasn’t crying, and I knew that she wouldn‘t fully break down, but she was close. “Made them
leave or…they didn’t leave. They might have…”

She never finished the sentence, but she didn’t have to. The implications were there: a
very real possibility existed that small children had been killed inside this very room. I lowered
my eyes to stare at the floor. Even when I had been rather open-minded about the people I
selected for my jollies, I had never chosen a child. The thought of ending the life of a child
was…well, it was unthinkable. It was probably one of the reasons that I had found myself
growing protective of Maggie over the last nine months or so.

Heather gently put the shoe back in the cubby. “Let’s go find another room to stay in,
okay?” She glared at me with sudden heat, like she was challenging me to say anything about
her emotional state.

“Yeah, absolutely,” I replied, picking up the backpack and standing. As we were leaving, I
turned to take one last look at the room. If there was such a thing as ghosts, I knew, this would
be the kind of place that they would haunt. I closed the door gently. What I hadn’t told her,
and I never would, was that I could tell that the handprints on the door hadn’t been made with
red paint.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Kill Counter- 313

Just under an hour later, after we had taken up temporary residence in what had once
been an office, there was a knock at our door. I opened it to find one of the men that had
escorted us from the library to the church. He was no longer wearing his long black coat and
hat; instead, he was garbed in a simple black robe. His blond hair was cropped in a short
military-style crew cut, and his face was shockingly pale.

“Father Ezekiel asked me to inform you that dinner has been prepared for you both and
will be brought down to you shortly,” he said respectfully. “He also wanted me to pass on that
he regrets that he will not be able to join you this evening. A group of pilgrims arrived
moments ago. He promises that you’ll be able to speak with him again tomorrow morning at
breakfast after services.”

“We look forward to it,” I replied politely. I closed the door as he returned to the
upstairs area.

“It looks like we’re not his new best friends anymore,” Heather commented as I returned
to my cot. She was idly examining the contents of a filing cabinet that had been shoved into
one corner to make room.

“Apparently not,” I agreed.

She closed the cabinet drawer and crossed her arms as she turned to face me. “What do
you think about all of this, James? What’s your gut instinct on Father Ezekiel and his Church of
the Undying Spirit?”
 “I’m not sure what to think,” I admitted with a shrug. “From all outward appearances,
they seem to be legit. The story Father Ezekiel told us about coming to Montana in a
missionary capacity makes sense. I mean, I’ll be the first to admit that religion isn’t my strong
point, but is it really all that different from, say, the Vatican sending missionaries to third world
countries after a natural disaster?”

“No, I suppose not.” She shook her head. “There’s just something about this place that
doesn’t sit right with me. I’m not sure what it is.” She shook her head again, this time harder
than before as if she was trying to clear it. “Maybe it’s just the way the downstairs area looks
with all the candles and whatnot. It reminds me of those old vampire movies that took place
in castles.”

I looked at her thoughtfully. “First Sarah with the zombie movies, now you with the
vampire ones. If the world ever gets back on track, I’m taking you both to see some quality
films.” I licked my lips thoughtfully. “Don’t dismiss that paranoia just yet, though. I said that
their story makes sense, not that I believe it.”

“So you don’t think these guys are on the up and up?”

“Let’s just say that I’m keeping my options open.” I stood up and walked over to the
door. Being careful to move slowly, I opened it a crack and looked out into the hall. When I
was satisfied that we were still alone, I closed it and retrieved my backpack. “I’ve got
something here that you’re not going to like, Heather, but I want you to find some way to hide
it on you without announcing that you’ve got it.”

I withdrew the brush knife from my pack and unsheathed it. Heather’s eyes widened as
the blade caught the candlelight. Then they narrowed as the gears started turning in her mind.
 “I see that your cop senses are tingling,” I commented wryly. “Let’s get the easy
questions out of the way first. No, this isn’t for killing zombies. It would suck for that. Yes, it’s
for killing people. It would be rather good at that. No, I haven’t had the occasion to take it for
a test drive.” I paused. “The next question isn’t so easy, is it? It’s one of the harder ones.

“Why would I be carrying around a large knife for the sole purpose of killing living
people? You told me earlier today that you believed that I had done some bad things in my
life.” I drew a deep breath. “I confirmed that, and I’m confirming it again. The thing is, I
wasn’t exactly the only bad person running around in this crazy little world. You were a cop,
you know what I mean. If our little group ran into some of those people…well, hence the need
for a knife.”

“I don’t like the idea of packing a deadly weapon for the express purpose of killing
someone,” Heather admonished.

“It’s the world we live in now,” I countered. “You, me, Sarah, Matthew, Mark, even
Maggie…we’ve all seen the big picture. We realize that working together is the best way to
ride out this whole zombie apocalypse bullshit. There are other people out in the world that
won’t see it that way. They will take what we’ve worked for by force and not give a shit about
the consequences. We have to be ready to defend ourselves from anything that threatens us,
even other living breathing human beings.”

Her face grew hard and it looked for a moment like she was going to protest, but she just
shook her head in frustration instead. “Okay, fine, whatever. Why do I have to be the one to
carry the knife, though? Why can’t you?”

“Three reasons.” I ticked them off on my fingers as I went down the list. “First, you’re a
woman. I know that’s a shocking revelation, but it makes you less likely to be searched
thoroughly out of a sense of propriety. At least by these Church of the Undying Spirit guys.
You being a rather shapely woman might give others an incentive.”

“Why thank you. That was almost flattering.”

“Second, people seem to take more of a liking to you than me. With my charming wit
and stunning personality, I think you’ll agree that it’s strange that’s the case, but it is. People
might be expecting me to be packing a few surprises, but I doubt they’ll think you will be.

“Last but certainly not least, I’m guessing that you were trained in hand-to-hand combat
at the police academy, right?”

The question seemed to catch her off-guard. “Well, yes, I was,” she answered.

“And that was the only formal training that you had? No self-defense training, karate
classes when you were young, anything like that?”

“No, nothing like that. What’s your point?”

I crossed my arms and laid back on the cot. “My point is that I’ve had more training in
close-quarter combat than you have. From the time I was ten up until I was eighteen, I took
jujitsu classes, and I have quite a bit of real life experience being up close and personal with
people that want to rearrange my body in various ways. I’ll be able to concentrate on what I’m
doing more if I know you’re covered.”

“Aww, see? You do care.”

The meal that was brought to us consisted completely of water and vegetables. The
same man that had informed us of Father Ezekiel’s inability to join us was our waiter for the
evening, and he told us that all the food had been grown on the church grounds. There
apparently wasn’t much game in the area, so meat was hard to come by. I was most definitely
a carnivore and would have given quite a bit for a nice juicy steak, but alas, it was not to be.
Still, I had to admit that the glorified salad had been prepared quite well, and my tray was soon
empty. Heather, who, unlike myself, actually had some dignity at the dinner table, was a few
minutes more finishing up.

I told her that I was heading to the bathroom when I slipped out the door. That was a
blatant lie. I realized that I was changing for what most people would consider the better, but
let’s face it, I was never going to be a full-fledged good little Catholic schoolboy. Heck, the
whole “I’m a jujitsu master, fear my ninja powers!” had been a complete falsehood. If I had to
weave a few little white lies, then so-

Oh, hey, whoa, hold that thought. I guess that I really did need to use the bathroom.

Ever tried to pee in a public bathroom with only a candle lighting the stall? I was lucky
that I didn’t step out of the bathroom looking like someone had blasted my jeans with a fire
hose.

Now then, with the biological portion of my expedition into the bowels of the church
over, where was I?

Ah, yes, I was saying that I didn’t actually have to use the bathroom, that it was just a lie
to get me out…of the…

Oh.

Well, in any case, the urination made my bladder happy. Now it was time to make my
rather curious squirming brain feel satisfied. It wouldn’t look good to the other organs if I
showed favoritism towards one simply because it could control if I would make an oopsie. It
was now to the point where I needed to remember what the dormouse said. It was time to
feed my head.

I wasn’t looking for anything in particular. It was more of a general snooping session.
This meant, of course, that I wouldn’t be staying in the basement area. If this so-called Church
of the Undying Spirit was hiding anything, it wouldn’t be located in the same place they had us
sleeping. It would be upstairs, possibly in the sanctuary or the adjoining rooms. Maybe I
would find a thousand murdered virgins inside the baptismal font. Or perhaps I would uncover
a giant conspiracy to turn all the Communion wafers into atomic weapons.

This is the Body of Christ, spreading dangerous levels of radiation for you.

I paused to listen at the base of the stairs. For a long moment there was nothing, but
just as I was about to head up to the next floor, I heard the sound of a heavy door banging
open. I thought about hurrying back to the room where Heather and I were staying. I realized
that this was too good of an opportunity, though, so I pulled back as far as I could into the
shadows.

“Are our guests settled in?” a voice said from near the top of the stairwell.

“Yes, Father Ezekiel,” a second man assured him. I recognized it as the voice of the
gentleman who had brought us dinner.

“Excellent. Hopefully they’ll get a good night’s sleep and join us at morning service.”
Yeah, right, like that had a chance of happening. “And our newest pilgrims?”

“They are with Brother Kevin, being prepared for their ascension.”

Prepared for their ascension? The carnival sideshow in me immediately offered up an

image of a Plymouth Rock pilgrim being loaded up into a cannon. Ladies and gentlemen, boys
and girls, children of all ages! Behold the amazing Flying Puritan as he is shot across the big
top! And be sure to stay afterward for the always impressive Bearded Jew Lady!

“Good,” Brother Ezekiel continued. “Gather up the others. It’s time for evening
observances. Meet me outside in five minutes.” There was a pause. “You’d best go lock our
guests into their room.”

“They might not like that, Father,” the other man replied dubiously.

“They might not, no. Still, it’s for safety reasons, so I’m sure that they’ll understand.”

“Yes, Father.”

I turned and darted back down the hallway as fast as I could without allowing my
footfalls to make a huge amount of noise. Heather jumped as I flew into the office-turned-
bedroom and quickly closed the door behind me. I raised a finger to my lips to silence the
inevitable question and sat down on my cot. A moment later there was a knock, and I calmly
stood up again to answer it.

“Yes?” I asked smoothly.

“I’ve come to tell you that I’ll be locking you into your room now,” the man said. I
noticed that he had donned his wide-brimmed hat and black coat once more. “It’s for your
own safety. The undead in this area are more active at night. If one gets into the church, this
will at least provide you with some defense.”

That was the best that he could come up with? The undead might somehow get past
the large and heavy doors of the church, wander into the basement, and somehow be stymied
by a much flimsier office door that even had a glass window in it? Perhaps the thin shade that
blocked the view into the room was somehow amazing anti-zombie technology that I hadn’t
even considered. If Superman’s weakness was a glowing green rock, maybe that wasn’t such a
ludicrous claim.

“Oh, sure, absolutely,” I answered with a forced smile. My eyes, however, flicked
warningly towards Heather. Her mouth was already partly open, but she quickly shut it as she
caught my look.

Mere mortals were powerless in the presence of our psychic communication, so Hat
Man merely smiled back and nodded. “I’ll be back in the morning before services to unlock
the door and bring you breakfast. Have a good night.”

There was a loud click as the door was locked from the outside. I waited for the sounds
of his footsteps to fade away. I counted to fifty before finally nodding.

“I’m going to give it ten minutes, and then I’m going back out to have a look around,” I
told her. “I need you to do that voodoo you do to the door’s lock.”

Heather nodded and began to rummage around inside her duty belt for her lock picks.
“I take it you didn’t find anything out while you were skulking around in the hallway when you
told me that you were going to the bathroom?” she asked with a tug of a smile at the edge of
her lips.

“I was that transparent?”

“You’re a good liar, James, but I was a police detective, remember? I’m good at weeding
out the bullshit.”

“Okay, fine, I bow to your superior deductive skills.”

“I’m glad that you admit the superiority of women. I don’t care if that’s not what you
said, it’s what I heard.” She produced the picks and strapped the belt around her waist. “You
realize that I’m only picking this lock if I’m coming with you.”

I sighed heavily. “Yeah, I figured you’d say something like that, but I figured it was worth
a shot. First thing we’ll do is pick up my axe and your guns. You never know when we might
have to put down rampaging elderly bingo player.”

“What are we looking for?”

“Anything and everything. Any sort of evidence that there’s something else going on
here than what the Padre has told us.”

The candles had burned down significantly by the time we finally emerged from the
office. Despite myself, I felt a bit of that old charge running through my system. When I
extracted my little toy from underneath the women‘s room couch, that charge switched over
into straight-up déjà vu. Skulking around in dark hallways was certainly something that I was
familiar with. Give me a mask and a twisty mustache and I could have passed for a cartoon
villain.

We hit our first snag after we ascended the stairs and went to the closet where we had
stored the firearms. The weapons weren’t there anymore. Apparently, the choir boys either
didn’t trust us not to follow their strict no-dangerous-objects-in-the-church policy (not exactly
an unfounded fear given the circumstances), or there was some other reason they didn’t want
us armed. It was a good thing that I had moved the axe downstairs when I had. The deducting
part of my brain pointed out that whoever had taken the weapons hadn’t been present when
we placed them in the closet. Otherwise, my firefighting tool would have been missed.

That, in turn, meant that there were at least, what, seven members of this particular
branch of the Church of the Undying Spirit. The six that had we had first encountered at the
library, and the one that had taken the guns. Hopefully it wouldn’t come down to a fight
because those weren’t the best odds in the world.

“Oh, sure, you get the giant axe and all I’ve got is a gardening tool and my fingernails,”
Heather said with one of her trademark snorts.

“Maybe you can cut them with your razor-sharp wit,” I said without a trace of a smile.
“Okay, so, let’s check the sanctuary first. I didn’t see anything out of the ordinary when I
peeked earlier, but let’s take a closer look just to be sure.”

The heavy wooden doors leading into the sanctuary were closed. This might have
presented a problem to a mere mortal, but I had acquired the unique and almost superhuman
ability to turn a doorknob. Summoning all of my power, I reached out with my mighty hand
and twisted the knob. This was only the first step, however, and it wasn’t until I applied all of
my craftiness to the problem that I came to the conclusion that I also had to pull. I gave a
godlike heave, and the door swung open. I was victorious once again.

“What was that look you just made as you were opening the door?” Heather asked, an
odd expression on her face.

“Oh, uh, nothing. Just a stray thought.”

The sanctuary looked just as it had when I had stuck my head in earlier. We cautiously
made our way up the center aisle, keeping our eyes open so that some crazed parishioner
wouldn’t be able to jump out from under a pew and maul us. That happens, you know. You’re
at church and minding your own business when WHAM, an insane guy wearing his Sunday best
comes out of nowhere and assaults you with the Old Testament. It’s always the Old Testament,
too, never the New Testament. That’s because the vengeful “Do what I say or I’ll smite your
punk ass” God resides in that set of books, while the New Testament only sports the happy-go-
lucky “Love thy neighbor or I’ll wag this finger disapprovingly at you” God.

As we approached the altar, I got the feeling that something wasn’t right. I had no idea
what that something was, but I had the sensation nonetheless. Nothing seemed to be out of
place or even the slightest bit out of the ordinary. It’s maddening when that happens, isn’t it?
I thought about saying something to Heather, but what would I say exactly? “Hey, something’s
wrong. Or maybe not. But I think so. I just don’t know what exactly. Okay?”

We reached the stairs leading up to the altar and ascended them. There was nothing
that stood out about the pulpit, yet that same warning bell kept dinging in the back of my
head. On the top of the podium was an open Bible. Clearly this wasn’t what had me on edge
because I hadn’t been able to actually see the thing until I was standing next to it. Still, my
curiosity demanded that I take a closer look, so I leaned over and began to read a section that
was marked with yellow highlighter.

And, behold, the veil of the temple was rent in twain from the top to the bottom; and the
earth did quake, and the rocks rent; And the graves were opened; and many bodies of the
saints which slept arose, and came out of the graves after his resurrection, and went into the
holy city, and appeared unto many.

It was Matthew 28:50-53, if you’re keeping score at home. How absolutely…well,

relevant. There was a bookmark, so naturally I flipped to it. Once again there was a
highlighted section, this time Zechariah 14:12, and once again I exercised my reading muscles.

Now this will be the plague with which the LORD will strike all the peoples who have
gone to war against Jerusalem; their flesh will rot while they stand on their feet, and their eyes
will rot in their sockets, and their tongues will rot in their mouth. On that day a large-scale
panic from the LORD will spread among them. One person will grab the hand of another, and
one will attack the other.

It wasn’t hard to see where this was going. Another bookmark, and suddenly we were
back in the book of Matthew for the wonderful Matthew 8:28.

When he arrived at the other side in the region of the Gadarenes, two demon-possessed
men coming from the tombs met him. They were so violent that no one could pass that way.

Oh, look, a third Matthew quote. Matthew 10:8, to be precise.

Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse those who have leprosy, drive out demons. Freely
you have received, freely give.

The “raise the dead” part was underlined in addition to being highlighted. That was like
being super emphasized. One last bookmark to go. I’m still not sure to this day if it actually
meant anything, but the highlighter that had marked this particular passage was green. From
Revelation 20:13:

The sea gave up its dead, and death and the grave gave up their dead. And all were
judged according to their deeds.

I had rather quickly learned two things: Matthew (the Biblical figure, not the one-eyed
giant) had seen a few too many late night movies, and whoever had marked these passages
had a rather unique interpretation of what was happening. Since it was sitting on the pulpit, it
wasn’t too hard to guess who the mystery marker was. The sense of unease grew within me.

“James, come take a look at this,” Heather said from behind me.
 I turned away from my light reading and joined her in front of the large cross at the rear
of the altar. It was one of those crosses that featured the image of Jesus, garbed in torn cloth
and a crown of thorns placed on his head, hanging from it. I had never really been this close to
one before, and I was amazed at how lifelike it was. I shook my head. And people called me
warped and morbid.

“Does this look right to you?” she asked.

“You’re asking me if the central figure of the largest religion in the world nailed to a
lowercase T looks right to me?” I responded, raising an eyebrow.

“Yeah, hilarious. Something doesn’t look right here, but I can’t put my finger on it. Am I
right or am I crazy?”

“Something didn’t seem right about this area of the sanctuary when we were
approaching it,” I admitted.

For a moment we stood there, staring. She got it an instant before I did.

“Oh Jesus Christ,” she whispered as she quickly turned away and covered her mouth.

