Chapter 7. Let me know what you think, even if you think this story totally stinks and that I couldn't write my way out of a paper bag. I love reviews! Good, bad, ugly, bring 'em on!

Daryl had ridden a little over ten miles on the dusty dirt road when he saw the sign for Forest Lake State Park up ahead. He slowed and pulled the bike over and came to a stop right before the sign. He went to pull his red rag out of his back pocket to wipe the sweat and road dust from his face and he cursed when he found it was missing. He untied his plaid red and tan shirt from around his waist and used that to wipe the sweat from his face and neck. The then wiped the back of his neck as well. He removed his crossbow strap from around his back and shoulder and set the crossbow next to him, leaning it against the motorcycle. Damn, but it was hot. Pulling his tank undershirt off over his head, he took a deep breath and reached for his canteen. It was about half full and he took a long drink from it and then poured some water over his face and then onto his neck and chest. It was lukewarm, but it felt good.

The sign in front of him told him he had another ½ a mile to go before he reached the first lake and he was glad of it. He was exhausted and was hoping he'd find a safe place where he could hunker down and get a little bit of sleep. He took one more swallow of water and pulled his undershirt back on over his head and tied his shirt around his waist. He slung the crossbow over his shoulder, adjusted the strap and started the Harley.

He shut the bike off at the top of the Forest Lake State Park road and put it into neutral. The road sloped gently downward and he figured that if he could coast down the hill without the engine running, it would be less of a walker attractant and he'd be able to hear if anything was coming towards him through the woods. At the bottom of the hill, the road turned into a parking lot. There were two RVs and four cars parked in the lot, and he could see the lake and the campsites further in. He counted five RVs set up in campsites and looked about warily for walkers.

A gurgling moan behind him caught his attention quickly and he swung his crossbow up and twisted around on the motorcycle seat to see what was coming.

There were three walkers approaching and it looked like they had been a family at one time. There was a man in swimming trunks and a Hawaiian shirt. Half his face had been peeled away from his skull and he was missing part of his right arm. It ended at this elbow. A chunk of flesh on the "Walker Dad's" left thigh had been ripped away, exposing the femur. Walker Dad moaned as it caught sight of Daryl and shambled toward him.

"Momma Walker" followed right behind him. She was missing both of her eyes, her nose and her half of her right hand was missing. Her ribs were exposed where a large chunk of flesh had been torn away from her chest and her lips had rotted away from yellowed teeth. She gnashed them as she advanced.

"Walker Kid" appeared to have been a teenaged girl at one time. The first thing that Daryl noticed about her was that she had multiple piercings in her ears. A gauge at the bottom and then little hoops and studs ran up the sides of both of them. Wouldn't those look cool on his shoestring necklace of zombie ears, he thought. Walker Kid was dressed in low cut jeans and a halter top. Her navel was pierced, too, but the flesh had been ripped open on her stomach and the chunk with the navel ring hung like slab of meat from a narrow strip of flesh. It swung back and forth as she shambled in his direction. Other than that, she was pretty much intact, and Daryl wondered if Walker Dad and Momma Walker had preceded her in their transformation into the undead realm of walkers.

Daryl readied his crossbow and took down Walker Dad first. His shot went right into Dad's mouth and the bolt almost completely exited the back of its head. Dad went over backward with a final guttural growl.

Walker Kid had caught up with and shuffled past Momma Walker, and she was Daryl's next target. He hit the trigger and let the bolt fly and suddenly Walker Kid had an arrow spouting from her forehead. She went over backward without a sound.

Momma Walker was still advancing, gurgling and moaning and reaching toward him. "Aw honey," Daryl smiled. "I missed you, too." Momma growled and moaned louder, "What's that? You wanna give me a big ol' hug an' suck on my face? Well c'mon ova here sugar. Daryl's got somethin' special for ya."

Momma Walker continued to advance and Daryl contemplated using his knife instead of the crossbow. In the end, he let a bolt fly and it caught Momma in her empty left eye socket. She gibbered and moaned and clawed at the sky for a moment after she'd fallen and after she grew still, Daryl put his booted foot on her forehead cautiously before yanking the bolt from her eye.

