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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Special thanks to Cassandra; Geoff; Mike; Mikey; The Keenes; Gina; Don;
Shane; the members of Life of Agony and Power Plant; Tom Piccirilli and Richard Laymon for their help with the first draft; Alan Beatts and John Urbancik for their help with the final draft; and Gary Conner, Sarah Johnson, and Mary Beth Oswald for their technical assistance.
Authors Note: Though many of the locations and highways in this novel are real, I have taken certain fictional liberties with them. So if you live in one of the places we are about to visit, don’t look for your house. You won’t find it, and probably wouldn’t want to know what lives there now …
The dead scrabbled for an entrance to his grave. His wife was among them, as ravenous for Jim in death as she’d been in life. Their faint, soulless cries drifted down through ten feet of soil and rock.
The kerosene lamp cast flickering shadows on the cinder block walls, and the air in the shelter was stale and earthy. His grip on the Ruger tightened. Above him, Carrie shrieked and clawed at the earth.
She’d been dead for a week.
Jim sighed, breathing in the dank air. He lifted the metal coffeepot from where it sat on the heater and poured himself a cup. The warmth felt good, and he lingered there for a moment, before regretfully turning the heater off. To conserve fuel, he only ran it to heat up his meals. The brief comfort only made the damp chill stronger.
He sipped instant coffee and gagged. Like everything else, it was bitter.
He crossed back to the cot and collapsed upon it.
The noises continued from above.
Jim had built the shelter in the summer of 1999, when Y2K fever was at its highest. Carrie laughed at him, until he’d shown her some of the reports and articles. Even then, she’d been skeptical-until the nightly news’ constant barrage had made her a believer. Two months and ten thousand dollars later, the shelter was completed, using most of Carrie’s savings and all of his construction knowledge.
It was small; a ten by fifteen-foot bunker that could hold four people comfortably. Despite the size, it was safe, and more important, secure.
Jim equipped it with a generator and a vacuum powered toilet that drained into the septic tank behind the house. He’d stocked it with canned and dry foods, toilet paper, medical supplies, matches, guns, and lots of ammunition. Three pallets of bottled water and a fifty five-gallon drum of kerosene stood in the corner. There was a battery-operated boom box and a wide assortment of their eclectic musical tastes. Another shelf held their favorite books. He’d even brought down the old Magnavox 486SX. It wasn’t fast, but it was easy on the generator and still gave them contact with the outside world.
They’d started out that New Year’s Eve day by keeping a close eye on CNN. When the century passed in Australia and the world failed to end, he knew that all the preparation had been for nothing. Country after country greeted the millennium and the power stayed on.
That evening, they attended a party at Mike and Melissa’s. When the ball dropped and the drunken revelers counted down, Carrie pulled him close.
“See, crazy-man? Nothing to worry about.”
“I love you, crazy-woman,” he had whispered.
“I love you, too.”
They were lost in their kiss and barely noticed when Mike turned off the breakers and screamed “Y2K!” as a joke.
As the months went by, the shelter gathered dust. By the end of the next year it lay forgotten. After September th raised the fears of biological or nuclear attack, Jim re-stocked it. Even then, it was just an afterthought.
Until the change began. Until the rising started.
In the end, the ghosts of Y2K and September 11th had doomed the world.
Tired of the unending stream of “endtime prophecy” and “destruction of Western Civilization as we know it” disasters of the week, the world had ignored the early media reports. It was a new century; one that had no room for those medieval fears and extremist paranoid attitudes. It was time to embrace technology and science, time to further the brotherhood of man. Mankind had perfected cloning, mapped the human genome, and even traveled beyond the moon, when the joint Chinese/U.S. mission had finally set foot on Mars. The world’s scientists proclaimed that the cure for cancer was just around the corner. Y2K didn’t destroy civilization. Terrorism didn’t defeat it.
Society had faced both, and conquered them. Civilization was invincible!
Civilization was dead.
A muffled scrabbling came from overhead as something pulled on the periscope. The portcullis wiggled in its turret, swiveling back and forth. The scratching changed to a frustrated grunt, and the viewpiece shuddered on its axis. It rose, slamming into the ceiling and dropping back down.
Jim closed his eyes.
“Carrie.”
He’d met her through Mike and Melissa. like him, she was newly divorced.
“She doesn’t want anything serious,” Mike had cautioned him. “She just needs to have a little fun again.”
Jim knew about that. He knew about happiness and contentment. He’d had a beautiful son, Danny, and a wife, Tammy. They’d been the core of his world.
Until Rick, a co-worker whom Tammy had never mentioned, stole both away.
After the divorce, Jim had his share of fun-drunken one-night stands that blurred together.
He had custody of Danny every other weekend and during those precious times, the beer and bimbos were forgotten. On those weekends, he was Daddy. Those were the only times he was truly happy.
Tammy and Rick married. Rick got a better job in Bloomington, New Jersey. “The chance of a lifetime,” Tammy said. That had been it. They left West Virginia, taking the one good thing Jim had left.
The move destroyed him. In an instant, he went from seeing Danny every other weekend to ten weeks in the summer and one week at Christmas, along with the occasional weekend trip to New Jersey. If he’d had the money, if he’d been a little more together, he could have fought it in court. But by that point, Jim had racked up a driving while intoxicated offense. His credit was shot. He’d known that Tammy’s lawyer, paid for with his money, would eat him alive. He was allowed to call once a week, but the distance along the phone lines only deepened his loss.
Finally, Danny started referring to Rick as his ‘other dad’ and that had devastated Jim.
There were more women and one night stands. He played at drinking himself to death, knowing he wouldn’t because Danny still needed him. He lost his job, his apartment, his driver’s license, and his self-respect.