“I don’t think that’s right,” I disagreed. “This is a real dead body, but I can’t imagine that
it’s actually Jesus.”
CHAPTER NINETEEN

Kill Counter- 313

In the Bible that I had just flipped through, somewhere towards the beginning it spoke
about how man was created in God’s image. First there was Adam, whose rib was used to
create Eve. They had some romping adventures around a place called the Garden of Eden until
finally they were kicked out for eating an apple. The important part of that, though, was that
God took time out of his busy schedule to craft human beings to be like him in some small way.

This was the first instance of man trying to shape man like God that I could recall hearing
about.

“What does this mean?” Heather asked rhetorically.

I’ve never been one to let a little rhetoric stand in my way, however, so I went ahead and
answered her anyway. “I’m pretty sure it means that Father Ezekiel and his Church of the
Undying Spirit are a bunch of sick fucks,” I stated matter-of-factly.

“Why would they do this, though?” She looked back at the crucified corpse, but she
quickly looked away again. “What’s the point of it?”

I shrugged. “I have no idea. Besides the part about them being sick fucks, I mean.”

I glanced back at the sanctuary. It was clearly night outside as the stained glass windows
were darkened; the only light came from the rows of candles flickering in their holders. With
the shadows dancing in every direction and the corners of the room dim, it didn’t really look
like a place that worshipped the Lord anymore. It appeared almost alive.
 “We’ve got three choices,” I told her quietly. For some reason, hushed tones seemed to
be called for. “We can go back to our room in the basement, we can leave the church now
before they get back, or we can keep looking around.”

“We have to keep going,” Heather responded immediately. “We’re less than a day away
from the ranch. If we don’t figure out exactly what’s going on here, it could mean trouble for
everyone down the line if they find out that we live so close to them.”

“I hadn’t even considered that. Good thinking. Let’s keep going.”

Behind the altar and Life Size Jesus with Kung-Fu Grip, a set of stairs led down a few feet
and ended at a door. Opening it and walking through, we found ourselves in what appeared to
be some sort of parlor. If I had to take a guess, I would say that it was probably intended for
post-service gatherings. You know, mingling with other church members while sucking down
cheap fruit punch and munching on stale cookies, that sort of thing. My suspicion was
somewhat confirmed when we found a door leading into a small kitchen a moment later. Only
a few candles burned in this room, all of which were placed in brass candleholders.

Unless you consider pea-green throw pillows sitting on uncomfortable-looking chairs

important, there wasn’t really anything of consequence to see, so we picked a door at random
and moved on. It led into a hallway, but there were no candles burning here and it was pitch
black. Heather retrieved one of the candles from the parlor, and we continued down the
hallway at a snail’s pace. Doors lined the passage, but they were all locked and showed signs
of not having been used for quite some time. At the end of the hallway, we came to a set of
stairs that led up. Without hesitation we began to ascend.

We reached the second floor and paused to listen. There was nothing but the sound of
our own breathing. The hallway was wider in this section of the church, and the wider spacing
of the doors seemed to indicate that the rooms were larger as well. We headed down the hall
at the same cautious speed until we reached the end. A side passageway went to both the left
and right, but sadly for those of the left persuasion our attention was focused down the right
side.

There was a light coming from underneath one of the doors.

Heather quickly shielded the candle’s flame with her hand. I crept right up next to the
door and, being careful not to block the light with my body, I pressed my ear up against it. At
first I couldn’t hear anything. After a moment, though, I started to detect some sort of high-
pitched whining sound. I couldn’t place it; maybe it was some kind of handheld power tool. It
went on for about a minute before it stopped and was replaced by the rumble of a deep voice.
It was impossible to make out the words through the door. With exquisite care born of
countless unauthorized entries, I twisted the doorknob and found that it was unlocked. I
returned it to its original position, being careful not to allow it to creak.

Setting down the candle, Heather pointed at herself, then the door, then me. I stared at
her blankly. She repeated the motions, this time with stabbing jabs of her index finger instead
of the gentle pointing. Apparently my brain just needed the added violence because this time I
got it. I nodded my understanding and we swapped places, her at the door and me standing in
front of it with my axe in hand. She reached out and grasped the doorknob. Taking a deep
breath, she turned the knob and threw the door open, and I burst into the room beyond it with
my weapon at the ready.

The room was lit by a number of gas lanterns, the kind that you could find at most
hardware stores. Two card tables were pushed up against one wall. On top of them were
dozens of various sharp instruments, everything from tiny scalpels to a hacksaw. There was
even what appeared to be a pair of pruning shears. Mounted on the opposite wall were
curved hooks of every shape and size. There was a time that I would have felt right at home in
a place like this. It was all a bit out of place in a church, though.

At the far end of the room, a man dressed in light green hospital scrubs was leaning over
a woman strapped to a reclining chair covered in plastic. His body was blocking most of my
view, but his gloves were covered in blood and the woman, while still breathing, was extremely
pale and covered in her own gore. I took a step to the right to get a better look and found that
her chest and stomach were completely open, the ribs spread by two metal clamps. The man
took no notice of me and continued with his work. As I watched, he dipped a pair of small
scissors into the gaping hole. With the grace of a surgeon, he made a series of quick snips and
removed the gall bladder. He gently placed it in a plastic container on the floor next to the
recliner.

“And now, my dear,” he said in a clinical tone, “it is time that we move onto more
important organs. We shall start with the large intestine.”

He turned, presumably to claim a different tool from one of the tables, but he jerked
visibly as he saw me standing before him. His jaw dropped, and he held his scissors out like
they would somehow protect him.

“Who are you?” he stammered out.

“Who, little old me?” I asked innocently. “I’m nobody special. I’m just the guy that’s
going to plant the blade of this axe in your forehead if you don’t tell me what you’re doing.” I
favored him with a half-smile. “Actually, I’ll probably do it even if you tell me, but hey, it’s your
only shot, right?”
 “Do you really think that you can scare me?” he scoffed. “I’m one of God’s chosen, you
imbecile!”

Them was fightin’ words! “Oh my, I didn’t realize that you have God’s stamp of approval.
That changes everything.”

His confidence seemed to waiver a bit. “Really?”

I dropped the levity that I was exuding. “Of course not fucking really,” I growled as I took
a step towards him. “I’m threatening a person with a fucking axe in a church, do you really
think that I give a shit about your self-delusion?” I took another step, and I was gratified to see
him instinctively take one back. “If you don’t tell me what I want to know, I’m going to sever
every appendage from your body before I shove the handle down through your eye socket and
into your brain. The last things you’ll feel before you die is the blood spurting from your
stumps and the pain of your eye orbit being crushed. Do we fucking understand each other,
Chosen One?”

“How…how dare you interrupt this woman’s ascension,” the man replied, the hand
holding the scissors shaking in either fear or rage. “She has already consumed the Blood of
Unlife. It will only be a few moments until she comes into her birthright. I must complete the
preparation.”

“The Blood of Unlife?” Heather asked from behind me. “Oh my God. Do you mean that
she drank zombie blood?”

“Zombie?” he spit out. “That is the name that the unenlightened have given God’s
chosen people. She has consumed the essence of the Sainted Ones, and soon she shall walk
among them in God’s grace.”
 “You have got to be fucking kidding me,” I exclaimed with a short laugh. “Are you
actually telling me that you crackpots believe that zombies, fucking zombies, are God’s chosen
people?”

“Blasphemy!” he cried, raising the scissors once more. “They have come in the image of
God’s only son, our Lord Jesus Christ. Just as Jesus rose from the tomb, the Sainted Ones have
defied death itself to assume their proper place as this world’s rulers. They have come to show
the faithful the true path.”

“All right. And you’re removing this woman’s organs because…?”

He snorted derisively. “The organs of the unpurified are prayed over and given for
Communion, of course.”

“You…eat the organs of people that you purposely turn into the undead. You remove
the body parts before the blood has time to work its way into them, I assume.”

“Of course. It is not yet our time to join the cleansed. The consumption of the
unfaithful in memory of the sacrifice that Jesus made is as close as we are allowed to come
until we have completed the work God has set before us.”

He said all of this with such fanaticism that I was momentarily speechless. Me, the guy
who never shuts up, couldn’t think of anything to say. I was crazy, but this guy was taking
insanity to heights it had never seen before.

Correction, I thought, not just this guy. If we believed the wild-eyed nutcase, these were
beliefs held by the entire Church of the Undying Spirit. I must be slipping. I had known Father
Ezekiel for hours now and I never would have guessed he was a cannibal.

I realized that the reason I wasn’t saying anything was simple: there wasn’t anything
further that needed saying. I advanced slowly on the would-be surgeon, being careful to keep
my body between him and the door at all times. He must have seen his imminent death in my
eyes because the blood drained from his face. Without warning, he twisted around and
released the leather strap that was holding the woman down on the recliner. He turned back
to me with a grin completely devoid of human thought.

“As I said, you cannot harm me, heathen,” he told me in a voice usually reserved for
adults attempting to explain something to children. “This woman, one of God’s chosen
people, will protect me.”

The woman was indeed beginning to come around. A groan escaped from her lips as
she rolled over onto her side so that she was facing the wall. I heard a wet snap as one of her
ribs broke. The groaning continued for a moment, and her body began to convulse wildly.
Suddenly, the sound of her voice cut off, and for a moment there was nothing but silence in
the makeshift chamber of horrors. Then, ever so faintly, I heard a soft hiss coming from the
woman. Almost gracefully, she turned over to face us, her chest still open and exposing her
guts to the world. Her eyelids fluttered open.

The eyes reflected the flickering light back at us. They were silver.

“Oh shit,” Heather swore.

The Apex opened its mouth and released a bloodcurdling shriek. The man took a long
step to the side so that he wasn’t in the zombie’s line of sight, and he smiled at me. It stood up
from the chair, and some detached corner of my brain noticed that none of the exposed organs
in its chest seemed to be functioning. The heart certainly wasn’t pumping and the lungs
weren’t expanding or contracting.
 It shrieked again, but it seemed oddly hesitant to attack. I guessed that this was because
it was adjusting to its new surroundings. Hell, for all I knew it was adjusting to its new
undeadness.

I didn’t plan on giving it time to figure out the intricacies of its new existence, however.
Quickly closing the distance between us, I raised the axe in preparation to put an end to the
zombie before it truly became a threat. The man, whom I had at some point dubbed Dr.
Scissors, stepped between us and thrust out with his rather pathetic-looking weapon. I neatly
dodged to the left, and the blade went whistling harmlessly through empty air. Okay, fine, you
wanted to play, little man? Let’s play.

Adjusting my aim, I swung the axe downward in a controlled arc. The sharpened end of
the head buried itself deep in his shoulder. Blood exploded into the air as Dr. Scissors gave a
shriek completely unlike the kind the zombie has issued moments earlier. He fell to his knees
and stared up at me in total disbelief. I saw that all that talk about being protected by God
hadn’t just been talk; he had actually believed that he couldn’t be harmed. Now that I had
disproved that particular notion, he didn’t seem to know exactly what to think anymore.

Taking pity on the man (nah, I’m just kidding, I don’t really do pity), I pulled the axe out
of his gaping wound. The act splattered blood and tissue all over the place, and he squealed in
pain as his eyes began to roll up into the back of his head. He was on the verge of passing out.
I wasn’t about to give him time to do so, though, and I brought the axe down again, this time
right in the center of his face. It doesn’t matter how strong your faith is, nobody survives that
kind of damage. Good night, sweet prince.

I caught movement out of the corner of my eye, and just as Heather began to shout a
warning I spun around and was taken off my feet by the suddenly active zombie. The air
whooshed out of my lungs as I hit the ground hard. I gripped the axe with both hands and
managed to get the handle up just in time to stop the zombie from taking a nice big bite out of
my tender juicy head. The woman who had spawned this abomination couldn’t have weighed
more than a hundred and twenty pounds, but this thing seemed to possess ridiculous strength
as it pinned me down and repeatedly thrust its gnashing teeth at me. It was all I could do to
fend it off, and I knew that I wouldn’t be able to do so for long.

Heather, dear sweet Heather, attempted to come to my rescue. She came into view
standing over us, a pair of modern-day gladiators struggling in glorious combat. The pruning
knife was in her hand, and she thrust it as hard as she could into the back of the Apex’s skull.
The point of the blade must have struck at an odd angle or she simply wasn’t strong enough to
pierce through, as it did not penetrate the bone. Instead, it deflected downward and neatly
sliced off a rather large chunk of flesh. The zombie didn’t even seem to feel the ghastly wound
and remained committed to its goal of turning my face into so much raw hamburger.

Still fighting to draw air back into my lungs, I pushed upward and managed to create a
small amount of separation. This allowed me to raise my knee to keep the snapping jaws at
bay. Heather disappeared from view only to return a few seconds later with aserrated
instrument that had been previously sitting on the table. It looked like the unholy love child of
a saw and a butcher knife. I’m sure that it had some real-world application and wasn’t just a
twisted device used for pain and torture, but no such application came readily to mind.

This weapon came closer to ending the fight. There was a sharp crack as it partially
penetrated the skull. The Apex, apparently realizing the danger that it was in, shrieked in rage
and spun around with amazing speed. Its arm lashed out and sent the saw/knife thingy flying.
I took advantage of the momentary lapse in concentration to shove it off of me with a hard
push of the axe and scrambled to my feet.
 The Apex was back up in a flash. I immediately realized that my axe wasn’t going to be
nearly as effective as I had originally hoped. The zombie wasn’t going to stay back long enough
to allow me a proper swing. I choked up my grip and used the butt of the handle to shove my
open-chest suitor back a few steps. I needed only a moment to deliver the killing blow, but it
wasn’t going to give me the time that I needed. It charged me again with its claw-like hands
extended eagerly. Instinctively, I ducked down and thrust the point of my shoulder into its
legs, sending it flipping over my head and to the floor in a rather ungraceful cartwheel. Holy
crap, things learned in Bruce Willis movies actually worked.

Despite my amazing ninja skills, it was obvious that we either needed to end this fight
now or get the hell out of there. It would only take one mistake, and Heather and I would both
be done for. Remember, the Apex didn’t have to actually kill us to scratch a notch in the win
column. One little bite would put us on the road to becoming moaning undead cannibals. For
all we knew, we could be put into that state from even something as small as a scratch from a
fingernail. One poke from those ribs jutting out of its open chest might be enough to do the
trick. There was still so much that we didn’t know about the zombie plague. I didn’t really feel
like being a guinea pig to find out the mysteries of the undead world, either.

Heather had apparently come to the same conclusion, and she had chosen flight over
fight. All things considered, it was probably the right idea; the Apex was simply too wild and
vicious at close range to go for a clean kill. She took a step out into the hallway and I moved to
follow.

To my astonishment, Heather jumped back and slammed the door shut.

“There’s another one in the hall!” she yelled in explanation. Oh, and terror. There was
definitely a pinch of terror mixed in with explanation.
 It made sense that my sparring partner wasn’t the only Apex on the prowl. The
gentleman that had brought us our rather bland dinner had mentioned that Father Ezekiel was
busy with newly-arrived pilgrims. Pilgrims. As in plural. Apparently Dr. Scissors had been a
very busy boy.

Since it was taking every move in my playbook to avoid being masticated by a single
super zombie, logic dictated that two of them would be, as they say in the old country, bad.
Well hell, I had wanted a challenge, right?

“Try the window!” I ordered as I took a half-swing at the currently lunging Apex.

I finally scored a hit on this particular swing. The blade sank deep into its side. Between
that wound and the exposed chest cavity, it almost seemed like I was fighting a casualty in a
horrible train wreck. It was barely slowed by the new damage to its body, though, and as it
twisted away from the force of the blow I lost my grip on the axe. It went spinning away to the
far corner of the room. Weaponless, I did the only thing that I could think of. I kicked the thing
as hard as I could.

Let me make it clear that this was a completely graceless kick. We’re not talking about
the fluid spinning roundhouse kick you see in martial arts movies. I didn’t achieve a little
Sweet Chin Music. I simply thrust out my leg with as much power as I could put behind it. The
impact almost knocked me flat on my ass.

To my amazement, it worked. The Apex seemed to be caught completely off-guard and

stumbled back a few feet. It worked so well that I went ahead and did it again, and again I
achieved the same result. One last kick and it hit hard against the wall.

The wall with all those lovely hooks attached to it.

 The sharp edges pierced through the zombie’s back and neck. Because the ends of the
hooks were turned upward, the Apex found itself unable to extract itself from their clutches,
and it stood almost completely upright on the tips of its toes as it struggled and shrieked.
Since it had no qualms with tearing its own body to shreds, I knew that we only had a few
moments before we would be right back where we started.

“You’ll need this,” Heather said as she stepped forward with my blood-soaked axe. She
presented the weapon to me like a squire offering a knight his lance.

A quick swing of the axe and the deed was done. Most of the zombie remained pinned
to the wall, but the top half of its head had somehow managed to break free and mount an
escape attempt by jumping to the floor. Oh, and look, it had decided to bring along a good
portion of the Apex’s brain as well. It was like two prisoners sticking together to try to beat
Alcatraz.

There was a series of loud bangs, and the door shuddered in its frame. Heather had
been wrong. There was obviously more than one zombie out there.

“There’s a window on the far wall,” she told me as she pointed at the spot in question.
“It’s boarded up. We’ll have to hurry.”

Now, I know that this may come as something of a shock to you, my literary Peeping
Tom, but apparently an axe has a number of applications other than murder. That’s pretty
fucking weird, isn’t it? It’s like finding out that a tasty chocolate cupcake can also double as a
Cold War-era spy satellite. A spy satellite with delicious frosting.

One of these previously unknown uses of an axe, one that I invented on the spot thanks
to my enormous intellectual powers (this had never been previously attempted in the history
of humanity, I was sure), was chopping wood. I kid you not, you can use an axe to chop wood.
In a matter of minutes, I had reduced the wood blocking the window to splinters. Once it was
cleared, Heather flipped the latches and opened the window. Apparently happy with what she
saw, she quickly scrambled out through the opening.

“There’s a ledge out here,” she called from outside. “It looks like we can get to the bell
tower if we go across it.”

Without hesitation I followed her. It was an extremely thin ledge, less than two feet
wide and rather slippery. It looked out over a courtyard of some sort. There had once been a
rather pleasant garden down there as evidenced by the benches and small gazebo, but a year
of not being tended had made everything brown and dead.

