Wreckage
Estela Ramirez sat on a mossy rock, studying the burnt-out wreckage of an off-road vehicle. The clearing still showed the signs of the crash, even now, months later. The bodies of the zombies were mostly gone, thanks to the local wildlife. Those that remained were little more than blackened bones with scraps of leathery skin fluttering in the chill morning air of the Adirondacks. Little by little, the natural world was reclaiming the spot. Soon, it would be nothing more than another bad memory, to add to the rest.
But until then, Ramirez intended to do what she did best. She studied the scene as she had every week for the past two months, with the eyes of a Quantico-trained investigator. She could replay the last moments of the crash in her mind’s eye now.
The vehicle had not been going at its top speed when it crashed, but it had been going fast enough to rupture the gas tank and from there, one spark had been enough to turn it into a fireball. There had been no explosion – that happened rarely outside of the movies. Not that there were movies anymore.
Or, rather, there was only one movie left, of the post-apocalyptic variety, and they were living in it. With a sigh, she rose to her feet and put her hands in the pockets of her leather jacket. It was chilly this morning. The weather was cold and getting colder. Winter was rolling in over the mountains. She wondered whether that would hamper the zombies any. She doubted it. Nothing else seemed to. They just kept stumbling on, day after day, week after week, their numbers swelling and shrinking with no pattern that she could determine.
Ramirez slowly circled the burnt-out wreck, hands still in her pockets. The front of the vehicle looked as if it had been punched by a giant – not once, but many times. Impact points, from where it had struck trees on its way down into the clearing. The story she drew from the evidence never changed, no matter how many different angles she looked at it from.
The driver’s last ride had been a short, eventful one. He’d headed downhill at an inadvisable speed. The zombies had given chase, some even managing to climb onto the truck as it slowed at points along the packed dirt trail. He’d spun out halfway down the trail, and the truck had plummeted through the trees before crashing down into the clearing.
She turned, surveying the area around the front of the vehicle. It was possible that the driver had been thrown clear during the crash. It was also possible, though unlikely, that he’d walked away from it. She’d heard stranger stories, even before the zombie apocalypse. In fact, these days it was more likely that he’d walked away – just not as a living, breathing person.
Ramirez flinched inwardly from the thought and paused. Frowning, she turned. A coyote sat at the edge of the clearing, watching her. It was big, but mangy looking. She studied the coyote, and it returned the favor, showing no fear of her. But why would it? Humans were no longer top of the food chain. They’d been supplanted by the dead.
The coyote tensed, nose quivering. It smelled something. Ramirez looked around, taking her cue from the animal’s superior senses. There weren’t many zombies in these parts, not lately. If the animals didn’t get them, the mountains did. But that didn’t mean there weren’t any. Some managed to survive the natural hazards in order to make a nuisance of themselves.
The coyote rose to its feet, uncertain now. It turned as if to run, but too slowly. Something lunged out of the dark beneath the trees and collided with the animal. Together, they went down in a thrashing, snarling tangle. Ramirez took a step back, surprised despite herself. The two struggling forms collided with the front of the wreck, and she saw that the coyote’s attacker was a zombie – a walker, she thought, though it was hard to tell.
The zombie was a leathery thing, its skin like jerky, its face nearly a skull. It was so withered, she couldn’t tell whether it had been a man or a woman, but it wore the filthy remnants of a park ranger’s uniform. The walker clutched the coyote’s throat with its claw-like hands, as if attempting to throttle the writhing animal, and snapped ineffectually at its prey with brown, broken teeth.
Ramirez’s first instinct was to go for her sidearm. The Glock had been her constant companion both before and after the apocalypse. But ammunition was getting scarce, and the sound of the shot might well draw more nearby walkers down on her. She decided not to chance it. Instead, her hand went to the hunting knife on her hip. She drew it and crept toward the distracted zombie. It wasn’t going to be easy. The coyote was putting up a desperate fight. It snapped and snarled, biting chunks out of the walker’s arms and chest. Whatever else, the animal was keeping its attacker occupied.
When she’d gotten close enough, she reached out and caught hold of what was left of the walker’s scalp, jerking its head back. The scalp began to tear away in her grip, but it held long enough for her to drive the hunting knife up through the base of its skull and into whatever calcified lump passed for its brain. She gave the blade a practiced twist and then wrenched it loose. The zombie slumped sideways with barely a twitch. The coyote twisted free of its loosening grip and darted away into the undergrowth.
“You’re welcome,” Ramirez called after it, as she wiped the knife clean on the back of her jeans. Behind her, a branch snapped. She whirled, the knife slashing out in a tight arc. It caught the zombie beneath the chin, opening its throat to the bone. Unfortunately, that didn’t do much to alter its momentum. It crashed into her and drove her back against the wreck. Like the other, it was shrunken, withered; it too wore the remnants of a park ranger’s uniform, in somewhat better condition than the other.