The only thing that kept him going were those once a week phone calls and the small voice on the other end that always said, “I miss you, Daddy.”
Then he’d met Carrie.
Jim sobbed, bitter tears of rage and loss cutting through the stubble on his haggard face.
For five years they’d been happy and content. The only sadness Jim felt was not being a part of Danny’s everyday life. Carrie had helped to dull even that pain.
She saved him.
Eight months ago, Carrie announced over dinner that she was pregnant.
Ecstatic, Jim lifted her in his arms, kissing and loving her so much it hurt-an actual, physical hurt deep inside his chest.
Then the world died, taking his new wife and their unborn baby along with it. Now, joined by their dead neighbors, Carrie was back, digging with rotted fingers to be reunited with her husband.
Mike and Melissa were dead too; ripped apart by a dozen of the creatures. They were among the lucky ones. Their bodies had been so badly damaged that there was no way for them to be reanimated.
Shuddering, Jim recalled how the things had swarmed Mike’s car, reaching through the shattered windshield and crawling inside. He and Carrie had watched in horror from the living room, ducking into the shelter when the screams stopped and the wet sounds began. The four of them had planned on escaping together. That had been their first attempt to get out of Lewisburg.
Despite the chill, Jim was sweating. He brushed tears from his eyes and went to the mini-fridge. Still holding the pistol in one hand, he opened the door and paused, letting the draft of cold air wash over him. He marveled again that he’d been down here for three months and had yet to start the generator. The power remained on, as did his cell phone. He thought about the deserted nuclear power stations, still automatically pumping out electricity for a deceased world.
How long until they shut down or blew up? How long would the cell phone and radio and television satellites float up there, waiting for communications from the dead?
In the first few days, they had talked to people online, learning that the situation was the same everywhere. The dead were coming back to life, not as mindless eating machines like in an old horror movie, but as malicious creatures bent solely on destruction. Various causes were speculated on and debated. Biological or chemical warfare, government testing, alien invasion, the Second Coming of Christ, a meteor from space; all were discussed with equal fervor.
The media soon grew silent, especially after a rogue Army unit executed six reporters during a live broadcast. After that, as civilization collapsed, even the most dedicated journalists gave up, preferring to be with their families rather than bearing final witness to the chaos for an audience that could see what was happening just by looking out the window.
Several times, Jim had sent frantic emails to Tammy and Rick, trying to determine if Danny was safe.
He never received a reply.
Each time he called them, he received a message telling him that all circuits were busy. Eventually, even that message stopped.
He’d argued with Carrie, insisting that they make an escape attempt. He was determined to get to his son. Eventually, through gentle reasoning, she got him to see the reality of the situation. Danny was surely dead by now.
Deep inside, he’d wondered if she was right. The father in him refused to give up. He found himself clinging to the conviction that somewhere out there, Danny was still alive. He found himself envisioning different escape attempts, if only to break the monotony of living in the shelter.
Carrie’s health began to crumble. Their medical supplies consisted of the bare minimum. She’d long since run out of pre-natal vitamins.
Reluctantly, Jim realized it would be impossible to leave. Danny was dead, he knew. In the weeks that followed, as Carrie’s condition worsened, there had been times that Jim blamed her.
He still hated himself for that
One morning, he awoke next to her still form, just as the final, congested breath rattled in her chest. Then she was gone; the pneumonia had finally claimed her. He’d curled up against her cold, lifeless body and cried, bidding farewell to his second wife.
He’d known it was useless to bury her, grimly understanding what needed to be done. But when the madness of grief seized him, he couldn’t believe that it would happen to her. Not Carrie. Not the woman who had saved his life. The woman that had become his life in these last five years. It was inconceivably blasphemous to think that she would turn into one of them.
Alert for the undead, he’d quickly buried her under the pine tree that they had planted together earlier that summer. They’d held hands beneath that tree only months before, talking of how it would watch over the house when they were old.
Now, it stood watch over her.
That night, Carrie raged above him. By morning, she’d been joined by what was left of the Thompsons from next door. Soon, a small army had gathered in the yard. Jim had used the periscope only once since then, giving in to hopelessness when he saw more than thirty corpses milling around on his lawn.
It was then that he started to go mad.
Cut off from the outside world and besieged by the undead, Jim contemplated suicide as the only real escape. He had no way of knowing if there was anyone still alive in Lewisburg, or the country for that matter. For him, the world had become a tomb, outlined by four cinder-block walls.
As weeks went by, the internet went quiet, as did the phone. His cellular was a powerful unit, able to transmit and receive beyond the concrete bunker, but in the past month it had gone silent. In their rush to get to the safety of the shelter, Jim had forgotten the charger. Now he kept it on sleep mode, trying to save the battery and the spares for as long as he could. He was down to his last one.
The television displayed static, except for a channel out of Beckley, which was still showing the emergency broadcast screen. The AM station in Roanoke had stayed on the air until the previous week. Jack Wolf, the station’s afternoon talk radio host, kept a lone vigil next to his microphone. Jim had listened in dreadful fascination as Wolfs sanity slowly crumbled from cabin fever.
The final broadcast ended with a gunshot. As far as Jim knew, he was the only listener to hear it.
Jim shivered in the air pouring from the open refrigerator. He pulled out his last can of beer and shut the door. The pop of the tab sounded like a gunshot in the silence. His ears rang, drowning out the cries from above. His pulse throbbed in his temples. He placed the cold can against his head, then brought it to his lips and drained it.
“One for the road.” He crunched the can in his fist, tossing it into the corner, where it rattled on the concrete floor.