Speaking of dead, how about all those zombies down there, huh?

There were at least thirty zombies roaming around the moonlit courtyard. They were
almost all the regular variety, listlessly wandering around and occasionally bumping into each
other. They were all clothed in suits and dresses. It was obvious that they were part of a
wedding that had been taking place, most likely with the main event couple standing hand and
hand in the gazebo, when they had met their untimely demise. Or undemise. Or whatever the
right term would be.

But wait, you ask, how did I come to the “obvious” conclusion that it was a wedding?
This was a church, after all. Perhaps the zombies had once been people that were simply
attending church when things got ugly. How could I rule out such a possibility?

That’s easy. I knew it had been a wedding because the only Apex wandering around the
courtyard was still dressed in a bridal gown. It must have seen us moving along our little perch
because it shrieked up at as, the tattered remains of its veil flapping in the wind. This caused
the other zombies to take notice of us, and they raised their arms and began to moan.

“It must have been a hell of a reception,” I commented to Heather as we continued to

move towards the ominous shape of the bell tower.

“I guess that blows my theory out of the water,” Heather answered cryptically.

“What theory?”

“That the Apex zombies were being created by the Church of the Undying Spirit. It’s not
like they could have done it to that woman in the middle of her wedding, and she’s clearly an
Apex.”

The second time that I almost fell, I realized that I needed both hands to grip along the
brick wall or something unpleasant was going to happen. Reluctantly, I opened my hand and
allowed the axe to fall into the courtyard below. It bounced off of a bench with a bright spark
and imbedded itself into a nearby zombie’s skull. The zombie stood there stupidly for a
moment before toppling over and going still. It was a shame to lose what could have become a
trademark weapon, but at least its last act was to do something cool.

After what seemed like hours but was probably only minutes, we reached the end of the
ledge. The wall leading up to the area that housed the giant bell was impossible to scale,
however, and we found ourselves looking for other options. Standing on a thin ledge above a
large pack of zombies while being unable to go back the way you came wasn’t exactly a great
position to be in. We finally decided that we would have to re-enter the church through one of
the windows lining the ledge and hope to find an escape route that wasn’t completely overrun
with the undead. Once more raising my mighty foot to deliver one of my devastating kicks, I
broke through the glass on the nearest window and we carefully stepped inside.

As luck would have it, we found ourselves in a stairwell. Visions of freedom and
sugarplums danced through our heads, and we headed down the stairs at a brisk pace. When
we found that it only led down to a door that opened into the courtyard, however, we
rethought our plan and headed back upstairs before any of the zombies saw us through the
glass. I reflected that the stairs were almost like those you would find in a lighthouse as
opposed to inside of a church.

We reached the top of the stairs and came to a heavy wooden door. Beyond it was a
short carpeted hallway that led to another identical door. I cautiously opened that one and
stepped through.

We were in the bell tower itself. About fifteen feet above us was the bell, its metal
tarnished from the elements that had easy access to it through the large openings surrounding
it. A short series of stairs wound up from the platform we were standing on to it. In the center
of the room was a wide round shaft that appeared to lead all the way to the bottom of the
tower; there was a ladder leading downward into the darkness. The moonlight coming from
the top of the tower wasn’t enough to illuminate the view to the bottom.

“What now?” Heather asked as she closed the door behind us.

“I’m open to suggestions,” I replied. “I actually have no idea what our next move should
be.”

She circled around the shaft on the floor. When she was done, she shook her head in
disgust. “There’s a place where a ladder used to be bolted on, but the ladder itself is gone.”

I jogged up the stairs leading to the bell and looked out one of the openings. Despite
the exciting events happening in the church, the rest of Aurora Falls seemed to be quite
peaceful. The fog that had covered the streets earlier in the day was gone, and the moon
bathed the town in a silver glow. I shivered a bit as the cool night breeze blew across the
sweat I was covered in from my earlier exertion. Besides being a few degrees colder than I
would have liked, it really was quite breathtaking.

I wasn’t up here for sightseeing, however. Just below the opening, the dark roof of the
church sloped gently down for about twenty feet before dropping off. I climbed out onto the
roof and crept to the edge. Looking down, I found that there was another overhang just
below. We would have to be careful, but it seemed like we would be able to make our way
down to that level and find another window to smash so that we could head back into the
building and find a way down to the ground level.

Returning inside, I called down to Heather and explained my plan. Minutes later, we
were sliding down the roof on our butts, stopping ourselves just before we went over the edge.
The drop to the next level wasn’t very high, maybe about six or seven feet, and we managed to
lower ourselves onto it without breaking anything. To our dismay, there weren’t actually any
windows on this section of the church. It had been impossible to tell from the level above
because of the roof’s overhang, but I had just assumed that there would be. Well, there I went
again, making an ass of me and, by extension, you.

To her credit, Heather didn’t comment on my little snafu. Being the cultured and mature
woman that she was, she let it pass and moved right on to figuring a way out of our present
situation.

“Nice one, genius,” she growled as she glared a hole in me.

What, you really that I was telling the truth there?

 “At least we’re not stuck in the bell tower anymore,” I said defensively, trying to put a
positive spin on things. “That’s the important part.”

“So what’s your plan now, jump headfirst the rest of the distance?”

I raised an eyebrow at that one. “When did you become so testy?”

“Right about the time we became trapped in a church by zombies and insane cannibals.”

Right on cue, the sound of an approaching vehicle came to us from the surrounding
night. A few seconds later, the headlights of a car appeared on a nearby street and
approached the church. We pressed ourselves low to the roof and went as still as statues. The
car parked at the sidewalk, and four men stepped out as the engine and lights were turned off.

“The pilgrims should be in the final stages of ascension by now,” the familiar voice of
Father Ezekiel said as the men approached. They were all covered in shadows cast by the
building, but I recognized the wide-brimmed hats and long coats as part of the standard
Church of the Undying Spirit garb. “Go retrieve the items needed for Communion and meet
back in the sanctuary in fifteen minutes."

The men entered the church below. I waited for the sound of the heavy wooden door
being closed before I stood back up.

“We need to get down from here sooner rather than later,” I said. “When they find the
body of the Apex and Dr. Scissors in there and find us gone, they’re going to put two and two
together.”

“You’re right, of course, but we’ll…” Heather paused. “Dr. Scissors?”

“I couldn’t just refer to him as ‘that guy’ all the time, could I? He was doing medical
procedures and he came at me with a pair of scissors. Hence, Dr. Scissors.”

She stared at me a moment before saying, “You are the strangest person I have ever
met, James.” It was back to business from there. “There’s one more level of roof below us.
It’s kind of a far drop, but if we can make it down there we should be able to reach the ground
level without too much trouble.”

I looked down and surveyed the situation. The drop to the next section of roof was
about fifteen feet. Assuming that I went down first so that I could help catch the lighter
Heather, I could hang off the side before I let go, making it a bit under a nine foot drop. That
height was doable but dangerous. The section below us had a much steeper slant, however, so
it would be much more difficult to land safely when I let go. There was also a much higher risk
of injury upon impact because I wouldn’t be able to roll with the landing.

I glanced back up at the roof above us. We hadn’t been able to see that there weren’t
any windows on this level because of the overhang. That meant that it was possible that there
were windows on the level below us, but we couldn’t tell they were down there because our
view was blocked by the overhang of the roof that we were on. I crept out to the edge and
carefully lowered myself head-first to take a peek. There were indeed windows down there. A
plan began to form.

“Okay,” I said slowly as I pulled myself back up, “here’s my suggestion. I’m going to
lower you down to the next level. Take a look around down there. Let me know if there’s
some way for me to get down safely. If there isn’t, get the hell out of here and I’ll figure
something else out.”

“I’m not going to leave you behind,” she said stubbornly. “Lower me down and I’ll figure
out how to get you down, too.”
 Heather had dropped some weight since I had pulled her up through the locker room
ceiling of the police station back in the day, so lowering her down now was much easier than
that previous feat of strength. It didn’t hurt that I wasn’t attempting to deadlift her from an
awkward position, either. With my arm length and her height, she only had a few feet to drop,
and she landed on the lower level with minimum difficulty. She slid a couple of inches on the
steep roof and for a moment I thought she was going to lose her footing and tumble off the
side, but she quickly regained her balance.

She disappeared under the overhang for a few moments. In the distance, I heard a wolf
howl. I tried to remember the last time I had heard such a sound, and I was fairly sure that it
was before the zombies had come. Even though we were in the heart of Montana, it had been
so long since I had been around when an animal dared to make a noise that it seemed almost
alien. Just the thought of another living predator being out there brought a smile to my face.
It was a good feeling to know that the natural order of things was still going on in its own way.

Heather reappeared down below. “I don’t see anything to help you down,” she reported
with a frustrated shake of her head. I can’t get in through the windows, either. They’re
boarded up the same way that they were upstairs.” She pursed her lips in concern. “I’m sorry,
James, but I think you’re going to have to jump down and hope for the best.”

“That isn’t exactly what I had hoped to be hearing,” I informed her as I reassessed the
distance between my level and the next one down. The math wasn’t any better this time
around.

Still, it wasn’t like we had any other options, so a minute later I found myself hanging off
the side of the roof, my feet dangling in empty space. Heather had stepped back far enough
that I wouldn’t land on her, but she was still close enough to theoretically help if need be. She
wouldn’t be any good if I hit the lower tier and immediately fell off due to the steep incline, of
course, but it was better than nothing. Taking a deep breath, I let go.

When I impacted with the roof, my first thought was, “Hey, I’m okay.” This was followed
up by my second thought, which was, “Hey, I’m about to fall off the damn thing.” My legs
buckled as I struck the shingles. Despite a jarring jolt that went up my spine I seemed to be
uninjured, but my weight and momentum immediately began to slide me quickly towards the
edge. Heather lunged for me and caught my arm. All that succeeded in doing was to knock
her off balance as well, and we both went plunging over the side.

This is a highly stupid way to die, I thought as we fell.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

Kill Counter- 316

Oh, don’t be absurd. Of course we didn’t die. Did you really think that something as
mundane as falling off a building would be enough to do me in? Please, give me some credit
here. Besides, if I died, how would I be here to be passing on this wonderful tale of drama,
suspense, and non-stop action? All of which is sprinkled with just a tiny hint of romance?

Unless I’m currently in the act of falling, and somehow I’ve composed this entire novel in
my head while I’m plummeting to certain doom. Maybe talking with you, my closest confidant,
is only my mind creating a hallucination so that I don’t have to mentally deal with the fact that
I’m going to soon be dead. The brain’s synapses fire at truly breathtaking speeds; is it possible
that all of this has been some sort of elaborate split-second fantasy?

Whoa, I think I just blew my mind.

Let’s pretend that we never had that conversation and work under the assumption that I
did indeed survived my attempt at skydiving with a parachute. The feeling of my body
impacting with the thick bushes that were growing below the edge of the roof certainly was
real enough. I felt the leafy branches of life cradle around me, and once again it was indeed
better to be lucky than good. The world needs balance, however, and the joy of still breathing
was quickly replaced by the pain of Heather landing on top of me. For the second time in one
evening, the air was flung from my lungs, but hey, who cares, we were alive.

We managed to extract ourselves from the bushes. We had both suffered some bruises
and minor scrapes, but it could easily have been worse. We counted ourselves fortunate.
 “We need to get back to the ranch,” Heather whispered to me as we quickly made our
way back towards the outskirts of Aurora Falls. “We have to warn the others that we’re less
than a day’s trip away from a bunch of psychopaths.”

She was right, of course, so despite our physical exhaustion we pushed on. We were less
than a mile away from the church when we heard shouting coming from that direction. Either
our absence had been discovered or Dr. Scissors and his patients had; either way, it meant that
the Church of the Undying Spirit would be looking for us. With any luck they would assume
that we were still inside the building and concentrate their search there. It was also possible
that they would run into the Apexes that were inexplicably wandering around the upper floors
and become an entrée.

Wait a second, why were there zombies roaming free in there? I pondered the question
as we picked up our pace. It was strange that they would be allowed free reign of the place
when there was the likelihood of some poor priest being mauled. Were the churchmen
somehow safe from harm when they were around the undead? Or had the good Doctor
created Apexes that night without realizing it, and they had broken free of whatever restraints
were placed on them?

That seemed like the most likely scenario. I thought back to the moment that Heather
and I had burst into the room he was working in. The woman had been tied to the chair, but
would one strap have really been enough to restrain an Apex? It was doubtful. Dr. Scissors
had probably been expecting to create one of the more docile standard zombies rather than
the ‘roid raging kind. If I hadn’t stuck an axe in his face, the Apex probably would have done
the job for me.

The group of zombies in the courtyard were even more interesting to consider. There
was no way that the churchmen could have inhabited the building for as long as they had been
without being aware that there was an undead wedding going on under their noses. The
doors leading inside from the courtyard must have been barricaded just like the windows
were, but why? Did they simply just not have a way to kill them off, or were they keeping them
penned up for a reason?

Deep in thought, I almost missed the zombies coming out of a side street as we
approached the town limits. They made it abundantly clear that there weren’t any Apexes in
the group when they all raised their arms and started moaning, so because we were in a fairly
open area we weren’t in all that much danger. We hurried right along just in case, though, and
we had forced ourselves into a jog by the time was passed the blood-smeared sign that had
first welcomed us to Aurora Falls.

“Where did they come from?” Heather asked as we slowed our pace once we were out
of the zombies’ view. “There wasn’t any sign of the undead when we arrived in town.”

I thought back. She was right, the streets had been deserted when we had first gotten
there. We didn’t encounter a single person, alive or dead, until after we had searched the
library.

“That is odd,” I agreed. “In fact, it’s more than odd. The library was covered in blood.
The town itself was a wreck. We should have seen at least a few zombies wandering around.
Something is going on here that we don’t understand.”

We took a short break when we reached the stretch of road that ran over the dam. My
throat was parched, but my water bottle was in the pack that I had left back in the church. The
lack of supplies wouldn’t really be a problem since the ranch was only about six hours away.
Still, it sucked that I had been forced to give up both my spiffy axe and my item-filled backpack
at the same time. I hoped those religious nuts choked on the beefy jerky I had tucked away in
one of the side pockets.

Once we had regained our wind, we made our way over to the guardrail that ran
alongside the road and searched for the ladder that went down to the bottom of the dam.
Looking back, we probably should have marked where it was before we started wandering
around up top, but hindsight is, as they say, 20/20. Finally, though, we found the place and
climbed down. I prided myself on having quite a bit of stamina, but the events of the past day
were beginning to take their toll, and by the time we reached the bottom my arms and legs
were sore.

As we began the long march back to the ranch, Heather stumbled over a rock and barely
caught herself before she fell on her face. The fatigue was clearly setting in for her as well.
She normally walked with purpose, but now her back was bent slightly and it seemed to take a
huge amount of effort simply to put one foot in front of the other. If things kept going like this,
she was going to fall into the river before long.

“Let’s stop for a while, Heather,” I suggested gently. “I think the adrenaline is starting to
wear off for both of us and we’re beginning to crash. Let’s keep going until we find a place to
stay for a few hours and get some sleep.”

She nodded gratefully. “If we keep going like this, I think I’m going to fall into the water,”
she said wearily.

Huh. It was good to know that we were on the same wavelength about the whole thing.

A mile or so downstream, we came across a small clump of trees and bushes that would
provide adequate camouflage from anyone passing by. We settled down in the center and got
as comfortable as we could given that we were laying on the ground with nothing but rocks
and shrubbery for pillows. There was an opening in the trees directly above me, and for a long
time I simply laid there enjoying the chance to rest and watching the stars flicker as clouds
passed between me and them. I’m not sure how long I continued my silent contemplation, but
the next thing I knew, I was waking up with soreness in my back and the pink and orange of
pre-dawn filling the sky.

There was a strange pressure on my arm. I looked down to find that, sometime during
the night, Heather had rolled over and was pressed up against my side with her head resting
on my upper arm. I smiled slightly. Anyone passing by that had the X-ray vision to see through
the trees probably would have mistaken it for a romantic gesture. My relationship with her
wasn’t anything like that, however, so those superpowered people would have been wrong. It
was nice to know that she found my presence comforting, though.

She started slightly as she woke up. Her eyes opened, and she blinked them a few times
to clear them. She tilted her head upward to look at me.

“Sorry I invaded your personal space,” she apologized with a tired grin. “I must have
rolled over while I was asleep.”

“What, you think that I’m complaining that a hot chick’s body is pressed up against me?”
I asked playfully with an answering grin. “Maybe you hadn’t noticed, but I’m male and
straight. Feel free to invade my space anytime.”

“Keep that up and I might let you invade mine,” she said with a suggestive expression.
After a moment of stunned silence, we both broke out laughing.

The sleep had done us both good. We made much better time as we continued on our
journey back to the Ponderosa to meet up with Pa, Hoss, and Little Joe (I guess that would put
Maggie in the role of Hop Sing in that particular reference). Around the time that the arches of
my feet started to throb, however, I looked wistfully at the river and wished that we had the
raft that Matthew and I had used…God, was it really only two days before? It felt like it had
been months earlier.

Still, being the hardcore badass that I am, I sucked it up and kept on walking. The thing I
miss most in the post-zombie apocalypse world, I thought to myself, was arch supports for my
shoes. I glanced down at my footgear. They had certainly seen better days; when I got a
chance, I would have to hunt down a new pair to cover my precious tootsies. It wouldn’t be a
long and difficult search since I had stocked up on shoes in my size during previous visits to
Parkersburg. I had gotten some strange stares from my housemates when I had walked
through the shoe store door with twelve pairs of the exact same shoes, but now we’d see who
would have the last laugh.

I estimated that we had been walking roughly sixty-four bajillion hours, give or take
twenty minutes, when we finally reached home sweet home. Matthew was outside fishing,
and when he saw us approaching his face broke out in a wide grin. He carefully set the fishing
rod down and stood up, brushing the dirt off of his jeans as he came to meet us.

“Well look what the cat dragged in,” he said good-humoredly. “I’m surprised that you
two are back so soon.” The grin suddenly vanished from his face, and his remaining eye
squinted slightly at us. “Where are you packs and weapons? Does it have something to do
with the chatter Mark has been picking up on the CB radio all morning?”

Heather and I looked at each other.

“What has the chatter been saying?” she asked slowly.

 Matthew shrugged his massive shoulders. “There’s been a lot of static so we’re not
exactly sure. It’s something about a couple of thieves and murderers that attacked a church
mission.”

