“Come on,” he shouted back over his shoulder.
They’d been running for what seemed like forever and the pack he carried on his back was getting heavier by the second. He didn’t know what these creatures were, but he’d learned in the last month since they appeared that he hated the fuckers. They seemed to be carrying some highly contagious flesh-eating disease. Whatever it was spread like wildfire. His brother had been attacked by a group of these infected beings and within a day the virus or bacteria or whatever it was had taken away brain functionality except for minor motor skills – and hunger. Hunger that had been so great that he had attempted to bite his own wife. That’s how it spread, through the bite. It was almost as if whatever this epidemic was, body snatchers, zombies (Scott hated that word, and refused to face the fact it was a serious possibility), a government experiment gone wrong, or harmful pollutants, it had a mind of its own controlling the host from within while their body deteriorated at an alarming rate.
He weaved to the right around a tree changing his direction slightly when he heard the raspy gnarl to his left. He swung his .44 magnum toward the dead growl, but it was too late.
Amanda shrieked as the heavy body lunged into her. She stared up into the ravenous eyes of the infected coyote’s mangy face from her back. Most of its fur had fallen out and its flesh was putrid grey and peeling back from the bone in places, exposing a green oozing infection that poured from its open wounds and yellow-brown scabs. Its front paws had her shoulders pinned down limiting her ability to struggle against the weight, and its hind legs straddled her waist. The teeth it viciously bared behind a veil of rancid breath gleamed white and strong. It cocked its head back ready to strike like a snake…
Boom!
The shot from the pistol struck the rabid beast in the ribs sending it rolling into the base of a tree. Scott rushed to Amanda. He aided her in scrambling to her feet just in time to become aware that running was no longer an option. The beast had failed in devouring Amanda’s flesh, but it had succeeded in allowing their pursuers to close the distance between themselves and their prey. Scott quickly realized they were now surrounded. They had no choice but to fight.
“At the ready,” he grunted.
Amanda responded by swinging her 12-gauge shotgun from her back, lifting it to her shoulder, and chambering a live shell.
“Who’s first?” Amanda whispered, swiveling at her hips waiting for the infected to attack.
The first of the wave of attackers came from behind Amanda at Scott’s left. He swirled in the direction of the movement his peripheral had detected and fired rapidly. The green mucous-like infection sprayed from a gaping wound on the side of its head as a round shattered its jaw, and another precisely placed bullet entered the temple of its skull with enough force to exit from the other side of its head.
A roar erupted from the dozen remaining predators, a battle cry as it was, and they advanced simultaneously, the sight of their fallen comrade sending them into a frenzy. Amanda fired three consecutive blasts, beheading one of the afflicted, and severely wounding another as if she were a surgeon, removing an arm at the shoulder and severing a leg at the knee.
Scott dropped two more with head shots before dropping his empty pistol and retrieving the revolver he kept as backup. The shotgun, empty, now dangled lifeless from a shoulder strap at Amanda’s side as she also turned to her backup pistol. Her patient, though wounded, reached out and gripped her ankle with its single hand causing Amanda to scream as it drug her to the ground. Scott instinctively wheeled in her direction and placed a round in her attacker’s ear; its head exploding like a melon. An arm grabbed Scott from behind and one of the diseased sank its strong, marble teeth into his shoulder with a searing pain. Scott pressed the barrel of his gun to his executioner’s cheek and fired. It flew off of him taking a chunk of Scott’s flesh with it.
Amanda leapt to her feet as the perpetrators focused solely on Scott, the wounded, like sharks flocking to the scent of blood. She fired quickly, striking three in the back of the head as Scott emptied his six-shooter on another before its head erupted.
“Scott,” she shouted tossing her pistol in his direction and removing a machete from its sheath on her thigh.
Scott caught the weapon and dove to his back, firing a series of shots before the impact with the ground rattled the breath from him. Two more disposed of and he was now empty. The remaining damned moved swiftly and with purpose, but before it could reach its target, Amanda slinked behind it and swung with all her strength. The blade whined through the air then sliced through the last of the stalkers, decapitating the threat. The headless torso sprawled over Scott, its new wound pouring infectious ooze all over him.
“Let me see,” she whispered after helping Scott to his feet.
He lifted the sleeve of his shirt exposing the mangled wound with a sting from the air. The flesh around the wound was already turning grey and lifeless, and smelled like a rotting carcass cooked in the sun. The muscle had begun to turn purple-black, swimming in a frothy green-yellow mucus that oozed from the wound like a greasy slug.
“Is it bad?” he wanted to know.
“It isn’t good.” She fought back tears.
“Fucking cock sucker,” he cursed under his breath. “You know what you have to do,” he stated, facing her.
“Yeah,” was all she could manage with tears streaming down her face.
“The sun will be down soon. Let’s set up camp and eat. When I fall asleep…” his voice trailed off. “I love you.” His eyes met hers as this was exclaimed with his usual vigor, yet it was more emotional than he’d ever allowed the delivery to carry.
“I love you,” she returned.
Camp was set and a fire made just before dusk. Scott butchered the infected dog, and though most of its meat was rancid and discolored, he was able to scrape together enough good meat to fill their bellies with a zombie dog and berry concoction he threw together.
“Just like momma used to make,” he barked, patting his belly.
Amanda stared into the coals of the fire stoically silent. She’d taken her current position on a stump just after the tent was set and hadn’t moved other than to shovel greasy meat and berries down her throat.
Scott watched her carefully then chuckled, “Wouldn’t be my first choice for a last meal but it’ll do.”
Unmoved by Scott’s wit, Amanda sat rigid as tears streamed from her eyes.
“Amanda,” he pled moving next to her and wrapping an arm around her. “I’m sorry.”