He returned to the cot and pulled back the pistol slide. The first bullet of the clip slid into the chamber. The clip held thirteen more, but one was all he needed. The pounding in his ears was louder now, and above it, he could hear Carrie. He glanced down at the photos spread out before him on the dirty sheets.
A shot of them at Virginia Beach. That had been the weekend she got pregnant. She smiled at him from the photo and he smiled back. He burst into tears.
The beautiful woman in the photo, the woman who had been so vibrant and energetic and full of life, was now a shambling, rotting husk that ate human flesh.
He put the gun to his head, the barrel cool against his throbbing temple.
Danny stared up at him from the other photo. In it, they were in front of the house: Jim was crouched on one knee with Danny standing beside him. Danny held his soapbox derby trophy, the one that he had received in New Jersey and had brought along that summer to show his Daddy. Both of them were smiling, and yes, his son did look just like him.
Their final phone conversation came back to him now. His finger tightened on the trigger. He hadn’t known it would be their last, but each word was burned into his memory.
Every Saturday, Jim would call Danny and they watched cartoons over the phone together for half an hour. That last time had been one of those mornings. They had discussed the dire peril that the heroes of Dragonball Z had found themselves in. They had talked about school and the ‘A’ that Danny had received on his last test.
“What did you have for breakfast this morning?”
“Fruity Pebbles,” Danny had replied. “What did you have?”
“I’m eating Cheerio’s.”
“Yuck,” Danny made a disgusted noise. “That’s gross!”
“As gross as kissing a girl?” Jim teased. Like all boys of nine, Danny was repelled and yet strangely mystified by the opposite sex.
“Nothing’s that gross,” he answered and then grew quiet.
“What are you thinking about, Squirt?” Jim asked.
“Daddy, can I ask you something serious?”
“You can ask me anything you want to, buddy.”
“Is it ever okay to hit a girl?”
“No, Danny, that’s wrong. You should never, ever hit a girl. Remember what we talked about when you got in that fight with Peter Clifford?”
“But there’s this girl at school. Anne Marie Locasio. She won’t leave me alone.”
“What does she do?”
“She’s always picking on me and taking my book bag and chasing me around. The fifth graders laugh at me when she does it.”
Jim had smiled at this. The fifth graders, they who ruled the elementary school playground. He’d felt a sudden pang of age when he realized that Danny himself would join those ranks the following year.
“Well, you just have to ignore those guys,” he answered. “And if Anne Marie won’t leave you alone, just ignore her too. You’re a pretty big guy. I’m sure you can get away from her if you want.”
“But she won’t leave me alone,” Danny insisted. “She pulls my hair and…”
“What?”
Danny’s voice was a whisper now. He obviously didn’t want his mother or stepfather to hear this.
“She tries to kiss me!”
Jim smiled, valiantly struggling to keep from laughing. He then explained to Danny how that meant that she liked him, and what steps Danny should take to protect himself from further torment without hurting Anne Marie or her feelings.
“Know what, Daddy?”
“What, Squirt?”
“I’m glad that I can ask you stuff like this. You’re my best friend.”
“You’re my best friend too,” Jim said around the lump in his throat.
In the background, Tammy had hollered something. Jim winced at the sound of her voice.
“Mommy needs to use the phone so I have to get going. Will you call me next week?”
“I promise, cross my heart and hope to die.”
“Love you more than Spider Man.”
“Love you more than Godzilla,” Jim replied, playing the familiar game.
“I love you more than ‘finity,” Danny answered, winning for the thousandth time.
“I love you more than infinity too, buddy.” Then there was an empty click and a dial tone, and that was the last time he had ever spoken with his son.
Through his tears, Jim glanced down at the smiling boy in the photograph. He hadn’t been there. He hadn’t been there when his son had gone to sleep every night, when he constructed epic Star Wars vs. X-Men battles with his action figures, when he played ball in the backyard, or when he learned to ride a bike.
He hadn’t been there to save him.
Jim closed his eyes.
Carrie dug at the earth and called to him, hungry.
His finger tightened.
The cell phone rang shrilly.
Jim jumped, dropping the pistol onto the bed. The phone shrieked again.
The green digital readout glowed eerily in the soft light of the lantern.
Jim didn’t move. He couldn’t swallow, couldn’t breathe. It felt like someone had hit him in the chest, kicked him in the groin. Consumed with dread, he tried to move his arms and found them frozen.
A third ring, then a fourth. He was insane, of course. That could be the only explanation. The world was dead. Yes, the power was still on and the satellites still kept a silent and mournful watch over its remains, but the world was dead. There was no way someone could be calling him now, here underground, beneath the remains of Lewisburg.
The fifth ring brought a whimper from his throat. Fighting off the emotional malaise that held him, Jim sprang to his feet.
The phone buzzed again, insistent. He reached for it with a trembling hand.
Don’t pick it up! It’s Carrie or one of the others. Or maybe something worse. Pick up that phone and they’ll pour themselves through it and …
It stopped. The silence was deafening.
The display blinked at him. Someone had left a message.
“Oh fuck.”
He grasped the phone as if he were holding a live rattlesnake. He brought it to his ear and dialed “o.”
“You have one new message,” said a mechanical female voice. The canned inflections were the sweetest sound he had ever heard. “To hear the message, press one. To erase your message, press the pound key. If you need assistance, dial zero and an operator will assist you.”
He jabbed the button and there was a distant, mechanical whir.
“Saturday, September first, nine p.m.,” the recording told him. Jim let out a breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding. Then he heard a new voice.
“Daddy…”
Jim gasped, his pulse jack-hammering. The room was spinning again.
