Cannibal Corpse, M/C

He knew there was more here and he felt that right into his shivering marrow and before he left this fucking cemetery, he planned on finding out what.

* * *

That he wasn’t alone in the compound became more apparent with each step he took. He had no doubt there were more zombies here…or, mutations of the same…but that wasn’t all. He was certain he was being watched by someone that hailed from this side of the grave and he wished they’d show themselves already or take a shot at him. After what he’d seen in the lab, a little running gunplay would be just the thing to purge the darkness that filled him like a cup.

He kept going, out past another row of blockhouses until he came to a wide open field that was cut by a ditch that had to have been 200 feet long and at least half that in width.

It was filled with bones.

One skeleton could either unnerve you or make you feel somewhat sympathetic for the plight of its owner, but a mass grave like this that was nearly filled with them…well, it inspired awe and fear and despair. It looked like one of those bone pits from Majdanek or Birkenau that you saw on the old newsreels. There had to have been at the very least the remains of hundreds and hundreds of people in there. Adults, children, like some kind of wicker sculpture made of bones and skulls. None of them had died recently, for this was old death, bones gray or gleaming white with ancient dark stains upon them, riddled from the teeth of rats and the beak work of carrion crows and buzzards.

If any of it had been remotely recent or there had been but a single shred of meat to be had there would be flies below and ravens circling overhead.

Slaughter stared down in it, kicking a jawless skull into the pit that had been wedged precariously on the edge. It leered at him. It mocked him. He could almost hear its hollow laughter in the back of his head. All you are, boy, I was once, and what I am, you shall soon be. Hee, hee, hee. Ain’t that just a kicker? He turned away from the pit, and as he did so he saw a shape dart from behind one of the blockhouses.

He sighed, not much in the mood for hide-and-seek. Whenever he played that game he usually came away with death on his hands and, after staring in that pit, he just wasn’t up for it.

He heard scuttling, dragging footsteps.

Well, if it was a zombie they would have come right after him. A few of them returned from the grave with a certain amount of cunning but that was usually after dark. During the daytime they were all little better than deadheads, things that fed on the dead (or living) and were not ashamed of the fact.

No, not a zombie.

A person.

Maybe afraid, maybe just crazy, which brought up a whole new slate of troubles because the insane ones were as bad as the wormboys and sometimes worse because you really never knew what to expect.

Slaughter kept his eyes open, ready for what was coming.

He felt vaguely uncomfortable turning his back on the bone pit. A dark thread of superstitious terror was pulled tight in his head, but he knew there was nothing to worry about.

He started walking back to his bike, figuring he’d seen enough to give him a pretty good hypothesis about the sort of place this was or had been. Originally, it was probably some sort of military installation. Then, following the Outbreak, it became a research station where they were trying to figure out the worms, how to stop them maybe. Then, apparently, that ended and it became a Flesh Farm, one of those awful places you heard about like a Nazi extermination camp where gangs of wormboys herded the living to be fed upon at their leisure.

Now it was just a memory.

As he walked back past the lab building, eyes watching every shadow and every darkened doorway, hand on the butt of the Combat Mag, he could hear his stalker out there following his progress, keeping behind the buildings and out of sight.

“You can show yourself anytime, citizen,” Slaughter called out. “I ain’t gonna bite you.”

His voice echoed out in the desertion and that other moved about, failing horribly at its attempts to practice stealth. Finally, Slaughter heard footsteps behind him and whirled around to see an old man leaning up against the porch of a blockhouse. He looked like some grizzled desert rat from an old movie. All he lacked was a mule and a prospector’s pick. He looked fairly harmless with his soft gray eyes, slouch hat, and matted white beard, but Slaughter did not care for the shotgun he carried.

“You plan on using that?”

“No, son. It’s empty. I’m no threat to you.”

“Name’s Slaughter.”

“Rice. Martin Rice.”

“What’re you doing here?”

The old man set his shotgun on the porch and then eased his ass up next to it and it wasn’t easy. He looked frail; his limbs stiff, his back paining him some.