Shamblers: the zombie apocalypse (4 page)

Even without firearms, the members of our camp
rushed forward bravely. Well, most of them put on the appearance of bravery. I couldn’t help but note the fear in everyone’s eyes and the brief moment of hesitation when the group collectively saw how many zombies there actually were.

Someone tossed me a hatchet as we
ran towards each other. I grabbed it in mid air and pivoted on my heels. There was immediately a zombie in my face. I wish I could have pulled off a cool spinning, decapitation move, but that would be just bravado. This zombie had me dead, without question. My only saving grace was that someone else rammed an aluminum tent-pole right into its mouth when it opened its decayed jaw to bite me. The pole didn’t kill the creature, but it caused enough hesitation for me to whack it in the head with my hatchet and finish it off.

“Thanks,” I said and turned to the guy who’d just saved me.

He nodded and braced a foot against the zombie’s chest as he freed his tent-pole from it.

I looked at my associate. He looked at me. We clutched our weapons’ tightly and ran forward together in a desperate attempt to save our camp and lives. I cracked one, two, three zombies with my hatchet. They went down. I saw Olivia plunge her fork into a zombie’s face. She struggled with it for a minute but a second, well-placed stab finished it off. The Preacher was swinging his cross wildly. He was knocking zombies over left and right. As he toppled each one, he quickly positioned himself above them, said a quick blessing, and slammed the butt of the cross down atop their heads, hence smashing each one like a cantaloupe dropped from a roof.

I heard a scream as someone nearby was bitten. I cleaved the arm off a nearby zombie and then took its head with a horizontal swin
g. As it collapsed, I watched Martin beat a zombie with his shovel. He was perhaps ten yards away. The clang of the metal echoed off of rotted flesh and bone. Sweat was pouring from Martin’s forehead and down his double-chin. He split the zombie’s skull nearly in two. When it stopped moving, he took off his glasses and wiped them on his sleeve.

After putting his glasses back on
, he tried to free his shovel. It wouldn’t budge from its position. Two more zombies were staggering his way. Martin was in dire trouble.

I was about to yell to him when a
snarl caught my attention. A new foe was approaching me. I jumped back with a start, just in time to avoid a death-grip as a zombie’s arms extended in my direction. I noticed that my new assailant was actually missing one hand. In its place was a jagged bone protruding from a stump. I certainly didn’t want to get stabbed with that.

As I carefully measured this zombie attacker, I could only watch as the
other, two zombies near Martin set upon him. His fat, plump body would be like a delicacy to them. His piercing shrieks resounded in the air as he was pulled off his feet and he and his Hawaiian shirt were torn to shreds.

A
midst his agonized screams, and those of other survivors who were being feasted upon, I fought my one-handed enemy. It lurched forward. I cleaved three fingers from its good hand. It instinctively stabbed at me with its stump. I shifted my upper body to the right. The jagged bone-fragment narrowly missed the bridge of my nose.

As
the zombie’s arm went past me, I used my free hand to guide the zombie forward and just beyond me. It stumbled momentarily and snarled again as it turned to size me up with its undead, empty eyes. The moment of hesitation was all I needed. I dropped my hatchet down on the center of its head.

As blood sprayed into my face,
Marcus came running up to me. “We need to get the fuck out of here,” he panted. “The camp is lost.”

I wanted to plead with him otherwise
. I wanted to convince him to keep fighting. Yet, as I looked around, I saw people dying everywhere. The zombies just kept coming. Soon, we would all be overpowered and there would be no way to escape.

I wiped the blood from my eyes and nodded,
“yeah, let’s go.”

“See you at the main gate,” he said as he sprinted away
.

I took off in pursuit of Marcus.
As I ran, I shouted, “the camp is lost! To the main gate!” and waved one hand over my head so that anyone who could see me could follow.

Olivia looked up
from a fresh kill and took up my call. “Guys, we’re retreating!” she shouted.

In short order, Becky, Olivia, The Preacher, and a number of others were following Marcus and me.
Our camp had fallen. An escape through the main gate was very risky, but we had no alternatives.

While
our dwindling group gathered at the gate, I looked out over the ruins of our camp. It was carnage. Fires had sprung up in several places: an attempt by some survivors who were trapped in the office to burn zombies. They had most likely used homemade gas-bombs or Molotovs (which we had been trying to stockpile).

