Our Last Bow Read online

  OUR LAST BOW

  Edward Punales

  Copyright © Edward Punales 2014, 2019

  Second Edition

  This book is protected under the copyright laws of the United States of America. Any reproduction or other unauthorized use of the material contained herein is prohibited without the express written permission of the copyright holder.

  All characters in this book are fictitious. Any resemblance to any persons, living or dead is purely coincidental.

  Author’s Note: First, I just want to set the record straight to avoid any confusion. This story was originally published in 2014 under my pen name “Edward Lange.” It has been republished here under my real name. Second, this story contains strong language and graphic violence. Discretion is advised.

  For Mom and Rodrigo. Thanks for believing in me.

  I

  The one-story house was not my ideal hiding place.

  I’d much rather have stayed on the second-floor of a two-story house; zombies aren’t very good at climbing stairs. Poor eye-hand coordination and all that.

  No, the only reason I went into that house was desperation. The sun had just set, and it was one of those nasty winter nights, when the wind slices through clothes like a knife, and the spit freezes on your lips. I’d been walking all day, my feet and hands felt numb, and I needed a place to stay warm.

  There were no lights in the house, so I had to inspect it with my flashlight. Whoever’s house it was, they’d abandoned it in a hurry; most of the furniture, appliances, and at least few hundred dollars worth of electronic entertainment equipment had been left behind. Not that they would’ve cared; there are more important things to think about when zombies are on the prowl.

  Part of me still wanted to hold out until I found a two-story house, but the wind was getting harsher, and I was worried about frostbite. Besides, the locks worked, and the windows weren’t broken, so it was good enough. There was a pair of sliding glass doors at the back of the house, but I didn’t think it would be a problem; the glass seemed pretty thick. Zombies weren’t exactly known for their physical strength.

  After I’d checked every room, I closed and locked the front door. My cheeks and hands felt relief from the cold outdoor air. I propped my flashlight up on a nearby table, and the beam shined upward at the ceiling. I slowly put my hunting rifle and backpack down on the green leather couch next to the front door, as I rubbed my palms together. The house was still cold, just not as cold as outside. I drew my hands to my mouth and began to softly blow warm air on them. Feeling slowly returned to my fingers.

  I sat down on the couch, next to my rifle. My feet and legs ached. It was the first time I’d sat down since morning. I felt safe; I hadn’t seen a zombie in two days, so I figured it would be okay to rest.

  Nightmares woke me up a few times during the night. Fingers covered in rotten skin digging into my eyes. Decaying teeth sinking into my flesh. I’d always wake up, snatch my flashlight from the table, and hold it close to my face as I stared into the darkness. Sometimes I’d have to do a once over of the house before I could go back to sleep. Heart still pounding, hands still shaking, I’d check and recheck every room, and corner in the place, images and sounds from the dream intruding upon my consciousness like bad memories. It was only after I’d inspected everything in the most minute detail, that I could go back to sleep.

  I heard the sound of breaking glass and knew it wasn’t a dream. My eyes shot open. The sun had come up and its light was spilling in through the window behind me. I snatched up my rifle, and bolted up from the couch. The sound had come from the dining room at the back of the house, where the sliding glass doors were. A bitter cool breeze seeped down the hallway that led to that back room.

  Weapon in hand, I crept to the edge of the hallway, and peered down. One of the sliding glass doors had been shattered into hundreds of pieces. And standing among the shards, was a tall pale man. He wore a dirty white t-shirt, and black baggy pants. His muscular frame eclipsed the broken glass door, and he spotted me with vacant, half-closed eyes. An inarticulate groan escaped his lips, and my breathing became hard.

  He took a step, and tiny shards of glass were crushed under his black boots. I raised my rifle, but I didn’t fire. I couldn’t aim that damn thing to save my life.

  It’d been my dad’s. Before he’d died, my dad had tried to teach me how to use it. Every chance he got, he’d take me to the range, and we’d fire off a couple rounds. I always had trouble hitting anything further than a few feet. He never seemed that upset about it. He was a nice man.

