II

He drove for several miles, unsure where he to go; his mind still reeled from what had happened, when the car died on him, and slowed to a halt.  The gas tank was empty.  He pulled the car over to one side, and left it there.  He walked abnormally fast, and his heart raced.  He must have hallucinated the whole thing somehow—maybe he ate some sort of poisonous berry in the woods, or something—but when he looked down at his shirt, he could still see the grey goo that the—thing?—had left on him. 

He wasn’t far down the road when he saw five figures up ahead, walking down the middle of the street. He squinted, and tried to see if they had the same pale skin as those—things.  As drew closer, he could see they were recognizably human, if a bit ragged-looking.  They were all wearing jackets, as if they belonged to a biker gang or something. Still disoriented and perturbed by what had happened to him, Ken felt a sense of relief, and called out to them. 

“Hey!  Hey there!”  At the sound of his voice, the five of them turned around.They stared at him for a moment, and he spied his first good look at them:  one of them, a scrawny little man with long black hair, wearing a ball cap, looked like their ring leader.  The others all looked similar to him, all wearing the same blue jean jackets.  Ken began to sense maybe he should not have called to them, but then the scrawny one called back.

“Hey there.  What’s you want, fella?”

“I, just got attacked by—something, over in park area, ‘bout three or four miles up the road.  Wanted to see if you could help me get to a phone or somethin’.”  He didn’t need their help at all, actually; he could get anywhere he wanted to.  What he wanted was some kind of human contact, after having killed two of those inhuman things.  The scrawny guy with the cap said something to his companions, and started walking toward him.

“What do you mean, get to a phone?  They’re ain’t no phones up here no more.”

“Something—somebody attacked me back there. I thought I might want to call and warn somebody about it.”  The little scrawny fellow eyed him suspiciously. 

“I’m tellin’ ya,’ there ain’t nobody answerin’ no phones.  The runners done kilt them all by now.”  Ken couldn’t make heads or tails of what he had said, and the look showed on his face.  “Look, fella, there ain’t no more phones, no government, no nothin’.  You get it?  Them damn zombie things done overrun all that shit by now.”

“Zombies?  You mean, those grey things, the ones that—”

“Ones that run like a damn cheetah, turn ya into one of ‘em when they bite ya?”  Ken was dumbfounded.  “That’s what jumped ya, wadn’t it?”

“You mean—there are more of them”  The skinny guy laughed.

“More?  Damn near ate everybody from here to Richmond.  Where the hell you been?”  Ken was floored.  He almost went short of breath for a moment.  He thought he might faint.  But he composed himself quickly.

“I’m a hunting guide.  Got a cabin up in the mountains.  Sometimes I stay up there a few weeks at a time.  Just got back.”

“Well, those fuckers came in about three, four weeks ago.  Now’s there only them, and these motherfuckers prowlin’ the roads, lookin’ to kill people, take their guns and stuff.  That’s what happened to us,” he said pointing to his friends.  “Was more of us.  Had bikes, too.  Runners got four of us, and fuckin’ goons took our bikes.”  The guy looked at Ken, and then finally broke into a smile.  “But it looks like you just your first taste of them, huh? Name’s Skinny.” He held out his hand to Ken. 

He wasn’t sure about any of this.  There was something he didn’t trust about this guy; his hunter’s sense told him he was the hunted.  But after the shock of his encounter with those things, he wanted to believe it was overreaction.  Besides, they may look like dirtballs, but at least they were human.  Ken took his hand.

“Ken Heaney.”

“Well, you’re welcome to walk with us a spell if ya want to.”  Ken nodded his agreement, and they walked back to the rest of their group, and Skinny introduced him.  “Boys, this here’s Ken.  He’s a hunter, and he’s comin’ with us.  This here’s Cletus, Billy, Jake, and that’s my brother, Jimmy.”  They all nodded or else grunted at him, and without much further ado, started walking. 

Skinny talked as they made their way up Skyline.  “We were part of a group here—the Blackhawks.  Kind of thing we had back in high school.  So we had these jackets made up fer us couple years ago, and we used to go ridin’ on our bikes.  Till them damn goons took ‘em.” 

“What were they lookin’ for?” Ken asked.

“Anything they could take.  Managed to keep our jackets.  Hid the other one up the road a spell.  Who knows, maybe you can wear it.  You’re welcome to it.”

“Thanks,” Ken said, though he didn’t give a damn about jackets, or becoming a Blackhawk.

