Davis gave the advice to keep a cool head, make a plan, and then head out. We weren’t given any cars, and were to travel only on horseback. It would take us a little longer to get there because Snake and I would travel around the Salton Sea.
The first night would be spent at the bait shop, safe from the Savages. However, I worried about the second night. While on the other side of the Sea, and Savage incidents were low, we needed a plan.
“We’ll dig in,” Snake said.
“Can we dig in deep enough to be protected?”
“Plan it ahead of time. Stop about four PM, look for something, and make it work. Besides, there are no Savages in the Straits and that starts beforehand.”
“Are we sure?” I asked. “I mean, how do we know?”
“Vala, for one. She never saw one. And people have to have safe passage to the Straits. The Civvies keep ‘em out.”
“Let’s hope.”
We rode for a while and made it past the point where we had taken down the Day Stalkers the day before. We talked about that and then Snake went into a whole hour long speech about zombies. He spoke about movies and how they were thought of as fiction.
“Who’d have thought?” Snake said. “Seriously. Not me. Flesh eating imbeciles. But these aren’t really zombies, ’cause a part of them isn’t dead. They eat flesh though. They don’t need to, they need to suck the blood. They are rejects cause they don’t have fangs.”
At first the conversation was interesting, then it turned a bit drab, until we saw three of them straggling, moving aimlessly and slow.
They looked more gaunt than usual. Yes, I knew they were still somewhat alive, but they had rotting flesh.
We both stopped our horses and dismounted.
Snake raised his gun and I stopped him. “Save the ammo.”
“Be an easy kill.”
“Save it. Use the sword.”
“I hate using the sword.” Snake replaced his gun, and reached to his back for his sword. “Damn thing is heavy. Can’t wield it right.”
My eyes stayed transfixed on the Day Stalkers. They didn’t move in attack mode. Pulling my sword, I walked to them.
“What are you doing?”
“Look at them,” I said. “Why aren’t they attacking?”
“They are.”
One Day Stalker swung out his arms.
“Really? This is attacking?” I moved even closer.
“Damn it, Tanner. Back up. Those things are dangerous.”
I kept looking into the eyes of the one. He looked helpless and though his eyes were glossed over with gray, I saw something, I saw a spark of life. For the first time I realized the Day Stalkers still had some human in them and not just a heartbeat. Could they be changed? Or maybe even trained if we just fed them?
The three before me failed to lunge my way, which was typical Day Stalker fashion.
The one that stared back at me wore a flannel shirt. His neck was covered with dry blood. He was young, maybe a little older than me.
He opened his mouth with a groan. I swore he was trying to tell me something. A part of me felt bad for him. He’d probably had a life. He wasn’t killed that long ago, and that told me that somewhere in the vicinity was a village we’d missed or didn’t know about. At least one he could walk from.
Flannel Shirt Day Stalker was nearing a communication plateau. I could feel it. His mouth moved, I looked at him more intently and then…
His head flew up in the air, bouncing to the ground. His body stayed upright, hands shaking until that fell as well.
“You’re an ass!” Snake yelled in frustration. “Standing there staring at the thing. Did it lock you into a hypnotic state or something, or were you just trying to think of a way to make love to the thing?”
“You killed it.”
“That’s what we do.”
“He was trying to tell me something.”
“No.” Snake cleaned off his sword and replaced it. I noticed he had killed the other two as well. “And if he was trying to tell you something, it was probably that you looked tasty. Mount your butt and let’s go. Daylight is wasting.”
I took one more moment to glance down to the corpse of the three Day Stalkers. While Snake was correct in what he did, I also felt right in the fact that the Day Stalker was trying to stay something.
What, I would never know. I had to put it behind me as I mounted my horse and rode on.