shirt and tossed her into the truck with the rest of the human stock.
It went on. We caught, disabled, and captured human after human from the sewer tunnels. Legs were slashed by knife and sword, and backs broken by wooden clubs, as the humans were disabled enough to survive the return trip with their brains fully functional. Those that didn’t emerge were left to face off with the Stiffs in the confines of the sewer. Those that were smart and quick enough to flee the tunnels were captured by the human trackers. A few managed to escape, scattering off into the forest or the streets. It wasn’t worth it to go after them. The Stiffs mainly stayed in the sewers. Any that stumbled out were quickly disposed of. A few Wakes were damaged. Our gear was strong, but there were plenty of projectiles being fired by the rabid humans. There weren’t any casualties though. We had planned too well for that.
Within an hour hundreds of humans had been captured and corralled inside the trucks. It was incredible. It was the most humans I had ever seen in one place. When it was finished, only the Wakes who had come on the mission remained standing. The Stiffs were either dead or chasing frantic humans down sewer passages. The gray walls and floor were splashed with blood, and only a few bodies, including a small percentage of human casualties who had been too much of a threat, littered the ground of the cement channel. The only living things left were us. The Wakes. We were the only ones left standing when the hunt was complete. The trackers locked up the trucks against the wailing and moaning of the humans and began congratulating each other.
My mentor embraced me around my shoulders. “Well done, Zellner!” he cried. “Very well done!”
I nodded dumbly. I gazed at my trembling hand, clenching the bloody blade I had accepted from my mentor. These humans would be our fodder, the source of our continued existence. We had been just like them once, a long time ago, and in some ways we were still like them. Dead and alive were just labels, and yet the difference between them were so significant. We were stronger. We deserved life more than they did. We had earned it. I had earned it.
For a moment I felt guilty, and I knew none of what had just happened was anything to be proud of. It wasn’t right. But that was just a word. It didn’t mean anything. Morgan’s right ended with my death. Righteousness was in the eye of the beholder. There was no right or wrong. There was only choice. And I had made mine. I was alive.
“We did it, Zellner!” my mentor cheered. “You did it.”
I did it. The human safe zone had been captured. The humans had been driven out and secured. And Revenant’s human famine was ended. We had captured them. The zombie race had prevailed.
We would survive.
ZOMBILOGUE
“I have to say it. Today is a glorious day to be a zombie!” Mayor Hillard crowed before the assembled crowd in the center of zone C.
Applause and an uproar of delight followed his opening statement. I stood to his right on the wooden stage that had been set up for the occasion, my mentor on his opposite side, gazing out at the mass of Wakes that had gathered for the celebration.
Jubilation had spread through the town once it had been revealed that we had finally captured the human safe zone. A week later we were commemorating the occasion. The council had been true to their word, and when it got out that I was the one who had discovered the human safe zone and about everything I had gone through, I had sort of become a local celebrity. Even Mrs. Kushner forgave me with relative ease. She had more humans on her farm than she knew what to do with, and was trying to petition the council to bring in another apprentice to join Trevor to help her with the load.
Trevor was excited to see me back and undead. He had thought for sure I hadn’t made it, and even if I had, that he would never see me again. He wanted to know all the details of what had happened and I had to regale him and the other kids from school several times with the entire story. It was pretty thriller. I wasn’t used to being the popular kid in town. But I tried not to let the fame go to my head. I could have just as easily been dead right now if things hadn’t gone exactly right. As it was, I was sort of thought of as the zombie kid who saved Revenant. Things were so much worse than the council had let on, and it was really lucky that I had found the location of the safe zone when I had. If I hadn’t, I don’t know what would have happened to the town.
“Thanks to this, shall we say, headstrong young zombie from zone A,” Mayor Hillard continued, motioning toward me without looking, his eyes still locked on the crowd and his mouth glutted with a toothy smile, “we were able to pull off the most successful human tracking expedition in our town’s history, no doubt served by the experience and aptitude of the Wake leading it, Bill Barton.”
