The Village of Dead Souls: A Zombie Novel (36 page)

Through a sliver of gray light strapped across the road, the small band of humans appeared
briefly
before
vanishing
back into the darkness. Bartholomew whispered, "They didn't look like soldiers."

Patricia answered, "They might still have weapons. The glimpse we had was too brief to see if they are armed."

The voices and footsteps grew louder as the group of living came within view inside the gray light. They did not appear to be military and showed no signs of weapons. It looked to be several families searching for a safe location. They carried large backpacks stuffed to capacity with additional gear attached to the outside. Their clothes looked to be mismatched items
,
showing many years of wear and
they
hung
loosely
on their bodies. A few of them pulled wagons overflowing with bundles of supplies. The humans became too
involved
in their own
conversation
to notice three undead
stepping
onto the road and
following
behind them. As one of the re-ans shuffled a
foot
on the gravel, a young
woman
in the
group
of
livings
noticed and casually turned her head to check the source of the sound.

Spotting the zombies in the distance, she quickly alerted the others and they immediately ran down the road to escape the danger. As they entered a shadowed section of the road, twenty more re-ans sprang out of the trees and pounced on them
,
like lions on prey.

The humans screeched and howled in fear
,
as they tried to fight off the dead who were armed with swords and pikes. The men circled around the women trying to protect them. They pulled out baseball bats and heavy wood clubs, swinging wildly at their attackers. The primitive weapons would make contact with the living dead
,
but would not do more than knock them down. Using swords and pikes, the re-ans impaled several men and slashed across some of the women. Blood sprayed and spurted across the group as several of the humans fell to the ground with their intestines spilling out onto the road.

One of the human males stepped out of the group and smashed one of the older grays with a bat. The impact was so intense
that
it crushed the re-ans head like a melon. Another zombie jumped on the man's back
,
and bit into the lower part of his neck
,
where it joined with the shoulder. Lifting his head, the undead attacker pulled a large chunk of flesh out, between his teeth, with blood gushing from the wound and pouring out of the dead soul's mouth. Bartholomew ran his sword through the man's stomach and partially into the re-an still on livings back. The man fell to the ground with the zombie still on top of him. The living person went silent
,
as the undead assailant frantically rolled around on the ground
,
screaming in pain
,
grabbing his head and pulling at his skin. He even tore pieces of his own flesh off as if it
were
the cause his agony.

The other living dead, surrounding the pile of humans, quickly turned to watch their fellow clan member on the ground. Most of the humans lay dead
,
while the others
who
remained partially alive slowly
tried
to crawl away from the pile
,
releasing low moans interjected with some hissing.

Watching the zombie
convulse
with pain, Prometheus asked, "Why does he thrash about in such pain?"

Bartholomew shook his head in despair
,
and answered, "He bit the flesh of a human who has the fire." He swung his sword across the screaming re-an's
throat,
severing his head and silencing his screams.

Midnight walked around the pile of living victims scanning each individual body. "All of these livings have been injected with the antivirus." She pointed to a woman drenched with blood
,
who had a gash cut down her front
,
and she
was
missing part of one arm from the elbow down. The human used her intact arm
, trying
to pull herself along the ground
and
leaving a wide trail of crimson mud. "This one here does not have the black inside her. I don't think she's been injected."

The pirate captain took out his dagger from his belt, stepped over to the woman, bent over her and carved out a handful of flesh from the human's shoulder. The woman screamed and hissed as she tried to hammer the undead man with her good arm. Bartholomew dismissed her efforts to fight back and tossed the chunk of flesh to one of the re-ans circled around the pile of humans. "Here ya go. Ya be testing this to see if it be holding the fire."

The zombie, who caught the piece of shoulder muscle, took a large bite and chewed it up with blood oozing down the corners of his mouth. The others watched in silence to see if he would fall to the ground in pain. A few seconds passed and the re-an shoved the remaining piece of flesh into his mouth with no ill effects.

"It be seeming she is clean of da fire." Bartholomew said as he reached down and cut a large square from the woman's leg while she continued to scream and roll on the ground. He tossed the piece of leg muscle to Salsa. "This be for you, me lady."