  My brother used to joke, “If zombies ever take over, he’ll be an expert marksman in no time.” But that didn’t really pan out. Although I’d seen many zombies since the breakout began, I’d only actually killed one, and that one with an axe. The rest I’d been able to run away from.

  But at that moment, I didn’t want to run. I only had two candy bars left, and I needed to search this house. It was a long shot, but it was better than no shot. And I sure as shit couldn’t do any kind of a thorough search with that thing walking around.

  He took a few shambling steps closer. I looked at the arms that hung at his sides like small tree trunks. Little shards dotted his arms, and blood trickled from the wounds, forming tiny red puddles on the ground. I thought the glass would be too thick to break, but with arms like that, very little is too thick.

  His mouth opened, and his groans took on a wild, animalistic quality. His mammoth arms reached out for me. He was still too far, and I didn’t want to risk missing. I only had fifteen rounds left; five in the gun, and two magazines of five in the backpack, and I wasn’t keen on wasting a single one.

  The gun shook in my hands. My finger became sweaty as it wrapped around the trigger. The creature got within five feet of me, and the stench of death and decay seemed to drip from it, and waft through the room. My eyes grew watery from the smell.

  I lifted the rifle, and aimed right at the center of his face. The barrel kept shaking as I tried to aim. I wasn’t worried about getting infected; I was immune to the virus. But even with that, this thing was still dangerous. I waited a few more seconds, as it inched its way toward me. I didn’t want to miss. I waited until it was about three feet away from me, and I tried to pull the trigger.

  It wouldn’t budge.

  I took a step back. My eyes went wide, and for a moment I forgot to breathe. The undead intruder still kept walking toward me, headless of the weapon in my hands. I continued to press down on the trigger, but nothing would happen. It was as rigid and inflexible as a rock.

  Panicking, I looked at the side of the gun. I’d backed up to the front room. The creature was halfway up the hallway. My frightened eyes scanned the gun, and quickly found the problem. I’d left the safety on.

  Frantically, I turned the safety off, and looked up. The zombie had gained an extra two feet. He was close enough that I could make out the small hole in his left cheek, and the little maggots that squirmed around in there. The fingernails of his outstretched arms were brown and jagged, like a rusty, serrated blade. I quickly pointed the gun at his head, hoped my aim was true, and pulled the trigger.

  The force of the shot knocked me flat on my ass. I propped myself back on my elbows. The smell of gun powder and smoke began to fill the small space, and mingled with the rotting flesh stench. It all came together to form a nauseating aroma.

  My ears were ringing. A large puddle of blood began to form at the zombie’s feet, as it stumbled backward. I looked up. He was still standing. The left side of his face had been blown off, revealing a brown decaying skull, and bits of red gooey flesh. He looked down at me with his half-skull face as I sat on the ground. I was able to see his jaw muscles contract and move as he opened his mouth. I lif
ted my gun. Then he threw himself at me.

  Time slowed as the hulking corpse came down on me. I positioned the barrel of the gun in front of his face. My finger wrapped around the trigger. The barrel entered the zombie’s mouth as he descended upon me. It moved toward the back of his throat, and exploded out the back of his skull. The lips of his wide mouth slid down the barrel, toward the trigger. I removed my hands and scuttled away before he slammed to the ground. The gun again went off when the rotting body crashed into it, leaving a bullet hole in the wall on the side of the hallway.

  My ears rang. Dust and pieces of plaster fell from above. It got into my lungs, and I coughed it out. The dust got in my eyes, and it stung as I tried to rub it.

  The corpse laid face first on the ground. From the stock up, the gun stuck out the back of the beast’s head at an angle. It was soaked in blood and spit. Bits of bone and brain littered the floor around the thing. I pushed myself off the ground, my stinging eyes never leaving the creature. For a few seconds, its lips lightly sucked at the trigger in its mouth. It finger’s twitched and its eyeballs shifted in their sockets. Slowly but surely, it stopped moving.

