Out of the Shadows and Into the Night

by SplatDragon

With her sickly frame, mangy fur and protruding bones, it would have been easy for John to declare her to be one of the dead and put her down. And yet those eyes - none of the undead had those eyes. Keen and bright, a shade of gold unlike any he'd seen before, bearing an intelligence that belonged on a man, not on a wild beast; it was those eyes that stayed his hand.

John would have given anything to have a campfire going.

Hennigan's Stead was never cold, but there was a definite nip to the air. He could barely see a foot in front of his face, and it made him jumpy. Every sound - from the far off groans of the undead, to the low grunts of his sleeping horse - had him jolting awake, finger twitching on the trigger of his gun, which rested on his lap.

If Abigail didn't kill him for hogtying her, and the undead didn't either, he was certain he was going to be downed by a heart attack.

But a campfire was as good as suicide, nowadays. It was a homing beacon, yelling "I'm here! Come and eat me!" to the countless undead in eyesight of the smoke. Perhaps it would have kept him safe, once upon a time, from animals, but undead animals apparently lost their fear of fire.

So it was safest to be blind and cold than to attract the undead to him.

He could have ridden the rest of the way to Bonnie's Ranch, he supposed. But it had only taken a few days for most of the survivors to realize that nights were more dangerous than days. Not by much, mind, undead came out in droves during the day. But there was just so many more of them at night, and they were harder to see. So it was safer to make camp and wait out the night than to try and cover the rest of the distance to the ranch - even though he could see the flickering lights from where he lay.

Far away, a zombie howled. Coyotes yipped, his horse grunted. Not five feet away, a twig snapped. John took a deep breath, sitting up and aiming his gun in the direction of the sound.

Bright, gold eyes gleamed at him from the darkness, and for a moment he froze.

A month ago, he would have thought 'wolf' and been done with it. But every animal he had encountered so far (aside from goats, for some odd reason), had been undead as well. And the undead's eyes, filmed over as they were, did not reflect light.

He shifted, raising the gun and pointing it towards the eyes. The movement was slow, and careful, in hopes that the whatever-it-was would become disinterested, and go away. The sound of a gunshot would draw every undead for miles, and he didn't want to waste a bullet.

The golden eyes blinked, and he released the safety of the gun. It hadn't struck, yet, and that was a good sign. Nothing he had run into since this mess started would hesitate to attack. But it hadn't left yet, either.

And then, with the brushing of dry twigs, the eyes vanished, the fading sound of snapping twigs and crunching dirt announcing its departure.

John didn't sleep that night.