Morning Dawns

The evening quieted. The 'attack' was not repeated. Nor did it begin to make any more sense. I mean, it was clearly a zombie, not built for speed, so where did it get to? We all managed to go to bed or whatever but I don't know if anyone really slept. I dozed but I can't say that I slept. I rested. When the sun no longer allowed me to rest, I was still tired.

Slowly we got up and got going. There was a quietness to us, as if we were waiting for the next thing to happen, as if knowing we'd be attacked whilst munching on toast. Janet ate, which seemed to be a good sign. She also managed a little smile at one point. Small progress.

While still early, we made our way outside to the vehicles. We were all heading to town to speak with the police. No one wanted to be left behind in the cabin near the corpse. I blinked in the sunlight and stretched, trying to wake up a bit more. Fighting a yawn, I turned and looked down the driveway towards the road. There stood Tim. Or Zombie Tim.

Whichever.

Wha Ha?

Thankfully it wasn't too dark outside. The moon was full enough to reflect light down upon us. Light bled from the house to illuminate a zone around the building. I moved quickly but quietly, checking the shadows, moving towards the back of the cabin.

Once I got near the back, I slowed, not wanting to burst in on the possible zombie horde. I could hear murmuring from the back room and the occasional tap on the door. Good guys. Good help.

Slowly, carefully, I leaned around the side of the building to locate the creature.

I saw nothing.

I paused from confusion. How did that happen? Slowly I moved around the side of the building, searching for the zombie that we'd all seen. Nothing.

Cautiously I searched the 'backyard' area. Nothing. I approached the garage. The door was still locked as we had left it. I circled the building but found no trace of an exit.

We saw the creature at the back door. We heard the creature at the back door. So where did it go?

Quietly, confused, I returned to the cabin via the back door. Distracted as I was, I never thought twice about entering the cabin, but should have as I walked in and was immediately assaulted about the head and neck. Once I protested, the assault ceased. Dave managed to look more sheepish than Jeff. “Sorry.”

“I appreciate you looking to see who you were attacking before attacking,” I grumbled. “Golf clubs?”

“They were handy,” Dave noted.

Ouch.

A Plan

Do you ever have those moments where your normal is not the normal of the people around you? You say something you consider no big deal and other people get very excited or laugh or freak out in response. Or even the people around you say something and you're suddenly reminded that everyone doesn't think exactly like you do. It's not generally a bad thing. Most of the time its a good thing because you can learn something from the experience.

I made my declaration rather matter-of-factly. There appeared to be a zombie outside and I reported that to the group. I didn't want to make it sound like “Oh it's Thursday so here come the zombies” but I have seen enough strange things where one zombie appearing is not all that earth shattering, especially when I anticipated the possibility.

Now, the rest of my group must not have my experience in such like things. There was some confusion. There was some disbelief. There was a lot of panic. The confusion and disbelief could easily be dealt with by displaying the creature on the other side of the door. The panic was not so easy to dispel.

“But, but, but... that's impossible,” Dave sputtered.

“Improbable at least,” Jeff revised.

I just gave them a look. “Don't make me mis-quote Shakespeare. If its just this one, we should be okay.”

“But a zombie?” Dave checked. “That's not a problem?”

“A zombie,” I repeated, emphasizing the 'a' in my statement. “Not so much. If it was a zombie bear, that might be a problem. I'd rather face a dozen zombies than any vampires.”

“Vampires don't exist,” Dave informed me.

“Hey, some of my best friends are vampires,” I retorted.

“Very funny,” Dave responded.

Jeff considered this for a moment. “I don't think he's kidding.”

“And I'm not. Reinsert Shakespeare mis-quote here.” I'd located a shovel amongst the junk in the back closet. “This should do. Keep its attention here so I can sneak up on it.” To the 'how?' question I received, I answered “Tap on the door window occasionally to keep its attention here while I sneak around the cabin behind it.” Before I could receive any further protests or questions, I headed for the front door and outside.

What was that?

Things quieted down at that point. There was discussion about having a search for the bear or for evidence of a bear but it was dismissed as it was getting dark and we didn't know what we'd do if we found a bear. We tried to call the police to report what happened but the cabin phone didn't work and we couldn't get a signal on our mobile devices. We decided to run into town in the morning and report in person. It would keep until then.

