The Zombie and the Wolf

It wasn't there. Austin looked again and the zombie was not where it should have been. He was standing in a dark clump of woods on a moonlight night staring at where the rutted, mountain road, his driveway, intersected the well-groomed county gravel road. Austin sniffed the air, trying to get a whiff of the decay that usually preceded a visit by the undead and came up with nothing. Maybe the man wasn't a zombie. That thought gave him pause, then he shook his head clear of such thoughts, zombie or not the man was acting strangely and he was definitely trespassing. These days trespassers did not last long. Austin's road was clearly marked to discourage such trepidations. In the moonlight Austin could see the first half dozen heads he had taken from the zombies he had slain and put on spikes to either side of his driveway. There were similar totems spaced around the borders of his large acrerage, it was almost impossible to get onto his land without seeing one of the zombie heads. While this didn't seem to discourage the undead from coming onto his property, it did give Austin immense satisfaction. The zombies had killed his beloved wife, Jill, of twenty years and pulled the apple of his eye, Lori, his twelve year old daughter, down into the depths of hell as well.

The rest of humanity was gone, so far as Austin knew, his wife and daughter had gone into town for supplies one day and came back much too soon with stories of a plague, of people doing unspeakable things to each other and of Bellings, the only town within thirty miles of hard gravel road, burning. Austin had pulled out his exceptionally old hand crank radio, which had not been used in years and tried to find a station to get some news on. After a day of trying and disappointment he decided he needed to investigate more thoroughly, he would scout to Bellings on foot, it was a full moon and mid fall, which made for easy traveling.

He had poked around the city that night and found it much as his wife had said, he had found one human survivor out of twelve hundred people and the woman did not live longer than to tell Austin what was going on. She told him that the disease was everywhere, all over the world and that no one was coming for them. The woman described how a bite was infectious and after the disease ran its course the victim became the hunter, rising from the dead to hunt the living. She said the zombies displayed a dangerous cunning and some were far smarter than others. The woman recognized Austin and told him to flee back to his cabin, protect his wife and child, that maybe his isolation away from the world would protect him.

Austin killed her before he left. Then he killed her again as she rose, for she had been bitten and when he found her she was almost gone. After crushing her head, the only way the woman said you could be sure the zombie was dead, he went to the general store and filled his pack with the goods his wife had been coming for a couple days before. He added a good deal to what he had planned on getting, but kept it light, spices for the most part. Spices that his family preferred on their meat. He ran back to his home, arriving in the pre-dawn hours to the strong smell of smoke. Shucking off his pack at the start of his driveway Austin, approached his cabin cautiously. He knew something had gone wrong just by smelling the smoke, it was the families agreed upon signal when there were problems or visitors to their home. Stoking up a fire and adding a water soaked log to the top created a smell that carried on the wind, alerting all who smelled it to proceed with caution. Through the trees he had seen them around the cabin, shuffling back and forth, when one went inside his house he knew. Knew his family was dead. If his wife had made it out, she would have met him on the property or on the road coming in. Austin killed them all again that night, the visitors and his wife and daughter.

He allowed himself a week to mourn, during which time he visited his revenge upon the zombies of Bellings. A surprising numbers of zombies had trickled through the woods to attack his house over the next few months as well. Now it was spring and Austin had been making larger and larger circles at night around his property, trying to find any more zombies that might be wandering the hills. The winter had been more lonely than difficult. He didn't miss electricity, indoor plumbing or even the monthly trip into town for supplies, Austin had never valued those things. As a child he had been raised in the mountains and when he came of age to move off on his own he selected a piece of family land to build a cabin completely cut off from what was the modern world. He had neighbors and family that felt the same way and he had married Jill after meeting her through the network of like minded people he shared his life with. The things he did miss were the things he didn't think he could live without; Jill, Lori. Surprisingly most of his network of friends and extended family had survived, he thought it made sense, these were rugged people with the unusual ability to thrive in conditions most would shun. There were exceptions of course, a few of the cabins he visited held grim reminders of people not willing to flee when the odds were overwhelming. Those families closer than Austin was to a town tended to be wiped out by the sheer numbers that were brought to bear on them.

Austin didn't like thinking of that, the zombies made from his friends tended to be tougher, more resilient and skilled at woodcraft than those made from 'townies'.

