What We Left Behind (15 page)

David says, “We can’t kill every zombie we run across. We’d never make it more than a hundred yards. So what other strategy can we use to avoid a fight?”

I look around at the yard we’re in, realizing the fences that protected us through the night can work both ways.

“We let them in,” I say. “If these iron fences can keep Zee out, they can keep him in as well.”

“Very good,” David says. “I’ll make a marauder out of you yet.”

“And the blankets?” Steve asks.

“Ah, yes, the blankets,” David replies. “What did you notice about our friends this morning?”

I get the feeling I’ve missed something obvious, but I can’t think what.

“There’s one thing they all have in common,” David says as Jane joins us in the yard. She skips down the steps, loving life. Like Steve, she seems somewhat oblivious to the shark cage we’re trapped in. Am I the only one worried about escape?

I look at the zombies and I don’t see anything they share in common other than that they’re all dribbling, salivating at the thought of feasting on us. There are men, women, a tragic little girl, and even a fat zombie in the swollen crowd. They growl, watching us intently, reaching for us with rotten arms as they press against the gate. The fence flexes. Metal groans. Another zombie stumbles up the hill to join them and then it strikes me.

“They’ve all come from the left.”

David smiles, saying, “Scent.”

“Ah,” I reply, realizing why he had Jane throw down our blankets.

David says, “We’ll open the gate and let them in while we slip over the fence in the far corner. There are probably another dozen or so zombies staggering up the hill out of sight to our left, so we’ll go hard right. The blankets will hide our scent. They’ll be convinced fresh scent means we’re still nearby. They’ll tear this place apart for the next couple of hours before they realize we’ve gone.

“You girls take the packs and hide behind the house. Steve and I will open the gate and run around the back of the house. As soon as you hear me yell, make for the fence and throw our packs over. We’ll be right behind you. Hopefully, once the zombies lose sight of us, they’ll converge on the blankets, thinking we’ve hidden under them.”

Jane and I drag the packs out of sight behind the house as the boys walk over to the horde. David has a stick. I can hear him tormenting Zee, running the stick along the rails as he asks, “Are you hungry? Want some fresh meat for breakfast?”

Zombies lurch at him. The fence is in danger of collapsing. I’m not convinced it’s wise to provoke Zee.

Our backpacks are heavy. Running with two of them isn’t going to be easy, but the fence is no more than a hundred yards away across the rolling front lawn. There’s a brace supporting the corner of the fence, which should make it easy to climb over.

I hear David call out, “Are you ready?”

Jane looks at me and grins, yelling, “Ready.”

“Go,” David yells and we run.

I’ve got one pack on my back, and I’m holding on to the other with both hands in front of me. Jane’s adopted a different strategy, holding a pack with each hand, running along with them by her sides. I don’t know why we couldn’t dump the packs earlier, but I figure David has a good reason. Scent seems to be the answer for just about everything when it comes to zombie behavior.

I run hard. My short legs struggle with the weight. Jane races ahead. The fence seems to be getting further away. I could have sworn it was much closer. My thighs are burning. I’m struggling for breath. The ground is muddy and my boots sink into the soft dirt, making it hard to run.

I can hear Zee. He, she, they—they’re screaming with excitement. I have no idea if they’re five feet behind me, or five hundred. I’m terrified. My lungs feel like they’re going to burst.

Jane is already tossing her packs over the fence. She scrambles up over the railing, drops to the pavement, and drags her packs out of sight.

Steve runs past me like he’s been shot out of a cannon, grabbing the pack I’m carrying in front of me. I know he means well, but the sudden shift in weight throws me off kilter. He bounds on ahead with the extra pack as I trip over my own feet. I’m so close to the fence but I can’t make it. I’ve lost my footing and there are dozens of zombies behind me. Steve’s already clambering over the fence as I fall face-first in the mud. I hear feet pounding through the grass behind me and I’m expecting a zombie to flatten me as I scramble to my knees, desperately trying to get to my feet with a heavy pack on my back.

A hand grabs me.

I find myself lifted off the ground. For a split second, my feet flail inches above the muddy grass.

“Quit screwing around,” David jokes, setting me upright.

It’s not funny.

