The Last Ones Left
By: Matthew Donnellon
Tags: Books, Relationships, Creativity, Fiction, Short Story

I watched them parade around the truck. Evan approached the back of the restaurant to get a better look.

“We’re never going to get close to it,” he said.

Lauren said, “How are we going to get back to Shadowood?”

Evan was silent. It was one of the few times he didn’t have any answer.

“I don’t think we can get back there, now.”

“What are we going to do,” I asked.

Evan looked around, running a hand through his shaggy hair, “I saw some footprints, back there.”

“I’m sure there’s plenty around here,” she said.

“No,” Evan said, “these aren’t zombie prints. They’re not all ragged. They’re not shuffling. These were human footprints.” None of us had seen another person since arriving at Shadowood. Evan showed us the boot prints. There were at least two sets of footprints, and they led from the back of the restaurant to a disturbed area of dirt where a vehicle had driven off.

“They got into a car here,” Evan said, “and went off in that direction,” pointing deeper into the woods.

“Is that where we’re going?” Lauren asked.

“I don’t think we have a choice,” Evan said. He stood up, loosing an arrow into a zombie that found its way behind the building. “It kills me to leave all these things.”

“You’ll find more,” I said.

“I’m counting on it,” Evan said, pulling his arrow from the fallen zombie.

I grabbed my pack, and we headed out. I walked behind them, and the three of us snuck back into the forest. In the chaos of escaping from the town, I didn’t realize how late it was. The woods made things darker, the shadows larger, and soon night would be upon us. I quickened my pace in order to catch up to them.

I was about to raise my concerns when Evan said, “We need to find somewhere to bed down for the night.” He was always one step ahead.

We had to put some distance between the town and us, so we hiked for half another mile, going back to the road to pick up speed. Evan bent down to inspect something, “Someone came through,” he said, “pretty fast too.” It wasn’t long before we found a a body leaning against a yield sign.

“Look,” I said.

Evan had been staring at the road looking for more signs, and he was showing Lauren what to look for, and both of their heads snapped when they heard me. Evan raised his bow, and called out, “Hey.”

The body didn’t move. It stayed seated along the ground. It still had its hair and clothes, so if it was a zombie; it was a recent one. It, he I guess, had brown hair and a blue, blood spattered jean jacket. We approached and yet the body remained still.

“Is it dead?” Lauren asked.

“Yeah, he’s dead,” Evan said. Evan reached foreword and used the tip of his bow to examine the body, lifting up both sides of the man’s jacket.

“Is he going to come back?” Lauren asked.

“I don’t think so,” Evan said, “that only happens if you’ve been bit.”

“He wasn’t bit?”

“No,” Evan said, pointing to the red splotches, “this wasn’t zombies. Those are bullet holes. Somebody shot him.”

“Why would someone shoot him?” I asked.

“I don’t think the why is very important right now,” Evan said, “it’s the who we should be worried about.”

“Okay,” Lauren said, “who shot him?” She kept looking at the body. She spent so much time near zombies, but an actual dead human still bothered her.

“My guess is,” Evan said, “the people we’re following. The same ones from the town.”

I should not have been as shocked as I was. I was so excited about new people that it didn’t occur to me that anyone still left in this world most likely wasn’t very nice. And the dead body in front of me was evidence.

“We’re not going to keep looking for them are we?” Lauren asked.

“No,” he said, “we try to find someplace to hole up tonight and then we try and make it back to Shadwood.”

We were on the road trying to figure out which direction to go. We could head back the way we came, but that would that would take us closer to the infested town. The herd was on the move, but they seemed to settle in the town, and there wasn’t a sure way to tell which direction they might go. Or, we could continue in the current direction and risk running into the people that shot the man we just saw.

Evan decided that we would keep going that direction, keeping watch for an approaching vehicle, and turn off the road as soon as possible. We found the first road a half hour later. It was little more than a trail, but it was the first thing any of us had seen. Lauren led the way, with Evan covering her with his bow. I stayed near the road, ready to warn them should the shooters return. Lauren went about the length of a football field and raised her hand. She found something.

I met Evan and the two of us approached. Lauren pointed a single finger back into the woods, “It’s back there,” she said. It was hard to make out, but deep in the woods was a lone cabin, small, most likely someone’s old hunting shack. Luckily, Lauren noticed it. There wasn’t a mailbox, and the grass completely erased the driveway.

“What do you think?” Lauren asked.

“That’ll work,” he said.

“You know,” Lauren said, “it wouldn’t kill you to say, ‘Good job, Lauren.”

“Good job, Lauren,” Evan said, and he went to inspect the cabin.

