Balance Read online

  “I’m coming, Amanda!” he shouted, a determined smile widening across his face.

  * * * *

  “Fuck,” Darrell shouted. “Can’t you do anything right?”

  Drew hung his head, wanting to say something to defend himself, but he didn’t have the courage. When he glanced up, fighting back tears, he saw a shambling form emerging from the mist.

  Darrell still shouted accusations and insults, his face puce with rage, but Drew blocked out the words, focusing instead on the malevolent movement behind his leader. Instinct told Drew to shout a warning, but something else, born of vengeful resentment, sealed his lips.

  “Why are you smiling, boy?” Darrell asked.

  Teeth sank into Darrell’s shoulder. Screaming, he turned clumsily, shotgun falling to the ground. He threw an off- balanced punch into the thing’s dead face, and the creeper stumbled backward.

  Two more forms emerged from the gloom. One tore an arm, the other, crouching low, a leg.

  Then there were more.

  Darrell wailed as a throng of creepers, multiplying out of the fog, descended on his crumpling, viscera-coated form. His screams didn’t last long.

  When hungry maws found Drew, he was still smiling.

  * * * *

  In the light of the moon, The Hunter sat in the tree-stand, gripping the handle of the tranquilizer gun—a weapon Mother had insisted he order, and now he knew why. Strapped across his back was his trusty deer rifle, just in case the tranquilizer darts didn’t work on the flesh-eaters. He scanned the space around him for Mother’s assurance the darts would work, but she was nowhere to be seen or heard; she hadn’t been around ever since he’d changed. The fog was starting to abate, giving him greater visibility. Gazing toward the night sky, stars now faintly perceptible, he silently thanked his Maker.

  He felt sad for what happened to Ginny and the kids, but it, what made him who he was now, couldn’t have been avoided. The herd had to be culled; it was God’s plan. And The Hunter was not one to question the will of The Lord. Still, he wished they’d been spared, to help him with his work.

  In the distance, he heard voices—dead, hungry voices—and wet uneven footsteps. Flesh-eaters. Two forms appeared in the clearing below—one tall, a male, and the other short, a female. The male was leading, his female lagging behind a few paces. It was the female who was making most of the noise, her grunts and cries echoing through the woods like some kind of demoniac mating call.

  With the male’s head in the crosshairs, The Hunter squeezed the trigger.

  Hit, the flesh-eater ran in circles, his female chasing after him, wailing like a wounded cow. Soon, the large flesh-eater fell to the ground, moaning and trembling. The female shuffled to his side.

  Good. The Hunter was surprised by her display of devotion, watching the scene with the rapt attention of a child at the circus. He’d expected her to flee. He reloaded the gun with a fresh dart, and, lining the female’s torn neck in the cross-hairs of the scope, he fired.

  Whiz, smack. The dart made contact. But she seemed oblivious to it. She continued to shake her trembling mate, howling. After a couple minutes she slumped across his still form.

  He waited, just to be sure the flesh-eaters were out cold, and then tucked his tranquilizer gun into his shoulder holster and climbed down from his perch.

  He trundled a wheelbarrow from behind the tree he’d been in and then snapped plastic gloves onto his hands. Loading the bodies, one on top of the other, he scanned the woods for movement. Satisfied he was safe, he gripped the implement’s handles and began pushing.

  The ground was wet, and getting them back to the house was hard work. But it wasn’t far. And hard work wasn’t a problem; after all, he was The Hunter.

  * * * *

  Geoff had only gone a few miles past the state line of Arkansas when he lost control of the SUV. Around a sharp bend, there was a loud pop, and the vehicle began to fight him. He steered into the skid, then, his tires gaining purchase, steered back. He slammed on the brakes, and fell forward, hitting his head against the steering wheel.

  A dull ache spread through his neck, his vision clouding. With a few deep breaths, he steeled himself against passing out. The indicator lights on his dashboard signaled a flat tire. He banged his clenched fists against the steering wheel. The situation wasn’t hopeless; there had to be a solution. He wasn’t going to give in like he’d done all his life. He was going to fight.

