The barn looked like it had recently been burnt down, even in the dense fog it still seemed to have a lingering heat and the stench of burning meat hung around the scorched grass closeby where the animals tried and failed to run away.
The owners either hadn't finished or hadn't bothered disposing of the remains - there were about eighteen cows lying around, mostly dead but a few were still gasping and trying to cry out in pain. They must have broken free at some point but far too late for them to survive.
A normal person in a normal world would be horrified, would call for help or put the poor beasts out of their misery and fast. We simply stayed in the truck and waited for the telltale signs of movement in the alleged dead ones - we'd seen this kind of trap before.
Somewhere in all the chaos of the rising dead, the animals learnt that we feel pity for them more so than our own kind to the point where we will endanger ourselves to help them. They bait us into rescuing a puppy from its dead mother's side and as soon as she feels the warmth of our body her jaws snap around our jugular and her puppies feed on our blood.
When they realised we weren't falling for it, the whole herd began to stand up and approach. We sped off as quietly as possible but one heifer was unburnt enough to call out to others in the area and before long we were facing a herd of hundreds, all burning and broken and desperately hungry.
Shame whoever started the fires didn't survive long enough to finish them but we've got a full tank and a grill guard full of nails - we'll outdrive them like we always do. Someone makes the obligatory remark on how undead humans seem dumber than undead animals and what if we've always been dumber than animals.
We joke and say they're welcome to get out and have a chat with the cows if they want to.
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