I think the suddenness of my laugh caught him off-guard as he started visibly. “That is
the story that they’re giving out?” I said incredulously. “That we’re the ones that caused
problems?”

“I’m more interested in the fact that they have a working communication system,”
Heather said as she scratched a bug bite on her upper arm. “Plus we saw that they have at
least one working vehicle and fuel for it.”

“Would someone mind telling me exactly what’s going on?” Matthew asked as he
crossed his arms in annoyance.

“Let’s get everyone together first.”

Ten minutes later, Heather and I found ourselves recounting the events of the past
twenty-four hours to our housemates. Both Matthew and Mark sat silently through the entire
tale, but Sarah occasionally interjected with questions or requests to go into more detail about
certain things. Maggie just seemed to ignore the entire proceeding and sat on the floor
playing with the dolls that she had received for Christmas. When we finished, there was a long
silence as we retreated into our thoughts.

“These Church of the Undying Spirit folks sound charming,” Matthew said, finally
breaking the silent contemplation. “What are we going to do about it?”

“Why do we need to do anything about them?” Sarah countered. “As long as they stay
in their little town and away from us, why do we even care about what they’re up to?”
 “She has a point,” Mark agreed. “From what the two of you told us and from what I’ve
been picking up on the CB, they don’t seem interested in our neck of the woods. We could just
ignore them and move on with our lives.”

“They’re killing innocent people,” Matthew disagreed stubbornly. “Killing them and
making a mockery of a sacred act designed to honor God. We can’t let that stand.”

“There are zombies out there killing people every single day.”

“This is completely different. People are coming to the Church of the Undying Spirit
because of a promise of help and aid and comfort. These monsters are taking advantage of
those people to fuel their own perversions. No matter how horrible the zombies are, at least
they don’t use lies and deceit.”

Mark shook his head. He was clearly becoming frustrated. “So killing and eating
someone is okay just as long as you aren’t lying beforehand?”

“That’s not what I’m saying at all.”

“Hey, whoa, let’s not get into a huge fight here,” Heather interjected. “Debates on
comparative morality aside, the first thing we need to figure out is if we’re safe on the ranch in
the short term. Once we know that for sure, we can work on whether we need to take a
proactive approach to the Church of the Undying Spirit or not.”

If we did end up taking that approach, I was fairly sure how we should go about it. A
lifetime ago in Lewiston, Heather had loaded up a duffel bag with a variety of things from the
police station armory. Among these items was quite a bit of plastic explosives. It wouldn’t be
hard to rig up a permanent solution for both the church and its inhabitants. Even if something
survived, alive or undead, I couldn't imagine that it would still be much of a threat buried
underneath the ruins.

To be honest, I wasn’t quite sure where I stood on the matter. On the one hand, Sarah
was quite possibly right: as long as we didn’t stray back into their territory, the unorthodox
churchmen would probably leave us alone. In fact, they probably would never become aware
of our existence, or if they did it would probably take quite some time for that to happen.
More than likely, we were safe for now.

On the other hand, though, I found myself feeling uneasy at the thought of them being
located so close to where we called home. It wasn’t necessarily because I feared that Father
Ezekiel and his men would become a threat to us. I couldn’t put my finger on it, but there was
just something about the entire situation that put me on edge. Call it a sixth sense or a
premonition or whatever, but I had the distinct feeling that something very bad was going to
happen very soon.

Perhaps seeing my unease, Maggie set down her dolls and came over to me. Even
though she was now six, she still had an insatiable need to be held from time to time, and this
moment was no different. She silently held out her arms to me, and almost without realizing it
I scooped her up and deposited her in my lap. For a moment she stared gravely up at me, a
look in her eyes far more adult than someone her age should have been able to muster up. It
occurred to me just how much she had been forced to give up when the zombies had come.
She had lost her mother, her friends, and, worse still, any semblance of a normal childhood.

“What’s wrong, Uncle James?” she whispered to me with a glance at the other adults.
She was a very respectful little girl when she wanted to be, and it was clear that she didn’t
want to accidentally disturb the conversation that was already going on.

I smiled slightly. “What makes you think that something is wrong, kiddo?” I asked in just
as quiet of a tone.

“You’ve got your worried face on,” she replied with a hint of a shrug.

“I suppose I do at that. I’m sure it’s nothing, honey. I was just thinking about some bad
men that Heather and I ran into while we were gone.”

“The bad men at the church?”

I was a little surprised that she had been paying attention. It certainly hadn’t appeared
like she cared one way or another about what the adults were discussing. “Yeah, those bad
men. I was just trying to figure out what to do about them.”

“You can’t let the bad men keep being bad.” She said it with such firmness that I could
almost swear that I was talking to either Heather or Sarah. “Mr. Matthew says that if good
people let the bad people do bad things, the bad guys will always win. I don’t want the bad
guys to win, Uncle James.”

I smiled at her young sense of justice. “I’ll see what I can do.”
CHAPTER TWENTY

Kill Counter- 316

The decision of what our next step would be was taken out of our hands the next
morning. That wouldn’t have necessarily have been a bad thing since we hadn’t really gotten
anywhere with our discussions the day before, but in this case it didn’t call for a celebration.

Matthew was on watch as dawn broke, and I found myself muttering a number of choice
words in his general direction when a loud ringing sound woke me. Early on in our stay at the
ranch, we had decided that banging on one of the cowbells we had discovered in the barn
would be the alarm we would sound if there was immediate danger. Our stalwart guardian
was now wailing on one of the damn things for all he was worth.

Who did a guy have to murder to get some sleep around here?

Mark, Heather, and I almost collided in a three-way accident as we all burst into the
hallway at the same time. Luckily, we avoided each other at the last possible second;
otherwise, we would have had to waste precious time exchanging insurance information and
waiting for the police to arrive to file a report. Then there would be the inevitable fight with
the insurance company when one of its representatives told me that they wanted me to go to
a low-rated body shop because it had the lowest quote…it would have been a nightmare.

One of my first victims when I was in the murdering game (which was a much more
complex game than, say, Monopoly) was an insurance adjustor. No, it was not a random act of
violence. It was quite premeditated, thank you very much.

Sarah was already in the living room by the time the three of us managed to navigate
our way down the staircase. Without a word, she opened the cabinet containing the firearms.
I patiently waited for the others to make their selections before reaching in and drawing out
the shotgun.

I had sawed off the end of the shotgun one lazy Sunday during the winter. Originally I
had done it simply because I was used to firing a shorter barrel weapon, but I had lovingly
smoothed and perfected the edges for a completely different reason: I looked so damn badass
holding the thing. I’m not ashamed to admit that I stood in front of the mirror for a good
twenty minutes posing with the shotgun. Sure, it was silly, but everyone is entitled to a bit of
silliness from time to time.

I grabbed a long black trench coat out of the front closet and put it on. I filled the
pockets with shells for my kickass weapon. Wearing a coat so similar to my old serial killer garb
(“Raincoat” Killer my ass) brought up some odd feelings. I didn’t regret my old life so much as I
didn’t really see it as being relevant anymore. And yet…I couldn’t put the feeling into words,
but a return to the old habits, even in such a small way, felt somehow right.

Of course, I looked far more intimidating when I had the coat on over something more
substantial than boxers and a t-shirt, but give me a break, I had just woken up.

“Nice outfit,” Sarah commented to me with a crooked smile as I opened the front door.

“Nice legs,” Heather countered with a matching grin.

“Did you want to take a shot at me, too?” I asked Mark mildly.

He shook his head. “I’ve got no room to talk,” he assured me. “I’m in a bathrobe, for
God’s sake.”

We stepped outside to find…nothing. No rampaging zombies, no frothing churchmen

looking to turn me into tasty treats, nothing. A false alarm, maybe? No, that didn’t make any
sense, Matthew wasn’t the kind of person to start panicking without a good reason.

Motioning for the others to stay put, I stepped off the porch and listened intently. The
acoustic cowbell solo was coming from around the side of the house, so I headed towards it
with my shotgun not raised but certainly ready for action. I turned the corner and found
myself not face-to-face with the huge Matthew, but rather waist-to-head with the diminutive
Maggie.

“What are you doing outside, midget?” I asked her as I knelt down.

“Uncle Matthew told me to bang on the alarm bell,” she answered with a great deal of
self-importance. “He told me to hit it as hard as I could to wake everyone up, so I did.”

“And you did a great job, too, little angel,” Matthew assured her as he walked into view
from around the back of the house. “Now why don’t you run along and ask your daddy to
make you some of those pancakes we’ve got in the cupboard?”

He waited for her to be out of earshot before turning a much more serious look on me.
“I think we’ve got trouble,” he said in his deep baritone voice. “I was walking around the
property to stay awake and I happened to look inside the barn. It’s…well, why don’t you have a
look for yourself.”

As we walked over to the barn in question, the cold damp grass underfoot reminded me
that I hadn’t actually taken the time to put on any shoes. Hopefully there weren’t any tools
scattered about the lawn; Mark had gotten better about cleaning up after one project before
moving onto the next, but there was still the occasional stubbed toe or skinned knee caused by
an escaped toolbox dweller. They say that all geniuses are scatterbrained. I would be hard-
pressed to argue against that logic based on personal experience.

We reached the barn and Matthew pulled the door open with a grunt. I mentally noted
that it was just about time that we re-oiled the track. Squinting into the dim light, I looked
inside.

“What the fuck?” I exclaimed, not sure what my eyes were showing me.

Both the van and the Jeep were lying in ruins. They weren’t just a little banged up. They
had been systematically destroyed. Everything from the engines to the rear view mirrors were
wrecked. Even the fuzzy dice that Sarah had placed in the Jeep as a joke were shredded, the
white stuffing thrown all about as if Christopher Robin had finally put an end to Winnie the
Pooh’s reign of terror. There was no way that we would be able to repair the damage.

“I noticed that the door was cracked a bit when I came out this way,” Matthew said. “I
thought that whoever got a can of oil out for the generator last forgot to close it. When I
looked inside, I found this.”

I stepped inside and leaned down to examine one of the engines, its parts gutted like a
fish. “I don’t…What the hell could have caused this much damage? And why?”

He shook his head slowly. “I have no idea, James. I think we have to assume that
whoever did this was human, though. The undead don’t care one way or another about
machinery. They just care about the living.”

I stood up and ran my hand through the tangles and gnarls of my hair. “Maybe Heather
and I were followed when we escaped from the Church of the Undying Spirit.”

“It’s possible.” Matthew didn’t sound convinced. “But why, though? Why would they
destroy two perfectly good vehicles when they could have stolen them instead?”
 “I can’t answer that,” I admitted. For a long moment I just stared at the wreckage.
Finally, I sighed and turned away. “Let’s go tell the others what’s happened.”

As I moved to leave the barn, something on one of the walls caught my eye. It had been
hidden in the dim light, but the sun shining through the windows had struck it just enough that
it was now visible. Squinting, I moved closer and inspected the scratch marks that covered the
wall.

THREE DAYS.

Someone had carved the words “THREE DAYS” into the wall of the barn. Presumably it
was the same person or persons that had made our vehicles into scrap metal. Three days until
what, though? Three days until I received my mail order bride? Three days before the second
coming of Christ (who would, according to the Church of the Undying Spirit, proceed to make
me into a snack)? Three Days Grace? Oh God, please no, don’t let it be Three Days Grace.

I turned back around and took a closer look at the pile of metal. It took me a moment,
but finally I spotted what I was looking for: the hint of a handlebar sticking out. The bikes had
been destroyed, too.

Someone was going to a lot of trouble to keep us here. Presumably for three days.

When I pointed out the message and the loss of the bikes, Matthew nodded. “I hadn’t
noticed that, but it makes sense,” he said thoughtfully. “When I was around the back of the
house, I found the raft destroyed, too.” He stared at the message for a moment. “I don’t like
this. Something very bad is going to go down, I can feel it.”

“I don’t think this is the work of the Church of the Undying Spirit,” I told him as we
walked back towards the house. “A group like that…they would have tried to take us, or just
simply kill us rather than fuck with us.”

“Do you think that’s what is going on?” he asked, sounding surprised. “You think that
someone is just messing around with us for some reason, that this whole thing is just a joke?”

I shook my head. “Whatever happened to the van and Jeep wasn’t a joke. Someone’s
being very, very serious. I just have no idea what he or she wants.”

“I believe that we’ll want to figure that out just as soon as we possibly can.”

An hour later, our little family gathered in the living room for a war council of sorts. I
couldn’t remember the last time that we had all been in the same place and there hadn’t been
an avalanche of conversation, but the violation of our home’s borders had us all deep in silent
contemplation. As I looked from face to face, the faces of the only people in the world that I
considered friends, I found myself thinking back to the events that had brought us to this
point.

Somewhere in the memories of our time together was the answer to the question of
what was going on; I was sure of it. Someone out there was toying with us, trying to make us
feel a looming sense of dread for some unknown purpose. It was textbook psychological
warfare, and you didn’t play those kinds of games with someone unless you wanted to
torment him. It was far more personal of a tactic than something as detached as simple killing.

We hadn’t run into many other human beings over the last year, so the list of people
that might be holding a grudge against us was rather small. In fact, I couldn’t think of a single
person that we had even interacted with since we had all come together. The only other
survivors that we had encountered were seen from afar a couple of times in Parkersburg; they
had obviously seen us just as we had seen them, but they had chosen not to come any closer
and we had respected their decision. The last time we had spotted them had been before
winter had set in, so they weren’t likely suspects.

I had dismissed the Church of the Undying Spirit as the culprits when speaking with
Matthew, but had I been too quick to come to that conclusion? I had to admit that it was quite
a coincidence that all of this was happening less than two days after Heather and I had so
rudely rebuffed their hospitality without so much as a goodbye. My instincts were telling me
that, if they had discovered our little slice of heaven, they wouldn’t have warned us that they
knew where we lived. They simply would have stayed under the radar until they were ready to
seek retribution. Still, there was so much that I didn’t know about their organization that it
would be foolish to set my mind in stone.

“We should repair the raft and get the hell out of here,” Mark said suddenly, breaking
the silence. “There’s no sense in putting ourselves in danger that we don’t have to.”

“I agree,” Heather, um, agreed. “Which is why I think we should stay right where we
are.”

“You’ve lost me.”

She blew a lock of hair out of her eyes. “We can barricade the house and take up
defensive positions. We’ve got enough food and water in here to last for weeks, and we’ve
stockpiled enough weapons and ammunition that we can hold out against a small army, at
least for a little while. We have no idea what’s waiting for us if we try to leave home in a blind
panic. I say we hunker down and wait things out.” She paused. “Besides, there’s no way for us
to know if this ‘three days’ thing is legitimate or not. I think it is, personally, but it could be a
hoax of some kind.”
 Mark looked unconvinced. “A hoax for what purpose?”

She shrugged. “I have no idea.”

“I think you’re both right,” Sarah commented as she crossed her arms over her chest and
sat back in her chair. “I say that one of us takes Maggie and leaves to keep her safe, and the
rest of us do what Heather suggested and stay behind to give whoever this is hell.”

“We should run and not take the chance,” Matthew interjected his opinion. “That’s
what we should do. This is our home, though. I, for one, don’t want to give it up without a
fight.” He turned his gaze on me. “We’ve given our opinions, James. What about you?”

I was silent for a moment as I collected my thoughts.

“It seems like all we’ve been doing since this whole thing began is running,” I finally said.
“We’ve constantly been retreating. I’ve been running ever since the undead broke into the…
where I was living.” Whoops, almost slipped up there. “I know it’s been the same for
everyone else, too.”

I took a deep breath. “I don’t like running away. I never have. It leaves a bad taste in
my mouth. I’m so completely sick of running at this point.” I looked right into Matthew’s eyes.
“I say we stay and fight. Sarah’s right, someone will have to make a break for it with Maggie,
but that person won’t be me. I’m going to stay right here and teach whoever this asshole is
that he shouldn’t have fucked with us.”

“We don’t know that whoever left that message is coming to hurt us,” Mark pointed out.

“Oh yes we do,” I disagreed. “He or she made that crystal clear by destroying our means
of transportation. The kind of message that was sent only has one meaning. He or she is
coming for blood, and I’m going to give it to him.”
 I was actually angry. My pulse throbbed in my forehead, and I could feel the heat
creeping up my neck to my face. How dare this asshole come into my home and make threats?
Didn’t he know just who the fuck I was? He wanted violence? This was one of those cases of
being careful what you wished for. I would bring him a level of violence that would cause
Satan himself to turn away in shock.

I pulled myself up short. What the hell had gotten into me?

The answer wasn’t hard to find. I had been domesticated. A domesticated killer that
was now only unleashed to protect those he cared about, like a Rottweiler being raised by a
middle-class family living in the suburbs.

No, that wasn’t quite right. Domestication didn’t explain the anger. If anything, it would
have blunted any rage that I would have felt. This was more a…protectiveness. Of course, that
explained it. In my previous life, I had simply killed for…what? Why had I done what I had,
anyway? Was it for a reason that I had never really come to grips with, or was it something as
simple as sheer boredom with the staleness of a mundane life? Now that I actually tried to
bring my rationale into the light to examine it closely, I found that I couldn’t bring it into focus.

What was coming through clear as day, however, was why I felt such a fiery rage now. It
was that protectiveness I mentioned a few sentences ago. There was actually something in my
life, a number of somethings, actually, that I valued and, yes, I’m man enough to declare that I
held them dear. Heather, Sarah, Maggie, Mark and Matthew; this was my family now. I hadn’t
shed a single tear at either my father’s nor my mother’s funerals, but I was willing to die for
these people that I had known less than a year.

They had made me human, and for them and only them I would become something less
to defend them.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

Kill Counter- 316

Defend them from what was where things were up in the air. After all, I could get as
pissed off as I wanted to and puff out my chest while snorting fire and thinking about the
unholy vengeance I would wreak upon my foes, but if I didn’t know where to point my ferocity
I wouldn’t be effective in the slightest. I’m sure you can see, dear reader, what my-

Hey, wait, there’s something different about you.

You’re…distant. I don’t mean that as you’re keeping yourself cut off from me
emotionally (if you are, don’t worry, I always have a shoulder for you to cry on). I mean that
you appear to be farther away than you were when we started this journey together. You’re
less distinct as well, almost like I’m viewing you through dense fog. I’m sure that if I was paying
more attention to you I would have noticed this odd phenomenon sooner, but I confess that I
was occupied elsewhere and wasn’t giving you the attention that you so richly deserve.

