Revenence: Dead of Winter: A Zombie Novel (2 page)

      Shari nodded, glaring at the advancing sadists.  "Let's get moving."  They retreated slightly eastward, moving away from the road.  After several seconds, Shari heard a pronounced
thud
as one of the sadists tripped over the body of one of their fallen comrades.

     "Pete's dead!" the sadist called out.  "They got the place rigged with traps!"  No sooner had the words left his lips than another sadist let out a high-pitched yelp.  Shari was too far away to make out the injuries, but she saw the infrared shape of a sadist lying in a vertical position, unmoving.  A moment later, she heard a
swoosh
as another trap was set off.  She glanced over just in time to see the thermal image of the sadist's throat partially obscured by the spike-tipped branches of a sapling.

    
That's at least four,
she thought.

     Kandi piped up from beside her.  "And another...what?  Thirty or so?"

    
Not sure exactly,
Shari thought. 
I wish we could've gotten a head count.
  She squinted through her goggles. 
But it looks like at least another two dozen, maybe more
.  She nudged Daphne, motioning for her to follow.  They continued to the east, toward a creek that connected with the Ohio River to the north.  They heard the dying howls of three more sadists as they crossed the shallow creek.

     "Too bad we don't know how many of the wankers are dead for good," Kandi lamented, raising her heavy skirt as she crossed the stream, exposing her petticoat and inky-black Victorian boots, "and not ticking time bombs waiting to get back up and eat us."

    
Well
, Shari thought,
at least they'll still  be warm enough for us to see with our goggles if they do get back up.

     "Yes, provided we're not out here all night," Kandi said.  "Lord knows there are enough of them to keep us busy for awhile.  I hope we're not in over our heads this time, princess."

    
Willing bad things to happen won't get us anywhere but dead,
Shari thought.

     "I'm not willing it, but I'm afraid your emotional need to punish the bad guys may have affected your good judgment.  After all, we still had grenades for the last two groups.  You're trying to take on two-dozen sadists with a single AK, bow and arrow and some throwing sticks."

    
Can we argue later?
 
I need to focus. 
She gazed through her goggles and saw the forms of at least a dozen sadists as they crossed the threshold of the treeline and approached the creek, about fifty yards south of Shari and Daphne.  Shari ducked down next to a tree, raised her rifle and aimed at one of the sadists.  She pulled the trigger, obliterating the top of his head, then ducked back behind the tree.  Daphne crept into the woods, moving south on the opposite side of the creek from the sadists until they were close enough to be in her range.  Shari stepped out from behind the tree, taking a shot at a sadist who was about twenty yards away.  He was struck in the upper chest, just under the throat.

    
Shit,
she thought, raising her rifle to correct the shot.  She realized it wouldn't be easy, because he was now lying flat on the ground, his feet facing her.
  That won't do.
 
I guess he'll be getting back up. 
She aimed at another one running in her direction.  This time, the shot blasted its way through the middle of the sadist's face. 
That one won't be getting back up,
she thought.

     "I should think not," Kandi agreed.

     Shari squinted, taking inventory of the infrared forms advancing on her from downstream. 
I'm pretty sure I'm only counting nine
.

     "So either some of them are hanging back near the road," Kandi said, "or those traps got more of them than we thought."

    
Let's hope for the latter
.  She raised her AK, panning across the creek.  She watched one fall down to the ground, half of the throwing stick protruding from his cranium. 
Down to six,
she thought, doing a quick head count. 
Daphne must have taken out a few. 
She saw Daphne retreat into the woods as the sadists crossed the creek and approached the treeline from where she had been launching her weapons.  Shari was getting ready to continue further east when she heard a slight splash in the creek behind her, and the noxious smell of soggy, rotting flesh pierced her nostrils. 