Have you ever been without your communication technology recently? For that matter, have you been deprived of any technology recently? Its one thing to have to avoid meddling with your mobcomm for an hour during a meeting, its another thing entirely to have your computer break and be without it for a day or two. Or have your television break? You feel lost. Confused. It totally disrupts your schedule. You never realize how accustomed you become to certain things until they're gone. Suddenly, you can't double check any information because you can't get to the interwebs. If you're playing a game and lose your connection to it, the withdrawal can quickly become very painful.

This was the position we were in. Being unable to communicate our need for assistance was quite irritating, frustrating even. Logically, there was nothing else we could do but that didn't stop us from feeling the need to do something about it. At least the satellite television was functioning properly. That helped take my mind off of what had happened.

I don't mean to sound insensitive but I didn't really know the fella. Prior to today, I may have met him once or twice in passing. Now that he'd passed, my opinion of him didn't really change because I didn't really know him. Unfortunately I'd been in the presence of violent death before. While I felt bad about the situation, I was able to move on rather quickly. As the 'kids' both knew him well and were not so used to this sort of thing happening, they were more shook up. While they sat in the big room discussing this occurrence and the life lost, I stayed out of their way by watching television.

I'm not sure if it was the best idea under the circumstances. My belief that staying out of other people's way is helpful is sometimes interpreted as not wanting to help. It's not a lack of interest, just ability. I saw no good way to actively make things better so I got out of the way. Am I protesting too much? Probably. I sat there watching some sitcom that was so predictable it was irritating and tried to not think about the way Tim's face had been shredded.

There was a knock on the door.

It was a faint, soft sound that made me turn but was clearly my imagination. I returned my attention to commercials for products I neither needed nor wanted.

There was a knock on the door.

This time it was louder, more distinct, less of a knocking and more of a pounding. That didn't bode well. I spun in the chair and worked to peek out the window in order to see who might be at the door. I had a bad angle on the situation and couldn't see.

There was a pounding on the door.

I bounded from the chair, filled with the electric feeling that I was about to do something incredibly stupid. Even with this awareness, I still approached the door, I just did so with some caution. Carefully I moved the curtain covering the window in the door as little as possible but as much as I needed in order to see out. There stood Tim, well, slouched Tim, strips of meat dangling from his damaged face. He did not look well.

I backed away from the door and found that the pounding had attracted the attention of others as I bumped into Dave. After a quick apology, Dave asked what was going on.

“I think we have a zombie on our hands,” I explained.

Discussing ... uh, Plants

We were still pondering this as we returned to the cabin. “No tracks either,” Jeff muttered aloud.

“The ground is pretty dry,” I observed. “Not great for capturing prints.”

“You'd still think there'd be something left behind,” insisted Jeff. “A track, some hair, something.”

“Like a big steaming pile of bear business,” Dave offered.

“Yes, like that.”

“Yet, we have none of that,” I observed. “Just a damaged face and a weird smell.”

“You noticed that as well?” Jeff checked. “ I thought I was imagining it. Or that it was some of the nearby weeds.”

Dave coughed loudly. “It probably was weed,” he muttered. “Tim was a bit of a pothead. I'm pretty sure that's why they were outside; so he could smoke up.”

I shook my head. “That wasn't it.”

“I know he was a pothead,” Dave insisted. “I wasn't happy about it but that's not why we were friends or anything.”

I worked to dismiss his concerns. “No worries, didn't mean to imply that if I did. I'm just trying to say that smell wasn't weed.” Dave gave me a curious look so I added “I've been to concerts before Dave; I am familiar with that smell. And like you had the first pothead friend.” After a moment's consideration, I continued again. “Mike was a friend of a friend but I think that still counts.”

“American potheads are so sad,” Jeff declared. “I tried marijuana last year when I was in Amsterdam. Didn't care for it. Too much spit.”

I wasn't quite sure how to respond to that. I considered this for a moment before responding. “So you'd know what it smells like then.”

“I know what good marijuana smells like,” Jeff stated. “That didn't smell like good marijuana. Bad marijuana maybe, mixed with something.”