Perhaps the answer to why this sudden change is occurring lies in the nature of our
relationship. Have you noticed that our little chats tend to come more frequently when I am…
oh, how to put this…more out of my mind? I suppose that means that it’s quite possible that
you are a figment of my imagination that I latch onto whenever my grip on sanity begins to slip
a little more than usual. Is that all that your existence is, the mad visions of a man that truly
should be on some heavy-duty medication? If I were to someday overcome this swirling
cocktail of psychosis, would you simply cease to exist?

Nah, I can’t believe that about you, chum. You’re more real than anyone else that I have
ever met. Heck, in some ways you’re even more real than I am (somebody stop me, I’m
breaking through the Fourth Wall!). We’re two people who really exist, and something as
absurd as the zombie apocalypse actually happened, and we’ve both managed to somehow
live through it to this point. I mean, that’s the only point of view that makes any sense, right?

Wink.

Until the evening of Day Two on our Countdown to…Whatever clock, nothing really all
that exciting happened. Most of our time was spent making preparations such as barricading
the house’s windows and doors, setting up weapons caches around the ranch, looking at each
other with brooding and deep expressions, etc. There was also the little pet project that Mark
and I had concocted while slightly inebriated, but you’ll hear more about that (code named
Project Kill Some Shit) in just a bit.

As the sun was setting, however, we noticed that the orange glow wasn’t fading with it.
In fact, it was coming from every direction. It wasn’t until the stars began to pop up in the
night sky that I realized exactly what it was that we were looking at: there were fires burning
miles away all around us. We were at the center of a ring of flaming death. The fires were far
enough way that we couldn’t even smell the smoke, but just the fact that they were out there
made things seem more ominous. You know, because clearly the situation needed to seem
more ominous than it already did.

“Okay, God, we get it,” Sarah said with a crooked smile on her face. “Don’t you think this
is kind of overkill?”

Having been apparently magically transported to the Inner Circle of Hell, we could no
longer send one person away with Maggie to protect her from whatever was coming. Sure,
there might have been a gap between the fires that they could have slipped through, but there
was also the possibility of running into the benevolent folks that had started the burnings in
the first place. One fire could have been an accident or natural occurrence, or maybe even
two, but coincidence could only be stretched so far. For all we knew, the glow in the sky was
being caused by hundreds of bonfires built by Viking barbarians who were coming to pillage
the women and rape the ranch.

Or something like that.

In any case, there wasn’t enough time to send out a search party to find out what was
going on.

As I lay in my bed that night, not getting a lot of sleep but certainly catching up on my
Stare at the Ceiling quota, I could find no answers in the ceiling fan that my eyes were glued to,
only more questions and uncertainties. Day Three was certainly shaping up to be an
interesting one. First, the cryptic note in the barn that accompanied the destroyed vehicles.
Now the ring of flames that encircled the ranch, not close enough to be a threat themselves
but certainly enough to keep us on the property to ensure that we would be home for our
mystery guest’s appearance. This all seemed so overly dramatic.

Which it was, of course. Sure, the fire was a convenient way to keep the dogs in the
yard, so to speak, but it was also a piece to a strategy built on mind games. The van and Jeep
could have simply been stolen. Instead, they were destroyed and left in mangled piles for us to
find. The leaving of the “THREE DAYS” message in the barn. Fires burning just close enough
for us to see the glow caused by the flames. Hell, even giving us time to make preparations. It
was all mind games. We were simply marionettes dancing along while the puppet master
pulled the strings.

Giving us a warning and allowing using the opportunity to fortify our home and prepare
for what was coming is what disturbed me the most. It meant that whoever had started this
little game felt that no matter what we did, it wouldn’t be enough.

What a cheery thought.

Okay, yeah, this wasn’t working. I got back out of bed and dressed in jeans and a
sweatshirt. From my closet, I retrieved a pair of work boots and laced them up (while they
were on my feet, of course, I’m not obsessive compulsive about tying shoes). I left my room
and crept downstairs, being careful not to alert the others that I was out on the prowl. Taking
my shotgun out of the cabinet and putting on my formerly trademark trench coat, which was
still weighed down by as much ammunition as I could jam into the pockets, I quietly opened
the door and stepped outside, making sure not to let it slam as it swung shut. I immediately
saw that the telltale glow of the fires was still present.

“You’re up awfully late for someone that doesn’t have guard duty tonight,” an amused
female voice said from the far side of the porch.

“I seem to have pre-performance jitters,” I informed Sarah as I turned to face her. She
had blended in with the shadows so well that I hadn’t seen or even sensed her presence, but I
had known that she would be lurking around somewhere. She had the first watch that night,
after all.

“Really?” she asked, and even though I couldn’t see her face in the dark I knew that she
had raised at least one eyebrow in surprise. “You?”

“I know, it’s hard to believe.”

“Well, if it helps, I have no doubt in my mind that whatever happens tomorrow, you’re
going to be brilliant. You always are when it’s time for killing to be done.”
 “Thanks, I appreciate that.”

We were silent for a moment. Finally Sarah said, “I’m more worried about me letting
everyone down, to be honest.”

I waived a hand dismissively, only realizing after the fact that there was only a minute
chance that she could see the motion. “You’ll be fine,” I assured her. “After all, you had an
amazing teacher.”

She stepped out of the shadows of the porch. Her face was dimly lit by the moon and
starlight, and there was an unreadable expression on it. “You know as well as I do that things
didn’t pan out the way that we both thought they would when you began my…education,” she
said seriously. “Things started out right, but somewhere along the way I found that I didn’t
have the passion I thought I did for the whole thing.” She smiled slightly. “I guess at heart I’m
not really a cold-blooded killer, just, I dunno, murder-curious.”

There was another moment of silence before I walked over to her and took her hand in
mine. Some corner of my mind screamed that this was it, that I had officially become a
compassionate human being and all was lost. Game over, man, game over. The rest of my
brain told that section to shut up and to stop being emo.

“There’s not going to be a single person out there tomorrow that I trust more than you,”
I told her sincerely. “You’re right, you’re not like me. You’re not the same breed as I am. Well,
guess what? That’s not a bad thing. You’re going to see things that I won’t, have a perspective
that I can’t. We need to be working together out there, or we’re in a lot of trouble.”

“We’re already in a lot of trouble,” she pointed out. “Thanks for the pep talk though,
Daddy.”
 “You haven’t called me Daddy since we stopped sleeping together,” I replied
mischievously.

Apparently this was the wrong (or very right) thing to say. “That’s true.” Her hand
suddenly wasn’t in mine anymore. It was holding something much more inappropriate. “You
know,” she almost purred, “since tomorrow might be the last day that one or both of us is
breathing…And since I really miss that thing that you do with your tongue…”

Is there any question about what happened next? Of course we had sex. Amazingly hot
sex considering that we had to keep things quiet for the benefit of those sleeping inside the
house. We just stripped each other’s clothes off and I bent her over the porch railing. Were
we back together? Nope. The relationship boat had sailed a long time ago and struck an
iceberg on the journey from New York to London.

Or some place in England where ships dock. Do they dock in London? Bah, never mind,
it’s not worth looking up.

I’m not going to go into more details than that. After all, a gentleman never tells. Well,
okay, since you begged, one last thing. Sarah had amazing breasts, and she always demanded
that I give them the proper attention. There you go, my dear reader with a perverted side,
that’s all that you’re going to get.

Once we were done playing Ride the Salami, we reclothed (suck it, English language) and
stood at the railing that we had just made a little less innocent, no longer passionate lovers but
now two predators surveying their domain. Everything seemed quiet on the home front for
the moment. That would most likely change in a matter of hours, of course, but at that
particular time we were living in a moment of respite. Finally, knowing that there was a big
day ahead of us, I said goodnight and shuffled back up to my room. The physical exercise
proved to be enough to allow me to drift off to sleep.

The sun was in the sky again when I was awoken by entirely too much shaking. I had
been having a rather odd dream about being the primary suspect in the shooting death of
Foghorn Leghorn, so I really didn’t appreciate such a rude awakening adding to the
understandable state of confusion my mind was in. I can’t be sure, but I believe that I said
something rather rude about the mother of the person ending my state of unconsciousness.

“Dammit James, wake up,” Heather demanded as she shook me even harder. “Mark is
missing.”

Gah wha? I forced my eyes open and sat up in bed, swinging my legs over the side and
standing up before I actually realized what my body was doing. Over the years I had found that
often it was best just to allow yourself to work on autopilot, and apparently this was one of
those times. I rubbed the crust out of the corners of my eyes and pushed my bangs out of my
face.

“What happened?” I asked as I put back on my boots. Luckily, I had simply fallen asleep
with my clothes on, or else Heather would have been getting a very nice view of Little James.

“We’re not sure,” she said, glancing out the window. “Mark relieved Sarah on watch at
about three in the morning. He didn’t come in for breakfast, and Matthew says that he can’t
find him anywhere on the ranch.”

“Great,” I muttered darkly, “like we really needed a game of Hide and Seek to start the
day off right. He probably had one of those brilliant flashes of genius he’s always getting and
fell asleep building some monstrosity. Let’s go take a look.”

I changed my mind as to the most likely scenario about twenty minutes later. Heather,
Sarah, and I spread out to search for Mark while Matthew stayed with Maggie inside the
house, and I decided to check out the barn. Matthew had already reported that he hadn’t
found anything there, but I decided to see for myself. Mark was an ubermechanic and an
amateur inventor, after all, so I figured that the giant pile of scrap metal must have been of
interest to him. I slid the barn door open and stepped inside.

The chunks of what used to be automobiles were still there, and they didn’t appear to
have been disturbed. Beyond that, the building was pretty much empty except for a few bales
of old hay and a rusted-over milking machine. When we had first discovered the machine, I
had come to the conclusion that this place must have been quite the house of horrors for
some very startled bovines.

My eyes went back to the bales of hay on their own accord. What had you seen that
was so interesting, my roving peepers? There, on the top of the closest bale. There was a
piece of paper stuck underneath the thin rope that held it together. I walked over and pulled it
out. It looked like a schematic of some kind, and there was scrawling in Mark’s handwriting
along the margins. By all appearances I had been correct; he must have wandered in here to
work on some invention after he had taken over the watch. I wasn’t able to actually make out
what the project had been, however, as I wasn‘t very fluent in Geek.

Plus itt was hard to read anything with the word “UP” written in blood over top of
everything.

Being the master detective that I am, I deduced that the note wanted me to look above
me, which happened to be the direction that the ceiling was located. Craning my neck, I did as
instructed. Written in more blood (apparently ink was out of someone’s budget), were the
words “TODAY’S THE DAY”.
 Some poor sucker had certainly bled a lot so that someone could pass on a message
telling me something that I already knew. I winced slightly at my brain’s choice of words, since
that poor sucker was probably Mark. There was no body, though, and no sign of a blood trail
entering or leaving the barn. More mind games, perhaps? Wouldn’t leaving a message with
Mark’s actual body have been more effective than some scrawling on the ceiling?

And how in God’s name was I going to tell Maggie that her father was most likely dead?

The sound of a cowbell cut through my thoughts. I glanced up at the message one last
time before turning away and heading back towards the house. It was show time.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

Kill Counter- 316

The moment that I stepped out of the barn I knew that we were in a lot of trouble.

The glow of the fires was still present in the sky; it was harder to see in the daylight, of
course, but the sky was somewhat overcast and I could see it reflecting off the clouds. If I had
to take a guess, I would say that it wasn’t as strong as it had been the previous evening, but
then again, it didn’t need to be. We had a whole new reason for not leaving the ranch now.

The sound began as a sort of low throbbing noise, kind of like the sound your heart
makes when it pounds in your ears. As I approached the porch, however, it began to resolve
into something much worse: it was the moaning of many, many zombies. More than I had ever
heard in once place up until this point. The sound was all around us, surrounding our ranch in
a ring of death. No matter which way I turned, however, I couldn’t see any of them.

If they were this loud and not even in sight yet, exactly how many of them were there?

Sarah had abandoned the cowbell she had been ringing and had begun to drag a large
bag filled with ammunition out onto the porch. She looked up briefly at me as I approached
before going back to her work. I knew what she was thinking: we weren’t prepared for this.
The destruction of the vehicles and the message that was left behind (two messages now, I
corrected myself) pointed towards a human enemy. In fact, it almost demanded that be the
case. Not even the Apexes seemed capable of advanced communication, so it was unthinkable
that anything undead could be the culprit.

As I went around the side of the house and grabbed the ladder, I concluded that there
had to be something else out there besides the zombies. This was either a giant coincidence
(and I was the Sugar Plum Faerie, here in Montana to bring good tidings and cheer to all things
living and dead), or someone had somehow gathered this mass of undead for his or her own
purposes. Forget trying to figure out why someone do that, I didn’t even have a clue how it
could be done.

I set the ladder up and used it to climb onto the roof. Matthew came out of the house
and helped Sarah lift the heavy bag, and using the powers granted to me as the last son of
Krypton I managed to drag it up beside me. I moved it over to a mostly flat section of the roof
and set it against the chimney. This was part of our standard Defense Against the Undead
plan. There were weapons and ammunition stashes all over the property just in case we found
ourselves in need of them.

I climbed back down and headed inside the house to get ready. The moaning was
getting louder with each passing minute; it was so loud at this point that I could hear it through
the walls. I retrieved the shotgun and trench coat, naturally, but I also ran upstairs and pulled
another item out of my nightstand. I hoped that I wouldn’t actually have to use it. It was
prudent to cover all the angles, though. I raced back downstairs and, after a moment’s though,
pulled out two of the Molotov cocktails that we had rigged up using some of our zombie-based
oil, dish soap, old bottles, and strips of cloth soaked in alcohol. I carefully set them in different
pockets and fished a lighter out of one of the kitchen drawers. Considerably weighed down by
my coat-based weapons locker, I started to head back outside when I saw Heather coming
downstairs.

“I’ve got Maggie locked in the attic,” she told me as she adjusted the police utility belt
she was wearing around her waist. She was dressed in jeans and a tank top, somehow
managing to look both dangerous and sexy at the same time. The belt’s holster was home to
the remaining Glock, naturally, and one of the two hunting rifles was in her hand. I spotted at
least three knives on her, one in her belt and one in each of her boots, but I was almost sure
that she had a number of weapons that I wasn’t aware of on her. If not, she certainly was
packing more heat in the backpack that she picked up and slung over her shoulders.

“Did you show her how to get out the window and onto the roof?” I asked as we walked
out onto the porch.

“Of course.” She paused, waiting as Matthew and Sarah went past us and into the house
to arm themselves. “Is there any hope for Mark?” she whispered.

I hesitated. Deciding that the truth was best in this case, I shook my head. “There’s a lot
of blood in the barn, and he’s nowhere to be seen.”

“Shit. What are we going to tell Maggie?”

“I don’t know. First things first, though. We’re facing what sounds like a legion of
zombies, and we’re down a man before we can even get started. The house is barricaded
except for the front door and we’ve got the tools to do that quickly sitting on the couch in the
living room, but from the sound of it…”

“…There are too many zombies for a few boards and some nails to make any difference,”
she finished for me. “What the hell is going on, James? This doesn’t make any fucking sense!”

“You’re asking the wrong guy. I’m just as confused as you are.”

“What the hell is that?” Matthew exclaimed as he came back outside, sporting more
firearms than most armies had been equipped with pre-apocalypse.

I looked in the direction that his stupefied expression indicated and immediately saw
why the normally squeaky-clean in the language department giant had chosen to insert a mild
profanity into his exclamation. Coming up the ranch’s driveway were three figures, the middle
of which was holding up what appeared to be a white flag. The small group immediately
reminded me of old pictures from the Revolutionary War depicting an army’s general seeking
to conference with his opposing counterpart.

It was difficult to make out any details at this range, but two things were for certain: all
of them were undead, and the figure on the right was wearing a wedding dress.

“What do we do?” Heather asked quietly, a very strange hitch in her voice.

“We go meet them,” I answered with a bravado I wasn’t really feeling. “You and me.
Matthew, you and Sarah stay here. Keep a gun on our guests at all times. If I raise my left
hand in a fist, shoot them.”

“But that one on the right-“

“Yeah,” I interrupted, feeling my jaw clench slightly. “Yeah, I know.”

We stepped off the porch and began to walk slowly towards our visitors. Upon seeing
our approach, the figure in the middle, dressed in what had once been a white suit but was
now slightly grey with flecks of brown and black, waved his free hand in greeting. For her part,
the bride-turned-undead just kept walking as if she didn’t even realize we were there. The
gentleman on the left was just a complete mess, and I wasn’t sure how he was even still
standing.

Heather and I stopped when we were about twenty feet from them. The Bride was
pretty much as I had remembered her, with the exception that she looked a lot more rotted
when viewed close up. I marveled at the fact that her veil was still somehow sitting atop her
head; you would have thought that at the very least an errant breeze would have knocked it
off. Something seemed different about her, though, and I couldn’t put my finger on it. Ah, of
course, her mangled face wasn’t contorted in rage, and her mouth wasn’t open in one of those
bloodcurdling shrieks.

Heather nudged me and indicated the zombie on the left with a tilt of her chin. The face
was absolutely shredded, the skin torn off to expose the muscles and bone underneath.
Multiple teeth were missing, and one eye had a bloody hole where the pupil should have been.
The other eye, however, didn’t display the silver coloring of an Apex. Instead, it was a rusty
brown.

I glanced down and saw that it was clutching an axe in its hands. Not just any axe, but
the same axe that I had left behind at the home of the Church of the Undying Spirit. On its left
hand was a platinum wedding band.

“God help us,” Heather muttered under her breath. “That’s him. That’s Mark.”

Taking a closer look at the zombie’s clothes, I realized that she was right. The remains of
a man that was standing before us was indeed Mark, father of an adorable daughter, widower
of a woman he had mercy killed, unwitting friend to a serial killer. He stared blankly ahead,
giving no indication that he recognized us.

The figure in the center hissed at us. I turned to face it, forcing myself to remain calm
and collected. His face was also ruined, but it was done so in a way that I could almost believe
that it had been intentional. The skin and tissue around the mouth and eye sockets were gone,
revealing the browned bone. The effect was to make the zombie look evil, almost demonic.
Adding to the image were the eyes. There was no silver here, or even the rust-like color that
Mark’s was displaying. These were red, bright red, the color of steel when it has been heated
by a forge. They almost seemed to glow within the prison of their skull.