After Evan was out of earshot, Lauren said, “That guy, I swear.”

“Swear what?” I asked.

“Nothing,” she said, “it’s just sometimes I..”

“Love him?” I said.

Her gaze immediately went from staring at Evan to looking me right in the eye. “What did you say?”

“I’m not an idiot Lauren,” I said, “I see how you two are. I see how you sleep all cuddled together.”

“That’s just,” she said, “I mean.”

“It’s okay, Lauren, I get it.”

She didn’t say anything.

“He’s a good guy,” I said.

“There’s not exactly a lot of choices left.”

We caught up with Evan, who was making the preliminary rounds, checking to see if there were any signs of zombie activity. From afar, the cabin looked stout, and there wasn’t any recent activity. It looked clean, no scratches at the door, and only a couple patches of disturbed dirt. Evan pulled out his set of lock picks, but Lauren had already tried the door, and it swung open. She stepped back and Evan drew his bow, waiting for something to come out, but nothing did.

It had to have been there for a while. A substantial level of dust settled over everything in the little house. It only had one room that contained everything necessary for living out in the woods, a small bed in the corner, a chair, a large metal woodstove attached to the wall. There was only two small windows. Evan rummaged through a toolbox in the corner.

“Try to find something to put over these windows,” he said.

I found a couple pieces of firewood that were long enough to span the windows. There was only enough to put two pieces over each window. Evan pounded nails into the wood, “That’s going to have to do,” he said.

Evan and Lauren sat on the bed, and I took the chair.

“We stay here tonight and tomorrow I’ll go check in town and check for the truck. If it’s still overrun we’ll have to go on foot.” The thought of walking miles through the forest vulnerable to a zombie attack terrified me.

“Do you think we’ll be able to get back?” Lauren said.

Evan put a hand on her shoulder, and kissed her on the head, “We’ll get back don’t worry.”

“Do you ever wonder why how they move?”

“Why would you think about that? Lauren asked.

“What else is there to think about?” I said before I realized it. There was plenty to think about, like the people we lost. People like our mother, or Evan’s family, and the kids at Shadowood.

“Nevermind,” I said. Lauren gave me a look.

“No,” Evan said, “he’s right. There’s something weird about how they move when they’re in groups. I watching a horde move through once when I was in the tree stand. It’s like they move in swarms, like birds. It’s creepy. Sometimes it looks like,” he paused for a second, “it looks like something controlling them.”

“Controlling them. How can something control them?”

“I don’t know, but sometimes their movements don’t seem natural.”

“Is there a natural way for a thousand rooting corpses to move?” she said.

Evan ignored her comment, “if we can figure out if something controls them, or how they move or why, it will help,” he said, “but that can wait till we get back.”

There wasn’t anything to do in the cabin, nothing to read except for a bible and an old TV guide. I pulled a piece of kindling off the floor, took a knife off my belt, and started whittling. I never quite got the hang of it but was something to pass the time. I sat there shaving small chunks of wood off the stick, staring at the window, hoping to get through the night. Evan and Lauren were lying on the bed whispering to each other. For a second, I wished Emma was there with me, but it was a selfish thought. I would rather her be at Shadowood where we could at least pretend to be safe.

I had a couple cans of food in my pack, and we ate them cold, like when we were out on the road. I chewed silently on cold carrots and peas. It was going to get dark soon, and we prepared for the night. Evan didn’t want to use the woodstove, since there wasn’t any firewood, but in one of the cupboards Evan found a small can of shortening. He smiled when found the can of fat, and Lauren asked, ”You’re not going to eat that are you?”

“Watch this,” he said. He pried the top off and showed us the white stuff inside. Then, he went and cut a piece off a t-shirt he found in the cabin. Afterwards, he used a nail to make a large channel down the center of the can, and rolled the shirt into a string an shoved into the channel. He then lit the rolled up t-shirt as if it was a candlewick. He set the homemade lantern on the table, and it glowed like a candle.

“Now we don’t have to sit here in the dark,” he said.

We cut up the sheets that were on the bed and used them to cover the windows. It would help keep from giving away our position. I settled into the chair, and watched the world get darker.

“I’ll take first watch,” I said. After the day’s events, I didn’t think I would sleep very much anyway.

“I’m not going to argue with that,” Evan said, and he and Lauren lay down on the bed. Evan still kept his head up though, always on watch.

It was nighttime not much later, but the little room was lit by the lantern, and I sat there listening to it crackle. I felt my eyelids getting heavy, and I should have woken Evan, but I didn’t.

I was, however, woken up when I heard something outside the cabin.