“Daddy, I’m scared. I’m in the attic. I…”
A burst of static interrupted. Then Danny’s voice drifted back, sounding very small and afraid.
“I ‘membered your phone number but I couldn’t make Rick’s cell phone work right. Mommy was asleep for a long time but then she woke up and made it work for me. Now she’s asleep again. She’s been sleeping since… since they got Rick.”
Jim closed his eyes, the strength vanishing from his legs. Knees buckling, he collapsed to the floor.
“I’m scared Daddy. I know we shouldn’t leave the attic, but Mommy’s sick and I don’t know how to make her better. I hear things outside the house. Sometimes they just go by and other times I think they’re trying to get in. I think Rick is with them.”
Danny was crying and Jim wailed along with him.
“Daddy, you promised to call me! I’m scared and I don’t know what to do.
…” More static, and Jim reached out to keep himself from sprawling facedown.
“…and I love you more than Spider Man and more than Pikachu and more than Michael Jordan and more than ‘finity, Daddy. I love you more than infinity.”
The phone went dead in his hand, the battery using its last spark of life.
Above him, Carrie howled into the night.
He wasn’t sure how long he’d stayed crouched there, with Danny’s pleas echoing through his head. Finally, the strength came rushing into his numb limbs and he staggered to his feet.
“I love you, Danny,” he said aloud. “I love you more than infinity.”
The anguish vanished, replaced by resolve. He grasped the periscope and peered into the darkness. He saw nothing, only a jagged sliver of moonlight. Then a baleful, sunken eyeball glared back at him in hideous magnification. He jumped away from the portcullis, realizing that a zombie was looking back through it. He forced himself to peek again and slowly, the zombie moved away.
Carrie’s corpse stood bathed in moonlight, radiant in her putrescence.
Her bloated abdomen was horribly distended; the malignant pregnancy still lurking within her, hidden beneath the tatters of the silken robe he’d buried her in. Frayed ribbons fluttered against her gray skin.
He thought about the night that she’d told him she was pregnant. Carrie was lying next to him, the fine sheen of sweat from their lovemaking cooling on their bodies. His head against her stomach, his cheek pressed against her warm, soft curves; the luxuriant feel of skin on skin. Her scent, and the tiny, almost invisible hairs on her belly swaying gently as he breathed. Inside her, their baby grew. Jim didn’t want to think about what was squirming there now.
He rotated the periscope full circle. Life after death had been kind to old Mr. Thompson from next door. His face held a pallor that, although the color of oatmeal, was still brighter than the one that adorned it when he’d been alive. The persistent stiffness of joints that had plagued the elderly neighbor was apparent as he gripped the shovel, except that now, rather than with the throes of arthritis, his fingers swelled with the slow rot of decay. Knuckles poked through leathery skin the texture of parchment, as Mr. Thompson raised the shovel and thrust it into the ground.
The fact that the zombies could use tools didn’t surprise Jim. During the siege, he’d watched in horror, listening helplessly to the creature’s efforts to dig into the stronghold. Clumsily, but with slow and steady success, the things had managed to remove the sod, revealing the concrete slab beneath the dirt. That slab had been the only thing that had saved him.
Could they get bored, he wondered. Indeed, could they reason at all? He didn’t know. Obviously, the thing that had once been his wife was drawn to this place. But was it because she remembered it from before, or mere instinct? The fact that they clawed at the ground seemed to indicate that they knew. That they remembered. If that theory were true…
Jim shuddered at the implications.
He was nothing more than a sardine, waiting in the silence of a darkened can. Sooner or later, the things above would find the correct can opener and would consume him.
“…more than ‘finity, Daddy,” Danny’s frantic cries echoed in his mind.
“I love you more than infinity.”
He swiveled back to Carrie and noticed that she was smiling, her blackened lips pulled back against stained teeth. The plump end of an earthworm disappeared between them. She raised her head and laughed.
Were there words buried within that ghoulish howl? He couldn’t be sure. There had been times over the past few weeks when he could have sworn the things were talking to each other.
Another worm vanished down her decomposing gullet. Horrified, Jim thought of her eating spaghetti on their first date.
Sudden movement caught his eye. The zombies had noticed the periscope turning and now lurched toward it. He glimpsed more of them in the distance, attracted by the commotion. Soon they would be swarming the grounds, searching once again for an entrance into his stronghold. The chance of escaping without a fight had just vanished. They knew now that he was still alive. Although it was unclear what the zombie’s reasoning capabilities were, it was obvious they sensed their prey below.
Fifty or more. Not good odds.
He lowered the view-piece.
With his son’s pleas for help still haunting him, Jim began to prepare.
“Hang on squirt. Daddy’s coming.”
Mount Rushmore was speaking in tongues. That was the first thing Baker noticed. The second thing was the baleful red glare coming from the granite eyes, pulling the chopper towards the rock face.
Struggling with the controls, Baker screamed as George Washington whispered obscenities in a multitude of languages.
The voice continued when he awoke, jerking upright from where he’d slumped at the desk. Saliva had pooled on his blotter, pulling at his skin as he sat up. He listened.
The blasphemies came from down the hall.
From the thing in Observation Room Number Six.
He blinked; still unsure of what was happening. He always experienced a moment of confusion upon waking from a dream. He glanced around, letting the familiar settings settle into reality.
He was in his office, half a mile beneath Havenbrook. Above him, the gates of Hell had been opened wide.
And he had helped to turn the key.
The room bore a strong resemblance to Afghanistan, the cumulative effects of three months without janitorial service. Dingy ceramic mugs, encrusted with the fossilized remains of freeze-dried coffee. Papers, books, and diagrams strewn haphazardly about the room. A trashcan long past the point of overflowing, its contents now spilling onto the floor. In the far corner, a dark stain where the fish tank had spewed onto the carpet.
