The zombie's enthusiasm is not matched by his speed. I guess, in its defense, it really is just a torso at this point. It's arms no more than chewed up stumps ending before the elbows, and nothing left of its legs at all, except the torn remnants of his blue jeans, trailing behind with ropes of intestine.
The more of it to emerge from underneath the truck, the harder it gets to look at it. Finally, I lose patience with its snail-like pace and chop it in the back of the head with my axe, putting it out of its misery. I probably should have waited though, because now it's up to me to drag the rest of its corpse all the way out.
I stare down at the creature, its head and shoulders are really the only part visible, and there isn't anywhere I can even grab that isn't crusted in gore. I go back inside the truck and start searching for a pair of gloves. It is winter, even if this is Kentucky and much warmer than I'm used to, besides, what self-respecting person doesn't carry a pair of gloves in the apocalypse? I have two pair in my bag, one is mine, and the other pair belongs to Silas, but I don't want to gum them up if I don't have to. I find what I'm looking for in the passenger side door, and nearly let out a shout of elation- but of course that would be extremely dumb.
Back outside I scan the parking lot for any sign of danger, but so far, my luck is holding. Then I throw on the gloves and grab the zombie underneath its armpits and begin dragging. He's surprisingly heavy for not being an entire whole of a person. I drag him a few inches before his stumps flip up and I lose my grip and land hard on my butt with the zombie practically in my lap. I resist the urge to scream in frustration and just general grossness and pull myself to my feet. This time I grab him by his shirt and pull, but one good tug and the shirt completely rips in half. It's already in bad shape where the zombies chewed through it to get to the guys insides. I manage to stay on my feet this time, but my anger is building. I take off the gooey gloves and leave them on the ground next to the body before I start digging through Silas' bag.
I cut a length of rope off the coil he always keeps in there, and then put the gloves back on and tie one end tightly around the zombie's neck. When that's accomplished, I loop the rope around my gloved hand several times and start to pull. The crunching and popping of the zombie's vertebrae makes my skin crawl, but I keep going and slowly he starts to emerge from beneath the truck-kind of like a butterfly coming out from its cocoon, but opposite and disgusting. I stop when I can see the pocket of his jeans.
It's a cool day but I'm sweating like crazy. I stare at him for a minute, nervous to even check, in case they aren't there. I can see from the bumped-up fabric that there is something in there and after a moment of staring at it assessing, I reach with the gloves and try to find out what it is. The gloves won't fit though, and now I have a dilemma. This zombie is head to toe covered in blood, some of it red, but most of it zombified black sludge, there is no way in hell I'm putting my bare hand into a zombie's mystery pocket.
I pull my knife from my hip as the idea hits me and slice his pocket open, careful not to stab the skin too much and create an even bigger mess. A black key fob falls out onto the ground, along with a bunch of loose change and I can't help but grin as I snatch it up. I toss the gloves down beside the body and grab my pack as I head back towards the truck.
This time when I open the door, it lets out a faint dinging sound that wasn't there before, and when I toss my bag into the passenger seat and press start. The truck fires right up. I let out a laugh, but it almost instantly turns into tears of relief that I quickly wipe away as I put the truck into drive and peel out of the parking lot.
I take a deep breath and push my stupid girly emotions to the side. First thing first, getting this truck and supplies was a huge win, but now I need to be smart and think like Silas. I'm basically driving along the main artery road leading into Louisville, it's probably the worst thing I could be doing. I could be spotted, taken hostage and robbed of all my newly gained goods. I turn off on the first road that comes up. If the clock on the dash can be believed, its already a bit past noon. My first instinct is to drive right through the gates of Louisville and bust Silas free, but that isn't something I could in reality pull off. I need to have some patience, pull over for the night, find somewhere to store all this stuff, and make a real plan.
I drive for a little while longer until I come to an area along the road that is surrounded by trees. It's pretty-well covered from view on all sides but directly north and south of me, so I pull over for a minute and pull the map out of Silas's bag. I don't want to just head off all willy-nilly and get myself lost. I find this road on the map and add a small star beside it, so I'll be able to find my way back to the highway. I drive a little further, making a few random turns until the houses start getting more and more spaced out. Finally, I know I'll just have to pick one. I tell myself sternly that I will pick the very next house I come across that has a garage.
Probably sooner than my nerves would like, I come up to another house. I'm tempted to skip it and tell myself, the next house, but that could have me doing that all day and it's a huge waste of fuel. I slow down as I approach the driveway, my eyes scanning the yard, not just for a sign of the dead, but for a sign of the living too. I want to avoid both whenever possible.
