The male and female's outward appearance looked equivalent to sixty-year-old humans. The ugly, naked child looked like a twelve-year-old boy. All three were filthy and scratched. Dried blood caked the deepest cuts and scratches and coated their hands and lips. More dried blood from victims had dribbled down their chests.
A barrage of gunfire in the distance caused all three zombies to freeze in place. Past the scope's crosshairs, I saw the female's eyes lock onto my position. I fired a half second before Jesse did. Both adults dropped under sprays of blood and brain matter. The adolescent spun around on one foot, scrunched low and bolted down the path with Jesse and me shooting behind it. It ducked out of sight behind a dense bush, and I lost sight of it. I muttered a blue streak of cuss words at not getting all three of the monsters. We'd had our chance and blown it.
Jesse worked the call intermittently for another hour before we called it a day. Another team would man the blind in early afternoon and return to the compound before dusk.
We stopped on the trail and stood beside the naked adults. Far off, more gunfire erupted. Then the woods were silent again. Up close, the male showed definite signs of rot. Loose skin hung from its palms and fingers. Other splotchy areas over its body were red and raw where skin and flesh peeled away. The female showed signs of the same decay process, but hers wasn't as advanced as the male's condition. I guessed she was somewhat younger than the male. I wondered if the younger zombie who'd escaped was an offspring of those adults. Since he was naked, I assumed he was.
Birds were the only animals I heard as we started down the path to get back home. Around a bend and a hundred feet in front of us, I saw a naked body lying face down in leaves at the edge of the dirt trail. I stopped stone still and pointed ahead for Jesse to see what lay ahead. He moved beside me, and we stealthily moved forward one careful step at a time.
Reports had been made of these zombies ambushing humans. Was that happening to us? Had the boy monster laid a trap for us? Were we being suckered in? Our shots at this one had been out of desperation. We'd fired through foliage and branches at its torso, not the normal and mandatory head shot. From ten feet away I saw two entry wounds at the upper right back below the shoulder blade. They were about three inches apart. Several more bullets had grazed its shoulders and neck.
I pulled my Glock from the holster and laid my rifle beside the path. Jesse stooped and did the same. We walked closer. Still there was no movement. I drew back my right leg and kicked the bottom of the zombie's crusty left foot as hard as I could muster. The force of the impact moved the leg and made it bend at the knee. Still the creature didn't move.
"Keep a close eye on it while I get my rifle," I told Jesse.
I stepped off the trail to walk past Jesse with the rifle in my hands and slipped the barrel under the naked body. Jesse squatted and had a two-handed grip on his handgun. A hard upward tug on my rifle flipped the corpse over onto its back. A gaping hole was left where the bullets exited. Just so I'd feel safer, I fired a round into the zombie's forehead as it lay staring up at the tree canopy above us.
Jesse said, "It looks like at least one of those bullets went through that little monster's heart."
I grinned broadly. "That's good news if a chest shot will kill them. Our folks will be glad to hear a body shot will work. Some still have trouble hitting the top of a skull at a good distance."
We were at Deliverance well before lunch time. Twenty minutes later, Mitch and Paige rushed in and found me and Ed in the armory. "Dad," Paige blurted, "wait till you hear this. Mitch and I sat in our blind all morning working that deer call. We didn't lure any zombies to us, so we left the stand and started back. On the trail, we were about ten feet apart. Mitch was leading. Suddenly, a zombie rushed us from a huge tree about eight feet away. It had its arms spread and its mouth was open. It scared the shit out of me, and I lurched backward away from it and fell on by butt. As I dropped my AK and pulled my Glock—"
"When she fell," Mitch ran with the story, "the zombie hesitated just a split second. I guess it was deciding which of us to go after. That gave me enough time to raise the M16 and fire from the hip at about four feet away. As the barrel rose, I kept pulling the trigger putting three round bursts from its crotch up to its neck." He looked at Paige. "She was shooting her .40 caliber non-stop at its chest. All of a sudden, its knees buckled, and it keeled over backward. It was dead when it hit the ground. I still put a burst into its brain to be sure. But we're sure the shots to its heart killed it."
I shared my earlier experience that morning with them. Then we wandered throughout the building spreading the news of our morning discoveries with our friends.
Outside by myself, I heard the sounds of tractor engines running under a heavy load. Tony Osmond was plowing the fields before the disk and harrow equipment was pulled over them. If all went well, and the weather cooperated, initial planting was scheduled to begin in two weeks.
