Day Three:
I had nightmares that night. I don't remember the details, just flashy images. Blood, darkness, violence. You would be forgiven for assuming bad dreams were common place these days with the world the state that it's in, but for me nightmares were always a rarity and a bit of a shock.
I lay there in the dark, trying to calm myself and working the pins and needles sensation from my fingertips and toes, while listening to the distant groans from the zombie hotties that seemed to be mirroring the rush of the wind in the trees outside and trying to remind myself that I was safe. That the chair was still under the door handle securing the only entrance to this bedroom and that the chains I had slung criss-crossing the hall from the bathroom door handle to the living room door handle, as a makeshift early warning system, were still in place and were blissfully silent.
I must have eventually drifted off back to sleep.
*****
Because of the nightmares, I ended up sleeping in late and it was mid morning before I was up, fed and got my equipment together.
I'd lay in bed for a while, fighting the desire to fuck and distracting myself from my lust by working out a plan to transport the girls from the house without putting myself in danger. Once I had the plan sorted in my head I got up and started moving around the house gathering up the things I would need.
After giving them as big a breakfast as I could get down them, I freed and then carefully re-chained the two babes individually. And then using chains like a lead, I took the two hotties out into the woods with me.
I positioned them face to face around a tree using the handcuffs to keep them together and then tied them to the broad trunk with a length of washing line.
However, I deliberately only tied a basic loose knot which with a little zombie wriggling and writhing, they should be able to escape from in a few minutes.
Finally, I unfastened the hand cuffs and Cat's ring gag and backed away quickly, leaving them to it and satisfied that I had helped them and paid off my self imposed debt.
*****
I set off through the woods again, heading due north. I walked for a while, stopping in the late afternoon at the stream to cool myself off, wash and replenish my water supply.
I've found continued cleanliness goes a long way to aid with personal morale as well as with physical health.
I felt like I should be stopping for something to eat but I didn't feel the need, I didn't have any appetite and felt energised and alert and buoyant so I pushed on through the twilight.
*****
It wasn't long after sunset, that I started to notice the scent of wood smoke somewhere off to my left and I diverted my path toward the smell.
These days wood smoke meant one of two things. One, a natural fire, which could be dangerous. Though on this occasion there wasn't much wind and there had been less than a week (as far as I could remember, the days tend to pass as a hazy blur these days) since the last heavy rain fell so natural bush fire wasn't likely.
The other option was a camp. Which could also be dangerous and simultaneously, strangely un-ignorable.
I was cautious and stealthy. I hid my backpack under a fallen tree and advanced lightweight, just weapons, medicine and water.
You never knew what you would come up against with a camp. Could be nice peaceful people willing to share food and news and company, or it could be wild scavengers who would kill you for your supplies as soon as look at you.
I could see signs of recent movement through the undergrowth, it was a trodden path, wide and obvious and there was a scent in the air of death, rotting flesh and open sores. Zombies.
The first thing I heard was shouting, deep, male, desperate, angry and afraid.
Then I heard the screams and recognised Emily's voice, loud, high pitched. It was stark in its terror and panic.
I couldn't believe it was them and that we had crossed paths again so quickly. I supposed that they must have ventured off course the previous day and they hadn't made much progress either.
I threw off the stealthy option and started running through the undergrowth, drawing one of my Katana swords as I threw myself into a sprint.
They had set up their camp in a clearing in the woods. The small two person tent was up and a small fire was burning a few feet away from it.
I couldn't see either Emily or Dean at first glance but I could see seven zombies.
Four of them were over by a large tree to the western side of the clearing. I could hear Dean cursing and yelling from over there too, sounding like he was in a near panic. But really I was only interested in Emily.
The other three were lumbering towards the tent. That meant that was where she had to be.
Then I saw her, or at least I saw the business end of the shotgun pop out from the mouth of the tent and a huge blast of flame-shot white smoke filled the space between the tent and the first zombie. She aimed low but recoil threw the muzzle high and took off the head and shoulders of the undead attacker in a noisy cloud of red gore touched with off white bone dust and shrapnel.
"Dean! Deeean!!" She screeched as she pumped the shotgun and racked another round.
I sprinted into the fray and took off the head of the rear most zombie going after Emily. I aimed my sword cut right through the base of his skull, cutting right through the cerebellum and ending his animated state in a split second, but with the angle I wasn't able to carry through and complete the decapitation.
I know all too well about the kind of cloying suction that human innards are capable of, especially on bladed weapons, so instead of wasting precious seconds trying to free the sword from the corpse's skull I left it embedded there and drew my second blade instead.
Emily was kneeling in the entrance of the ruined tent, looking terrified, with eyes like saucers, but she had the shotgun in her hands and was aiming it at the last zombie, so I turned my attention to Dean.
I could see that he was done for before I even got within range of using my sword. One of them was ripping mouthfuls of bloody gushing flesh from his bared calf while he screamed. The other three were on him, crouching down, pressing against him with their collective weight and all the while writhing in their desire to pull his clothing out of the way and get at the hot, wiry flesh and muscle and sinew beneath.
I saw him trying to claw at the head of one of the undead as it dipped down. His hand grabbing the zombie's scalp, which all but came away with loose hair, and rotten flesh and wriggling maggots. The exposed skull zombie didn't acknowledge the injury, just burrowed further into the mass of struggling bodies and then Dean's curses and panicked, desperate, yells degraded into a shriek of sheer unadulterated terror, the shriek almost instantly floundering into a horrible, wet, bubbly, gargling noise.
The zombie had chewed into his throat and was making his way south, while Dean choked on his own hot blood flow, dying slowly in his blind terror. Held down and eaten alive.
I used the sword hard and fast, taking the small amount of technique I remembered from the Samurai films, a few books on Japanese swords and my own experiences with the blades to cut through rotting flesh and bone.
