Jacket goes down.
It happens three paces ahead of me. No warning, no drama. One second, he's shuffling like always—shoulders stiff, one sleeve torn at the elbow—and the next, fwoomp. Gone. The earth swallows him like a stage trapdoor.
I get close enough to peer in.
There he is. Crumpled at the bottom of the pit, skewered clean through the chest on a twisted old signpost—SLOW CHILDREN AT PLAY, bent and rusted, now jutting proudly through the middle of his red suit jacket.
There's no way he's getting out.
My gut twists.
I know his name isn't really Jacket. I know he's just a corpse in a blazer with a half-missing jaw. But still. He was one of mine. A constant. A face in the endless shuffle. He helped pass the time.
I stand there too long, before my body coaxes itself forward.
Red veers right, avoiding a nearby pit by sheer luck or some last flicker of grace. Her head tilts slightly as she passes, as if she noticed Jacket's absence. Or maybe that's just wishful thinking.
And then Tyson drops.
I'd cheer if I still had lips that worked.
It's a glorious moment—him vanishing into the earth with a satisfying crunch of old wood and rot. But then, of course, he ruins it. Rises back up like the smug CrossFit zombie he is, standing tall atop another poor walker who landed first.
Figures.
Even in death, Tyson has good footing.
The kazoo keeps wheezing ahead. The boy is still leading us. Confident, nimble.
But suddenly—he slows.
His head tilts. Eyes widen. His pace falters.
I follow his gaze.
Oh.
Red.
One of her boobs has flopped out of her halter top. Left side. Grey and… well, still pretty full, honestly. Gravity's got nothing on undeath, apparently. It swings slightly with each step, bouncing against her ribs like an afterthought.
The kid stares. Frozen.
I want to yell at him—Don't be a teenage cliché, you beautiful idiot!
He doesn't blink until it's almost too late. Red's nearly on him, arms raised, moaning low.
He stumbles backward.
Thwack.
His back hits a tree trunk hard, and the impact wakes him up. He ducks under her arm and scrambles out of reach. Her fingers graze his hair.
He pants with relief. Same.
Then he turns and keeps going, quicker now.
Barbed wire snakes low across the next trail.
A bunch of us walk straight into it. Red's shirt snags, which frankly does nothing. A few others get caught and tangle, helpless.
Then it's my turn.
My right shin catches. There's a tug—sharp, metallic—and I feel the skin tear.
But my body doesn't stop.
It just rips forward.
I watch, helpless, as a full stretch of leg skin peels away like a loose glove. It flaps onto the wire, hanging like wet laundry.
If I had a stomach, I'd vomit. At least it was painless.
I want to scream, but my throat just lets out a low moan like a dying cello.
Ahead, the boy doesn't notice. He's already sprinting, flat-out now, darting into the trees with the kind of speed only fear and youth can summon.
Gone.
I hope he makes it.
We slow again.
The kazoo's gone. So is the kid. Whatever chase instinct we had is fading. The horde disperses slightly, reverting to the default setting: wander, moan, repeat.
I glance back.
It's a massacre.
Pits everywhere. Barbed wire.
And corpses.
More than a dozen of them, impaled or torn or broken. Some still moving. Some twitching. Some… quiet.
A fourth of the horde is gone.
Just like that.
I don't know whether to be horrified or impressed.
The Hendersons are professionals. I don't know how long they've been out here, but it shows. They knew what they were doing. They planned this, prepared this. And that kid? He moved like this was normal. Like setting traps for corpses was part of his afternoon chores.
I hope they made it out okay.
I hope they're hugging right now. Eating canned peaches and whispering about what to do next.
I wonder if the teens—Mark and Archer—would've been okay if they'd met the Hendersons first. Maybe they'd still be alive. Or maybe not. This world doesn't hand out a lot of second chances.
I wonder about Spike, too.
Was he one of them? An older brother? A black sheep? He didn't move like them. Didn't talk like them. But the timing, the area—it's too close to ignore.
If he was part of that family… he sure as hell took a different path.
The forest opens again.
The herd moves forward. Aimless, quiet.
I manage to look back one last time, my head on a slow, uncontrolled swivel.
Jacket's still in the pit, somewhere. Arms splayed like a marionette dropped mid-performance. The signpost keeping him stuck as can be.
I don't see movement, and in that state, I hope he never does again.
"Goodbye, Jacket," I whisper in my head. "You had a…nice sense of fashion".
You were a terrible conversationalist. But you were there.
Rest in peace.