They approached the tree line slowly, cautiously, weapons at the ready. They had gotten word that there were undead roaming these woods.

It was mid-June, and hot; cicadas hidden among the high weeds sang their songs. Steve licked his parched lips, drew a bare forearm across his dripping brow. Goddamn, it's hot! He paused and glanced to his left at Chuck, the posse leader.

Chuck, ammo belts criss-crossing his chest, had stopped and was hunched slightly forward, peering into the waiting trees. His dark eyes, shadowed beneath overhanging brows, moved slowly over the terrain before him. He stood motionless (but for the slow movement of his eyes), his hands tight around the pump-action shotgun he carried.

Steve watched him, waiting. Beyond Chuck, he could see Tony. At 60, Tony was the oldest member of the posse. He was standing awkwardly, favoring his left leg. He had fractured his kneecap in the factory where he'd been working, and he was in a great deal of pain. He took pain killers (around the clock, it seemed to Steve), but the pain persisted. Even now, his face was twisted into a gargoyle-like grimace. The snub-nosed .357 Magnum Terminator hung limply from his right hand. He reached around and took his canteen from his belt, began twisting off the cap.

Steve looked to his right. At 24, Manny was the youngest member of the posse. He was also the biggest, packing, as one member had remarked, "enough meat to feed a family of five for a month." Manny was a good kid; he had a lot of heart, and Steve liked him. He also happened to be a damn good shot. In fact, he was the posse's sniper. Steve had seen him put a bullet right through the eye of an undead who'd grabbed and was trying to strangle a woman. The woman had managed to twist around so that her back was to her attacker and, as the undead has opened its mouth and started to dip its head to take a chunk out of her, Manny had fired. The woman had been so grateful that she had spent the night with Manny, repeatedly thanking him.

Steve smiled at the memory. To some of the people whose lives they saved, the posse members were heroes; to others, they were trespassers who had no business on private property. Go figure. Steve reached up and scratched absently at his bald spot, reached around and dug into his behind where sweat trickling down between his cheeks had started to irritate him. He spat, and waited.

Something moved among the trees. Steve tensed, both hands clamping onto his shotgun. To his left, he heard Chuck whisper, "There they are..."

Steve stared intently into the foliage, but he could make out nothing he could identify as a human being- dead or undead. He had seen foliage move, though. Frowning, he looked harder, tried to see something- anything. Not that he really wanted to. He was aware of his heartbeat accelerating, his hands becoming suddenly unsteady. It happened every time they had an encounter.

Am I a fucking coward at heart? he wondered. He swallowed nervously, glanced over at Chuck. Chuck, who had been in the Navy, seemed to have nerves of steel. He was standing calmly, weapon ready, knees slightly bent as he sought his prey among the trees. Steve returned his attention to the trees before him. It didn't pay to look away. They'd lost more than one posse member when he'd looked the wrong way at the wrong time...

A twig snapped underfoot. Steve stiffened. Here they come!

The foliage began to move as if bestirred by high winds. Wood snapped, leaves rustled. The foliage parted and the undead were there. Steve froze, staring in abject horror at them. At that instant, he realized that he would never get used to seeing them: never get used to the idea that the dead were rising from their graves to walk the land.

He recognized the first one he saw: Willie Mendez. The Puerto Rican farmer was still wearing his overalls, a red bandana trailing from his back pocket. He had bled to death; there was a gaping wound at his shoulder, where he had been attacked from behind and bitten. The bite itself hadn't caused his death, the loss of blood had. He walked stiffly, like a man stepping in postholes, and his arms came up when he saw Steve, his fingers curling and uncurling eagerly. His face sagged, bloodless, and his mouth slowly yawned open. Steve had known Willie, had worked alongside him picking berries on his farm.

"Willie," he said weakly.

He jerked with a start when Willie's head exploded in a shower of brain and bone. The almost headless body staggered sidewise before tripping over its own feet and disappearing into the tall grass. Steve stared after it, still in shock. The blast had come from his left. He looked, and saw Chuck as he jacked another shell into the chamber of his still-smoking weapon. The spent shell ejected, dropping unnoticed into the grass.

On their left, Tony was firing into the tree line.

A moan drew their attention and they turned as one toward another dead man as he emerged from the foliage. A white face above a shirtfront saturated with fresh blood. Those ever-reaching arms, those fingers as restless as the legs of a spider. Dead eyes in the dead face. Hunger in the hoarse moans.

Steve braced the sawed-off shotgun against his hip, left hand palm-down on the top of the barrel, and pointed the business end of the barrel at the gaping mouth of the oncoming dead man. He fired. The violent recoil drove the customized handle into his hip so hard that he winced. The dead man's head shattered above the bridge of the nose and he spun lifeless to the earth.

"Good shot," Chuck offered.

Steve snapped the barrel, ejecting the spent shells, and quickly reloaded from the ammo belt that hung diagonally across his chest. "Thanks," he breathed. He snapped the barrel closed and returned his attention to the trees before him. His heart was trip-hammering, now. He had hesitated upon seeing Willie, and it had almost cost him his life. It wasn't going to happen again. He tracked the barrel back and forth, watching for movement.

On his right, Manny's gun boomed as he felled an attacker. Steve jerked involuntarily at the abrupt explosions.

A man burst from the trees to his right and he swung around automatically, firing as he did. The blast caught the man in the side and lifted him off his feet. He cried out as he fell. Steve stood staring at where the man had gone down, a startled look on his face. The man had cried out as he fell... Steve felt a dread realization spread like poison through his system.

The dead did not scream in pain; they moaned hungrily, sometimes fearfully- but never once had he heard a dead man cry out in agony.

