Dead in the Water

Billie-Faye fights and fights and fights until her legs give out and her body gives out on her! She falls to her knees, and feels the forest floor hard against her knees. Somewhere nearby, she hears the sound of Owen panting, and a body slumping from his blade and thinking against a tree trunk.

God knows where Richard fell, or if Shayna was alive. The two survivors are sure that more teeth and claws and deathly moans would come out of the dark any second now. The soft fizzle of the gas canister ceases somewhere behind you, as the load is spent and billows out of the cabin. The night is dark and quiet… for a moment…

Owen and Billie-Faye find each other in the dark. It’s hard to see, but Richard had a light on him, didn’t he?

No need…

A soft crunch and approaching footprints, and then a light is blinding you! You wince and turn away, or raise your hands to block the sudden and harsh light.

"One, two, one, two! Half! Half!" comes a voice from behind the light! The flashlight is pulled away from your faces, and you see a chubby face, speckled with gore there in the half-light behind.

Light held in one hand, shotgun in the other, the man outside looms large over you! You have no more fight in you. Even if you wanted to, your body wouldn’t let you get back up and drive an axe into this bastard’s chest. Sometimes, people fuck with you and there isn’t a damn thing you can do about it. Richard learned that. Shayna too, maybe. Billie-Faye and Owen were learning that lesson right now, as the odd man whispers and whispers behind his blinding light!

"Give it back! One, two! Half!" he says. He steps through you, and you let him. He stomps into the wooden cabin you had spent half the night in, and then you heard the sound of something heavy being dragged across wood. A moment later, and you only hear the man moving around. His light is off, but you can feel him there… you can hear him whispering.

How the man can see out here; how he could ambush you in the dead of night can only be guessed. Some more scrapping and grunting and the sound begins to recede. One of your boxes is being dragged off into the forest in the dead of night, and two of your own lie dead or dying on the forest floor. You can’t chase him. You won’t… There are more pressing things on your mind…

Martin staggered through the overgrown forest, his breath labored and uneven. The machete in his hand felt heavier with each step, the weight of his age and his dwindling strength sapping his resolve. He had promised Shayna he’d find her twin sister, but after following the map to a camp or school that might not even exist, doubt had settled deep in his bones. His boots scraped against the crumbling pavement of an abandoned highway as he emerged from the woods. A sign ahead read "Hope Springs Fishing Lodge," but the rusted lettering and blood-stained posts gave no comfort.

As he approached, the air grew eerily quiet—no birds, no wind, just the faint groan of the dead as Martin turned a corner. He froze. A horde of walkers shuffled aimlessly in front of the camp’s gate, their decayed hands clawing at the chain-link fence. Panic surged through him, and his boot caught on a rock. He hit the ground hard, the machete skittering out of reach. The noise caught the attention of the nearest walker, and then another. Martin scrambled backward, but his old body wouldn’t move fast enough. He reached for his weapon, just as a skeletal hand clamped down on his ankle.

He swung wildly with his fists, but more walkers closed in, their moans deafening now. As teeth tore into his flesh, Martin thought of Shayna. He had failed her, failed her sister, and now he wouldn’t even make it back to tell her. The pain faded quickly, replaced by cold. His last thought was of his daughter long before the world fell apart, laughing on a summer’s day. Then darkness claimed him, and the horde fed in silence.