An (Incomplete) Guide to the Zombie Apocalypse: Chapter 7
March 13th, 1999 - 9:45 am
Tom finds himself paired with Danny that morning during the search, and makes it a point to observe him carefully. He'd had plenty of time the previous day to get to know Tex, and he liked the older man. He was smart, funny, but also careful. He had been alert the entire time they'd been in the woods, and Tom trusted that Tex would have his back in a fight. It had been clear that Tex was a good ally to have. He had even been level headed and trusting enough to leave his child, who had just almost died, in the care of Rachel while they searched for their missing man.
Tom was hoping that the same would be true of Danny. He'd seen enough zombie movies to know that teams that didn't work well together and trust each other didn't last long.
"You don't say much, do you," Danny asks, several hours into their search, and Tom shrugs.
"I do sometimes," he says.
"Saw you getting pretty talkative with Rachel last night," Danny observes, and Tom stiffens.
"Is that a problem?" he asks, cautiously. He likes Rachel, thinks she's brilliant and beautiful and someone he would like to spend more time with. And he had assumed that Kara and Danny were together, so surely the man isn't jealous?
Danny doesn't respond for a long moment, taking time to clear a fallen tree and check his surroundings before turning back to Tom. He lets his rifle hang over his shoulder, and crosses his arms before meeting Tom's eyes, steely determination in his gaze.
"Nah, but she's kind of like my little sister. I watch out for her. Tex, too. We like you, man, but we've liked Rachel more and for a lot longer."
Ah, Tom thinks. Not jealous, then. Just willing to beat the shit out of him if he hurts Rachel.
"Is this the shovel talk, then?" he asks, amused, and Danny shrugs, finally letting a little of his own amusement show.
"Does it need to be? We see how you look at her. And, honestly, how she looks at you. She's never shown interest in anyone since we've known her, but to be fair most of the men we meet are decaying and trying to eat her flesh, so," he says, and Tom chuckles.
"I don't know yet, Danny," he says honestly, and they continue walking, eyes peeled for any trace of Eric. So far they haven't found anything - no tracks, no freshly broken trees or branches to indicate that he'd come through here, nothing. "I admire her and like her a lot. But I'm just getting to know her, as well as everyone else in the group."
"I saw the two of you in the van this morning," Danny comments, and Tom finds his hand clenching around the knife he's carrying. That had been a private moment, though he gets the feeling that privacy is something that's hard to come by. Danny continues,"Looks like it might be like that soon, and that's not a bad thing. Having someone makes this whole shit show a little easier. When I met Kara, I just knew, you know? I made a move pretty quickly, because the world is shit and we might not get another chance. Like, fuck it, you know? We may be dead tomorrow. If you feel that way about Rachel, tell her. Enjoy having each other, because none of us know how much longer we've got."
Tom ruminates on Danny's advice while they continue their search, contemplating all that he almost said and did this morning. He had almost kissed Rachel, had wanted to very badly, but had held back because he was unsure. But Danny was right. He could die tomorrow, or today, and Rachel could, too. One single moment of not paying attention, a wrong move when fighting a zombie, and his life could be over. He'd always been slow in courting women in the past, taking them out on dates and getting to know them before making his move. But the world was different, now, and maybe —
His thoughts are interrupted when Danny holds up a hand, and he freezes immediately, eyes scanning their surroundings to see what had alerted Danny. He sees them, still a ways off and silent across the distance, but slowly lumbering through the woods.
"Four total," Danny whispers, and Tom nods, taking his knife in hand and preparing to attack. Between himself and Danny, he thinks it'll be easy. "I'll take the blond one and the bloody one," Danny continues. "You take the woman and the bodybuilder in the back."
"Got it," Tom says, and he can see the exact moment that the Zombies notice their presence. They go from lumbering aimlessly to lurching toward the two men, and fuck, they're faster than he remembers.
"Don't shoot unless you have to," Tom cautions, remember what Rachel had said about noise alerting them, and Danny rolls his eyes.
"I know that! I've been doing this a lot longer than you have!" he complains, and Tom chuckles as they move in sync toward the zombies. Danny takes out the first one easily, a knife in it's eye socket, but as he goes to remove the knife and attack the second one, he curses loudly and jumps behind Tom.
"Knife's stuck!" he shouts, and Tom takes over, quickly dispatching the second zombie with a flick of his wrist. The knife Rachel had given him is sharp, and cuts straight through the putrid, moldering flesh. The zombie drops, and Tom bends down, quickly wrenching Danny's knife from the zombie's eye before tossing it behind him.
Danny takes the lead again, circling the final two, ducking to avoid their sharp, rotted fingernails as they growl and slash at them.
"Don't let them draw blood at all!" Danny yells, and Tom nods, his heart racing as he dodges the zombie that Danny had perfectly labeled a bodybuilder. It is huge, easily a foot taller than Tom, and clearly had weighed a good three hundred or more pounds before it had started decaying.
