Chapter II
Couldn't sleep worth shit that night. Kept hearing rustling in the weeds outside. There was a rustlin' through the tall grass, the snap of a branch and the cracklin' of the dry leaves. Occasionally something would bump into some of the junk tossed around about the clearing. There was definitely somethin' moving through the trees, could've been a raccoon, a possum or a god damned walker. The thought that it might be somethin' that could come a snackin' on us was what kept me up with my hands on by crossbow and bowie knife.
I guess you could say that the putrid smell the rat bastards that lived here before us left behind was actually kind of helpful. It smelled like the inside of a rotten asshole in this trailer; it smelled like death. Hopefully the dead wouldn't come a lookin' for the living in a place that reeked of the stench of death. I wasn't getting much of that snarling, hissing shit that the dead seemed to use as their mating call or whatever so that helped ease by nerves somewhat. Eventually I was able to go back to sleep, or what I called going back to sleep. What passed for rest was just me looking at the inside of my eyelids for a few minutes to an hour before opening them to take a look around. Never actually went under, no one was getting good sleep anymore, that was just the way it had to be.
Come morning I found Merle jacking around in the bathroom after his dumbass tripped over my legs and woke me up. I kinda didn't want to get up at first but once the brain gets firing and you start thinking of shit, especially the kind of shit that needs doing it's hard to get settled back down. So after a time of fighting it I eventually gave in and got up. First things first I might as well peek in on what my dumbass brother was up to. Merle had dug around in the bathroom drawers til he found what he was looking for. a ziploc bag filled with a half K of powder along with a used glass pipe with some leftover bits of amphetamines inside. My suspicions were on point, the people that lived here were fucking meth heads. Merle planned on chasing the dragon a little bit before going out to get chased by the dead. Wasn't really much reason to worry 'bout what that shit'll do to you when the average life span out there is just a few days anyways. I couldn't really complain so long as he didn't do something stupid that got us both killed. The coke might actually give him a pinch more focus come to think of it. So while Merle was on the couch getting bent I was outside scoping out the area and making sure it was cleared of walkers. A couple had stumbled into the little crescent shaped trailer park over the course of the night. Slow, stupid and easy as fuck to kill one by one I had no trouble jamming my knife into their brains and putting those god damned munchers down for the count. So long as you kept their numbers down there really wasn't much to worry about; it was when they started clumping together in large groups that they were really dangerous. By clearing the walkers out I was making sure that didn't happen. Afterwards I might as well go out and try to bag us some venison; I had time, Merle wasn't gonna be going anywhere for a while.
So I took my crossbow and went out into the woods. I had seen some deer tracks on the way over here so I assumed there would be at least one around, provided I could get to it before the dead did. That deer should be feeding us if it ain't gonna be running free; I sure as hell wouldn't want it feeding the walkers. I was pretty darn good at tracking shit without being noticed, been doing that shit ever since I was a little boy. My dad would take me and Merle out huntin' with him, half the time he was drunk off his ass and we had to make the shot for him but fuck it, we learned. I was a lot better at it than Merle so as expected I'm usually the one that had to go out there to bring us dinner. The tracks started to look fresh as I passed near a creek side glen; I had a good feeling about this. We certainly would be eating a better lunch than the slop we had for dinner last night. Merle had best be cleaning that junk ass grill outside while I'm out. Fucker should be able to move a brush back and forth even if he's high as fuck. I heard a noise in the bushes ten or twenty yards out on the other side of the creek so I hid behind a group of trees and waited. Either this was my deer or another walker; both would get shot but only one we'd be able to eat. Luckily it was the tastier of the two options. The deer, a fine specimen of a buck briskly walked out of the bushes and meandered down to the creek. I took my aim as it leaned down to take a drink. The little bit of noise I made startled it enough to make it raise its head and look around but didn't spook it enough to cause it to run away. I let loose with the arrow which struck the deer between the eyes. I had gotten damn good with the head shots thanks to the walkers. It was almost second nature by now; all of that center mass stuff had gone out the window with the end of the world. The deer managed to take a few strides away before it crumpled into a neat little pile.