  I had to make sure it was dead. Really dead I mean. That’s part of the problem with zombies; the word dead just wasn’t good enough anymore. Immobile would be a better word to describe what I’m talking about.

  I looked at the ground around me, and found a piece of plaster on the floor. I threw it at the creature’s head. It bounced off his forehead and he didn’t even twitch. I picked up another piece, and threw it again. Still nothing. After about seven hits, I felt safe assuming he was dead. Immobile I mean.

  Carefully, I walked up, and grabbed the butt of my father’s gun. I tried not to gag on the smell of guts that rose from the zombie’s gaping wounds. It made a sickening slippery noise, as I dragged it out of the thing’s mouth. I held it upside down by the butt. A small grayish-white piece of brain matter fell out of the barrel, and blood slid down the black metal sides.

  I pulled my shirt over my nose and the intense smell of sweat and B.O. caught me off guard. I nearly dropped the gun. It’d been a while since I’d taken a shower. It’s a little difficult to bathe when you’re being chased by zombies. I removed the shirt from my face, again smelled the guts and blood and gun powder, and immediately sought the comfort of my own natural funk.

  I laid my gun on the ground, and went into the bathroom. There were two dry towels hanging over the shower curtain. There was also a half-empty spray can of deodorant on the rim of the sink. I picked it up and quickly sprayed my armpits, before taking one of the towels and returning to my gun.

  I lifted it by the butt, the red blood dripping down the side in a slow stream. I was about to wipe it off with the towel, but then stopped. I turned the gun around, and noticed the safety was still off. Hands still shaking, I turned it back on, and proceeded to wipe down the barrel.

  When the black metal stop glistening red, I sat down on the couch and laid the gun across my lap. From my backpack I took out the rifle cleaning tools I’d taken with me. I may not have known a damn thing about how to fire a rifle, but I was pretty good at cleaning them.

  After the barrel had been cleared of zombie brains, I cleaned my hands as best I could, reached into the backpack, and pulled out one of my candy bars. I was a nervous eater.

  When I’d finished my meal, I went outside, and checked the perimeter of the house. No other zombies, but where there’s one, there could always be more. I went back into the house, and quickly did a sweep of the place for supplies.

  First stop was the kitchen. A rotten smell was coming from the refrigerator and freezer. The smell of the house was becoming more and more unpleasant all the time.

  I checked the cabinets, and found two cans of tuna. No mayo though. I remembered that Suzy liked tuna without mayo, and almost choked up for a second before I was able to compose myself. The cans, as well as a can opener from one of the drawers, went into my backpack.

  None of the sinks, either in the bathroom or the kitchen, worked, so I wasn’t able to refill my water bottles. I had four, but two were empty, and another was half-empty.

  In one of the bedrooms I found some clothes and clean boxers still neatly folded in the dresser drawer. While these people had certainly cleared out most of the food, they didn’t seem to mind leaving their clothes. I imagined they left with just the ones on their backs, not even thinking to stop and bring an extra set for the journey. I was the same way when I hit the road. But the thing that neither I nor they thought about was what it was going to be like wearing the same pair of underwear for days on end.

  I quickly stripped off my clothes, stained red with zombie blood, and put on a fresh pair of boxers. For a brief moment I remembered what it was like to not live in this uncivilized, zombie infested filth. It felt good.

  I also got new socks, and a fresh pair of jeans. They were a little big on me, but luckily I found a nice belt. In the back of the closet I found a black t-shirt with that old picture of Albert Einstein sticking his tongue out.

  I didn’t look at any of the jackets. They were all too thin, too light. The jacket I wore, the one I’d been wearing since the outbreak began, was a green sandstone jacket. It was heavy with a soft quilted lining. It dried easily, and had great wind resistance. It was a present from my dad.