He shuddered when he looked at it.
Experimenting with the fish tank had been Powell’s idea. At that point, they’d lacked a specimen, their research amounting to only speculation without anything to actually study. The three of them, Powell, Harding, and Baker, had closed themselves off from the rest of the complex after the few remaining staff members had fled. They gathered together in Baker’s office, venting their frustration and wondering if it was safe to go above even without the all-clear message.
Powell had suggested, jokingly at first, that they try it out on one of Baker’s prized tropical fish. Laughter and derision had quickly turned to scientific seriousness when Baker agreed. They netted one of the brightly colored pets, watching with cool detachment as it flopped and gulped in the smothering oxygen. Baker held it in his palm until it stopped quivering. Then they placed it back in the tank, where it floated on top of the briny water just as a dead fish was supposed to.
Its behavior was surprisingly-and depressingly- normal.
It wasn’t until ten minutes later, after the other scientists had retired to the common room for their tenth viewing of old Jeopardy reruns on video, that the fish started swimming again.
Baker was only dimly aware of the splashing at first; his attention focused on the game of solitaire laid out before him on the desk. When the splashing became louder, he looked up.
The water had begun to turn red; tiny scarlet clouds swirling amidst the brightly colored pebbles and plastic castle, as the dead fish began to hunt and devour its brethren. At first, Baker could only stare in amazement. Then, gathering his wits, he dashed down the empty corridor and burst into the common room, gasping for breath.
The slaughter was over by the time they crowded into the office. In the few minutes it had taken him to summon the others, the fish had killed every living thing in the tank. Innards and scales floated amidst the carnage.
“My God,” Harding gasped.
“God,” Baker spat, “had nothing to do with this!” He thrust a finger at the tank. “This was mankind, Stephen. This was us!”
Harding stared at him in silence, his mouth working noiselessly, just as the fish had done. Powell sat in the corner, softly crying.
The fish noticed them. It stopped swimming and stared at them with clear contempt.
Baker had been fascinated at the intelligence the fish displayed.
“Look at that. It’s studying us, just as we study it.”
“What have we done?” sobbed Powell. “Jesus fucking Christ, what have we done?”
Harding snapped. “Get it together, Powell! We need to learn as much as we can from this thing if we expect to undo-“
His reprimand was cut short by another splash. The fish thrashed around, stirring up the muck on the bottom of the tank; obscuring their view. It vanished, hidden by a swirling cloud of blood and feces and slime.
“Somebody get the camcorder,” Baker shouted. “We need to be documenting this!”
Before they could, the entire tank stand moved. Water spilled over the top, running down the sides in crimson rivulets.
The fish retreated and then burst forward again, slamming itself into the front of the tank. Again and again it charged the glass, heedless of the damage it was doing to itself.
Baker noted the calculating malevolence that filled its dead eyes.
A network of cracks spread throughout the glass, spider-webbing up the sides. The stand toppled over, crashing to the floor. Glass exploded, showering them all with glittering shards and brackish water.
The fish flopped onto the carpet and began to wriggle towards them.
Shoving his books aside, Baker leaped onto the desk while Harding retreated into the hall. Powell collapsed, shrieking and clawing at the carpet while the thing closed the gap between them.
Above Powell’s terrified cries, Baker heard the noises the fish was making as it neared the scientist’s outstretched legs.
The fish was talking.
He couldn’t understand what was said, but the patterns were definitely intelligent speech.
The thing shot towards Powell’s groin. He screamed as it brushed his khakis.
Baker leaped to the floor, slamming the computer monitor down on it.
Blow after repeated blow, he smashed the creature until there was nothing left but a viscous smear among the shattered glass.
He’d been unaware that he was yelling until he felt Harding’s hand on his shoulder. They looked at each other, the full enormity of what they had unleashed upon the world bearing down on them like an airplane.
That night, Powell hacked his wrists open with a butter knife from the cafeteria. They’d found him a few minutes later, when they stopped in to administer a sedative.
Baker looked away from the stain on the rug and closed his eyes. Slowly, he ran a hand through his graying hair and quietly wept.
Down the hall, the thing in Observation Room Six continued ranting.
Baker fumbled in the congested ashtray, finding a partially smoked cigarette. Still weeping, he brought his lighter up to the ragged butt and thumbed it.
Nothing. No flame. Not even a spark. The nearest lighter fluid was a half-mile above him in a world belonging to the dead.
He threw the useless lighter across the room, where it struck a glass frame hanging on the wall. The newspaper that had been so proudly displayed inside fluttered to the floor.
Wearily, Baker walked over and brushed away the broken glass. Shaking the paper in his hands, he began to laugh. The article was dated from earlier in the year.
CONTROVERSY SURROUNDS ACCELERATOR
By Jeff Whitman/Associated Press
A nuclear accelerator designed to replicate the Big Bang has drawn protests from a group of international physicists, politicians, and activists because of fears that it could harm the Earth. One theory even suggests that it could form a black hole, cause ‘perturbations of the universe’ , or even *rend the fabric of space and time’ .
Havenbrook National Laboratories (HNL), one of the American government’ s foremost research bodies, has spent ten years building its $985 million Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) in Hellertown, Pennsylvania, a rural area near the New Jersey state border. A successful test was held this Friday and the first nuclear collisions are expected to take place within the month.
Last week however, Stephen Harding, Havenbrook’ s director, set up a committee of physicists to investigate whether the project could go disastrously wrong. Harding was prompted by warnings from other physicists that there was a small but real risk that the machine had the power to create “strangelets”; a new type of matter composed of sub-atomic particles called “strange quarks.”
