Walking back, he left as many signs of his passing as possible, breaking branches wherever he could. When he had to return here in a few hours, he wanted to be able to find the pod, and not have to search around. Hopefully, it would be day by then, and he would have some light.

Tarsus lay where he had left him, bleeding, sweating and utterly helpless on the ground, next to his tree. Patrick had been in such a hurry to reach Hyram's pod, he had entirely forgotten the predicament the poor kid had been in. Flung from his trunk, but with no way to get back up. He ran towards him, scooping him up and putting him on the blood slicked wood. This wasn't a suitable spot, but he had nothing better. The morning would come soon now, or so he hoped. He would set out to find water.

The kid groaned, his hands and face twitching restlessly. Patrick dragged the case closer and searched through the foil-wrapped packets of medicines. There had to be painkillers here. Every kit had them in abundance. He bit off a corner of a meal bar, chewing on the hard, dry grains to get them to soften and easier to swallow. It felt like trying to break down a piece of rock, but every tiniest bit of it tasted like sweet heaven.

The pink one, he decided. It had to be the pink hypo-spray. He administered it, and to his relief he saw the boy quiet down, his hands falling limp. Maybe too much. Maybe a narcotic, instead of a painkiller. Well, it was too late now. He was out.

The loud moan almost made him jump. It came from the opposite direction, not from Tarsus. Another survivor? Someone was walking through the bushes towards the fire, making more noise than he thought possible. Was whoever it was trying to hit as many trees as they could? The moaning raised the hairs on his arm. He knew he should run towards them, help them, bring them to his fire, but he stood there, feet rooted to the ground. Terror filled his mind without reason. He couldn't think, he couldn't move. There was only that dreadful, forlorn and deeply tortured sound no human throat should make.

He squinted at trees, trying to pierce the darkness there. Did the shadows there look deeper? They did seem to move a little, but was that the wind or something trying to break through? The darkness had become more than the lack of light. It breathed, it moved, it had become a creature all of its own. His heart drummed a loud staccato in his chest and it got harder to breathe with every beat.

He had to help whoever it was!

He couldn't.

They needed his help!

He couldn't! No matter how hard he would try, he couldn't help anyone. When were they going to learn that? Look at him. Here he was, helpless. The youngster behind him was counting on him to save him, but what could he do? Precisely, nothing. And Hyram, out there in the wilds, he.... Well, he didn't want to think about that yet. He couldn't help him either. He couldn't help anyone, ever. He couldn't even breathe right, he couldn't... he couldn't...

The creature that broke through the bushes drove that spike of terror even deeper into his brain. He had been expecting one of his crew, or maybe one of the refugees. He had been counting on having to deal with more dreadful injuries, and his overactive imagination had already conjured up all kinds of horrific images of the wounds they might have suffered. What he hadn't been expecting was something... else.

It was human-shaped, walking slowly, lumbering, on two legs. Rags that once must have been proper cloths hung over an emaciated frame, its arms sticking out wide in front of it, as if it tried to keep its balance. Green tinged skin stretched tight over a face that was nothing more than a skull, torn in places, showing the white of bone gleaming underneath. Yellow teeth, some broken to sharp points, were bared in a silent rictus, chomping and gnashing on air with ravenous hunger. The eyes that fixed him on the spot were too wide, too round, and rolled from side to side in its head, without a scrap of recognizable sanity left.

This nightmare came for him, shambling one torturous step after another, mindless and disregarding everything around it, snapping heavy branches like they were match sticks. The stench of rot hung heavy around it. It permeated his nose and mouth, attacking him from the inside.

Zombie!

His mind screamed the word at him, repeating it over and over, as he scrambled frantically backwards, barely avoiding the campfire fire.

A weapon! He needed a weapon!

His stick, close at hand, felt paltry and woefully ineffective against a creature like this, but it was all he had. His knuckles whitened as he gripped it, holding it out in front of him like a warding against evil.