Another roar of applause. My mentor nodded once in recognition, and I opted for the less humble approach, raising my hands into the sky as if to absorb the collective adulation, a sloppy grin pasted to my face.
“With the capture of the human safe zone, Revenant has secured its future for a long time to come,” Mayor Hillard announced, again to a bevy of applause. He waited for the crowd to quiet. “But that doesn’t mean that we should get complacent. Human brains are still a rare commodity in this day and age, and until we have a firm, time-tested method of replenishing them, rations is still the name of the game.”
The crowd looked a little disconcerted with this message. Why shouldn’t they? They had been living on rations when the town had less than fifty humans corralled for breeding. Now it was brimming with hundreds of them. Somehow, without saying it, Mayor Hillard had given the impression that capturing the human safe zone would solve all the town’s problems. But they had no idea how bad things had really been, and how few rations were left before I discovered the safe zone. Mayor Hillard was content to leave them in the dark, and what choice did I have but to keep quiet myself? If I caused any sort of dissension, he would quickly have me sentenced to the Stockade, and I was pretty sure I had used up my allotment of luck for the rest of my death.
“I thought having the human safe zone meant we didn’t need rations!” a voice shot from the crowd. A cheer of agreement rose up around him.
“You said everything would change when we found the safe zone!” another voice, and another wave of support.
Mayor Hillard raised his hands to the crowd, spreading his long, thin fingers and pressing his palms flat against the air as if to hold back the umbrage. “Now, now. My dear Wakes of Revenant, nothing comes all at once, and we must be patient. Until the breeding programs have been fully established and we have a steady supply of fodder being produced we cannot afford to surrender the current system.”
A low mumble of uncertainty responded.
“Now, it’s as I’ve always said,” Mayor Hillard announced, pressing the tips of his fingers together. “Living death has a price. And we all have a contribution to make. We must continue to serve one another and not be divided. Division leads to mutiny and mutiny to anarchy! We must be united, Wakes of Revenant! We cannot falter. Not when we are on the precipice of prosperity!”
A murmur of doubt, followed by slow ripple of applause, and then cheers of adulation. The Mayor grinned widely. It was amazing how his words could change so much without changing anything at all.
“I thank each and every Wake for coming out today. Please enjoy the flesh food we have provided free of charge, and enjoy yourselves! I promise you – change is coming in Revenant! If we stay united and work together we will survive. Revenant will survive!”
The crowd applauded voraciously again, and slowly began to disperse as Mayor Hillard vacated the stage. My mentor shook hands with him, congratulating him on a well-delivered speech. They spoke for a few moments before the Mayor descended the steps of the stage. I approached my mentor from behind as he gazed forward toward the crowd.
“We don’t have enough humans to give up rationing, do we?” I asked seriously.
He turned and gazed questioningly at me. “What do you mean, Zellner?”
“We can’t change human biology,”
I replied. “It’s going to be a year before breeding the humans we captured will even produce any fodder, isn’t it? That’s how long it takes humans to give birth.”
“I didn’t think you knew anything about human biology,” my mentor said.
“Trevor told me,” I admitted. “It’ll be almost a year before the new stock even starts producing. And there are more Wakes in town then there are humans. I mean, I’m no mathematics apprentice, but it doesn’t add up, does it? In a year we’ll have maybe one new hum for every two we have now. That’s, what? A week’s supply of brains for the entire town? Maybe two? And the rations we had before we captured the safe zone wouldn’t have lasted us through the year. That was your estimate. We don’t have enough time to get the breeding program going before we use up the rest of the town’s rations. Do we?”
My mentor sighed. “Finally using that brain of yours,” he said, placing a hand on my shoulder. “Things aren’t as bad as you make them.”
“Well, they sure as hell aren’t as good as the Mayor makes them!” I shot back.
My mentor bobbed his head to the side. “Perhaps not. But we’ve been here before, and we survived, one way or the other. We will again.”
“How?” I demanded. It didn’t seem possible. There were