In the morning, I got a nasty surprise. I stepped out of the cabin to stretch and I found myself faced with about fifteen zombies. They were standing on the pier and when they saw me they raised a ghoulish chorus that echoed across the water. Much to my dismay, I heard an answering chorus downriver. Charlie came out of the cabin with his gun ready, but I pushed it down. The zombies were just standing on the pier, but they clearly wanted to get to us. I thought it was interesting that they retained enough intelligence to recognize water. I told Charlie to start the motor and when he was ready, I would cut the line.
Charlie started the engine and at the sound, the zombies became more agitated. One fell into the river and drifted dangerously close until he finally sank under the surface. The boat eased forward and when there was slack in the line, I quickly severed it and Charlie slewed the boat around, taking us away from the dock of the undead.
As we approached Ottowa it was easy to see that the city had been hit hard. Given its proximity to the interstate, I really wasn’t that surprised. What did surprise me was the crowds of zombies standing along the edge of the river. There had to be hundreds, if not thousands, and they were standing wherever they could. The bridge spanning the water was packed with zombies as well and they were held in place by a huge pile of debris. If it was twenty feet high, it was an inch. As we moved underneath the bridge, I could see movement on the south side of the river. I looked closely and saw living people. I waved a hand in greeting and they tried to wave me over, but I shook my head. “We’ll be back,” I said, the words sounding unnaturally loud over the stillness of the morning. The zombie crowd took up a moaning that rebounded off the cliffs and hills. If there was a zombie within a mile, they heard that undead song.
We sped away and headed downriver and I was getting anxious to reach the state park. Starved Rock got its name from the legend that a group of Indians had become trapped on the top of the formation by enemy Indians and they subsequently starved to death. In later years, the rock formation was home to a French fort, named Fort St. Louis which was placed there to protect French trading interests in the region. The rock was home to a hotel and after that it became a state park. A number of trails wound their way through the hills and limestone cliffs and it was not uncommon to find a waterfall or two feeding the river from forgotten streams. A lodge had been built on the cliff overlooking the river during the CCC days of the Great Depression and a visitor center had been erected in recent years to educate the tourists about the history and wildlife of the area.
In all honesty, I wasn’t sure I was going to find my brother. For all I knew, he had moved on, figuring me for dead. But I needed to at least try and that was the point of this journey. I decided to put the boat in at the far end of the park and we would work our way through the trails, making sure we didn’t miss anything. Just because my brother said he was going to be at Fort St. Louis didn’t mean he was going to sit on top of a rock until I showed up.
We brought the boat into a small inlet and beached it. Charlie cut the engine and we jumped ashore, bringing the remaining mooring line to tie up to a tree. I wasn’t exactly sure where we were, since I didn’t have a map, but the good news was maps were all over the trails, letting you know exactly how far from your car you were. The vegetation was not yet full, as summer had a month to go before being in full swing, but it was still pretty greened over. The large trees bracketed the trail and brush reached in from the sides. Large ferns were growing and would eventually cover the ground. I could hear movement from small animals as we headed west, jumping out of our way, chattering their disapproval. The morning sunlight made the tops of the trees light up like they were on fire while the ground was still dark. We had to move through this and I was hoping we had arrived unnoticed.
We moved quickly along the river, our progress fairly silent, save for the occasional water dweller that dove for safety as we passed. Charlie nudged me as we went past a trail marker and said, “Something’s not right.”
I stopped and looked around. “What do you mean?” I said in a low voice.
Charlie scanned the area with his rifle and scope. “Something’s watching us.”
“Zombie?” I asked, raising my carbine.
“Don’t know. How much farther?”
I looked at the marker. “Maybe three quarters of a mile, maybe more.”
“Good. This is giving me the creeps,” Charlie said.
That made me nervous. Anything that could creep out a guy like Charlie who had seen and done the things he had, was something worth avoiding.
We moved forward, with our senses on higher alert. I could feel something out there as well, but I couldn’t get a read on what it was. I held my carbine low, ready to snap it up and fire in an instant. We moved quickly, but carefully. And all the while we checked all around us. I thought I saw a ghost of movement in the shadows down a trail to a canyon and brought my gun up, but didn’t see anything else.