The hissing came again. No, not hissing. That wasn’t quite right, was it?

It was laughing at us. This undead asshole was laughing at us.

And then one of the most shocking things that I had ever witnessed occurred. Yes, you
read that correctly. This mind-blowing event was so amazing that it caused someone with as
much worldly experience as I possessed to be completely stupefied by what was happening.

The zombie in the white suit spoke.

“Well well well,” he said, offering his disfigured hand to me. His voice was raspy and dry,
but it was still quite understandable. “I’ve been looking forward to making the acquaintance of
you folks for quite some time now. Put ‘er there, partner!”

Heather and I stared blankly at him. I forced my mouth to close to deny any bugs access.

“No takers?” he asked mildly. He withdrew the hand. “All right then. I have to say that
I’m a tad disappointed. Just because I’m going to murder you all in terribly painful ways
doesn’t mean that we can’t be friends. Mark here understands that, don’t you, Mark?”

What was left of Maggie’s father made an odd gurgling sound.

The talkative zombie smacked his forehead with the palm of his hand. “Oh, right, silly
me. I forgot that I tore out his throat. Let me assure you that if he could speak, he’d be
absolutely gushing about my many superb qualities.”

“You can talk,” Heather blurted out.

“And you can be perceptive!” He laughed another of those hissing laughs. It reminded
me of a breeze rustling through dried leaves. “It’s actually incredibly hard to shut me up once
I’ve gotten started, girlie. There’s nothing that I enjoy as much as the sound of my own voice.”

He slowly looked her up and down. “Then again, I can think of one other thing that
ranks right up there,” he corrected himself.

Heather somehow managed to roll shock, disgust, fear, and confusion all into one
expression. That, my friend, takes talent.

The white-suited zombie raised his hands and shook his head quickly. “I think that we’ve
got a misunderstanding happening here, miss. I’m not some sort of sexual deviant. I assure
you that isn’t the case. I’m a firm believer in equal rights and the women’s movement and all
of that.” He lowered his hands. “I promise that the only thing that I was implying was that I
find the idea of tearing the flesh off of your body and eating it while you watch to be
stimulating.”

“This is fascinating,” I interjected, finally finding my voice, “but I’m guessing this isn’t a
social call.”

“Quite right,” he agreed after a slight but noticeable pause. “I’m afraid that I’m here on
business. Or pleasure. I’m kind of lucky that way, since I take a lot of pleasure in my business.”

“I assume that we’re coming to the point.”

The zombie regarded me closely for a moment. “Most people in your position would be
soiling their underpants right now. False bravado to hide your fear, perhaps?”

I smiled slightly. “Whatever helps you sleep, chuckles. I believe that you were just
about to tell us why you’re gracing our presence.”
 He clapped his hands together, the white flag still clenched between his thumb and
index finger. “Ah yes. First off, my name is Mitch, and secondly, I want to eat your brains.”

He pointed at his chest. Stuck to one side of his suit jacket was a “Hi, My Name Is” tag
with the word “Mitch” scrawled on it in what appeared to be dried blood.

“Don’t worry, though,” he continued. “I’m a professional when it comes to this sort of
thing, so you won’t be consumed by some rank amateur. Your average zombie would simply
crack open your skull and start taking big sloppy bites. That’s so undignified and definitely
indicative of an unrefined palette.

“A true connoisseur such as myself knows to begin the brain course of a meal with the
cerebellum. It’s a rather light portion, and it truly prepares the taste buds for what is to come.
If you forced me to make a comparison, I’d say it’s akin to a crisp salad before a steak.

“The backbone of the experience is the consuming of the hemispheres of the brain, of
course. It can be rather filling if eaten all at one sitting, but I take it as a point of pride that I’ve
never failed to finish a cranium-based meal. In case you were wondering, the hemispheres
taste a lot like veal to the undead. That’s a fun fact that might come in handy if the question
should pop up during a game of Trivial Pursuit.

“Ah, but what would a complete dinner be without a dessert to cap it all off? There are
a few different ways to go with it. A warm glass of spinal fluid is nice on a cold winter night, for
example. My personal favorite, though, is chilled cerebral cortex over ice. It’s just so
refreshing. Don’t you agree, Mark?”

Undead Matt gurgled at him.

“See?” Mitch asked triumphantly. “Thank you for your valuable insight, my boy.”
 Another answering gurgle.

There was a loud click beside me. I turned my head slightly to find that Heather was
pointing her Glock directly at Mitch’s face.

“If you want a fight, we’ll give you one,” she said through gritted teeth.

“Oh my, aren’t you the feisty one!” Mitch waved the white flag that he was carrying.
“Hey now, I’m here in peace. Haven’t you watched any old war movies?”

Her cheek muscle tightened slightly. “You just said that-”

“That I want to eat your brains,” he finished for her. “And I do, along with the rest of
your bodies. Not for another hour, though.”

“What happens in an hour?” I asked suspiciously.

“Well, you see, I kind of made a booboo,” Mitch replied, sounding almost embarrassed.
“When I heard how many undead your group had killed, I just assumed that there were more
of you. I hope you don’t mind, but I invited a few of my friends over.” He chuckled. “Okay, you
got me, more than few friends.”

“How many are we talking here?”

“Oh, I don’t know, somewhere in the neighborhood of a million or so. I lost count
around six hundred thousand.” He pointed at the Bride with his thumb. “She lost the guest
list; if she hadn’t, I could give you a more accurate number.” He shrugged. “Chicks, huh?”

For her part, the Bride simply stared ahead into space and was silent.

“Anyway, it would be rude of me to get the party started without waiting for my friends.
They’ll be here in just about an hour, so that’s how long I’m giving you folks to get ready.”

Mitch paused and glanced over at Undead Mark. “I confess that I was a bit anxious to
begin, so I went ahead and murdered Marky-boy here last night. I know, I know, I should have
been more patient, but I’m afraid that impatience is one of my failings. I promise not to let it
happen again.” He held out his arms to Heather. “Want to hug and make up?”

She declined by pulling the hammer back on her gun.

“That’s a nice weapon that you have there,” he commented. “Mind if I take a look at it?”

I didn’t even see him begin to move. In a blur of motion, he snatched the gun from
Heather’s hands. I brought the shotgun up to bare, but he merely examined the pistol with
apparent interest.

“A Glock 22, I believe?” he mused out loud. “I’m not much of a gun nut, but a friend of
mine was a cop and he used to carry one of these. In fact, he tried to kill me with it while I was
chewing on his leg.”

Without warning, he raised the barrel of the gun to his temple and emptied the clip into
his own skull. Skin and blood flew out in all directions. The bullets didn’t penetrate the bone,
however, and they ricocheted off to God knows where.

“It didn’t work, of course, but he shot me with it just the same,” Mitch noted as he
handed the gun back to a visibly shaken Heather.

Without any sort of signal that I could see, the three zombies turned and walked back
the way that they had come. What used to be Mark dropped the axe to the ground with a dull
thump. With another burst of that hissing laughter, Mitch tossed the white flag away and
merrily slapped the Bride on the ass as they strolled up the driveway. For some reason, the
human-like gesture seemed to make the situation even worse.

“What just happened?” Heather demanded as we turned and went back to the house.
“What the hell was that, and what does it mean?”

I glanced back over my shoulder at the retreating zombies. “It means that we’re in a
fuckload of trouble,” I replied as I watched Mitch stroll out of sight with his cohorts. “A metric
fuckton of trouble.”

“Colorful,” she murmured. “How bad is it?”

I turned my attention back to her. “You heard the man. Zombie. Thing. Whatever the
hell he was. He claimed that he’s got around a million zombies with him.”

“Do you think he was lying?” She sounded hopeful.

I shook my head in the negative. “I don’t think he has any reason to. Besides, listen to
how loud that moaning is. Even if it’s not a million, there’s a hell of a lot of them out there.”

I filled Matthew and Sarah in on the details of the surreal conversation and the peculiar
behavior of our zombie admirer Mitch. When I finished, we all stared out at the driveway for a
good five minutes. There was nothing there to see, but we all knew that something very nasty
was out there just out of sight.

I mean, what the fuck, right? An intelligent zombie? Who the hell had told them that
they were allowed to think? It certainly hadn’t been me.

Sarah, her face a bit pale, was the first to speak. She was wearing a black hoodie with
the hood raised, but I had no problem identifying the restrained fear in her eyes. I suddenly
felt immensely proud of her. Your average college student would have been a blubbering mess
by now. Somehow, though, she was keeping the terror in check.

“So what do we do?” she asked. It was a simple question with no simple answer.

“I only see one option,” Matthew answered. “We barricade the front door, lock down
the house as tight as we can, and you, James, and I do what we can to keep the place from
being overrun while Heather gets on the CB and tries to find us some help.”

“But we haven’t picked up anyone on the CB except for little snippets from the Church of
the Undying Spirit,” she protested. “If there was anyone out there transmitting, we would
know it by now.”

“He’s right,” I told her with what I could only assume was a grim expression on my face.
“It’s a long shot, but it’s the only option we have.”

“Even if someone is listening, how could they possibly get to us through all those
zombies?”

I sighed. “You know I don’t have an answer to that, Sarah. We have to try, though. The
only other option is to fight to the death with no hope in sight.”

“Why am I the one using the radio?” Heather protested. “I’m a better shot than the rest
of you.”

“With Mark gone, you’re the only one that actually knows how to use the thing,”
Matthew said patiently. “The rest of us can barely figure out how to turn it on. It has to be
you.”

“We’re wasting time,” I said impatiently, proving myself to be the antithesis of the man
standing next to me. “Heather, work the CB for all you’re worth. Matthew, Sarah…let’s show
this Mitch fellow why he should have brought more zombies.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

Kill Counter- 316

You had better believe that Ye Ol’ Kill Counter is going to go up during this chapter.

Since the CB radio was a portable unit, we moved it up into the attic where we had
stored Maggie like luggage on a plane’s overhead compartment. While Heather was getting it
hooked back up again, the little girl went over to Matthew and tugged on his pant leg. He gave
her a sad smile and knelt down.

“Yes, little angel?” he asked.

She looked up at the towering man and asked very seriously, “Is my Daddy okay, Uncle
Matthew?”

He looked over at the rest of us helplessly. “Your Daddy had to go away for a while,” he
finally answered. “He loves you very much, though, and he promises that you’ll be together
again before you know it.”

“Your Daddy needs you to be brave, Maggie,” Heather told her in a somewhat shaky
voice. I noticed that she refused to look up from the radio as she spoke. “No matter what
happens, he needs you to be brave and strong. Can you do that, honey?”

Maggie sighed deeply. “Daddy is dead, isn’t he.” It wasn’t a question.

I surprised myself by being the one to speak. “Yes, Daddy is dead,” I told her gently. “He
died protecting all of us. He was a very brave man.” I went over and picked her up in my arms.
“The best way that we can honor his memory is to make sure that we all live long and happy
lives. You especially, Maggie. You were everything to him. It’s okay to be sad, Maggie, but we
have to get through today. Then we can all be sad together. Okay?”

She sniffed loudly as she nodded. “Okay, Uncle James.”

I set her back down and went back to where I had been standing. Heather looked up at
me as she finished attaching the antenna to the radio. There were unshed tears in her eyes.

“You amaze me sometimes, James,” she said before going back to her work.

The only ways into the attic were via a trapdoor in the second floor ceiling, which we
had closed after pulling the ladder up with us, and the window leading out onto the roof. Just
between you and me, I was starting to get sick of roofs and high heights in general. Things
never seemed to work out well for me when I was more than ten feet off the ground. Tough
times called for sacrifices to made, however, so I opened the window and stepped out onto the
gently sloping roof.

I could now see the approaching zombie horde, the swarm of undead bodies heading
towards our position from all sides. It was difficult to make out individual zombies as the sky
had begun to cloud over, casting shadows over the ranch. With the fires burning in the
distance and the shrouded mass of zombies coming closer, it wasn’t hard to imagine that I was
standing in pre-apocalypse New Jersey.

The trench coat was beginning to get a bit warm, so I took it off and tossed it over next
to the bag of goodies I had hauled up earlier. Sarah climbed out the window and stared off
into the distance for a moment before silently reaching back into the house and pulling out a
hunting rifle. She went over to the bag and rummaged around for a moment, finally producing
a box of ammunition. Still without speaking, she began to load the weapon. When she was
viewed in the dim light, the hoodie made her resemble the popular cloaked image of Death.

“How long do you think we can hold out?” I asked, more out of some obscure need to
have a conversation than thinking that she might have an answer.

“Not very,” she answered shortly.

“Nice to know that we’re on the same page.” I took my cue from her and checked to
make sure that my shotgun was loaded to capacity. It was, in case you were wondering. “Even
if they can’t get up onto the roof to get us, with that many bodies trying to get in at once they
might just bring the house down.”

“I’m the only one that hasn’t seen the Apexes in action,” she stated, changing the
subject. “Well, unless you count Maggie. Can they get up here?”

“I wouldn’t be surprised.”

“And this Mitch thing? What about him, do you think he’s going to be a problem?”

“Honestly?” I squinted as I looked up at the sky and remembered the shots the rather
unique zombie had fired into his own head. “I get the feeling that Mitch doesn’t even need an
army.”

She tested the rifle’s sight for a moment. “What was he like? We couldn’t hear anything
from the house.”

I hesitated slightly before saying, “He’s insane. I don’t know what constitutes insanity
for a zombie, but by human standards, he’s nuts. Completely psychopathic and very, very
dangerous. I think he’s been toying with us just to amuse himself. He wants to kill us, but he
wants to play with his food first.”
 She lowered the weapon and looked over at me. “So what you’re saying is he’s a lot like
you.”

I shook my head. “He’s even worse than I used to be. I was never purposefully cruel to
my victims, and I didn’t make things go on longer than they had to. Mitch wants to torture us.
Make us suffer.”

“He might just get his wish.”

“It’s certainly looking like it.”

“Any theories on how a zombie with a high IQ is possible?”

I chuckled. “Sarah, I don’t even know how a regular zombie is possible. I couldn’t even
begin to explain our new friend Mitch. I’m going to go get Matthew. It’s almost time for the
fun to begin.”

The three of us spread out across the roof. With the sheer number of approaching
zombies, there wasn’t really much point in a more sophisticated strategy. To buy Heather’s
frantic transmissions as much time as possible, we would have to keep the undead away from
the house’s first floor doors and windows for as long as we could. It was inevitable that they
would break into the domicile, of course, but every minute that we delayed them was another
minute we bought for a potential rescue. After some very intense mathematical
computations, I estimated our possibility of survival right around the 0% mark.

But hey, what did math know? If it was really all that great, it would be called
“alwaysrightics” instead of “mathematics”.

“Conserve ammunition,” I warned the others, having to raise my voice over the suddenly
gusting wind. Ah, spring in Montana, what a wonderful time of year. For surprise storms and
flash floods, I mean. “When we’re out of bullets we’re going to have to fight hand-to-hand,
and they’ve got a lot more hands than we do.”

Sarah swung her head towards me, a vicious smile on her face. “Maybe,” she replied,
“but I bet our hands fuck a lot of zombies up by the end of the day.”

I laughed. “That’s the spirit.”

The first of the zombies were now within a hundred yards of the house. I forced myself
to look at the horde as individual targets instead of one huge mass. Trying to take down a
million zombies was absolute insanity (even by my standards), but I could certainly take down
one. Then I could move onto the next one. And then the next one. Sure, it was simply a
coping mechanism and it didn’t change our situation in the slightest. I wasn’t above using such
methods from time to time, however, so I went right on ahead with convincing myself it wasn’t
as bad as it seemed.

I scanned the incoming crowd. There didn’t appear to be any Apexes in this first wave of
undead, which was, as they say, a good thing. Just simple, mindless, human-eating regular
American zombies to kick things off. I raised my shotgun and took aim, waiting for the first
target to come into range.

I’m not normally one to deride someone based on his or her weight, but this zombie was
absolutely huge. It was at least five hundred pounds on a less than six foot tall frame. I had a
hard time figuring out if it had been a man or woman in life. Some mysteries are best left
unsolved, I thought to myself. I certainly wasn’t going to go down there and check.

Come on, you fat bastard, just a little closer…

The shotgun roared as I squeeze the trigger. A split second later, the zombie’s head
exploded in a fireworks display of blood and gore. The body staggered backwards a few feet
before falling to the ground like a chopped-down redwood. It trapped a zombie that had been
walking behind it underneath its massive bulk, and the poor guy struggled for all he was worth
to break free. It was simply too much girth to escape.

Why, dear reader, there you are! You’re back in all of your glory, completely in focus and
close to my side. We’ll figure out why this is later, but first, I’ve got a bit of work that I have to
get back to for a while. Why don’t you pour yourself a cup of coffee while you wait? There’s
also some soda in the fridge if you don’t like java. I know that when I’m watching the
murdering of countless undead individuals, I prefer a lower caffeine drink, so just root around
in there until you find something that you like.

We were off to the races. I could hear Sarah and Matthew dishing out their own brand
of justice (I enjoy old Clint Eastwood movies, can you tell?) from their positions, but I
concentrated on my own work and trusted them to do theirs. Overhead the sky was growing
darker, and the rumble of distant thunder brought the promise of a storm.

Why did the universe seem to think that rain and zombies went together? It had
happened way back at Rebel’s Cove the night that I had used shiny objects to distract the
undead so that the Calloway family could scamper from their car and up to the lookout station.
It had rained when Heather and I were on our way to the dam where Matthew and I had
encountered the first Apex. Now, as we were surrounded by seven digits worth of zombies, it
was threatening to rain again. Was fighting zombies on a bright clear day really too much to
ask?

Oh, hey, wow, was that Marcus Washington? I squinted down at a zombie that was
shambling towards the front door of the house. Hey, it was Marcus Washington. He had been
one hell of cornerback out of Alabama a few years earlier, and if memory served he had been
drafted in the first round by the Cleveland Browns. I had never actually met a celebrity before.

I shot his face off. The asshole should have found a way to sign with the Vikings anyway.
His style would have worked better with their defensive schemes.

Hey, was that the shitty actress from that even shittier teen drama television show?

BLAM!

“We’ve got an Apex incoming!” Sarah called out.

