The Zed Files Trilogy (Book 1): The Hanging Tree (16 page)

Chapter 21: 
Walk’n in a Wonderland

“You can’t see anything?” Karen asks.  I shake my head no.  Her eyes are just as blue as the day we met out by the cornfield.  The only change has been from anger to panic.  “I just thought for sure that…”  She lets the thought trail off without finishing it.

It hasn’t been for lack of trying.  We’ve been going at it like teenagers ever since I could get out of bed. 
In the back of the supply container, outside the container doors, at night when everyone else is asleep.  It has become her way to try to step through without being at fault; the gun to the head that she can later claim wasn’t loaded if there is anyone to inquire on the other side.  Something more pleasurable than an overdose, more subtle than cut wrists.  A perfect form of suicide for the indecisive and afraid.  But her eyes show no sign of looking like mine. 

It feels like
morning, but I can’t tell.  I’m awake anyway.  And spent inside her.  I pull out and move to the side of the bunk.  I pull on my pants by the light of the flashlight and then my socks.  “I’m going outside today.”

She is so quiet behind me I have to wonder if she is still there.  A voice from above answers instead.  “I was thinking it was about time also,” Tyler says. 

“Anything is better than listening to you two screwing all the time,” Ray says from his bed.  Quack.  “But seriously, you’re really going out there today?”

“Yeah,” I tell anyone who is listening.  “It’s past time we had a look.  What time is it, Tyler?”

“Time for you to buy a watch,” he replies.  I see a green glow from his bunk.  “Little after 10 in the morning.  I’ll start the generator.”

The fluorescent tubes overhead blink to life and everyone squints in the harsh white light.  The long sleep is over.  “So who all is going?” Tyler asks. 

“I’ll go,” Eddie says.  He’s holding the little Ruger I gave him and turning a full magazine over and over again in his other hand. 

“I’m going alone,” I tell him and anyone else.  “But I
ain’t going far.  If I see my shadow, it’s going to be six more weeks of winter.”  No one laughs.  Not even Ray.  I take the last Salem out and light it.  “I’m just going to poke my head out. If it looks alright, I’ll try and make my way to the main house, see if there’s anything in there we can use.  Just have to wait and see when we pry the door open.”

I’ve got the cleaver back on and the .45 ready to go.  I’ve taken the ammo for the big pistol and reloaded my AR-15 with it.  Only about twenty rounds left. 
Shouldn’t matter once I’m outside.  I’ll either have way too much ammo or not nearly enough.

Karen picks up her Winchester and checks the chamber.  I guess I don’t really even have to ask.  “It’s not open for discussion,” she says flatly before I can say anything.  “I’m getting out of here today.”

“Suit yourself,” I tell her and we all move towards the doors beyond the doors, past the big black spot on the ground where the Zed whale had brought Kevin inside.  The bullet holes in the cellar doors show light passing through.  I quietly push my eye up next to one to see if there is anything to be seen.  The view is obstructed about four feet away by something brown and porous.  I shift my head around to see if I can see past it, but it looks like a giant chunk of coral has landed from outer space. 

“See anything?” Ray asks from behind me.  I shake my head no and turn the handle of the door.  I give it a small push but nothing happens.  I put my foot against the bottom of the door and push again. 
Nothing.  A harder shove and the door flexes and bangs, but doesn’t open. 

“Oh my god,” Karen says crying.  “We’re trapped in here.  We can’t get out.”

“Relax,” I tell her and put my rifle down.  I put both hands against the door and shove as hard as I can.  Ray and Tyler join me and the door begins to move at the top.  I kick the bottom over and over with my boot and a small crack appears. Like a car stuck in the mud, we start rocking it back and forth, slowly opening the door.

“What the fuck is out there?” Ray asks gasping for air.  Tyler is bent over with his hands on his knees.  I lean against the wall and wish I
didn’t smoke.  Through the space at the bottom, more of the brown spongy material is visible.  It should move easier than it does.  “I’ve got an idea,” Ray says and walks towards the acetylene torch.  He takes a length of half inch rebar out of the rack beside it and begins ramming it under the brown stuff.  “Leverage,” he grunts.  “We just need more leverage.”