He pulls the pack off my back and I clamber over the fence, leaving muddy handprints on the railing. David tosses my pack over and Steve pulls it out of sight.

David lands with a thud. As we scramble behind the neighboring wooden fence, I catch a glimpse of the house. There are a couple of zombies ambling around by the far gate, but no zombies giving chase. I could have sworn there were zombies no more than ten feet away when I fell, but they’ve taken the bait. Furniture crashes around inside the house as they ransack the old mansion searching for us.

“Look at you,” Jane says, taking a canteen and pouring some water on a rag to clean my face. “Just as well you had a shower last night.”

“Ha ha,” I reply with as much sarcasm as I can muster.

Jane fusses with my face as I try to pull away. She’s persistent and finishes up with a proud, “There. All better.”

“Thanks.”

I wipe my hands on my pants.

David has his baseball bat out so we all follow suit. Jane has an old tire iron. Steve’s got a length of pipe with an elbow joint providing extra weight at the end. I’ve got my well-worn bat. David’s not using the machete anymore, and I think I know why. It took a lot of effort to kill the zombie that jumped Jane. The machete kept getting stuck as he hacked at Zee. Baseball bats are the bomb. They don’t get stuck. There are no moving parts, nothing to jam.

“I shall call him Nathan,” I say, referring to Steve’s old name.

“Who?” Jane asks.

“My baseball bat.”

“You’re naming your bat Nathan?”

“Well, Steve was already taken,” I reply, grinning at Steve. The look on his face says he’s not sure what to make of my proclamation. I hope he sees it as a compliment.

“So you’re going to hit Zee over the head with Nathan?” Jane says. It’s nice to hear her refer to zombies as Zee. My pet name is catching.

“I could hardly hit them with Steve, now could I?”

Jane shakes her head.

David laughs.

Steve looks at me and smiles.

It’s a beautiful day. The sun is out. It’s blustery, with a strong breeze swirling around us, but the day is already warmer than yesterday. Trees sway in the wind. Tall grass grows between cracks in the pavement. Birds fly overhead.

I feel invincible, and yet I know that sense of euphoria is nothing but false bravado. After yesterday, I’m all too aware how quickly our fortunes can change. For now, though, I am confident.

We come to an intersection on the long, slow road leading down the hill, and David points at the corner, saying, “Waypoint. If you take that road for a quarter mile and then turn right, you’ll get back to the conference center. Don’t go back to the house.”

David glances at the folded map and points at the hill on the other side of the valley, easily a mile away.

“See that car dealership up there?”

I nod, looking at the map and then up at the car yard.

“We’re here. That’s the dealership. There’s the animal hospital in the next valley, right beside that mall.”

I light up with excitement. We’re close.

We walk along quietly as David lays out the plan.

“There are four of us. Realistically, four zombies are all we can handle. Any more than that and we need to pull back and find another way forward. It’s not cowardice to run. It’s smart.

“This wind is going to blow our scent all over the place. They know we’re here already, so we’ve got to keep moving. Stop and we’ll become a magnet, attracting them for miles around.

“But the wind works for us as well, making it difficult for them to lock on to us. They’re going to rely on scent and sight, so we want to keep ourselves hidden from sight as much as possible. Stealth is a far better option than a fight.

“Jane, you’ve got the rear left. Haze, you watch the rear right. Steve and I are eyes forward.

“If you see a zombie following, don’t worry, just keep your eye on him and be ready to take him when he gets close. If there are two, you two take them out, but remember, we’re going to keep moving. We have to. We’re relying on you to cover our backs. We cannot afford to stop, especially in the valley where our scent will linger.”

And suddenly I’m not feeling quite so chirpy.

The grass thins as we approach another intersection and David uses several abandoned cars as cover. He glances around before dashing between cars and we follow. I’m constantly checking behind me. Although there’s no one there, I can’t help but feel we’re being watched.

David signals with his hand for us to stop. Peering through the dirty windshield of an abandoned car, I can make out a couple of zombies stumbling along, but they’re heading away from us. David rushes across the intersection, staying low as he runs. He comes to a halt on the far corner, pressing his back against a derelict bus. One by one, we copy him, watching the zombies intently and timing our run to pass while their backs are turned.

