I follow along a large cornfield. The field has been neglected and the stalks have begun to wither and lean towards the earth. Weeds populate the rows and have been left unchecked and are growing wild. A small path leads up a hill. The corn in bordered by a thick wood and I can see little as I walk. I walk straight and quickly until it ends.

The cornfield stops, but the wood line continues out of sight. To my right, there’s grass opening with a small white farmhouse. A barn sits in front and off to the right. They are both obscured by the wood and corn from the main road. I take the opportunity to rest and compose, I consult my map and compass.

I opt for a night in the barn. I light a small fire in a wood stove inside. Puffing at the coals I manage a small flame and I roast some beans, mixing them with a few corn husks. The meal is harsh and rough, but sets well on my stomach allowing me a decent night’s sleep.

The early morning’s few single rays penetrate the boards of the barn leaving me awake and restless. I spent the evening in the hay loft amongst bugs and dust. I am lying in hay with an old horse blanket. I walk down stairs below the overhang where I spent the night and open the doors.

I step cautiously around the barn, noticing the high boards that composed its walls. The small white cottage house, which stood in front of the faltering cornfield, seemed awake and as well. The house’s paint was faded like the barn, but it had a magnificent front porch, complete with a swing, barrel tables, and homemade chairs. I decided against exploring the house right then and stick to the barn as the sun slowly reappears behind the woods.

There, various tanks of chemicals and farming paraphernalia hold a place along the wall. In the middle, a late model Ford pickup is covered with a black tarp. It looks to have once a long while ago been someone’s pet project.

Walking up stairs I open a large door at the top of the barn that I assume was there to throw hay down to trucks below. The sky is clear revealing a calm country day, birds flying, the wind pushing the corn husks against each other. I feel at ease, but this feeling passes quickly. This is not the place, because just thirty miles to the north is a city, populated with the walking dead. A city that once thrived with commerce and trade was now left as a concrete tomb to remind all that enter of what once was, and will never be again.

Three, only three, I see them coming up the hill through the moon shaped window and realize that my idling here may be a liability. Taking out my binoculars I can just make three. They stumble a bit then linger. All three are males, which makes them more dangerous and aggressive. I watch for about thirty minutes as they make their way toward the barn, slowly, through the broken terrain and rambling underbrush. No more than three. If I could take these two out quietly I could manage to buy a couple more nights here, in peace, but this would have to be quiet. Noise attracts, flames attract, anything out of bounds with nature or surroundings causes alert. The last thing I need is a whole city barreling down on me because of a few gunshots that crack the mid-afternoon silence. No, this would have to be quick and violent. Maybe an axe? Decapitation is silent, but I would have to separate them with a distraction, take them down one at a time, this is best I think. I have close to twenty-five minutes before they would be at the house, given their pace.

I grab an axe from the wall, along with a flat head shovel, then some rope and proceed back upstairs with my binoculars. Only two! I can only see two now, about twenty minutes out. Where’s the third? A missing target, this would throw my plan of attack. I walk back to the hay door, and then I hear the door to the house open. I hit the floor, while pulling my pistol from my waistband. Crawling to the edge of the floor, I peek over the side I see a small athletic woman in her mid to late forties walk onto the porch carrying a basket of white linen. She is whistling. She proceeds to the side of the house to a clothes line and begins hanging her sheets with care. Her whistling is audible from my position in the barn and will soon be audible to the dead coming up the hill. Stopping her hanging, she walks to the foundation of the house where there is a window that must belong to the basement.

“I’ll be in, just one minute,” She says.

Looking to the left I see the two dead coming up the side of the corn line, with a slow shuffle and gaited step. The woman returns to her task, whistling all the while. She cannot see them through her sheets; I would have to move fast. I crawl back from the side and take hold of the axe and rope, attaching the rope to my belt loop I move softly down the stairs and use the truck as cover, I spot the zombies’ position. The girl could still not see them or else she would have probably screamed, which would in turn attract more. I would like to avoid taking on a horde, I hadn’t the energy. I cross the open area between the house and the barn and push my body flat up against the side of the house. I creep to the corner and peer around. The woman has a soft angelic face, slightly wrinkled and a firm thick body which is accentuated by tight fitting jeans and a tee shirt. Her hair is blonde and looks clean and well kept under the sun.