The committee is to examine the possibility that, once formed; strangelets might start a chain reaction that could convert anything they touched into more strange matter. The committee will also consider the less likely alternative that the colliding particles could achieve such a high density that they would form a mini black hole. In space, black holes generate intense gravitational fields that suck in all surrounding matter. The high density formed by the colliding particles could also, in theory, break down the barrier between our dimensions and others.
Inside the collider, atoms of gold are stripped of their outer electrons and pumped into one of two 2.4-mile circular tubes where powerful magnets accelerate them to 99.9% of the speed of light. The ions in the two tubes travel in opposite directions to increase the power of the collisions. When they collide they generate miniscule fireballs of superdense matter. Under these conditions, atomic nuclei evaporate into a plasma of even smaller particles called quarks and gluons. This plasma then emits a shower of other particles as it cools.
Among the particles that appear during this phase are strange quarks.
These have been detected in other accelerators but have always been attached to other particles. The RHIC, the most powerful machine yet built, has the ability to create solitary strange quarks for the first time since the universe began.
HNL official Timothy Powell confirmed that there had been discussions concerning the possibilities. William Baker, a professor of nuclear physics who is the leading scientific director for the RHIC, said that the chances of an accident were infinitesimally small, but that Havenbrook had a responsibility to assess- them before proceeding. “The big question, of course, is whether our planet would vanish in the blink of an eye or perhaps the possibility of rending the fabric of space and time. It is astonishingly unlikely. We are not seeking to ‘rip holes into other dimensions’ as you put it. We are seeking to understand more about the universe and our place in it. The risk is so minuscule as to not even be considered.”
Baker crumbled the paper in his fists.
Down the corridor, in a sound-proofed room reinforced with twelve inches of steel and concrete, the thing that had once been Timothy Powell shouted in Sumerian. Each syllable echoed through the empty underground complex, drifting up to the dead world above them.
Baker rubbed his eyes. The tape recorder sat on the table in front of him. He sighed, pressed the record button, and turned on the intercom.
“Powell,” he began timidly. “C-can you hear me?” Powell’s corpse lay slumped in the corner of the room. It raised its head, staring at the glass. Baker saw intelligence reflected in that stare. A terrible intelligence-and something else.
“Hello Bill,” it rasped, swollen gray-white tongue sliding across peeling lips. “How’s tricks?”
Baker scribbled on his pad. The creature in Observation Room Six was not Timothy Powell. He knew this. And yet, it had identified him. He said nothing. Beside him, the tape recorder hissed quietly.
“Cat got your tongue, Billy-Boy?”
“How do you feel, Timothy?”
“I’m falling to pieces, to be quite honest with you, Bill. Any chance you could get me something to eat?”
“You’re hungry? How about some soup? Blue crabs were in season before-well, before this. The kitchen still has some crab soup left. I froze it-“
“I don’t want soup. How about your arm instead? Or a few yards of intestine?”
“You can’t eat food?”
“You are food! Now how about coming inside here with me?”
Baker observed in horrified fascination. The zombie shuffled over to the window and sat down, facing him like a prison inmate. Its decaying face pressed against the glass and smiled. No breath fogged the window.
Softly, it recited something in a language that Baker didn’t recognize.
He doubted Powell would have either.
“Who are you?”
“You know who I am. I’m Timothy Powell, Associate Director of Havenbrook Laboratories’ RHIC program. I’m your buddy, mi amigo. C’mon, Billy-Boy!
Don’t tell me you’ve got post-stress amnesia!”
“Doctor Powell would never refer to me as ‘BillyBoy’,” Baker told it matter-of-factly. “You’re not Timothy Powell.”
The thing plucked a loose piece of skin from its thigh. It appraised it in the fluorescent light, and then plopped the maggot into its mouth.
Rotted teeth ground in delight.
Baker turned away.
“Don’t believe me? Remember when you and I and Weston took that week off and flew out to Colorado? We stayed at Doctor Scalise’s cabin in EstesPark, and went fishing. Weston caught a big fucking Walleye, and you caught a cold.”
Grinning, the corpse placed a swollen hand against the glass. Baker focused on Powell’s wedding ring. The gold band had sunk into the sausage-like finger. Then the zombie removed the hand, leaving a greasy smudge on the window.
“Who are you?” he asked it again, righting to keep the tremor from his voice. “Are you Timothy Powell?”
“Ob,” it said with Powell’s mouth.
“Is that your name, or is that what you are?”
“Ob,” it said again. “And you are Bill.”
“How do you know my name?”
“The one you call Tim left it behind in here. He left a great many things behind. Delicious things. Were you aware that he frequented prostitutes? His wife obviously wasn’t.”
“I hardly see how that…”
“He paid them to sodomize him with a dildo.”
The corpse chuckled, then coughed, misting the glass with bits of itself.
“Really?” Baker gritted his teeth. “And exactly how did you obtain this knowledge?”
“It is in here with me. All of it is in here for me to pick through.
Much of it is useless. All that collective knowledge. Humankind has achieved so little. HE must be very disappointed in his creations.”
“Who?”
“Him. The cruel one. The one who…never mind. We shall not speak of it.
He shall have his day. I imagined it much while I lingered there.”
“And where was that, exactly?”
The thing did not reply. Instead, it began licking the red smear from the glass.
“I hunger,” it moaned, and began to grin again.
“Hungry,” Baker said to the cold, gray walls. “I didn’t think I was this hungry.”
