Part Four: Family Business
"Fear is only as deep as the mind allows."
----
They followed Mikasa through a forest of ancient oaks that was so lush that the canopy of leaves cast everything below into a twilight darkness. Morning mist clung to the mossy ground, and the trunks of the trees rose, like ghosts in the humid gloom. After only a few steps into this nightmare landscape, the wind settled and died, leaving behind a dreadful stillness.
It was Nix who first heard the moans of the dead.
"Wait!" she hissed, dropping into a crouch. "Zoms!"
Eren pulled the big hunting knife he'd taken from the dead bounty hunter.
The moan was a wordless cry of hunger that drifted to them through the pillars of oak trees, like the plaintive call of a wandering ghost.
"Where is it?" Nix whispered.
"There," said Eren, pointing. "I think it's coming from over there."
Mikasa bent and ran quickly in that direction, her feet making no sound on the mossy ground, her body bent, spear ready.
"Um . . . Eren?" said Nix. "She's running toward the zombies."
Fifty yards up the trail, Mikasa stopped and waved to them.
"And she wants us to follow."
"Oh crap."
"Well," said Nix, "she's your object of obsession."
"Very funny."
"Reluctantly and slowly, they followed.
The closer they got, the louder was the moan of the zombie. It was different from other zom voices that Eren had heard, although he couldn't yet put his finger to what was different. Whatever it was, it made the hairs on his arms and the back of his neck stand up.
They reached Mikasa, and together they crept around a bend in the path. A zombie stood right in front of them. He had once been a great brute of a man, and even withered and dead he had a massive chest and broad shoulders, and hands that looked big enough to snap Eren in half. He was wearing a mechanic's coveralls, and there was a line of gaping black bullet holes across his chest and stomach.
Nix yelped in fear. Eren cried out and brought up his knife, ready to make a fight of it. He crowded Nix backward, willing to sacrifice himself for her.
The moan of the zombie changed to a growl of immediate need, and his wrinkled lips curled away from rotted yellow teeth.
The forest around them erupted into a chorus of other hungry moans as an army of the undead began to howl for their flesh. Eren and Nix turned and saw that there were, indeed, hundreds of zombies--men and women, children and adults--and they were everywhere. Mikasa had taken them the wrong way. Instead of leading them to safety, she'd stumbled into a terrible trap.
Mikasa stood inches from the massive zombie. She turned to Eren and Nix . . . and laughed.
"What . . . ?" Nix said, blinking as if it was her eyes and not her mind that needed clearing.
"You bitch!" Eren snarled. "You betrayed us!"
YOU ARE READING
Damage & Decay
AdventureIn the zombie infested world Eren has grown in, teenagers must work once they turn fifteen-or they'll lose their food rations. Eren isn't interested in taking on the family business, but he reluctantly agrees to train as a zombie killer with his bor...
