Page 1

The house was a disaster area filled with overturned furniture, broken glass and bits of something that had once been miss Mabelle Adler. It had been a quiet home out in the country side a few miles from the outskirts of civilization; quiet until the undead had come through like a swarm of ravenous locusts. From the looks of the battered door frame and shattered windows I'd have said at least five with clubs or tire irons that they had used to beat their way inside. Most people in these far flung reaches will take measures to defend themselves from the roving dead; metal bars for their windows, reinforcements on the doors and locks. But some folks like to live in a more rustic, simpler country lifestyle and that was miss Adler up unto the very end. Were it not for a small scar on her left heel the local sheriff wouldn't have recognized her.

I walked through the front door amid deputies and coroners as they gathered the remaining pieces of the once active senior into biohazard bags to be disposed of. There was a small crucifixion figurine spattered in blood just beyond the front door, red hand prints sliding down the wall beneath it. I shook my head and looked at the floor, a lush green shag now blackened in a large pool of blood.

"How ya' been, Chuck?" Sheriff Mac Burch said, slapping me on the shoulder as he always did when we met. He was a big man, an ex-marine with a shaved head and tattoos that ran from his neck to the small of his back. I knew this because we had been out drinking and on more than one occasion his shirt had come off to brag. He was tanned and in relatively good shape for a man in his late thirties with good sized muscles in his arms and legs.

"Be better if I didn't have to drive into the middle-of-nowhere for this mess, Mac." I told him as I rubbed my arm still stinging from his greeting. "What happened here?"

He whistled, low and slow as he pointed a muscular finger towards the front door. "Miss Adler had been livin' up here on her own for three months now, since her husband Red died of a stroke. A few of the folks she goes to church with have been tryin' to move 'er back to the city since then but she just wouldn't have it. She normally comes by the church for bingo night and never does miss a service but one of her friends was talking to one of my deputies yesterday and said they hadn't heard from her in a few days. She asked if we'd check on her and he said sure."

He began walking to the kitchen just beyond an antique couch. I followed close behind.

"When deputy Collins got out here he was on his way in for shift change. He pulled his cruiser around to the kitchen door when he saw the windows broken out and went inside. He didn't stay long." Mac said as he opened the back door near the refrigerator. I slipped in yet another pool of blood and would have fallen to the floor had I not grabbed onto the kitchen table to my right.

We stepped into the back yard of the residence and I immediately saw the problem. A thousand yards out from the back porch, tangled and trapped in a barbed wire fence was deputy Collins, his green-tan uniform a tattered red mess covering his shredded chest. His teeth snapped and gnashed at other deputies who were crowded around him, weapons drawn and at the ready.

"We got worried when he didn't show up for roll call yesterday." Mac said folding his arms over his chest. "We hunted through the night until we found him wrapped up out here. I've got the power, legally I mean to have my guys put him down. But whose gonna' listen to me if I give that order? I can't even bring myself to do it."

"And that's why you called me." I said nodding in agreement. "I'll take care of it." I told him and un-holstered my gun.

"Chuck," Mac said, putting a hand against my arm to stop me before I could act. "He's a friend of mine and he's a friend to every one of the boys here. Do it clean so we can show him to his wife."

I looked at him, heard the emotion in his request. It was killing him inside to see one of his people squirming and moaning and suffering without knowing the peace of death. I nodded.

"I'll do it right." I promised him as I walked into the field.

[ Continue to page 2 ]