As The World Dies Untold Tales Volume 3 (14 page)

Chapter 1

The End of a Mission

One Year and Three Months Later

A tendril of long brown hair whipped about Emma’s face and she irritably shoved it behind one ear. The long lock had somehow worked itself loose from the braid wrapped around her head and it was annoying the hell out of her. She didn’t have time to pin it back up.

The zombies were coming.

Tucked in the narrow pathway between two buildings in the downtown area of her small town, she double-checked all her preparations. The barbed wire traps were strung, the ladder was set against the side of the five and dime store, and her weapons were at the ready.

The reek of death grew steadily stronger. Chewing her peppermint gum furiously to steady her nerves and keep the stench from filling her sinuses, Emma tightened her grip on the pickaxe she held in her gloved hands. It was a hot day, but she didn’t dare take off her protective gear. The catcher’s mask was a little uncomfortable, but she had to endure it. The mask had already saved her face more than once from the snapping teeth of a zombie.

A low moan made her tense. Setting her feet apart, she watched the narrow mouth of the path between the two buildings. The first zombie lurched into view. Like most of the older undead, it was badly ravaged by the elements. Flesh dried, cracked, and hanging in shreds, the creature didn’t resemble much of a threat, but she never underestimated the risen. It swiveled on its broken foot and lifted one gnarled hand in her direction. With a guttural moan, it excitedly shuffled toward her.

The barbed wire she’d stretched across the alley and attached to tent spikes caught the zombie across the shins. It smashed face first into the hard ground. She started forward when she heard another zombie cry.

A second zombie, followed closely by a third and fourth, rounded the corner. Concentrating only on their prey, the undead monsters tumbled over the wire and the first zombie.

“Shit.” She had underestimated how many had been loitering in front of the store in the shadows looming under the awning.

Rushing forward, she heaved the pickaxe over her head and let gravity carry it into the skull of one of the zombies. Careful to keep out of the grip of the thrashing undead, she hoisted the weapon again, the spike dripping with black blood and bits of brain. After dispatching the other zombies, she dragged them off the wire trap. One of the spikes was partially yanked out of the ground and she quickly hammered it into place with her boot heel.

Another growl sent slivers of fear racing through her veins. Twisting around, she saw five zombies entering the pathway from the back of the store. The first three hit the barbed wire trap, and tumbled to the ground. But the fourth zombie was a massive man and when he caught the wire, he dragged both spikes clear out of the ground.

“Damn,” Emma grunted.

She’d been worried the ground was too soft after the last rain. Drawing the pistol she had relieved from a dead deputy sheriff a year before, she shot the big zombie in the head. The sound of the shot echoed. Birds in trees lining the street rose into the air, shrieking in irritation. A second bullet took off the head of a smaller zombie. Stalking to the remaining zombies attempting to crawl toward her, she prepared to kill them with her pickaxe.

Another half dozen zombies shuffled around the corner, drawn by the gunfire. Pausing in mid-step, Emma reconsidered her plan and took a quick step back toward the ladder. It was time to get to higher ground.

Tucking her pistol into its holster, she used the pickaxe for leverage as she scaled the ladder. The zombies moaned hungrily, surging past the downed wire trap toward her location. The metal ladder ringing beneath her boot heels, she climbed to the roof of the store. The ladder shuddered beneath her. Below, the zombies clawed at the rungs. Snagging the rope she had dangling over the edge of the roof, she wrapped it a few times around her arm and used it to hoist herself all the way to the top of the building. Her feet had just settled on the tar paper when the ladder swung out of her grip.

Lashing out with the pickaxe, she managed to hook the top rung and kept ladder from toppling over. The zombies howled, shaking the aluminum contraption in frustration. Emma dropped her pickaxe, gripped the top rung with both hands, planted one foot on the low wall surrounding the roof, and yanked on the ladder. She wasn’t about to give it up to the zombies. Muscles burning with exertion, she resolutely dragged it out of the broken, decaying hands of the dead. One of the fresher ones managed to keep a firm grip.