It hissed at her through tombstone teeth as she tried to push it away. Her knife had been knocked from her hand, and it was all she could do to keep the walker from tearing her throat out. Even so, she didn’t panic. Panic killed you quicker than any zombie.
She struck at its elbows and shoulders methodically, trying to break its hold. When that didn’t work, she started on its knees. One of her awkward kicks finally connected, and she heard the telltale snap of bone. The zombie sagged, suddenly off-balance, but not giving up. She hit it in the face with a fist, and its head snapped back.
Momentarily freed from its grasp, she dove for her knife. There was still a chance to do this without noise. If she had to shoot it, there was no telling how many more might show up. Its hands fumbled at her jacket even as her fingers closed about the hilt, and she was yanked roughly backwards. She twisted in its grip and attempted to drive the knife into its head, but it caught her wrist. That shocked her into a moment’s immobility. That hesitation almost cost her.
Its teeth were almost at her throat when a hunting arrow sprouted from its skull. The walker rolled away from her with an ugly gurgle. A second arrow joined the first, knocking it down completely. It thrashed for a moment, then lay still.
Panting slightly, Ramirez turned. Elizabeth Sayers stood at the top of the slope that led down into the clearing, a camouflaged longbow in her hands and a matching quiver on her hip. Lean of build with a sharp face, her shaggy hair was tied back and out of her eyes. She had the look of someone who spent most of her time outdoors. She lowered the longbow and gave Ramirez a stern look. “That was stupid. Letting it sneak up on you like that.”
“I was distracted, dealing with the other one,” Ramirez said, defensively. She didn’t like Sayers and the feeling was mutual. Though they’d been forced to work together of late, their dislike of one another hadn’t dwindled so much as simmered.
“You shouldn’t have bothered. Coyotes can handle themselves.”
Ramirez grimaced. “You saw?”
Sayers wasn’t looking at her now. Instead, the former park ranger’s eyes were on the trees. Scanning. “I saw enough,” she said, absently. “You weren’t paying attention.”
“You could have warned me!”
“I saved you.”
“If you’d warned me, you wouldn’t have had to.” Ramirez went over to the zombie Sayers had dispatched and quickly retrieved the arrows with the help of her knife. It was important to save every type of ammunition.
“I wouldn’t have had to do either if you didn’t insist on coming out here every chance you get.” Sayers glanced at her. “Westlake is dead. Whether he walked out of here or not, he’s dead and you know it.”
“Maybe.” But Ramirez knew she was right. There was no way Westlake could have walked away from the crash alive. He’d already been hurt, and between the wreck and the zombies, there was no way he’d have made it. But there’d been no sign of him – no sign that he’d turned, even. Walkers could travel for miles, but only if they had a reason, and a zombified Westlake would more than likely stay in this area. There’d been no sign of him among the walker herds they’d thinned out in the weeks that followed. It was as if he’d vanished. She stood and looked down at the zombie. “It grabbed my hand.”
“They do that.”
Ramirez turned. “No. It… it stopped me from stabbing it.” The moment played out again in her head. The shock of it. They’d never really fought back, not in a way that implied they actually understood what was happening. They just kept trying to take a piece out of you, whatever you did to them. “Since when do they have anything approaching an instinct for self-preservation?”
“Muscle memory,” Sayers said, but she didn’t sound like she believed that.
“Maybe.” Ramirez climbed the slope. She offered the arrows, and Sayers took them without comment. “I owe him,” Ramirez said, after a moment. “Westlake, I mean. I owe him. I told him – I promised him I wouldn’t let him become one of them. That I’d put him down.” She spoke slowly, afraid that the words would overwhelm her.
Westlake had been a hardened criminal before the dead rose, and the end of the world hadn’t done much to change his outlook. But even she had to admit that he’d come through for them when the chips were down. When they’d needed him, he’d been there. She still wasn’t sure why he’d done any of it. At first, she’d thought it was purely self-interest; nowadays, she wasn’t so sure. All she really knew was that she’d made a promise, and she wanted to keep it.
“The dead don’t keep debts or hold grudges,” Sayers said.
Ramirez nodded. “But we do.”
Sayers grunted, clearly not buying that line of logic. She stiffened, then reached for an arrow. A moment later, Ramirez heard it. A groaning, far off and faint. “How many?” she murmured, her hand resting on her sidearm.
“Enough to warrant leaving before they get here,” Sayers said. She slid her arrow back into the quiver and turned to head back up the slope. “Let’s go.”
“Yeah. Right behind you.” Ramirez followed the other woman up the slope but stopped at the top and looked back. The wreck sat still and silent, two new bodies added to its resting place. And one body still missing.
“Where are you, Westlake?” Ramirez murmured.