RIIIIIIIIIIIIIPPPP!

“He’s at it again. Jesus.”

RIIIIIIIIIIIIIIPPP!  CRACK!

“John, leave it alone, will ya?”

Crrrrrrraaaaaaaaackkkkkkkk.

“They don’t know what that means. That’s a scare tactic that’s been used forever, man. These things don’t get scared. They can’t get scared.”

THUNK!

“Almost………..(grunt)………..done!”

“Voila!”

The five man group stood and gazed at John’s latest creation. They stood and rolled their eyes. Just as barbaric tribes had done for centuries, this war party had left its mark on the battlefield. Staring back at them was a zombie’s head on a pike. The lower jaw, having been just removed by John’s carefully honed technique of placing the severed and still snapping head under his boot, pinned against the quick forearm-generated thrusts of a rusty crowbar. Up on the stake, its bewildered and blackened eyes slowly trained on each man in the group, in turn. A horrific anatomical impossibility; impossible, that is, until now.

Wesley, the unassuming sixty-something leader of the rag-tag bunch, sat back down in front of the campfire and lit up a smoke.

“John, come here. Sit down.”

John carefully backed away from the staked zombie head, watching as a slight breeze danced through its dark strands of blood-caked hair. He crouched down into a catcher’s stance, arms neatly folded into the open pockets of his Washington Redskins sweatshirt.

“What?” John asked, clearly impressed with himself.

Wesley took a long drag from his cigarette. “John, do you believe these undead fucks mean us any harm on a……..personal level?”

John thought for a moment, but before he could reply, Wesley stood abruptly and bellowed:

“Because if you do, then you don’t have the slightest fucking clue about anything that’s gone on here!! You don’t think I want to tear every one of these mothers a new ass? You don’t think I want revenge for my family? My country? My whole goddamned planet!?! Do you think these things are people? They are walking disease, my man. A walking virus. It looks like a person, but it has as much in common with a person as bugs!!”

“I know all that, Wes” John said with a sigh. “It just….I don’t know. It makes me feel like I’m doing something more. There are probably hundreds of little groups like us, maybe thousands. They’re out there. Maybe doing better than us, maybe not. We’ve got guns, ammo, food, water, and each man in this group is someone I’d trust with my life. We’ve got some hope, man. Not to make things the way they were. Not the five of us. But….I don’t know. Maybe some other group, not doing as well, feeling lost, alone, feeling hopeless, maybe they come across this spot. Maybe they see that rotting head on a stick. They look into its eyes, it looks back. Maybe it sends a message….”