“Yeah, I know, but if we wanted to start with the dead coming back to life in the first place…” I trailed off as I saw movement in the tall grass by the trees to my left. I brought my weapon up as Charlie loosed a tomahawk from its holder. We moved silently across the grass and waited. I whistled for a minute and finally grey-black hands slowly emerged from the edge of the small clearing, snaking out as if they were testing the new open space.

The skeletal hands clawed at the earth as they sought purchase to pull the rest of the body along. I say body loosely, since the zombie was nothing more than an upper chest, arms, head, and about a foot of backbone. The rest was simply gone, torn away, probably eaten. I had seen things like this before. Survivors trying to escape zombies by attempting to crawl through an opening too small for them. They get stuck, then they get eaten alive. Once the rest of the body no longer hinders forward progress, the zombie top can roam free. Generally speaking.

This one was very decayed and the dragging had worn away the leftover skin on the chest until white bone gleamed as it pulled itself forward. I had no idea if it was male or female, old or young. It just kept pulling itself slowly forward, locking its dead eyes on us. Its mouth opened to groan, but without lungs, that wasn’t going to happen.

Charlie stepped up quickly to it and with a single chop of his ‘hawk, turned off this zombie’s lights for good. He wiped the blade off in the grass, wiping it again with a small bit of rag we all carried with us for that express purpose. Even after two years, the virus was still deadly and would kill us quickly if we didn’t take precautions.

“Any others?” I asked, as Charlie tucked away his weapon.

“Just a couple of loners. Actually, I expected more, since this is the first really warm spring day that we’ve had,” Charlie said.

I nodded as I retrieved my bike and Charlie went to retrieve his. “Every time I start to think maybe they’re starting to thin out and decay away, another one shows up to make a liar out of me.”