  He pulled the SUV to the side of the road, metal screeching against wet pavement. He cut the ignition, grabbed his keys, and got out.

  The night air smelled strangely clean as he walked to the back of his vehicle and opened the hatch. The gas containers had moved around, but none of them had fallen. He tossed two empty containers aside and then heaved the remaining three out of the back, placing them on the ground. That’s when he noticed the bumper was shattered in the middle and remembered the second gunshot from the redneck roadblock. He pulled open the door to the spare tire and almost broke down.

  The spare had been punctured by the shot.

  He put the gas containers back in place, grabbed his toolkit, and slammed the hatch shut. He pressed the lock button on his key chain, and the two beeps from the security mechanism made him feel foolish. For fuck’s sake, there are two broken windows.

  He took a deep breath and closed his eyes. “Please God,” he said. “Watch over this gas while I’m away. Please...for Amanda. And please help me stay serene. I can’t help her if I lose it. Amen.” He wasn’t a religious man, though he’d been raised Catholic. But now, prayer seemed apropos. What was the old aphorism? There are no atheists in foxholes. He nodded. The expression certainly fit his situation.

  Amanda’s smiling face a beacon in his mind’s eye, Geoff began walking southward, following the path of the road. He was in the sticks, but would come across a vehicle soon. He had to—it was his only hope.

  His brother, Ray, had taught him how to hotwire a car when he’d been thirteen. Ray had been halfway through the second year of a four-year stretch in Leavenworth when The October Blast had hit. Geoff didn’t like to think about that. He was sure Ray was dead, if he’d been lucky. But it didn’t matter; Ray had been dead to him for years.

  “Thanks, Ray,” he muttered, looking up at the clear night sky. “You were a monster, but at least you taught me one useful skill.” And then, despite the grim situation he was in, he laughed, remembering a brief but warm moment with Ray.

  The night was unnaturally quiet. No birds. No bugs. No—

  The silence was broken by a nearby rustling. He froze, his heart in his throat.

  A deer galloped into the road and then stopped.

  Geoff jerked back with a gasp, raising the toolkit as a weapon.

  Head tilted, the deer studied him, appearing not to be intimidated. “The balance is shifting,” the deer said.

  Eyes wide, Geoff dropped the toolkit to the ground.

  The deer’s gaze shifted to the other side of the tree- lined road. It stood impossibly still—not a blink, not a tremor, not a breath—then sprang into the woods.

  Geoff crouched low to the ground, fighting to regain composure. You’re losing it. Man up. He slowly stood. Pushing the notion of a talking deer from his mind, he started walking. The tremors in his extremities began to calm as he concentrated on his purpose. Amanda. He had to remain single-minded, he reminded himself. Fear, pain, doubt—avoid them all, block them out. “Amanda,” he said, her name echoing through his mind like a mantra.

  It wasn’t long before he reached a crooked mailbox labeled JENKINS. Next to the mailbox was a gravel driveway that wound into the distance. Following the path to the Jenkins’ residence, his heart soared with hope. The house drew nearer, dim light flickering through slats in the basement windows. Parked in front of the house was a rusted Ford F-150 that looked like it might have been red in better days. As long as it runs, I’m golden.

  He crept to the truck and said a silent prayer it would be unlocked
. He popped the door handle slowly and smiled. With a click and a rapid ding-ding-ding, the door came open. He jumped inside, slowly pulled the door shut, and slung his toolkit onto the passenger seat. He snatched a flat-head screwdriver and a hammer from the kit, stuck the head of the screwdriver into the ignition, and began to pound the screwdriver’s handle with the hammer.

  A shadow fell over him.

  He glanced up, coming face-to-face with a bearded, wild-eyed man. Geoff reached for the door-lock but was too late.

  The man jerked the door open. “What the fuck you doin’, boy?” he shouted.

  Geoff tried to explain, but before his mouth could form words, the butt of the bearded man’s handgun came down on his head.

  The world went dark.

