Taking It Back (21 page)

We traveled down the road, glancing briefly at the dark homes that rose up out of the darkness like gravestones. Not a light was seen, not a sound was heard. I felt like a trespasser, like we were intruding on a world no longer ours. Stay in the light children, for the dark hides monsters.

Tommy raised a hand as we approached the second mile road crossing. The stop signs looked lonely and out of place
,
and the street lamp that once lit this little intersection stood silent and dark, watching sentry over its little corner of the world. We slowed to a stop in the middle of the intersection. I looked over at Tommy
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and his eyes were locked on the road ahead.

“See something?” I asked

“Hang on.” He looked off to the left a little bit.

“Yeah, there it is. It’s in the ditch on the left side, about fifty yards up,” he said, pulling out his blunt weapon.

I squinted into the darkness. “What’s that weird glow?”

“I don’t know. Never saw that before.”

I shrugged and pulled out my own weapon, the handle-modified pickaxe. “I guess we should go see.”

I pedaled a bit forward, then parked the bike. I was not about to engage a Z while still straddling a bicycle. I got off and stood in the center of the road, figuring it gave me the best purchase for fighting. I listened as the zombie made its way along the ditch, aware of me now, and zeroing in for the kill. As it approached, I could see more details in the waning light. Its clothes were in tatters, hanging off more than hanging on, its dead skin stretched over its dead features. Its nose had been torn off, giving its face a more ghastly, skeletal appearance. Wispy hairs stuck out from its head, and its glowing eyes focused on me as its mouth opened to reveal jagged teeth.

I did a double take. Glowing eyes? When the hell did that start happening? I didn’t think it was possible to make a creepy dead thing creepier, but here it was. The eyes of the zombie actually glowed with a mild luminescence, like a glow in the dark toy that was starting to fade.

As twitchy as glowing zombie eyes made me, I was actually curious how it happened. Was this a side effect? Had it always happened and we just never noticed because we didn’t go out at night? On the plus side, it sure made it easier to spot them at night. On the minus side, it gave me the willies.

The Z scrambled up the ditch and crawled out onto the road. Before it had the chance to get up, I ran up to it and hit it on the head with my pickaxe. The new handle worked well. I didn’t take as large a swing as I normally did, but the additional weight carried well and the pointed end crushed the ghoul’s head easily. I pulled out the pick and noticed that the zombie’s brains were glowing as well. Stranger still. I wiped off the pickaxe and climbed back about the bike. Tommy stepped down to inspect the corpse.

That’s just wrong,” he said, getting back on his bike.

“Makes them easier to spot at night, now, I guess,” I said, putting my weapon back into its place.

“Some consolation,” Tommy said. “Can you imagine hiding in a dark room only to see glowing pairs of eyes coming at you from the blackness?” He shuddered for effect.

“You mean like that?” I pointed to a very dark spot in a small grove of trees. Sure enough, three pairs of glowing eyes could be seen, weaving back and forth, unblinking, unwavering. They had seen us and were now coming for us.

“I will never look at fireflies the same way again,” Tommy said as he started his bike. I pedaled after him. We could have stayed and killed the converging dead, but we had places to go and we only fought when we really had to. I had run into lunatics who felt it was their mission to eradicate the undead threat and wound up taking chances that got themselves killed.

We moved steadily north without further incident, although Tommy and I saw several more zombies in the countryside as the sky grew darker and darker. No doubt, there were a lot more we couldn’t see, since the glowing eyes weren’t like flashlights, more like a slow dull glow. If they had hair falling in front of their faces we could not see their eyes.

Still, it was creepy as all hell to be riding through the dark country and seeing spots of lights dancing in my peripheral vision and I knew they weren’t little harmless insects.

We reached the five mile crossroads and finally turned our bikes east. The sky was even darker and the stars were coming out in force. Without the glow of civilization muting the light of the stars, the night sky was amazing. We could see thousands of stars and a couple of planets low in the sky. The arm of the galaxy could be seen, something I had only seen once a long time ago when Ellie and I visited the southwest deserts.

We pedaled steadily for another twenty minutes and with the night breeze coming out of the east, I could smell water on the wind, enough that I knew we had to be coming near a significant body of water. Remembering the map, I reasoned the LaSalle Fish & Wildlife area was getting close.

I let Tommy know we were getting close and he just nodded in the dark, his eyes straining and his hands gripping the handlebars tightly. I didn’t blame him. Up ahead was a pack of zombies, around ten of them, walking along the road, and headed towards us. Their glowing eyes marked each one and I had to decide what to do. We were near enough to where I thought the renegades were that I didn’t think we could risk a shot and there were too many of them to take out in hand to hand combat. There was no cover and the Z’s would simply overwhelm us.

“I’m going to head right at them to bunch them up, then I’m going to swerve to the edge of the road and go around them,” I said to Tommy as I pedaled faster. I could hear the groans of the dead as they saw us coming, carried on a wind that brought also the scent of decay and death.

“Gotcha.” Tommy braked a little to get behind me and then pedaled to catch up so he was only a foot or so behind me. He had the more dangerous position, since the zombies would be reacting to me, but Tommy would be closer to their reaching hands
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I pedaled quickly, staying close to the right side of the road, as I approached, I could see several of the zombies moving to the right, trying to cut me off. A couple moved too far, falling into the ditch on the side of the road. I sped towards the groaning mass, then just before I would have plowed into them, I swerved sharply to the left, veering away to the other side of the road. Tommy followed closely behind and we pedaled furiously away from our now confused pursuers. I chanced a glance back and saw they had turned around and were now chasing us, although they were fading quickly into the darkness.

