Damage & Decay

Chapter 45

Part Four: Family Business

"Fear is only as deep as the mind allows."

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The moans of the dead filled the entire forest.

Eren and Nix stood back-to-back. Without realizing it they had already passed dozen of the zoms as they followed Mikasa into the woods, and looking back they could see them standing there, dead eyed turned their way.

Mikasa put her hand on the center of the big zombie's chest.

The Lost Girl was still laughing. The big zombie tried to grab her, tried to bite. her. But it couldn't do either.

"What . . . ?" Eren said softly. His mind was struggling to understand this moment.

And then he saw it.

The zombie was tied to the tree. A length of sturdy rope was wrapped around its waist, and shorter lengths anchored each hand. It could move its hands a few inches, but that's all.

Eren turned and saw that the zombie by the next closest tree was similarly bound. And the next.

"They're all . . . tied up," said Nix, turning in a slow circle.

It was true.

The forest was filled with hundreds upon hundreds of zombies, and every one of them was tied to a tree. In some places three or four were tied to the trunks of massive oaks.

"I . . . don't understand," said Nix, but Eren did. He suddenly remembered something Armin had told him about Charlie rounding up zoms and tying them to trees, so that he could find them more easily if he got a bounty.

He knew where they were.

The Hungry Forest.

Nix wheeled on Mikasa. "You think this is funny?"

Mikasa's eyes twinkled. "Yes. Very funny. Your faces!" She laughed, and the sound of it drew another series of long moans from the dead.

"What is  this place?" Nix demanded.

Eren told her. Mikasa listened and nodded, and Nix looked horrified. Mikasa pointed out a few trees where the ropes had been cut and the zoms taken.

"God . . . ," Nix said, "Charlie's harvesting  them."

"Sometimes," Mikasa said, "I come her. Cut some loose. Let them go."

"Why?"

"I do it when I think Charlie is coming."

"An ambush. Sweet," Eren said with a grin. "Sick and twisted . . . but sweet. Oh, and . . . sorry for calling you a bitch."

She shrugged. "Been called worse. Don't care much."

Nix could not take her eyes off of the legions of living dead. "How many of them are in here?"

Mikasa considered, shrugged. "Three thousand. More."

"It's horrible."

Mikasa shrugged again and turned to Eren. "You think it's horrible?"

"I'm not sure what I think about it," he said.

To Nix, Mikasa said, "Two times I came here and let them go. Cut all ropes."

"Why?"

"To free them. They followed me to the field. By the water."

"Geeze," Eren said, "those were the zoms we ran into by Coldwater Creek. You let them go?"

Mikasa nodded. "Sometimes . . . seeing them. Tied. Makes me sad. I untie and lead them away."

"You lead them? How do you do that without getting chomped?" Eren asked.

She looked at him as if he was a moron. "They're slow. I'm not slow." Then she pinched the skin of her forearm. "They follow flesh."

Eren swallowed hard, trying to imagine a horde of zombies, shambling along after this beautiful and crazy Lost Girl.

Mikasa looked up through a small opening in the canopy of leaves at the position of the sun. "Time to go."

With that, she turned and walked deeper into the Hungry Forest. Each zombie she passed craned its neck and tried to bite her, but the Lost Girl did not appear to notice. Or care.

Eren and Nix lingered a moment longer, caught up in all of the different ways in which this place was wrong. Whether the zoms tied to the trees or taken for bounties or freed to wander, the horror of it was overwhelming.

The zombies closest to them moaned incessantly, biting the air, as if aching to feed on just the smell of living flesh.

"Your girlfriend is deranged," said Nix.

"She's not my girlfriend, thank you very much. And I believe Armin said the expression was 'touched by God.'"

"She's touched all right. Come on, this place is way beyond creepy. Let's get out of here, Eren," Nix said. "Right now."

"With you on that," he agreed, but as they hurried along the path to catch up, Eren kept looking back, compelled to lock this image in his mind. There was something about it that was starting to shove ideas around in his head. Weird and wicked ideas.

Nix caught the look on his face. "What is it?"

"Nothing," he lied. The thoughts running though is head were not thought he wanted to share with her. Not yet.