Stained

I haven't had much time to write lately (more on that in a few days) but this evening I found myself with a spare hour, and feeling giddy with the possibility of it all.  I had a little story seed hit me in the head this afternoon, so I wrote it out, and started poking it with a stick to see what might come of it.

This is the beginning of it, with more percolating in my brain as I type (but I need to get to bed):

***

There aren’t many zombies left these days, but we keep patrol, regardless.  After all, it only takes one, and enough of us of us are old enough to remember what it was like during the First Panic to not want to take any chances, impassable walls or not.  Every day, every night, high summer or dead winter, five of us stand sentry, one on each wall, and we look out across the landscape for any signs of movement.  Sometimes we see something- and usually it’s a perfectly living nomad, sometimes a peddler, or even a caravan.  Very, very occasionally, it’s a zombie, usually moving pretty slowly by that point.  We let it get close, just to make sure it’s not leading anything else in (and, honestly, to make disposable a bit easier), and then we snipe it.  Usually two of us take the shot.  Some might call that a waste of bullets, but I say it pays to be sure.  Plus back when we only did one shot, we always knew exactly who killed it.  Which was fine until the day Pietor discovered he’d killed his long-missing sister.  What was left of her, anyway.  Yeah, we all know intellectually that zombies aren’t the people whose bodies they animate, but hearts don’t always care what brains know, and nightmares rarely consult the forebrain.

Anyway I was on the northeast wall, stomping my feet to ward off the cold and mentally encouraging dawn- and my replacement- to hurry up, when I caught sight of a flutter out on the horizon.  In a way the northeast wall is one of the easiest to patrol, because there’s nothing in that direction, just flat land as far as the eye can see.  To the northwest is similar, except there’s a lake to take into consideration.  West holds more lake, east  gets the rolling hills, and of course to the south is the forest.  In the early days we always had three people patrolling the south wall, because the forest likes to play tricks.

I squinted and leaned out over the parapet, not entirely certain it hadn’t been a low-flying bat.  The sky was lightening by that point, and whatever it was remained a black smudge against the blue ink of the horizon.  Not a swooping bat, then.  I hefted my rifle up to my shoulder so I could use the glass for a better view.

Human-shaped, whatever it was.  Time would tell if it was alive or not, but I was willing to bet it wasn’t: something about the gait said it was shuffling in a way that had nothing to do with being footsore.  Zombies slowed down when they were hungry, and they slowed down even more in the cold.  That’s why so many of us lived so far north these days; longer winters.  I’d heard rumors that the lands near the equator were damn near uninhabitable, because nothing ever cooled off, let alone froze over.  And nevermind what that kind of heat did to decaying flesh.  The mental image of soupy zombies, more liquid than solid, was guaranteed to turn my stomach every time.

I sighed deeply and settled in for a long wait.  At that speed whatever it was wouldn’t get close until after my watch was over, but if it really was a zombie, they’d need a second gun, anyway, so I might as well stay put.  And in the meantime, I checked on it periodically through the glass.

Before much longer Erin joined me on the wall, saying nothing but holding out a steaming mug.  I accepted the tea and jerked my chin out at the middle distance, where my “something” had resolved itself very definitely into a zombie.

“Got us some target practice,” I said.  “Something odd about it, tho’.  Can’t quite put my finger on it.”

Erin raised an eyebrow, then her rifle.

“Huh,” she said at last, and I could almost hear her squint.

“You see it too?” I asked.  She dropped the rifle.

“Yeah.  The skin looks… off.  Not like, rotting or peeling or any of the stuff you’d expect to see, just… weird.”

I nodded, satisfied that it wasn’t just me.  “Yeah.  Almost like it’s got markings.”

“Like tattoos?”  She peered through her glass again.  “Who would tattoo their face like that?”

“Maori,” I muttered.

“Who?”  Erin didn’t look away from the zombie, and I could tell she wasn’t that interested.  She was an adult, but young yet- only about sixteen.  She’d been born long after the First Panic, and her knowledge and experience had a lot more to do with survival in all it’s many forms than in cultures halfway around the world.  Still, I’d need to have a word with our teachers.

“We’ll talk about it later.  But it’s not just the face that’s tattooed, I don’t think.”

“Huh!  Well I’ll be damned.  I thought it was a patterned shirt.”

I looked through my own glass, trying to make sense of the dark and light patterns on the creature’s arms and torso.  Legs, too.  “Nope.  That’s what really convinced me it was dead: no one living would be walking around out there with so little clothing on.”

“You figure it’s close enough to put down yet?”  There was a touch of anxiousness in Erin’s voice.  This was her third patrol, and the first zombie we’d seen in over a year.

“Yeah, but I want to wait a little longer.  I want to figure out what’s going on with that skin.  Go fetch Sulaiman for me.”

That she didn’t argue with me showed how nervous she really was.  If she was older, or more experienced, she might have said something about plague, although it was rare for a zombie to be carrying one.  But she probably didn’t even realize that was a possibility.  Sulaiman, however, had trained under his doctor father, was on the council of five, and would have plenty to say about me letting an odd looking zombie get close to the walls.  I didn’t think it was diseased, tho’... but I did want another pair of experienced eyes on it.