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The back side of my body is like ice when I wake. The cold metal of the car has leached away all the warmth. I’m shivering and rubbing my legs when two things strike me almost simultaneously: it was stupid to fall asleep out here totally exposed to whatever might wander by; and Katy is gone.
I grab my gun and slide down to the ground. I want to call out, but if there are buggers nearby, that would draw their attention. I try to think. Buggers wouldn’t have slipped up on us in silence and spirited her away. Heck, if anyone or anything messed with her, she would have screamed. She probably just felt the call of nature and slipped into the bushes to take care of it.
“Katy?” I say it in little more than a normal voice, but it sounds like a thunderclap in the stillness of the night.
No answer.
I call again, a little louder this time, and I get a response, but it’s not the one I’m hoping for.
The mournful groan of a bugger sounds from somewhere to the left. Another answers the call, and then another. I hear shuffling and crashing in the woods, and I can tell they’re coming toward me. If I were alone I would hop in the car and take off, but not now. I can’t go anywhere until I find Katy. Just then, I hear her scream.
I take off in the general direction from which I heard her voice. It isn’t long before my path is blocked by a pack of buggers coming right at me. I make a hasty left into the woods. Back home, I quickly discovered that humans are better in the woods than the walking dead. We’re intelligent enough to duck underneath low-hanging limbs, leap over fallen branches, and weave through narrow gaps. When zombies come through the woods, it’s like corpse pinball. I had several patches of forest at home that I could use to slow my pursuers if necessary. Of course, get enough of them moving in the same direction, and the front row tramples a path for the stragglers.
They’re beginning to lag behind, but I also hear more of them up ahead—the same shuffling and crashing I’d heard before. I veer to the right, trying to keep an eye out for buggers, while also watching the ground for anything that might trip me up. A broken ankle and I’m dead. I’m just wondering which way Katy went when I hear the sounds of her cries in the distance. She’s somewhere up ahead, and getting farther away.
I put on all the speed I can muster, leap over a tangle of briars...
...and crash headlong into a chain link fence.
I rebound off the fence and land hard on my butt smack dab in the middle of the briars. I don’t know what hurts worse, my punctured backside, or my face, which feels like it’s been pressed against a waffle iron. I feel my nose to see if it’s broken, and my hand comes away covered in blood.
Blood! Holy crap. The buggers are going to be all over me in a minute. I spring to my feet and hurry back to the fence. I can climb with the best of them. If I can just make it over before... My eyes follow the chain links up to the top of the fence which is covered in razor wire, and then to the blocky silhouette beyond. This is a jail, or was once upon a time.
That’s when I hear Katy scream, and I see the outline of someone being carried over a much larger person’s shoulders. It’s her. She’s yelling and pummeling the guy’s back with her fists, but it does no good. He’s carrying her toward the prison. I’m out here with the buggers, she’s in there, and there’s a twelve-foot high, razor wire-topped fence between us.
I don’t have time to contemplate my next move, because they’re closing in on me again. I sprint along the fence line toward the place I’d seen the guy carrying Katy. In no time, I’m at the front gate. It might have once been controlled remotely, with some sort of power locks, but now it’s chained and padlocked. Behind the front gate is a smaller fenced-in area, just big enough to bring a truck into. It too is gated. I’m not getting in that way, but I have an idea.
I head back in the direction of the car, hoping all the buggers have followed me in a big circle. The distant groans of my pursuers tell me I’ve outdistanced them for the moment. A good thing, too, because I’m wearing out. I’m accustomed to running—I do it all the time, but not at a dead sprint for such a great distance. I slow my pace, regaining my wind, though I can feel Katy getting farther away with every second that passes.
It doesn’t take long to find the car, and I spare a minute to clean all the blood off of me with an old rag. When I’m finished, I dig through the tools I’ve collected, taking out a hacksaw blade and a pair of bolt cutters. I’m not sure what I’ll find when I get to the building itself, but these tools will get me inside the fence at least.
