A Clue?

“This makes no sense,” Karen declared. “Why are we doing this?” All of my limited interaction with her has been unpleasant. It's still not clear to me if this was her way of dealing with unpleasant circumstances, to retain control of them, or if she was just an unpleasant person.

I stomped towards the garage, the others trailing behind me. “Because I feel we're being told something about what's going on here but we aren't hearing it.”

Karen had no issue expressing her thoughts on this matter. “Are you nuts?”

“Probably!” We piled into the garage. It was a large structure with space for at least a couple vehicles, a handful of off-road vehicles, and a large tool bench. Upon this tool bench is where we had laid Tim's corpse. A figure still lay there beneath a tarp.

For a moment, no one spoke. There was some sniffing and loud breathing, but no speech. Tina fought through her tears to ask “What are we looking at?”

Dave quietly answered. “That's where we left Tim to rest.”

“He hasn't got much rest so far,” Jeff commented.

Slowly I approached the bench, prepared for the possibility that the prone figure might suddenly move but continuing on as if it would not. “Are you nuts?” Jeff hissed.

“I believe I answered that question already,” I murmured. I lifted the tarp. Tim lay below it, motionless.

Some sounds of disgust met this action. “Is this really necessary?” Karen demanded.

“Yes, I think so,” I pondered, forcing myself to stare at the corpse before me, looking for the clue my brain kept telling me was there.

“He doesn't look like he's been up walking,” Dave declared.

“What should he look like if he was up walking?” asked Jeff.

“I don't know,” Dave responded, “but that's not it.”

Tina sniffed. “He looks congealed.”

“He doesn't, doesn't he?” My brain recognized this as a piece of the puzzle but I knew I had to keep my mouth running in order to motivate my brain. “Congealed. Stopped. Collecting. But yet a few moments ago we sat him upright and fresh.” I dropped the tarp. “There's a difference, isn't there?”

“Was it yet the way the sun was illuminating him?” Jeff conjectured.

“I don't think so.” Images of the freshly wounded looking Zombie Tim flashed through my brain. “There's a difference between the two.”

“Two?” Dave echoed. “How are there two? Why would there be two? Someone's imitating him?”

“It seems likely. This Tim is changing, settling, solidifying. The Tim we saw outside was in motion, fresh looking, like... like a snapshot of that last moment.”

Karen huffed. “This is stupid. Let's just go to the police. It's their job to figure out why this happened and who's doing it, not us.”

Chris cleared his throat quietly. “She has a point. Let's get the professionals in.”

I nodded. “Yes. Yes of course.”

As we exited the garage, Karen's mouth kept moving. She grumbled about the delay in departing, how dumb us men were to speculate about these impossible things, and started discussing where we might go after dealing with the police. Once we were outside, a weird looking bear emerged from the trees, swatted Karen to the ground, and growled loudly. Then there was a lot of running.

She Ought Not Have Done That

Tim's reappearance did not bode well. Whatever might have been causing his reappearance, the message that his presence gave was clear to me: Don't leave.

This did complicate the situation slightly. We were going to report Tim's death via accident, a believable occurrence, but here we had a walking, well, shambling, undead Tim, which was less believable. We should be able to plow him over with the car as we left but would there be more behind him? Would car crash damage to his person make it look like we had something to injure him? A good coroner would be able to tell the difference but who know if that would be the case? Or would the evidence be twisted against us? It was unlikely but unreasonable people are plentiful.

I blame these considerations running through my head for distracting me when Janet reacted to Tim's presence. I don't know what thoughts went through went through her mind when she broke away from us and ran to Tim. Perhaps her tortured mind no longer saw the damage to his face or the unsteadiness of his stance. Perhaps she just saw Tim, saw him upright, and thought the events of yesterday were just a nightmare. Whatever her logic, she bolted from us and we were unable to stop her from reaching Tim.

She reached out to embrace him. He reached out to slash open her throat. Of the two, Tim was the one that succeed. Having accomplished this, he shuffled to the front of the cabin.

Moments later we were around Janet. Chris, as it turns out, is an EMT so, as he was one with the most medical training, the rest of us did out best to stay out of his way. Jeff and I did a quick look around for Zombie Tim but found nothing. Nothing visible anyway.

“There's that smell again,” I noted. “The one we noticed when we found Tim originally.”

“Yeah, I smell it too,” Jeff agreed. “Dry but sweet. You'd think there'd be a foul edge to it, of rotting. Nothing strong yet something.”

We were nearly back to the rest of the group. “Its almost...” I struggled to process the smell into words. “Like lavender and something.” Saying the words aloud made them sound familiar. “I know that description. Why do I know that description?”

Chris' declaration broke my train of thought. “She's dead.”