The Headhunter (Shorting the Undead & Other Horrors) (2 page)

While showing him the proper method for separating a head from its diseased body, he’d pray: “All in the name of the Lord.”

Reggie believed the Uprising was God’s Rapture, and that they were left behind to deliver the Damned to Heaven.

It was such a ridiculous claim that Bill often wondered why Reggie continued to believe it, especially after the way his own church had treated him. After the Uprising, Reggie had begged his congregation so show mercy on the Undead. Was it any surprise when they turned on him and his family, when they mercilessly hounded them until they’d been forced to flee town?

“Where in the Bible does it say anything about…well, about zombies?” Bill once asked.

“For starters,” Reggie had answered, “Matthew, chapter twenty-seven, verses fifty-one through fifty-three.”

“Right.”

“
And, behold,
” Reggie said, quoting,
“
the veil of the temple was rent in twain from the top to the bottom; and the earth did quake, and the rocks rent; and the graves were opened; and many bodies of the saints which slept arose, and came out of the graves after his resurrection, and went into the holy city, and appeared unto many.
”

“Bodies of the saints? Seriously? That’s whacked, Reg. You know that? That’s just…. Anyway, what you’re describing sounds nothing like what’s happening now.”

“You want zombies? How about this one from Zechariah:
This will be the plague with which the LORD will strike all the peoples who have gone to war; their flesh will rot while they stand on their feet, and their eyes will rot in their sockets, and their tongues will rot in their mouth.
”

Bill hadn’t answered, though he had found himself shivering involuntarily. Even now, such words elicited a visceral reaction. He didn’t think he’d ever get used to them.

That first night, as Reggie took Bill under his wing, his eyes had seemed to glow in the darkness, as if some inner fire had been lit. He’d recited verse after verse of scripture, trying to convince Bill that what they were doing had been foretold in the Bible and therefore was sanctioned. “Enough!” Bill had protested. A part of him had wanted to burst out laughing, another part crying.

“Just teach me how to hunt.”

So Reggie took him into the darkened house where one of the Damned awaited. That night, Bill had taken his first head. He owed everything he knew about headhunting to Reggie. Without him, he wouldn’t have survived as long as he had. But he still didn’t share his beliefs.

Deep down he suspected it was Reggie’s way of rationalizing everything that had come to pass. Of justifying the very practical matter of survival. Headhunting, as grisly an occupation it was, put food on the table, and with three mouths to feed in such hard times as he had at home, one did what one needed to do.

Even so, it must’ve been impossibly difficult for someone like Reggie to defend what he had become.

It made Bill’s own guilt pale in comparison.

There was no moon yet, but so far from the city, the landscape glowed. A luminescent fog rose from the fields, reminding him of steam rising from a fresh cup of cappuccino. He realized with a start that the last time he’d enjoyed such a treat was exactly a year ago, the morning he and Karen had wandered down to the Starbucks in the lobby of their building, only to hear the first breaking news of the Outbreak on the loudspeakers. The sirens had sounded. They’d thought it was a tornado, a terrorist attack. Nobody could have guessed the truth. Nobody could have prepared.

A full twelve months to the day. An illegitimate anniversary: the birth of the first Undead. He doubted anyone was celebrating tonight.

The trestle’s metalwork rose high above him, a dark spider web against the coffee sky. They intended to cross over the river tonight, a task that Bill had always abhorred. It would be so easy to become trapped on the structure. But, as Reggie reminded him, hunting was better on the opposite shore. The area was dotted with a few small neighborhoods where the rich and spoiled had once lived but which now served as wayside stops for travelers, shelters for hapless squatters. Beyond the rundown mansions, downriver, a cozy little town still existed, still peopled by a few brave souls. He’d call them brainless, but it would just be too ironic, considering what was at stake.

Upriver, only farmland and scattered ranch houses existed. Most people lived in the cities now, huddled in clusters of apartments like his own; most zombies, too. For the most part, each kept to their own side of twilight if they could, but encounters were inevitable. The city was the front line in the war that seemed to have no boundaries.

An overgrown path led away from the walkway and tumbled down past the crumbling cement piling and into the blackness underneath. Bill descended, cursing the darkness and his forgetfulness. He could picture the flashlight on the hook next to the door of his apartment and his hand itched to reach out to snatch it from that vision. He thought about going back for it, but the apartment was too far away to return to now. He’d have to make do without it for the night.

He stopped to listen. The only sound coming to his ears was the whine of the crickets that lined the river’s banks. In such quiet, it was easy to believe he was truly alone in this world. It was equally hard to forget how close to the truth that was.

The grass was wet from mist and his old worn boots constantly threatened to betray him. He moved slowly, deliberately, concentrating more than he wanted to on staying upright and less on his surroundings. But then his legs did fly out from underneath him and his arms were pin-wheeling for balance, but to no avail. He landed heavily, his shoulder impacting the hard ground with a soft, sickening
crunch
. Pain immediately radiated outward, coursing over his neck and down his back, before quickly collapsing back in on itself, a cold white ember that he knew would burn indefinitely. He heard his machete
ping
off an exposed rock next to him.

