K. T. Swartz Read online

  “You get used to the smell,” she said and slid a clean coat on. This one had no gore on it. She zipped it all the way up and opened the back door. Michael couldn’t take his eyes off the ruined leather coat. Her cover was perfect; the smell alone overpowered her own. He remembered her shuffling steps, her uneven gate, as she walked the street, blending in and moving among the dead as if one of their own.

  “You choose to stay here, don’t you? You have everything you need,” he said as she closed the door. He stopped; stared at the reinforced garage doors. Sheet metal, wooden posts, and a beat-up SUV held the doors in place against anything that tried to push its way through. He looked at her. “These aren’t the defenses of a temporary shelter. You have enough supplies to last months. How long have you been here?”

  She shrugged. “August.”

  Michael rocked back on his heels. She couldn’t have said more with so little. “What you’re doing is suicide. It’ll get you killed.”

  She turned to a metal baker’s rack full of machine parts and chemical bottles. A cardboard box sat on the shelf close to the bottom. She dug in it for a moment, pulled out notebook after homemade notebook. Each one was labeled with a name. Without a word, she held them out to him. He took them, flipped through the one labeled ‘Parksville’.

  Parksville was a tiny spot in the road, a loose collection of wooded hills and farmland spread across miles of rural Kentucky. It lay only fifteen minutes from Danville. Her notebook included population, a topographic map, a street map with red ‘x’s over each winding road, and a day to day journal. On the very last page was a drawing of a piece of property – a house with two trees in the side yard.

  Michael flipped through another notebook, another town. Then another notebook and another town. Through a dozen notebooks, a dozen small towns in Central Kentucky, she’d been: cleaning them out as she went. After racking up enough kills to equal the population, she added a note that read ‘complete’ before moving on.

  “You did all this by yourself?” he whispered.

  She shook her head. “Not all of it.”

  He just stared. After all the years of running, of hiding, of short supplies and despair at facing such overwhelming odds, he found one person who learned how to endure, how to handle those overwhelming odds by simply evening them. His marine training had carried him and his family this far, because he’d only ever considered the undead as enemies to be avoided. This young woman was a spy in their midst, striking at the enemy and overcoming. Succeeding too, but a great cost.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. She took the notebooks back, stuck them in the box. He glanced around her fortress, her home. “I want to ask you if we can stay, at least for awhile. We can help you.”

  For just an instant, fear flickered across her face. She wrapped her arms around her and looked away. Then she shook her head. “No. You can stay long enough for that kid to heal, but that’s it.”

  “I understand your fears. Believe me, I carry mistakes too,” he said. “I’ve been running for so long, I thought there was no other way to deal with the undead. But you’re doing something I’ve never seen. You can probably recite the body count from all these towns in your sleep. You know the numbers. I saw what you did at Roger’s. What do you think can happen if we pass on what you’re doing here? The human race can start over again, rebuild this nation.”

  She drew away from him, her arms wrapped tight around her.

  “Don’t run from it,” he urged, taking her elbow. “You’ve started something that can maybe change everybody’s fear into hope. Show us how you survive, and we’ll leave, but I’m not going anywhere until you do.”

  She shook her head. “Fine.”

  “Thank you,” he said. Without a word, they walked inside, where everyone was waiting in the sitting room. All eyes turned to May; they stopped talking. May took a seat by the fireplace, where the orange light flickered across her features. Impassive eyes turned to the ceiling. Michael cleared his throat. “Everyone I’d like to introduce May. She’s agreed to let us stay for awhile. While we’re here, remember this isn’t our house. Don’t trash it. May, if you don’t know, is the only survivor in Danville. She’s the reason we’ve seen so few zombies around.”

  He cleared his throat. “Folks, this is our chance to learn how to take back our towns. This isn’t the first one she’s cleared out, so be prepared for a lot of hard work and training, got it?”