He saw movement by the beach area from the corner of his eye and glanced in that direction. A couple of walkers were coming around the corner of what appeared to be the concession stand. They moaned and growled and started shambling and dragging themselves in his direction. More came around the corner of the stand, and then even more. He counted fourteen of them in all.

What to do, what to do. He didn't have enough bolts on him to take them all out with his crossbow, but he had enough to take most of them down. He could probably dispatch the others with his Bowie or his hunting knife, but if he ended up getting mobbed that might not be such a good idea.

He pulled back the bowstring, aimed and let the first bolt fly. It hit its mark and the walker dropped. He yanked the bolt out of Walker Dad, set it up and let it fly. Another one down. The next bolt he pulled from his quiver and walker three bit the dust.

He tried to pull the bolt from Walker Kid but it was stuck. He shouldered the crossbow and pulled on the arrow with both hands, leaning back as he held Walker Kid's head down with his right foot. The arrow came out with a satisfying 'pop' and Daryl almost fell on his ass. He laughed to himself. Wouldn't it have been something to be swarmed immediately after falling on his butt? He shook his head, why the hell did he think something like that was funny? The fourth walker fell as he fired another bolt.

They were about thirty feet from him now and he backed up, retreating towards his bike. He let another bolt fly and then another. Two more bolts flew and met their mark. He had two bolts left. The six walkers left continued to advance, shambling and groaning and reaching for him.

"I look an' smell goooooooooooood to you bastards, don't I?" he called to them and he did a little half turn and wiggled his ass at them. They all moaned in unison as if answering him and he smirked and taunted them. "C'mon an' get it, then, ya undead fuckers!"

He used the last two bolts to take out the walkers in the middle of the approaching group and then drew the Bowie knife from its sheath and advanced towards the remaining four flesh eaters.

Sweat ran down his forehead and he wiped it out of his eyes. His heart was pounding in his chest and he was wired with adrenaline. He never felt so alive than when his life was potentially on the line – and how stupid was that?

He started running toward them and when he was almost upon them he cut to the right and sprinted past the walker furthest to the right. He jumped behind it before it had a chance to turn around and drove the knife through the back of its skull. The knife was sharp and he was easily able to extract it and he jumped back, wiping it on his pants as he jogged backward toward one of the walkers he had taken out earlier with his crossbow. He yanked the bolt from the walker and pulled the bowstring back and set the bolt.

The three remaining walkers had now stopped and then reversed direction and were now shambling towards him. He did a quick 360 degree scan of the area around him. He didn't want any surprises and then he turned his attention back to the advancing walkers and took aim at the one in the middle. He let the bolt fly and the walker went down, a bolt protruding from where its nose had been a second before.

He backed up a bit more and pulled another bolt from a walker he'd taken down. He scrambled backward and his left foot stepped in something slippery and he went down flat on his back, losing his grip on his crossbow.

He scrambled to the side and reached for the crossbow, bringing it up as the first walker appeared above him. He fired and his bolt caught it in the right cheek. It fell down on top of him and he cried out in disgust as the putrid liquid oozing from where the bolt was imbedded dripped onto his face and down his neck. The last walker fell on top of Disgusting Oozing Face Walker still on top of Daryl and clawed and snapped at him. It buried it's broken off yellow teeth into the back of the neck of Disgusting Oozing Face Walker.

Daryl reached for his knife and the walker on the top of the pig pile grabbed for his arm and rolled off Disgusting Oozing Face Walker's left side. Daryl pulled himself out from under the right side of Disgusting Oozing Face Walker and rolled away from it. He leaped to his feet, his heart pounded in his chest and zombie goo running down his face and neck. Fuck, that was close. The smell of the gunk stuck to his face and dripping down his neck was awful and he bit his tongue hard to keep himself from vomiting. He needed to take care of this walker first, he could puke later.

He wiped his face with his arm and grabbed his Bowie knife from off the ground and sheathed it. He pulled his smaller hunting knife from its sheath on his belt and stepped back. The last walker had gotten to its feet and was headed in his direction. It had been a woman when it was alive and it was wearing a one piece bathing suit. The bathing suit was bright florescent pink with lime green flowers on it and Daryl was struck by the contrast of the bright, lively colors and the gray, dead thing sporting them. He lined himself up with the approaching ex-beachgoer and threw the knife. It hit bathing suit walker right between the eyes and she went down.

