100-Days-in-Deadland(79)

The culvert was small. I had to wade through it on my hands and knees, and with every move forward, I prayed that nothing hungry waited on the other side. God, I wished there was another way, but I had to cross. The road curved around to the east, and I needed to go west.

When I came out the other side, it was blissfully peaceful, with nothing but the sounds of the water burbling into the creek below. Feet forward, I pushed myself out but slipped on the wet metal.

I hissed at the sharp pain. “Shit!” I watched the blood as it grew from the deep slice across my palm. Red tinted the water as the blood dripped from my hand and washed downstream. Having no gear meant having no first aid kit. I leaned back and held my hand up to slow the bleeding. The cut was deep and wide and would likely get infected if I didn’t take care of it properly soon.

The sun was high overhead. My tongue felt like it had doubled in size from dehydration and sat like a giant cotton ball in my mouth. My stomach growled, but hunger was an easier thing to ignore.

With my hand still bleeding, I continued moving through the woods, surprised at the absence of zeds, especially with their seemingly excellent sense of smell. Doyle’s Dogs did a hell of a job, either by keeping their area cleaned out or by leading every zed in the area into Camp Fox. Regardless, it made my trip back to the farm easier.

But it wasn’t faster. I still had to pause at every tree to scan for movement.

I came across my first zed in the woods sometime during late afternoon. It’d been a man about my age, wearing a sporty T-shirt with a big logo. I couldn’t see any injuries. In fact, as the dull infected features went, its were almost gentle behind gold-rimmed sunglasses. That was, until it sniffed the air and snarled.

Taking a breath, I stepped out and it lunged. I jumped around the tree and came up behind the zed, shoved the knife through the base of its skull, and pushed upward.

Its body shuddered, and then collapsed.

Zeds were vicious monsters, but they had their Achilles heels. One of those was that they couldn’t corner worth a shit.

I bent down and lifted the zed’s left wrist with a silver watch strapped around it. Five-fifteen.

Less than three hours until sunset. I was moving slower than I’d planned.

I couldn’t make it much longer. I had to find clean water soon. Taking on the risk of creating noise, I moved faster through the woods, sloshing through two more creeks until I stopped at a mulberry bush laden with green and dark berries. Most weren’t ripe, but I ate several handfuls, anyway.

With my energy somewhat renewed, I continued searching for a house to stay in for the night. When I finally saw the shape of a house in the distance, I sighed. “Thank God.”

I set off into a jog toward the clearing. When I emerged from the woods, I slowed down, and then stopped. “Oh, f*ck me.”

Because standing before me wasn’t just one house. It was Chow Town.





Chapter XV


I’d traveled too far north.

Clutch’s farm was southwest of town. Camp Fox was southeast of town.

I never should’ve gotten close to Chow Town.

Without a GPS or compass, I’d let the woods guide me right to the backyard of a large two-story house in a row of cookie-cutter two-story houses in a newer sub-development for as far I could see.

“Sonofabitch.”

I walked past the play set and up to the patio door. Certainly, not all of these houses had zeds inside. I crossed my fingers. After looking inside and seeing no signs of zeds or violence, I rapped on the glass. A clamor erupted from somewhere deep inside the house.

I sprinted over a short chain-link fence and into the next yard. That was the good thing about zeds. They clung to the out of sight, out of mind philosophy and lost focus on their prey quickly if they couldn’t see, hear, or smell it. But once they’d homed in on a target, they could be damn near relentless.

I didn’t even knock at the next house. I could see overturned chairs, something dead and furry and on the floor, and a shape hovering at the kitchen window. I crept away from the patio door.

Finally, at the fifth house—one with a nice rock garden in its backyard—I rapped on the glass and waited and rapped again.

Silence greeted me.

Even better, the patio door had been left unlocked, and it slid open silently and smoothly. I pulled out my larger knife and stepped inside, carefully closing and locking the door behind me.

The air was stale and hinted of rotten fruit but didn’t contain the all-too-familiar stench of infection and decay.