I’m the last one to cross the intersection. Before I can run the twenty yards across the crumbling concrete, one of the zombies stops and sniffs at the air. He faces up at the sky and lets out a bloodcurdling cry. It’s almost as though he’s choking. Saliva drips from his chin.

Steve beckons to me from the other side of the intersection. He’s crouched behind a bus with his hand out, signaling for me to run, but my feet are frozen.

Another zombie cries out behind me. I turn and look back up the hill. Roughly a hundred yards away, a woman staggers down the road, stepping roughly on the tall grass, pushing weeds out of the way.

“Haze,” Steve says, trying not to yell but wanting to get my attention.

I rock back and forth, peering around the hood of the car, watching the two zombies to my left.

David was right. They know we’re here, but they’re not sure where. As soon as they see me, they’re going to attack, but the zombie behind us has already spotted me.

My fingers tighten around my baseball bat. My lips pull tight in anticipation and I count down, forcing myself to act in, “Three, two, one.”

I scramble across the intersection convinced every zombie in the city can see me, and slide on the loose gravel as I come to rest beside Steve. My heart is bursting out of my chest.

Steve peers around the bumper of the bus at the two zombies and says, “We’re good.”

I turn and look for the zombie stalking us from the hill. She’s gone. She’s vanished among the overgrown weeds, tall grass, and wrecked cars. She could be anywhere, and I’m reminded of David’s words from yesterday:
It
’s not the zombie you see that gets you.
I struggle to swallow the lump in my throat.

“We need to keep moving,” David says, standing up and creeping along next to the bus.

Jane has dropped her pack while waiting for me to cross the intersection. She’s been sitting on it. She looks exhausted.

Jane stands up and is about to swing her pack over her back when dark arms reach down from a shattered bus window, grabbing at her shoulders. Bony hands pull at her, wrenching her off the ground, trying to drag her up into the bus. She drops her pack as she fights with the monster, but that allows Zee to lift her higher.

Zee snarls, getting her in a headlock with one arm stretched across her chest. He presses her body against the rusting sheet metal as he tries to work her up through the window. His teeth snap at her neck, trying to bite into her jugular.

“No,” I scream.

David turns. He’s shocked, confused by what he sees as Jane’s boots thrash back and forth a foot or so off the ground. Her boots pound against the sheet metal in frustration. Fragments of loose glass fall to the ground, shattering on impact.

Zee is as black as coal. He’s covered in something sticky, almost like tar. His teeth and eyes are a sickly yellow. He grunts, coughing, barking like a dog.

I burst into a run even though Jane is barely five feet away. I want to jump and swing my baseball bat at the zombie leaning out of the bus, but I can’t. I’m too short and my pack weighs me down. I’ll hit her, not him. If I jump, I doubt I’d make it half a foot off the ground.

I do the only thing I can.

I throw my baseball bat to one side and grab Jane’s waist. Dropping, I wrap my legs around hers and hang on for dear life.

The increase in weight takes Zee by surprise. He can’t hold both of us. He tumbles headfirst out of the bus and flips over, knocking both Jane and me onto the concrete. Zee has barely hit the street when a steel pipe and a baseball bat begin pummeling his skull.

Steve and David are ruthless. Zee is dead before I have time to realize what’s happened.

“Are you OK?” David asks, checking Jane’s neck and shoulders. He fusses around her, checking and double-checking.

“I’m fine,” she insists, but she’s lying. I can hear the truth in her shaky voice. She’s scared. She may not have been bitten, but she feels half dead.

As for me, I’m turtling. It would be funny if Jane hadn’t almost died.

I’m lying on my backpack struggling to roll to one side and get to my feet. Even with half the weight left back at the commune, my pack is heavy. I wriggle out of the straps and get to my feet, dusting myself off.

Jane hugs me. She’s trembling with fear.

“Nice work,” David says, patting me on the shoulder.

Jane whispers, “I thought I was dead. I—I was almost one of them.”

“But you’re not,” I reply. “We’re going to make it through this. You’ll see.”

Now, who’s lying? I hope that’s the truth, but I know it’s wishful thinking. Every zombie we encounter is worse than the last. We’re gambling with our lives, rolling dice in a Las Vegas crapshoot, hoping—wishing—for a pair of sixes every time. Our luck won’t hold. It can’t.