Dating : The Man Who Hunted The Dead

My sister and I had just spent the last month in an underground bunker while the world above us collapsed.

What’s more?

Now infected bodies roam the streets and to make matters worse.

We were surrounded and our weapons weren’t working.

“What’s wrong with the stupid guns?” Lauren yelled.

“I don’t know,” I said. I kept pulling the useless trigger and watching as the body moved towards us unharmed.

“Well do something!” she said.

I dropped the rifle I was holding, letting the sling keep it from hitting the ground, and I pulled the axe from my belt, clutching the grey fiberglass handle. It had a satisfying weight to it and I was sure it would do the job, and so I chose it instead of the machete Lauren carried. One of the bodies was closer than the rest. It wore a red shirt and logo from the store, and he looked vaguely familiar. I brought the axe up with both hands ready to make the strike.

When I hesitated.

I tried to focus on the pale skin, the far away eyes, the limp mouth, its slow, shuffling gait, and the odd angle at which it kept its arms, but I could only see the other things. The red shirt impressed with store logo, the jeans, and the shoes with one of the laces untied, all reminded me of the human that once inhabited the body. When I should have been ready to take the body down to protect my sister and I, I had, at the worst possible moment, this overwhelming paralysis. I couldn’t do it. I was too weak. I thought of Troy calmly taking down the bodies, smoothly working the pistol. I imagine how my father would have reacted, most likely how Troy, not the helpless manner in which I found myself.

I couldn’t do it.

There were more coming, making their way into the alley, at least twenty. Some snarled like mad dogs. This is how we would die.

I felt Lauren push past me, bringing the machete up and planting it in the skull of the nearest man. The blade slipped out, covered in red cerebral matter, small droplets of blood running to the ground, and she took the blade and swung it again, burying it deeper into the head of the man that once lived among us.

“Are you just going to just stand there?” she said.

I snapped out of the daze and ran next to her as she moved onto her next victim, this one used to be a woman, she was still carrying a purse, but Lauren cut her down too. With the axe high above my head I brought the head, with a surprising amount of speed, and it lodged into the head of the infected body in front of me. Another reached for me, I used to the axe handle to cross check the dead man and I cut off the reaching arm. With each stroke, there was a sickening crunch, and the slippery sounds of metal moving through flesh. More were coming.

“We need to get out of here,” I said.

“What the hell do you think I’m doing?”

Close to twenty-five of the infected were in the alley now. The sounds must have attracted more. In a quieter moment, I would appreciate the irony of our situation. We would be killed trying to get food to sustain us.

When they first appeared, we had a small buffer between the dead and us, but it was shrinking. The smell was overpowering; several of the standing corpses were rotting and filled the alley with such an overpowering odor it, combined with the foul burning smell that permeated the rest of the air, made it harder to breath, my lungs ached from the exertion and my eyes watered. We tried to keep fighting.

“There’s too many of them,” Lauren said. We were separated, each confined to a small circle. I lost the axe as it lodged into a shoulder of one of the creatures, leaving me with only one of the knives I took from Troy’s house. With each moment, the circle shrank.

Lauren fell to the ground, and continued to swing at their legs. Several of the bodies fell down too, each one moaning and reaching for the lost limb.

“Get off me, Get off me” she kept yelling.

I tried to get to her. She was on her back swinging wildly, no longer aiming just trying to make contact with something. In three quick motions, I stabbed the three nearest zombies, watching them fall but there still too many between us for me to reach her. One grabbed her ankle, pulling her in close and bringing its mouth down on her leg.

So this is how it ended. I would watch the last member of my family die in front of me, ripped limb from limb while I waited to be eaten.

I was listening to what I thought were her last screams when it fell out of the sky. It was act both so random and precise that I was convinced I imagined it, as the arrow hit the infected man in the head. Its head blew outward as the broad head punched through its face. Several more dropped out of the sky, like the first raindrops of a thunderstorm, hitting more of them. Bodies dropped, seven by my count. I could reach Lauren, after the mysterious arrows cleared a path. The rest of the zombies didn’t notice their fallen comrades and continued towards us.

“Are you okay?” I asked.

She looked at me, her eyes were wide and face pale, “It was going to eat me” she said, “it was going to bite me,” her voice was getting softer, “It was…”. I tried to pick her up, she hung lose in my arms.

Three more arrows fell. From behind an overturned car, I saw their origin. Dressed in a dark jacket with the hood pulled up, a man was firing arrows at the zombies. He dropped the bow and started running towards us; he was holding something in his hands and as he approached he tossed the object over the group and I heard something land and skitter down the alley.