Zombies didn't exist! They were creatures of old movies, horror stories, used to frighten kids. They were the Undead, risen from the grave. Rotting flesh animated by an eternal, unsatisfiable hunger.

Not. Real.

Now if only someone could get that message to this creature.

The monster moaned again, and it wasn't weak or pained at all. It was the deep lowing of a bull, right before a charge.

Patrick jabbed his stick at it, retreating another step. It caught the stick with one hand, blackened fingers with strips of flesh hanging from the fingertips gripping it, and with a seemingly effortless snap, crushing it into splinters.

With a yelp, Patrick fell back, losing his balance with the sudden release of his former weapon.

That could have been him!

His heels touched the heavy case. He was now the only thing standing between that thing and Tarsus. He could run, now. The zombie would probably break the kid into bits before using him as breakfast, and it would give him precious time to escape, to find a safe place, to hide. But for how long? And what if there were more?

It would kill Tarsus and eat him, hopefully in that order, if he stepped aside.

He ducked just in time to evade another swipe, bending low, his hands scrabbling in the mud. He needed another weapon, anything!

His fingers touched something hard and cold, and without thinking, he took it, brandishing it like a mighty blade. He wanted to sit down and cry when he saw what it was. Scissors. Safety scissors, with nice and friendly rounded points lest one inadvertently hurt someone while trying to stab them in self-defense.

He cursed the utter lack of foresight of the people designing the things. How was anything like that going to help him? It was useless as a weapon, unless he threw it, and then, where would he be?

"Back!" he said, and hated how his voice quavered.

"Get back, you!"

He retreated another step, his legs now firmly against the trunk with Tarsus on it.

Nowhere to go now. This was it.

To his surprise, the zombie stopped and cocked its head, trying to focus its unwilling eyes on him. It then did something that was even more terrifying than anything until now. It smiled even wider.

Before he could blink, it lunged head first, teeth snapping at his head, only the steel scissors blocking its way.

He screamed, but forced himself to stay where he was, his body blocking the thing from Tarsus. The teeth let go of the steel, and he knew this was it.

"Sorry, kid," he rasped, and closed his eyes.

There was a loud thwack and a rush of air, and then the zombie hit him like a ton of bricks. He screamed, and screamed as it tried to crush him against the tree trunk, falling on top of him.

He screamed until he had no air left in his lungs and all he could do was gasp in fetid mouthfuls of rot.

A hand grabbed him, heaved, then pulled him out from under the dead weight of the thing.

Dead. Well, it was a zombie, so it was dead already, but as he was dragged clear, he saw the thing lay still. Its head had rolled some way off, blindly staring up at the night's sky, its mouth still open.

He looked at it in incomprehension as another man stood before him, grinning wide through a bushy beard. He had a long-handled axe leaning nonchalantly over his shoulder, one hand stretched out to him in a friendly gesture.

Still dazed and feeling oddly numb, he reached out and gripped it, wincing under the crushing handshake.

"Lloyd Maxwell the Third," the man said, "at your service."

"What—"

"Don't worry, it's dead. It's also probably not infectious. Not to us, in any case. Well, I'm still around, that's all I have to go by for now, so we'll have to see. Do you have any bites, scratches, anything?"

"Wh-hat?"

"No matter, no matter."

Releasing his hand, the man stepped neatly over the fallen body and walking back to the fire.

"They don't like light. And I mean seriously dislike, as in: sunlight can burn them to a crispy cinder. This fire.... That's not going to work. You have to build it up, make it a lot bigger if you insist on camping out in the open. Those zombies have some serious dead-ication when it comes to getting their snacks."

"I'm not—That pun's awful! Who are you again?"

"Lloyd Maxwell the Third. You may call me Lloyd."

"Ah. I'm—"

"We'll get there. First things first, let's get the most important question out of the way immediately."

Lloyd rubbed his hands while looking around the paltry sight.

"Do you have any coffee?"