He opened the can of baked beans more on instinct than desire, but after the first bite, he proceeded to wolf them down cold. He longed for a hamburger to go along with them, but the huge walk-in freezer was occupied and Baker wasn’t about to enter it. Harding lay inside, with a neat, perfunctory hole in his head. He’d suffered a heart attack, one day after Powell’s suicide, and the subsequent imprisonment of his reanimated corpse. Baker had used an ice pick on Harding’s dead body, wishing for a pistol during the entire grisly process. But the guns were gone, along with the soldiers who had deserted their posts.
The silence in the empty cafeteria was unsettling. He longed for somebody to talk to, other than the thing that called itself Ob.
Walking back down the corridor to his office, his feet echoed on the green tile. He was glad for the noise. The lights flickered, dimmed and then brightened again. The power was going. He wasn’t sure if the facility was running on public utilities or its own backup at this point. What would the hallway sound like in the dark?
Down here, alone with that thing…
He collapsed at his desk. The chair groaned in protest. To Baker’s surprise, he had actually gained a few pounds during the crisis.
Probably from the lack of exercise. His days consisted of the endless tedium of research and more research. His nights, (if they were nights, he couldn’t differentiate down here) were spent constantly awaking; escaping the nightmares.
He leaned back, rested his feet on the desk, and turned on the recorder.
“While I am not a biologist or pathologist, I have observed a remarkable transformation in the subject.”
He paused as the lights flickered again, then continued.
“The subject is not simply a reanimated dead body. In many ways, it functions like a living being. It seeks nourishment, specifically in the form of human-flesh. I cannot be sure, but it would appear that this is essential to its survival. Observation of the footage provided by the Federal Emergency Management Agency seems to verify this. Of course, it will probably be a long time before FEMA sends another tape.”
His nervous chuckle turned into a fit of coughing. Then he continued.
“The subject’s musculature appears to adapt to its new state. While decomposition is present, it appears to act not as a detriment, but as a natural process. Hair, skin, even vital organs are irrelevant to the subject’s functioning. The flesh that it eats does not pass through the digestive system. It is absorbed through an unknown process; converted into-“
The lights died. Baker sat in the darkness, holding his breath. The squeal of the tape recorder was the only sound. His heart beat once, twice.
The lights came back on, and Baker was surprised to find that he’d been crying.
“When you feed,” Baker asked through the intercom, “why do you not consume the entire body? Why do you leave so much behind?”
“Because so many of our brethren wait to come through,” Ob answered, the raspy tone indignant, as if annoyed with the scientist for asking the obvious. “They would not enjoy it, waiting eons only to inhabit a vessel incapable of movement. A torso with no arms or legs; a mere bag of human-flesh that simply lies there? That would be nothing more than escaping from one prison into another.”
“Tell me more about this place you come from. You called it the void.”
“No more,” Ob said angrily. “I must summon my brethren. I hunger.
Release me and you shall not be harmed.”
Baker kept his voice even. “Answer my questions and I’ll feed you.”
“You play a dangerous game, wise man. Do not think that I am reluctant to damage this shell, in order to be freed. I can obtain another.”
“That glass is bulletproof. Those walls are reinforced with steel and concrete. You must realize that I am in charge.”
“Your race is no longer in charge of anything. We are free to walk this earth again, as we did long ago.”
“Tell me about the void,” Baker insisted.
“Very well,” the thing sighed, exhaling fetid air from unused, rotting lungs. “But be warned, Professor. Your age has ended. We are your inheritors.”
“The void,” Baker began.
“THE VOID IS COLD!” Ob roared, suddenly rushing toward the window. It slammed Powell’s fist against the glass. Baker skittered backward.
“It is cold because HE is cruel! I dwelled there, trapped for eons with my brothers, the Elilum and Teraphim. HE sent us there! Banished us to the wastes. We watched while you scurried like ants, multiplying and breeding, basking in his frigid love. We waited, for we are patient. We lurked on the threshold, ever observant. And you, wise man, you and your fellow man provided us with the means of our salvation. Just as your bodies provide our temples, you provided our doorway!”
The creature hammered the window again. Baker winced. A small crack spiraled through the glass.
The lights flickered again.
“Do you think that when you die, you go to Heaven?” it laughed. “You don’t. You go to what He has set aside for you! Your bodies belong to US! We are your masters. Demons, your kind called us. Djinn. Monsters.
We are the source of your legends-the reason you still fear the dark.
We control your flesh. We have been waiting a long time to inhabit you!”
It punched the window again. The crack widened, web-like tendrils spread across its surface. The hand that had once belonged to Dr. Timothy Powell, the hand that had once held a martini glass and swung a golf club and deftly operated the controls of the RHIC, was now a battering ram of rotting meat. Baker recoiled as the fingers split open, revealing jagged pieces of bone that further scratched the inner glass.
Baker fled from the room; Ob’s shouts pursuing him down the corridor.
“We are the Siqqusim! We have stood by, waiting to take possession and you are ours. Yidde-oni! Engastrimathos du aba paren tares. We are Ob andAb andApi andApu. Our number is greater than the stars! We are more than infinity!”
The glass shattered, and a moment later, the lights died, plunging the facility into darkness.
Baker cowered in the hall, listening in terror as the zombie stumbled after him.
The lights did not return.
There were two ways out of the shelter. The first was a shaft that led up to the yard. To use it, Jim would have to sling all his gear while climbing the ladder, then unbolt the lock and lift the manhole cover without attracting attention.
He needed to have at least one weapon in hand, so climbing was out. The zombies would swarm on him as soon as they heard the cover begin to open.
That left the cellar.