“Do you know where they came from, these—what’d you call ‘em?”

“Yeah, runners.  No man, we don’t know nothin’.  Except they come from up north.”

“Figures it’d come from Yankees,” came from Billy, who was walking up behind them, “everything up d’ere’s made a’ goose shit.” 

The five bikers laughed heartily, and even Ken had to smile.  He’d been raised in the back country, where that sentiment was still something fathers taught their sons.  Ken’s dad taught him all sorts of colorful ways of referring to people from up north—at least, before he split.  He hadn’t heard the word in years, but the idea of blaming it on Yankees comforted him.  It made him feel, for a moment, like he was amongst people he understood.  His hunter’s sense had been wrong, after all. 

With that, they turned up the highway, none of them saying much beside Skinny, who was full of words, Ken noticed.  He apparently could talk about anything—except hunting—but Ken was relieved to hear a human voice, so was content to let him.  After they had gone up the road a bit, they came to a crest in the mountain, and Skinny pointed to a little mound on the right side of the road.

“That’s where we left our stuff,” he said as they marched up to it.  “We got that jacket, a couple other things in there our boys had on ‘em when they got bit.”  He bent down, and started digging, and pulled out a large trash bag.  He then pulled a dusty, grimy looking jacket with a large bird on the back of it and the words “Blackhawk” on the back of it.  Wasn’t even the right bird, Ken thought.  “You want it?”

“No thanks.”

“Suit yourself,” Skinny said, rising up.  “Might wanna take a look, see if there’s anything you want.  We’ll wait fer ya.’” 

“What kind of stuff?”

“Knives, man.  We usually had a bunch.  Rest got took.”  Well, Ken thought, he only had the stick and his hunting knife.  Couldn’t hurt to have another weapon.  He bent down and opened the trash bag.  It had something really heavy in it.  He quickly realized what it was:  the body of one of those zombies—runners—who had apparently been one of the bikers.  He jumped back when he saw it, and turned round quickly.

“What the hell—” The barrel of a revolver stared down into his face, answering his question.  Skinny stood over him, grinning. 

“Alright there son.  Hand over the bag.” 

Ken looked up at Skinny, whose sickly grin made him look like a Jack o’ Lantern.  He slowly loosened his knapsack from his shoulder, and tossed it over to the others, who immediately began to squabble over its contents.Ken wanted to grab his hunting knife, which was still strapped to his leg inside his pants, but Skinny kept the gun firmly pointed at his head.

“You gon’ do us some huntin’ tonight boy.  We hadn’t anything to eat since those sumbitches took our shit last week.”  He leaned over and down into Ken’s face.  “An if it turns out yer full of shit there boy, well, we kinda already got used to human for dinner.  So don’t try nothin’ funny.”  As Skinny said this, Jake and Jimmy started to squabble over the small lantern he had in his sack.

“Give it to me you piece ‘a shit!” Jimmy screamed.

“I had it first asshole!”

“You two dumbasses knock that shit off,” Skinny said, never taking his eyes off Ken, who tried to talk him out of it.

“Look, you don’t have to—”

“Shut up!” Skinny yelled at him.  “Now get up.  Nice and slow.”

“Come on, just let me go.”

“I ain’t tellin’ you ‘gain boy.  Up.  Slow.” 

Ken had his hand near the knife, and wanted to pull it but couldn’t.  He rose slowly, but tried to keep his hand near his calf.Just as he was about to stand, a scream rang out, as Jimmy punched Jake in the face, who dropped the lantern he found in Ken’s knapsack.  As he did, Skinny turned his head and started shouting in their direction; as fast as he could, Ken pulled the knife from his pant leg and jammed it into Skinny’s calf.  Skinny screamed and fell backward, firing off a shot into the air.  Ken bolted into the woods. 

“Get that piece of shit!”

He could hear Skinny shout as he ran.  He heard a couple of shots fired, but they went nowhere near him.  He ran as fast as he could, darting through the sloped forest as it curved with the Shenandoah foothills. He thought he could hear one or two of them, but after a while they ceased; he kept running anyway, till his sides nearly burst and his lungs burnt up with oxygen, and collapsed somewhere in the forest. 

At some point, he fell asleep; that was when he awoke, and heard the calls in the trees.  Once he had recovered his sense of where he was, and was convinced that had simply given up following him, he moved on, heading north through the forest.

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