The bodybuilder roars and its arm slams into the trunk of a tree when it misses Tom, causing a thundering noise to echo through the woods. Tom watches in horrified fascination as the tree trunk fractures in two from the force. Trying desperately to stay out of Tall, Fat, and Ugly's hitting range, he spins around, coming at it from behind, and manages to stick his knife in the zombie's neck.
"Fuck," he yells, quickly pulling the knife out of the decomposing flesh with a squelch. The cut hadn't been enough to stop the zombie, and Tom unfortunately now knows what a pissed off zombie looks like. "Danny!" he calls, and the other man looks over from where he's just finished putting down the third one. "A little help!"
With an ear-shattering roar, Tall, Fat, and Ugly comes at Tom, one arm swiping at his head while the other reaches for his body. Tom moves out of the way just in time, and the zombie's fingernails catch only his shirt, sparing his skin (and his life).
"Fuck, this one's fucking huge," Danny grunts, and Tom has to agree.
"It's hard to get at the head because it's so much taller than me!" Tom yells, and takes several steps back to survey the situation. Danny is trying to stab it in the head, but keeps falling short, jumping out of the way just in time. "You're gonna have to shoot it, man!" he says, and Danny nods, leaping over a large rock and running several steps back to get a clear aim. He pauses before shooting, though, and Tall, Fat, and Ugly takes the opening to begin charging at Tom.
"We're going to have to call off the search if I shoot!" he warns, and Tom is torn.
On one hand, he definitely doesn't want to be killed by a fucking zombie on steroids. On the other, he knows that if Danny shoots the gun, they'll have to regroup and leave, at least for a little while, to make sure the noise doesn't call the herd back to them.
He surveys the woods once more, eyes flickering over every inch of their surroundings, before turning back to Danny.
"Let me try something, but if I fail, shoot his ass!"
Danny nods and kneels in the dirt, taking aim and steadying the rifle on his shoulder.
Tom takes a deep breath and grips his knife tightly. His heart is beating out of his chest and he feels like he might throw up. All he has to do is gain a few inches to thrust the knife in that fucker's face, and then they won't have to stop searching.
He waits several long, torturous moments, until Tall, Fat, and Ugly is passing by a large, towering tree, and then he runs. With a grunt, he plants one foot on the base of the tree's trunk, and then pushes off as hard as he can, throwing himself at the zombie's back. He makes contact with the putrid body and wraps his legs around it's waist, quickly thrusting his knife into the skull of the zombie before jumping off and away from it, watching in fascinated horror as it falls to the ground with a sickening thump.
He's breathing hard, his vision swimming as adrenaline courses through his veins, and shakily leans back against the tree when the zombie doesn't move.
"Holy shit," Danny says, and Tom emphatically agrees with him.
He nods, and then presses his hands to his knees, lowering his head between them as he gulps in deep breaths of air.
"Did it get you?" Danny asks, and Tom quickly searches his skin to make sure that it hasn't. Once he's sure he doesn't have any open wounds, he shakes his head, and then leans back against the tree once more.
"Me either," Danny supplies, and then he settles his rifle back over his shoulder. "You good to keep going, or do we need to head back?"
Tom shakes his head before pushing off of the tree, checking that he can walk steadily before saying, "I'm fine. That was just... intense. In the Navy, most of my combat was not hand to hand."
Danny claps him on the back, and Tom staggers, grinning in victory as they step over the body of Tall, Fat, and Ugly. "Welcome to the team, man," he says, and Tom feels strangely like he's just passed some sort of test.
March 13th, 1999 - 11:02 am
"What are we gonna do if we don't find him?" Kara asks, and Rachel sighs as she steps over a fallen tree branch.
They've been in the woods together for an hour now, Rachel having swapped out with Tex so he could take a break and sit with Katie. Katie still hadn't said a word since the attack, and Tex is growing concerned about her.
"We move on," she responds, and she loves Kara like a sister, but the woman has a huge heart and is clearly struggling with the idea of abandoning Eric.
"We can't just leave him," she says, and her tone isn't argumentative; it's just sad.
"I know you hate the idea," Rachel says, trying to soothe her. "I do, too. But Kara, we can't stay here forever. If he hasn't tried to make his way back to the highway, then he's likely not able to. We widened the search to three miles today, and if we don't find him, we have to consider the lives and well-being of everyone else as priority."
Kara sighs heavily, and then says, "I guess that's why you're in charge. Because you can make the hard decisions like this. I'd never be able to be so rational about a decision like this."
Rachel doesn't respond. She knows that Kara didn't mean anything by her comment, but it still hurts because she's not wrong. She is the one having to make the decision to leave, because no one else will step up and do it for her, and she once again feels the weight of the world on her shoulders. If she makes the decision to leave, and Eric is still alive, then she's responsible for whatever happens to him. But, on the other hand, if she makes the decision to stay and keep looking, then she's putting six other lives in danger.
