Iain McKinnon - Remains of the Dead

“Well, that SAW thing is still better than this crappy pistol.”

“And just how the fuck will you be able to fire that with a baby strapped to your chest?”

“Aw, come on! The firepower will be useful.”

“Ryan!” Cahz snapped. “This is not a discussion. You are keeping the pistol. And you will fire it only in self-defense and as a last resort.”

“It’s not like I haven’t shot a gun before.”

“Yeah, and you wasted a mag on Peter Rabbit. The SAW weighs a friggin’ ton and you’re shattered just carrying the baby and a crowbar.”

Ryan opened his mouth to object, but Cahz cut him off.

“Look, I have spent untold hours honing my skill as a marksman.” Cahz’s voice was clipped and stern. “We don’t have the ammo to dick about like you did on the tracks back there. You pumped off half a dozen shots with a semi. God knows what you’ll waste with that on full auto. We leave Cannon’s SAW and pistol here. They’re just dead weight. I’ve replenished my mags and between my M4 and the two pistols we’ve got over a hundred rounds. That’s enough to keep us safe until we get picked up-If we’re careful. Now let’s move out.”

Ryan’s lips were tightly shut, his eyes still looking at the long hunk of black metal that had been Cannon’s SAW.

“What if we don’t get picked up?” he asked, still focused on the machinegun.

“It’s not an option,” Cahz said, opening the door to the hallway.

“What if we don’t?” Ryan asked again more forcefully.

Cahz spun round and locked on Ryan’s eyes. He jabbed a finger in the direction of the back yard. He shouted, “Then we end up like him out there!”

The baby burst into tears from the barking noise.

“Or worse,” Cahz spat.

Ryan was about to say something when they both heard a thump.

“What was that?”

The thud sounded again, this time accompanied by a long, chilling moan.

They opened the door to the hallway. Through the frosted glass of the front door, Cahz could see the shadow of someone pushed up against the window.

He marched up to the front door and pointed his weapon at the silhouetted head. Casually he pulled the trigger. The shadow disappeared.

Picking up the set of keys he’d kicked earlier by accident, he unlocked the door. He walked out of the house, nonchalantly stepping over the dead body.

“Are you coming?” he called back over the noise of the crying child.

“Shit,” Ryan grumbled.

He pulled a plastic bag from a holder by the fridge and loaded a selection of the unopened tins and the can opener into it.

“Yeah, I’m coming,” he said as he slipped the papoose into position and trotted after Cahz.

The paving slabs in the driveway were a dark grey from the rain. A trail of black liquid was being washed off the dead zombie down towards the gutters. The suburban street was grey and eerily quiet. The only noise was the patter of the thick raindrops and the gurgle of the water as it passed over the leaf-blocked drains.

Cahz pulled out a piece of paper from his pocket and lit it with one of the matches from the MRE. The white edges turned brown then black before it caught. The flames licked up, obliterating the orange and blue scribbles. With the rain failing to extinguish the fire, he tossed the burning artwork back into the house.

“Why’d you do that?” Ryan asked as he watched the hall carpet ignite.

Cahz didn’t answer. He just walked off down the rain-drenched street.

The fire was spreading quickly by the time Ryan turned and chased after him.

“What’s the plan then?” he asked.

“Keep walking,” Cahz said without slowing his pace. “We’ve got about four hours before it goes dark.”

“Keep walking, eh?” Ryan questioned.

“Keep walking,” Cahz said back, his eyes on the path ahead.

The two men walked on in silence. They weaved their way down the shattered streets of what was once a desirable housing development. The executive cars that would have seen a wax and polish every Sunday afternoon now sat on flat tires, quietly rusting away. The once perfectly tended lawns were choked with weeds and ornamental bushes gone feral.

The odd zombie that stumbled into their path was quickly dispatched by the irate Cahz. The venomous soldier would simply march up to the wailing creature and fire a shot into its skull from point-blank range.

Ryan’s feet felt raw and blistered, his legs were burning from the exertion, and his lungs were scorched with the effort of breathing against the weight on his chest. The forced march was ripping at every muscle in his body. But he dared not complain.

Ahead of them, atop a rise, was what would once have been the home of a company executive, large and imposing, an expansive garden with a tall fence. The building though had caught fire at some point. The roof was gone and the windows were boarded up. The entrance gates lay twisted and useless in the driveway.

As they marched past a zombie lurched out at them. It was naked other than a pair of army style boots and its skin was blackened from grime and dirt. Cahz automatically strode up to the creature so he could put a shot in its brain, but all of a sudden the zombie snapped to a halt. It strained but it couldn’t move any closer.

Cahz stopped and lowered his gun.

“What is it?” Ryan asked.

As he caught up, Ryan could see a burnt-out corpse on the driveway of the gutted house. Snaking up the paving stones was a chain attached to the husk.

Ryan put the heavy bag of provisions down on the ground. His fingers were red where the thin straps bit into his joints. He looked more closely at the zombie that struggled to get them. Around its neck, there too was a thick chain. The metal links bit deep and raw into the dead flesh. The blood encrusted links trailed off to a padlock secured to a fixture in the solid fencing.

“Guard dogs?” Ryan asked.

“Hell of a bite,” Cahz muttered.

He turned his back and marched off, leaving the zombie to strain against its chains. Ryan looked at the pitiful creature chained in the front yard of the burnt out house. Now that he looked he could see the weeds were trampled flat within its range.

“Why would you do that?” Ryan asked no one.

Then it struck him that the house had its windows boarded up. The sort of thing a homeowner would do after a fire or to protect it if it were being left uninhabited. Ryan looked more closely at the soot smudged plywood. Under the smoke damage he could make out writing: ‘LOOTERS WILL BE SHOT!’ with a skull and cross bones underneath.

Then a second warning on a different window: ‘INFECTED WILL BE SHOT!’, again with the skull and cross bones motif.

Ryan was about to leave when he noticed a less prominent sign. On the driveway there was something scrawled in orange spray paint. He skirted past the tethered guard zombie and towards the house for a better view.

Written on the paving stones was the simple line, ‘DICKS WILL BE TORCHED!’

“Hurry up!” Cahz called in the distance.

Ryan turned from reading the epitaph, picked up his bag and hurried downhill to catch up.

“Did you see that?” he puffed.

“See what?” Cahz asked in tone that showed he didn’t really care.

“Back there,” Ryan said. “That house was burnt down deliberately.”

“So what?”

Ryan started to explain, “There was some graffiti. It-”

“I don’t give a shit, Ryan,” Cahz said.

“Oh,” Ryan said, thwarted by the uncaring reply.

He stood for a moment, stunned by the soldier’s ambivalence. The plastic straps of the carrier bag were becoming thin and taut, stretched out by the weight of the cans. Ryan rested the cumbersome bag on the ground and let the circulation flow back round his fingers. Cahz wasn’t waiting for him. The angry soldier continued marching off into the rain. Ryan slipped his fingers into the wet plastic handles and lifted the bag back up. Reluctantly he started walking again, the hard lips of the cans bouncing off the side of his leg as he moved.