The Dead Don't Bleed: Part 2, The Aftermath (22 page)

Garrett decided that the best course of action was to deal with the four zombies before trying to push on to the
Ranger Station. With the zombies on the road and grass near Kyle's patrol car they could sneak up fairly close to them along the edge of the trees. Garrett did not want to resort to firearms if it could be avoided. The sound of gunfire would echo through the forest for a long ways and bring even more attention to their location. That left him with using the collection of knives and other edged weapons they had with them. The downside to such a plan was that he would have no choice but to recruit at least two others to help him. There was no way he could get all four zombies with a knife on his own. At best he thought he could handle two, but by the time he finished with the second the other two would be all over him. With Calvin gone, his only remaining option was to draw on the resources he had with him to team up on the zombies. Miranda was his first choice, the woman was a fighter and wouldn't let him down. He hated having to put her in danger like that, but he also knew that he could count on her in a pinch. Two on four was still not the kind of odds that he wanted, his only other realistic choice would be Doug. In any other circumstance he would not want the man involved in a situation involving hand to hand battle, but in this case he really had no other option. Cameron was too young to rely on, he was also injured and flying high on pain medication. Emily would be useful only if he wanted to provide a tempting distraction with a juicy meal.

All of them stepped out of the Range Rover with the exception of Emily who refused to leave the safety of the vehicle. Now that she had recovered from their ordeal in escaping her house she was starting to return to her old self and
self-preservation was once again becoming her number one concern. Ignoring her, Garrett presented the rest of them with his plan and reasons for not just trying to pass by the group of zombies without mixing it up. He appointed Cameron their rear security when the boy tried to step up and volunteer to join their attack. Cameron was barely able to keep his eyes open at that point and his words were coming out a little slurred as the medication kicked in. Garrett instructed him to remain by the open driver’s side door of the Range Rover. If he saw anything suspicious he was to tap the horn twice and they would abort their attack and return immediately to the truck and regroup with a different plan. Miranda had volunteered to run a little further up the road where she crouched behind a tree and was keeping an eye on their targets while Garrett talked with everyone else. Doug had not been as difficult to convince as he had anticipated. The man had expressed misgivings about just how useful he would be but had stood tall and offered his assistance in any way possible.

When he was satisfied that Cameron would be alright on his own with Emily, Garrett led Doug over to where Miranda was
keeping tabs on the zombies. Miranda reported that other than those four she had not noticed any others nearby. It only took Garrett a minute to pick out the best opportunity to hit them. There was a brief period when three of them had their backs to the line of trees they were watching from. The forth would be almost facing the woods, but if Garrett got that one first and silently, they should be able to get the others from behind before they realized there was danger nearby.

Using hand and arm signals
, Garrett directed Miranda and Doug to follow him as he crept through the woods towards the point where the zombies would be most easily accessible once they turned away from the trees. Doug managed to only break four branches and tripped once along the way, each time they all froze in place expecting four blood thirsty zombies to come crashing through the brush towards them. Garrett was amazed when they reached their ambush position undetected. Doug was breathing hard and a little uneasy on his feet from their short trek through the woods and Garrett motioned for him to sit on the ground at the base of a nearby tree to catch his breath. Despite Doug's ineptness with outdoor skills and lack of any trait that would cause anyone to mistake him for a fighter, the man still had guts. Garrett admired him for that and knew that it may be just that single factor that allowed him to stay alive when others would die.

Garrett used the time waiting for Doug to catch his breath to study the zombies and make sure they were
maintaining the same pattern he had observed further back on the outer edge of the trees. Three of the zombies were males and judging by the remnants of their khaki uniforms he pegged them for former park rangers. The fourth zombie was a black woman, probably in her forties and dressed in the remains of work clothing that identified her as some type of office worker. Her shoes were missing and the torn and filthy stockings that extended from her professional looking skirt told him that she had most likely been wearing footwear that slipped off easily, not something one would have on their feet if they intended to take a hike in the woods or conduct any other activities in the park. He found her presence in the park a little odd. The outbreak happened at a time when the park offices were most likely closed so she wouldn't have worked there. It was possible that she had fallen victim to the virus or a bite during her commute to work and turned undead somewhere nearby. But even if that was the case it was strange that she would find her way into the back woods so far from pockets of civilization. Their understanding of zombies was that they seemed to move towards the most likely locations where they would find prey, the park should not have been high on that list. Garrett worried that the presence of the woman may be an indication that they may not be as safe in the park as he had hoped. Whether it was their ability to pick up smells over a great distance or some other factor that drew them here, they would have to start considering moving out sooner than he had anticipated.

Doug whistled softly to get Garrett's attention then gave him a thumbs up to show that he was ready. Even with that positive sign from the man
, Garrett could read his face and saw a great deal of self-doubt building. The longer they waited to get his over with, the better chance that he would lose his nerve and not follow through.

Garrett tightly gripped the handle of his knife and used it as a pointer to show both Miranda and Doug which of the zombies he wanted each of them to deal with.
He planned on taking the one facing the woods himself and then swinging around and taking care of the next closest one immediately afterward. Doug and Miranda would handle the two further from his first target. He considered giving the task of taking out the woman to Doug, but then decided against it. His only reason for it would have been her physical small physical stature in comparison to Doug’s. They had all learned since the start of the outbreak that zombies were stronger than any of them no matter what their size, sex or stature. No matter which one Doug was assigned to deal with, if they were able to make use of their body size against him, it was a fight he was going to lose anyway. He also considered that if Doug was given the woman to attack it was possible that her fairer sex would be an issue for him and he may hesitate at the last moment. Miranda would take care of the woman, Garrett knew that sex would make no difference to her. She had already proved that she was more than capable of handling herself.

