The Zombie Hunter and the Zombie Hunted

The desert wind whispers through the dunes, The Zombie Hunter crouches looking at the long drag marks in the sand. The blackened sand reveals a bloody march. Zombies reside in swarms, so a single zombie wandering around means that hundreds more are lurking out in the desert somewhere. The Zombie Hunter knows the importance of finding them before they find you. Picking them off on your own terms is ideal. Being chased by the relentless horde of the undead is less than ideal. In the same way that dying is less than ideal. You can run from the horde on foot, you might even outrun them, but you will not outlast the endless pursuit of the eternally hungry zombies. That’s why when you find a herd of them, you kill them all.

The Zombie Hunter follows the wandering zombie's trail over dunes under the light of a full moon, following it all the way to a mining ghost town. The groaning and grumbling of the Undead fill the air like a hellish choir singing a chorus of damnation. The Zombie Hunter pulls out his binoculars and surveys the town. There are maybe 50-60 zombies stumbling around the streets. In the Zombie Hunter’s experience, there’s typically around the same number inside the abandoned buildings in the town. He sees a couple of zombies roaming toward the open shaft of the abandoned goldmine. This throws a proverbial wrench into the Zombie Hunter’s calculus. There could be two zombies in the mine, there could be two hundred. Only one way to find out. The Zombie Hunter pulls his hat down tight on his head and slides down the dune towards the town.

When he hits the bottom of the dune, he springs to his feet, dusting himself off before slinking over to the edge of town. He draws his .40 caliber pistol. It is semi-automatic, a slide-action dressed in various improvised attachments, including a laser pointer sight (another story for another time) and a silencer (a must in times like these). A single zombie meanders around the edge of town. A crimson dot flashes on the zombie’s temple before a .40 caliber, hollow-point bullet silently tears through its cranium traveling at 1,200 feet per second. Several zombies staggering down the road expire from the quiet cough of the Zombie Hunter’s .40. The Zombie Hunter reaches the first building and posts up next to the wall. He was illuminated in the bright moon light, it would be better to seek the seclusion of a darkened alleyway before seeking the next strategic vantage point. The Zombie Hunter quickly moves around the front of the building, but as he does two zombies turn the corner, surprising him. He quickly regains his composure, raising his pistol and dispatching them with ease. The Zombie Hunter slinks into the pitch-black alley. He drops to a knee, resting his shotgun against his knee, to reload the pistol, his heart beating out of his chest after that close encounter. He quickly and quietly drops the old magazine out and replaces it with a fully loaded one. Unfortunately, because of the beating of his heart and the blood rushing in his ears, he fails to hear the Undead shuffling behind him…

Narrated by Brandon Warner