With a pop, and a shower of sparks, the device came to life. He had lit one of those fireworks, popular during the Fourth of July, and the sparkling, whistling spectacle drew the interest of the horde. A few of the diseased people still came after us. I looked desperately for one of the weapons and found Lauren’s machete. With most of the horde moving towards the new distraction, only a small group was preoccupied with us. I stood, setting Lauren down and keeping the weapon in my hands. But, I was too late. The man was on them. He pulled a hatchet and a hammer from his belt and proceeded to dispatch a group of seven zombies, without benefit of firearms, in less time than it would have Lauren and I do take down two. He was a maestro conducting a symphony of savage butchery. Where we wasted time hacking at arms and shoulders, he calmly placed killing strokes into their heads with brutal efficiency.

“Did she get bit?” the stranger asked, his hand rested on the butt of a pistol in a holster.

“No,” I said, “I don’t think so.”

“Get her up, we need to move,” he said. He went back to the fallen bodies and plucked the arrows out of their heads. On the way back through the alley, he stopped to pick up his bow, “This way,” were the only directions he gave. Lauren regained some of her awareness, and she went to say something but I put my finger over my mouth. She nodded.

We followed him through a neighborhood. He moved quickly but didn’t seem to be rushing, and he ran up to house.

“I cleared this one earlier today,” he said, “we should be safe here for a while.” The front door was boarded and there was another piece of lumber laying in front of the entrance with several nails hammered into it so they pointed upward. The man bent down and examined the nails and once the board was moved he used his hammer to remove the nailed in two by four.

The house was small, no second floor, and the new man checked the house, within a minute. He returned, dropping his equipment on the floor. “Let’s see that leg,” he said and Lauren sat on the floor while he flipped open a knife and cut part way up her jeans. “The skin’s not broken. I don’t think he actually touched you. You’re lucky I followed that herd into the alley, most of the time I try to give them a wide berth.”

He took off his jacket, revealing for the first time the man who saved our lives. He looked like a man used to rough living, his face gaunt, skin stretched over rippled muscle, and several days worth of stubble on his face. What surprised me the most was his age. For someone who remained so calm, I expected someone much older than I, but he was young, at most two years older than I was.

He removed the glove on his right hand; a three-finger model used for bow hunting, and extended it. I will remember forever the first time I heard him say it, “My name is Evan Bishop.”

The grease lamp flickered, its soft yellow flame made the shadows dance around us. Evan had been watching in silence as I scribbled page after page. Every once in a while, he would grab a sheet and read it over, nodding in approval. His comments were rare, and encouraging when they did come.

“What would you have done?” I asked.

“What?”

“If Lauren was bit, and I was sitting there in the street holding her and you came up on us like you did, and she had been bitten. What would you have done?” I asked again.

“You know what I would’ve done. I’d shoot her right then and there, most likely would’ve had to shoot you too.”

The flame flickered again and I went back to writing.

In the house not too far from the alley where we almost met our fate, Evan picked up the small rifle I carried.

“Why didn’t you use this?” he asked.

“The dumb thing wouldn’t fire,” I said.

Evan clicked a small lever beneath the rear sight and pointed towards a bookshelf. With only a small smacking noise, the gun spat a bullet and a small hole appeared on the wall.

He handed the gun back to me, “The safety was on,” he said.

Afterwards, Evan showed Lauren and I how to take the safeties off the various guns.

“I can’t believe we almost died because this,” Lauren said, “Mom would have killed us for even holding a gun.” It was barely out of her mouth when she realized what she said. She started tearing up. Evan noticed but didn’t say anything. I put my arm around Lauren while she cried silently into my shoulder.

“There’s a couple of the bigger houses I want to check,” Evan said, “You can come if you want.”

We didn’t have much of a choice. Clearly, Lauren and I were not suited for this new world and going with Evan seemed infinitely better than starving in a basement.

We were gathering our gear when I noticed Evan’s quiver. It was dark brown, leather, and attached to his backpack, but what caught my attention were the x’s drawn on it. The hand drawn marks covered most of the quiver. Evan was pulling the board off the door when I asked him, “What’s with the x’s?” I asked. I didn’t think he heard me. I almost asked again.

“For a while every time I killed one of those things out there I was putting an x on my quiver,” he said.

“Did you run out of room?” I asked.

“No,” he said as he walked through the door. He turned back, “I ran out of ink.”

