The Runaways

Chapter Six

Kat heads in about an hour later, our chat ("and the whole damn day in general,") having worn her down.

So I'm alone on the porch, munching on Nilla Waffers with my cat sleeping on the railing beside me. He stirs slightly in his sleep, and then settles back down.

The moonlight shines on the backyard, effectively giving me a glimpse of the hellish terror that lies below.

Zombies.

A few stragglers lurk in the yard, shuffling endlessly around, endlessly searching for something.

Flesh.

One zombie, a man who was probably middle-aged when he died, comes up to the giant, silver maple tree that Grandma planted nearly forty years ago.

The zombie studies the silver maple with a lustful curiosity, and then it stretches out its sickly, gray-tinted arm, and drags its hand along the rough bark. Almost like it's petting it, or something.

That's one of the quirks about zombies; they have a morbid curiosity about the world around them. Like they constantly have to learn about their surroundings.

Without even looking at the zombie's face directly, I know that there are no longer colorful irises in its eyes. Instead, the eyes are a milky white, with a filmy substance over them.

The eyes of the soulless.

The eyes of the damned.

The eyes of Hell itself.

I continue to watch the zombie make guttural noises as it pets the bark. I can't help but wonder if life as a zombie is easy - if they can think. If their minds are still there, but they're just trapped in an empty shell that moves and feeds on its own.

Or, perhaps, they are truly dead. And, perhaps, they are just mindless predators and nothing more.

Who knows?

I certainly don't. No one I know does.

It's like one of those age old questions that no one can seem to answer - did the chicken or the egg come first, if a tree falls in the forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?

Well, how about this one for modern day philosophers - do zombies think? Can they feel any emotion?

And the big one...

Is there a cure for the Necroa virus?

It's the one question that always boggles my mind. Is there a cure? And, if so, how long has it been since people have begun curing zombies?

Questions, questions, questions! So many questions...

L.T. takes this opportunity to yawn and stretch out his limbs, meowing slightly.

It effectively snaps me out of my daze, and I laugh quietly and pet his head gently. The gesture earns me a rumbling purr of approval, and a loving flick of L.T.'s little nub of a tail.

I break off a small piece of a Nilla Wafer and hold out my palm. He cautiously sniffs it, and then gobbles it up. He licks his lips and lets out a sound that means the treat was satisfactory enough to his liking.

I chuckle and break up the rest of the wafer for him, letting him eat it off the deck.

I turn to look back at the zombie. He's still petting the tree.

However, I notice another shape in the yard. It moves in slow, shambling steps, yet it is noticeably smaller than the male zombie.

A female zombie has just wandered into the yard.

The male zombie pays her no mind as she shambles through the weeds and growing grass, making her way over to him.

The female zombie looks to be in her mid-thirties, forty at the most. Her limp, dead hair hangs down her back in muddy tangles, and her clothes are tattered and stained. Obviously she has been traversing through the wilderness for a while.

Now that I think about it, I notice that the man is in a cheap business suit, and it looks almost brand new. His hair looks shaven and moderately clean-cut, and he bears no marks of rotting away yet. The female, however, is missing a forearm.

It's obvious to me that the female zombie has been infected with the Necroa virus for a while now. The man has just succumbed to the infection.

The female stands next to the tree awkwardly, watching the male. He continues to stroke the bark of the tree, paying her no mind.

The female turns toward the tree, slowly grazing her remaining fingers along the bark in an awkward, jerky gesture. The male's rhythm is much smoother, more controlled.

The woman pets the tree for only a few seconds before she leans in and clamps her jaws on the bark.

Instantly she flings herself backward, stumbling and falling onto the ground, moaning in pain as her jaw hinges and unhinges itself.

I squint at the tree, certain I can make out a few teeth in the bark.

The woman continues to groan and moan in pain, the man pauses to look at her for a few seconds, and then he goes back to his task of continually stroking the tree.

The woman somehow manages to drag herself off of the ground and shamble towards the old, dilapidated shed that my grandfather built for my grandmother when they first bought this house.

She stumbles and accidentally slams her body into the wood, making the whole building reverberate. The roof almost collapses in on itself.

I'm so wrapped up in watching the little scene that I didn't notice, or hear, someone opening the sliding glass door that leads out to the deck.

And I certainly didn't notice someone lean on the railing, right next to me.