Mitch (© William Estes)
Page 1 Mitch looked
at her. She glared at him. It had been two years since the dead rose up and
months since he met anyone new. He lived with
six men and two women. They treated the women like slaves. Mitch feared
what they would do to her. He and four other guys went to a town thirty minutes
away to raid a grocery store. They found her when they were gathering supplies.
The men drug her along. The loaded her
into the back of the pickup along with the groceries. Two men rode in back with
Mitch and two sat up front. Mitch knew they wouldn’t do anything to her until
they make it back to the house. Jim held a
candy bar and the girl eyed it. “You want
this?” he asked. She nodded . “You have to do something for us.” “What?” she
asked. She was a few inches shorter than him with short blonde hair. It looked
like she cut it herself. Like most people he’d seen she was thin. Jim smiled and
looked at the men and Mitch. “Show us your
tits,” said Jim. She looked disgusted. She grabbed the bottom of her sweater
and lifted. Her t-shirt came up with it as well. The pickup
driver, Bob, adjusted the rearview mirror. The girl pulled up her shirt and then
grabbed her bra and pulled it up as well. Her breasts were b-cups with pink
nipples. Mitch smiled as he saw them. She dropped
her shirt and yelled, “Look out.” Mitch
remembered an animal screaming as he woke up. He lay in the grass. One leg felt
wet, but he sure he landed in a puddle. Mitch walked a
couple of steps. His right leg hurt. He could barely bend his knee.. The
pick-up was overturned in the culvert up to the doors in the water. The doors
were still shut. He didn’t see anyone else. Mitch saw a shotgun. He walked to
it when he heard a sound. He turned to
see the girl. She held a pistol at him. He wondered where she found it. Jim
checked her for weapons. “I’m not going
to hurt you,” he said. He raised his hands. “I know,” she
said. He braced himself for the shot, it didn’t come. “Are they
dead?” asked Mitch. “I don’t know.
Go check,” she said. She reached down for a crowbar. It was one Jim took from
her. It was wrapped in cloth to muffle the sounds from hits. He looked up
at the embankment. It was ten feet up and he couldn’t see the road. She picked
up the crowbar with her left arm. It slipped out of her hand. That was when he
realized something was wrong with it. Mitch limped
over and picked it up. He avoided eyed contact as he grabbed the crowbar. Mitch
crawled up the embankment and looked over the top. Two of the
dead ate a body while a third sat farther back eating a deer. He knew the dead
had a kind of a hierarchy, but he hadn’t really noticed it. He crawled
back down to her. She pulled a small caliber pistol out of the water and put it
in the back of her pants. “There’s three
up there,” Mitch told her. “I need to get
back to my place,” she said. “That’s like
thirty miles away and you’re hurt,” he said. “Then we’ll
need to get to someplace close,” said the girl. She looked around. The hills
were covered with trees. A few houses sat on each hill. “How about one of
those?” “Jim said we
shouldn’t check some of those. They’ll probably be too sealed up. He had me
help set up a house near here. But its on the other side of the road,” Mitch
said. “Then you
should go up and deal with them,” she said. He looked at
her. The girl placed a bag on the and put cans inside of it. Mitch want to say
something to her, but nothing came to mind. He climbed
back up the road. The three zombies were still eating. Mitch looked both
directions to see if anymore were coming. There wasn’t any in his line of
vision. He walked up to the two at the body. [ Continue to page 2 ] |