Many l
urching figures (some of which were on fire) shifted in the dark. The multiple, raging fires cast their sinister shadows across the ground and over the walls of the warehouse. As the flames flickered, the shadows darted every which way.

Everywhere, people were screaming and dying. Gunshots of various decibel levels rang out.
I distinctly heard five, rapid shotgun blasts: the effort of someone frantically trying to stay alive and firing blindly. Smoke and the scent of blood filled the air. I watched a nearby zombie snap the leg off a dead person. It sucked on the bone that jutted out in an effort to get the marrow. It reminded me of someone trying to get the last bit of meat from a lobster leg.

My heart sank. Everything we had worked to rebuild over
many weeks had been destroyed within minutes. Were it not for a sense of duty to my companions, I likely would have collapsed and given up.

For now, I had a faint spark of hope.
It was better than none. If we could get through the main gate, trap the zombies inside our compound, and, most importantly, avoid any fucking zombies immediately beyond the gate that were waiting for us like wolves trying to pick off a stray lamb, we could possibly survive. Rebuilding could come later. 

“Is this everyone?” Becky asked with concern as she looked around at our despondent, desperate party. She was always strong and confident. Now, I noticed an air of terror in her tone and a look of panic on her dirt-stained brow.
Beads of sweat dripped from her neck and down into her cleavage. Even in the midst of all the mayhem, I still found a few seconds to checkout her cleavage. I had to enjoy what few moments I figured I still had left.

“It’s everyone who’s coming,” I answered. “We can’t wait any longer.”

The Preacher and Marcus grabbed the large, metal handle to the lumberyard gate. Working together, they slid the gate open. The wheels squealed on their metal tracks as they got the gate open wide enough for us to slip through.

One by one, we went through the opening. Luckily for us, there were no zombies waiting on the other side. I helped The Preacher shut the gate behind us. With Marcus taking point, w
e ran away from our camp, into the night. I hoped one of my companions had a plan for what to do next. I know I didn’t.

Chapter Five

As I
left the ruins of our encampment behind, I fled into the northern California hills. I could hear the heavy footsteps of my companions around me as we tramped through the woods. The lights of the fires faded just beyond the camp. There was nothing but blackness ahead. I had trouble even seeing Marcus, and he was just yards ahead of me.

Something brushed my face. I shouted and swept at it. It was only a branch. “Fucking trees!” I swore. I felt one step closer to a heart attack.
Then, as I remembered I wasn’t in the safety of camp anymore, I realized I’d better keep my voice down. I had almost forgotten what it was like to survive in the untamed wild.

There had been times, both before my arrival at Quarantine Camp #24B, and as I had traveled with Marcus afterwards, when it had been pertinent to always assume a zombie was around the next corner. In the few short weeks at our enclosed lumberyard, I had almost forgotten how terrible those times had been. Simple pleasures had soon been easy to take for granted. Now, I couldn’t even talk loudly without fear of attracting zombies.
Even my own breathing and my pounding feet sounded way too loud in the eerie quiet of the forest.

I had no idea what was ahead of me
. To make matters worse, the night was cloudy and there was barely any moon. Running around like this in the black of night was a sure way to break an ankle. Even under normal circumstances that would suck, but in post-apocalyptic zombie-filled America, even minor injuries could spell death. Medical care had reverted back to the stone-age. If things went well, I figured in twenty or thirty years we’d be back to bleeding people to get the bad blood out of them or taking mercury pills. People could then die of normal stuff like polio, leprosy, and the like, until we once again cured those things.

I’m not sure how long I ran for. I know I was out of breath about five minutes before I
stopped. My heart was pounding out of my chest. I desperately craved water to quench my thirst.

I slowed my pace to a walk and then paused
when my body could go no further. As I huffed and puffed with my hands on my knees it occurred to me that I had lost track of my companions. I had been able to see someone just up ahead, but I had dared not call out. They were no more than five yards away one second, and the next thing I knew they were gone.

I heard scuttling noises in the woods from somewhere ahead, but couldn’t asc
ertain the exact location of the sounds. I worried it could be a zombie or some other hungry animal. A terror like I have never felt before washed over me. I was utterly alone in a very hostile world.

What the fuck am I gonna do now?
I wondered.

I stood there, immobilized with fear and struck by the realization that I had no supplies, water, food, and only a hatchet for a weapon. I was fucked. For several minutes, I could do nothing but stand in place, catch my breath, and listen.

