There were three zombies ahead, tied to metal stakes by heavy chains that rattled and dragged along the ground. They had been strategically positioned. Anyone trying to follow the narrow road into town would have to deal with them first. They weren't a foolproof plan to keep others out of the town, but they were definitely enough to slow us down.
Our progress stalled out in the middle of the road.
"What's the point of that? We can just walk around them." Alex voiced what we all had to be thinking. While the road was effectively blocked to anyone wanting to simply walk right on in without finding any trouble, straying thirty feet off to the side would put us well out of reach of the zombies. Besides, chained as they were, and in their current state of decay, they weren't moving very fast. We could have easily killed them.
"They're not a very effective deterrent," Colton squinted against the sun as he looked at the zombies and then beyond them, searching for any signs of life.
"I don't know," Bill replied slowly. "There has to be a reason someone risked catching them to put there. No one would do that without a good reason."
Raising a hand to shadow my eyes, I scanned the grassy fields leading to the edge of the town. They had been growing wild for long enough that a few small trees and thorn bushes had sprung up here and there. Honestly, with my dislike of forests and any other places where danger could easily sneak up on you, it looked like the perfect place for something dangerous to lurk to me. "A lot of things could be hiding in there. You'd never know until you were right on top of it," I let my hand drop.
"I think the two of you are probably right," Maggie nodded slowly as she scanned the area too. "We'll have to be careful if we go into the grass."
"We could just kill the zombies and take the road," Charlie rasped. "That would solve the problem of what may or may not be hiding out there. Stay on the road where we can see our own feet."
Maggie shook her head. "No. If the people who put them there are still around, they might not like it if we killed them. They put them there for a reason. The last thing we need is to make more enemies."
Maggie was right, but that wasn't a comforting thought. Whoever had chained the zombies up either had a death wish or was crazy, because you wouldn't catch me getting that close to one of them without killing it. But then again, the zombies were slowing our group down, so maybe they did serve some sort of purpose. Either way, we had already learned the hard way that not all of the people left alive could be trusted. Going into an area that possibly had other survivors needed to be done carefully.
The apocalypse hadn't really changed the world so much after all.
After another minute of debating, it was decided that we didn't have much choice other than to go forward. We needed to find water and there had to be water in that town somewhere.
I swatted at a fat fly that was buzzing around my face and watched Shawn take the lead into the grass. I wasn't exactly thrilled that he was going first into that sea of green, but kept my mouth shut. He wouldn't have listened to me if I had asked him to let someone else go first. And what would I have said, anyhow. I didn't want to see anyone in our group hurt.
We filed into the path of bent grass that he left behind him, going single file. I frowned, the grass was going to reach past my waist, not that that was saying much. Being a short girl had it's disadvantages. I could practically already feel the scrape of thorns and itch from the weeds, just thinking about going in there.
Luna had been silent through the entire short debate. She stood next to Rex, one hand hanging on to a tuft of fur. I eyed the girl. If the grass was going to be uncomfortably high for me, it would be even worse for her. I bent down to offer her a piggyback ride which she took without hesitation. A phantom tug in the vicinity of my heart told me that the little girl was quickly becoming an important member of our little family, too. She trusted me, and that meant a lot.
I hefted her higher up on my back, trying to shift her to a more comfortable position. The backpack I was wearing made the carry awkward. Sighing, we followed Maya into the grass. The bottoms of my jeans were immediately soaked. How, I had no idea. It was so hot, I would have thought that any moisture in the grass would have been burned away. The sensation of wet jeans clinging to already clammy skin was gross. At least Luna would stay mostly dry.
Chains scraped and dragged along the ground as the zombies tried to reach us. They growled, but thankfully were too old to make that horrible scream that always sent chills down my spine. The low growls and the swishing of the grass were the only sounds. Even the insects fell silent as we went by. Sweat beaded on my skin for an entirely new reason as I scanned the seemingly endless vegetation, hyper aware that an unlimited number of ways to die could be just feet away.
"Found something," Shawn kept his voice low, and I barely heard him from my position at the back of the line.
Trying to see around everyone else proved futile, especially with Bill ahead of me. After a few frustrating seconds of wondering what was happening, the line started forward again in fits and starts.
Ahead of me, Maya ducked down and crawled , before climbing slowly back to her feet. Perturbed, I was so busy watching her that I nearly missed the strand of wire that crossed our path. I stopped just in time to keep from running into the rusty barbs.
It was barely visible in the tall grass, but a single strand of barbed wire fence blocked our path. Rex was able to walk under it with no problem, but even Luna was going to have to get down to get past it. There was a long strip of torn clothing caught by one of the barbs. I eyed it before setting Luna down to crawl to the other side. It looked like someone had gotten snagged on the wire at some point, and I didn't want to join their ranks.
