Among Blood and Dirt

The wind whipped at his back as a young man stumbled through the empty city streets. His clothes were caked in blood and dirt, his skin peppered with bruises and cuts, some more severe than others. He hissed as another tremor of pain hits him in his side, where the glass had pierced through skin and cut in deep. Maybe throwing himself out the window wasn't the best plan, but it'd been the only one. Besides, the raiders weren't going to leave him many options. So it was either be tortured for days on end before succumbing to his wounds after agonizing torment, or throw himself out a window, land on the roof of an old van and have to limp to safety. It didn't take long for Rook to decide what to do.

Thankfully nothing was broken, as far as Rook's medical expertise could tell. He could move every limb, though they quaked with the pain, and he could breathe well enough, so his ribs had to be okay. Even luckier still, he had kept most of his gear. The pistol he'd collected from a dead police officer that still worked. The few bullets he had for it kept in his hoodie pocket, the backpack filled with a mostly empty bottle of water and some pieces of bread he'd snatched from a grocery store before other raiders had ran him out. He'd used the last of his bandages on wrapping his hand, which had taken the worst of the fall, as a large shard of glass had torn through. He'd cleaned the wound as best he could, but he had nothing to stitch it with, so he'd wrapped the cotton bandages around it as tight as he could. The blood had seeped through. Rook could still move his fingers though, and that was the most important thing. He'd worry about infections later, for now he needed somewhere to bunker down for the night. The sun dipped low beyond the horizon, casting long shadows on a dead city.

Rook rounded a corner and found himself along a large stretch of road. Mixed rocks from cracked pavements crunched under his boots. Rusty cars laid scattered, long abandoned by their owners from fifty years ago. Sometimes scavengers like Rook looted the cars for parts, but these ones were almost fully intact. That didn't surprise Rook though. No scavver would risk entering a city like this, one ruled almost entirely by raiders, slavers and anyone else who loved to slaughter people for fun. Basically they were more zombies, just without the infection. Rook had seen the bodies at the entrance. Men, women, even children and the elderly, strung up like puppets to warn off intruders. He could still smell the blood thick in the air, hear the buzzing of flies eating away at the bodies. But he couldn't turn back. He was already too far into the city to turn back now, it'd be suicide. He'd just have to find somewhere relatively safe to sleep for a few hours before pressing onward in the morning. With luck, he'd be out of here in no time and making a trail for one of the safer cities, one where not everyone and everything wanted to kill him.

A crack of thunder sounded in the distance and Rook cursed under his breath before ducking into an alleyway. Rain began to fall then, fat, heavy droplets that erupted into sparks against the tarmac as Rook hurried down the narrow path. Within seconds he was soaked through. His hand was stinging and his body ached for rest and warmth. As though to remind him, another surge of wind ran through him. He shivered, pulling his torn up hoodie closer to his body. His clothes had suffered a lot of damage, but all he could really do was use tape and any other bits he could find to keep them together. He'd need something better though, as it seemed as though the winter months were creeping in, and he'd freeze to death if he kept this up.

The alleyway opened up to a small alcove, the buildings overhead blanketing the small space in shadow but doing nothing to stop the downpour. Rusted tin cans and scraps of old newspaper from almost fifty years ago littered the ground. One read, “Zombie Virus claims forty three victims.” Another read, “When will Zombie Plague end?”

It didn't. Rook swallowed thickly as he tore his eyes away from the paper to focus on finding shelter for the night. He spotted a door almost hanging off its hinges towards his right. Gingerly he reached out with his good hand to open it, the door creaking with every movement. Once inside Rook turned and kicked it shut again. The darkness engulfed him, but as his eyes adjusted he could make out the outline of a wooden chair to his left, caked in dust. He pushed this in front of the door. At least if someone came in through here he'd hear them. He hoped.

The small amount of heat this town house, as that was what it seemed to be, offered crashed over him like a wave, and it was a welcome feeling. One he'd nearly forgotten after so many nights of not feeling safe enough to light a fire in the Barrens in case it brought trouble. He wasn't sure how long he'd been separated from his group. Hours, days? He couldn't remember. All he remembered was the stench of burning flesh, the demented roars and cackles of the raiders and the screams of his fellow travellers. He had no idea if anyone else even survived the ambush.

The thought made his body grow cold, though violence and murder should have been as natural to him as the sky above his head. It just happened, it was how the world worked now that a zombie plague had infected or wiped out over half the population, and what was left of the humans driven to madness. Only a handful of people had tried to salvage some type of normalcy by building new towns and cities in the ruins of the old ones, setting up some supply lines and growing crops to get by. Rook was born into such a settlement, where the main trade was scavenging. Delving into the old ruins to find food, working mechanical equipment and medical supplies. The caravan Rook had been travelling with were carrying these items, only to be attacked by the raiders and dragged to the building he'd now just escaped from. Rook had to imagine that the others either escaped or were killed at the site, because he didn't want to think that he potentially abandoned people to suffer horribly. It made his stomach lurch, but he forced these thoughts out of his head.