“What am I gonna do without you?” she finally asked.
Words escaped Scott. There was nothing he could say to change anything. He leaned his head against hers and again said, “I’m sorry, baby.”
Tears of his own now flowed freely, not from fear of his fate, but for the loneliness of his lover and the dread of her tomorrow. They cuddled together in complete darkness and silence as the fire burned out then made their way to the tent.
The singsong rhythm of the wind hummed high above in the tops of the trees like an ancient love ballad, lulling their beating hearts. Humidity clung to their gritty flesh, and their bodies were mended together by sweat and muck.
“I don’t want to leave you,” Scott whispered.
Amanda could already smell the foul stench of death on his words. She knew once sleep claimed him, she had to act fast.
“I know baby, and I need you to know I don’t blame you. It shouldn’t be like this.”
She rolled into his arms and pressed her warm moist lips to his cracking cool mouth letting her tongue swim through the rot of his death. Scott’s body ached as his blood pumped to his loins and his veins surged with heat. His skin became sticky and wet, cold sweat seeping from his pores. Amanda threw a leg over him rolling him to his back and straddling his manhood. He slid into her; their lips tore at each other mercilessly.
They made love. Not slow, erotic, passionate love, but fierce, intense, painful, goodbye love.
He slept.
Amanda lay still in Scott’s mottled, perspiring embrace for quite some time after his prick, by far the liveliest part of his congealing anatomy, sunk back into hibernation. She kissed his chest tasting the frigid sweat that bled from him like a sour, embryonic milk. She inhaled his stench for long moments before rising above his waxy carcass.
The machete seemed heavier than usual as she lifted its blade above her head. She stared down at her victim, the man she loved, and the man that had stood by her and protected her for many years before this infestation. She stared at him for what seemed like an eternity. The blade became so heavy in her hands. She could no longer hold it above her head. His eyes opened. The machete’s weight leapt forward arching into its victim’s skull.
She cried.
The excruciating pain of labor was rumbling through Amanda’s entire body. She lay on the sodden ground beneath the tree that a coyote once tumbled against after attacking her. That dog had been the worst meal of her life and not because of its flavor.
“Looks like we’re almost there,” Doc announced from his perch between her legs.
Amanda had insisted despite Doc’s arguing that she have her baby here in this very spot because of the sentiment the place and the child carried for her. After many months of debate, Doc realized this was one debate where he’d not come out on top and hesitantly agreed, for the health of mother and child, to accompany Amanda in her quest and deliver the coming child.
Amanda hadn’t wandered long after taking Scott’s life. She’d traveled for less than five hours before running across the encampment of survivors that had turned a small town into a fort. About a month after finding the refugees, she began to suspect she was pregnant and struck up a friendship with Doc. She assisted him in surgical procedures and cleaning supplies, becoming his assistant and nurse. Doc asked about the father on several occasions, but all Amanda could muster was that he was dead. Nine months later, it was still too painful to talk about. Doc understood and eventually stopped asking about Scott. He also understood that having this baby and raising it in a healthy environment, as healthy as could be provided given the times they lived in, was important to Amanda so she could keep at least a small part of her lover alive.
“Okay, dear, looks like this is it,” Doc suggested. “When I say push… PUSH!!”
Amanda felt as if her bowels were going to burst from her body as her muscles seized and she pushed with all her might. Tears were flowing and sweat dripping from her body, freezing on her skin in the winter air. She was stripped naked lying on a coarse blanket with towels draped over her midsection. Though her flesh was cold to the touch, her insides were nearly boiling.
“PUSH!!!” he screamed again.
She yelped feverishly, pushing with all her might. She bit her tongue and blood flowed in her mouth. She felt her body coming unhinged and her legs ached but still she pushed. She heard paper shredding, then a surge of pain in her undercarriage, then numbness.
Doc’s face turned sickly and pale at the sight of the newborn. Its eyes were thin golden slits and its flesh was almost the consistency of mold, amber and prickly with hairs. Its hands were more like claws and its bone structure was oblong and disproportioned, almost like a bag of bones. Its gums, exposed when it cried its brash shrill, were blistered and oozing the infection of the damned.
“Oh my God,” Doc shuddered, wrapping the infant in a towel from Amanda’s midsection. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
Amanda cried, a mix of relief, joy, and sadness. She now had a part of Scott to hold, but she could tell by Doc’s expression it wasn’t a good part.
“Give him to me,” she sobbed.
“Amanda, we have to…”
“I said give him to me,” she lashed out.
Doc handed over the bundle of joy, wrapped completely from head to toe, to the new mother.
“Leave me. I would like some time with my son,” she said blankly.
Doc stood hesitantly. “Amanda,” he begged, “we really should just be rid of this. We won’t tell the others. Let’s just do the right thing for everyone involved here.”
“Who’s involved, Doc?” she hissed. “Is this not my child? Were those not my screams? And my flesh tearing during labor?” Her voice softened as she exposed the baby’s face from beneath the towel, “Just give us a while.”
Doc turned to walk away. Amanda removed the pistol from beneath the blanket she was lying on and pointed it at him. The shot thundered. Doc fell into a pool of his own blood, and the newborn cried.
A tear rolled down her cheek. She looked back down at her child and uncovered his body. He was sadly misshapen, and another tear fell before she raised her offspring to her bosom.
It wasn’t milk that the infant hungered for. He took a clawed hand and ripped the flesh of his mother’s breast. Fatty tissue, white and yellow, and crimson blood cascaded from the wound. He pressed his gums to the breast suckling at Amanda’s life force for strength. It wasn’t milk that the infant hungered for, but blood, and only Amanda’s would do.