though it looked like they had been well-built at one time. They wore tired jeans and ratty flannel button-up shirts. Their faces were scruffy, hair disheveled, and they looked very worn down and somewhat unhealthy. The hums at Mrs. Kushner farm looked far better taken care of.
The leader had a rifle strapped to his back and in his hand he held a small pistol. The other had a rifle in hand and pistol holstered to his belt.
“Another one for the pile,” the leader croaked. “That’s four this morning already! You’re way behind, Kent!”
“Stop bragging and dump it already, before you attract a horde,” the other man said.
“There was another one coming up this way, down by the sign,” the first man said. “Why don’t you go see if it’s still there? That would at least give you one!”
I swallowed, clenching my hands around the mesh of the gate.
The second man waved off the first. “It’s gone now. Anyway, it wasn’t on my side. All the zombies come from the south.”
“Excuses, excuses,” the first man mumbled, then grabbed the fallen Stiff’s arm and dragged it toward the trees.
The second man shook his head and turned around, heading back to the platform near the tunnels. “Hurry up,” he said.
I quietly followed the first man into the trees, keeping a distance. I peered through the leaves as the man drew the Stiff’s body across the grass into a yard. There, before an abandoned house was a pile of at least twenty Stiff bodies. Two undead Stiffs were on the pile, picking at the flesh of the others. The man lifted the Stiff’s body in his hand and tossed it onto the pile. The undead Stiffs didn’t even notice his arrival.
The man circled around the heap to the first undead Stiff. It was bent over the dead bodies, peeling at skin and muscle, and feeding its face greedily. The man held his pistol up to the Stiff’s head and fired. It made a soft, dull sound and the Stiff collapsed. He circled around to the second Stiff and repeated the same procedure.
“Damn vermin,” the man muttered. “Go back to Hell.”
He slowly revolved around, holding his pistol out and I ducked back into the brush. Satisfied, the man turned and left. I waited a few moments before I emerged and approached the pile of Stiff bodies.
The tunnels were the human safe zone. They had guards and silent weapons to protect themselves from the Stiffs. And if I had even gotten a few steps closer, I would have been shot and added to the pile. If I had led, as Morgan suggested, I would have been killed.
I groaned.
That’s why zombies can never trust humans, Joe.
At that moment I doubted there was even a burial ground, and if there was, that I would stay conscious long enough for a human to die in order to get its brain. I couldn’t trust anything that Morgan had said. Everything she had done had been to get back here. She had never wanted me to survive. How could she? I was a zombie. She was a human. The two could never coexist. I clenched my jaw, my expression uneven. Just like everyone else, Morgan had only been thinking of herself. She could never have cared about me anymore than a sheep could care for a wolf. I don’t know why I had expected or come to believe anything different. She was only human, after all.
The anger of her betrayal burned in my head as if some heavy outside force was weighing down on my brain. Humans. You can’t live with them. You can’t live without them.
I sat down across from the pile of Stiffs and dropped my head. I was trapped. I didn’t know what to do. Trying to infiltrate the human safe zone with the way it was guarded was suicide. I could never return to Revenant. I had no preserves and nowhere to go.
I was the only Wake in Revenant who knew where the safe zone was and I was going to die with that knowledge.
I snapped open my eyes and gazed forward.
I could never have survived in the human safe zone. Morgan wouldn’t have allowed me to. But she had led me to it. She had shown what no other Wake had ever seen.
There was hope. I wasn’t dead yet.
They didn’t deserve life. They hadn’t earned it the way we had. Because we fought for it. Every day. Morgan would rather die than live with me in Revenant. But I wasn’t going to die. Because I would always fight against it. That was the difference between her and me. The will to survive. Humans were weak, and zombies were the superior species. We deserved life. Not them. I deserved it more than Morgan because I wanted it more. And I would earn it.
I was a human tracker. And I had found the human safe zone.
I had to get back to Revenant.