The former dancer, now wearing universal camouflage clothing, caught the piece of flesh and quickly bit into it. Blood dripped down her military jacket
,
as she used her palm to force the large raw meat into her mouth. As the pirate stepped away from the woman
, who was
still clinging by a thread to life, the other undead pounced on her like a flock of vultures
on
a fresh kill. It took another minute
,
before the ear piercing screams and moans from the woman buried at the bottom of re-ans, ceased.

* * *

Daniel struck his knife against the piece of flint
,
sending white sparks into the dry kindling
,
igniting a fire underneath the small still constructed from scavenged parts. The main pot was an old pressure cooker with the handle broken off. It sat on top of two rocks with the fire between them. A copper tube connected to the steam vent ran into the lid of an insulated sports bottle. A second tube carried the steam out of the container through a long coiled section with the condensed alcohol dripping into a plastic Sponge Bob
Square Pants
cup.

He blew on the embers to heat it up and
then
turned back to Pink
,
who sat in front of the main fire warming her hands. As he sat down, he explained, "We need the alcohol to sterilize cuts and wounds. If the military comes through with the two hundred pounds of
corn,
they promised us, we can build a larger still and make enough to power the
generators.
Maybe
we can even get one of the vehicles running." Daniel said as he walked away from the
boiler
and sat next to her on the log.

Pink continued to stare at the fire and replied, "We're not in the real world any more. You don't have to rationalize it."

With a quizzical expression, he glanced at her and replied, "I don't understand."

"This isn't the society where we grew up and lived. There are no more rules here other than to survive. If you want to sip some moonshine, get a buzz going
,
and forget about our fate for
a while
, nobody's going to arrest you, judge you, or
even
care. The morality we once used as our measurement of decency no longer exists in this caveman world."

The scientist reached into his backpack lying next to the log and pulled out a plastic bottle labeled carpet cleaner. Unscrewing the cap, he tilted it up and took a swig. Offering it to Pink, he said, "I made this last week. I found a Juniper tree with just enough berries to make a batch. It has a little more flavor than the rice moonshine."

Pink took a swig from the bottle and handed it back to him with little reaction to the taste or the strength. "You need a bigger bump keg and longer condensation coil. You're getting some methanol bleed through and losing some alcohol from evaporation."

Daniel glanced at the plastic bottle. "You got all that from one sip?"

“All these years, you've
been distilling in your fancy lab. You had clean conditions, controlled temperatures and cultured yeast. You were doing it for research
purposes,
but I'm sure you occasionally thought you were so bad when you snea
ked
a sip. Out here," Pink waved her hand at the surrounding forest, "we've been mashing in caves and bunkers for our survival. We learned
that
once you light that pot, you have to post guards. If the smell didn't draw nomads and
wanderers set
on hijacking your stash, it would bring the
Ravens,
which meant the re-ans would be close behind." She turned toward the scientist. "We had to make the decision to use potato for food or shine. You would think it would be a no brainer and food would always win
,
but it's been years since I've eaten a potato. So yeah, I could tell all that from one sip. When we made our shine, we had to do it
quickly
and we had to do it right. "

"Great. We should put you in charge of distilling. There really is a need to use the alcohol for first aid and fuel."

She brought her attention back to the fire as the light in the dark orange and gray sky
,
continued to grow dim. "That's not why I'm here. If I wanted to make booze, I could have stayed out there."

A crack from the trees put Daniel on guard
,
and
he reached for his machete. Pink remained calm and stared at the flames dancing into the air. As the scientist calmed his alert, he relaxed and asked, "Why are you here?"

"I heard you had joined the cause and wanted to talk you out of it."

Daniel shook his head in disbelief. "I thought we were on the same side with the same goal. You don't still consider these creatures to be," he paused to think, "
What
did you call them back then, 'Second Lifers."

"We do have the same goal." She replied with a condescending tone. "I'm well aware of what these demons are. You are of no use out here."

"I want to fight until this planet is rid of these demons." Daniel turned back to the fire.

"As do I. But, we are never going to win with brute force. Look at us." She circled her hands at their small camp. "We're down to fighting with sticks and rocks. Every time we lose a soldier, they gain one more. The battle was lost on the first day and we just didn't see it."