The Third Time is the Harm (Cities of the Dead) Read online

shortage of groups of undead making their way to the collection point. He and Roy had come across a group of seven a month ago after a day of fishing on Tainter Lake. They were standing around the ATVs and he and Roy had had to pick them off with bowshots before returning home for the night’s fish fry. They now hid the ATVs when they weren’t on them.

  “They know we’re here,” Malcolm said suddenly.

  “Who does?”

  “The zombies. That’s why they were guarding the shack. Somehow, they know people are using them to get around,” Malcolm said. “Those people are us.”

  Roy gave him a curious look. “We killed all the zombies guarding the shack. We hid the four-wheelers in a ditch under branches so they can’t be seen. We’re good.”

  “I dunno,” Malcolm said. “We need to get out of here, soon. I think they know we’re out here somewhere and they’re looking for us. I mean, they keep changing their pattern. Sometimes they’re a large group somewhere, like they’re trying to draw us in to kill them, and then they’re everywhere in little groups, roaming the landscape. I think that’s a pattern, like they’re trying to figure out how to find those of us in hiding and trap us somewhere we think is safe.”

  Just then a runner zombie turned the corner of the barn and skip-hopped past Eli into the middle of the barn, its mouth foaming, its teeth sharp in an elongated mouth. It growled, not groaned. It took a few steps closer to Malcolm and Roy, who were stepping away from the cow carcasses, their eyes tracking the undead monster, both of their bows on the ground several feet away.

  An instant later an arrow pierced the shoulder of the zombie and it turned quickly to face Eli. He fumbled the next arrow out of his belt quiver and it fell to the ground as he tried to string it, fear seeping quickly through him now that he knew he had missed the first shot at its head. It raced at him, spittle flying from its mouth as it closed the ten yards between it and Eli.

  And then the zombie’s head exploded in a mist of blood and skull bits, the creature tumbling forward to the ground at Eli’s feet. Eli looked over at his dad and saw him wielding his Desert Eagle .50 caliber pistol, the sound of the gunshot echoing through the barn.

  “You okay, Eli?” Malcolm asked, stepping toward his son and looking through the open doorway.

  “Yeah, it didn’t even touch me,” Eli said, his voice shaky with adrenalin.

  Malcolm turned to Roy. “Let’s get what we can and get the hell out of here.”

  Just then the back door to the door to the barn splintered open and a stream of undead staggered into the room, fanning out as they stumble-walked into the main area of the barn floor. Roy picked up his bow and let loose an arrow at the closest zombie, felling it. He reloaded and downed another.

  “Well, Mal, the menu just changed from beef to human. Get Eli out, I’ll hold ‘em back for a few more seconds,” Roy said, lacing another arrow into his bow and letting it fly into the skull of a zombie as he stepped slowly away from the undead.

  Eli had already run out of the barn and was standing in the dirt parking area readying an arrow in his own bow. Malcolm glanced at the meat from the two cows, frowned for a micro-second at the loss, grabbed his bow and ran toward his son. As he ran, he saw a shot from his son miss a zombie, the arrow flying through the air into the distance. His son was flustered, frightened, and was quickly becoming combat ineffective. Malcolm raised his pistol and put a round into the skull of a zombie.

  “Run, Eli, run! Get to the vehicles!” Malcolm shouted at his fear-paralyzed son. “Start moving!”

  Malcolm exited the barn and stopped, bow in one hand, pistol in the other, and surveyed the landscape. Several dozen walkers were moving on either side of the barn, enveloping it. Something inside Malcolm told him it had been a trap. He looked into the barn and saw Roy backing out steadily, having dropped his bow and changed over to his sidearm, putting rounds into zombie heads. The slow walkers were about to close off the barn door when Malcolm caught a smear of fast-runners tearing through his peripheral vision toward his son.

  “Roy, run!” he shouted, wondering what was making his friend down zombies instead of flee.

  He glanced at his son: Eli stood motionless, his eyes wide with fear, watching two fast-movers close on him in their ghoulish skip-hop stride, his bow held at his side. Malcolm looked back into the barn, at Roy ejecting a clip from his pistol as a runner zombie raced from the back of the barn. He checked Eli, who was shaking trying to lace an arrow into his bow and then Malcolm flicked his eyes back into the barn and saw the runner almost on a backpedaling Roy, his friend pulling the slide of his pistol. He had to make a decision which zombie to shoot

  Malcolm raised his pistol and fired two quick rounds, bringing each runner down just a yard shy of his son. Eli looked at him.

  “Run. Get to the ATV, go home. Run!”

  Malcolm turned and looked into the barn and saw only zombies.

  “Roy!” he shouted. “Roy!”

  There was no shortage of zombies with their attention set on him. He had only three rounds in the pistol and another clip of seven on his belt. Nowhere near enough to do the job, including the five arrows he still had. He looked quickly for any more runners and started backing away from the barn. He kept his pistol up and pointed at the undead, their shuffling gait an irresistible force. A dead man in his forties in a tattered blue business suit made a few steps ahead of the pack coming toward Malcolm, the undead man’s face mottled-gray, the skin taut across the chin and cheek bones. For a brief second, Malcolm thought it smiled, a malignant upturn at the corner of its lips, as if it knew what it was doing and knew that its side was winning.

  Malcolm squeezed the trigger of his pistol and the zombie’s skull erupted in the back with a spray of brain matter, the body collapsing to the ground. The rest of the horde paid no attention to the newly dead undead, its group attention solely focused on Malcolm and the fresh meat he represented. They had been hunting, too.

  Malcolm turned and ran after his son, catching up to him at the ditch where they had hidden their ATVs. The undead coming at them from the barn were far enough away they would never catch up, but they were still coming. Malcolm looked at his son and thanked god Eli was still alive.

  “You never talk about this. I’ll tell Sara and the girls what happened,” Malcolm said, throwing the branches off the vehicles.

  “Dad, I’m sorry, I don’t - “ Eli started.

  “Shh,” Malcolm said, moving and embracing his son in a hug, holding him close. “It’s okay, Eli, it’s not your fault. You did exactly what you were supposed to do.

  He turned and looked at the cluster of zombies swarming around the barn and wondered if he were someday going to have to kill his best friend, or if they eaten enough of him that he wouldn’t come back from the dead. He climbed onto his four-wheeler, started the engine, and nodded to the road, “Now, let’s get out of here.”

  Get the entire collection of 20 stories - Cities of the Dead: Stories from the Zombie Apocalypse

  About the Author

  William Young can fly helicopters and airplanes, drive automobiles, steer boats, rollerblade, water ski, snowboard, and ride a bicycle. He was a newspaper reporter for more than a decade at five different newspapers. He has also worked as a golf caddy, flipped burgers at a fast food chain, stocked grocery store shelves, sold ski equipment, worked at a funeral home, unloaded trucks for a department store and worked as a uniformed security guard. He lives in a small post-industrial town along the Schuylkill River in Pennsylvania with his wife and three children.

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