Timothy Long - Beyond the Barriers

They both nodded, but I couldn’t tell if they believed me or not. Maybe they just wanted a shred of hope to overcome the desire to kill. I had the very same feelings, but I suppressed them and focused on getting us out of here.

There were nods all around, and before they could even finish passing my words back, I was on the move. I grabbed Scott, and we took off for the woods. We tried to stay low, but it was hard to see in the dark. We moved across the ground, hiding behind what cover we could find. Stacks of wood and rotted enclosures provided a slim hope of staying out of sight.

Rain continued to pelt the survivors. Everyone was slow and sluggish, including me. I felt like I was beaten down, and I hadn’t even started in the woods. Glancing up at the moon, I tried to figure out where I was, but there was barely a splash of white through the heavy clouds.

It was almost impossible to see anything ahead of us. Scott seemed at home moving at night, staying out of the line of those things’ eyes. It wasn’t easy, but someone who paid attention could do it. We had to be aware of our surroundings at all times. We had to be ready for the creature that stumbled around a corner. And it was just such a creature that almost proved our undoing.

Scott moved ahead of the group, while I hung back and kept an eye on the survivors. There were fifteen or twenty of us, and we were all worn to the bone. The others in the cage—I didn’t know how long they had been there. Each was filthy and smelled terrible. I was no cleaner, I’m sure, but I had only been locked in the place for a few days. I don’t know how long they were in there.

As I helped an older woman to her feet, I heard a loud grunt from ahead.

Scott grappled with someone in the dark, so I dashed ahead and found it was one of the dead. A man about my size, missing the top of his skull. He was dressed in rags, and reminded me of one of the caged people we had helped free. I went after him, but I was so weary it was hard to put one foot in front of the other, let alone think about fighting.

Scott went down, and I was there to help. Grabbing the zombie by the pants, I hauled him off. It was like picking up a ton of potatoes. The zombie swung his arm back, but I batted at it and pushed him aside. I reached for Scott, but recoiled when he stuck his arm out.

“I’m not fucking bit.”

“You sure?”

“Oh, I’m sure. I would know if I got some skin ripped off.”

The guy was trying to get back up, so I pushed him down by driving my foot into his ass. He went flat and cried out in a low moan, but started to move again soon after. I grabbed Scott by the arm and helped him to his feet. He brushed at his soaking wet clothing lamely.

Then Scott stepped on the back of the man’s head. I have seen a lot of pain and suffering since I returned to the world, but there was something sickening about the way the zombie’s head was crushed into the dirt. The way it mushed and the bones ground together.

Scott looked rather pleased with himself. I shook my head and moved on.

Staring back at the camp, I felt rage flood my body. Maybe it was from the death of the undead that I had just witnessed, but I wanted nothing more than to go back and annihilate the camp. If I had a big enough gun, I would have done just that, even if it meant me dying.

The woods were a canopy of misery. Sounds came from all around us as the rain continued to fall.

Haley was waiting for us inside the woods. She gave me a questioning look, but I shook my head. We pressed on, me in the lead as I tried to be a leader. I had no idea where I was, and there wasn’t even a moon to follow. How long had I been in the cage and never thought to mark the passage of our one orbital body? Or maybe I had and hunger and exhaustion had simply stolen away my memories, made me weak and confused.

I struck out between a pair of trees that led down a slight hill. At the bottom, we came across a stream. I almost wept in relief; at last, water!

I ran toward it, but slowed when I nearly tripped over something on the wet ground. Under the leaves and fallen branches, something crunched. As I drew close, the darkness played tricks on my eyes. Studying the ground, I thought I saw bones. They had to be branches or sticks, but it must have been the stress of being around all the dead things that did it to me.

The smell was the second hint. It hit me like a weight, as the scent went from clean rain and forest to rot.

As I closed in on the riverbed, I tripped on something and went down. I stuck my hands out, but I still hit pretty hard. The breath whooshed out of me, and when I got one back in, I regretted it. Slowly, I looked around the place where I had fallen, a few inches from the edge of the water. It was littered with bones.

Scott gave a low groan, as if in pain.

We huddled close to the water as we fought to catch our breath. I stared at the slow stream as it meandered by, wishing more than anything I could drink from it. The bones of the dead were everywhere. Chunks of meat and rotted tissue made a slippery surface for us to navigate.

Sounds to the side, near the break in the woods, caught my attention. A voice hissed at us. I turned to regard the approaching cluster of people. They stared at us, and I stared back. Scott must have recognized one of them, because he rose on shaky legs and approached them. They talked quietly. It was still dark, but I saw his head turn toward the stream, then toward us. He shook his head. The group of three moved off.

“Friends?” I inquired when Scott rejoined us.

“From another enclave. We used to trade with them. I can’t remember names but one of the guys was familiar. They are going deep in the woods. Lick their wounds. I don’t think they want company.”

I wondered if it was better for us to stick together. We would make more noise crashing through the forest, surely making ourselves a larger target for the ghouls to track. I started thinking of tactics against the undead.

In my years in the military, I was trained to think like that. Had I forgotten so much? Though tired, barely able to rise to my feet, we crept off into the night and away from the water and its filth. One drink from that stream would probably be the end of us.

As we walked, I went over old training exercises and tried to apply them to this situation. We were outnumbered, so guerrilla tactics would be best. Stay light and mobile, scope out the enemy, and only engage when we had the advantage. So strike one. We had neither the advantage in weapons nor the ability to hide and move, for we had no idea where we were.

We had nothing in the way of weaponry, but like all good primates, we could scrounge up clubs or staffs from fallen branches. My focus swept the ground as we staggered through the woods. I finally found something useful: a heavy stick about three feet long with a large knot in the end.

It was just in time too, as a walking corpse stumbled from between two trees. I stepped toward it so I was no longer in the light. He or she was still a few feet away, but I had to be sure. It could be a refugee from the camp—someone like us who spent days or maybe weeks in captivity and was now trying to survive.

The weird preternatural glow to the thing’s eyes gave it away. Not quite a ghoul, but still brighter than the dead we had encountered thus far. I didn’t need any further prompting. I swung the stick around in nothing approaching a graceful manner. The club came up in an arc that stretched from my knees to my shoulders, driving the heavy end into the zombie’s head.

It went over without making a sound and didn’t move. Panting in the dark, I stood over it and worked on catching my breath.

There was nothing quiet about our steps as we crashed through the forest. We took to the woods and let our fading adrenaline drive us along. I didn’t have much left, and I couldn’t imagine they had much more than I did.