“Let go!” Emma screamed at it.

The zombie only growled in response. It was much taller than the others, its long arm stretched above its head as it struggled to hold on. Emma knew it wasn’t smart enough to actually scale the ladder. Her experience killing the zombies in her town had taught her that much, but she wasn’t about to give up a valuable tool in her war against them. Not daring to let go of the ladder to draw her pistol, Emma ferociously wiggled it back and forth.

The pounding of rotting hands against the building was an unnerving sound, wet and squishy, but Emma couldn’t allow herself to lose her cool. With one last angry tug on the ladder, it came free. When Emma hauled it onto the roof, she saw a large clump of flesh still clinging to the step. A sharp kick sent the decayed meat and skin skittering along the roof. Laid out in a line were her rifles, pistols, and other weapons. She’d been preparing all week to clean out the last of the town. For over a year she’d systematically eliminated the zombie residents. At first it had been emotionally draining killing the walking remains of the people who had been friends, acquaintances, fellow churchgoers, and even family members. But as the months had worn on and the elements took their toll on the risen dead, it had become easier.

Emma checked on the small crowd of zombies below. It was difficult to identify any of them. Their clothes were in tatters and their faces were unrecognizable. Spitting out her gum, she watched it fall onto the face of a zombie below. Several milk crates sat next to her, crammed with heavy objects. She drew a cast iron skillet from the heap. After a year of hunting zombies, her arms were strong with defined muscle, and the nine pound skillet was easy to lift. Holding it over the edge, she tried her best to aim for the tall zombie. Letting go, she watched the heavy dark shape slam into an upturned face, reducing it to rotting bone, flesh, and brains. The zombie and cast iron pan hit the ground with a loud thump.

A small smile flitted across her lips.

Emma picked up a second skillet. This one was a little lighter in weight, but she knew from experience that gravity would turn it into a lethal weapon. She dropped it. Another zombie was reduced to that much mush. Pelting the zombies with the last five cast iron pots and pans she had salvaged from around town, she killed all but two, but managed to take the arm off of one of the remaining ones.

Annoyed, she rubbed her hands together and surveyed what she had left. With a grunt, she heaved a car battery over the edge of the building and onto the zombies below. A zombie dropped beneath the weight.

Reluctant to use the last of her ammo on a single zombie, she hauled a microwave to the edge and balanced it on the low wall. Slapping her hand on the bricks, she stirred up the zombie beneath her. Its blackened tongue lolling in its gaping maw, it clawed at the surface in an attempt to scale it. Emma frowned, not sure of the trajectory of the microwave when she released it. Spotting the rope she used as a safety line, she used her boot heel to drag it within reach. It took a few minutes to get the rope wrapped securely around the microwave. In that time, no other zombies appeared. Of course, by her estimates, these were the last of the local zombies roaming the town. The remaining zombies were inside the buildings and, therefore, trapped.

It had been a great relief to realize that zombies from other towns had not migrated. The remote location of the town had finally benefited her.

Carefully lowering the microwave, Emma made sure to have it directly over the zombie’s head. The muscles in her forearms screamed in pain as she held it steady. When she was sure it was in position, she dropped it. The resounding crunch made her grin. Leaning over, she saw the zombie pinned beneath the heavy old microwave. The end of the rope was still tied around the roof air conditioning vent, so Emma hauled the bloody, reeking appliance up to the top of the building in case she needed it again.

Walking around the roof, she checked the streets below. The decaying bodies of zombies littered the ground. Some had arrows embedded in their heads, others had crossbow bolts. A few had died by ax, or pickaxe. A swathe of dry, bloody limbs and shattered heads was the result of Emma plowing through the zombies in her grandfather’s big farm truck the first days after the apocalypse started. That was when she had been trying to find Billy and hadn’t been in her right mind. She was lucky she’d survived her insanity. Stan’s house had been empty when she’d burst into it on the first day, but a day later she spotted his truck parked in town while driving around trying to find Billy. By then the town had been overrun by the dead and she had barely managed to escape the large horde. She’d taken a roundabout way home and sat trembling in her grandparents’ Airstream as she wept. She’d never know how the plague had reached her town so quickly, or how it had destroyed it in just a few short hours.

