Chuck struggles. Grunting, he tells me he needs to stop. He loosens the belt and drops me gently on the nearby moss. We’ve only made it about three miles from the fallen bridge. I scan the woods around us.
“We need to find a better way,” Chuck moans. “My dad was right. I’m weak! He told me there’s no way I’d make it on my own.”
“Shut up!” I hiss.
I hear feet sweeping fallen leaves. Chuck’s too inside of his head to notice. I crawl closer to the side of the dirt road and grab an empty beer bottle. I break it on the asphalt. Sharp glass is better than nothing.
“Grab something, they’re coming,” I whisper out loud.
“All I see are trees,” he says, squinting.
“You don’t hear them?” I ask.
He listens as he picks up a sizable stick. The leaves continue to crunch from somewhere. The trees remain tall and still. Chuck tests his stick as if it is a sword. I want to tell him to use it like a baseball bat, but I’m too afraid to speak.
“Weak, weak, weak,” Chuck whines. “I’m too weak. I should’ve worked harder on the…”
“Will you stop? You’re not weak. You’re just tired.”
The zombie rips out of the dirt right next to me. The leaves scatter like a fallen house of cards. I stab it with my broken bottle. Chuck hits it as if it is a whack-a-mole. The creature returns to its unusual grave.
“It’s been a rough day for both of us. Should we just camp here?” I ask, without skipping a beat.
“Here? But we just got attacked! There’s probably more of them around here,” he squeaks.
“I don’t think so,” I say. “Poor guy was probably murdered and buried here so no one’ll find him. Look at his clothes.”
“If he died before the virus, how’d he get it?” asks Chuck.
“That’s actually a good question,” I say. We look around for more zombies, but all we see are trees. I focus my eyes on an odd blur of fungus growing off of one tree’s bark, then I see it on the other next to it. Eventually, I see all the surrounding trees are infected. A leaf is blown off of a branch by a gentle breeze. I roll away from it.
“We can’t stay here. You’re right,” I say. “Break’s over.”