even one trying not to be seen and making maximum use of natural cover, still left tracks that showed they were in control of their bodies. The steps were more orderly, more evenly spaced. Dead feet tended to wander, to drag, to ignore cover and follow the path of least resistance. There was evidence of both kinds of travelers in the woods.
Twice she spotted zombies standing in the forests doing nothing. It was a phenomena she’d begun to realize was a thing. Unless drawn by scent, sight or sound, the dead would often slow to a stop and simply stand there. When the dead moved in packs the movement of the whole tended to draw the others, but Dez figured that even these groups would eventually slow down when the ones out front had nothing new to chase. It made a weird sense to her. After all, why would they just keep moving? Zombies were opportunistic hunters. They attacked and devoured life—animals, humans, birds—and they had already begun stripping areas of everything that could feed them. In the absence of prey, they stopped, no longer pulled by their senses.
That created a new kind of danger. The motionless zombies were like landmines and IEDs. They could be anywhere and because they remained so still and so quiet it was easy to walk right past one and accidentally trigger its appetite and aggression.
Dez paused in her search long enough to cut a green branch from a tree. She used a knife to strip the leaves and bark from it and to trim it down to a twenty-inch length with a sturdy Y at one end. She held that in her left hand and carried her blackjack in the other. That gave her a formidable set of tools for a technique she wished she could patent and sell. She’d be a millionaire with the first post-apocalypse must-have invention. Great for Christmas, perfect for stocking stuffers, she mused.
She had to use it less than two miles from the bus.
As she cut along an overgrown fire access road a solo zombie suddenly lurched toward her from the shade of an oak. One moment it was invisible, merely part of the landscape, and then next it snarled and lunged at her, gray fingers clawing at her shirt and hair.
Dez backpedaled to get her footing, set her weight on the balls of her feet, and as the creature shambled forward she used both weapons to slap its reaching arms down and then thrust the Y-stick hard against its throat. The mouth of the Y snugged in tight under the chin of that snapping mouth, and Dez quickly moved close and brought the blackjack down on the crown of the monster’s head. The blackjack was made from a heavy pellet of lead wrapped in leather. The weapon’s neck was flexible, which allowed for a lot of snapping speed. Handled one way and it would deliver a soft, penetrating blow that would render a criminal dazed or unconscious, often with a mild concussion. Used any other way it crushed bone and drove splinters through dura-matter and into the brain. There was a reason it had been outlawed by police forces across America. Just as there was a reason Dez Fox had taken it out of the box of weapons she’d kept in her trailer home when everything was falling apart. She’d nearly lost her job for using it once while busting up a biker gang brawl, now she was glad she hadn’t thrown it away.
The blackjack whipped through the air and hit the zombie on the crown with enough force to send a shockwave up Dez’s arm. She knew from hard, bad experience that it wasn’t any trauma to the brain that stopped one of the dead. The blow had to do significant damage to the motor cortex or the brainstem. So, as the creature dropped to its knees, Dez used the Y-stick to set it for the killing blow. Another swing, another crunch, and then the zombie was a ragdoll. Dead for sure and forever.
She stepped aside and let it fall.
The creature had been a forest ranger once, she could see that from his pants and shoes and the few remaining tatters of shirt that clung to the destroyed body.
“I’m sorry,” she murmured
Twice she spotted zombies standing in the forests doing nothing. It was a phenomena she’d begun to realize was a thing. Unless drawn by scent, sight or sound, the dead would often slow to a stop and simply stand there. When the dead moved in packs the movement of the whole tended to draw the others, but Dez figured that even these groups would eventually slow down when the ones out front had nothing new to chase. It made a weird sense to her. After all, why would they just keep moving? Zombies were opportunistic hunters. They attacked and devoured life—animals, humans, birds—and they had already begun stripping areas of everything that could feed them. In the absence of prey, they stopped, no longer pulled by their senses.
That created a new kind of danger. The motionless zombies were like landmines and IEDs. They could be anywhere and because they remained so still and so quiet it was easy to walk right past one and accidentally trigger its appetite and aggression.
Dez paused in her search long enough to cut a green branch from a tree. She used a knife to strip the leaves and bark from it and to trim it down to a twenty-inch length with a sturdy Y at one end. She held that in her left hand and carried her blackjack in the other. That gave her a formidable set of tools for a technique she wished she could patent and sell. She’d be a millionaire with the first post-apocalypse must-have invention. Great for Christmas, perfect for stocking stuffers, she mused.
She had to use it less than two miles from the bus.
As she cut along an overgrown fire access road a solo zombie suddenly lurched toward her from the shade of an oak. One moment it was invisible, merely part of the landscape, and then next it snarled and lunged at her, gray fingers clawing at her shirt and hair.
Dez backpedaled to get her footing, set her weight on the balls of her feet, and as the creature shambled forward she used both weapons to slap its reaching arms down and then thrust the Y-stick hard against its throat. The mouth of the Y snugged in tight under the chin of that snapping mouth, and Dez quickly moved close and brought the blackjack down on the crown of the monster’s head. The blackjack was made from a heavy pellet of lead wrapped in leather. The weapon’s neck was flexible, which allowed for a lot of snapping speed. Handled one way and it would deliver a soft, penetrating blow that would render a criminal dazed or unconscious, often with a mild concussion. Used any other way it crushed bone and drove splinters through dura-matter and into the brain. There was a reason it had been outlawed by police forces across America. Just as there was a reason Dez Fox had taken it out of the box of weapons she’d kept in her trailer home when everything was falling apart. She’d nearly lost her job for using it once while busting up a biker gang brawl, now she was glad she hadn’t thrown it away.
The blackjack whipped through the air and hit the zombie on the crown with enough force to send a shockwave up Dez’s arm. She knew from hard, bad experience that it wasn’t any trauma to the brain that stopped one of the dead. The blow had to do significant damage to the motor cortex or the brainstem. So, as the creature dropped to its knees, Dez used the Y-stick to set it for the killing blow. Another swing, another crunch, and then the zombie was a ragdoll. Dead for sure and forever.
She stepped aside and let it fall.
The creature had been a forest ranger once, she could see that from his pants and shoes and the few remaining tatters of shirt that clung to the destroyed body.
“I’m sorry,” she murmured
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