     "
Duck!"
Kandi commanded, the shrill pitch reverberating in Shari's mind.  She instinctively heeded the advice, crouching down just as the waterlogged zombie lunged behind her.  It tumbled over Shari, then quickly turned itself around to gnash at her feet, grabbing on to her right ankle as she scrambled to get away.  She kicked her leg, trying to free it from the grip of her undead attacker, who was inching his open-mouthed face toward her foot.  She noticed small holes covering his bloated face that she supposed were from fish feeding on him as he wandered the creek's depths. 

    
Motherfucker,
she thought. 
Who do you think you are? 
She jammed the bottom of her shoe into the zombie's face,  the rubber sole sinking down a couple of inches into the skull cavity.

     "That was close," Daphne said, exiting the woods and approaching Shari as she drug her foot over the grass, wiping some of the gore from the bottom of her shoe.  Her gaze snapped in the direction of the sadists downstream. 

     "How many more of them are coming?" she asked.

     Daphne nodded toward one of the sadists who was swinging a machete at two of his former companions.  "It looks like they've got an undead problem right now," she said.   "The two that are left, anyway.  I figured I'd let them fight it out with the zombies, see if we can save ourselves some bullets and some effort."

    "I only see one," Shari said.  "Where's the other one?"

    Daphne shrugged.  "Maybe lying on the ground already?" she hypothesized.  They heard an engine start up.  Daphne rolled her eyes.  "Or maybe getting away." 

     The one who had been battling the two undead sadists finally succeeded in penetrating both of their skulls with his machete, but not without suffering a gaping bite on his forearm.  He turned and charged in Shari and Daphne's direction.  Shari raised her AK.

     "No," Daphne said, reaching into her bag for another sharpened stick, "let me."  She propelled the stick into the sadist's right eye as he propelled himself in its direction.  He fell facedown, pushing the stick all the way into his skull. 

     Daphne took her titanium-bladed knife out of her bag.  "That one's not getting up," she said, "but we'll have to double check some of the other bodies." 

     They made quick work of it, Daphne plunging her knife into each skull to ensure that they were fully dead, while Shari spotted her with the .357 that had belonged to Fauna.  It allowed them to check the bodies more safely, taking any weapons and ammunition, cigarettes, matches and lighters, and whatever else they thought might come in handy for their own use, or for bartering at some point.  They also felt it was best to re-kill any zombies they had created, not wanting to personally add to the ever-growing undead populace.  Once they were certain each corpse was permanently at rest, Daphne cut off the right ears, stashing them in her pack to dry later and add to her collection. 

    "Well," Shari said when they'd counted and looted all the bodies they could find, "that's 24.  Let's wash up a little while we're near the creek, then head back up to the road and see how many ATVs are left."

    They walked westward toward the road after they had bathed.  Shari counted the ATVs.  "Twenty-four," she said.  "And twenty-four bodies.  I guess they're all accounted for, except for the one that got away."

     "Unless any of them doubled up," Daphne argued.  "Some of these could hold two people."

     Shari shrugged.  "I guess we won't know unless we see another one come wandering through the woods.  Just be careful...I mean, it's not like we weren't doing that, anyway."

     "Fair enough," Daphne said.  They walked toward the cabin in silence for a moment.  "So Shari...."

     "Yeah?"

     "Do you think we're going to hell for this?"

     Kandi cackled.  "She really is just a child, isn't she?"

     Shari shrugged.  "I really don't know, Daphne.  I guess it depends on whether or not there's a hell," she said.  "And since I don't know the answer to that question, I don't care to dwell on the subject."

     "Well, okay," Daphne said, "let's say there was a hell, just for the sake of argument.  Do you think we're going there?" 