Matthew and I immediately turned from our positions and went over to assist. We had
discussed this beforehand: the regular zombies were to be ignored whenever an Apex showed
up. As things stood, we were relatively safe from your garden variety undead while on the
roof, but your decidedly not garden variety superzombies might be able to climb up to our
level and present an immediate threat.

This is exactly what happened. Before Matthew and I could reach her section of the
roof, a shrieking Apex, completely naked and covered in marks that I would have sworn could
only have been made by something like a lion, scampered up the side of the back porch and
hauled itself up to face us. It issued another shriek and immediately charged at Sarah. She
calmly stepped to one side and stuck her foot out, causing it to lose its balance momentarily. A
shot from Matthew snapped its head upward, and Sarah quickly finished it off with a round
into the back of its skull. The body fell off the side of the roof and disappeared into the crowd
below.

There was a thump behind me, and I turned just in time to see another Apex coming
right at me. I thought about trying to replicate Sarah’s neat tripping trick, but I knew that I
couldn’t pull it off as gracefully as she had. Instead, I simply pointed the shotgun at it and
fired. The blast caught it in the chest, and it went spinning into the chimney like some kind of
insane ballet dancer. It tried to get back to its feet, but a second shot turned its head into
mush.

There didn’t seem to be any more Apexes looking to join the party at the moment, so I
went back to my original position and looked down. During the brief intermission, a number of
zombies had managed to reach the house and were clawing at the barricaded door and
windows. There were even a few that seemed to think that they could tunnel through the
siding with their hands (unsurprisingly, they weren’t having much success with that plan). I
took care of the would-be home invaders that I could get a good angle on, but there were a
few that I couldn’t get a clean shot at.

As I reloaded the shotgun once again, I made it a point to count the number of shells I
had remaining. I didn’t like the final number; the shotgun had the most power out of all the
weapons that we had, so it made sense to save it for an emergency. Sarah and Matthew were
using the hunting rifles, so I dug around in the canvas bag until I found a revolver that we had,
ahem, liberated from a pawn shop during one of our trips to Parkersburg. Compared to the
shotgun, it didn’t pack nearly as much of a punch, but we had quite a bit of ammunition for it
so it would have to do.

Twenty minutes later, things had reached the point where the dead zombie bodies
around the house were starting to form a sort of natural barrier. In the short term this was a
good thing, as it helped to keep the number of (kind of) living zombies reaching the house’s
entry points at manageable numbers. Long term, though, the piles of corpses were going to
get large enough that the swarming undead would be able to climb their way up to us.
 I glanced back at the bag holding the remaining guns and ammunition. This was
assuming that we didn’t run out of bullets before then, of course. As soon as that happened, it
would only be a matter of time before we all wound up very dead.

I wiped the sweat off of my brow. Just in case you’ve never experienced it, fighting off
the legions of the undead while preparing for the inevitable devouring of your body can be
hard work. I went to raise the revolver again but thought better of it and wiped the moisture
from my hands as well. It wouldn’t do anyone any good if my perspiration caused me to drop
my gun off the roof. With the maintenance taken care of, I turned back to the matter at hand.

Something caught my eye in the distance. Near the barn, Mitch was leaning up against a
fence. He was holding what appeared to be a squirrel clenched in his fist, and he was
seemingly content to observe the proceedings without getting personally involved. As I
watched, he casually bit the head off the squirrel and chewed it like a child eating a candy bar.
He must have noticed my attention because he raised a hand and waved pleasantly.

I was really starting to hate that guy.

The Bride came out of the barn and stood at Mitch’s side. There was no hint of the
intelligence that he and, to a lesser degree, Undead Mark possessed, but she seemed to be
completely docile and obedient around him. The relationship reminded me of a dog waiting
for its master’s command to attack and maul somebody. Mitch regarded her for a moment.
Finally, he shrugged and pointed at me. She turned and opened her mouth wide. I couldn’t
hear the shriek over the moaning of the zombie horde, but I’m sure that there was one. She
began to fight her way through the crowd and towards the house.

“Apex incoming!” I called out. “It’s Mitch’s undead bridal whore. We’ve got about two
minutes before she’s on us.”
 Despite the huge crowd around her, it wasn’t hard to watch the Bride’s progress. Every
so often she would disappear from sight behind clumps of zombies, but seconds later the
white lace of her dress would once again pop into view. More than once, she paused to open
her mouth and presumably scream at me. I stuck the revolver in my belt and picked up the
shotgun. A special visitor demanded a special welcoming gift.

The Bride finally reached the house and climbed over the body pile. She attempted to
leap up onto the roof from the top of Mount St. Corpse, but she wasn’t quite able to reach the
overhang. I fired the shotgun. She twisted slightly, however, and the blast merely drilled a
hole in the body she was standing on. Enraged, she darted off around the side of the house to
look for another way up.

“Where is the bitch?” Sarah demanded as she and Matthew joined me.

“She couldn’t get up from here,” I explained. “She’s trying to find a place to climb.”

We scrambled about the edge of the roof trying to track her progress. Sarah was the
one who finally spotted her as she came around into the backyard area. The Bride, much as
the other Apex had earlier, lifted herself up onto the back porch. Instead of coming up to our
level, however, she smashed her way through a window and into the house before any of us
could fire a shot.

“Shit, she’s on the floor below Heather and Maggie,” Sarah said angrily.

“She can’t get into the attic from there,” I said confidently, preparing to go back to my
spot. “They’ll be fine.”

“She can if she gets into one of the back room closets,” Matthew disagreed. “There’s
only some plywood and insulation between the ceilings and the attic in them.”
 “Oh, come on, the odds of that are-“

“More than the odds of Heather and Maggie surviving if that Apex does manage to get
to them?” he countered.

I really hated it when I was wrong and somebody else was right. This was turning into
quite the hate-filled day for me.

“Okay, you’re right,” I conceded graciously. “The two of you keep going up here, I’ll
handle the bitch.”

“What are you going to do?”

“What do you think? I’m going in after her.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

Kill Counter- 451

Before stupidly pursuing the Bride into the confined spaces of the house, I snatched up
my trench coat and put it back on. While it wasn’t exactly a suit of armor, its thick material
would at least make it slightly more difficult for her to claw or bite most of my body. I wanted
to be weighed down as little as possible, however, so I removed the Molotov cocktails (setting
fire to the house didn’t seem like the smartest idea) and much of the ammunition from the
coat.

With a nod towards Sarah and Matthew, I walked over to the edge of the roof. So far the
Apexes that had managed to get up to our level had not seemed to notice the window leading
into the attic, and I didn’t want to draw attention to it by using it to access the house. Instead,
I lowered myself down onto the porch roof that the Bride had been standing on moments
earlier.

The second my feet touched the shingles, I raised the shotgun and pointed it at the
remains of the window. She hadn’t just taken out the glass; the entire frame was shattered
and there were small cracks running along the wall around it. I raised an eyebrow at my own
apparently suicidal tendencies. Did I really want to be in an enclosed area with something that
could do that with its bare hands?

Being careful not to cut myself on the shards of glass, I climbed through the window and
into the house.

I was in Maggie’s room. I believe that I previously mentioned that we all tended to dote
on her and spoil her rotten, and her room was proof of that. It was completely covered in pink
and purple; everything from the bed sheets to the chair in the corner was one or both of these
colors. A giant poster of Tinkerbell smiled at me from one wall, and my own ugly mug was
reflected back at me by a unicorn-shaped mirror on the other.

I imagined that this was what Hell was like.

The door leading out into the hallway was lying on the floor underneath a pile of wood
shards and splinters. While the Bride might have been one of the most vicious and efficient
killing machines the world had ever seen, apparently the concept of using a doorknob was
completely foreign to her. Mitch really should have sent her to some sort of zombie finishing
school. At the very least such a school could have taught her better speaking skills and
enunciation.

The brains in Spain lie strewn across the lane.

I moved to the door, being as quiet as I could on the off-chance that the sounds of my
movements wouldn‘t be masked by the deafening moaning coming from outside. Poking my
head out the door, I took a quick peek down the hallway. The trapdoor leading up to the attic
was still pulled up and closed. That was the good news. The bad news was the Bride was
nowhere to be seen. None of the bedroom and bathroom doors were closed, either, meaning
that she could be anywhere. If they had been closed, I could have simply followed the trail of
broken doors.

Maggie’s room was the last door in the hallway before you reached a dead end (well, not
exactly a dead end, but I doubted that a zombie would hide in the linen closet). It was located
directly across from Sarah’s room and next to Heather’s; we had jokingly referred to it as the
Chick Section. I took two long strides into Sarah’s room and did a quick search. Everything
seemed to be in order, which meant that it was total chaos. Sarah wasn’t the best
housekeeper in the world.

I went back out into the hallway and moved to Heather’s door. Pressing myself flat to
the wall, I tried to listen for a minute but was foiled by the sounds coming from outside. I
counted to three and stepped through the doorway, the shotgun raised and ready. I’m sure
that my precision military-style skills would have impressed the Bride terribly if she had
actually been in the room, but alas, she was not. Back out into the hall I went.

A glance into the bathroom told me that she wasn’t relieving herself or taking a pre-
killing shower (I didn’t blame her, as I always preferred to shower after murdering instead of
before). That left only one more room, which was mine. Matthew and Mark’s rooms were
located downstairs just off of the living room. I swore that if this undead cunt was fucking with
my stuff she was going to live to regret it. Or unlive to regret it. Whatever, you get the point.

If there’s one thing that I dislike the most about the post-zombie apocalypse world, it’s
that in some ways it kicked grammar right in the junk.

Luckily for my awesome stuff, the Bride was not in my room. Everything appeared to be
in order and untouched. That meant that she had to have gone downstairs. Before I
approached the staircase, I went back and shut all the doors leading into the bedrooms and
bathroom. If she somehow got back upstairs, I would know exactly which room she chose.

With that done, I began to cautiously descend the staircase. The moaning grew even
louder as I went down. I forced myself to loosen my grip on the shotgun. I needed to be
careful, of course, but all the caution in the world wouldn’t do me any good if my trigger finger
went numb. I reached the bottom of the stairs and put my back to the wall, my weapon
pointed in front of me.
 Because of all of the barricading and boarding up that we had done, the downstairs area
was extremely dim, almost dark. I stood still for a couple of minutes to allow my eyes to adjust
to light (or lack thereof). Without the ability to hear and the reduced ability to see, I was
supposed to rely on, what, my amazing sense of smell? Was I going to sniff out the Bride like a
police dog, or perhaps like Scooby Doo on the trail of a thief dressed like a ghostly scuba diver?
I supposed that I could default to my sense of touch. The downside to that was if I did find her
like that, I probably wouldn’t get the hand back.

For obvious reasons, taste was out of the question.

There was movement over towards the front door. I took three quick steps into the
living room and ducked behind the couch, waiting a moment before I peeked up over top of it.
The Bride was systematically destroying the barricade blocking the door, making a lot of very
expensive furniture into very expensive junk. With a rather vehement curse I got up from my
place of concealment. Mitch hadn’t sent her to kill someone. He had sent her to let the rest of
the zombie horde in.

I aimed the shotgun for a moment before lowering it again. From this angle, I had just as
much of a chance of blowing a hole in the door as I did putting one in the Bride’s skull. I was
going to have to find a different place to deliver the kill shot.

As if sensing the sudden danger that she was in, the Bride stopped assaulting innocent
furniture and turned around to face me. Even in the darkness I could see the glow of her silver
eyes, and it was obvious that she certainly didn’t have a problem seeing me standing there.
Her jaw lowered slowly as her face contorted into a mask of rage and twisted hunger. She took
a step towards me and paused. The eyes swiveled back towards the door before returning to
me. Despite being a zombie, she certainly looked confused about whether or not she should
attempt to eat my sweet, sweet human flesh. It was as if her basic instincts were fighting
against Mitch’s command to open the floodgates.

I wasn’t going to give her time to puzzle her way out of this conundrum with her
(*cough*) superior mental capabilities. In a fairly athletic move, I vaulted over the back of the
couch and grabbed one of the throw pillows. I then allowed the pillow to truly live up to its
name as I chucked it at the Bride’s face. It was a completely non-threatening act and there was
no reason that she should have even blinked because of it.

The Bride struck at the pillow, grabbing it with both hands and tearing it in half.

In the heartbeat that it took her to de-stuff her fluffy assailant, I crossed the distance
between us and brought up the shotgun. I approached at an angle that wouldn’t damage the
remaining barricade material or the boards nailed in front of the door.

I was fast, but apparently not fast enough. The Bride tossed the remains of the pillow
aside and lunged for me. She was too quick for me to avoid, and we went crashing to the floor.

The shotgun bucked in my hand as I fired it. The shot impacted with her shoulder and
tore the majority of her arm off. The force of the blast flung her off of me, and I rolled off to
the side and to my feet. I immediately regretted it as a sharp pain flared in my side. At least
one rib was either bruised or broken. I probed at the sensitive spot tentatively. Most likely just
bruised, but it certainly hurt like a bitch.

Speaking of a bitch, the Bride had a much more grievous wound that I did, but she
wasn’t letting that stop her. She had regained her footing and once more came at me. Instead
of colliding with me, however, she swiped downward with her remaining claw-like hand. I
instinctively raised an arm to shield my face, and her nails bit deeply into my coat’s sleeve. It
didn’t penetrate, though, and I was thankful that I had had the foresight to put it on before
entering the house.

I fired the shotgun again, but a split second before I pulled the trigger she knocked my
hand off to the side and the shot went wide. For only having one arm, she was certainly
getting her money’s worth from it. I lined it back up and attempted to fire again, but the gun
clicked empty. Not having anything else to do with it, I swung the shotgun in an arch and
smashed it into the Bride’s skull. The satisfying crunch was accompanied by a spray of blood,
tissue, and bone chips.

Still the Apex refused to die. She shoved her shoulder into me, pushing me away. My
momentum made my body do a pretty cool flip over the chair that I collided with, and my head
hit the floor hard. Bright spots appeared before my eyes as everything else beyond them went
slightly out of focus. I groped clumsily inside one of my coat pockets for shotgun shells to
reload my weapon, but my fingers didn’t seem to want to cooperate. Well, I thought to myself,
at least I had given it the old college try.

The death that I had expected didn’t come. After a minute, my vision cleared and I
managed to close my hand around the shells. Before getting up, I quickly reloaded the
shotgun. My rib(s) protested as I sat up and looked around.

The Bride was back at the barricade and using her one remaining arm to finish the job
that she had started. She had almost accomplished her goal; even now the door was starting
to bulge inward from the zombies assaulting it from the outside. At this point our defenses
were going to be broken through in a matter of minutes no matter what I did, so there was no
reason to continue my fight with the Bride.

Except that now she had pissed me off. I got to me feet and casually strolled over to the
one-armed Apex attempting to pry a board off of the door. She was so intent on what she was
doing that she didn’t even realize I was approaching. I tapped her on the shoulder with the
barrel of the gun, and she looked over her shoulder, her silver eyes wide.

“Say ‘Ah’, bitch,” I told her as I slid the end of the barrel into her mouth and pulled the
trigger.

Even as the remainder of the Bride’s body was sliding to the floor, I saw a section of the
door crack. It was time for me to beat a hasty retreat back upstairs before things got ugly.
Well, you know, uglier. As if to emphasize the point my internal monologue was attempting to
get across, one of the kitchen windows exploded in a shower of wood and glass as the zombies
broke through. A hand forced its way through the crack in the door, and it groped towards me
eagerly.

So yeah, about that hasty retreat.

I’m not sure how many stairs my feet actually touched as I vaulted up the staircase, but
I’m pretty sure you could count the amount on one hand. Perhaps on the hand sticking
through the front door if you were in need one. I fully intended to run right back through
Maggie’s window and head back onto the roof, but I stopped suddenly at the top of the stairs.

I had closed all the doors before going downstairs. Now, though, two of them stood
open, the doors leading to Maggie and Heather’s rooms. I slid another shell into the shotgun
to replace the one that had turned the Bride’s head into a gory fireworks display and slowly
advanced. I came to a complete standstill when I saw that the door to Heather’s room hadn’t
been opened so much as it had been forced inward. It was barely still on its hinges.

I retreated to the staircase to come up with a plan. It was a good idea in theory to
quickly collect my thoughts before entering into yet another potentially dangerous situation,
but in practice it wasn’t going to happen. The zombie horde had apparently broken down the
last of our defenses in short order, as a large number of them were beginning to climb the
stairs. When they saw me put in an appearance above them, they seemed to grow excited and
stretched their arms out towards me as they climbed.

I looked back at the open doors. You know what? Strategy smategy. Sometimes life
favored the brave over the intelligent. Sometimes a person just needed to make a bold move
rather than plan out every single detail. I was going to be a man of action.

Does that sound very convincing to you? I certainly didn’t find it very convincing. Still,
there wasn’t really anything else I could, so I took a deep breath and made a run for Maggie’s
room.

As I ran past Heather’s door, an Apex flung itself out into the hallway at me. Luckily, I
had a bit too much speed going, and it ran headfirst into the wall. I turned quickly into
Maggie’s room and plowed right into another one. It lost its balance and fell onto its ass, and
as I trampled over it I fired a shot into its face at pointblank range. Once more minding the
broken glass, I climbed out the window and onto the back porch’s roof.

Or at least I would have if my foot hadn’t caught when I was most of the way out. I
looked over my shoulder and found that the first Apex had apparently recovered from it’s
meeting of the minds with its wallpapered opponent and was clutching at my leg. Its teeth
were actually sunk into the rubber sole of my right shoe. I lashed out with my free foot and
caught it square in the nose, breaking it with an odd squishing sensation that made me think of
stepping on a banana. Its mouth opened either from the pain (assuming they felt pain) or the
impact, and I pulled myself all the way out the window before it could recover.
 After sending a shotgun blast through the window simply to buy some time, I tossed the
weapon up onto the roof above me and hoisted myself up after it. Matthew rushed over and
pulled me up the rest of the way like I was a rag doll. He smiled and patted me on the back to
congratulate me on getting back out of the house alive. I tried to tell him that there was an
Apex right behind me, but he shook his head in incomprehension. There were so many
zombies surrounding and invading the house that the moaning was deafening; oral
communication was impossible at this point.

“Get back!” I yelled, making sure to exaggerate the words in case his lip reading skills
weren’t up to snuff.