It wasn't enough to stop someone from getting to the town, but that strand of wire would prove problematic for zombies. And it was a deceptively simple way to keep outsiders out, or at least slow them down.
A simple cut could be just as dangerous as a bullet wound in our new reality.
Shaking those thoughts out of my head I clambered under the wire and brushed the dirt off as best as I could. I picked Luna back up. We had lost so many people, in such a variety of horrible ways, and I wasn't ready to think about them just yet. Right now was all about survival. There was no time for grief.
There were no more nasty surprises waiting for us in the tall grass. Once we were back on the narrow road, I felt a fraction more at ease. Nature was still frightening to me. I didn't really understand it and wasn't comfortable being completely surrounded by it.
The first houses were not far, now that we were on the other side of the zombie roadblock, and we bunched together in a nervous group as we approached.
This town looked like all of the other little towns we had passed through in the last few days. Overgrown lawns surrounded usually tiny homes. Some of the doors stood open. A disturbingly familiar brown stain marred the sidewalk of the house to the right. No place seemed to have been spared the terror and death that came with the zombies.
An unpleasant smell lingered in the heavy air. That was a common occurrence anymore. Zombies stunk and they were everywhere. But as we walked along, the smell grew. A low, buzzing hum reached my ears, building as we got further into the town. We all heard it, it was impossible not to. The stink of decay was starting to get strong enough to make me feel slightly sick.
Only one thing smelled like what we were smelling. There was a large number of zombies somewhere nearby.
"It's coming from over there," Luna, now walking again, tugged at my hand and pointed.
The kid had proven to have an uncanny ability to literally smell danger, second only to the nose of the dog. It wouldn't be the first time that she was the first one to know which direction a zombie was coming from. I followed the direction of her extended finger.
We moved slowly around the house that she had indicated. It was the nicest home in view. The paint on the front porch looked fresh and the landscaping was professionally done. If it wasn't for the wilted flowers along the winding walkway, and the front door that hung from broken hinges, the house would look like a very comfortable home.
Maggie had resumed her normal position at the front of the group. When she reached the back corner of the house, she peeked around into the backyard for several seconds. She glanced back to the rest of us to indicate that it was clear, before stepping around the corner.
The smell of death and insect buzzing intensified impossibly. I swatted at a fly that tried to fly up my nose as I rounded the corner. My gag reflex wanted to kick in, and I pulled my shirt over my nose to stop any more insects from reaching most of my face.
Ten feet ahead of me, the first of the group stopped just short of a low wooden fence. I could see that an in ground pool dominated half of the small yard, and from the disgusted looks on their faces I wasn't going to like whatever they saw.
Rex trotted ahead and busily sniffed his way around the outside edge of the fence. Reluctantly, I moved closer.
"That's just nasty."
I had to agree with Maya. The pool must have been someone's oasis before the zombies happened. White furniture and colorful pots that held dead flowers circled the now toxic water. It looked like someone had been using the pool as a dumping ground for bodies for a while.
Zombies floated in thick, murky colored sludge. The bodies, it looked like there were dozens of them, were in various stages of decay. The air was so putrid that it burned to breath and the swarm of insects created a black cloud that buzzed and attempted to land on us. The nearest zombie to me slowly rotated in the pool, exposing what was left of it's rotting face. Someone or something had removed half of it's face.
"Well, maybe there won't be any zombies left running around town. Whoever did this seems to have been efficient."
I nodded in reply to Shawn, but who knew if he noticed. I still had my shirt over half of my face, and we all had started backing away from the putrid pool.
Back out in front of the house, we stopped to regroup and breath the slightly fresher air.
"What was that?" Alex looked like he was doing his best not to throw up. He swallowed hard.
"I guess a pool's as good a place as any to contain the bodies," Charlie grimaced, "but I don't know. This place is giving me the creeps. I bet that's half of the town back there, floating in that cesspool."
I had to agree with her. This little town had me on edge, too. But that didn't negate the fact that we were badly in need of supplies and rest. We didn't have much choice but to stay long enough to take care of ourselves.
We moved further down the street, trying to escape the smell coming from that pool, before picking a house to enter.
The place was eerily silent once we could no longer hear the buzzing swarm. Rex's nails clicked along the pavement. Someone's shoe scuffed on some loose stones. We saw no evidence of other people as we passed through the streets. Maybe whoever had been staying here was long gone.
Except I couldn't help looking around one more time before crossing the threshold into the house. Some instinct that I barely knew I had was telling me that someone was watching us.