Timothy Long - Beyond the Barriers

“Who are we to judge?” I wondered out loud.

“Fuck that, man. This is a new world. A world that sucks, sure, but it’s ours, and we have to shape it or we are dead. All of us will become creepers like those things. Do you want to wander around like that? I sure don’t. Not me.”

“I don’t think we should have the power to decide who lives and dies.”

“Really, Erik? So then what the hell are we doing now, if we shouldn’t be judge, jury, and executioner?” Scott shot back.

“He’s got you there, boss.” Jack said, leaning back and putting his hands behind his head as he stared at the sky. He hummed a song as we drove on.

Scott did have a good point, but this wasn’t simply about judging. This was about eradicating a cancer from the earth. This was about vengeance. This was about taking out every one of those undead bastards so they never again held people against their will. I would err on the side of humanity when it came down to it.

We took the turnoff and drove past the spot where I’d tossed Lee out on his ass. There was no sign of him. I might have had a change of heart and put him down after all.

It wasn’t much longer before we came across the battle scene. Most of the bodies were gone, but there were spent shells all over the ground.

We sat in the idling car for a moment, staring at the spot. Haley’s body was still lying there, alone, next to a puddle of water that had been my salvation for all of two minutes. I got out without a word and went to her. She looked pathetic with her face to the side, one arm over her head, the other crooked against her body. Her legs were splayed open, so I pushed them together, but resisted the urge to touch her. There was a familiar smell to her—that rotted stench like fish guts left in a bucket. It could have been from the cage; we might have all smelled like it.

I skirted the area with my rifle held low, but nothing moved in the woods, even when I moved into the trees a bit. Scott and Jack dragged branches to Haley and covered her as best they could. We didn’t speak as we got back in the truck and drove off.

“I think this might cut into the camp. The road hasn’t seen much use, but I have a feeling it is in that direction,” Scott said. He was pointing at the dirt path. There was a mailbox that read ‘Johnson,’ but it was hanging off the post like someone had run into it with a car.

We had been up and down the area, over and around the back streets, and while we had escaped at night, I was reasonably sure that we were in the right location. I jumped out of the truck, puffing up dust with my beat-up boots, then moved to the edge of the woods that rose in a low fence around the pathway.

I would have given just about anything for a suppressor for the gun. It was an older AR-15, much like the gun I used back when we were at the Walmart, but this one had seen a lot of use. Half a dozen magazines weighed me down, and I planned to use as many of them as possible.

“I’ll take a look. Hang back for a second. If you hear gunfire, come in with guns blazing.”

“What if a bunch of boy scouts are camping in there?” Scott grinned.

“Then come in singing Kumbaya, mother fucker.” I faded into the tree line.

The woods weren’t as dense as I remembered, and it would be about my luck to have chosen the wrong location. I crept ahead, feet placed softly, gun raised, as I tried to not step on any branches or into holes. Light streamed in from breaks in the trees, but, for the most part, it was dark and gloomy. It smelled fresh, the wet earth and trees. There was no stench of the dead carried on the wind here.

I did my best to head in a westerly direction. I had affixed a tiny compass I found in the tip of a survival knife to the stock of the gun, and I followed it west. When I came to a fallen tree, I had to lower the gun to slide over it. As I came up from a crouch, I caught movement ahead.

The ground here was covered in pine needles, and each step was a crunch that sounded, to my ears, like I was stepping on bubble wrap. I kept expecting a group of the dead to swarm me as I crept toward them.

It reminded me of the day I came across the zombie in the woods near the cabin. Katherine and I had been together then, and I was fiercely protective of her, even though she would have likely picked up an axe and buried it in the thing’s head as fast as I would have.

The zombie was near the ground, low, and it was grunting. I assumed it was a man from his frame. Big and blocky, but bent over. If he wasn’t a zombie, I hoped it didn’t stand up too fast and end up with a bullet in his head.

With my thumb, I snapped the safety off. The click was so loud, I was sure everyone in a one-mile radius heard it, but the guy kept on doing whatever he was doing.

I drew to within a few feet of the man before he pulled up from the ground long enough for me to get an idea of what I was dealing with. It wasn’t even male. It was a woman with a bloated body, grunting over a prize. Her mouth was covered in blood and viscera; she chewed a mass of congealed matter while blood leaked down her chin and onto the ground. The sound was disturbing, like hearing a bear chew on a hunk of flesh.

She drew back, showing her teeth, and moaned. I kept my cool and shouldered the weapon. Reaching to my waist, I retrieved a long machete that had turned up at the slaughterhouse. It was stained red, but not from rust. I suspected they put animals down with it, probably with a slice across the throat. The most impressive thing had been the edge. It was almost sharp enough to split a hair. It did a good job of lifting the hair off a patch of my arm.

She moaned and snarled, but I wasn’t in the mood for zombie bullshit. I didn’t give her a chance to turn around and stand up. Instead, I moved forward and stepped to the side, so the overhanging tree wouldn’t stop my blow, then I buried the blade in the side of her head.

Adrenaline and the rancid aftertaste of energy drinks made me want to throw up. The sound was like hitting a cantaloupe with a knife. It sank in deep, and when I tried to withdraw it, the damn thing stuck.

I held on with both hands as her body spasmed. Still, to this day, I do not understand why massive damage to the brain kills the creatures. They are already dead; removing a limb just makes them mad. But for some reason, when you put some lead—or a blade—in their brainpans, they go down like a sack of potatoes.

It was the same for this one. She hit the ground and didn’t get back up. I got a glance at her prize, which was a leg. The end was partially eaten away, but it was still dressed. Male or female, I couldn’t tell from the shredded foot that was just a mass of gore hanging from the end. I turned away before the sight could get to me. After many months of this, I should be used to it. So much for having an iron gut.

There was a pair of zombies wandering near the edge of the woods, but I avoided them and moved farther along the perimeter. Within moments, I found what I was looking for.

By the light of day, it wasn’t nearly as ominous, but it was still the camp, and it still looked like a scene of hell. The cages lay like discarded hunks of metal, and some still housed inhabitants. We might have missed them during our escape, or they might have brought more people in during the night.

I came in at the wrong angle, and now I couldn’t see the little shack where the ghouls hung out. I would have to kill any that got in my way as I burned a path of destruction through the maze. Caution would be needed, and Scott and I had already discussed that. I didn’t want any of my fellow humans dying. Some might even be from Lisa’s band of survivors, and that would weight heavy on my already addled mind.