A zombie moves slow and quiet, there is some heavy breathing at times, but mostly quiet despair. They carry their agony well, only unleashing it when a victim appears. I remember watching one on the deck of my frigate before coming ashore after the infection. I was laying overhead out of sight, about three feet above the deck. He was an Ensign, about twenty five. I remembered seeing him in the galley often during my time on board. His blood smeared khakis said that he had been at someone already and now was just wandering, lost. He dragged his left foot with a weight and I figured that the virus must paralyze some of the muscles in the body. He reaches the bow of the ship and screams a long howl that made my hair stand on end. My guess is the brain is the first to start to deteriorate and speech the first human quality to dissipate from a zombie’s body, physical movement and all else quickly follow leaving the man or woman in an animal state, a purely raw hunger replaces the soul and what is left is not classifiable into any category. I remember crawling away slowly, leaving the thing there circling the deck in anguish.

I could not get a visual on the two dead because the sheets were blocking the view, but I knew they were out there just beyond the flowing white, slowly closing in on her. I move quickly placing my hand over her mouth then dragging her behind the house. She is kicking. I can barely hold onto her. She is strong for her age. I push her up against the side of the house not taking my hand off her mouth, fearing she would scream and provoke the attackers. Placing a finger over my lips, I slowly let my palm drop from hers.

“There are two of them coming.” I whisper and her eyes that are bulging with tension, slowly relax and she nods.

“Who are you?”

“Stay here, I’ll come back.”

I leave her leaning against the back of the house and move to the clothesline. I can hear their footsteps, but can’t see. I drop to the ground and under the hanging linens see their feet shuffling, they’re about three feet away. Their bodies mingle with the hanging sheets and I use this to my advantage, they are being blinded by the laundry, one of their heads indents the sheet and I swing my axe directly into the top causing it to split and splatter against the white linen. The zombie lets out a howl and collapses with the sheet wrapping around the front of its body. I place the blade against his neck and finish the thing. Having seen what happened, the other one picks up its pace through the clothes and sheet. He lunges toward me, I place the axe through a sheet into his chest causing him to bend in the middle. A gush of blood soaks the surrounding linens and I spin back as to not get any on me. The thing falls to its knees then once again bury my axe into the  forehead with a quick jerk, then yanking it back out with an easy thrust, causing a burst of red to fountain into the air. It falls onto a sheet as well and I place the blade against its tattered neck, separating the head from the spine with quick jam of my heel against the back of my blade, while pulling the handle up with a tight grip. The action was savage and hastily done. I cover the bodies with the remaining sheets. I tie the rope around their legs and drag them off into the cornfield, and return to the lady behind the house.

“So, thank you?” She says.

“That was traumatic.” I say.

“Are there anymore?” She replies.

“Well, One. I believe.”

“Where, close?” She huddles up against the house and I place my arm on her shoulder. She’s quite good looking; I’m impressed with her handsome features accented with manicured eyebrows.

“Dunno, could be. Let’s go inside, I don’t want to seem forward but…” She agrees and we go up onto the porch and I continue with some small talk while roving my eyes up across the field, searching for the lost zombie. Perhaps he’s in the corn, I think.

“So you live here alone.” I ask.

“No, my husband lives with me, our kids are grown, but we haven’t heard from them in sometime. We are so worried.”

“Where’s your husband now? Away?”

“No, he’s here.” This reply surprises me. I thought for sure that the growls would have had him out of the house in concern for his wife.

We walk into the house and I notice that it’s modestly decorated with hints of country in the air. The walls are populated with vintage oil landscapes. Books about southern heritage and cooking sit on the shelves. The room is neat, but the furniture arranged casually, as if it receives frequent use. I expect a great bust of a man with a beard and flannel shirt to appear in the living room to greet me. However, there was nothing. No man appeared. No firm handshake or offer of a beer, nor sincere thanks for saving his wife. Nothing. The woman kept jabbering on and on, and then I begin to feel nervous with the thought that something is seemingly awkward, askew, a slight absence of normalcy begins to prevail.

“They aren’t deer, but not quite human either? So, I guess killing them, well, seems sporty.” She says in a southern twang.

“Sporty?  – I guess?” is my reply.

“Do you think they have feelings? Lingering instincts? I think they have memories and the abilities to recognize. What about you, do you have an opinion in the matter? Probably not seeing the way you handled those two. But thanks anyway, I appreciate your help.”

