A Not So Hollow Heart

“Can’t you recognise a zombie when you see one?”

Carter responded to Mason’s question by extending a middle finger skyward, but the crude gesture was not what chilled Mason’s blood. The longer Mason stared at the raised digit, paralysed with frosty, Arctic horror, Carter’s accompanying expression of a companionable fuck offglower slid away to puzzlement.

“You okay, Mace?”

Jolted by the question, Mason stammered out, “S-sure.” To cover his momentary shock, he used the fingers of his left hand to form the shape of a gun, and pointed, pretending to shoot off Carter’s middle digit. When Mason blew at the tip of his make-believe weapon, Carter glanced at his still-erect finger, expression twisted, and made another rude sign, two digits, before getting back on with the job. Either he decided he was mistaken by Mason’s reaction, or to mind his own business.

Mason cast a silent thank you to the universe, unable to find the words to explain the lie: he was far from fine. Someone crawled over his grave in response to his careless words. The dead desecrated someone’s resting place. Damn, but his casual comment echoed his last remark to Antonio before a son-of-a-bitch-walking-dead-man tore Antonio out of Mason’s life way back during the first days of the rising. The recollection gave Mason a shiver.

Can’t you recognise a zombie when you see one? What a last fucking thing to say to the man he loved.

Mason—Mace to many—gave himself a mental shake. Everyone needed to remain vigilant. No one could afford to be sloppy. While combating tumultuous emotions, Mason fought to get his head back in the game. His continued existence and others might depend on him. He put more value on the survival of the group, too aware of how expendable his own sorry life was.

More melancholy. Tired of self-pity, he shook it off. Christ, he bored himself. Best not to give memories thinking room. Best to concentrate on his surroundings.

Carter, already in action, swung the scimitar Mason coveted. The other man removed the skull from one of the living dead though there didn’t appear to be much undead life remaining in the one he selected. Better safe than sorry, and Mason would have words with anyone who questioned the motto.

A few still debated the act of elimination, calling the deed desecration. Not surprising. Many folks disputed whether God in his wisdom had a plan for the survivors. If one believed God existed, maybe he did, and maybe he didn’t, but if this—to make people into abominations—was an ‘arrangement,’ Mason wanted no part, other than to bring it to an end. He’d gladly ‘chat’ with any deity who caused an act so monstrous with intention.

Fortunately, many agreed—for every undead they stilled, they made the world safer, and they laid a creature who had once been a person to rest. Most perceived the act as a kindness to both the living and the dead. No one knew if any spark of humanity remained in these beings—consciousness—but if he ever turned, Mason wanted a swift mercy. Whether he retained awareness or not, he hoped someone would be as kind—to finish him, fast. He struggled to imagine a worse hell than existing trapped in a decaying shell while knowing he killed. Maybe the ‘plan’—if such existed—was for those left alive to learn the true meaning of compassion, but Mason wouldn’t hold his breath.

A lithe man with the nickname of Skit appeared at his side. If not for clearing his throat, Mason might have jumped, taken Skit’s head. Good thing Skit had learned to make his presence known—as many fresh recruits quickly did, the man had suffered more than a few close encounters of friendly fire when new to the job.

“Plenty of petrol in the cars. There might be more inside.”

Mason nodded approval. At least if the stores were empty, the excursion proved worthwhile. They had the outbuildings to explore last. The next task: secure the perimeter.

“Can you believe this place?” Skit didn’t hang around to hear a reply. He sked- or skit-addled before Mason came up with anything to say, not that Mason made any claims to be the most talkative of men. He appreciated the comment, though, and shared a glance with Carter.

Dirt field. Huge tent. Two long, narrow single-story buildings with curved roofs. Walls covered with washed-out posters. Bright paint, now faded, and…cages. The place resembled the remnants of a circus. No. More similar to cast-off relics of a music hall act based on a carnival as seen in a black-and-white horror movie. The sort where people paid to enter a tent housing all sorts of abominations and pickled deformities. A silent, secret WTFcircled his brain.

“A drove’s been through here.”

Mason didn’t argue with Joe Talbot, who sidled into view on the far side of Carter. The scuffed ground supported the theory. Should the outbuildings prove as clear as the main, it left them to deal with the few bodies on the ground, and those didn’t appear to be much of a threat. Mason had seen this kind of thing before when a drove overran a compound—so called because a sufficiently large group stampeded over the living with the same result panicked cattle engendered. Those not trampled fled or died and, if bitten in the melee, often metamorphosed. Any zombies crippled too badly in the scuffle to stand, or sometimes to crawl, conveniently lolled around for a speedy dispatch. The same appeared to be the case here. More than one of the undead lay crushed into the ground, unable to jerk free. The condition of those remaining made clearing a site easier, at least.