Tim turned toward the house. "Linda, go see what the hell has those crazy dogs so riled up. Sounds like they're ripping each other apart."
A young, short, plump blonde wearing jeans shorts and a lightweight, pink, nylon sports jacket stomped dejectedly to the right side of the house and disappeared. She wore a holster on her right hip with a revolver in it. The jacket extended downward over the pistol's grip. Her arms hugged her body across her chest in an attempt to stay warm in her skimpy outfit until the sun rose higher overhead.
I said, "I wish you'd reconsider joining us. There's safety in having larger numbers of people, and we would both benefit from a merger. If there—"
A shrill scream emanated from behind the houses. The man and woman on the porch carried rifles, and both sprinted around the corner as Kira, Tim and I charged after them. Additional screams were loud, high pitched, and long. Abruptly, a chilling scream stopped in mid-breath. The snarling dogs overrode the sounds of our boots pounding on sparse grass and weed covered hard ground as we ran flat out.
Behind the house, spatters of blood spotted the ground. Two gaunt, naked zombies ran for the cover of the trees with their strange uneven gait; the blonde was draped over the shoulder of a tall male monster on the left. A stream of blood flowed from her neck down his back in thick rivulets. Several shots were fired. A large dog lay broken and crumpled on the grass near us; it whined as its front legs clawed the ground spasmodically in the throes of imminent death.
I aimed my Glock and yelled, "Shoot their legs out from under them, target their knees." Rifle and pistol fire exploded across the space. The zombie on the right rocketed ahead of her partner, blocking our shots at her limbs. She carried a large dog's carcass under her left arm. The male staggered as bullets tore tissue and shattered its left knee and thigh bones. The left leg collapsed, and the monster stumbled and fell hard. The blonde's mutilated body flopped like a battered doll as she hit the ground and rolled.
The female zombie bled from multiple bites and tears on her legs and gunshot wounds to her thighs. She shrieked loudly as she flung herself around and past mature trees. In seconds, she'd stooped and disappeared into the shoulder-high weeds and saplings.
I gripped Kira's arm and held her back as other family members rushed from the house to join Tim's group. The male zombie ignored the approaching defenders and fed greedily on the blonde's left thigh. It slurped blood and raised its head to swallow chunks of flesh as if starving and oblivious to the humans. It mostly ignored the attacking dogs but reached to grab a large mastiff's jaws that suddenly clamped onto its forearm. Only then did I notice the full-bodied zombie had begun to rot. We'd not seen that in over two years. I stepped closer but stayed behind the Masters family.
A single deafening blast from Tim's .50 caliber revolver exploded the zombie's brain. The sudden sharp noise caused birds that had just settled in the trees to again squawk and flap their wings in flight. Seconds later, another blast from his stainless steel mini-cannon stifled the blonde as she transitioned to the red-eyed undead and rose from the blood-soaked ground to snarl at him. The male zombie had fallen on its left side. Its skin was shriveled, and the face looked old. I thought of an eighty or ninety-year-old human. The long, silver-gray hair surrounding a bald spot was dirty and matted worse than any homeless human I'd seen.
Tim straightened, turned, and marched to face me. Kira and I were changing magazines. "That was my daughter-in-law we just lost. I'm going to ask you to leave, so my family can give her a proper burial and grieve in peace." He turned away to join his family. Loudly he said, "You'll have an answer within five days."
Kira stepped away, then stopped and waited. "You've done all you can. It's up to them now; they know they're welcome."
Side by side, we took our time getting back to the truck. Our right hands hovered near our sidearms as we glanced to the road's edges to spot zombies lurking in the tall weeds. Caution was a constant fact of life since the evolution of birth zombies. The damned things were mostly silent, fast, super strong, and exhibited a measure of cunning. Ambushing humans and other mammals occurred far too often. Wariness had become a way of life for all who chose to go on living. Tim's blonde in-law got complacent and paid a terrible price for her carelessness.
At the truck, Rick and Jesse both threw questions, wanting to know what happened. Kira told them about the attack by the birth zombies. They shook their heads showing compassion, and we climbed into the truck without further talk.
We drove the first leg of the one hundred fifty miles from Nebraska to Deliverance in silence. It still struck me as bizarre to see mile after mile of fertile farm land covered with weeds and young trees. Nature had started the process of reverting the land back to its natural state. In a hundred years, most of the signs of human encroachment would be rotted away or covered by weeds and vines.
After twenty minutes, Rick said, "I haven't heard anyone speak of seeing the original slow zombies in... I guess over two years. Do you think they may have died out all across the country and not just here?"
Kira drove. Jesse dozed in the back of the crew cab alongside Rick.
I shrugged as I looked out the side window. "It's hard to know for certain, but I can't