It wouldn't do him any good to think about it now. He had to get out of this city as soon as possible. Maybe when he found another settlement he could get help or warn others of how the raiders in this territory were spreading out. Prevent what happened today from happening again. The knot in his stomach seemed to untangle a little.

Rook yanked his hood down, exposing sweat matted hair and a sharp, angular face splattered with dried blood and flakes of dirt. The air was stale here, but at least it wasn't tinged with the stench of death that seemed to follow him everywhere outside. He was standing in what appeared to be a small kitchen area, the stove having been ripped out and left in the centre of the room and the fridge toppled to one side, covering the entrance to the living room, the door smashed off completely. Rook climbed over the fridge, careful to avoid knocking his head against the beam above him, before dropping into the next room.

To his relief Rook saw that the windows had been bordered up from the inside, as-well as the front door, and that a couch remained. Battered and worn through, but still durable and a hell of a lot better to sleep on than solid ground. Rook shrugged off his backpack, leaving it at the foot of the couch before sinking down onto it, sighing with relief at getting the weight off his feet. He closed his eyes and ran a tired hand through his short, choppy hair. When he opened his eyes again he noticed that there was a giant hole in the ceiling, revealing the bedroom upstairs. Through the dark he could see the vague outline of a bed. It seemed to be in decent shape, but Rook looked to his side and saw that the stairs were rotten away and several steps had collapsed.

Above he could hear the rain hammering down, droplets hitting the roof with loud smacks that somehow made the silence that much more obvious. Another roll of thunder sounded, closer than before, and with it came the sharp metallic sound of a gunshot. Which came from right outside the house. Rook's heart lurched in his throat, fear gripping into him with icy hands. He got up from the couch, his limbs feeling heavy and useless despite the hammering in his veins, and slowly crept towards the window to press his face against the wooden panel and listen.

“I'm tellin' ya, it was right fucking 'ere!” A woman said.

“What did it look like?” Another woman asked.

The first woman seemed to pause, almost as though she was either trying to catch her breath or think before continuing. “It had a massive mouth just full sharp teeth and it fucking chewed through Zain's armor like it were nothing. Look, it bit his fucking head clear off!”
Heavy footsteps sounded before stopping right outside the window Rook was hiding behind. “So where is it now?” The owner of the footsteps, a man, said.

Rook froze. He recognized that voice. It belonged to the bandit leader who ambushed the caravan. From what Rook remembered, the man had long greasy hair, a square jawed face and the coldest blue eyes Rook had ever seen on a person. Slowly he reached down to pull out his pistol.

“I thought I saw movement over there down the alley,” the second woman said, “I'll check it out.”
The alley? Shit. If she discovered that the back door to this house wasn't locked, she'd have to check inside. Rook would be found. He took a deep breath, forcing himself to calm down. If he panicked now he'd never get out of this mess. That was when he happened to glance up towards where the hole in the ceiling was.

And his heart stopped completely.

Right above him sat a figure with two large glowing eyes with thin slits for pupils. Even through the dim, Rook could see the glint of large, sharp teeth. Rook's blood ran cold as his hands began to shake. A zombie, a fucking zombie of all things. One of the more cannibalistic ones it seemed, if this Zain's missing head were any indication. The thing made a wet gurgling sound deep within its throat before crouching forward and dropping down onto the ground. The wooden floorboards creaked underneath the thing's weight, each groan of woodwork reminding Rook that he was going to die. He was going to be eaten by a zombie, one he was stupid enough to get himself locked up with. Rook tried moving then, inching backwards behind the couch, as though that would save him. But the zombie followed after, mouth slipping open to flaunt the thick, sharp teeth that jutted out of its flesh where a normal person's cheeks were. It made a guttural growl as it stalked towards Rook.

The cold metal of the pistol bit into Rook's palm, as though reminding the scavver that he still had a chance yet to live. Swallowing thickly he raised the pistol. Rook's hand was shaking to the point he couldn't pull the trigger. He used both hands to try and steady his pistol as he aimed at the mutant's head, thumb moving to click the safety off. With a deep breath and pinched shut eyes he pulled the trigger.

A dull resounding click was all he heard.

His eyes shot open again, his blood running cold throughout his body as he realized that the pistol was jammed. Deep rumbling sounds came from the mutant's chest, its claws dragging across the floor and making Rook shudder. This was it, he realized, he was going to die here. Zombies were stronger than humans, even the ones who only had their skin rot off and who resembled corpses more than people. Rook lowered the gun, cold sweat prickling on his skin as the zombie crawled towards him. Instead of lunging and ripping him apart with his claws or teeth like Rook expected it to, the thing stopped.