The house Evan was talking about was three blocks to the west. On our way there, the damage to the area was apparent. Before, this area was a picturesque example of America, now it was merely a shell of the livelihood that once filled the area. Instead of he manicured lawns and well kept houses, the grass grew into wild tangles, and few of the houses remained intact, most were burned, broken and some razed to the ground. Bodies littered the area.

I knew which house Evan meant and went to turn down the street that would get us there the quickest.

“Don’t go that way,” Evan said, “you don’t want to go by the school.”

Neither Lauren nor I asked him to elaborate.

The next neighborhood was slightly higher class, mostly older brick homes instead of the aluminum sided ones that populated the area and Evan said there were a couple of the bigger homes that hadn’t been touched. “Just about everything was hit by something, when the army showed up a lot of the buildings were burned, and anything standing was looted afterwards. I haven’t cleared this street yet so keep your eyes open,” he said. He double checked his bow and arrows and pulled the slide back on one of Troy’s silenced pistols. I offered him the rifle, a small token after one’s life is saved, but he told me to keep it, “You need that laser sight much more than I do,” he said. He was right.

We stood in front of the chosen house, “I figure these people were on vacation or something,” he said. I knew what he meant. I remembered what happened to most of the people that first day. The infected were drawn to people, and if this house had no one in it might have avoided any trouble.

“Are you okay going in?” Evan asked.

I nodded.

“Take the safety off now,” he said and turned to Lauren, “You stay here, if see anything, yell,” he checked her gun; made sure it was loaded and handed it to her. “Give us 15 minutes. You split if we’re not out.” He turned to me, “Keep your back to the walls and check every corner and you’ll be fine. You got a flashlight?”

“Yeah”

“Let’s go.”

We approached the old brick house. I’ll never be able to shake the memory of clearing my first house, the feel of my heart banging, my chest tight, the way things seemed to slow down but still moving fast all at the same time. All of it in complete contrast with Evan. His motions were fluid, every step practiced, like he’d been doing this for years.

Evan opened the screen door, but the front door was locked. I waited on the front porch while Evan picked the lock. Within a few seconds, we were in. I clicked my flashlight on trying to check every corner. Some of the windows were covered but light was still getting in. I tried to stay right behind Evan but he progressed through the house so fast I struggled keeping up. We checked the living room and kitchen within a minute, and in another we covered the first floor; a small office, a den, a bathroom, a mudroom, and a storage room. I turned towards the stairs but I felt a hand on my shoulder.

Evan pointed to the closet I was about to walk in front of, “You got to check everything. You wouldn’t believe where these things hide.”

Luckily, the closet was empty. Next came the second floor, four bedrooms and a bathroom. We checked most of them without incident. In fact, the house was completely empty. All that remained was the master bedroom at the end of the hallway. As we approached it, there was a small bump. We froze. Evan put a finger to his lips and slowly reached for the doorknob. But, It wouldn’t budge. The bumps continued, now with a greater frequency. Evan slipped the hammer from his belt, and with one swing punched a reasonably sized hole in the door. Evan peeked through the newly made window.

“Aww shit,” he said.

“What?”

As soon as he pulled the gun from his belt, I knew what was in there. He used the claw end of the hammer to make a bigger hole and pointed the gun, but he stopped.

“You do it,” he said.

“Me?” I said.

“Yeah,” he said and handed me the gun, “You got to get used to it. Just put her down.”

I looked through the hole, and discovered what blocked the door. A large bureau was overturned right against the door, and on the other side was a body. One that kept bumping into the bureau, she was reaching towards the door. She was reaching for us.

“Can’t we just leave her?” I asked.

“No,” he said, “put the bullet through its head and let’s go.”

From this close, no more than three feet, it was impossible to miss. I closed my eyes. The gun jumped in my hand, and I heard a thump.

“Good,” Evan said.

With the house cleared, it was time to search. We started with the kitchen, and found a near full pantry.

“Jesus Christ,” Evan said, “must’ve just filled up before this happened.”

We stuffed as much as we could into our bags, cans of all sorts, mostly vegetables.

“I never thought I’d be excited to see green beans,” I said. Evan remained silent.

“You closed your eyes,” Evan said.

“What?”

“You closed your eyes back there. I saw you. It’s got to stop. Just pull the trigger. Don’t give them a backstory. They’re no one’s mom or dad anymore. Its like swatting a fly, put them down and they can’t hurt anyone,” he said.