Daryl looked around to see if there were any other walkers nearby that he needed to worry about. He couldn't see any and he listened as well as he could over the pounding of his heart in his ears. He couldn't hear anything but the pines whispering as a breeze blew through them and the occasional bird calling. He removed his knife from Bathing Suit Walker and collected his bolts, pulling them from the walkers he'd slain and wiping them off on his pant legs.

He caught his breath as he walked back towards his motorcycle, stopping every so often to look around and listen. There were no signs of other walkers, and he wondered if there were any lurking in any of the RV's scattered around the camping area. He decided against checking them to see.

He mounted his bike and wiped the sweat off his brow. He adjusted his crossbow and the knife sheaths on his belt, started up the motorcycle and turned out of the parking area onto the narrow road and headed toward Mirror Lake.

Mirror Lake was about 2 miles from Forest Lake and the narrow dirt road became even narrower as he got closer to his destination. He didn't see any walkers as he slowly rode along and he would take a second here and there to scan the forest on both sides of him. The road was shaded by tall pine trees and the air smelled of pine and rainwater. It was like perfume to Daryl. He had gone a bit more than a mile when he stopped at the top of a private drive that entered the lake road from the left. There was a gate at the top of the driveway where it met the lake road and a large black and orange sign: PRIVATE PROPERTY – NO HUNTING, SHOOTING OR TRESPASSING.

A small smile played about his lips. "Now that sounds like an invitation," he mumbled to himself.

He pulled the motorcycle in front of the gate and parked it, opened a saddlebag and pulled out his little Beretta Brevettata revolver. He checked the clip and chambered a bullet. He made sure the safety was on before sliding it into the waist of his pants near his belt buckle. Merle had called him a pussy once because he always carried with the safety on. He told Merle to go to hell; the last thing he needed was for the gun to accidentally discharge and blow his junk off.

He readied a bolt in his crossbow and walked cautiously around the gate at the top of the private drive. He could see the lake to his left through the trees and he could smell it, it smelled clean and fresh like the air after a cleansing rain. The smell of the lake blended with the smell of the pines and he inhaled deeply. He didn't smell anything that remotely resembled the smell of death and walkers.

He slowly and stealthily made his way down the pine needle covered drive. The little shaded road continued to descend and he had walked about 200 feet and he realized the road ran along the side of the lake and got progressively closer to the lake as it descended. After advancing another 100 feet he caught his first glimpse of the house. It was surrounded by a chain link fence and it sat on the edge of the lake. It was made of logs and was three stories high. There were several large windows in it and it gave the house the illusion of being made mostly of glass. The roof appeared to have glass panels on it as well and he thought that those were the biggest damned skylights he had ever seen. The yard had been tastefully landscaped with shrubs and fruit trees and he was sure it must have looked really nice before the apocalypse came along and people stopped mowing their lawns and trimming their trees and shrubs.

Daryl slid into the woods and approached from the cover of the trees. It was quiet, except for the call of birds and the occasional squirrel that stopped in the trees above him to chatter at and scold him. He stopped and stood still, listening and watching. There was a faint hum coming from the house.

As he got closer, he could see that the land had been cleared behind the house and the tree line was about 200 feet from what looked like it could be a back porch. The chain link fence ran along the tree line. He doubled back into the woods and made his approach from directly behind the house. There was no sign of anyone around and he couldn't see any cars parked anywhere near the house. There was a garage behind the house, but the doors were closed and he couldn't tell if anything was inside it or not.

As he closed in on the fence behind the house, his olfactory sense was suddenly assaulted by the stench of decaying flesh. He stopped and bit his lower lip, trying to push down the urge to vomit. His eyes scanned the woods around him and the house and the overgrown lawn up ahead of him for walkers. He listened carefully for any sounds that would indicate that walkers were near.