I breathed a sigh of relief. “That went well,” I said, as Tommy resumed his place next to me.

“If we never do that again it will be too soon. I swear that last guy nearly caught my shirt. I felt a tug as I went past.”

“Any encounter you walk away from uninfected…” I said.

“Yeah, I know.”

“Did you notice the eyes?” I queried.

“What about them? Were they different colored this time?”

“Only four of them were glowing.”

“Perfect,” Tommy said, bouncing over a bad repair to the road.

I smiled as we went farther east, passing the fourth mile crossroads. I began to wonder if I had guessed wrong and we were risking our sorry necks for a wild goose chase. If that was the case, we were going to have to find a place to spend the night and in the middle of nowhere that would present a few problems.

19

We came across the power plant unexpectedly, with the dark building looming large in the night. I could make out the outline of several utility towers stretching away from the plant and the complex was ringed with a tall, barbed-wire tipped chain link fence. Off to the east, I could see stars reflected in what appeared to be a significant body of water and I could see several buildings in the outlying areas. We moved closer for a better look and I could see three buildings which looked like maintenance sheds off to the west. We crossed a parking lot and moved into the shadows by a maintenance office building. There was a large guard house at the entrance to the plant with a gate that slid out of the way. The fence was impressive, two parallel lines with a walkway in between large enough for a vehicle to travel. There was an administrative building about seventy-five yards back from the gate and I could see several large trucks parked in front of it.

Tommy touched my sleeve and pointed to the second story of the admin building. There were small flashes of light and I realized the windows had been covered or painted and we were seeing light through the cracks. Pretty smart. Whoever was running this show was smart enough to realize a light would attract every Z for miles.

As it was, we could see several pairs of glowing eyes in the darkness, headed our way, attracted by our scent and sound. We had very limited time before we would be in a serious fight.

I motioned for Tommy to follow me and I sprinted for the gate. It was the only part of the fence that didn’t have barbed wire on the top. I jumped for the fence and climbed over the top, dropping down and looking around. The parking lot had several zombies shuffling across and I could see more on the road and fields outside the area. There was no guard posted outside and I could see why. The fence was more than sturdy enough to withstand an assault and with two lines running completely around the complex, this place was as secure as any. Had I lived in this area, I would have chosen this place as a good spot to make a stand.

“What’s the plan?” Tommy asked as he dropped down beside me.

“I want to make sure this is the place we have been looking for. I wouldn’t want to wipe out a group of people who were just trying to survive. So let’s scout a bit and see what’s here,” I said, unslinging my rifle from across my back. Tommy did the same with his AR, checking the magazine and making sure our ride hadn’t moved around his spare magazines too much.

We moved towards the office building and when we were about twenty yards away, we could hear faint sounds of activity from within. There seemed to be muted cheers and yells and what sounded like a bottle breaking. We may have found the right place after all.

I moved around to the corner of the building and stopped. I caught the scent of something odd in the wind and when I smelled it again I recognized it. Blood. Something had lost a lot of blood recently and it was on the wind. I signaled Tommy to circle wide and together we rounded the corner, guns at the ready.

Sprawled out on the grass was a man or what was left of him. He had been completely wiped out, not enough of him left to reanimate. Some of the bones had even been cracked open to get at the marrow inside. His head had been smashed open and his brains were completely missing. Blood was all around, leaving a large dark stain on the greening grass. Bloody footprints lead away into the dark, dark blotches on the sidewalk.

I looked at Tommy and we both realized the same thing at the same time. There were dead things out here. We didn’t want to alert anyone to our presence, so we reslung our rifles and pulled out our blunt weapons, trusting in our side arms for firepower as needed. We stepped farther around and I could see the power relays in the distance, dwarfed by the tall towers as they reached for the dark of the sky. I could see several shadowy shapes moving among the towers and I knew them for what they were.

I pointed them out to Tommy and we moved quickly, spreading out and trying to take out as many as we could before they could swarm. The grass gave way to sand, which muffled our approach. The wind was still coming out of the east, which allowed us to attack from downwind. The gross side was we could smell the bastards and I have yet to meet a walking corpse that didn’t smell like someone had microwaved a bag of garbage. The sad part was I was used to it. I came to one zombie who was just standing still, swaying slightly as it smelled the wind. I swung the pickaxe and sent the Z back to oblivion.

The sound of my pick cracking the Z’s head open carried like a shot and three more turned in my direction. Tommy put his down and was approaching a third when I sprang towards the ghouls.

The first one rushed at me with slavering teeth only to be driven back by a spike to the head. The next one, a slight female with half her hair torn off, came slowly forward, her right foot turned around backwards. I hooked her foot and sent her tumbling, finishing her off with a spade to the head. The third one caught me by surprise, moving a lot faster than I had expected. He plowed into me, knocking me down and clawing at my back. I shoved back as hard as I could, but he was on too tightly. I couldn’t do much except watch as he brought his teeth down onto my shoulder. I felt his teeth bite something and then he brought his head back. I felt a tug at my back and realized he had bitten my backpack shoulder strap and had it in his teeth. I drew my knife as he chewed the strap and when he realized he hadn’t bit me, he leaned back for another lunge. I took that opportunity to shove my knife up under his chin and into his brain, ending his career as a deader. His glowing eyes looked into mine as he died and if I hadn’t known better, I would have sworn there was a spark of recognition.

I threw him off of me and climbed slowly to my feet. Tommy was finishing off his second with a golf swing to the Z’s head. He walked over to me as I was inspecting the damage.

“Holy shit. He got that close, did he?” Tommy said, peering at the teeth marks.