“Sorry,” I said.

“And don’t fucking say your sorry.”

“Guys,” I heard Lauren yelling from outside.

We grabbed the rest of the cans and ran to the front door.

Lauren was holding her gun up and pointing it down the street. Three of the infected were rambling down the street

“Don’t shoot. Don’t shoot,” Evan said, “it’ll just attract more of them. Come on, my camp’s not to far from here.”

We jogged approximately ten blocks from the house, back towards our old home. The pack was much heavier now and I was sweating and struggling to keep up. Evan ran as if the pack weighed almost nothing and Lauren kept up with him. We finally stopped at an ivy-covered fence. Evan stopped at spot with a rope tied between two of posts. It covered an area where one of the heavy-duty iron posts once stood, and made an area just big enough for a person to slip through.

“Where are we going?” Lauren asked.

“My camp’s back here,” Evan said.

“Your camp’s in there?” she said pointing at the fence.

“Yeah,” he said.

“That’s the goddamn cemetery,” she said.

“You have a problem with that?”

“I don’t know today my leg almost gets mauled by fifty infected freaks. And now you want us to go into a fucking graveyard. I don’t think so.”

“Suit yourself,” Evan said and walked through the two bars.

“Tim,” Lauren said, “I’m not going in there.”

“Do you have a better idea?”

“No,” Lauren said, “but it’s a freaking cemetery. There’s dead people in there.”

“There’s dead people out here too. At least in there they aren’t walking around.”

“It’s just,” she started.

“Lauren,” I said, grabbing her by the shoulders, “If it wasn’t for Evan we would be dead right now.”

She started to cry. I held her. “I won’t let anything happen to you.”

We entered through the hole in the fence, retying the rope in between the two posts. The hole was small and we had to take the packs off in order to squeeze through. In the afternoon sun it was clear how long it had been since anyone had been here. The grass was long; some of the headstones were slightly tilted. I never really liked this place to begin with, and, given the recent circumstances, I was on edge. I kept that little rifle at the ready and Lauren had the machete out of its sheath.

Evan’s camp was in a small stand of trees behind one of the bigger mausoleums and impossible to see it from the road. However, it was unlike any camp I had seen before. There was some sort of tent like thing tucked in the trees and Evan had a small fire going, but it was in a pit dug into the ground.

“I knew you would come,” Evan said while he tossed a twig into the fire.

“What’s that?” I asked, pointing to the object, a rigid tent hung 15 feet in the air on a tree branch.

“It’s called a port-a-ledge. It’s used for rock climbing. Guys hang off the side of a cliff and sleep in them. I took it from a sporting good store I came across. Most of the stuff was gone but they left this. Probably didn’t know what it was,” he said.

“How do you get up there?” Lauren asked.

He pointed towards a series of steps that were strapped to the tree, “they’re made for deer hunters. To get up in a stand,” Evan said.

Evan had a pot and we dumped some of the canned vegetables into it. Evan stirred the food, and let the vegetables come up to temperature. He poured a little salt from a tub we found in the house. The smell of the food cooking, even something as innocuous as canned vegetables, whetted my appetite.

A month ago, I would have eaten these only as a prelude to a heartier course, but now the food was all I could think about. For the last week, we rationed what little food remained in the basement, eating only the required calories to keep us going. Lauren ate the medley of vegetables with relative speed. I imagine the dinner fair was much easier for her, as she never really ate meat. If she had the opportunity to live in a normal world and gone to college I guessed she would have been a vegan, at least for some time.

I noticed the fire pit. It was a strange construction, with two holes and the fire only in one.

“What’s with the fire?” I asked.

Evan looked up from his bowl, “This,” he said, “it’s called a Dakota fire pit. It allows you to have a fire without much light. It’s a trick I learned…” he trailed off, “it’s a trick I learned from a friend.”

Night was coming.

“It’s going to be cramped. But we might just fit up there,” Evan said.

Evan went up first, nimbly navigating the steps and getting into the ledge easily. Lauren went up, not as fast, but without much trouble. I, on the other hand, tested my fear of heights and climbed up the tree and positioned myself in the ledge. It really didn’t fit the tree of us, and Lauren and I were able to lie down, but Evan was forced to sit along the bottom and lean against a collection of ropes.

“Evan,” Lauren asked, “why did you help us?”

Evan turned towards her, holding on to the rope, “It didn’t seem right to just leave you guys there. Not when I could stop it.”

“Besides,” he continued, “it was getting kind of lonely.”