Chapter Eighteen

As I dried my tears and looked around, our surroundings looked different than where we started from. I looked to Nina, and she looked as confused as I did. Although the tree husks and rock piles were still there, accompanying them were black, spindly shapes. They looked like people posing in various ways, caught within a solid prison. They were arranged in a circle, with a higher concentration of them further in. They stood out because of the glowing ground, but it was possible that they would be invisible in the dark. Nina and I stood up and continued to look around. I looked towards the center of the circle and noticed a small hill, just tall enough to stand over the black figures. And behind it, almost camouflaged by the ground light, was a translucent beam, fading into the sky.

My gasp caught Nina’s attention and headed towards me.

“What did you find?” she asked, trying to find my line of sight.

“Light,” I said pointing towards the hill. “Different.”

“Could that be…”

“Find out.” We started to walk together, heading towards the hill. We both avoided getting too close to the black figures, sharing the feeling of caution. We paused as the path in front of us became too crowded with the figures.

“Should we find another way around?” Nina asked. “I really don’t want to be any closer to these things than I have to.” As we turned to the right, we heard familiar yells. We looked at the location they came from but instead of seeing nothing, we saw a cloud of dust heading towards us. It was light in color at first, and it helped us both notice the specks moving alongside it. The closer it got, the darker the dust cloud became until it matched the ground beneath us. We could see the silhouettes of people, clad in black, trying to obscure themselves in the cloud they created. I turned to Nina who narrowed her eyes. I felt the same readiness from her I felt earlier as she turned back to me.

“Listen to everything I have to say,” she said in a hurried whisper. “You’re going to lie her and act like a dead zombie. I’m going to pretend I just killed you, and that should be enough to get them to go away.”

“Okay,” I said without a doubt. I fell beside her and let her arrange my body. Before standing up, she made sure to disconnect my head. Though she stood in front of me, I could still watch as a group of 10 people arrived, each one carrying a crossbow and a large object. They stopped in front of Nina as one of the persons shot an arrow into one of the black figures. It slumped before crumbling into pieces.

“It don’t count if it’s this close!” said the person in front with a laugh. The others joined in as the person who shot the arrow lowered her weapon. “But back to business. What’s a thing like you doing all the way out here?” I didn’t notice at what point Nina drew her own crossbow.

“Hunting,” she said, faking a smile. “Isn’t that what you’re doing here?”

“Well, that crossbow speaks the truth!” the person in front said with another laugh. He was a large man, careless with his movements. He waved his crossbow around, never pointing it at others, but always a hair’s breadth away from doing so. “And it looks like you got yourself a nice one.” He turned back to his crowd. “When’s the last time we’ve seen a fresh one?”

“Dusty saw one last week!” yelled a person in the crowd.

“Yeah, Dusty also said he’s seen a clean body but that don’t mean I believe him,” responded the man in front as he turned back to Nina. Before he could talk, Nina interrupted him.

“You’ve seen my catch. But what about you. What are you all hunting?” she asked them. “I’ve never chased one out to here, and I haven’t seen anything else that even moves.”

“That thing must’ve given you a hell of a fight to lead you out here!” the man said with a hearty laugh. “But it would’ve been obvious you ain’t from here. See, what we’re hunting is all around you.” He pointed to all the black figures around him. “These things, we call them statues. Don’t know what that is but Bookie back there told us it’s right. You can do a whole lot to them, and they don’t move an inch.” He got closer to one, pointing his crossbow to a rounded mass. “But if hit them just right…” He pulled the trigger, sending an arrow right through the mass. Blood began pouring out as the figure made the same slumping motion the first one did, before crumbling into dust. “They’re zombies too.”

I heard Nina’s gasp at those words. I couldn’t feel if my heartbeat was accelerating but I felt that my body would do well enough to conceal any unwanted movements.

“Zombies?” Nina said. “They don’t look like anything I’ve seen.”

“We don’t know either,” the man said, walking back to his group. “All we know is that they’re zombies, and they won’t be doing any favors for us, no matter what they look like. See, me and my people back there, aren’t too fond of zombies. Now it’s true that we haven’t seen one like the one you caught, but that don’t change anything. They’re vile and they’ll stop at nothing to get what they want. I told you that these things don’t move.” The man moved closer to Nina. “So go ahead and ask me how I know that they won’t stop.” Nina stayed quiet, waiting for the man to make the next move.

“And you want to know what’s the worst part of it all? We’ve seen people that catch those things and treat them like you and me! Those people clearly haven’t been bitten, or even seen someone get bitten. I’d like to drag one of them zombie lovers out her and let them see firsthand why they’re doing wrong. Of course, we’d keep our distance.” He laughed as the others joined in as well. He looked at one of the black figures. “These things are just begging to be shot at. And who am I to not oblige? It helps that it’s good target practice too, having them not move like this. I watched as another person in the group headed to another figure and draw his knife. He stood there for a few seconds, moving the knife above the figure’s rounded mass before driving it down in a single motion. This time, the statue let out a scream, piercing my ears and causing Nina to cover hers. The man in front keeled over in laughter.

“You got a lively one there!” he said standing up. “I told you a knife would wake it up.” I felt the little sense of relief Nina developed, hearing that these people hunted zombies, evaporate away as she saw how they reacted to killing them and heard what they thought about people and zombies being together. She looked up as the man in front walked towards her. “You haven’t shot at any of the statues, have you?” Nina shook her head, not wanting to say anything. “Well, you ain’t going anywhere till you feel what we feel knocking these things down.” He put her arm around Nina and guided her to one of the statues next to her. He pointed to the rounded mass that every statue had.

“You gotta aim here,” he said. “Otherwise, they start screaming like the one you just heard, and let me tell you, that ain’t good. They don’t like it when we start shooting.” He pointed at the rounded mass. “It’s their head, and just like the fresh ones, it’s the only way to make sure they stay down.” I looked straight ahead and tried my best not to match Nina’s rapid breath as the man turned to look at me. His eyes were focused on my head. He examined every part of me he could from where he stood. He tightened his grip on Nina as he started walking towards me.