  After packing a change of socks and another pair of underwear, I decided to inspect the other rooms. They didn’t really have anything of note, except for a Nintendo Switch and a charger. It was half charged and it had Super Mario Odyssey in the cartridge slot. I doubted I’d ever find the time to play it, or that I could find a working power outlet to charge it, but I put it in my bag just in case.

  Through the windows of the bedroom at the back of the house, I could see the backyard. It was a small little square of green grass, about half the size of the house itself. A large in-ground pool sat in the center of the yard, its water a dark sickly shade of green. Floating face-up on the surface of the water was another zombie. It didn’t thrash or squirm. It just floated there, moaning in that slow, absent-minded way that only the undead can. Pool noodles and small bright yellow plastic floaties littered the ground around the pool.

  Tucked away in a corner of the yard was a metal shed. Brown with rust, the shed sat there, a pool net sticking out of the open door. Also sticking out of the shed was a round black bicycle wheel. It was attached to a teal green bicycle, the metal only slightly rusted. I was starting to get sick of walking everywhere, and while I would’ve preferred a car (the less I could use my legs, the better) it was better than nothing.

  With the house clean of anything useful, my bag on my back, my rifle gripped in my hands, I walked through the broken glass door into the backyard. The zombie in the pool spotted me in the corner of his eye, and his moaning got louder. His arms started to thrash, disturbing the calm of the algae-infected pool. I walked around the pool, staying away from its edges, as I approached the shed.

  The bicycle was still in pretty good shape; the seat and handle bars were nice and tight, and there was a decent amount of air in the tires. As I inspected the chain for rust, I heard the splashing of the zombie in the pool grow louder. It was kicking its feet, but not in a paddle motion that would’ve propelled it toward the edge of the pool. All its kicking did was splash water around it.

  I pulled the bicycle out of the shed, and walked it around the side of the house to the street. About three blocks down, a group of four zombies was shuffling up the road. A thin white mist had set-in. It wasn’t too thick, but it gave the walking dead an eerie quality, as they moved in and out of that mist.

  I looked up the road, and didn’t see any more zombies. It would be awhile before the ones behind me could get up to this house, but more would surely follow. It wouldn’t be long before this town was overrun.

  I hung the rifle sling over my shoulder, put my backpack on, got on the bike, and sped off. I tried to ignore the soft moans that receded behind me as I rode.


  II

  No one is sure where the virus came from, or how long it had been in existence, but the first time anyone had any idea that something was wrong was a little over a year ago.

  A man in Maryland had been attacked and eaten by three people. He was just walking down the street of his neighborhood, when the assailants jumped him. A frantic neighbor watching the attack through her window immediately called the police. By the time the cops showed up it was too late.

  They tried to apprehend the attackers, telling them to freeze and put their hands in the air. They didn’t comply or try to run away. They just shuffled toward the cops, arms outstretched, and eyes glazed.

  “Put your hands in the air!” one cop said. The assailant he was addressing responded with an otherworldly, inarticulate moan that sent a chill up the officer’s spine.

  When they refused to listen to the warnings, the officers opened fire. But not before one of the perpetrators attacked one of the officers, biting him on the wrist.

  The officer was taken to the emergency room. It wasn’t long before his eyes began to glaze, and his speech was replaced by that same unearthly moan.

  The nurses were able to hold him down, but he still bit two of them before they were able to bound and gag him. The two nurses that got bit in turn bit two other nurses. Before long, most of the hospital was infected.

  The National Guard was able to clear the place out in about three hours. They killed almost everything with a bite mark. A few specimens were captured for study. Of the twenty-five-hundred doctors, nurses, and patients in the hospital, about eighty survived.

  The event was so gruesome, so horrifying, and so singularly unspeakable, that national coverage was inevitable. Across the country, and eventually the globe, people poured over news articles about the horrific tragedy. Hospital surveillance footage showing patients and doctors running down blood soaked hallways in terror went viral. Interviews with survivors, pale and visibly shaken, ran nonstop on the news networks. All of these bits of information and media came together to paint a gruesome portrait for the world to cower before.