Begin and End - a zombie short ⚒

Part 1

A scream cracked through the quiet of the woods.

Brian barely registered the noise. He was too busy trying to decipher what he was looking at.

"Gavin, what the hell?" Shauna's hands came down from her ears.

Shaking, Gavin pointed to the road. Shauna scanned the treeline, inhaling sharply a moment later.

"You don't see them?" she asked Brian.

"Them?"

Tufts of hair caught his attention, peeking from between the sparse fall leaves. From his count, that meant at least ten men were hiding in the branches. He nudged Shauna, who shot him a funny look, and then he checked again.

Not men at all, not anymore. Just silently protesting remains attached to large pikes. They resembled small gray sacks, the only indication of their humanity being yawning mouths.

On the morning hike, they'd circumvented the road, as always. Roads meant trouble. They had trekked far enough into the woods to escape notice, but the head-topped pikes had been erected to a ridiculous height, perhaps with the purpose of being spotted by travelers far and wide.

Come one, come all.

Gavin had insisted they check them out, even as Shauna had cautioned against it. In the end, they had gone.

After Gavin took a minute to bend over and retch, the group returned to their original path leading deeper into the woods. Nothing much was said, and didn't have to be. Eaters never would've gone through the trouble of mounting heads on pikes.

Brian watched Gavin sniffle as he shooed away mosquitoes, making him grateful for all the weekend camping excursions that had prepared him for this hard life. Shauna marched ahead of them. She often acted as the scout. On the day they did encounter trouble, Brian would rather she met it first.

They wandered into a clearing and settled camp for the day.

"I'm goin' to get more food. Enjoy this while I'm gone."

Shauna tossed Brian the last of their canned food and sauntered off, letting everyone else off the hook for the hunt. She always went anyways. She even skinned and readied the meat, not an easy task, especially for a woman. Brian again lingered on the thought of what she used to do in the Before.

"Want me to go with you?" Gavin offered.

"I'll manage," Shauna tossed over her shoulder.

Initially, her show of independence had been cute, then annoying, then just how things were.
Gavin seemed to be the only guy left holding onto the old ways, sure that Shauna needed help. Brian no longer cared.

"I hope she comes back," Gavin said, green eyes squinting against the sun's orange glare.

Brian scooped a helping of the canned peaches into his mouth, offering it to Gavin.

While the city man chewed, he told him, "Wouldn't look at the sun if I were you. Gonna hurt later, man."

"Thanks, you're right," Gavin smiled.

Such a nice guy. He won't last long.

The tranquil quiet of the morning still took some getting used to. No more birds, squirrels, or cars. Some larger animals had survived, like deer and foxes. Cats had held out pretty well, and didn't taste half bad, either. They skipped dogs, but he imagined if (when) the other meat got scarce, they'd forget about man's best friend in favor of dinner.

He continued with his morning ritual: sharpen the machete, pack up his bedroll, and check for Eaters. He spied none of them in the few miles around camp, but knew they could creep up undetected.

The last few days, they hadn't found suitable shelter, which was good and bad. Good because he loved the outdoors; bad because the wind could shift any day, and with it, carry death.
Brian affixed a blue rag to his face, bandit-style. Life would be somewhat easier if their list of worries didn’t include irradiated wind patterns and Flesh Hunters.

Gavin scoffed at his efforts. "Think that'll do much?"

Brian thought about the rubber mask in his backpack from their excursion through the high school. He'd almost called out, informed everyone of the treasure he'd found, before he'd realized there was only one. Though, he wasn't about to pull out that bad boy until he really needed it.

He shrugged. "Better than nothin'."

He nodded at the tattoo on Gavin's upper arm, a VW camper with scrawling black letters spelling out RESIST above it. VW campers had seen a revival before the End, evolving into a symbol of resistance thanks to social media groups and their hippie nostalgic value.

"What good did that do?"

His question referred to the movement behind the tattoo, the one that had opposed the presidential regime.

At first, Gavin had no response. Then, he seemed to gather himself.

"It showed the world that his policies weren't normal, and our allies noticed." For the first time ever, Gavin looked him in the eye. "The war was one-sided, and the rest of the world isn't ruined."

"Bullshit." He thought for minute. "Who told you that?"

"Shauna."

It wasn't the answer he expected.

"How the hell would she know that?"

"Dunno, but I believe her," Gavin said.

It was an interesting tidbit to add to the book, at least. His other treasures, the ones he took out when everyone was sleeping, were a dozen or so leather-bound journals. Anytime they stumbled upon an empty home or office, Brian rifled through drawers (just like the rest of the group), only, he wanted to find what was now considered useless: journals. The personal and daily accounts of lives long past made for interesting reading, way better than fiction books that Gavin coveted, or the non-fiction books Shauna sometimes pocketed.

On occasion, the journals contained creative work, such as poetry or short stories. He enjoyed them, even the really gory ones. A lot them were about Eaters, though the strangers had their own names for 'em, like Z’s, Walkers, Creepers, and his favorite: Sleepers.

~*~