The woods were eerily quiet. I heard what I believed were frogs croaking, and crickets chirping. A mild breeze blew through the woods. It rattled the tree limbs above. The black silhouettes of branches quivered like wooden tendrils against the barely-lit sky. I crouched low. I knew that the wind could carry my scent to unseen zombies. A series of anguished cries broke the silence. They sounded pretty far off from what I could tell. It was clear that a woman, possibly one from my group, was being eaten somewhere out in that darkness. I couldn’t hear or smell the zombies, so I concluded they had to be a reasonable distance away. Maybe that poor victim would lure any threats away from me. I could only hope so.

I
remained frozen in place. The screams died down and vanished. It was silent once more. I waited hopefully for someone I knew to pass by. Each passing minute felt like an eternity. The woods really messed with my head. I kept thinking I was hearing or seeing things that weren’t there. Or maybe they were. Which was worse? I couldn’t decide. I debated climbing into a tree and sleeping there for the night. It sounded like a plan.

I walked to a nearby tree to see if I could get up into its branches. I believed it to be a Western Juniper (though it was hard to tell at night). I
started to probe around the trunk.   

Suddenly, a
low whisper from nearby caught my ear: “is anyone out there?” a voice asked. It sounded like Becky. Whoever it was, she must have heard me moving. 

“I’m over here
,” I answered in a hushed voice of my own. “It’s Nick.”

Seconds later, Becky approached me
from out of the darkness. She threw her arms around me as she got within hugging range.

“Oh thank God, Nick,” she whispered into my ear. She was practically sobbing. “I
was so scared. I thought I’d lost everyone,” she confided.

“Me too,” I whispered in her ear.

As I held her there, I felt the warmth of her body and the beating of her heart through her tank-top. I found myself holding onto her incredibly tight, though I hadn’t intended to.

Becky, likewise, pressed
herself against me. She rested her head against mine. Her tits squished against me. They were fairly big and they rose up and down as she breathed. They felt fucking amazing. I wondered if they were real or fake.

I continued to embrace
Becky. She didn’t seem to be letting me go. I found myself inadvertently not wanting her to. I hadn’t exactly felt a plethora of positive emotions lately. I am ashamed to admit it, but I actually had trouble remembering what compassion was like.

While I held Becky, it occurred to me that
I hadn’t held a woman since before my wife died in the initial outbreak. At least not that I could recall: I’d had a number of drunken, black-out nights that had helped to dull the pain of existence following society’s collapse. Perhaps I had fooled around with some random woman during that time. If so, I had no recollection of it.

I
n the short time I had known her, I hadn’t felt anything at all for Becky…until now. I hadn’t even known her name! She had just been another survivor: a person to compete with for food and water; a possible threat. Now, as I held her and felt her wonderful body, I moved my hands down to her nicely-curved hips. I wanted her.

I wanted to take her right
where we stood, rip her clothes off, bend her over, and fuck her until I was satisfied. These thoughts ran through my head in about a second and my dick got instantly hard.

Becky moaned softly into my ear. I knew she could feel
my fairly large member against her (hey, I’m going by what I’ve been told, so fuck anyone who wants to argue that point). I could tell she liked it. It made me even harder.

I do
n’t know why I blurted this out, but against my will, I whispered into her ear, “I want you right now, Becky, and I won’t take no for an answer.”

The nex
t thing I knew, we were kissing in a frenzy of ferocious, lustful passion. I think it was helped by the intense fear and hopelessness we had both felt. At that moment, we needed a distraction from our fears. We needed to get our minds off of our terrible, present circumstances. I also think we both realized it could be our last night on Earth. With that being the case, fuck the zombies, and let’s fuck! Our kissing led to other stuff, which led to still other stuff, which led to…well, you can imagine.

Needless to say,
I found out that her breasts were real. It was a very enjoyable discovery. By the time I was done spending myself in her, we were both even more exhausted and thirsty than before. I lied down with my back against the Western Juniper as I pulled my pants back up and zipped them up. Becky put her bra back on and leaned over with her head in my lap.

We chatted quietly for a minute or two before a noise in the woods spooked us. As if we were squirrels, we both scurried up into the tree. It appeared as if we’d be spending the night
there. I didn’t expect to get much sleep.