They waited while the four zombies made one more complete circuit, Miranda and Doug kept their eyes glued on Garrett waiting for him to make his move. As soon as the three zombies walking close together made the turn that put their backs to the woods Garrett stepped out from behind the tree
and moved forward. Coming in at an oblique angle and as low to the ground as possible, Garrett ate up the distance to the zombie and was within striking distance before its head suddenly jerked to the side and its eyes locked in on him. Sensing that a scream that was about to emanate from the creatures mouth, Garrett lunged forward with his knife hand extending out at the same time. Garrett drove the blade directly into the zombies open mouth, turning it upwards at the last second to pierce the top of the palate and into the base of the brain stem. Feeling the zombie start to go limp, Garrett withdrew the knife and started spinning his body towards the backside of his next target. As he came around he saw Miranda as she reached the back of the woman zombie and was just driving the blade of her knife into the soft spot at the back of her skull. Garrett had taught her that move and to go for that exact spot, she hit it perfectly and followed through by grasping the dying corpse around its waist and easing it to the ground to minimize the noise it would make. As Garrett was taking the handful of steps needed to close on his second target he saw that Doug had screwed up on his approach to the zombie he was stalking. Instead of keeping at an angle that would allow him to follow the zombie’s movements and remain out of sight, Doug had stepped off to the side to prepare for a strike at the side of the zombies head. Since Doug was carrying a hatchet instead of a knife he was trying to put himself in a better position to use his minimal body weight to his full advantage in a single devastating swing. However, he had misjudged the zombie’s movements and wondered into the edge of its vision. Garrett saw the zombie starting to turn towards Doug just as he was moving in to make his second strike. The timing couldn't have been worse. If Garrett stopped to assist Doug the zombie he was going after would be alerted to their presence and would have a clean shot at his back. He had to deal with his own objective first and then just hope that Doug was able to fend off that single zombie long enough for him to recover and come to his aid. Garrett focused on the zombie in front of him and timed his attack so that as they zombie took another step and started to shift his weight to his back leg he was able to tangle his own strong leg in between the zombie’s feet causing him to trip forward. Garrett stuck his knife welding hand in front of the zombies face as it fell and was able to use the force of its fall along with the rise of his own hand together to skewer the blade through the zombie’s temple. The maneuver helped him expedite his attack because by the time the zombies brain ceased to function it was already very close to the road beneath him and Garrett was able to just step over the body and continue moving forward towards Doug. Garrett had only covered a few feet when he stopped dead in his tracks. In the few seconds that he had been occupied with the zombie he had just killed, Miranda had not only already dispatched her own target but had taken out Doug's as well. From what Garrett could see as he looked over the scene, after Miranda had thrust her knife expertly into the back of the woman zombie's head she had left that blade in place and turned back towards Doug as he realized his error and started backing away from the zombie that was turning towards him. Doug had already raised the hatchet over his head ready for to strike and Miranda had simply snatched it from his hand and rushed the zombie before it was able to take its first step towards Doug. Garrett stared in fascination at the hatchet still buried to its hilt through the zombie’s forehead. The thing stood over a foot taller than Miranda and she had not been able to get the blade over the top of the skull to bring it down through the head that way. Her improvisation had worked just as well though and done the job.

Miranda was standing on the edge of the road looking back over her handiwork with a look in her eyes that Garrett recognized from soldiers in combat. She was
rapidly becoming desensitized to the business of dealing death. When killing became nothing more than a job that needed to be done it stopped tugging at a person’s conscious leaving them in one of two conditions. Most soldiers simply became sullen and withdrawn tending to seek others who had faced similar circumstances and could relate to them. Those were the ones who tended to survive mentally intact with the passage of time being their best medicine. The other group was the more troubling, they were the ones who once they had a taste for blood, found killing to be an addictive drug that they could never get enough of. They had the greatest chance of turning completely psychotic, suffering from break downs and were more likely to find other ways of continuing to feed their addiction long after their tour of duty in a combat zone ended. In most cases this was something that was experienced by men. But that was only because combat was predominately limited to men. Ever since the Pentagon started adopting a more liberal policy of allowing women to serve in front line units the same type of psychosis began to be seen with them as well. What Garrett was seeing in Miranda's eyes really worried him, she was on a slippery slope and there was just no telling which direction she would end up falling when all was said and done. The best he could do was keep an eye on her and keep talking to her to see if she started exhibiting any signs that she was starting to enjoy killing a little too much.

Doug had stumbled backwards when he tried to retreat from his failed attack and was now sitting on his ass looking humbled as he gazed around him at the carnage Garrett and Miranda had caused. The dejected look on his face told Garrett that he knew he had screwed up and that Miranda had once again saved his ass. Garrett may have admired his willingness to step up to the plate and stand in the face of danger. But until he was better trained and equipped to follow through
, Garrett was going to have him warming the bench for now on before he got someone killed.

Retrieving their weapons from the bodies of the zombies, Miranda and Doug remained at the head of the trail while Garrett returned to the Range Rover and pulled it alongside Kyle's patrol car. Garrett distributed the supplies from the back to each of them but would still have to return for at least one additional trip. Taking point at the start of the trail he assigned Miranda to take up the rear and he led them off into the woods while reminding each of them to watch their footing and remain as quite as possible. They had no idea what other dangers may be lurking between the road and the
Ranger Station.