The two women don't speak for a long time after that, instead dedicating themselves to the search. They clear mile after mile of ground, with no sign that anyone has been in the woods in ages. There are zombie trails, though they don't look fresh, but there aren't any signs of human life until they reach a river, flowing noisily over rocks and logs and debris.
"Look!" Kara yells, and jumps into the shallow water, grabbing onto a small piece of fabric that's clinging to an overturned tree branch. "Is this Eric's?"
Rachel studies the fabric, taking it into her hand when Kara offers it to her. It's plaid, red and black, and she thinks Eric might have been wearing something similar when they'd stopped. She can't be sure, though. It looks familiar, but she's desperate and might just be trying to convince herself that its something she's seen before.
It also feels weird that, after miles and miles and miles of nothing, that they would find such a clean, clearly torn piece of clothing, with no other signs in the area.
"I don't know," she finally says, and stuffs the fabric in her pocket. "But maybe. Let's keep looking in this area, see what else we can find. Be on alert, though."
Kara nods eagerly, and sets about searching the shallow water and the land around it. Rachel touches the gun in her back pocket to reassure herself it's there, and then begins to walk the perimeter of the river. Something feels off, but she can't place it. She has an uneasy feeling in her stomach, and she wants to move on, but she can't ignore the fact that this is the first solid lead they've had since Eric went missing.
She's approaching the shallow basin of the river when she feels someone's eyes on her, and the feeling of unease grows tenfold.
Her heart beats wildly in her chest and she grips tightly onto her knife as she turns around.
"Kara — "
But she doesn't get a chance to finish her sentence. Something smacks into the back of her head, and her vision goes dark as she falls to the ground.
March 13th, 1999 - 3:50 pm
"Are we the first ones back?"
Tom turns to see Tex and Danny as they approach the van. He'd swapped with Tex about two hours previously, and had spent his time with Katie unsuccessfully trying to get her to talk. She had smiled and laughed at his silly faces and stories, but she hadn't spoken, and Tom was worried she might be feeling guilty about what had happened.
"Looks like it," he says, and glances at his watch with a frown. "We said meet back at four, right?"
Tex nods and grabs a bottle of water, taking several long gulps before throwing Danny a second bottle. He perches on the edge of the open van and sighs, running a hand through his long, messy hair.
"We didn't find anything. Not a print or a trail. Nothin'."
"Are we really moving on without him?" Danny asks, and presses the water bottle against his neck. The water isn't cold, but it's cool from having been inside the van, and it feels nice on his sweaty skin after walking for several hours.
"It's what's best for the group," Tom says, though he hates the idea of leaving a man behind. "Think about it. That herd was huge. And if Eric hasn't been trying to make his own way back, there has to be a reason. Either he's too injured to travel, or he's dead. There's a high likelihood that he was taken out during the ambush yesterday. We've done the best we can."
Danny sighs as he joins Tex, sitting down heavily. "I know. It just feels... wrong. No man left behind, and all that. I wish that we would at least find a body, so we don't have to wonder, but if they got him, then he's one of them now. We won't find anything."
Tom silently agrees, and then returns to his post, eyes scanning the area of woods that Rachel and Kara should be appearing from any moment. Another glance at his watch tells him that it's 3:58, and he chews his lip nervously. He knows they have flares, and would have used one if there was a problem, but he can't help but worry. What if they'd been ambushed? He and Danny had barely managed to take out the zombies that had attacked them, and they were taller and physically stronger. They shouldn't have let the two girls go out on their own, he thinks, but doesn't say out loud. He gets the feeling that Rachel would swat at him and call him sexist if he said it in front of her, and the thought makes him smile.
They wait in silence until 4:08, and then Tom stands up.
"Something's wrong," he says. "Stay here. I'm going to go search."
"Maybe they're just running late, or they lost track of time," Tex says, though he doesn't look convinced. "If you go out there, then we're three people down. We should give them a little more time."
"If something's wrong, they may not have a little more time," Tom argues, and tucks his knife in his boot. He moves to the back of the van, where Rachel had shown him the weapons crate the previous night, and takes out a semi-automatic pistol, makes sure it's fully loaded, and grabs two extra clips just in case. He doesn't know what's held them up, but he knows that it's nothing good.
"I'm coming with you," Danny says when he returns to the front of the van, and Tom nods. Tex, however, groans and runs a hand over his face.
"Fine," he relents, and then holds out one of the emergency packs that Rachel had made for them, pulling open the zipper to add two of the blue flares that she had left in the van. "Take this. Keep an eye on the time. Send up a red flare every hour on the hour if you're OK. A blue flare if something's wrong or you need help. Goddammit, we need walkie talkies. And fucking be careful, OK? It gets dark around six. Try and be back by then."
Tom nods and takes the pack, slinging it over his shoulder.
"All right, Danny. Let's go find our girls."