  Tony raised his hand. And then the questions started. One by one he answered them, and when he had no answer, May spoke up. The evening crept by, the sun’s rays slipping between the 2x4s. When it did, May excused herself. Her steps were light across the carpeted floor and up the ladder. Silent this whole time, Marleen watched her go, looked back at him when the woman disappeared upstairs. “Mike, are you sure this is a good idea?”

  He spread his hands. “This is it, Marleen. I’ve never seen anyone do what she’s done and survive. She’s recorded everything. At an estimate, she’s wiped out over thirty thousand zombies. It’s a systematic, defensive strategy that works. And it has the potential to work on a much grander scale. With enough people and enough resources, we could take back Atlanta.”

  No one said a word, only stared at him. Overhead footsteps pounded toward the stairs. May dropped down from the rope ladder with something crushed in her fist. Rigid with anger, tears in her eyes, she thrust the small, black ring box at him.

  “Where are my wedding rings?” she screamed. Flipped open the box. It was empty. “Where are they?”

  Michael stared, at a loss for words. She pulled a 9mm from her holster. He jumped back, his shoulders bumping the mantle as she swung around, stepping away from everyone so she could see them. “Who did it?”

  The gun roamed across each face. Rob stabbed a finger at Tony. “Don’t look at me. He’s the one who pointed them out to everybody.”

  Tony stiffened with fear. “It wasn’t me,” he protested. “I swear I didn’t take them.”

  “Prove it,” Rob snapped. The gun locked onto Tony. Michael judged the distance between him and May, but she had put much between them.

  The young hairdresser stared at the black muzzle. All color bled from his face. “I-I swear I don’t have them. Please, I didn’t do it. I didn’t take them.”

  “Tony, do you have the rings?” Marleen asked quickly, her grip on Max tight, her eyes on May.

  “No,” Tony wailed.

  “He’s lying,” Rob snapped. “Look at him, the fucking coward.”

  Tommy moved suddenly. Grabbed Rob by the collar and slammed him against the wall. Impact forced a choked gurgle from the student’s throat. “Boy, I’ve known a lot of cocky thieves in my time,” Tommy snarled softly. “And you can tell when they’re guilty, because they’re always so quick to shift blame onto somebody else.” He leaned close. “I’m only gonna say this once. Where are the rings?”

  “I don’t–”

  Tommy slammed him against the wall again, cutting him off. “Wrong answer.”

  “Fu–”

  Tommy punched him; Rob bounced off the wall and slid down it. Unfocused eyes floated in Rob’s sockets as Tommy picked him up. “I can keep this up all night, or do you want her to shoot you?”

  Rob’s eyes floated toward May, who lowered her gun. Her dark eyes lacked anything Michael would call ‘emotion’. “I won’t shoot him. I’ll leave him outside.”

  Rob made a strangled noise, dug in his pockets. He threw the rings at her; tiny gold bands bounced across the floor to clink softly when they touched. She knelt, scooped them up. Her fingers tightened around them. Anger set her eyes on fire. She looked at Rob. “You make me sick. Why do assholes like you survive, and the good ones die?”

  May stomped out the door. Before she climbed the ladder, her glare locked onto Michael. She just looked at him, as if waiting for him to say something.

  No, it wasn’t that. She was trying to decide if his word was good, if her promise was worth keeping. Then she looked away.
Climbed the ladder. Marleen darted to Michael, grabbed his arms. “We can’t stay here. She’s unstable. What if she hurts Max, or one of us?”

  Tommy grunted, sat down beside Cherise. “She ain’t unstable.”

  Marleen turned on him, flung an arm at the hall, where May had disappeared. “Did you miss the part where she threatened us with a gun?”

  “Did you miss the part where she lost her husband?” Tommy retorted. “Think about it. You’re outnumbered, and your uninvited guests stole the only thing you got left of Mike’s. What would you do?”

  “That’s not the point,” Marleen snapped. “She threatened our kids.”

  Liz looked down at the floor. “No, Marleen. She won’t hurt a living person. She would have shot Rob if she wanted to. Frankly, I think he deserves it–” Rob blanched– “but she’s a better person than I am. I don’t know what I’d do if somebody stole something of Arti’s.”

