Zombie - Snippet #1

The jungle was quiet. The rustle of the canopy was hushed. Then, with a thundering crash, the silence was broken. The man fell out of the jungle wall, torn and bleeding. Landing on his face, he slowly pushed himself up and kept moving. His eyes stared ahead not seeing anything.
At one time he might have been handsome, sharp featured and deeply tanned. He had the worn look of someone who had spend their life outside. Now his face was ashen and torn, with half of his bottom lip torn off. Stumbling again he fell to his knees, landing on packed dirt. He blinked once, staring dumbly at the two hard pack lanes cutting through the jungle. A distant part of his mind surfaced. He didn’t recognize what his thoughts said, so alien to him was it. Then the words started registering.
RoadroADroadRoadROADroadROadROAD

His feet propelled him along the worn jungle road, slapping down on the baked dirt surface dully. Out of the trees the breeze tugged at his stiff clothes. Caked with grime and gore, they hung loosely on his emaciated frame.
HomeGoHomeHOMEneedtoGOHOME the little voice in his head, spurred on by finding the road, began babbling. The haze started shifting, letting more thoughts come near the surface. He knew he had gotten away… AWAYfromITCAn’tTHINKaboutITitITITDON’TTHINKDON’TTHINK!!!!

He collapsed to the road, clutching his ruined face and screaming, a high-pitched keen. It’s a slaughterhouse noise, a primal, horrible noise. Whatever humanity might have started sneaking back into his dead eyes recedes like a dark tide, leaving his eyes empty and barren. Pushing himself up, he continues down the road.

*****

 Alejandro had been driving this route for years, taking the boxes of supplies to the lumber camps and picking up the outgoing dispatches. He had every twist and turn of his little dirt road memorized and found himself singing along to the battered little radio on his passenger seat to alleviate the boredom. It took him a moment to register the ragged form trudging down the road ahead of him. Rolling the truck to a stop, Alejandro noted the dirty khakis and the blue shirt. Must be a logger, lost and trying to get back to camp Alejandro thought as he leaned his head out the window.
“Hey friend, you need a lift?” Alejandro asked in Portuguese then repeated in English. The walking figure didn’t acknowledge either. Idiot, probably drunk With a creak of old springs, Alejandro stepped out of the truck and yells at the figure again, with still no response. With a sigh, Alejandro started walking up to the stumbling man.

 As he drew nearer, the smell hit him first. Alejandro felt his gorge rise in the back of his throat. Sharp and pungent, the smell of blood and human waste combined to bring water to Alejandro’s eyes. Through the tears, Alejandro noted the dried and flaking gore on the man’s hands and clothes. Madre de dios! The figured stopped. Slowly he turned to face Alejandro. The man’s cheeks were torn and scratched and half of his lower lip looked like it had been torn free. The man’s clothing was caked in blood and his hands were shattered, white shards of bones peeking through the skin of the mangled fingers.

All of these things registered in Alejandro’s mind in an instant, but one detail eluded him. His eyes darted about, circling the last detail but, almost of their own accord, refusing to alight on the last detail. Finally, Alejandro looked at the man’s ruined face and met his eyes. They stood there, staring at one another for a moment. Then Alejandro started screaming.