Evergreen

2

Song: October - Broken Bells

Darkness. She was my friend, my enemy, my family.

Darkness. I had suffered in her and with her for years.

She didn't seem so scary now.

I don't know if I'm dead or alive, I can't feel anything am I numb?

Yes. It's cold, and wet.

It's too painful to move.

Are my eyes open or closed?

Who are you?

Darkness.

***

I waited for nightfall.

After rolling his body in the blue tarp and stuffing it into a soddened log; my back was killing me, what was the point he'd die anyway. I should of just thrown him in the roads ditch and buried him, all this effort for some dead weight.

I'd collected my arrows and knife, left their bodies for whatever ate them first, the blood boilers or the night walkers. My money was on the walkers, those lazy sacks of piss wouldn't chance the trip out with the sundown. Although the knapsacks they left were a pleasant surprise no doubt they'd be furious at the loss of them. I could stretch these supplies out for at least four months, useful shit like tinned and dried food, string, matches, pills, more knives and holy fucking shit bullets!

Fingers fumbling with the damaged box... 10mm.

This is the luckiest score I've made in a while, my gun was a Ruger GP100 revolver, some real cowboy looking shit. I felt like a cartoon carrying it around at first. It didn't play out very looney tunes when I killed someone with it. I'd stole it off some fucking pretender, I'd made a mistake an opportunity.

It was back in Atwater.

What's the most secure place in a zombie apocalypse? Why the local penitentiary obviously.

The government went into every penitentiary across the country and murdered the prisoners. No questions or trials they were just in the way, more mouths to feed and mistrust.

They filled the cells with the people who could afford to buy their way in or were useful enough to have around. My parents were surgeons, we were just kids.

Society lasted a while, long enough for me and my sister to at least reach our twenties. Life moved on, we never left the walls of Atwater, you had to be over thirty to work outside. Our parents refused to sign the papers for us to join the core.

"We didn't survive this long for you to die a soldier." My dad would rant.

My sister was a messenger; people paid her with whatever they could to scuttle across the place delivering letters. I called her Spidey she knew every vent and pipe of that place, a born climber she would have travelled the world climbing in another life.

I was a rough neck, picking up whatever labour I could. I'd worked with vehicles, weaponry, building all sorts of shit for the government in the better days.

In the bad ones I worked on the building expanse, in the sewers, and in the fighting pits.

The first groan started an hour or so after sunset.

The pretty boy in the log would be fine for the first few hours; while they were distracted.

Only four nightwalkers showed up to clean up the bodies, they were frenzied at first probably hadn't eaten recently. They calmed down after they realised they had a guy each, watching them didn't phase me anymore. I'd like to say it was because I'd seen the insides of a man plenty of times watching my parents work, but that would be a lie. We were just someone else's meal out here, if you thought of it as a National Geographic Documentary it made it easier, only the lion with its head stuck in somethings innards had a human face.

They were fresh, still had all their limbs, their skin still pale but attached. Newbies.

All that blood and mess would hide his scent, it would attract more walkers but not for a while the wind was blowing away from the city. This ragtag group must have been bitten on the outskirts, three men and a woman.

As long as pretty boy stayed quiet he'd stay alive. That's if he hasn't bled out already, I patched up what I could it was on him now.

They'd had their fill, sluggish and real slow they dragged the bits that were left back to the city with them. Painting the tarmac of the road red.

Great. clear trail back to the scene.

They'd snapped open the bigger guys rib cage and picked it clean, fresh bone sharpened made great arrow heads. My feet hit the ground almost silently, pines made good cover but loud exits; the drop from the branches was a tall one. They'd shed their needles so I had some cover with the ground being soft and dry.

Checking the road before I broke from the tree line, I made quick work of snapping off three ribs and stuffing them into a spare hessian sack.

I'd never eaten human, I'd shoot myself before it got that bad. I'd rather die than become a blood boiler.

But I'm not so full of pride that I wouldn't use what was there for the taking, big game with antlers were rare. I had steel hunting knives now, I didn't need my bone ones anymore, they were getting brittle anyway.

I only had two carbon broad heads they were long enough to get a double kill, it was my big souped up compound bow which was the star of the show. A pain in the ass to haul around but had saved my life and filled my belly more often than I could count.

God knows what psycho had constructed it, it was meant to hunt people that was for sure. I hadn't taken my time at that shack to find out who owned it, it was something out of a slasher movie, wall upon wall of weapons. I took what I could carry at the time, the bow was a panic choice.

It had taken me forever to build up the muscles to pull it back let alone aim it. But I trusted this hunk of metal more than my own body. It was part of me now.

Four hours at most.

I had to drag that man of muscle a few miles deeper into the forrest, we'd have cover from the night walkers there. The sound of the wild river would hide the noise of the tarp and more importantly us from any wayward strangers or Hunters.

I'd find a full evergreen and winch him up in it.

If he makes it till morning I'll figure out what to do about him then.

The crunch of the tarp made me cringe, this had to be done quickly. Throwing the top of the log open like a car hood, he was still out. But breathing.

"Lets go sleeping beauty."