From the darkness under the bridge, there came a soft click. Then everything exploded in light, a silent, brilliant, blinding glare. He threw a forearm up to protect himself.

“Bill? You scared the crap out of me.”

Bill let out an exhale of relief, dropping his arm and turning his head away from the light. “Wanna turn that off, Reg?”

“Sorry, brother.”

He could hear Reggie shuffling around in the darkness, gathering up his backpack and tools. Bill stumbled to his feet, found his machete, stepped back onto the trail. His shoulder throbbed, but the pain was already fading. No permanent damage.

“Sorry I’m late.”

There was a soft scraping sound—Reggie’s boot against cement—then the ex-preacher was standing beside him, his white eyes and teeth glowing in the darkness. The unmistakable coldness of polished steel brushed against Bill hand.

“What’s this?”

“Gary’s,” Reggie said.

“When?”

“Two nights ago.”

Bill grunted. He remembered the hunter, short and brutally ugly, breath that stunk halfway to Tuesday. Gary walked with a permanent stoop, the result of a close encounter in the chaos that had infected the city in the days immediately following that first attack. His left arm had been nearly torn from his shoulder; afterwards, it remained paralyzed. It was easier for him to just strap it to his side, which partially accounted for the stoop. The sling made it easier to hunt, easier to fight. Easier to run.

Except this time he hadn’t run fast enough.

“Where did it happen?”

“The old mall,” Reggie answered. Bill noticed something new in the other hunter’s voice, something tight and fragile that he’d never heard before. The ex-preacher sounded almost defeated. “I taught him, too.”

“Sorry.”

“They ambushed us, a whole gang of them, at least a dozen. It was… It was like they had coordinated the attack. Like they knew we were coming. I barely escaped.”

“But you did. That’s what counts.”

“I was the only one.”

“How many did we lose?”

“Including Gary? Four. Jed Macon—”

“I knew Jed. Back in the day. Never really liked him much, though. One of yours?”

“No.”

“He was more of a closer, would let someone else do the hard work before he swooped in for the kill. Hated that. Still, a shame he’s gone.”

“A loss,” Reggie agreed. “The other two were brothers, Charlie and Sev Cartwright.”

Bill frowned into the darkness. He hadn’t known the other two, but it didn’t lessen the ache that grew inside of him.

“They’re getting smarter,” he said. He felt his chest tighten. Anger, maybe, or bitterness, although he wasn’t sure who it would be directed at. “Either that or we’re getting dumber.”

“Neither,” Reggie countered, “but they are getting more desperate. I heard they raided some of the camps over down near the train yards. It was a bloodbath.”

“Fucking monsters.”

A click came from Reggie’s throat. Usually he tolerated Bill’s foul language, but tonight it seemed he had less patience for it. Maybe the attack at the mall had set him on edge.

“What were you guys doing all the way down there? And why such a large group?”

“Planning,” Reggie answered, though he didn’t elaborate.

“I take it you prayed for them?”

“I pray for them all, Bill.”

He nudged the handle of Gary’s knife into Bill’s palm.

“No, you keep it.”

“I already have two, one for each hand. Can’t use it, don’t want it. You take it. Use it…for Karen. And the others.”

Bill sighed. The knife had good balance, a wide blade, though much too short for his liking. He preferred longer weapons, like the machete. He didn’t like getting so close to his prey.

“For Karen,” he murmured. “And the others.”

He slipped the knife into his belt behind him and pulled his shirt over it.

†    †    †

“This is the part that scares the shit out of me,” Bill muttered, as they hurried over the trestle.

He tried to make out the shapes in the shadows beneath him along the shore, imagining they held hidden armies ready to attack them—the hunter become the hunted. He grew more and more certain that something dreadful was waiting for them on the other side.

He sniffed the air, but detected nothing other than the reek of the river.

What would they do if they were trapped up here? They’d have to jump into the river. That, or stand and fight. He thought he’d take his chances fighting, if it came to that. The river current was much too slow to carry them away quickly enough, which meant they’d have to swim. But their attackers would simply follow along on the shore and wait until they either sank in exhaustion or came ashore.

And what would happen when the sun rose?

The idea of drowning once more suffused his thoughts.

Focus.

So he did.

They made it safely across. Then, without a word, Reggie headed upriver, away from the abandoned mall and the small town, toward the spread-out farms, much to Bill’s relief.

They followed a winding road whose surface glistened from the mist, keeping their ears pricked for sounds that didn’t belong to the night. They checked a number of darkened houses, their doors smashed in, their windows broken, taking turns sharing the beam of Reggie’s flashlight. But they found nothing: no evidence of recent habitation, whether by human or zombie.

At an intersection, where the signal lights blinked red in all directions, they found a car, its headlights soaked up by the darkness ahead. The hood was still warm, though the engine was silent. The doors were open and the keys were still in the ignition; the driver was gone.