The sound of the deer being dropped had rung the dinner bell for a very unwelcome guest. A walker, formerly some dude in jeans and ranch hand attire, snarled into the scene as if out of nowhere. Probably was there all along I was just too zeroed in on the deer to notice. That wasn't a good thing; one had to keep their heads about themselves at all times. Let something in your blind spot just once and you weren't going to get the chance to live to regret it. Back to the matter at hand, the walker was after my deer. Oh hell no! I had not wasted an arrow so some fucking dead head can get a free lunch. I let loose an arrow once I had hopped to the other side of the creek. The arrow literally went in one ear and out the other of the slimy dead guy, bringing him down a couple feet away from my deer. I quickly ran over and dragged my deer away from the corpse before it could stink it up with its bloody bile leaking onto the ground. After I got my deer away I pulled out the arrows from it and the walker. Right after I got the last arrow out the walker another one of those things thought it was slick, assuming the devils can think, and came up behind me. Hadn't had a chance to put my arrow away yet so I twisted around and jammed the arrow into the walker's eye. That seemed to do the trick after I thrust it in and twisted it to the side to scramble its brains. I yanked it out, wiped it off and stashed it back in its quiver. There was more growling and hissing in the woods; god damned motherfuckers, this was my deer, my lunch and they weren't getting it. I dragged the deer back and out of the way of the oncoming walkers and move forward ready to fight. Over my dead body, I thought to myself as I drew my hunting knife and jammed it above the nose of the first walker to come out of them there bushes. Over my dead body, that was probably the idea. Another came at me from the side, and then another from the other side. I turned and dispatched the walker ahead of me just as three more came out of the woods behind me to join the other one. Yet another stumbled through the tree branches to my right and forced me to stab it multiple times until I managed to get that blade up in those brains and scramble them up. By that time two of the other four walkers were upon me. I could feel their breath against my neck; their hissing, growling and gnashing of teeth were terrifyingly close. I started to turn around but they were so close I expected to get bit, just a little before I got around to fighting them off. Just a little was all it took though; as a fifth walker bumbled about through the trees and into the clearing I could feel it closing it, the inevitable fact that I was about to become one of them.
I felt a warm sensation on my neck but it wasn't a bite. The sensation was accompanied by a loud popping sound and spread from my neck down my back and into my hair on the sides and back of my head. I turned around to see the second walker's head burst open in time with another pop which I recognized now as a gunshot. Blood and the internal fluids of the dead now spattered onto my face and chest. I looked past the walker to the shooter as the dead man dropped. It was my brother, the son of a bitch popped off the remaining three zombies one at a time. That asshole was high as fuck but could still drop walkers from across the creek. I tried to go for the last one but Merle cracked its head like an egg before my knife could get in there.
"What the fuck you think you're doing Merle?" I asked him.
"Saving your ass lil' brother what does it look like." Merle replied leaning the rifle up against his right hip and smiling with a cigarette clenched between his teeth.
"Don't you know that gunshots draw more of them? Shit, we're going to be swimming in roamers in no time." I complained. It wasn't that I was ungrateful it was just that Merle didn't think that far ahead when he came to my aid. He could have found a way to do it more quietly I thought. Still I shouldn't be a dick; he did just save my sorry ass.
"Relax lil' brother. I think we done up and cleared out the neighborhood 'round here. Ain't got nothing to worry about." Merle said to calm me down.
He then looked over all the dead walkers and my buck lying there at the creek side still untouched by the dead. "Looks like all the trailer trash is out for a Bar B Q." Merle sarcastically remarked.
"Get yourself cleaned up and bring this pretty boy back to camp. I'll get the coals fired up." Merle instructed me.
In any normal situation I would demand that his lazy ass help out but this time, seeing as he kept me out of the undead club for a little while longer I might as well oblige his asshole demands. I owed my brother one and fuck it, better to pay it up front than to have a debt called in later. So I washed all the filth and grime the dead had left behind on me in the creek and then hefted the deer across it, being careful to avoid the dead and cross upstream of where I had washed off at. Then I headed back to camp where me and Merle would sit down, eat us some good backwoods Bar B Q and then get on our way down towards Atlanta town.