To his left Austin spied a flash of gray. A wolf. Their chief predator, man, was no longer around, and there was plenty of prey, man of a sort, around to eat. The wolves had moved back down from the Canadian mountains. Austin stifled a laugh, the 'Canadian' rockies were closer to his cabin than Bellings. He lived two miles from the Canadian border in Washington state. Not that there were states or countries anymore. The wolves tended to give Austin a wide berth, they knew he was not prey. Austin liked having them around, they hunted zombies too.

The brief flash of gray was all Austin saw of the beast for awhile, not so for the man he has spied by his road. Austin circled around back to his cabin, arriving while it was still the dead of night. The moon had gone down behind the mountains, tracing a silvery silhouette on a range the man had lived in all his life. His cabin door was open. Austin stiffened, crouched down and touched the ground, putting the better part of an old growth tree between him and his cabin. Sniffing he smelled only the smoke from his fire, now burned down to coals.

Nothing moved, there were no sounds either, the wildlife was quiet, giving Austin the clue that he was definitely not alone. He wondered if the man in his house knew what he was giving away. Silently he cursed to himself, of course the man knew, he had let Austin see him at the road, he had left the door to the cabin open. It was a challenge pure and simple. The man was saying 'face me or move on', a simple message conveyed from the dawn of time by one beast to another. The question was, should Austin flee? He knew he would win every fight but his last, would tonight be his last?

Thinking over his lonely winter, glancing at the graves he where he had buried his wife and daughter he pulled himself upright and stepped into the small clearing in front of his cabin.

“So you're the one killing all the zombies?”, the voice called out of Austin's doorway.

“I kill 'em, yeah.”, Austin replied.

The man stepped out of the doorway smoothly, like a panther, every step was well oiled and precise. He looked Austin over and smiled; it was not a friendly smile, but rather like one sizing up which part of the animal he wanted to eat first.

Austin slumped slightly, he could call out, ask what the man was doing here, make any of a number of similar demands, it would all be for nothing. Austin knew why the man was here, he was here for Austin. To kill him or drive him off, making pointless conversation was like playing with your food before killing it.

“Not very talkative are you? Is it true what I have heard about you?”, the man asked.

“Are we fighting or talking?”

“Oh I thought I would talk first. I have an insatiable curiosity.”

He showed absolutely no fear. Austin liked that in an opponent. He launched himself forward, swinging a fist at the man as he closed the distance. The zombie was fast, much faster than Austin's pitiful rush, he pivoted out of the way and drove his fist into Austin's back as he went by. Austin hit the dirt hard, so hard his mouth dug up a small patch of dirt. He rolled sideways away from the zombie and came up into a crouch, where he spat out the dirt and gravel from his mouth.

“Good a man of few words.”

A wolf howled in the night, its cry was joined by others from the pack.

One of the zombies eyebrows raised slightly, “Friends of yours?”

Austin flung himself at the man again, this time flinging his arms out wide to snag his leg as he twirled away. This disrupted the zombies counter punch and gave Austin a hold on the man's leg. He rolled, flipping the zombie around with him and letting the beast fly at the high end of the arch over his body. The zombie was fast, but could not recover in mid air before his body struck the tree Austin had flung him towards. He hit with a wet thunk sound, then bounced backwards onto his ass, where he rolled and got partway to his feet, one hand on the ground. The zombies head was up, staring at Austin's eyes. Austin saw only death in the man' gaze. Pulling himself up Austin moved to one side of the man, circling him.

“You're stronger than you look. Are all of your kind that strong?”

Austin didn't answer. The zombie didn't look damaged, it still moved with the same liquid precision it had before. The zombie took the initiative and charged Austin. Austin stood his ground, not attempting to dodge or side step, he calmly punched the zombie in the throat. It was like hitting a brick wall, however the punch was effective, the zombie's back hit the ground. The zombie rolled trying to scissor Austin's legs out from under him. Austin jumped over the obvious ploy and backed off cautiously while the zombie got to his feet.

Austin knew by these first few moves in the fight that his opponent was stronger than he was, and perhaps tougher, but he was not as experienced of a fighter. Age and treachery could win over youth and strength. Stepping around Austin put his back to his wood pile, behind which was his cabin and in front of which was the double bladed ax buried to its handle in the chopping block. Thinking of ways to win this fight Austin formulated a plan.

The zombie gurgled a little, then coughed and choked a bit before saying in a raspy voice, “I want to see it. Show me.”

