“Well, that was lucky,” Toga said as they watched Bobby turn his truck around, followed by the rest of the caravan.
“If you say so,” Big Mack said, knowing that a time would come when the Jesters were expected to earn their keep.
Ten miles past the Florida border Bard’s group had grown to twenty–two zombies. They were in varying stages of decay, one ghoul had dug himself out of a shallow grave when the green light had passed over Earth and wasn’t much more than scraps of flesh and muscle pulled taut over bone. His leg muscles were completely gone and with each hour he fell further behind, dragging himself hand over hand along the road. Bard was the freshest zombie, though an undead child was quicker than him, shuffling forward until he was out of sight of the main group, though without the other zombies surging forward he would inevitably forget where he was going and they’d pass him up once more, standing to the side of the road, working his jaw open and closed mindlessly.
The highway was wide and choked with cars, it turned this way and that and the zombies followed along, Bard mostly in the lead. One night Bard stopped, causing a woman with her intestines hanging out of her stomach to bump into him. Bard grunted and turned on the woman, shoving her away with his hands before turning towards the side of the road and making a beeline for the woods that grew there. Some of the other zombies had picked up the scent of the living the same as Bard had, and they too hurried along, with the rest of the undead following them simply because that’s what they were apt to do.
Bard stepped off the blacktop and sank slightly in the muddy earth. It had rained for hours the day previous. Behind him the woman with the intestines on the outside grunted as she slipped, falling back and hitting her head on the edge of the pavement hard enough to leave a length of blood and skin there when she got back to her feet. Bard weaved between thin trees along with the rest of his pack, and before long they were emerging into a clear area, over grown with weeds and grass, with three big blue tents set up in the middle of the field. Telephone poles ran through the center of the field, their wires hanging dead and useless above the tents like old garland on a rotting Christmas tree.
The people who owned the tents hadn’t survived so long by being stupid, and they had three lookouts, one of whom spotted the swarm of undead immediately. He grabbed a whistle hanging around his neck and blew hard into it, where his other lookouts took up his call. Soon people were stumbling half dressed from the tents, each one holding a weapon of some sort. When all was said and done there were nine living souls to fight off the twenty–two zombies. They had guns and began firing. The child who kept speeding ahead of the rest of the ghouls went down, the back of his head opened up by burning lead, no blood was flowing to come spraying out of the wound, but chunks of pink brain did.
One zombie was walking so close to Bard that they kept bumping shoulders, but suddenly there was a loud bang and he was falling backwards, his stinking jelly-like congealed blood slopped across one side of Bard’s face. Bard stepped awkwardly on a half grown stump, falling forward onto his stomach. Shots were ringing out constantly, and his fellow zombies were falling around him. Bard began crawling instinctively, not attempting to stay hidden in the long grass but doing so anyways.
Soon Bard was upon one man, a young Asian man in a ball cap, firing round after round from his handgun. Bard reached up and wrapped his hand around the young man’s calf and working to pull his leg to his open mouth. The man yelled out in surprise, pulling his leg with so much force he toppled over backwards. Bard scurried forward, climbing upon the man as he struggled to throw Bard off. Around Bard and the doomed man the other zombies reached the circle of defenders around the tents, and the guns quickly became useless at such close quarters, and still with so many zombies left.
The Asian man was screaming, reaching up to retrieve the gun he had dropped when he fell when Bard pushed his fingertips against his stomach and pushed, his dirty nails slicing first through the man’s tee shirt and then through his skin. When Bard pulled his hand back it was shining and red in the soft light of the blue moon. The man’s screams filled the air in the clearing, mixing with the dying yells of his fellow survivors. Bard lowered his mouth to the man’s open stomach and began eating his liver while it was still in him.
When Bard returned to the road hours later, the sun was on its way up and he had sixteen undead ghouls with him. The tent survivors had killed eight but two of the fresh kills had managed to keep enough of their body parts to rise and join the group after they had died. Bard led the way back onto the highway and turned right, continuing south.
Big Mack had quickly learned exactly what was expected of he and his fellow Jesters. They were enforcers of sort, working to keep Bobby in the lead of the caravan and in charge. Some of the members of the caravan were paying steeper prices than the Jesters to join in on the ride, and Big Mack, Willy, and Toga were expected to make sure they paid up. Bobby had gone pretty
