Slowly We Rot by Bryan Smith Page B

flesh.  He’d never seen an animated corpse as
diminished as this one.  The one that had come to his cabin a few days ago had
been robust by comparison and until now it had been one of the frailest-looking
dead things he’d ever seen.
              Noah took a hunting
knife from his utility belt and leaned through the open door into the van
again.  The dead thing turned its head in his direction, jaw opening to display
rows of yellow teeth and shriveled, blackened gums.  The jaw snapped shut and
opened again.  A bony finger reached out and scratched weakly at the uncarpeted
floorboard, seeking purchase.
              Noah observed it a
while longer, unable to comprehend how the spark animating the thing hadn’t
gone out long ago.  In theory, the viability of the reanimating virus was
dependent on the presence of a minimally functioning brain.  This thing’s state
of decay was so advanced that any withered biological trace of its brain had to
be about as functional as a rock.  And yet here this thing was, animated and
still driven by a compulsion to attack and consume flesh.
              How that could be
possible was beyond Noah’s understanding.  He was no scientist.  The thing was
creepy as hell and in dire need of being put out of its misery.  That was all
he needed to know.
              Noah leaned a little
closer and the thing’s jaw opened and snapped shut again.  He raised the blade
and slammed it down through the top of its skull.  It immediately ceased
struggling.  At the outset of the plague, it’d been quickly determined that you
killed the dead things by killing their brains.  This one had been no
different, despite its deteriorated condition.
              The thing’s head came
away from its shoulders when Noah tried pulling the thick blade out of the skull. 
He backed out of the van and held the impaled head aloft, frowning as he turned
it this way and that, again mystified by how something so fragile could have
remained animated for so long.
              Noah shivered as he
thought about his hours asleep in the van, all that time of sitting there
oblivious while this thing worked determinedly to extract itself from the
tangle of remains in the back and come after him.  He was extremely fortunate
it had been so weak and decayed.  A stronger, or even slightly less
deteriorated, zombie would have killed him during the night.  If nothing else,
a lesson had been learned.  He wouldn’t survive very long out here if he didn’t
exercise proper caution.  And any set of remains, no matter how decayed, had to
be considered a threat until confirmed otherwise.
              He pried the knife
loose, tossed the head over the guardrail, and leaned into the van again. 
Before retrieving the backpack from the passenger seat, he peered into the back
of the van to verify that there were no more feeble old dead things trying to
get to him.  Detecting no hints of reanimation among the other sets of remains,
Noah sheathed the hunting knife, grabbed the backpack, and got out of the van. 
He reached in one more time to grab the rifle, pausing as something on the
floorboard caught his eye.
              It was a locket
attached to a delicate gold chain.  Noah let go of the rifle and snatched up
the necklace.  He opened the locket and frowned at the picture inside it, which
showed an attractive young blonde woman posing with a man about the same age.  He
assumed the woman was the zombie he’d just killed.  The necklace had obviously
slipped to the floor after his accidental removal of her head.  Noah guessed
the guy had been her husband or boyfriend.  They had their arms around each
other in the picture.  They were smiling and happy.  Like the picture of Lisa
in his pocket, the locket photo was a glimpse of a better time. 
              Noah closed the locket
and pressed it into the dead woman’s withered hand, grabbed the rifle,