He listened for the squirrels. Squirrels would scold anything that walked beneath a tree they occupied, be it a human, a deer or a walker. Daryl had learned as a child learning to hunt to use the squirrels in the woods as indicators that something was approaching. A squirrel far off would chatter and scold, and then, as whatever was walking through the woods approached, a squirrel in a tree closer would do the same. He was able to surprise many a deer this way as the squirrels were more than happy to give away its position as it walked quietly through the woods. It worked both ways, though, as the little stinkers were more than happy to alert all the woodland creatures to Daryl's presence as he walked through the woods.

Daryl could not see or hear any walkers. The smell got worse as he approached the fence. He approached cautiously, waiting for a window in the house to suddenly fly open and an unknown occupant to cut him down in a hail of bullets. He was about three steps from the fence and he was still whole and alive and the house was still and quiet.

He glanced through the fence at the back lawn and pinpointed the source of the stink of death. About fifty feet from him, behind the fence and to his left, there was a row of four mounds of earth. They were placed against the chain-link fence where it ran down by the side of the house. Next to one of the mounds was a pile of old bloody rags.

Daryl touched the fence, half expecting it to be electrified and to fry his ass to a crisp where he stood. Ah, his first brain fart of the day showed up and the scene in Jurassic Park where Dr. Grant grabs the electric fence and pretends to be electrocuted flashed in his head. He rolled his eyes at himself and his ridiculous imagination. He climbed up over the fence and landed on his feet on the other side. He steadied his crossbow and looked the house over, searching the windows for any movement. All was quiet. He walked slowly and quietly over to the mounds of earth and the nasty smell got worse.

As he got closer, he realized that the pile of old rags, stained brown with blood was actually a body. Flies buzzed around it and as he got closer, what was left of the body appeared to be undulating and pulsing. He got a bit closer and then turned and bent over, vomiting up what was left in his stomach of Oreo cookies and Dr. Pepper. The body was teaming with maggots. There was a Police Glock .45 in the rotted, maggot infested hand.

"Fuckin' pussy." he mumbled to himself as he wiped his mouth. "The fuck's wrong with you? You seen worse than this. Gotta stop fuckin' pukin' every time somethin' smells nasty."

Each of the graves had a piece of 2x4 that had been cut and placed like a crude tombstone at what he could only assume to be the head of the grave. The markers had been painted with black paint and the occupants of the graves were revealed in their words. 'Donna – my lovely wife 1972-2012' said the first one. and then down the row: 'Thomas- Eldest son 1997-2012' 'Nathan -Youngest son 2004-2012' 'Emily – Dearest daughter 2000-2012'. It didn't take a rocket scientist to figure out what had happened here. Dad had put down his family and then taken his own life. Daryl wondered if his family members had been bitten or if Dad had taken a pre-emptive strike.

There was a shovel leaning up against the fence and Daryl put his crossbow down and picked up the shovel. Breathing through his mouth, he dug into the earth and threw several shovels full of dirt over the exposed body until it could no longer be seen. He hoped that his actions would help to improve the smell in the vicinity.

Daryl placed the shovel back against the fence and retrieved his crossbow. He stood quietly and listened. No sounds of walkers and the birds still sang carefree in the nearby trees. He could hear the audible hum from the house. What the hell was that? Was a generator running? He couldn't hear any engine running.

He looked around the overgrown back yard as he approached the back porch of the house. There was a large garden close to the house on the side opposite the crude cemetery and a glass greenhouse. Two of the glass panels in the greenhouse on the side facing him were smashed and lying in pieces on the ground. The garden was overgrown and he could see what looked like several zucchinis poking through the grass and weeds. One looked to be about two feet long and 10" around. 'Zucchini,' he thought, 'the rabbits of the vegetable world.'

Daryl climbed up onto the porch and stood flush against the wall by the door. He slowly reached over and grasped the handle of the outer screen door. He turned it and the door opened. He slid in between the screen door and the main door and peeked in through the glass. The door opened into the kitchen. It was large and neat and appeared to be well appointed. The appliances were stainless steel and the countertops were of rose granite. There was an island with a sink in it in the middle and lots and lots of dark cherry wood cupboards. Daryl looked around as well as he could. There didn't appear to be anyone in the kitchen. He listened at the door. All he heard was the hum he had been hearing right along, as if something was running on electricity. He tried the doorknob and it turned in his hand. The door wasn't locked. He slowly pushed the door open and stepped inside.