Austin never took his eyes from the zombies. He took a step backwards towards the ax behind him. The zombie rushed him again, this time Austin did pivot, but only at the last possible second. He felt a sharp, cold pain in his stomach as the zombie flew by and managed to box his opponent in the head, taking off his ear, with a hand that now sported claws three inches long. The zombie howled in pain, Austin was silent, looking at the gash in his shirt and feeling the blood as it soaked his pants. His stomach was torn open. In the starlight, as the zombie held onto the side of his head and wailed, Austin was able to see the glint of a knife in one of the thing's hands.

“You son of a bitch! You tore my ear off!”

Austin looked down at his hand, saw the thing's ear there and casually tossed it back to the beast. The zombie was now directly between Austin and the ax, right in front of his house. Right where Austin wanted him.

Austin took a step forward, slowly, menacingly. The zombie pulled his hands away from his head, readying his knife. “C'mon fucker!”

Taking another step forward, Austin adjusted carefully trying to keep the man between him and the woodpile. The zombie jumped backward as Austin took a third step, putting himself behind the ax. “This your plan you stupid beast? Impale me on the ax?” The zombie grabbed the ax handle in his off hand and hefted the thing, chopping block and all into the air. As he started to lift it up, Austin lunged towards him, covering the distance in a blink of an eye, his now distorted human legs making the pounce possible. The zombie was caught lifting the ax in the air and could not bring it down in front of him fast enough to act as a shield, nor finish tossing it aside as he planned. Instead Austin caught the man high in the chest, knocking him back onto the woodpile and into the stout logs of the house beyond. The journey was brought to a stop with a sudden, sharp crack as the zombies back broke below the ribs.

The zombie cried out in anger and pain, but it was not out of the fight yet. Austin held it pinned to the wood pile, his left arm pinning the zombies head and neck to the angle made where the woodpile was stacked against the house. He stretched that same arm and grabbed the man's wrist with it, then put all his weight into holding the zombie down in this position. The zombie brought his right hand up, the knife flashing in the starlight. Austin could not block the arm, he was too busy holding the thing in place with his body weight and getting his own right hand free. The knife stabbed down once, pulled free with a spray of hot blood and then thrust down more firmly a second time in the space of an eye-blink. Austin stood looking at the zombie while it twisted the blade, which was embedded in his shoulder. Their eyes were inches from each other, Austin's breath clouded his foe's face in the cool night air.

“You put up a good fight, too bad I will heal and you will not.”, the zombie said.

Austin didn't nod, he pulled his right hand up to where the zombie could see it. The three inch long talons gleamed in the moonlight, growling Austin thrust his hand into the zombie's torso, to the left of his sternum and just above where his rib cage ended, the talons went into the zombies fleshy, cold innards and Austin pulled his arm down, eviscerating him. He flung a handful of dead guts into his yard and went back in for more, not stopping until the thing was torn into two pieces by his wood pile.

Austin backed off from the woodpile, dragging the top half of the zombie with him, once clear of the house he twirled the thing over his head by its arm and brought it down hard onto the packed ground in front of the house.

Still the zombie was not dead. His left arm was all but torn from his body with the force of blow. It had landed on its face in the dirt, as Austin watched it levered itself up with its right hand and spun over onto its back, where it stared at Austin.

Austin spotted the ax in the chopping block, where the zombie had dropped it during the fight. Awkwardly using his left hand he plucked the knife out of his shoulder, grimacing as it required substantial strength to pull free. Throwing it to the ground well away from the zombie Austin retrieved the ax from the chopping block and approached the mangled zombie.

It laughed and Austin paused, waiting. “I knew you were real, too many of us disappeared in these woods. I had to come, you know I had to see for myself. I guess we never really understood the world we lived in before any of this, you know, the plague, happened.”

Austin nodded once unable to speak through the elongated jaws now weighing down his shoulders, then he brought the ax down with his left hand on the zombies head. He was not as good using his left hand as he was with his right, so he had to use two blows to finish it. When he was finished he sat back on his haunches and looked at the zombie, his clothing littering the ground around him. Across the clearing from him the wolf stared out from the brush, then let out a howl that Austin answered with one of his own.

The next morning Austin was up early. His shoulder was stiff, but only a small scar remained to indicate he had ever been wounded there. The only piece of the zombie left, the head that he had severed and set aside the night before, was waiting where he had left it. The wolves had made short work of the rest of the body, it had been a long winter and they needed the food. Grabbing the zombies smashed in head Austin took a five foot stake from a pile he had prepared during the long winter. He then took his shovel and a sledge hammer and made his way to the end of his long driveway to stake out another warning for any who would dare trespass into his pack's territory again.

..home..