The rifle was light, unlike Pop’s shotgun.  That thing was heavier than any firearm should be and the kickback could damn near knock you on your ass if you’re not ready for it.  He called it Ox—I guess it was an appropriate name for something so powerful.  One time, my brother, Leland, thought he was man enough to wield such a beast.  I set up a can on the old fence post by the pen.  Leland took aim, the shotgun in the crook of his shoulder, right in the socket where the collar bone and shoulder come together.  He squeezed the trigger. 

Seven hours later, he came home from the hospital, arm in a sling, shoulder dislocated and collar bone broken.

“Did I hit the can?” he asked me before he went to bed that night.

“Nope.  But, you did take out one of the runner planks along the fence.”

Memories.  It’s the hardest part of this whole damn war.  That’s all I have now, the memories of loved ones and friends passed on and, in many cases, rose up.

I stood from my pickup, closed the door and left the keys in the ignition.  Just in case.  I shouldered my pack and walked the center of the street, rifle in both hands.  An old blue sedan sat off to the left, up on a curb.  From the side of it, I could see the left front tire sat at an odd angle, a dead person beneath it.  I moved to the front of the vehicle.  Another dead man slumped over the steering wheel, his skull ruptured.  Hair and bits of tissue clung to the windshield, the glass spider-webbed from where his head struck.

I let out a long breath.  Recognition could sometimes bring you to tears, but not in this case.  It only brought back old memories.  “I’ll come back for you in a little while, Mr. Martin.”

He had been my baseball coach in another time, back when it was safe to play games.  Back when there was no fear of something dead coming out of the woods to rip you apart.  From the looks of him, he wouldn’t be getting up and joining the zombie ranks.

I scanned the small neighborhood—an odd cul de sac, not quite a square, but no where near a circle, either.  The six houses formed a U, that’s the best way to describe it.  It was a U shape of small homes and overgrown yards.  A few skeletal remains lay about, here and there.  The one lying in the second yard to my right was a woman at one time, and from the flower print skirt she still had around her decomposing hips, I guessed she was still fairly young, maybe not even thirty yet.

Jeanette entered my thoughts and I tried to shove her back into the deepest corner of my soul. Swallowing hard, I shook my head, hoped she and little Bobby were okay; that Jake had managed to get them to a safe zone before they managed to swarm our small town.  I closed my eyes and saw her, the fear on her face, the look of disbelief as Jake pulled her by the arm, further away from me.  I stayed behind with Leland and Pop and Davey Blaylock from down the road from us.  Someone had to fight.  The military wasn’t going to be coming to Sipping Creek, South Carolina, a little do nothing town that existed just to exist.

A slight shuffle brought me from my memories.  I looked pass the back of Mr. Martin’s car.  There she was, Mrs. Crenshaw, shuffling along, barely standing, her body a gray mass of ugly.  White puffs of dirty hair hung along the sides of her face, one eye dangled by the optic nerves.  A bloom of blood sat across the front of her night gown.  Her feet were bare and torn up.

“Morning, Mrs. Crenshaw,” I called, knowing full well the only answer I would get was . . .

She groaned, turned her whole body toward me, not just her head like a living person would, but her entire dead, stiff body.  She picked up her pace, one hand extending outward the other one appearing as useless as tits on a boar hog.

It pained me to see my old sixth grade teacher like this.  In life she was a cantankerous old bat, especially when I was a kid, always fussing about not spoon feeding her students.  If we wanted to learn, we would earn it in her classroom.  Not many of us passed.  I scraped by with a low D, not great, but passing.

Raising my rifle, I took aim.  Brown drool trickled from her mouth, slinked its way down her chin.  I waited as she drew closer, her moan echoing in the cul de sac.  A tingle of dread crept into my stomach.  What if others heard her?  I still didn’t know if they could hear or actually see, but what if they could?

I shrugged.  The rifle would be louder than any moans she could make.

“A little closer, Mrs. Crenshaw,” I said, drew a bead on her forehead.  I pulled the trigger.  Mrs. Crenshaw’s head snapped back, she stumbled on impact and tipped forward.  I let out a long breath, held my rifle on her as I approached.  With my boot, I nudged her foot, then her arm, then the side of her head.  “I’m sorry, Mrs. Crenshaw,” I said, lowered my gun.

Just as I thought, others came out of hiding, their rotting bodies lurching along.  Two at first, then three, four more from around the back side of one of the houses.  Mr. Mitchell stumbled over a Radio Flyer sitting in the driveway, crashed to the ground with a thud and a clatter as the wagon toppled over.  His fat stomach burst, sending brown sludge onto the ground.  He tried to stand but could only manage to roll over.  Part of his intestines spilled out.

Biting back vomit, I took aim at the nearest corpse, squeezed the trigger.  The top of her head disappeared and she dropped to the ground.  The next shot took the man closest to her.  The third one missed and I back pedaled back to the front of Mr. Martin’s car.  They closed in quick, their moans escalating.  I crawled onto the hood of the car, then onto its top.  It gave slightly but held my weight.

