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I can see him now. He’s slightly behind the other two, walking farthest from me near a bank of trees. He passes in and out of shadows under the canopy of the foliage, the sunlight shining on his dark hair, brightening it then losing it to blackness. When he glances my way, looking at the older man beside him, he’s smiling broadly.
I feel a small pang. An itch in my chest that I can’t understand and I can’t scratch.
They keep thundering through the forest; Ryan, the older man and the lithe footed guy with the freaky eyes. I follow them. This, I acknowledge, is stupid. But I’m seventeen and I’ve never done a stupid thing in my adult life. I figure I’m long past due. Besides, that pang in my chest will not be denied.
Eventually the tall blond holds up his hand, says something inaudible to the other two and they quickly scatter. They fan out and create a triangle around a small area of low lying grass just at the edge of the trees. In under a minute I can’t see or hear any of them. It makes me sick to my stomach to see it because I realize I could come walking through this area and cruise right past all of them, never knowing they were there. Not until it’s too late. Suddenly I wonder if I haven’t done that already. Do they already know about me? Have I been spotted before?
My hands are clammy and my heart begins skipping painfully in my chest.
Odds are I have been. I’m stealthy, clever and quick, but there are a lot of eyes in this area, it seems. It’s unrealistic to believe I’ve gone u
Then I see what they’re waiting for. Moving into the clearing slowly and with great caution is a buck. He’s tall and broad. A big, hulking, powerful package of meat and deliciousness that has my mouth watering just looking at him. I’ve seen old advertisements in decrepit, broke down fast food joints and I know what used to make people drool. It was the end product. The final presentation of a piece of meat after countless ugly, messy and thoroughly disturbing things happened to it all at the hands of someone or something else. Tell me the phrase ‘mechanically separated chicken’ doesn’t send a chill down your spine. I read it on a bag of dry dog food once (yes, I ate the dog food) and I almost gagged at the thought. Not on the dog food, though. That was tasty.
What I’m saying is, my idea of delicious is so much broader than it used to be. It’s more big picture and the big picture right now is an 8 point buck with a body full of finger lickin’ good.
I wait anxiously as the buck saunters into the clearing, munching on grass and occasionally surveying his surroundings. I’m surprised he doesn’t smell the Lost Boys sitting so close by or hear one breathing. The fact that none of them have coughed, yawned or even swallowed too loudly is amazing to me. I guess because I don’t see them hiding from others the way I do, all I see them do is walk through the world like they own the place, I assume they aren’t any good at sneaking. But today I stand, or sit with dead legs, corrected.
Suddenly the blond guy is up and on top of the buck. It happens so fast and is so unexpected I actually gasp. The buck is just as startled as I am. Probably more so. He goes to run but the guy has a hold on him and they both stumble slightly. Ryan and the older guy jump up and grab onto the buck as well. The thing puts up a hell of a fight, ducking his head down and using his sharp horns to keep the men at bay. Ryan takes a point to the arm and I watch as red blood blossoms on his shirt. He doesn’t slow down though and I’m not even sure he can feel it through the adrenaline. They struggle with the buck, almost losing it at one point before the older guy grabs on to the thing’s hind legs above the knee. He’s taking hooved feet to the shins which I know will bruise for days but he holds on. There are shouts and cries, grunts and panic, but then it all goes silent. The buck collapses to the ground and I look around in surprise, wondering what did it.
Until I see the blood. It’s fa
***
I don’t tell Ryan that I saw him. I don’t tell Crenshaw either. Ryan would be excited, Crenshaw would be mad and at this point I don’t even know how I feel about it so I keep it to myself. I’m good at that.
What I do tell both of them is that I’ve seen a lot of Colonists lately. The zombies are still in full force but I’m getting used to that again. They’ve always been there, it seems. An omnipresent threat that I can put in the back of my mind and deal with on auto pilot. They’re dumb and predictable and I don’t even have to kill them if they see me. If I’m tired or loaded down with supplies, I have no problem evading a Risen and letting them keep on shuffling. All it takes most of the time is crossing the street and crisis averted. Zombies were a big problem in the begi
But right now my biggest worry is the Colonists and their recruitment tactics. It’s been a month since the rise in the zombie population thanks to the loss of one of their Colonies. After the fight and fire I saw in the street they stopped with the helping hand routine and went back to rounding people up like strays. I’ve warned Crenshaw, though he met the news with his usual disinterest and sage, wizardly advice:
“Luck favors the prepared.” he intoned, swaying his staff back and forth like the swinging pendulum of a clock. I’m pretty sure he meant to hypnotize me. “Keep thy blade and wits sharp.”
Spoken like a fortune cookie from Frodo’s kitchen.
I left a message for Ryan the other day warning him as well.
Colonists are the new plague.
Watch your back.
Don’t I know it.
Do you nee
His message is cut off and my heart slams to a halt. That’s all he wrote. He must have been interrupted, but by what? A Risen? A Colonist? Another Lost Boy? There are so many possibilities of what could have gone wrong that I feel helpless trying to figure out what happened to him. And I am not the helpless type. It actually occurs to me to go to his gang. It’s ridiculous and so stupid, but I seriously consider it. I can watch from afar for a little while, see if I can see him coming and going. And if I can’t? I don’t know. I don’t know what I’ll do then. This is the second time I’ve been worried for his life in a very short amount of time and I wonder what exactly it is I’m doing here. And for what? A little conversation on a wall and the memory of broad shoulders and brown eyes? Yeah, I feel less lonely and I feel a lot more of a lot of other things I’d forgotten existed, but to what end? How many of my old rules am I go
I’m hurrying past the wall, heading toward his part of town, when warm hands reach out from the shadows of a darkened doorway and yank me back. I don’t scream. I don’t panic. I’m conditioned well beyond all of that. As I’m falling backward, my back slamming into someone else’s front, I reach for my knife. I’m spi