The men wear overalls, gloves, and helmets when zombie hunting. Blood exposure from the infected can be just as deadly to a breather as a bite.
“That’s how they got Thor,” Peter explained. “Thor was a big ass blonde guy with arms the size of most guys’ legs. First day we went out he charged a deady and buried an axe in its head. He then mauled it in a rage the likes of which I may never see again. When he was done, Thor was panting hard and covered in bits of zombie.” Peter looked at his feet for a moment before returning his gaze to me. “Within a few hours he was clearly infected. And we put him down.” The last words were stifled with emotion, deep in Peter’s throat.
I didn’t have to ask who bore the task of killing Thor.
The men described the different ways they preferred to kill. Dave liked to smash a zombie with a weighted axe handle. He had capped it with metal rings. It looked similar to a warm-up bat a baseball player would use.
Wood liked the net. “Trap’s them easily, then you can do whatever you want with them.” While he admitted that the technique didn’t work with a group of deadies, he said that one guy doesn’t want to find himself surrounded anyway. “One-on-one. Always attack when you have the advantage.”
Duck liked to rope them and tie them. “Pointless,” Peter grumbled, but he didn’t ask Duck to change. All of the men agreed that you have to use the method that works best for you. “If you’re uncomfortable, then you’re dead,” Peter was fond of saying.
As for how he liked to kill, Peter preferred to experiment. “The boys help me trap them, and I try to figure out what kills them.” He admitted attempts at drowning, incineration, acid, shooting, spearing, hanging, and all manners of dismemberment. “Laying in nine parts,” he mused, “and still trying. Nine parts squirming and reaching. They are always dangerous. Never get comfortable.”
I started with the rope, but found that I didn’t have a knack for it. I also found that I didn’t have the stomach for bludgeoning. So I took to the net. It was easy, and I felt confident, but I needed more.
“I need a dog catcher,” I shared with Wood one afternoon.
“Why? Got a stray?” he asked sarcastically.
“Kind of,” I said. “No, I need the tool, not the guy. You know, the pole with the noose on the end.”
“A catch pole?” he said. “A rod with a snare on the tip?”
“Yeah,” I said enthusiastically. “Got one?”
He shook his head no, but the next day he handed me a long, thin plastic pipe with a cable loop on the end.
“It’s not perfect,” he confessed, “but it’ll work. Slip the snare over a head, and pull on the end of the pipe.” With a zipping sound, the snare shrank. “Lock it in with a twist and you’re good to go.”
I held the device in my hand. I was a real live zombie hunter.
◊◊◊
Sitting at the kitchen table with the gang, eating dinner out of a can, the mood is quiet and thoughtful. I’ve been spending all of my free time working on snaring practice, and the rest of the time I am hanging out with Sissy. The wall she has built won’t come down, but she is still the most pleasant company in the mill.
Peter stands suddenly and announces that the time has come.
Everyone nods.
We are going on a hunt.
CHAPTER 5
Of All The Things That I Have Lost…
It has been weeks since I joined up with the group at the mill. Since then, I have learned all the basic skills necessary to survive on my own if it comes to that. I have no intentions of leaving my new family, but this is life in the new world. One day you are somebody’s child, spouse, or friend. Then next, one of you is dead and the other is either running for their life or being eaten. No one is safe, and no life is permanent, especially now. Heck, the group I live with doesn’t even use their real names anymore. I was born Kyle Moore, but no one here knows that. They all call me Kid. “You have to give up who you were to make it in your new life,” said Peter one night, the unofficial leader of our little family. He’s named after the Peterbilt truck he used to drive, which is the most any of us know about him. Wood is named as such because he was a carpenter’s apprentice before his mentor tried to eat him. Nowadays he’s the group handyman, fixing things that need it and making what we don’t have if he can scrounge the materials. And then there’s Duck. He dresses and talks like he’s making fun of the cowboy stereotype, but after five minutes you realize that’s just who he is. Big-ass cowboy hat. Classic ‘Awe shucks’ attitude. Little nuts. He earned the name Duck when he spent his first night at the mill talking of little other than shooting fowl. Every other comment was how he sure was going to miss sending in his dog and blasting birds clean out of the air. It went on for hours. Peter got so tired of if he finally blurted, “I get it. You enjoy shootin’ duck. You never have to tell me again. In fact, how ‘bout we just call you Duck so you won’t think we have ever forgotten that the guy in the wide brim likes shooting birds?”
“Gee. You mean it?” Duck asked, truly touched.
The one they call Dave is the most difficult case study in the group, mainly because he doesn’t speak. Ever. The man hasn’t said a word since any of the group first met him. Peter started calling him Dave just to give the man a title,
