Timothy Long - Beyond the Barriers

“It’s not funny. All the children are dead, so many are just … gone. We need to have more, and I can’t help. I had cervical cancer, but Frank didn’t care. He and I had two already, and we were happy.” She sobbed into the pillow, and I held her close. It was the first time she had mentioned the name of one of her family.

I didn’t know what to say. I was going to tell her I loved her, and I think I did. I certainly had strong feelings for her, but was it enough to overcome this ... this insecurity? Her body shook, and she pressed her head deeper into the down pillow and tried to stifle the sobs. I wanted to tell her everything would be okay, but there was no way to know that with certainty.

“Kat, I …”

A pair of green eyes stared into the window from less than twenty feet away.

“Oh fuck!” I stifled the exclamation at the last second. I was out of bed in another second, and into my pants before the glow disappeared. Snatching up the shotgun from where it rested near the bed, I checked the load while I was getting into my boots.

Katherine came to her feet, and the blankets piled around the middle of the bed, while she stared at me like I had seen a ghost. I had seen a ghost, or a ghoul, to be precise. And the son of a bitch was right outside the cabin.

“Ghoul,” I whispered, and she dropped down to find her clothes. I tossed the gun on the bed, shrugged into a shirt, and buttoned up the top. I glanced outside as I moved, watching for the green thing in the bushes, but it was gone.

I went to the front of the cabin with Katherine close behind. She didn’t even question; she just grabbed the handgun, popped the magazine and double-checked the load, slammed it into the piece, and then slid the top back to load a round. She followed as she performed the movements, all smooth, all by the book. I was impressed once again with the way she went about this. She was a seasoned pro, and I, the former military guy, was left looking a little frazzled.

I checked the windows, ducking low as I did so, but I sucked in a breath and stood up. Those things didn’t use guns; they attacked en masse and didn’t care for the consequences or losses. They were one step above mindless zombies—the monsters that had started the whole event. I hoped it was just one of the damn ghouls. I didn’t know how we would defend against a hundred of them. It had to be one, just like the zombie I killed in the woods earlier. It had to be a single ghoul, lost and alone in the woods.

Maybe I was just seeing things, just imagining the man with green eyes, the shape in the woods, and the impression of someone watching me with Katherine in bed. Fury filled me, and I gripped the shotgun tightly. I strode to the front door and opened it, letting it swing back wildly to bang against the wall. How dare one of those things invade my privacy. Was there no place free of them?

I had the irrational dread that they would overrun us, take us, eat our flesh, or change us into them. The details on the ghouls had been scarce, but Thomas had told me enough to scare me. He told me about how the things had become smarter, how they had seemed to be making plans and following through with them. How they drove the first zombies before them like an army. An army of the dead.

I aimed the gun in the wan light, but all I saw were half shapes—shadows of things that were barely visible in the three-quarter moon. The trees around the cabin made it twice as hard to see, rendering it darker than it should be.

I wanted the darkness now; I wanted to fade into it and hunt the monster down. It was just a dead man who would soon have no head. They didn’t have any special powers, and they certainly didn’t possess strength beyond that of a human. What they did have, from what I had witnessed in my few skirmishes with them, was a rage that went beyond anything I had ever seen before. Soldiers on the front line didn’t even act that insane. The ghouls had shrugged off wounds, gunshots, kicks to the head, and came on more pissed off than before.

“Where are you?” I whispered to myself as I panned the gun around the area.

I heard Katherine moving behind me on the porch. I risked a glance back, and found her leaning against a post that supported the porch roof, so she blended into the darkness like part of the cabin.

She blinked, her eyes bright white against the dark, and I grinned at her.

Turning, I took a step toward the woods and stopped right at the edge. I didn’t move, stood as still as I could for a few minutes, but I didn’t hear any movement. I was prepared to admit I was seeing things; one of those dreams you have in the day when you close your eyes for a few minutes. I had probably slipped into that half realm of sleep and didn’t even realize it. But as I prepared to go back to the cabin, I heard movement.

It was to the right, so I swung the gun that way. Then movement to the left. I backed up a step and panned the gun around me. Whipping my head around, I tried to focus on one sound, but movement in front of me threw me off.

I heard Katherine gasp and turned to look. She had taken a step down the stairs and stood on the bottom one, staring away from me, into the darkness. Following her gaze, I saw a figure move into the moonlight. It was a woman in torn clothing, and she moved like she was injured. I ran in that direction, gun locked against my shoulder.

“Hey, hey! Are you hurt?” I knew the words were stupid right after they came out of my mouth. She was a zombie—had to be. Living people didn’t move like that. That slow, shambling half-stagger like a drunk trying to look sober—but less coordinated.

I didn’t get a chance for further inquiries, as Katherine pulled the gun up to eye level, aimed, and put one right between the woman’s eyes. The woman stopped as if in shock, then sank to her knees and fell face forward into the dirt with a finality that sickened me. Her arms didn’t even flop; her legs and arms didn’t twitch.

I spun around as something crunched across the grass, catching sight of an enormous man with no shirt on, who moved in slow motion. He was dressed like a farmer—overalls on, suspenders half off of his massive frame. His mouth was missing its jaw, and ribbons of flesh swayed from his head, just like they did at his open gut. I followed my girlfriend’s actions by raising the gun and blowing his head off.

No matter what you think about me from reading this tale, I do not take any pleasure in killing. I flinched when I did it. I don’t think taking a life is an action that anyone should ever contemplate, let alone perform. But it was necessary, and the fact that they weren’t exactly alive helped propel me along the path to becoming a mass murderer.

His head half-disappeared, and he fell backwards as the buckshot threw him off his feet.

Katherine’s gun popped a couple of times behind me, so I spun around. She was contending with a pair of zombies that came out of the woods. From what I saw of them, it looked like they were on a hiking trip before they died. An older man and woman, they were both covered in blood. He stooped as he staggered, and, despite missing an arm, his backpack remained on one shoulder. He carried it low, like some bizarre hunchback.

They both dropped, and I had to back up as three more came out of the woods toward me. Curse the night. It made them almost impossible to see unless they were right in front of us. I fired low, intent on at least hitting them if I couldn’t make a headshot. I was backing toward the cabin, gun level, and I knew that Katherine had my back. The gun fired again, this time twice, and one more of the things dropped.

I moved toward her, toward the sounds she made as she lifted the gun and fired. At one point, I thought I was right next to the cabin, but I was much farther away than I estimated, and I took a look back. I met her eyes, and they gleamed in the dark. While I hated killing the people in front of us, she loved it.