Welcome to the End

Chapter 08: Fate Worse Than Death

Clark aided the overwhelmed medics and wrapped bandages around the hands of one of his soldiers. Her fingers, like so many of the guards, had been worn raw by the near constant firing of her bow.

Over the past thirty hours, the defenders of Walton had been ceaselessly engaged in battle to hold their city against an unending tide of undead. Building by building, the zombies had pushed the living defenders back, and the soldiers were exhausted, their strength and morale depleted.

The lumber mill, heavily barricaded and locked tight, was turning as much of its stored lumber into arrows as it could. Since the metal was lacking for proper arrowheads, the sticks were simply sharpened on one end. Although crude, they were effective enough to put down a zombie with a headshot. Despite the best efforts of the mill's workforce, the supply of arrows was being expended by the guards faster than they could be replenished.

Because of the undead piling up when killed in large numbers by the defenders, Walton was slowly being buried. The crop fields were no longer visible, and the front porch of the Governor's house had been covered up to the eave of the second floor. Regardless of how many walking corpses were returned to death, their force continued slowly forward. Clark felt as if he were watching a tidal wave in slow motion, gradually sweeping away everything in its path until only the drowning waters remained.

"Ryan?" the female guard Clark was tending said questioningly as she looked over the approaching zombies.

Clark followed her gaze and saw someone familiar. One of the long term scouts Walton had employed was a man named Ryan. He'd stopped reporting in five weeks ago. He looked decidedly different than Clark remembered him.

The left leg of Ryan's pants had been torn off at the knee, and ragged flesh and exposed bone were visible. His left arm was missing at the shoulder, leaving only a stump of bone and ripped muscle. The black hair on his head had been pulled away on the right, and some of the skin was also gone, leaving his skull showing through.

The guard tried to stand up, but Clark grabbed a hold of her and forced her back down.

"That's not your husband, Mary," Clark told her forcefully, but she continued staring at the man she'd loved, her eyes brimming with tears. "It's not him!"

Mary shook off Clark's grip and jumped from the platform above the zombies. Landing hard, she rolled to dispel unwanted momentum and started killing zombies in her path. When she reached the thing that had previously been her husband, Mary stopped her assault and stared at him.

"Do you remember me?" she asked softly. "It's Mary."

The zombie took a step in her direction, then another.

"Kill it!" Clark screamed at her. "Kill it now!"

The undead version of Mary's husband reached out the only hand it still had and gently placed it on her shoulder. She smiled slightly.

"You do remember me," Mary breathed, smiling wider as her long dead husband drew near to her.

Clark drew his sidearm, knowing full well what was coming next, and took careful aim.

The fingers resting on Mary's shoulder suddenly clenched into a fist, grabbing a handful of her shirt and pulling it slightly away from her neck as the zombie opened its mouth to take a bite. The dead man's face suddenly snapped back and away from Mary, a smoking hole in its forehead. Mary screamed incoherently as what had been her husband fell at her feet. In a blinding combination of rage and loss, she turned toward Clark, his pistol still smoking. Raising her bow, she took aim at her husband's killer.

Clark fired his gun a second time, and Mary joined her husband on the ground. The arrow she'd readied was released. It struck Clark in the shoulder, and he pitched back against the wall of the lumber mill. He slumped to the second floor balcony, his hand clutching the place where the sharpened projectile was lodged in his shoulder. A medic rushed to his aid and removed the arrow, patching the wound and stopping the bleeding.