The rebar bends too easily but the stabbing motions seem to work.  Tyler and I push on the door until we can work my cleaver through enough to swing it.  The brown stuff cuts
easily, but there are long pieces of hard wood or something embedded in the brown stuff.  A broken piece clatters back in through the door after a big swing. I pick it up and look at it.  It’s bone.

And it must be a leg bone at that.  I continue cutting and finally the door pushes open enough to slip through.  The world outside is not as we had left it.

Karen squeezes out behind me.  She makes it two steps before she is struck as speechless as I am.  Eddie follows next, then Tyler, then Ray.  Even Little Dawn is up and ducks out into the cool morning air.  Big Donna’s exit is less graceful but she finally manages to get out.  So much for going it alone. We all stand there, transfixed, unable to comprehend what we are looking at.

“Jesus,” Ray finally says.  “What the fuck?”

Tyler takes a tentative step across the brown stuff and sinks slightly into it.  Eddie starts to bend down and touch it with his hand when Tyler stops him.  “Wouldn’t do that if I were you.  Not yet, anyway.  Could be psychotropic, could be poison.  I’d advise no one touch it with bare flesh until we find out more about this…stuff.”

The brown stuff is everywhere.  Every spot on the ground is covered by it and large, five to six foot tall lumps of it dot the field. 
Brown stuff up on the catwalk in places, across the front porch of the house.  Two clumps of it hang from the lower windows of the house, the arms and head of each clump still plainly visible as human forms.  Shoes and boots and clothes and coats stick in and out of the fungus making them look like lumpy scarecrows and shit brown snowmen.

Ray lets out a long whistle as he inspects one o
f the lumps.  He points at the reading glasses looking out from under the brown stuff.  “You mean to tell me…”

A roaring moan cuts him off as a half-rotted
Zed charges from behind one of the clumps.  Ray tries to move, but his foot drags in the brown stuff and down he goes with the screaming, clawing, rotting bastard nearly on top of him.  The Zed is a middle-aged man with no shirt and torn pants.  His eyes bulge and his grey skin is freshly dead-ish; probably one of the last ones to get infected by a bite.  Ray kicks him from where he is lying and knocks him off to the side.  The Zed knocks over one of the brown clumps.  A nearly skeletonized lower leg bone sticks up from the broken clump. 

Eddie steps up before anyone else can act and puts several rounds into the
Zed.  Another low moan and the sound of something running comes from the right.  Karen catches the Zed with a shot through the neck.  The second one stacks up neatly on the first one. 

“We need to get higher up,” I yell and we all make for the corner of the compound.  It is like running through a labyrinth inside a pinball game.  As one person hits a dead end, the one at the back has to turn and become the new pathfinder.  Where the path opens up, we move forward in twos and threes. 

Just as we reach the corner, a small child Zed pops up around the corner of a clump and runs at us, lipless teeth bared and hands swatting the air in front of her.  I go to pull the .45 but it hangs up in my belt, the hammer caught in my jacket.  I grab for the cleaver but I’m going to be too late.  She’s got me.

But she runs right past me.  The little
Zed squares up on Eddie who walks a line of rounds up from her chest to her head.  She falls face first into the brown stuff, her arms motionless at her sides.  I manage to get the .45 out finally and join the others as they set up a ladder to get up onto the catwalk. 

Eddie stands looking at the dead girl.  He reloads mechanically and I hear him say, “
It’s okay.  You’re free now.”

From up high we can see all around us, hundreds of yards in every direction both inside the compound and out.  The brown stuff covers everything.  Here and there a
Zed stumbles through but they are as lost and uncoordinated in the spongy maze as we were.

“Holy shit,” Ray gasps.  “Look at this shit.  It’s… everywhere. 
And on everything.  It’s just like all of those things stopped and put down roots and…sprouted.”

“I wonder how much ground it
covers?” Tyler says as he looks around.  “It could be countless square miles, counties, states...”