  Arti squeezed Liz’s hand, bringing a small smile to the woman’s lips.

  Marleen squeezed his arms. “Michael, please. Let’s leave.”

  “Mom, I don’t wanna go,” Max said. “If we leave, she’ll be lonely.”

  Marleen covered her face with a hand. Michael wrapped his arms around her. “I swear Max will be all right. We’re completely safe here. May isn’t a threat.”

  Marleen pushed away. “If anything happens to him, it’ll be your fault.”

  Without another word, she stomped out of the room. Michael ran a hand over his face. Arti lightly punched his arm. “Buck up, man. At least she didn’t say you can’t sleep with her.”

  He snorted. “I’m sure that’s coming.”

  “In that case you might want to grovel – hands and knees style,” she joked.

  He smiled. “Yeah, probably. Keep an eye on Max for me?”

  “Sure,” she said.

  Michael headed for the hall, but stopped. Caught Rob’s gaze. “The next time something goes missing, you won’t have to wait for May to throw you out. I will.”

  Rob stared as he headed out of the room. Michael climbed the rope ladder. Knocked on their bedroom door.

  “If that’s Michael, I don’t want to talk,” Marleen shouted.

  He opened the door. “Marleen, look, I’m sorry–”

  She looked away from him when he sat down beside her on the bed. “I don’t see why we can’t just leave. We were doing fine on our own.”

  “That’s the point, Marleen. ‘On our own’,” he said, lightly squeezing her knee. “What we learn here can save so many other people. Think about what’s she’s done and what we can do.”

  She shook her head. “You’re always trying to fix things, Mike. But what about me? What about Max? I don’t want him growing up in a battlefield.”

  “That’s why we end this now, before he grows up,” Michael said. “We can do this. I know we can.” Marleen leaned against him. Sighed. He put an arm around her. “I need you to stand beside me,” he said. “I can’t do this without you.”

  She buried her face in his neck, hugged him tight. “I don’t know what I would do without you, Mike, if I were in her shoes.”

  He smiled. “Go on a revenge streak and take down thirty thousand zombies?”

  Her lips brushed his neck. “Don’t talk about them while I’m trying to seduce you.”

  “What about guns? Can I talk about guns?” he asked.

  “No,” she said, tugging his shirt over his head.

  “How about car engines?”

  “No,” she said and unbuttoned his jeans.

  “I think the 49ers can beat the Colts, if those teams were both around,” he commented, then grunted when she shoved him onto the bed.

  She straddled him. “No sports talk, but you can talk about how beautiful I am.”

  He smiled. “That won’t be a problem.”

  Marleen was asleep beside him, as he laced his hands behind his head and stared up at the ceiling. Through the window, stars twinkled in one of those clear, cold nights where the fallen snow glittered like diamonds on the ground. The glass was admittedly still a bit fogged up in places, but the cold slowly took care of that. The fireplace in their room crackled softly, kept the chill off while they’d both had a chance to put aside their worries for a little while. Maybe now he could sleep.

  He looked toward the window as something thumped and slid upward. Feet scraped shingles. May was out on the roof. He slid from under the covers, dressed quickly. In bed, Marleen rolled over, pulled the covers higher. The window slid up with no difficulty. He slipped outside, closing it behind him. May was watching him.

  “Mind if I join you?” he asked.

  She looked at him for a moment, and then shrugged. He took that as a ‘yes’. He slid over to where she was. Her fingers kept turning something small over and over. The motion stopped when he got close. May slid her husband’s wedding band in her pocket. “Sorry about downstairs.”

  “Don’t worry about it,” he said. “I probably would have done the same thing.”

  Movement below attracted their attention. A solitary zombie shuffled between two cars, got stuck between them because their bumpers were smashed together. The undead, from this distance, and cloaked in midnight’s embrace, appeared to be nothing more than a late-night walker enjoying the clear, crisp evening. But it lingered too long. No puffs of breath spilled into the air. Michael glanced at May when she stood. She picked up an arrow and her bow, from where they’d been lying on her other side, and pulled the arrow back to her ear.

