I shook my head no, “Why?”
“Oh never mind, I’ve got one,” He said, pulling a hunting knife almost eight inches long out of his back, hidden under his coat. He swung at the head of the contaminated, stunning it for just a second, but long enough for Zach to slide the blade across its throat. Blood flew everywhere as Zach bolted backwards to avoid the fountain of red.
“Zach?” I said, not fully aware of his sanity. “I understand revenge is one thing, but isn’t this taking it too far?”
He shook his head, “That last bit wasn’t revenge. That was me experimenting. We saw these things feed, and if you noticed, they were going for the neck first, the easiest spot to get blood because of the large arteries and accessibility. Well,” he said as he made another cut in the contaminated’s leg and left arm, “I’m trying to see how badly they need blood. Are they something that can operate without blood? How much blood will they need to function properly?”
I nodded my head, “Do you think that the swarm of contaminated will come and form here if the food is drained of all the blood? Assuming that blood is their life source.”
“Possibly. There’s no real way to drain every bit of blood with what we’ve got, and it didn’t seem as if the contaminated really ate too much, considering their numbers and the amount of food,” Zach replied.
“Maybe they’re not as stupid as we think,” Chelsea said, running over. “I mean maybe they know that they’re eating their kind. Why wait until one goes for the food if you’re just going to eat any old contaminated? I think they’re trying to restrict the amount that they eat when it’s cannibalism to keep their numbers at the strongest.”
Zach waved a finger in the air with his thinking face on, “That is an excellent point, Chelsea. But it may cause us problems, though I figured on it anyway.”
“What sort of problems?” I asked.
“Well, we know that they are somewhat intelligent, right?” he began. “The first thing I worried about was that they would keep coming back here to feed since there’s ample food if we keep on killing it, kind of like how seagulls are at the Jersey Shore, or were okay with being close to humans because they became so accustomed to being fed by them. That’s bad for us because we don’t live too far from the field.” He cleared his throat, “The second worry would be that they would notice that more of their kind are missing and are being killed. If they are as Chelsea says, intelligent, and restrict the amount of contaminated that they consume, then they might have a general idea on how many contaminated are in the area. If a bunch keep disappearing in a specific area, they might catch on to our position, though I’m probably giving them too much credit.”
I nodded, my attention returning to the contaminated on the ground, “It’s not moving. Do you think that you killed it?” I asked Zach.
He shook his head, “I hit him hard, but not that hard. Not as hard as when you tore the one face off, and he got back up.”
“Then it’s the blood loss,” I said. “That’s one more way to kill them.”
“Not very effectively,” Chelsea said. “There’s no reason to get in close when we have the range of the bats on our side.”
“Truth,” Zach said. “But we do know that the blood is vital to their survivability. If we can keep them away from blood for a long enough time, then maybe their numbers will greatly thin from them dying out.”
“Alright, let’s get inside to see if the clan appears,” I said, grabbing the bucket of baseballs and heading inside.
“How long have we been here?” Chelsea asked.
“At least an hour,” Zach replied. “They’re not coming.”
“You’re probably right,” I said. “The last group formed up really quickly, maybe fifteen minutes tops.”
“So they have a way to signal when they go down?” Chelsea asked. “Or are they attracted by the scent of blood?”
“Both, maybe,” Zach said. “It might be too hard for us to tell.”
“Oh shit, look,” I said, pointing into the field. A few of the smaller contaminated approached the body. They looked like corpses walking amongst the field, white with skin stuck to the bones.
“Holy decrepit,” Zach said. “I’ll be back.”
“Can’t hold your stomach?” I called after him. More of the contaminated flocked to the field, all of which were in a greatly weakened state. There were probably twenty of them by now. “You think that they took longer to get here because they’re weak?” I asked Chelsea.
“I don’t know,” she replied. “Possibly, but why wouldn’t the larger ones be here earlier, or any of the other healthy ones?”
“Maybe drained corpses don’t spark their appetite,” I said. Suddenly I heard the front door open and close, almost slamming its way shut. “Tell me he didn’t.”
Chelsea ran to the other side of the house, looking through the front window, “He did. Zach’s headed through the yards across the street now. Freaking dumbass.”
“Well at least I’m not at risk here, I hope,” I said half-heartedly. I should have been the person doing the running. I was the fastest here and had the best shot at losing any contaminated in a chase. This was the perfect mission for my skillset. I was in better shape, I had better legs for running, I am lighter, and Zach was already gone.
I turned back to the contaminated forming in the field. No others seemed to be joining them. I counted about thirty in total, though I may have counted a few more than once. They circled the body