I catch Eddie staring at me instead of the puzzle surrounding us.  “She ran right by you,” he says quietly. 
“Like you weren’t even there.”

“Who?”
Ray asks.

“Her,” Eddie says and points at the now completely dead little girl below us.  “It’s like she couldn’t see him. 
Like he was one of them.”

They all look at me for only a moment but then look away. 

“Doesn’t mean anything,” Ray finally says.  “Hard to tell anything from anything in this mess.”

“I smell something cooking,” Little Dawn says and points with her stump at the house.  “There’s smoke coming out of the house. Someone’s in there.”

“Nah,” Ray says.  “It’s just… yeah.  I smell it too.  They’re frying something.”  He brings his hand up onto his stomach and several gurgling sounds can be heard between us.  “Somebody’s in there fucking frying something.”

“You
gonna go check it out?” Tyler asks.  I look to see who he’s talking to.  It’s me.  “Yes, you.  They can’t see you or smell you or whatever.  So you can cover all the open ground between here and there.”

I shrug and hand my rifle over to Ray.  “I guess I’ll go check it out.  Try to keep me covered from here just in case we’re wrong.  At least give me warning if you see one coming.  And Ray…”  Ray looks at me and raises both eyebrows.  “Don’t shoot me.”

“Wha… I wouldn’t.  Just because of the thing with the grenade doesn’t mean that...”  He stops and puts his hand on his hip.  “I won’t shoot you.  Just go.  Before I eat my fucking shoes.  Do you guys smell that?  It’s like… fried potatoes or something.”

Karen turns to come with me.  I push her back slightly and shake my head no.  “I’ll be right back.  No worries.”

I descend back into the brown stuff and take out the cleaver.  I put the .45 in my left hand and begin to pick my way through.  I can see the roof of the house over the brown clumps but finding a way to it is difficult.

“Go to your right,” Tyler yells.  “And watch out for the
Zed that’s about 10 feet in front of you.”  I stop moving and bring the cleaver back.  “No, you’re not close to him yet.  Just keep moving.  I’ll let you know when he’s close enough to worry about.”

“Ten feet sounds plenty fucking close,” I mutter and start working my way through the clumps. 

“He’s on your left now,” Tyler yells.  “But he doesn’t seem to know you’re there.” 

I take a right turn looking to my left and practically step on the short
Zed that is blocking the way.  It is a short, pot-bellied Zed with a stained wife-beater shirt and no pants.  His eyes look like mine and his breathing is labored.  His shoulders rise and fall in angry breaths and he stares straight ahead without moving. 

I freeze where I am and wait for the familiar charge.  The snapping teeth, the clawing hands, the howling, moaning frenzy and the blood lust that all of these things have.  But nothing happens.  The short
Zed just stands there.  Staring.  And panting.  With no pants. 

I take a slow and careful step towards him but he doesn’t move.  I hold the .45 up and push it into the gray, rotting skin that covers his forehead. 
Nothing. 

“You alright?”
Ray yells from the catwalk.  “We can’t see ya down there.”

“Yeah,” I yell back.  “I’m alright.  I guess.”  I take the cleaver and bring it down into the short
Zed’s head, slicing it cleanly into two halves.  He slumps against the brown, porous walls formed by the clumps before falling onto his back.  Black blood pools in the divots of the brown stuff.  I wonder if he could see me.  I wonder if he was thinking clearly somewhere on the inside but was unable to say anything or obey his own will.  A cold chill rolls through me.  What kind of hell is it, being one of them?

I step over his body and turn left.  The
Zed they had spotted from the wall is standing in front of me and I send him out with the cleaver as well.  Two more fall as I walk towards the main house.  It is more like weeding the garden than fighting for your life.

The clumps at the front door of the main house are tall and thick.  I begin whacking away at the growth with the cleaver. 
A rib cage, a femur, a skull, a foot.  I chop out big sections and push them out of the way until I can see the door knob to the house.  The door itself is full of holes but the unmistakable smell of something frying fills my nostrils.  I reach out for the knob but the door opens before I can get to it.