“Yes. Quite.”

Figuring Things Out (Not)

Thankfully there was a sizable garage to go along with the 'cabin'. While I'm not extremely squeamish, I hadn't wanted the body inside the house with us. I've seen too many weird things in the past to want a corpse that nearby. I've seen the dead walk before. There, I said it. No one ever believes me and it was the strangest of strange occurrences but it happened and I was there. If this fella got up and started wandering, we might have a chance of noticing before he was upon us.

Jeff had accompanied us in an effort to gather information regarding the situation. “Okay, see this makes no sense for a start. See these claw marks?” I wish I could say I didn't but that wasn't the case. “The pattern is all wrong. It looks like the bear was over him, taller than him, but the claws are too close together. The bear's paw should be much larger, two or three times larger than the human hand. This looks like it could have been my hand.” He spread his hand out to demonstrate his point.

“Ah ha!” I declared. “So you did it. Where's your bear costume?”

Jeff gave him a Hard Stare. “I didn't do this; don't be stupid.”

“Clearly I was not being serious,” I noted. “Just a little joke.”

“Very little,” Jeff responded. “Not funny.”

“Pity, we could use a laugh right now. Keep us from crying. Still,” I continued, “your's is a good point. We have an eyewitness, who's evidence might be considered suspect considering her current condition, pointing to a bear. We have the evidence of the damage before us that points to an inhuman attack and yet it doesn't quite match up with the concept of the bear attack. Where does that leave us?”

“Confused,” Dave answered.

“Yes, I'd agree with that,” I responded.

Bear Talk

Janet was in the kitchen, sitting before the table, a blanket wrapped around her. Her expression was blank, directed at the glass of water between her hands without seeming to see it. We needed information from her, but she wasn't in much of a position to provide it. Tina and Karen, Chris's girlfriend, both gently sought to get her to open up but she remained silent, staring through the water.

While we waited, we had nothing else to do but speculate. “Oh it couldn't have been a bear,” insisted Jeff.

“Why not?” Dave questioned. “It looked like he took a claw to the face.”

Jeff was very insistent on this matter. “Because there are literally no bears for miles. Bears don't spend time in this part of the state.”

“There was that bear that they had to tranquilize out of a tree in Milwaukee a couple years ago,” I noted. “From that I'd think bears might come this way sometimes.”

My point excited Jeff. “One time. One time in decades we get a bear in the city, one time gets lost and that's all it takes?”

I shrugged my shoulders. “I'm just saying it happened once. I'm not saying we're on the bear highway to Milwaukee or anything.”

“It happened once,” Dave reasoned, “it could happen again.”

Jeff gave him a 'you're an idiot look'. “Do you know what the odds are of that happening here?”

“Probably a billion to one. Or more!” Dave had gotten a bit wide-eyed and excited. I'd not really seen him get like this before. I found it interesting. “I'm sure you'll know whatever big number it is.”

“I do,” Jeff reassured. “And it is a big number. “

“You know, that's good, that's an excellent piece of information to have,” Dave noted. “None of it helps Tim. Does it matter if it's 'impossible' for it to be a bear or not? I'm not saying its probably that it was a bear, but it's not impossible.”

“It's improbable,” Jeff stated. “Highly unlikely.”

“But not impossible,” Dave pushed.

“I never said it was impossible,” Jeff clarified. “Just improbable enough to be impossible. It just can't have been a bear.”

“It was a bear.” Janet's voice wavered and shook. She was barely audible compared to the raised voices we'd just heard. As quiet as she was, her words cut through the room. “I saw it; it was a bear. A bear that killed Tim.” She repeated this once or twice more before busting into tears. Already at her side, Tina and Karen swarmed to comfort her.

Dave found a way to look concerned and smug at the same time. “There. Eyewitness says bear.” Jeff again protested the unlikelihood of this occurrence but that did nothing to change the evidence we currently had before us.

With that settled, Dave turned to me. I'd said I'd help move the corpse if it wasn't a crime scene and it looked like random misadventure. Bother. I had sort of hoped I wouldn't have to pay off on that. Still, a promise was a promise.