Listening to her ranting had made me unaware, until now, of the thick heat that permeated the room. A thick humid dense like steam from a pot. I began to sweat just by being in the room for a few minutes. She notices my discomfort then switches on a ceiling fan.

“Thanks.” I say. “It’s warm in here, especially for this time of the year.”

She nods her head and offers me a drink from the kitchen. I plant myself on the couch, a red upholstered number with paisley leaves. Leaning against the arm I cross my legs and survey the room, for signs of the husband. She returns with a can of beer which I heartily accept and open.

“So, is your husband down stairs?” I say pointing to the doorway with stairs that obviously lead to a basement of some sort.

“Yes, he’s downstairs. He doesn’t like company.” She says.

I take this reply with shock. How could anyone not want company? For all this couple knew, they could be the last ones one earth. Not wanting company after an apocalypse seems absurd, even for someone with the severest anti-social complex, but these are her words to me as sure as I am sitting on this couch. Her facial expression changed because of my prying and I felt she was becoming bit guilt plagued.

” I am being terribly rude. Let’s go down stairs and let me introduce you two… I forgot my manners! Where are you from?”

“Maine, actually.”

“Long way from Maine?”

“Yeah, I was shipwrecked.”

“Are you a fisherman?”

“No, I’m in the Navy. Well, was in the Navy.”

“So, you retired?”

“Not exactly.”

“Not exactly?”

“There’s no Navy to retire from, exactly.”

“Eh.”

She says this in a strange subdued tone and I feel a little uneasiness come into my mind. Getting up from her wicker chair by the window she leads me to the doorway that winds into the basement. If I were a better I would have wagered fifteen to one that her husband was bed ridden with gunshot wound, perhaps; rheumatism, cholera, cancer, or any other form of debilitating disease. However, I was shocked to find the flanneled, bearded husband I had imagined offering me a beer in the living room was chained to a cinder block wall.

His face is mauled with the virus, leaving him as alert as a deer stunned with a gunshot wound to the head. We entered the room and he the thing immediately became agitated. The noise that vibrated from within is animalistic and human, with tones of utter horror. She is calm, but quickly angered when the thing chained to the corner by its neck rises.

Shocked and scared I raise my gun but the woman approaches without hesitation and reaches over to a small table. She picks up a stun gun and aims at the creature’s jaw. It immediately senses the threat and retreats back to its corner in the basement, bawling and howling all the while.

“My husband was bitten some time ago. He’s still there. Mostly, the disease was slow to spread through his thick body. However, I feel I can still enjoy his presence, despite the terrible smell and looks.”

Her head turns in my direction and I give her an uneasy smile, but I do not venture from the last stair. She tosses rotten corn husks at its feet and her husband touches them slowly, and then quickly places them between his teeth, gnawing and drooling on the rotten vegetable. I am becoming sick to the stomach from the whole thing, but the woman stays amused by her husband’s reduced state. She crosses to the other side of the basement and is temporarily out of my sight. She returns folding a long cattle whip in her hands.

“If you keep them disciplined, they are easier to handle and keep, like dogs. Hahhh!!” She screams in a spontaneous release of manic energy and begins lashing the thing. The beastly remains of her husband become enraged and lunge toward our position, but they’re thrown back by the chain and collar on its neck.

I do not wish to speculate on how she attached the chain and collar, but I can guess that the day he awoke with that around his neck was probably far worse that the day he was infected. I felt saddened and slowly backed up the stairs while the woman tore the flesh of the hopeless beast strip by strip with that whip.

I retreat slowly up the stairs. I become horrified by the whole scene. The relationship had seemingly taken a turn for the worse, he seemingly having the worst end. I didn’t know who to feel sorrier for, her, or her husband. A sick feeling palpitates in my chest. I reach the top of the staircase and the woman has stopped the beating. She is now talking soft and sentimental to her husband. I can hear the thing gurgle some syllables, between the sobs it seems like an attempt at speech.

Backing into the living room I see two dead lingering on the porch, peering through the living room window. I kneel down and look out onto the lawn, I see more coming out of the corn. My pack in the barn! I slip backwards into the kitchen and out the back door. I come around the side of the house and quickly across to the bar. I gather my things in haste and I am back on the path running when I hear the window break and a scream. The voice was quickly silenced, but echoes through the landscape. A last whisper of justice bellows through a dying world. I continue on, and feel well.