The next three rounds dropped the nearest zombies.  The others clambered over their fallen comrades.  I slid the pack from my shoulder, reached inside for the pistol.  Easier.  Faster.  Four shots and only one undead still remained.  My hand shook for a moment.  Killing the ones I knew was always hard.  Tommy Banks was no difference.  His son played with my son, two six year olds with heads full of dreams and lots of mischief left undone.

“Deep breaths, Walker,” I said to myself.  “Slow and steady.”  I took aim, pulled the trigger.  Tommy Banks slumped against the car, his head dragging down the passenger’s side door, leaving a smear of black in its wake.

My shoulders sagged and I lowered my head.  Forcing back tears, I slid onto the hood and jumped over the bodies.  I wasn’t done.  A clean sweep of the neighborhood was needed and I hadn’t even reached the first house.  A few feet from the car I turned back, stared at the mass of rotting flesh surrounding Mr. Martin’s old blue sedan.  Mr. Mitchell was still moving, crawling toward me, his blackened intestines dragging behind him.

How did I forget about him?  I raised the rifle.  A second later he stopped moving, the bullet taking off the side of his head.

At the truck, I slung the rifle in the bed and grabbed the pick axe and shovel.  They were good people, these folks from Sipping Creek.  I couldn’t leave them to rot or to let the elements wear away what remained of them.  And the animals . . . I didn’t know if eating their flesh could kill the animals, most of them dogs that used to be well fed and loved, but now wild and starved.

In the old world we buried our dead.  It was a closure for those left behind.  Stones marked graves, sometimes witty or profound statements went on the markers.  At that time I wasn’t concerned with phrases or even closure.  Respect held me in that neighborhood.

Three feet in to digging a mass grave, I stopped.  A faint groan held my attention.  Staggering from the Banks’ open door was Thomas, Tommy’s son.  His jaw sat slack, his hair stuck up in cowlicks as if he just woke up from a year long nap.  Drooping white filmed eyes sat in deep sockets.  He stepped off the side of the porch, landed on the ground, rolled over and pushed to his feet.

Daddy, can I go to Thomas’ house?

How many times had Bobby and Thomas played together?  How many times did they have sleep-overs?  How many times had Tommy and I taken them to the nearest race or to one of the ball games over at the University in Columbia?

Spiderman sat across the front of Thomas’ blood stained shirt.  A chunk of flesh was missing from his neck.  I wondered if he was awake when he had been killed, if there was terror in his eyes, fear in his heart and a scream cut off from his throat.

We stood, watching each other, me in the hole, Thomas at the base of the front steps.  I tossed the shovel to the edge of the hole and climbed out.  Thomas shambled toward me, his groan so much like a child in pain.  Honestly, I guess he may have been.  Maybe the rotting dead weren’t so dead after all.  Maybe they could do more than see, stumble and eat.

I braced myself, glanced toward my truck.  I could run, grab a gun long before he could reach me.  Instead, I held my ground, shovel in hands, eyes fixed on my buddy’s kid.

“He’s not Thomas,” I whispered over and over, trying to calm my nerves.

The shovel shook in my hands as he approached.  Ten or fifteen feet from me, he lifted his arms, his face changed from a once loving little kid’s to a horrible semblance of what he used to be, lips turned down in a sneer, brows furrowed.  He bared his lips as I backed away.

“I’m sorry, Thomas,” I said and swung the shovel with every ounce of strength I had.  The hollow metal on skull sound echoed in the silent neighborhood.  Thomas staggered sideways, fell, but he wasn’t done.  Black blood seeped from the nasty gash on the left side of his head.  On his belly with his legs pushing and arms pulling, he crawled toward me, unfazed by the blow he had taken.

Raising the shovel above my head, I brought it down. Once, twice.  His skull cracked and, mercifully—for both of us—it was over.

I dropped the shovel, backed up until my ass hit my truck.  I climbed in, locked the door.  For the first time since the world went to hell, I cried.  Straight up and down bawled.  Images of my family scampered across the front of my mind, Jeanette and Bobby, my brothers, Pop.  It was all too much to swallow.

“Get a grip, Walker,” I said, wiped my eyes.  Several deep breaths followed.

Most of the rest of that day I dug holes—three of them, one fairly large and two smaller.  Zombies are heavier than folks might think they are, especially Mr. Mitchell with his trailing insides.  I laid them in the big hole, human matchsticks all in a pile.  Mr. Martin and the dead body beneath his wheel and whatever remains of folks littered the street went into the second hole.  Tommy and Thomas Banks went together in the last one.

I had never been much on praying before.  Like most folks after the dead rose, I guess I found some sort of religion.  Not knowing who I was really praying to, I said some words out to the air, hoping the wind would carry them to the right ears, the right heart.

Night was well on its way.  There was no time to sweep the houses like I had hoped to.  The day’s events had drained me, both heart and soul.  I went back to my truck, locked the doors and loaded my pistol and rifle.  Behind the seat sat Pop’s old shotgun.  I still had never fired it, not having the luxury of a broken collarbone like my brother.  Maybe one day I would. But not that day, the day I took down my first undead child and his father.  The children, they’re always the hardest to kill.

I closed my eyes, pistol in hand.  Exhaustion claimed me as night settled in . . .