The yard is overgrown and doesn't seem like there has been any activity in months. The grass in the driveway is tall and even when I squint, it doesn't look like any tire tracks have driven over it in a while. No smoke is visible around or coming from the house and there is an attached garage- everything on my checklist. I slowly pull into the driveway, still expecting a barrage of bullets to rain down at any minute, but nothing happens. I circle the yard before pulling up in front of the house. Nothing pops out and staggers towards the truck, which is a good sign. I didn't sleep a wink all night and my energy is beginning to flag. I'm not sure how much I have left in me if there is going to be an onslaught of zombies, or a fight of any kind.
I slowly get out of the truck and shut the door as quietly as possible, pulling my gun from my hip. I don't want to mess around trying to use my knife when I'm only one person, and I don't know what to expect on the other side of the door. I go up to the front door and test the door handle. It's locked, of course. I knock on the door and wait to see what happens, but nobody living, or dead comes to answer.
I don't really want to smash a window and jeopardize the security of the house if I don't have to, so instead I go around the corner and start walking around the side, testing every window as I find them, all locked, except for one that is probably too small for me to squeeze through. I turn another corner and come up to the back door. I test the handle, not feeling too hopeful, but it turns without resistance. I blink in surprise as I slowly take my hand off the door knob and knock instead. I don't hear any mad scrabbling on the other side of the door, so I turn the knob again, this time opening it. I wait, bracing for something to come running out at me, but it doesn't. I'm nervous to go inside, but I'm also not thrilled to stand out here in the open with a bunch of trees at my back, so that fact soon drives me inside to take my chances within four sturdy walls.
I enter a linoleum tiled room with shelves lined up for boots and shoes. Its pretty tiny and its only a couple steps before I round the corner to a kitchen with the same floral linoleum pattern. It's clean, and quiet and doesn't look disturbed at all. I glance around at the woodgrain cabinets and wonder if there's going to be any food inside, or if it's already been cleaned out. This house is off the beaten path, it might not have been scavenged yet. My stomach growls at the thought, but I ignore it for now. I've got to finish clearing the rest of the house before I can see to any comforts.
The kitchen leads to a living room, and two bedrooms. I check the closets in each with my gun up and at the ready, but so far nothing scary pops out at me. I decide to skip the attached garage until the end and head upstairs instead. The smell hits me when I reach the top of the stairs and my stomach sinks- I knew this was too good to be true.
My heart pounds as I take in the three closed doors. Part of me wishes I could just walk away and leave the doors shut, but if there are zombies in here, and something definitely smells dead, I don't want them somehow getting out of this room while I'm sleeping and coming to feast on my flesh. I go up to the first room and knock gently, pressing my ear closer to hear if there's any movement inside. I wait a couple minutes, but hear nothing, so I push the door open with more bravado than I feel and step back, gun up, and ready.
Nothing rushes out at me and I slowly step into the room and do a quick once over. It's a bedroom, by the looks of it, the master. It has a perfectly made bed, a closet with the door open, that I can see from here is empty. I slowly sniff the air, but the smell isn't as strong in this room as it was in the hall.
"Okay." I mutter to myself as I creep back into the hallway and shut the door soundly behind me. I repeat the same thing at the second door and again nothing. It's another bedroom, this one looks like it belonged to a teenage boy. Blue bedding on the small twin bed, and lots of sports trophy's jammed on every shelf. A new looking mac book sits on the desk and again, not the source of the dead smell. That only leaves the third bedroom.
My stomach knots up with anxiety as I move back out into the hall and again shut the door to the boy's bedroom. It's something Silas taught me, until the entire house is cleared, don't leave doors open for the zombies to wander around and mislead you. Not that zombies have ever run away from people, but it's still good advice and following it, gives me a small piece of mind. I knock on the third bedroom door, bracing myself for the thud of a zombie, hopefully just one, throwing themselves up against the wood in a frenzy. It doesn't come.
"What in the hell?" I ask myself out loud as I stare at the door. Maybe I will get lucky and this zombie has some kind of injury that keeps it from moving too quickly. I take a deep breath, before realizing that wasn't the smartest idea with the rot smell pungent in the air, and then I throw open the door and step back. The smell is worse in this room, and I wish I could cover my nose, but I've got to keep my gun up, so I just hold my breath instead. It's not a bedroom like I had thought, but a small bathroom, and at first glance I see nothing out of order.
I'm confused. I definitely smell it in here, but why hasn't the zombie run out and tried to eat me yet? There is a small closet and I slowly creak it open, but its only full of towels. The only possibility left... I reach out and pull the shower curtain out of the way and the vision in the tub has me having to turn away as I cough and fight down the bile that rises in the back of my throat. I race out of the bathroom and slam the door shut behind me, but its almost impossible to erase the image of the rotting body from my mind.