I come to a place where the forest has grown right up against the fence line. Wild privet and waist-high pines have sprung up on the inside of the fence, creating a mini-forest. Whoever is living here hasn’t done a great job of keeping the fence line clear along this small stretch. Then again, as long as the buggers stay on the outside, I guess the people on the inside are safe enough. I spare a moment to wonder about who lives here. Prisoners, I assume. Did they kill the guards and take over the place? Or did the guards bail on them when the outbreak started, like so many others did? I wonder if they feel any freer now than they did when it was the justice system keeping them in. All they’ve done is trade one prison for another.
I wonder if the buggers feel trapped inside their own bodies. I have a hunch they don’t think or feel much of anything, but I sometimes wonder what it would be like to have nothing but an unrelenting drive to consume human flesh. Is there a moment before turning undead that a person feels what a bugger feels, but holds on to his human thoughts and emotions? What would it be like to see life from the zombie point of view?
I mull these things over as I cut a hole in the fence large enough for me to squeeze through. Now comes the crazy part. I choose a sharp edge of the freshly-clipped fence and drag the meat of my hand across it, gouging a deep trench from which fresh blood flows freely. I smear blood along either side of the cut in the fence, and then drip a trail about forty paces out into the tall grass before wrapping my hand in a cloth and ducking back into the shelter of the small evergreens.
The buggers have already caught the scent of fresh blood, and I hear them crashing into the fence as I hurry away. I glance back to see them pouring through the breach like angry ants from a disturbed hill. The fence bends back, widening the opening, but doesn’t give way.
It isn’t long before cries of alarm tell me that the people inside have discovered the incursion into their safe zone. A dozen or so men, and a few women, come sprinting out of a side door and take up a defensive position behind a concrete barrier along what must have once been the employee parking lot, which is now cracked and overgrown. They put me in mind of old Civil War movies: the front line kneeling and taking careful aim, the second line standing ready behind them.
The first wave of bullets rips into the throng of buggers, and their pace slows. A few go down from shots to the head, but most of them keep moving forward. There are a good forty or fifty of them lumbering toward the small cluster of defenders. Compared to the hordes that roam the streets back home, this band doesn’t seem like much, but they’re too many for the small knot of fighters. They’ll have to retreat to the safety of the jail soon. This is my chance. If I’m going to find my way in, it has to be now.
I break cover and sprint toward the back side of the imposing building. I’ve almost reached it when an engine roars to life somewhere just out of sight, and a monster truck whips around the corner, bearing down on me. I dive and roll. Thankfully, the driver sees me and cuts hard, sending his truck tilting up on two wheels. For a precarious moment it teeters on the verge of rolling over, and then rights itself, falling back onto all four tires, and roars toward the zombie horde. The buggers are too intent on the live humans in front of them to notice the new threat until the truck is right on top of them.
The truck plows through the front ranks, crushing undead flesh and bone. The driver does a donut and makes another pass. I should be searching for an open door, but I’m mesmerized by the destruction. The buggers go down, broken, but not dead. A few regain their feet and shamble forward, shattered arms hanging limply at their sides, but most belly-crawl onward, dragging their broken bodies toward their prey. A few escape the mad monster truck, and reach the concrete barrier, where the defenders take them down with cold efficiency.
When no buggers remain standing the defenders cross the wall to finish off the crawlers, while the truck heads toward the breach in the fence. I suddenly realize that, even if I can find Katy, I have no idea how I’m going to get us out of here. One thing at a time, I suppose.
I circle around the back of the building. The windows are small and set high off the ground. I’ll bet they’re also made of some sort of reinforced glass, since this is a jail. Or do they still put bars on windows? Make that did they. I wouldn’t know. I’ve never been in a jail. I try the few doors I encounter, each of which is locked. The distant sounds of the fight reaching my ears on this otherwise still night, I cover the back side of the jail and round the corner, determined to use my gun on the next locked door I find, and shoot anyone who gets in my way.
I test the next door I come to, and it flies open. I’m momentarily frozen by surprise, and while I stand there gaping, a strong hand grabs the front of my shirt and yanks me inside.