He gave me a puzzled look, but before I could say or do anything else, I was knocked
aside by a hard hit to my already injured rib. The undead seemed to have a hard on for taking
me off of my feet. The Apex that had gnawed on my footwear threw itself at Matthew, who
was caught completely off-guard. It wrapped its arms and legs around him, and they both
went tumbling over the edge of the roof. They hit the top of the porch and rolled off into the
horde of zombies below. I regained my footing and rushed over to where they had fallen, but
there was nothing to be done. I couldn’t even see them through the mass of undead.

Damn it. God fucking damn it.

I wasn’t a religious man, but I knew that Matthew was and I offered a silent prayer for
him. We had all survived for nearly a year in a world ruled by hungry zombies, and in the
space of one day we had already lost two of us. They had both been good men, and now they
were gone. I sighed heavily. What a waste.

I felt a hand on my shoulder and turned to find Heather standing next to me. Her eyes
were filled with suppressed tears, but her Glock was in her hand and the expression on her
face said louder than words that she was ready to get some use out of it. Maggie was standing
near the chimney watching Sarah reload her rifle. They hadn’t seen what had happened, and
upon reflection I realized that was probably for the best.

Wait, why were Maggie and Heather on the roof? I looked at Heather questioningly and
she mouthed the words, “No power.” The generator must have become a victim of the assault
against the residence. That meant that the CB radio was now a glorified paperweight, and
there was no point in staying inside. Hope for survival was starting to drop ever closer to that
zero mark.

Mitch was no longer standing by the barn. In fact, he had disappeared from sight
entirely. For some reason that made me feel uneasy.

I made my way over to Sarah and waved at her to get her attention. I pointed first at the
gun and then at the zombies gathered below and shook my head. She got the message and
followed me back to the chimney, which I guess was sort of our unofficial meeting place.
There was no point in trying to hold back the flood of zombies at this point, so it made more
sense to conserve ammunition than to keep firing into the crowd.

For five minutes or so the four of us simply sat there, our eyes alert for any Apex attacks
but otherwise not really doing anything. I was not one who usually suffered from depression
or fatalism, but even I had to admit that things were looking grim. It was only a matter of time
before either the silver-eyed superzombies had us churning in their stomach acid or the house
simply collapsed from the slack-jawed regular zombies’ assault. We had fought valiantly and
lasted longer than anyone could have possibly expected. The odds were just impossible to
surmount.

Heather nudged my arm with her elbow, and I turned lazily to look at where she was
pointing. Didn’t she know that I was trying to sulk and didn’t want to be interrupted? I felt my
defeatism slowly drain away as I focused on what had caught her attention, though. In the
distance, high above the trees, there was a black spec in the sky. I watched it for a moment,
trying to figure out what it was. It grew larger as it approached, and the way it bobbed up and
down made it seem-

I flung myself to my feet. Holy shit, it was a helicopter. And it was coming towards us.
Somebody had been listening to Heather’s cries for help after all. We were still in this as long
as we could survive until it arrived.

That last part was going to prove to be tricky. Sarah nudged me in the hurt rib quite a bit
harder than Heather had (to be fair, she had no way of knowing that it was injured, so I gave
her a pass). I felt my heart sink as I discovered that her news was not the super happy fun kind
that Heather’s had been.

Standing on the edge of the roof, his white suit sporting a new red smudge from his
native wildlife treat, was Mitch. He was watching the helicopter as it rapidly approached. He
lowered his gaze and dropped it on me, and although hearing the sound of hissing was
impossible, I knew that he was laughing at me. He pointed at the helicopter with his chin
before slowly shaking his head.

If he had his way, we weren’t going anywhere.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

Kill Counter- 452

Despite the danger of the situation and the very real possibility of ending up as a menu
item, I realized that I wanted this fight.

You couldn’t really blame your typical zombie for what it did. It was in its nature to
attack and kill living things. There wasn’t any underhanded plot or purpose going on behind
the scenes; it was simply a product of overwhelming desire to feed. The Apexes were the
same way. Sure, they were more advanced in terms of speed and efficiency, but there still
wasn’t much higher brain function going on.

Mitch, though, was another matter entirely. He was at least as intelligent as a human
(probably about twice as smart as the majority of dimwits that wandered through life pre-
apocalypse), and with wisdom came the ability to suppress or at least contain base instincts.
He chose to be a killer, and he chose to be a sadistic bastard. It was like going up against a sick
and twisted human.

And I knew a little something about sadism against fellow human beings.

I think, in a way, he knew what I was thinking, because he tilted his head curiously as his
red eyes stared at me. When his head straightened back up, however, they flicked to a spot
just over my shoulder. He raised his hand and traced a salute with his index and middle
fingers. I had no idea what he was doing since Heather and Sarah were both standing to the
opposite side and Maggie was hiding behind the chimney.

Then it hit me. He was saluting you. Somehow, someway, he had realized that you were
watching, my faithful and dear reader, and he was showing you a bit of respect. Tell me, have
you perhaps met him before? Is that why he knew that you existed? Or do I not truly
understand who and what you are and how you are able to perform your brand of peepery?

Don’t worry, friend, I’m not the jealous type. I know that, at the end of the day, you’ll
always come back to stalking me even if you’ve strayed for a bit. I’m secure enough in our
relationship to not become an emotional wreck if you have the occasion other dance partner.

Mitch put those rather evil-looking eyes back on me and smiled. At least I think he was
smiling, since he didn’t have any skin in the usual places that would denote that he was doing
so. The air of mirth that surrounded him certainly suggested that he was finding something
amusing. He lifted his hand once again, but this time instead of giving you the respect that you
deserved, he simply gave me the finger.

The hand was suddenly knocked sideways at an awkward angle as Heather landed a
precision shot with her Glock. The bullet managed to cause a small wound to open, but it was
nowhere near the level of damage that should have been created by a gunshot. Mitch looked
at his hand in what seemed like genuine surprise before turning his head upward as his chest
heaved. He was laughing. He had just been shot in the hand and he was laughing. Oh my,
what a wonderfully twisted playmate we had here.

Apparently laughter was the universal signal to open fire. Both Sarah and Heather
began to pump round after round into Mitch’s body. He flinched slightly from the impacts, but
otherwise he just kept on laughing gleefully. I took the opportunity to fully load the shotgun. I
had certainly been putting it to good use that day, and I wanted to be ready to continue the
trend. I remembered the revolver that I had stuck in my belt for the first time since I had done
so, but I must have lost it during the melee against the Bride because it was no longer there.
This meant that the shotgun was going to have to work overtime.

I risked a look towards the helicopter. It was much closer than it had been, and I could
actually make out its shape now. We needed to end this fight fast or we wouldn’t be able to
safely board it, or worse, Mitch might do something about it if it got too close. I took a page
out of the Apex playbook and threw myself bodily into the self-proclaimed Alpha zombie.

It was like running into a concrete wall. In addition to my rib wondering just what the
hell I was doing, my shoulder decided to join in on the protesting. Mitch didn’t really move; he
just looked down at me like I was some kind of moron. I suppose that I kind of was at that if
that was the best idea I could come up with. Luckily for my sense of self-appreciation, it was
only part one of a two part plan. I initiated part two flawlessly by flipping the shotgun upward
and firing right into his face.

Blood and skin were thrown free from Mitch’s head, but still the bone refused to be
penetrated. He swung one of his legs back and delivered the hardest kick that I ever had the
displeasure of being on the receiving end of. I must have been flung ten feet across the roof,
and although I managed to get back to my feet, I was spitting blood as I stood up. Heather,
having put a fresh clip in her gun, stepped in front of me protectively and once again began to
fire shot after shot into our undead assailant.

With each passing second, the helicopter was getting closer. It was our flying promise of
salvation, and if we missed out on this opportunity we were going to die. There was no maybe
about it. We would die if we weren’t on that helicopter when it went back to where it had
come from.

A strange shudder seemed to run through the roof under our feet. The structural
integrity of the house was starting to become a thing of the past thanks to the zombie horde
roaming around both inside and outside of it. That gave me an idea.

As Heather ejected the empty clip from her Glock and reached for another one from her
belt, I moved past her and emptied my shotgun at Mitch. I didn’t aim for his body, however.
Instead, I aimed for the roof below him.

The section of roof he was standing on, already weakened by the abuse that the house
was taking, collapsed underneath him, and he fell through the hole. There was no way that
was going to buy us more than a minute, however, so I reloaded the shotgun and quickly
moved to the edge of the hole. Zombies filled the room below us from wall to wall (my room, I
noted irritably, and the assholes were touching my stuff), and Mitch was having difficulty
getting to his feet with so many bodies in the way. I glanced over my shoulder at the
helicopter. It was three, maybe four minutes away. We’d have to hold him back until it arrived.

I ran back over to the place where I had set down the two Molotov cocktails earlier.
When I had entered the house in my pursuit of the Bride, I had reflected that it wouldn’t be a
good idea to burn down the house with me inside. Now, though, I had no problems with
burning down the house with Mitch inside. I hurried back over to the hole in the roof and
found that he had still not managed to stand back up. He had gotten a grip on the bed’s
headboard, though, so he would be back up and mobile in a matter of seconds.

For a horrible moment, I couldn’t find the lighter. My hand finally closed around it and
pulled it out of one of my coat pockets, and I used it to light the first Molotov’s alcohol-soaked
rag. Mitch triumphantly got his feet back under him and looked up at me through the gap he
had fallen through. I favored him with the same kind of wave that he had given me earlier
before hurling the Molotov down at him. It struck him in the shoulder, and almost
immediately all hell broke loose.
 Most of the clothes that the zombies were wearing had been worn down by the time
and weather they had endured. The liquid fire happily consumed the garments and began to
work on the skin underneath as it jumped from one undead to the next, turning the entire
room into an incinerator within seconds. The zombies continued to reach up towards me even
as they burned, making the entire scene resemble a rave that had gone terribly wrong. Mitch’s
white suit was apparently not fireproof, as it burst into flames like everything else had. Just for
good measure, I tossed the second Molotov cocktail down as well. He disappeared under the
mass of writing bodies and the dancing flames.

The house would inevitably burn down because of my actions, but since we would
probably never come back to the ranch, it’s not like I cared.

I kept my shotgun pointed down at the bonfire until a large gust of wind signaled the
helicopter’s arrival. It was just in time, too, as some of the flames were starting to make their
way up the bedroom walls and towards the roof. I hustled over towards the chopper, which
appeared to be a hospital rescue helicopter. The side door slid open, and two men wearing
military fatigues waved their arms to signal us to hurry.

Maggie had already been lifted inside the helicopter and Heather was climbing onboard
when Mitch suddenly came bursting out of the inferno and onto the roof. He didn’t claw his
way out, mind you. He simply jumped up through the opening and landed with an impact
strong enough to shake the house even more than it already was. His suit jacket was
completely gone, revealing a burned dress shirt and patches of blackened skin. For the most
part, the pants had managed to avoid a fiery doom. I had no way of explaining how that was
possible, but hey, it’s not like the zombie apocalypse should have been possible, either, so
miracles do happen.
 He took one look at the helicopter before coming right at us. His speed was incredible; I
wouldn’t have put down any bets on if he or a Ferrari would win in a race. I struck him in the
chest with a squeeze of the shotgun’s trigger, but he didn’t even slow down. So close, I
thought to myself. We had been so close to escaping.

The glint in his eye was one of cunning and dastardly deeds. I realized a split second
before it happened that neither myself nor the helicopter were the intended targets. Instead,
he shattered Sarah’s rifle with an almost casual flick of his wrist and sank his teeth into her
shoulder. She opened her mouth and screamed, but I couldn’t hear it as the zombies were
making too much noise. Whether there was pain or terror or frustration in it, I would never
know. Mitch jumped around behind her and wrapped his arm around her neck in a vise-like
grip.

Sarah was dead. Yes, the blood still flowed through her veins and she was still
conscious, but we all knew what that bite meant. Understanding and a profound sadness filled
her eyes, and for the first time since I had known her, tears slid down her cheeks. Slowly,
determination replaced the other emotions, and she bit her lower lip. Her legs were still free,
and she pushed off with them as hard as she could. Mitch obviously hadn’t been expecting
any sort of fight to be left in his victim. He lost his balance, and they both slid off the side of
the roof and out of sight.

I couldn’t process what just happened. If I did, I would be lost in a river of rage and
blood the likes of which I had never attempted to swim through. Heather and Maggie were
still counting on me to be there for them. We didn’t know the people that had become our
saviors, and the world was still going through that little thing that we called the zombie
apocalypse. It wouldn’t do to lose my head and jump off the roof after them to attempt to
bludgeon Mitch to death with my bare hands.
 But…it was Sarah.

I turned and climbed into the waiting helicopter. It lifted off almost before I was seated.
I couldn’t blame the pilot for this lack of etiquette, as I could only imagine what close to a
million zombies looked like when you were hovering above it. I didn’t look out the window to
find out for myself.

I mentioned earlier something that Mark and I had jokingly dubbed Project Kill Some
Shit. It was time to put that into action. From an inside pocket of my coat, I pulled out a small
silver object about the weight and size of a pen. On one side was a toggle switch that Mark
had scavenged from a curling iron, and I pressed it with my thumb. The object was a small
handheld transmitter that he had rigged up and given to me for safekeeping. Since he was
now a member of the undead class, it was a good thing that he hadn’t kept it for himself.

A transmitter must have something to transmit to, of course, and this one did indeed
have a receiver that it communicated with. Mark and I had placed the plastic explosives that
Heather had gathered way back in Lewiston all around the house, using the house’s electrical
wiring to hook them all together. Next to each of the bundles, we had put bottles of the oil
that we had collected from zombie corpses, and there was even a good amount of the liquid
strapped to the generator.

A small red light went on as the transmitter did its thing. From down below and behind
us came a deep rumbling sound as the house exploded. It had been a good home. In fact, it
was the first place that I had ever actually thought of as “home”, and even in the end it
managed to give me some comfort. I wanted it to take every damn zombie with it, although I
knew logically that wasn’t possible. It had been rigged with plastic explosives, not a
thermonuclear warhead.
I doubted that it would finish off Mitch.

I hoped that it finished off Sarah.

Sarah…

I’m sorry.
EPILOGUE

Kill Counter- Infinite

It turns out that the United States government isn’t quite as defunct as I first believed.

To be fair, there aren’t really any noticeable borders between what used to be states
anymore, but the name is something of a tradition and it has managed to endure. I’m hardly
America’s favorite son, but I have to say that I find myself glad that my country has managed to
stick around through the greatest threat the world has ever known. For all that we know,
we’re the only country that can make that claim. Global communications have ceased at this
point, so there’s no way to find out for sure.

What remains of the United States has been set up in small secure compounds in various
strategic locations around the country. Most of these compounds, which have been dubbed
‘habitats’ (yes, exactly like the places monkeys used to be kept in zoos, except that we humans
tend not to fling our poo quite so much), are just inside the Canadian border. I assume that
this is because of the apparent vulnerability that the zombies exhibit to cold. Sure, this brand
of natural defense won’t be present for half of the year, but it’s certainly better than nothing.

Not all of the habitats are in the north, of course. God only knows how the compounds
in places like Louisiana and Texas are managing to stay in operation.

The helicopter that came to our rescue was running supplies from habitat to habitat
when it picked up Heather’s frantic call for help. I was recently told that there had been a brief
argument between the crew members about whether or not to risk helping us. At the end of
the day, compassion for fellow human beings had won out, and thus we had been saved.
 We were dropped off at the closest habitat, located somewhere in Wisconsin, where we
were processed. Have you gone through the experience of being processed at a habitat,
friend? If not, I humbly recommend that you endeavor to keep it that way. Way back when
Heather and I had crossed the Mississippi River, we had been required to give blood samples to
prove that we weren’t in the process of becoming undead. The habitats take things to a whole
new level. The three of us (yes, that includes Maggie) were required to allow doctors to
retrieve bone marrow for testing. I can see how that is more accurate than a drop of blood,
but come on, does the needle have to be that big?

We were placed into isolation tents on the outskirts of the habitat, and we were
constantly monitored by the watchful eyes of a dozen armed guards. Once the test results
came back, I was pleased to hear that a zombie had not managed to shove itself into my
bloodstream.

With our shiny new clean bills of heath in hand, we were loaded into the back of a van
and transported inside the habitat itself. The entire area had been leveled with bulldozers to
create an unobstructed view for the nearby guard towards. Three layers of concrete walls ran
along the outskirts of the compound to form a barrier between the shanty-like hovels that the
citizens of this fine town lived in and the rest of the world.

Our assigned shack is where I’m writing this now. The irony that six people, one of
which was a little girl under the age of seven, had managed to create a better life for
themselves than an entire government could provide is not lost on me.

I won’t be staying here long, of course. I’m fairly certain that the explosion I triggered as
we were flying away from the ranch barely slowed Mitch down, and I don’t want to put too
fine of a point on it, but I’m going to kill Mitch. Because of him, three people that I cared
about died. Then I’m going to kill Zombie Mark and, if necessary, put an end to Sarah’s walking
the Earth. There wasn’t enough left of Matthew to reanimate so I don’t need to worry about
him, but I want to make sure that the others are put down by my hand.

I owe them that much.

You’re welcome to come along, of course. Who knows, Heather might want to as well.
I’m not sure, as I haven’t actually discussed any of this with her yet. It’s her call as to whether
or not she wants to stay with our newfound segment of humanity or if she wants to come kill
some zombies with me. You, however, are an integral piece of the puzzle. How could I think
about going off for some good old-fashioned murder and mayhem without you? Those things
are much more fun when there are two instead of one.

In the spirit of full disclosure, I should probably tell you that now is one of the more
dangerous times to be planning a road trip. Besides the usual zombie menace and unexpected
Apex attacks, a few of our neighbors have been telling us about roving bands of humans that
are waylaying other living folks and stealing their things. That’s right, dear reader, there are
actually pirates among us. Yo ho ho and shiver me timbers, matey. Still, you have to believe
that if you and I are accosted by these ruffians, we’re probably not the ones that will regret the
meeting.

Oh, come on, admit it. You know you want to. Admit that your own little dark
tendencies are starting to come through a bit more now than they were before. Don’t worry,
I’m not looking for a convert to the Church of the Undying Serial Killer. I just want you to admit
privately to yourself and me that maybe, just maybe, you can kind of see where I’m coming
from. It won’t hurt, I promise.

Two predators in a pod, that’s what you and I are.

Except that you’re still an asshole.

THE END