Doomed - The Walking Dead

Chapter Three

Of coarse, my scream draws a couple walkers to me. Only four though, I guess the rest that were closer to Terminus didn't hear me or ignored me. The four walkers are spaced out enough that I can easily take them all out, though. I'm actually kind of glad they came to me. They help me get some of my rage out.
But God do they reek. The first two must've been caught in the fire that took down the right side of the Terminus building. The smell of the burnt flesh is horrible. This makes something occur to me. What if smell is part of what attracts walkers to humans? I already knew sound was a big one. But smell makes sense too. Like wolves sniffing out their prey.
     How could I mimic the smell of walkers? Mask my own living smell? There might still be something salvageable in the ruins of Terminus. Maybe even some survivors. I can't just leave without going in there. But how would I do it? The walkers would be too heavy to carry. And even if I carried one, it might not be enough.
     Then a horrific image pops into my head. An image of me covered in walker blood. Oh god, I think, disgusted with myself for even thinking that. But it just may work. In fact, it may be the only way to do it. Ulck. How can I do this without getting it on my clothes? I don't have any others and I don't want to have to smell like walker until I can find some. Maybe there will be some in Terminus. But what if there aren't?
     Oh shut up and just do it already, a voice in the back of my mind says. If you don't find any clothes, you'll just have to deal with it until you do.
     It's right. I kneel down next to my most recent kill and slash its stomach open. The odor practically punches me in the face. I really don't want to touch it, but I know I have to. I collect enough blood on my hands and start coating my arms and torso. Then my legs and, reluctantly, my face. I wince with every handful I grab from the walker's decaying stomach. Then I giggle at myself. "I'm such a baby," I say. Now I cover my bag. I don't want to, but I'll need it in case I find more than I can carry in my hands.
After I'm completely covered in stench, I decide to test my new camouflage. The nearest walker is a few yards away. I look around at my feet and see a stone about a foot to my right. I pick it up and look back at the walker. I can throw that far.
     I bring my right arm back almost as far as it can go, and I hurl the stone forward. It hits the walker's jaw causing it to snap out of place and the skin on its cheek to separate. The walker slowly turns toward me and takes slow steps in my direction. Its jaw is hanging halfway off its head.
     The closer it comes to me, the more nervous I get. If I'm wrong about this and I let the walker get to close, I could be dead just like that. I keep my knife at the ready just in case though. The walker staggers a bit, just as they all do,  but it also seems disoriented. It's coming my way, but I don't think it knows it's coming for me.
     I decide to meet it in the middle. I relax my arms a bit and slowly walk over to it. My grip on my knife tightens. I'm just a few feet from it now. But it seems unfazed by my presence. It doesn't growl like they usually do when in close proximity to a human. It walks right by me and heads for the woods I just came from.
     It worked? It worked! I almost want to jump with joy. This changes everything! Raiding will be som much easier now. I have to refrain from running to the gates of Terminus. Sudden movements will attract attention. I make it to the front gate, unscathed, to find that it's wide open. Inside the gates, there are less walkers. I guess now, they've found all they can and they're slowly moving on.
It's quiet inside the big Terminus building. I follow a long hallway that reminds me of a school, and I enter a door to the right. It's a relatively small room with tables along the walls. There are valuables everywhere covering the tables. Watches, jewelry, small tokens. I search the table with the shiny things for a new knife. Nothing. Nothing of value to me here.
Onto the next room. The next door I come across is a bland room made into a bedroom. I search the dresser and find all guy clothes. Of coarse. I take a few t-shirts and move on. The next room is a girl's room. But she was much older than me. Regardless, I take some jeans that look like they'll fit me, and take the throw blanket that's folded on the foot of the bed.
The next room is the armory. There's a walker in there. I don't even bother trying to snake around it, I just take it out. I bask in the glory of all the guns and various hand-to-hand weapons. I've never had a gun. My dad had one and he showed me the basics of the safety, the chamber, the magazine, but he never let me shoot it. Not that I wanted to. The idea of guns scared me at the time. There are rifles and snipers in the armory, but those are far beyond my knowledge. I pick up a 9 millimeter and every box of rounds that will fit it. I make sure the safety is on before I put it and the bullets into a pocket in my duffel.
I turn my attention to the blades. The number of small knives there are overwhelms me. So many options, which do I pick? I look back and forth between my little knife in my hand and the newer, shinier ones. Mine is so beaten up, I don't know how I haven't noticed. The leather handle is scratched and frayed and faded. The blade is even a bit bent. I look back at the new blades and practically throw mine onto the ground.
I end up taking three knives instead of just one new one to assist my old one like I'd intended. A clip point for walkers, a spear point for food, and a larger one with a serrated edge. That one can be used for any number of things. I sheath my new blades and hook the one for walkers onto my pants.
     I leave the armory and continue down the same hallway. The next door leads to a huge room. In the middle of it is a metal trough. To the left of it is a metal table with some kind of meat on it. I walk deeper into the room to get a better look. The right side of the inside of the trough is coated in blood. There's a drain in the middle.
     "Oh god," I disgustedly say. I look at the table. The meat is a human that's been butchered into different pieces. "Oh god," I say even more disgusted. "Who the hell were these people?!"
     I look away from the horror that's lying on the table and see a door on the wall adjacent to the one I used to enter this room. When I open the door, a revolting odor knocks me back. The smell almost blinds me. I almost don't see what's inside the room. Human rib cages hang upside down from the ceiling. The arms and head have been severed from them. There are metal tables identical to the one in the Trough Room that hold segments of human arms and legs. Still on my back, I kick the door closed.
I try to regain my sensibility. I'm still groggy and perplexed when I gather my things from the floor where I fell and run out the door I see on the opposite wall. The door had a skinny vertical window on it with daylight peeking through, which lets me know that it led outside. The walkers are sparse enough now that I can weave my way through them without them even having time to process it. I'm running too fast. I'm near them, then I'm passing them before they can even realize what I am.
I've spent the past four days being so excited for Terminus, and now I can't get out of there fast enough. Who were these people? Hanging people up to dry like that? Did they kill those people too? That had to be what the trough was for. To catch the blood. Keep the place clean. But why? Why chop them up into pieces?
Everything I pass on my way to the entrance is a blur except one thing. Just before the gate is a colossal black grill. On its cooking rack is a brown cooked version of the meat I'd seen in the putrid room and identified as human legs.
I stop in my tracks. "No," I say in a disbelieving tone. It's at this point that it all becomes too much for me. Right there in front of the gate, I throw up my miserable lunch. I hear the walker growls behind me and I continue running. I run as fast as my feeble body will allow. And I never look back.