Zombie Killer

ILLER

  Ken Beers

  Copyright 2014 by Ken Beers

  Jack stalked amid dense undergrowth, warily creeping through azaleas, hibiscus, and other landscape plants run amok and tangled with thick tropical vines, tracking the disturbance up ahead. He was again thankful that nature’s random growth pattern always left him enough room to skulk along through intertwining plants. Mosquitoes buzzed angrily around his head, out from lurking under leaves where they had waited for something large and filled with blood to come along.

  As far as he knew, Jack was the largest remaining land mammal, one of the few things for the mosquitoes to feed on. He smiled at the strange honor. The mosquitoes didn’t bother him with their biting, he was used to that, but he didn’t like their buzzing. The mosquitoes were at his ears haphazardly, flying up and retreating. Loud and soft – pause – loud and soft, probing and retreating without rhythm. He imagined it might drive him crazy someday.

  It was unusual for him to hunt in the overgrown areas alongside the road, but there wasn’t another good way to get where he was going. He had heard a moan of hunger echoing above the trees as he patrolled the area, and he sprinted off toward it. As he followed the roads and ran low to the ground in a way that didn’t tire him, the noise kept moving away as if guided by consciousness, which of course, it wasn’t. He wondered at that, since normally zombies lumbered along aimlessly. Eventually he was frustrated with the pursuit and headed through the bushes, trying to cut the creature off, but risking a fight where plants hindered his movements.

  For Jack killing zombies started as a safety issue, but was now more a sport than a necessity. Sometimes he felt like killing them, and he didn’t question the morality since zombies were dead and disposable and needed killing anyway. Jack made one exception. Back at the tree house Jack called Home Base, Jack let “Fat Zombie” live, almost like a pet. Fat Zombie was Jack’s ex-father. Jack had lived with his dead father ever since the man turned zombie, early in the outbreak. He could serve a purpose. Zombies clump together, and sometimes Fat Zombie collected a companion Jack would kill. But not today. Not most days.

  The noise was closer now. It excited him, and he felt his bloodlust rising. Its voice was low and loud, and that meant it might be a large, strong zombie – a challenge. Local zombies had been few and not particularly exciting, and Jack felt almost bad about killing them. Almost. He wasn’t really killing anything after all; he was just de-animating them. Stopping them. It wasn’t the same, even if they looked like people.

  For the previous two years, he had had plenty of challenging situations to keep him busy, but the zombie supply had started drying up recently. When he first noticed he was so eager for action he had gone to Miracle Mile, an area where they roamed by the thousands. That had been more than challenging; it was nearly suicidal. One zombie had brought others, and then they surrounded him until he was just trying to break free and find somewhere to run. At that point, it wasn’t fun anymore – he was truly afraid. He felt good afterwards, having survived, but he knew that the risk taken was too great. Keep thrill seeking and eventually you die.

  The bushes thinned out and allowed him to see farther. In the clearing ahead, there was a house with a concrete driveway. Like many Miami houses, the entire front yard was a driveway paved in concrete. Jack stayed hidden by the bushes at the edge of the concrete and kept perfectly still, all his senses tuned as tight as a piano string – waiting, watching.

  Jack watched as the zombie, big and grey-skinned with a stained and torn red shirt and ripped jeans, stumbled out from the corner of the house, its moldering head up, seeming to sniff the air. Something was attracting it, which explained why it didn’t follow a normal zombie amble. It was standing still now, trying to orient itself and find its prey. Jack hadn’t seen one act like this when he wasn’t the intended victim, and he observed it interestedly. There was no indication that it was aware of Jack’s presence in the close underbrush. It seemed to be attracted to the bushes on the other side of the driveway.

  It was standing still and attentive, when a dire scream gashed the silence and a girl fell forward onto the concrete from the overgrowth beyond the driveway. Jack was surprised but he didn’t move as he watched the scene unfold – his every muscle still and hard as if carved out of marble. The girl fell clumsily, and the zombie jerked, moaned, and turned its head as if it could see. It began to move toward her.