31. ALMOST HOME
I hurried back the way I had come. I waited until I was a good distance from the sewer tunnels before I returned to the river and then I began running. Without the human to slow me down I could make much faster progress. I didn’t know if I would last the whole trip, but with Morgan it had only taken me a little more than two days to reach the human safe zone. I could probably make it in at least half the time on my own, and if I avoided any confrontations I wouldn’t skid as fast as I had.
I didn’t have much of a plan in mind. But if I could convince Mayor Hillard that I knew where the safe zone was, he wouldn’t kill me. He couldn’t. Finding it was too important to the survival of Revenant.
I made it back to the bridge quickly. About a dozen Stiffs were wandering about the streets there. My footsteps drew their attention and they began to slowly meander after me. As I crossed the bridge I paused. I gazed down over the railing at Morgan’s mud-covered body, lying peacefully where I had left it, covered in little white flowers. She seemed so innocent and helpless, like an angel dropped in the mud.
“Bitch,” I muttered, and continued on.
I came to the edge of the forest and stopped. Dozens of Stiffs were wandering about the trees. The sun was bright in the sky, making the Stiffs fully awake and active. It would have been better to wait until night, but I couldn’t. I didn’t have that kind of time to spare. The other Stiffs were just behind me, walking with hurried steps.
I flipped the hood of my safety gear on, secured it, and then rushed forward. I dove between the bodies of two Stiffs and threw myself into the brush. Quickly the Stiffs were on me, giving chase. It was pointless to try to stay quiet. The slower I went the longer it would take me to get back, and during the day the Stiffs would still follow me, attracted by every twig snap and shuffle of leaves. I had to move as fast as possible, and having a horde of Stiffs on me could only help.
I broke through the forest, keeping close to the creek bed which was a quarter full of water now. Stiffs would appear from the trees suddenly. One would leap out at me, and if it wasn’t for my safety gear would probably have pierced my skin. I was able to shove it aside without being deterred too much and I would continue on, repeating the same procedure for any other Stiffs that emerged and threw themselves on me.
At one point I was nearly taken down, as one Stiff caught me off guard and another that had been chasing me caught up to us. I managed to force the struggle to the edge of the creek bed and dumped one of the Stiffs inside. The other pinned me to the ground, shoving my head into the soft dirt while my hands reached out around its throat to prevent it from biting down.
My mind felt like it was going to explode then, and I all but wanted to give in and allow the Stiff to devour my brain. Then I thought of Morgan, and how she had betrayed me. How she had been setting me up the entire time to be killed by the humans guarding her home, and how she had manipulated me into caring for her, and to feel sorry for her. I remembered her arms around my waist and the soft embrace of her body against mine, and how all I had wanted to do at that moment was protect her. It was all a lie. My mind pulsed with the heat of her betrayal, and at my stupidity for caring for a deceitful, selfish human like her. I was glad that I had eaten her brain, and I wished that I had done so the first night I had encountered her, so that I would never have had to feel that betrayal.
My anger bolstered me, and I felt my strength return. I reached out blindly behind me with one hand, finally feeling for
a log. I grabbed it and swung, knocking the Stiff off me. Then I stood and thrust the log into its head, again and again, until finally the skull cracked and the log splintered to pieces. I took a piece of the wood and jammed it through the skull, making sure to pierce the brain, and twisted. The other Stiffs were on us then, and I stood, picking up the Stiff’s body, and tossed it at them. They were on the body like a pack of wild dogs, and I had no trouble escaping as dozens of them began falling upon the corpse, like a tide of the dead. That bought me a few minutes without a single Stiff attacking me, and I ran as fast as I could, rancor on my heels, giving chase the rest of the way.
The rest of the time I managed to avoid any further confrontations. Any other Stiffs that appeared I was able to toss aside without much trouble and keep running. The creek became my best friend as I manage to throw Stiff after Stiff into it, making it impossible for them to come after me. They would give chase, but being stuck down below in the creek bed and without having any idea of how to climb out, they couldn’t reach me.
Evening came and the attacks became less frequent. It was welcome, as I felt myself starting to slow down. I was becoming weary by then and my arms and legs were starting to become stiff and heavy. I continued on as fast as I could manage despite my brain screaming at me that it needed rest. My vision was becoming