  She took a deep breath, her eyes forward, her hands steady. Like a sniper, she held that breath, let the arrow fly. It sprouted from the zombie’s neck, and it stumbled. Only to right itself. Its face swung their way. May fit another arrow in place. This time it went through the forehead. The zombie’s head snapped back, taking its body down with it. The snow caught it with a soft crunch. May sat back down, laid the bow beside her. Her eyes swept the silent streets, only to lock on movement farther away.

  “Mind if I take that one?” he asked.

  She glanced at him, and then handed him her weapons. “When was the last time you used a bow?”

  He smiled. “When I was a kid, my dad used to take me and my brother bow hunting. I got pretty good. Drew was a little better.”

  He tested the string, and then pulled the arrow back to his ear. Eyed the arrow and the triangular piece of metal embedded in the head. “Did you make these?”

  She nodded. “We needed something that didn’t make noise.”

  “Your husband?”

  She wouldn’t look at him. “Jeremy and I.”

  Michael eased the string’s tension. “What happened to him?”

  She shrugged. “We’d just finished constructing something he called a Zombie Bowl. We hung the blood bag in a sheet metal pit, spread kerosene over the ground, and left it alone for about a week. By the time we showed up again, the smell had attracted so many zombies that parts of it began to break.”

  “What’s a Zombie Bowl?”

  “It’s an enclosed structure of some sort – like an in-ground swimming pool or a stadium field that’s been walled up so that the zombies can climb in but they can’t get out. You hang the blood bag high enough for the smell to carry, and then saturate the floor with something inflammable. The zombies will come to you,” she said. “Once it’s full, you launch a fire-arrow or something into the Bowl and–” she spread her hands; made a ‘whoosh’ sound.

  “And the whole thing goes up,” he murmured.

  She nodded. “Hundreds of zombies all at once.”

  Son of a bitch.

  “It was my idea, but Jeremy took it and ran with it,” she said. “Unfortunately our first field test was a disaster. We underestimated the fire, the amount of zombies that would show, and the structural integrity of the Bowl. In the smoke and chaos, we got separated. I managed to make it to the cell phone tower we’d hung the bag to and climbed out of reach. I didn’t find Jeremy until he started to turn.”


  She took a deep breath; her exhale was a large white cloud that dissipated quickly into the night. “I had to kill him. But he got the Viking funeral he always wanted. I built the raft, made the pyre, and set it adrift. Setting it on fire was… difficult. It’s funny though. If this Out-Break hadn’t happened, Jeremy wouldn’t have been able to have his Viking funeral, but it did. I’d rather have him alive.”

  She nodded to the zombie that now stood on the sidewalk. “You might want to take him down before he steps on the yard.”

  He stood. Fit the arrow to the string and fired. The zombie stumbled with an arrow in the gut. Michael adjusted the angle and fired again, this time the arrow buzzed by the zombie’s left ear. He cursed.

  “It took me awhile to get good at it,” she said. “I usually have to wait for them to stop moving.”

  The zombie looked around, following the sound made by the fletched arrow. He hit it in the back of the skull. “Wow, I need more practice.” He handed the bow back to her. Sat down. “Do you mind if I read your notebooks?”

  She chewed on her lip. “Go ahead. You really think my notes will be that important?”

  “Yeah, I do,” he said. “I can’t wait to see this Zombie Bowl in action.”

  May smiled. “You’ll have to wait til Spring, but I guarantee you won’t be disappointed.”

  The Zombie Bowl:

  “Your teams are too big,” May said as they broke into their usual formations. Everyone stopped, looked at her. She shook her head. “You’ll attract too much attention that way.”

  “Are you kidding? What do you expect us to do, just waltz outside on our own?” Rob retorted.

  Michael, Tommy, and May looked at him. The kid shut his mouth. May didn’t take her eyes off him. “Actually, yes,” she said. “One of the major reasons people are attacked is because they clump together in large groups. That sort of behavior is foreign to zombies. They only become pack animals when they’ve caught something’s scent.”