Charlie saw my movement. “Anything?”
“No. But you’re right, something is out there, I’m sure of it.” To emphasize my point, something large moved suddenly in the brush behind us, but it was still too dark to see clearly.
“We’re being hunted” Charlie said, gripping his rifle tighter.
“You’re right.” I stepped forward again. “We are. We’d better get moving to some open space. Keep your eyes open, check everything, especially the trees. Too many places to hide up there.”
We doubled our pace, moving past a stairway to an overlook, heading west. The beauty of the forest was marred by the ominous feeling we got from the darkness. The sun was getting higher in the sky and the forest was becoming lighter, but there were still plenty of places to hide. In all honesty, I would have rather had a zombie gunning for me than whatever it was out there. At least a zombie was predictable.
The trail wound inward and if anything else that made it more tense. When the trail was by the river we didn’t have to worry about an attack from water which left three sides to worry about. Now we had to worry about all sides.
After about a quarter mile, Charlie spoke suddenly. “I wish whatever the hell is out there would just get it over with. This stalking shit is getting on my nerves.”
I nodded, but his sentence struck a nerve. Stalking. It raised a question I had never considered before. What happened to the animals in the zoos? Sure, most of them would die of starvation after a while or freeze to death, but what about those that had the ability to get out? If I had to guess, we were being stalked by a large animal, possibly a cougar or other exotic animal.
I related my thoughts to Charlie as we moved up towards another overlook.
Charlie shook his head. “It’s fucking crazy, but it makes sense. As if we didn’t have just the zombies eating us to worry about, now we have to worry about big cats eating us.”
“Could be worse,” I said.
“How the hell could it be worse?” Charlie said, stepping over a fallen tree branch.
“Zombie cougars.” Even though I was joking, there was a serious side. If the virus jumped species and made zombies out of animals, we had a whole shit load of new problems to worry about.
We moved up a stairwell to Eagle Cliff Overlook and looked out over the expanse of water that made the Illinois River. The rising sun glanced off the water, sending small shafts of light back to the heavens. The forest spread out in front of us and we could see the roof top of the lodge from where we were.
“We’re close,” I said, heading back to the stairs.
“So is that,” Charlie said, pointing. A treetop suddenly swayed and another moved just as suddenly, as if something heavy had jumped from one tree to another. Watching the spot, I headed back down the stairs, but when we went around an outcropping of rock, the spot I had marked was empty.
“We know you’re there…” I said, moving forward again.
“Here, kitty, kitty, goddamn kitty,” Charlie said through gritted teeth, tightening his grip on his rifle.
We moved away from the overlook and headed deeper into the woods. It was unnaturally quiet and my nerves were quickly becoming undone. I had faced hundreds of zombies, but I had never been this nervous. From the sweat I could see on Charlie’s face, he felt the same way.
A rustle in the trees caught my attention. In a flash I brought my rifle up and fired a shot, the echo blasting through the forest. Charlie whipped his rifle up, ready to cover me. I saw a tawny shape disappear into the brush and it was then I knew what was stalking us.
“Did you get it?” Charlie asked, still trying to find something to shoot at.
“No, but I scared the crap out of it,” I said, staring hard at the spot where it had disappeared.
“What was it?”
“Cougar.”
“You sure?”
“Go look if you doubt it,” I said.
“Screw that. Where do you think it came from?” Charlie asked.
“Probably from a zoo, followed the river and ended up here. Can’t fault it for its choice of hunting ground.”
We moved forward again, angling west more. I figured that shot would have alerted anyone in the vicinity that someone was here. Carbines are notoriously loud and mine was no exception. If my brother was here, he had to know someone was in his backyard by now.
The heavy brush started to thin out and I could see some clearings up ahead. If memory served correctly, we were pretty close to our objective.
A few more yards and we were in the clear. I looked around and noticed a pair of legs sticking out from under a bush. Moving closer, I saw it was a zombie or what used to be a zombie. Its grayish skin and bloodstained clothing gave it away. However, it was dead because of the massive bite in its neck and the large bites which had penetrated its skull. Chunks of meat had been ripped of it, leading me to believe this zombie had met our little kitten in the woods.