“What?” Victor said.
“They’re getting smarter.”
Victor didn’t respond. Something inside of him died alongside his mother. He was not the same boy Kyle picked up at the gas station. That boy had been so full of faith and hope, but now Victor seemed to just be existing, as if he were now one of the living dead below.
“Hey!” Kyle yelled, waving his arms up in the air. “Up here.”
He noticed one of the figures poke another one and point up in their direction.
“Wait der!” one of them yelled back in a heavy Hispanic accent.
“We can’t go anywhere!” Kyle replied.
The three figures were quickly closing the gap between the two Existing Dead heading their way. Kyle was curious on how they dealt with the dead now that headshots did nothing more than stop the dead for a matter of minutes.
One of the three figures, a man from what Kyle could now make out, dropped to one knee and took aim with a long rifle. As soon as the man dropped to one knee, another figure fell to a knee, this one a woman. She was very noticeable as her long red hair was tied back into a ponytail. They were all wearing the same black uniform, one that resembled that of the Navy Seals.
As the Existing Dead grew closer, the man fired. The loud boom echoed through the space between the homes. The round hit through the head of one of the dead, spewing the ground behind it with bits of meat and bone. It dropped to the pavement with complete disregard to the impact. It had no choice, this was its dormant state, the time between one death and the beginning of a new life.
The woman fired next. Her round entered the shirtless creature’s chest. Kyle saw a huge spray of matter explode from the exit wound. It was the same kind of damage he’d once noticed when shooting a coyote with a shotgun, but she didn’t seem to be holding a shotgun. Another shot was fired, and this one entered the creature’s head, almost obliterating it on impact.
A moment after the second creature fell, the third figure, the one that had told Kyle and Victor to wait, unsheathed a machete tied around his waist and ran toward the first Existing Dead. He used the razor-sharp blade to cut the clothes off the creature.
Three more Existing Dead began to be aware at what was happening and walked aimlessly toward the three figures. The man and woman stayed on their knees and took aim at the fresh entrants to the fight. They did not fire right away. Instead, they just focused on the dead slowly walking toward them. The dead mouths snapped with hunger, anger and disgust.
“Shoot!” Victor yelled as the Existing Dead continued to move closer.
They didn’t flinch, didn’t even move a muscle.
The man with the machete continued cutting the clothes off the fallen dead.
“Twenty seconds,” the man on one knee said.
When he spoke, Machete Man stopped cutting the creature’s clothes and brought the blade down on its right thigh. Pink sludge began to pour from the wound. Kyle had seen this before with the head that he had been carrying around as a souvenir. When Kyle had cut the boil on the creature’s face, the same pink liquid had extracted from it.
Machete Man moved on to the next body.
“Eight seconds.”
He looked at the Existing Dead that had been shot in the chest and head and said, “Okay, fire.” He walked away from the creature with a large hole in its chest and headed behind the two figures on one knee. They fired, dropping the two advancing dead in the same manner as the previous kills. The woman quickly took aim at the third and fired. Machete Man began removing the clothes from the first. The man and woman stood and took pocket knives out of compartments on their uniforms. They ran to the unattended dead and began tearing into its clothes.
“What are they doing?” Victor asked.
“I’m guessing that they’re looking for the boil that finally kills them.”
Machete Man raised the blade above his head and swiped down at the creature’s neck, separating its head from the rest of the body. He kicked the severed head away. It trolled a few feet closer to the sidewalk.
The woman stopped removing the creature’s clothes and raised the rifle to her eye. “Beater number two,” she said, and took aim at the creature’s chest, firing three rounds and leaving a large hole where the heart should be. It was now a mangled mess of fried meat.
The final man had completely removed the creature’s black polo shirt. He had begun working on its pants when the creature opened its eyes.
“Watch it, Ricardo,” the woman said, taking aim at the creature. “Beater?”
“No,” Ricardo replied. “Still new. Continue searching. I’ll hold him down.”
Machete Man continued removing the creature’s pants as Ricardo took something out of his pocket and shoved it into the thing’s mouth. Careful to avoid actually touching its mouth, Ricardo swung the strap of his rifle over his shoulder, knelt down and snapped the creature’s neck. He held the head that continued trying to find the stability it needed to move.
“Find it yet?” the woman asked. “There’s more coming.” She pointed in the direction of Kyle’s truck, then knelt.
Kyle stared at the six advancing dead passing his truck.
“Found it,” Machete Man said and quickly impaled the creature’s left foot. Pink sludge poured out, which indicated that the creature had finally met its death.
Ricardo let go of the creature’s head the second it was put down. He spun, quickly retrieving the rifle strapped to his shoulder, knelt, and took aim.
“Wow,” Kyle said, amazed. “They’re very well trained.”
“Too bad they weren’t here last night to save my mom,” Victor added, making Kyle feel uneasy.
Victor gave one quick look at the boy and then continued staring at the group fighting the dead like a well-oiled machine.
“Virginia,” Ricardo called out, looking through his scope, “Second from the right.”
Kyle looked at the Existing Dead Ricardo mentioned. What are they looking for? he thought.
Virginia took aim at the creature’s chest and fired. Large amounts of fried tissue exploded from the exit wound. Then she took aim at its head and fired again. The creature stopped dead in its tracks and collapsed to the ground.
Machete Man stood behind them with the blade in his hands. There was a strong resemblance to a Civil War Colonel who would stand behind his men at the front line of a battle, giving orders. All that was missing was a revolver in his hand for shooting at the advancing men.
Ricardo and Virginia wasted no time in continuing the fire power at the five remaining dead. Their shots were precise, dropping the dead with as few shots as possible.
Machete Man quickly ran to begin the clothes-removing process. All three of them had to work as quickly as possible to find the boil which could be anywhere on the body, and destroy it. Kyle wondered what they would do if they ran out of time and the dead rose again. This was quickly answered by Ricardo’s action. He moved from body to body, snapping the creatures’ necks with a swift movement, just as he had with the Existing Dead that had reopened its eyes.
After the final Existing Dead in the area was dispatched, they did one last sweep of the area. There were no more active dead anywhere.
Machete Man took a small bottle out of a vest compartment and squirted its contents over the blade and used a cloth from his back pocket to wipe the blade clean. After, his machete looked brand new. He looked toward the roof of Morgan’s house. The house that was supposed to be safe from the dead.