Manny was already moving through the grass toward the man. He stopped, staring down, then looked up at Steve. His shadowed eyes beneath the bill of his cap were unreadable. Steve swallowed, forced himself to walk toward them. His legs were weak; dizziness threatened to topple him with each step. He didn't want to go on, didn't want to see what he had wrought. He already knew that he had made a fatal mistake. He stopped when he reached Manny and looked down.

The blast had ripped the man's midsection to bloody ribbons. He lay with his teeth clenched to keep from screaming; there was a look of accusation in his eyes. His hands were desperately squeezing his entrails in a vain attempt to stop the pain and the flow of blood. He trembled. Steve looked up. Manny was watching him.

"We gotta get him to a medic..."

"He's gut shot," Manny pointed out: "He ain't gonna make it."

Steve swallowed. He looked down into the accusing gaze that he knew would haunt him for the rest of his life. "I know..." he whispered.

"Bring up the trucks," Chuck said into the radio: "We done turned this place into a ghost town." He released the call button. There was static.

"Ten-four," a voice replied.

Chuck handed the radio back to Tony, who hooked it onto his belt. Manny stood nearby, watching Steve, who stood near the body of the man he had had to put down. Steve wasn't looking at the body: he was staring up at the clouds. His shotgun was cradled in his arms.

Manny turned to Chuck, jerking a thumb toward Steve. "Think we might have a problem, Boss..."

Chuck sighed. "Ten-four," he said. They had lost eight men in two weeks: the accidental death of a single man- a stranger- caught running with a herd of undead, wasn't something he was going to lose any sleep over. Still, it was a problem that needed addressing. He walked over to Steve, glanced down once at the imploded face of the man he had shot. Jesus, what a mess... "Steve...?"

Steve snapped out of his daze, looked around at Chuck. "Sorry, man. What'd you say?"

"We're movin' out. You okay?"

"Yeah, sure. Let's make like horse shit and hit the dusty trail."

"Ten-four."

The bodies were hauled away to the pit where they would be burned. The posse refilled their canteens and got more ammo from the supply trucks before moving slowly along the dirt road toward the next pocket of “resistance.” There was little conversation: they were all tired from three days of search and destroy missions, and, besides, there wasn’t a whole hell of a lot to talk about. Chuck led the way, Tony close on his heels with the radio equipment. Manny followed, glancing back at Steve as they walked. Steve walked with his head down, lost in thought. Normally, he would be suspiciously scanning his surroundings as he walked, on the alert, but now he seemed… indifferent to the potential danger.

By noon, they had stopped again.

Chuck, at the head of the column, had stopped, lifted a hand, and was now staring out through the trees. Tony was following his gaze. Manny watched them, looked back at Steve. Down on one knee, Steve was staring at the ground. Manny lifted an eyebrow in mild surprise before turning back. He stiffened, his fingers suddenly clutching his weapon. There were three dead men lumbering from the trees behind Chuck and Tony. They were charging swiftly, soundlessly. Manny felt a chill along his spine. These dead men were carrying knives.

“Chuck!”

Chuck jerked around with a start, looked where Manny was pointing. He whirled, bringing his shotgun up as the first of the dead men reached him. He fired. The man’s head exploded; his body stumbled and dropped. The second dead man was shot through the head by Tony just as he came within arm’s reach. Falling forward, the dead man swung his knife and Tony cried out in pained surprise as the blade slashed his thigh. Tony staggered back, staring down at his leg in shock. The third dead man lunged for him. Chuck brought his shotgun around and stopped the man’s charge with a blast that punched through his temple. The impact dropped him in his tracks despite his forward momentum.

Manny heard an inarticulate growl behind him and whirled to see Steve struggling with another dead man. They were both holding onto Steve’s shotgun, wrestling for control. The dead man was much bigger than Steve, and strong. Manny lowered his shotgun and drew the .357 from his waistband. He lifted the gun, took careful aim, and fired. The bullet struck the dead man in the temple, snapping his head violently to one side. And then, as Manny watched, the dead man turned his head- even as blood sprayed from the wound- to stare at him in apparent surprise. Steve shoved the man away. As he stumbled backward, Manny fired again. This time, the bullet hit the man squarely between the eyes. He toppled like a felled tree.

“What the fuck is this shit?” Chuck hissed. He stood staring down at the dead man who had wounded Tony. Going to one knee, he reached out slowly and took the dead man’s hand, lifted and looked at it. The knife had been tied to the dead man’s hand. Chuck let the lifeless hand drop, rose to stare out into the trees from which the dead men had emerged.

Manny followed his gaze, swallowing nervously. “You think they did it, or somebody else…?”

Chuck frowned, shook his head slowly. “Damned if I know.”

Steve joined them. “Tony’s okay,” he said: “I cleaned the cut and wrapped it.” He looked down at the dead man, noticed the way the knife was bound to his hand. His brow furrowed. “What the fuck…?”

Chuck was still staring out at the trees. “Maybe we better get movin’,” he suggested: “It’ll be gettin’ dark before long…” He glanced over to where Tony sat on a tree stump, massaging his throbbing leg. “You good to go, Tony?”

Tony looked up, nodded. “Ten-four. It’s just a scratch.”

Chuck nodded. “Good.” He returned his attention to the trees. He felt as though they were being watched. “Let’s move out, people…”

They fell into line, Tony limping now, and started along the trail. Chuck found himself as they walked glancing left and right, now. He shivered.

They stood motionless among the trees, staring out at the men who had killed their brothers. Their lifeless eyes tracked the living with the eternal patience of the undead.