  Jack could see that the girl was no longer resisting or running – she was tired, giving up, and relinquishing herself to death. It was strange to see, the flatness of her eyes in spite of the horror that dragged its feet slowly along the concrete toward her. Her eyes were the eyes of a fish that’s been ashore too long, eyes dry and starting to fog over. The zombie continued to lurch nearer. Jack had not killed today. This zombie would certainly do. Jack stepped forward smoothly, like a large jungle cat emerging from the bush. His pulse pounded in his ears like the beat of war drums.

  Jill lay on the cold, hard ground exhausted, waiting for the teeth and hands that had torn her husband Mike’s body to take her life as well. She felt cold; there was no sensation in her legs or arms, the blood shunted to her core by the instinctive shock reaction of a hunted animal. She was thankful for the lack of pain, the numbness; she couldn’t think of anything worse than feeling herself gnawed to death. Strange, now that she was going to die – it didn’t seem to bother her. She leaned back, letting vulnerability take over, letting herself be taken. Here I am, she thought, about to die. To be eaten alive. Then one more thought came …

  How awful the world is.

  The creature came at her slowly, cautiously, like a confused dog confronting a snake that was playing dead, unable to understand the unresisting attitude of the prey. He must have had this happen before, she thought, surely this is the only way a clumsy creature like that could catch me–only if I quit. That thought almost got her up on her feet again, but she felt the numbness and she knew there was nowhere to run, nowhere to be safe. She had no protector left.

  As if in response to that thought, a sound came from across the driveway. Jill wondered if it was another zombie. Did it matter if there were two of them? But no, there stepped forward a large, lithe man, moving like a panther. He placed himself between her and the creature as he raised a heavy stick-like weapon. Somewhere inside herself, Jill felt optimism rising like a bubble from the bottom of a deep pool. The man’s tanned face looked tough as leather, his eyes were black, and they glittered with a fire of what looked like excitement.

  The creature turned to the man, and seemed more comfortable with the direct confrontation he represented. It lurched forward, and the man countered by sidestepping the attack. The man swung the weapon, an iron bar, at the creature as it passed him, and there was an audible crack of something breaking. The creature didn’t react with pain or even acknowledge the blow, but she guessed its arm was broken from the way it dangled at the thing’s side. The man had done damage, but victory seemed beyond possibility. Only, she thought, this didn’t seem like a mere man, but like a hunter himself, a zombie killer, unlike natural men. He seemed made for fighting. She dared hope.

  The man was circling the zombie, grasping the bar in front of himself with one hand palm up and the other palm down. A strong wind made noise in the trees above their heads, although it made very little breeze down below. The man’s face was a fixed mask now – it seemed less lively even than the zombie’s did. Only a slight sneer of confidence betrayed any feeling at all.

  Suddenly the zombie attacked, leading with its mouth open and its one remaining arm stretched out and clawing at the air. The man reacted quickly, stepping aside again like a bullfighter, moving to the broken-arm side and taking a low swing at the zombie as it passed. The bar crushed a kn
ee and the creature collapsed to the ground. It thrashed in frenzy there like a child having a tantrum. The man circled it slowly, the bar raised like a spear as he looked for a clear killing stroke. The woman watching meant to look away, but the strike happened so fast she didn’t actually see the weapon move – the bar just suddenly appeared in the monster’s head and it lay still and convulsed no more.

  She expected silence in accompaniment to stillness of the body, but the wind had picked up and was whipping the treetops wildly. The sky had darkened and the air had an ozone smell and she realized a thunderstorm was coming. The man looked over to her, as if he was noticing her for the first time. She was still lying down, using one arm to prop herself up. She knew her clothes were ragged, torn and stained, her skin covered in scratches and her hair tangled, so she knew she didn’t look good. He, on the other hand, looked handsome, his hair cut, poorly and obviously by himself, but cut, and his short dark beard trimmed. He had darkly tanned skin, and his brown hair was highlighted red from exposure to the sun. His age was hard to guess, maybe thirty?

  “Are you all right?” he asked, and