Dead body it was, zombie it was not. It looked like probably the father had been bitten, and rather than turn into a monster, he took matters into his own hands and saved himself from a hellish afterlife. I blink several times but the image of the blood splatter on the backsplash of the tub, dotted with pieces of skull fragments, and the overall decomposition of the body, it makes me shudder.
I walk down the stairs slowly, feeling a blanket of sadness settle over my shoulders. I'm not dumb, I know millions, probably billions of people have probably lost their lives to the dead in one way or another but coming across stuff like that and getting a peak into the suffering and anguish they must have felt- makes it hard. This is probably selfish, but I don't like it when the millions have faces and stories to haunt me.
I clear the garage next- which is easy because its empty, not even a vehicle inside, and I really hope that means that the rest of the family got away and is somewhere safe right now. I'm starting to get hit with exhaustion after the anticlimactic end to all this adrenaline surging through my body, but I need to get the truck inside and out of sight first. I use a step ladder to get up to the roof and pull the red garage door cord that's dangling from overhead. It releases the door from the lifting mechanism so I'm able to manually pull the door up without electricity. It's a little difficult to get going, but once it starts to slide, it goes up easy enough- thankfully the door is relatively new. Silas and I have really had to work at some of the older doors in the past.
I get the truck inside the garage without incident and pull the door back down, again, its difficult to get started, and I'm sweating by the time it's done. I know I have food inside the truck, but if I don't have to do anymore lifting and screwing around today in order to eat, I will be lazy and take the easy road.
I head to the kitchen instead and start checking out all the cupboards. There isn't a ton of food, but its not been cleaned out. I actually let myself groan out loud in excitement when I come across the cans of ravioli. I dig around until I find the can opener and a spoon and then I scarf the whole thing down cold. I could have built a fire, like Silas would have done, but I'm too tired and hungry.
I think about downing another can, but my shrunken stomach is already feeling too close to full, so I file the idea under, maybe later, and keep digging around. I find some crackers, and a couple cans of pop, which I crack open right away and chug about half the can before letting out an enormous belch. I pile all the food I find in the middle of the counter as I find it and tell myself that I'll find a box or something for it later. I raid the bedrooms for a pile of blankets and pillows and then settle in on the couch downstairs- I can't bring myself to sleep upstairs with the corpse in the tub. It isn't even four pm, and sunlight is still shining through the window, but I can barely keep my eyes open.
I try and ignore the fatigue though and sit with a pen and notebook I found in a desk drawer and try to outline a decent plan. I need to find the others still, but I have no idea where they are, and Silas has become more of a priority. He is the one that I know is in danger and if I can get him back, he will be here to help me find Dad and the others. It's the most logical solution to save Silas first- I just have no idea how. I'm only one girl and I have no real training- just the things I've picked up from Silas along the way.
I write Silas's name at the top of my paper and then for lack of anything else to write, I draw a big circle around his name. I sit and stare at it while the paper starts to blur in front of my eyes, but I fight it. Inspiration hits me and I write the word Louisville underneath. I look around until I see Silas's backpack sitting in the chair across the room and get up and bring it over to the couch with me. I dig through it until I come up with the map of the area and spread it out on the table to examine it. I let out a huff of frustration as I stare at it so long my eyes start to blur. I am seriously the worst person to be launching a rescue mission- it would have been much better if I had been the one taken. Silas would have known exactly what to do to get me back.
I look closely at the area around Louisville, not sure what I'm looking for. I notice the way the river runs along one side of the city and I write that down on the paper, not sure yet if it's a pro or a con to my situation. They don't really guard it that closely because its impenetrable to zombies, but if I had a boat, I could cross the river and sneak up the banks...
I chew the pen, deep in thought for a minute, before tossing it down in frustration. It isn't a halfway bad idea, except that I have no idea how to find a boat, or even operate it if I did... and the idea of going back in that water terrifies me. I think about what I do know. The rest of the city is barricaded off between tall chain link fences and makeshift metal and cement barricades. I could find some bolt cutters and cut a hole in the chain link- but that would leave the town defenseless if zombies got inside once I walked away and left a hole in their defenses.
Some of the people in that place don't deserve the safety those walls provide, but a lot of the people I saw were just women and children trying to survive in a world gone to hell. I can't have their blood on my hands.
Third option, I could try and appeal to their humanity. We didn't mean to let the zombies eat Doctor Ruppert, it was an accident. She was an evil woman that did terrible things to Jack. The mayors mother seemed to like us, and we did save her from the zombies when we came across her car broke down on the side of the road that time, but her son looked like he might be a wild card, and there was something I didn't like about him- so no guarantee there either.
No one solution is really sticking out as perfect, but so far, the best one appears to be me going back to the river that almost killed me, unless I can think of something else, and right now I can't. This time when my eyes start to blur, I don't fight it. I toss the pen down on the table and lean back against the pillows- maybe a better solution will stick out at me in the morning.