     They reached the hitch where Eva was tied beside the cabin.  Shari sank into a wooden bench facing an overgrown rose garden, lighting up a smoke before she responded.  She sighed, then shook her head.  "I don't like the idea of a God who would judge us that severely for what we're doing.  I mean, yeah, it just so happens we put ourselves in these situations, but let's be honest...if we didn't plan it out and hunt these guys down, it'd be the other way around.  They'd be hunting
us,
and we'd be the prey, all while trying to run from the undead.  You and me, we're just taking control of the situation...we're trying to survive, just as any other animal would.  We're turning the tables.  And I don't consider having a survival instinct or a will to live to be a crime against humanity.  I'm not just rationalizing, we both know I'm right."  She smirked.  "And besides, I told you--I'm no theologian.  I'm really not even particulary religious.  I'm not exactly full of spiritual insight."

     "I thought you were a Hindu," Daphne said.

     "No, my mom was," Shari said.  "When she was younger, anyway.  She was actually a lot more New Age in her later years.  But me...I don't know.  I wasn't really raised to believe any particular thing.  My parents were hippies.  I was exposed to a lot of different ideas, but never pressured to subscribe to any of them."  She glanced in Daphne's direction.  "I guess you can't relate to that," she said.

     "I'm not with the Andersons anymore," Daphne muttered, looking straight ahead.  Shari knew that in Daphne's mind, she was back at the rural home of her former adoptive family.  "I can believe whatever I want to now."

     "I suppose you can," Shari said.  "And regardless of what religious views either of us may or may not have, I know we have one important thing in common."

     "What's that?"

     "The belief that all life is sacred, but innocent life is a little higher up on the list.  What kind of God would argue that fact?"

     Daphne's gaze shifted defensively around her environment as she walked.  "I guess you have a point." 

     Shari shook her head.  "Don't get me wrong, I hate doing this.  I'll admit--"  She glanced at Kandi.  "There's a small part of me that gets off on it, but I think that's just a symptom of surviving nowadays.  We don't trivialize killing other people because we think it's trivial...we do it because it's almost impossible to stay alive anymore without, at some point, killing another living, breathing human being.  Are we monsters?  Yeah, probably.  But we're the monsters who are destroying the other monsters.  We're saving innocent lives...and taking guilty ones.  People are thanking us for this."  She snuffed out her joint, pressing the burning end into a large, smooth rock until it stopped smoking.  "So anyway, I guess we should leave as soon as the sun comes up." 

     Daphne nodded.  "No reason to stick around here.  We got those guys' stuff."

     Shari shivered in her panties and tank top.  "I don't know about you, but I'm gonna get dressed."

     Kandi snickered.  "Please do, princess, your headlights may draw the attention of the revenants."

     Shari rolled her eyes. 
Oh, please.  Nobody's as obsessed with my nipples as you apparently are, zombies included.

     Daphne nodded toward Shari's chest.  "Yeah, get some clothes on.  I'm afraid you'll put my eye out with one of those things."  Daphne smirked sheepishly at her own joke, and Kandi howled with laughter.

     "You see, princess?  Daphne can't hear me, but she and I were on the same wavelength in this instance."

     Shari ignored Kandi, picking up the items of clothing off of the bench.  Her tank top and panties were nearly dry, so she left them on and got dressed.  She shimmied into her kevlar jeans and put on her leather motorcycle jacket, then finger-combed her still-damp hair and gathered it into a low ponytail.

     "How long until the sun comes up?" she asked, putting on her kevlar motorcycle hood adorned with a white skull across the front.  She put on Fauna's cowboy hat over the hood.

     "It'll be about half an hour before we have decent visibility," Daphne said, sliding her feet into the black and red boots that matched her dirtbike suit. 

     Shari settled into the bench, taking in the sensations of the cool, pre-dawn morning.  Eva, hitched five feet to Shari's left, shifted in her sleep, nickering softly.  "We'll find somewhere to rest tomorrow, when there's daylight.  We can take turns keeping watch, if nothing else.  For now, I think I'm gonna sit and enjoy the weather.  It's actually kinda nice out, now that we're dressed.  I think I'll sip the rest of that coffee I made earlier.  Lord knows I could use the caffeine."   She leaned toward the far side of the bench to reach the thermos containing the leftover coffee.  "You sure you don't want any?"