For days she had tried to convince herself that Billy could escape the hungry risen dead. He was clever and fast. She searched for him in spite of the danger, but soon her rescue mission had evolved into something much more gruesome and dark.

Years of hunting with her grandfather had kicked in and soon she’d been eliminating all of the undead that dared to come her way. The barbed wire fence around the property held up nicely and she cleared the perimeter every morning. Soon, she began to venture out to kill the undead before they reached her home. Gradually, a plan had formed in her mind to not only keep safe from the undead, but to find Billy.

That was when she decided to kill everything in the town.

Lifting her binoculars, she scanned the few blocks that consisted of the downtown area. The houses and trailers that filled the small neighborhoods bookending the town were adorned with red lettering that read CLEAR. Some buildings on the outskirts of town were burned out husks. That had been a risky maneuver on her part. One summer day, when a massive thunderstorm loomed on the horizon, she had decided to take the opportunity to eliminate the many zombies trapped within the old wooden Baptist church. Half-crazed, she hadn’t really thought about what would have happened if the rains had missed her town. She’d hoped the concrete and asphalt parking lot would provide a proper firebreak until the storm broke. It was sheer luck that she hadn’t burned down the town and started an epic wildfire.

It was a slow, exhausting process to clear the town of zombies. Every little step had to be planned out well in advance. In the first few months, her infirm grandfather had helped her. He hadn’t let her venture out alone even when she’d begged him to stay with her grandmother. A stubborn old cuss that was “half redneck and half Lipan Apache,” her grandfather had kept her sane and focused on finding her son.

It had taken them months to clear out the houses on the outskirts and work their way closer to downtown. She’d been the one on point while her grandfather covered her from carefully chosen sniper positions. Then one day she’d almost lost a battle with a zombie who’d gotten the drop on her while she raided a house for food. After killing it, she’d hurried to her grandfather’s position to find that he was dead. At first she thought he was asleep, but then realized he was no longer breathing. CPR hadn’t brought him around, and at last she dragged his body to his truck to take him home. For hours she had sat next to his body waiting for him to rise. He never had. A week later, her grandmother passed away in her sleep. Now they lay buried side by side in the shadow of the Airstream where Emma now lived.

Emma was utterly alone. She hadn’t seen another living being in over a year. There were times when she wondered if anyone else was still alive.

Shaking herself out of her dark reverie, she knelt next to the map she had made of downtown. She’d already cleared the men’s apparel store, which had only one zombie within. She’d thought maybe Stan had taken Billy there for cowboy boots. She’d almost been relieved to not find them. Most of the other stores were empty shells, long abandoned.

There wasn’t a local school. Most of the kids were bused to a town twenty miles away. Sometimes she wondered if any of them had survived.

The grocery store across the street terrified her. Many had taken refuge inside on the first day and it was filled with the undead. It was her objective for the day.

Taking another look at the four sides of the building, she noted that there weren’t any of the undead shambling about. Squatting next to the tent she’d been staying in temporarily, she dug in her backpack for a notebook. In it was the ledger she kept of all her kills. Mentally taking inventory of the dead zombies below, she added a new number and the date on one line, then added up the overall death toll.

Staring at the number, she felt her stomach clench. She’d killed so many, but they’d had to die. Pulling the catcher’s mask off her head, she set it aside and wiped her face off with a paper towel. Popping open a bottle of water, she poured some of it over her face and drank the rest. It had been challenging logistically sneaking her supplies in tiny increments onto the roof over the last few weeks, but it had been worth it. Soon she’d be able to put all this behind her.