  * * * *

  Bathed in flickering candlelight, the dank cellar evoked the distant notion of ritual—religious or otherwise, memory eluded her. She gripped cold, rusty bars and, looking into the adjoining cage, waited for a sign of his affection for her. When alive, he had uttered her three favorite words as a matter of routine. But the power of speech now gone, for her and for him, she was left staring into his pallid eyes, the comfort of words an impossible dream.

  Had there ever been sincerity in his eyes? She couldn’t remember. She couldn’t recall her name, her parents, or her job. Precious little survived The October Blast. But she knew she’d loved him, and that he’d been her reason for living. She still loved him, even though they were dead.

  From upstairs came the clomping of footsteps and the squeal of something, or probably someone, being dragged across linoleum. She looked at the empty cage to her right and knew it would soon be occupied. Her captor—their captor—the man who called himself The Hunter, had undoubtedly trapped another of their kind in the woods.

  Why didn’t he kill them? Why did he prolong their suffering—her suffering? His plan, if he had one, was a mystery to her. But she knew he was insane and growing crazier with every passing minute.

  The cellar door was flung open with a bang. “Goddamn this fucker’s heavy.” The Hunter moaned. Carrying a body over his shoulder, he gingerly descended the creaky stairs. His balance lost for a moment, his new prisoner’s head thudded against the wooden railing of the—

  She smelled blood immediately. Not the blood of her kind. Living blood! A deep guttural noise erupted from her throat, and with it came hunger; not the type of hunger she’d known when alive—predacious compulsion, a product of her reanimated and unstable nervous system, not her gut or brain. Her reactions were involuntary, impossible to resist.

  To her left, the man she loved rattled the bars of his cage violently. His maw of dirty jagged teeth and black gums, a passage for high-pitched shrieks, grew wide. His desire for flesh—his desire for anything not her—was a reminder of his cold indifference toward her affection. A wave of sorrow staggered her, made her forget for an instant her dark nature, her need to feed.

  The Hunter didn’t place the man in a cage. He laid him on a cot at the opposite end of the room and tied his hands and feet to the cot’s rusty posts. Finished with the knots, he inspected his work. “What the hell were you doing on my property?” he shouted, shaking the breather by the shoulders.

  The new prisoner moaned and fidgeted but didn’t wake to respond.

  A sneer on his face, The Hunter turned to face her. “Hello, darlin’. Ain’t you hungry then?” His sneer became a wicked grin as he approached.

  She averted his stare, looking down at the filthy floor of her cage. Something metallic clanked the bars above her head and when she looked up it was into the barrel of a pistol. She leaned forward, putting her forehead as close to the gun as she could.

  The Hunter backed away, clearly afraid of being scratched or bitten. She pled with her eyes and tried to find her voice. But all that came from her mouth was a feral whine.

  The Hunter cackled. Holding the gun up, he squeezed off a shot. The blast rang through the small space, dust fell from the ceiling, and smoke billowed from his gun. Ears ringing, senses frayed, she fell backward.

  Her love hunched in the corner of his cage, the corner nearest hers. Reaching out, she stroked his thick, matted hair. She was glad for the contact, even though he didn’t respond to her touch, only trembled as the painful echoes of gunfire rang through their heads.

  “Gunshots are like tranquilizers to you freaks, ain’t they?” The Hunter asked.

  The breather on the cot muttered, “Amanda...coming...spare,” and began to move his arms and legs futilely against the restraints.

  “But, damn, ain’t no better way to wake the living.” The Hunter smiled. Holding the gun outward, he strode toward his breathing captive. “What the hell were you doing on my property?”

  The breather coughed, and then, a grimace of pain on his face, shook his head weakly. “I ...I had a blowout...about a mile down the road...I was...I didn’t know if anyone lived here, but I saw a light on...I was...scared.”

  “And what in God’s name are you doing out here in the middle of nowhere anyway? You look like a fuckin’ city boy to me.”

  The breather nodded. “Omaha.”

  “Omaha? Shit boy, that’s hundreds of miles away. And where was you tryin’ to get?”

  “Memphis.”

  “Memphis! That’s more’n a hundred miles from here. What are you, boy...stupid? With all the shit going down, you expect me to believe you headed into the hills of Arkansas clear down from Nebraska? Did you think you could just pull into a Phillips 66 and fill your damn tank?”

