Softly I said, "I can't even imagine what went through Lindy's mind when she realized the children she'd risked her life for had been mutilated and dragged into the zombie world."
Frances closed her eyes, exhaled and shook her head in silent disbelief. Tears of grief ran down her cheeks, and her posture slumped.
I looked behind us before closing the door. In the dimly lighted room, I saw movement to our right. Natural sunlight through two curtained windows illuminated the main room but left the corners in dim shadows. I swiveled and pointed my .45 caliber Glock in that general direction. Frances came out of her horror induced trance and refocused. Something small moved on the carpet near the far corner. A medium-sized dog or a big cat maybe? And then came a groan, or a moaning sound, or maybe a crude whimper. Something deep and primal that I'd never before experienced and couldn't place. Frances turned her flashlight on as I reached for mine. I wasn't prepared for the sight that my eyes locked onto. The narrow white beam focused on a small body twelve feet away. A large baby lay on the floor. Why hadn't the zombies attacked it? We both moved toward what we'd pegged as an infant. The child was whole; no chunks of flesh were missing. It lay on its belly; the small arms and legs kicked frantically. It was naked on the forest-green carpet and caked in filth.
We were three feet away when it flipped over onto its back. "Aawww Christ!" Frances exclaimed, "That's the ugliest damn baby I've ever seen." She looked at me in awe. I was at a loss for words. I suspected what we'd discovered, and the very idea frightened and repulsed me. I’d never turned to religion for strength, but I quietly prayed to God I was wrong.
I turned to study the female zombie on the floor. She was full bodied, no sign of rot on her pale flesh. Several bite marks on her arms and legs looked old and dry. She'd been rather plain but not ugly, about eighteen or twenty I guessed. The ratty, simple, pink cotton dress she wore was torn and filthy. It had white buttons from the waist up the bodice. A large bloody stain had soaked the front of the fabric high on her thighs and turned brown as it dried. When she fell, she'd landed on her back; her left leg was straight, and her right leg was pointed away from the left with her knee bent and her foot almost touching her left knee. Frances followed my stare. "No. You don't think. Surely not. No, that can't have happened. . . oh, my God, Tom."
I said, "Give me a hand, but be careful to not get fluids on you." We grabbed the bottom hem of the tattered pink dress where it lay bunched above the female's knees and carefully pulled it upward to her hips. The placenta and fetal membranes lay halfway expelled from the woman’s body. "Are you accepting the same thing I'm having to?"
Frances dropped the pink material and straightened as she moved back several feet. "It's not possible for a zombie to give birth, is it? God almighty, tell me it's not possible. They're dead, they can't have sex and then have children. They're dead, damn it!"
"Can't they? They're dead, but they walk and bite."
"Maybe she was pregnant when she was attacked and transitioned? Could that be?"
"My gut tells me no, but we'll ask Doc for his opinion."
Frances jerked when I laid my hand on her shoulder. "Don't freak out on me. Apparently, it is possible. We've seen changes in the zombies from the rotting hulks we originally encountered to a new fast running type. Lately, we've come upon a few zombies that move fast, are more coordinated, and don't rot like the others. And they're silent when they attack. I suppose mating and birthing could be another step in the mutation or evolution taking place."
I stepped back to the other two adult zombies and flipped them onto their backs with the toe of my heavy boot. Each looked almost normal except for the bloodshot eyes, filthy clothing and skin coupled with a complete lack of any form of personal hygiene or grooming. All three of the adult zombies had chunks of flesh missing where they had been attacked by other carnivorous zombies. The wounds looked old because the flesh had dried and cracked. But strangely, they hadn't begun to rot. I squatted between Barry and Carla. Each bore big ugly depressions where flesh had been torn away. The wounds were still red meat but had begun to dry and turn dark
We turned back to the naked, mucus covered infant. It was on all fours, crawling toward us. Its jaws worked as it looked up. It couldn't have been more than a few hours old, but it had teeth and snarled at us as it smacked its jaws together noisily.
"Go out to the truck, there's a digital camera in the glove box. We'll take pictures to show everyone, or they won't grasp the full gravity of what this means." Frances turned to leave. "On second thought, I'll go with you in case there are more of these quiet fast movers hanging around out there. These are another new fact of life we need to be cognizant of every minute."
Minutes later we returned and found the baby had crawled back to the corner where we'd discovered it. We clicked off thirty-two photos before the batteries got too low to power the flash. It was time to quit because by then we had enough pictures to sicken