  “I brought plenty of gas, and I’d...I’d be happy to share, but I don’t have a spare tire. I promised Amanda I’d go to her...before the power cut out...before the...the lines all went dead. I...gave my word. I love her.”

  Ears pricked by the man’s statement of devotion, she reached her arms through the bars of the cage. “Curregh aargh,” she wailed, trying to say, “Let him go.”

  The breather’s head bolted up, his eyes locked with hers. “Christ, you have fucking zombies down here?” Now frantic, he struggled to break free from his restraints.

  The Hunter laughed. “Settle down. You ain’t got no room to judge, son. And don’t call ’em zombies. Zombie means they don’t know what they’re doing. These fuckers are flesh-eaters.”

  “Okay. Flesh-eaters!”

  “That’s better, but it still don’t explain why, with all these fuckin’ flesh-eaters about, you risked your neck. You expect me to believe it’s all for some floozy?”

  “Don’t call her that. I came because I made a promise, because—”

  “I know, I know, ’cause you love her. Well I got news for you, numb-nuts, love died when the world died. Love died with my wife and children. Love died with The Blast, when the dead started shamblin’ ’round, feedin’ on the unlucky survivors. The New World Order has arrived, and The Hunter—that’s me!—is gonna make the rules.”

  “We still...we still outnumber them.”

  “You think? Did you get that from CNN or the newspaper? Oh yeah, I was forgetting; ain’t no more TV and ain’t no more papers. If we outnumber the dead, then why the hell are they winning?”

  “But why...why keep them down here? Why not kill them?”

  “And what, set them free? That ain’t justice. No, no...I make ’em suffer. I let ’em starve.”

  “In aid of what?”

  “In aid of... Boy, you are stupid. Retribution for their sins, what else?”

  The one she loved was again ravenous, rattling the bars of his cage. But she remained calm, gazing upon the lovesick breather with something akin to pity.

  “You have no qualms with me,” the prisoner said. “Let me go, so I can get to her.”

  The Hunter seemed to contemplate the request for a moment, and then answered, “Nope.”

  A look of shock registered on the young man’s face. “But...but why?”

  “Keepin’ you down here, a little out of reach, makes my guests...hungry, you know? And the hungrier I keep ’
em, the more they suffer. Sorry, boy, that’s just how the cookie crumbles. But don’t worry, I ain’t heartless. I’ll feed ya, and I won’t hurt ya too bad. Gotta draw blood every now and then, just to keep the scent alive, but—”

  “You don’t understand. She’s lost touch with her family in Lincoln, she’s worried—”

  “No, you don’t understand. I ...don’t ...care.”

  The trapped breather wept, his body racked by spasms.

  A tear fell from her eye, a warm rivulet sluicing and burning down her cold, dead cheek. Something bubbled deep inside her: a strange mixture of hunger, rage, and compassion. She closed her eyes, and a happy memory flooded back...

  …California. The beach. Joe. She suddenly remembered his name—was behind her, holding her waist, both of them resting in the warm sand. Warmth. The world was still in color. The sun was setting, and a cool breeze blew in from the ocean.

  “I love you,” Joe said.

  She turned her head and looked into his eyes. It had been there before. Love. Maybe it had died with The Blast. But it had been there before! And if it was there before...

  Eyes still closed, she lunged forward. The bars of the cage tore into her flesh, but she felt no pain. She reared back, eyes again open to her sepia-toned hell, and charged forward a second time. The bone in one arm snapped in half, and something else broke...something in the lock. She backed up and slammed against the door again.

  The door flew open.

  The Hunter drew his weapon clumsily and fired a shot. A red bloom appeared on her chest, and the bullet pounded painlessly into her ribcage. She staggered back from the impact, but soon, intent on her prey, she regained her footing, the shot reverberating painfully through her head. The Hunter’s second shot missed her entirely. Her teeth sank into his arm, and his pistol clanked against the crumbling cellar floor.

  She could hear the human prisoner scream and struggle against his bonds.