When he’d built the shelter, he’d gone to a scrap yard in Norfolk and purchased two hatches off a decommissioned Navy troop carrier. When opened from inside the shelter, the first led into a narrow hallway running toward the house. The passageway ended at the second hatch, which was affixed to the walls of the basement.
Twice in the weeks before, when his depression became unbearable, Jim went to this second door, intent on opening it and exposing himself to whatever lay beyond. Both times he’d stopped, listening to the shuffling sounds on the other side. The walls and heavy steel muffled the bumps and gurgles, but they were undeniably there-and undeniably real.
Now, he opened the first hatch, and listened for a footstep, a creak; anything that would betray the presence of the creatures lurking in his house. He heard nothing, but the silence was somehow worse.
Hesitantly, he crept down the passageway, stopping at the second hatch.
Placing his ear against the cold steel, he held his breath and waited.
More silence.
He made his way back to the shelter, determined not to spend another hour in his tomb. He replaced his sandals with his black, beaten, steel-toed work boots. They’d served him well during the years he’d worked construction, and he hoped they would continue to do so. He pulled a long-sleeved flannel over his black T-shirt. It would provide comfort against the chill of the night, but was lighter than a jacket and could be tied around his waist during the day.
He unzipped Carrie’s blue nylon backpack, catching a faint hint of her perfume; another ghostly reminder of what had been.
Brushing aside the emotions, he began to choose his necessities. A light load would be crucial to speed. Into the pack went a box of shells for the Ruger. He grabbed two more clips for the pistol and filled them with fifteen more bullets each, then placed them aside. He picked up the light, compact Winchester .30-30 lever action rifle that had accompanied him on so many hunting trips, and stuffed several boxes of ammunition for it into the pack as well. Four squeeze bottles of distilled water followed cans of tuna, sardines and instant noodles. Binoculars, a road atlas, the flashlight, boxes of wooden matches, candles, a ceramic coffee mug that Danny had given to him for Father’s Day, a small jar of instant coffee, a toothbrush, toothpaste, a bar of soap, spoon and fork, and a can opener all found a home inside as well.
He slung his arms through the straps, testing the weight. Satisfied, he stuffed his pockets with two lighters, his buck knife and the extra clip. The pistol hung in a holster at his side. He picked up the rifle, taking comfort in the familiarity of the smooth wooden stock. Double-checking that it was loaded, Jim took a deep breath.
The room began to spin. Sudden nausea gripped him, as the tension that had been building reached critical mass. His arms and legs tingled and cramps wracked his stomach. Moaning, Jim dropped the rifle and vomited, spattering his boots and the floor.
Eventually, the anxiety spell passed. Shaking, he retrieved the rifle.
“Okay,” he said aloud. “Time to go.”
He glanced around at the shelter one last time, knowing he would never stare at the four cinder block walls again. His eyes wandered over the photographs of Carrie and Danny, and settled on the cell phone.
He hesitated, then picked it up. After a moment’s consideration, he clipped it to his belt. The battery was dead without the charger.
“Just in case,” he said to the room, trying to convince himself.
He walked down the narrow passage and placed a steady hand on the door lever. Slowly, he lifted the handle. Each click of the tumbler boomed in the silence. There was a final click, and the hatch creaked open.
Raising the rifle, Jim let the door swing backward, revealing the dark cellar beyond it. The basement was quiet, but once familiar shapes now took on sinister connotations. The tool cabinet became a zombie. The furnace was a crouching beast, ready to leap upon him. His heart pounded ferociously in the darkness.
Carefully, he picked his way around the scattered debris of their past life. He reached the stairway, which led up to the kitchen. He paused again, listening.
Above him, a floorboard creaked softly. Then another. The third creak was punctuated by the distinct squeal of a kitchen chair being scooted across the linoleum.
Jim froze. Finger tightening on the trigger, he fumbled in the darkness for the bottom stair. His foot found purchase and he took a tentative step.
More sounds from the kitchen now, followed by a frustrated growl. He pointed the rifle at the door and took another step. Something brushed lightly against his ear and Jim bit his tongue, stifling a scream. The fly buzzed him again, hovering invisibly.
He shook his head, willing the insect to go away. Now there was a new sound; a droning hum farther up the stairway.
The fly had friends. Lot’s of them, judging by the noise. Their buzzing protests filled his ears. A second one landed on his palm, followed by another on his neck.
Then he smelled it; a sickly, butcher shop odor. The reek of roadkill and offal and rotten meat.
He took another step, felt the ceiling brush the top of his head, and realized that he was halfway up. From beyond the door came more plodding steps. The creaking floorboards tracked the zombie’s progress.
Steeling himself, Jim prepared to charge up the remaining stairs and burst through the door.
There was a wet squelch as his foot came down in something slippery. The buzzing grew angry, the flies upset at having their dinner disturbed.
The stench was stronger now, overpowering. His feet slid out from under him and he toppled forward, his knees colliding with the stair.
The footsteps in the kitchen hurried towards the door.
Grimacing, Jim pulled the lighter from his pocket and looked down.
Intestines. Somebody’s intestines lay on the stair in a congealing heap.
The footsteps stopped on the other side of the cellar door.
Gagging, Jim dropped the lighter. The intestines stank worse than anything he had ever smelled. Ignoring the pain in his knees, he stood up.
The doorknob began to turn.
He raised the rifle, aiming blindly in the dark.
The door crashed open, and Jim gaped at the hideous thing standing before him. The viscera on the stairs had belonged to Mr. Thompson. The glistening ends of its intestines hung from their empty cavity, swaying as the zombie raised its arms.
“Howdy neighbor,” it rasped. Its voice sounded like somebody gargling glass. “I see you found the rest of me.”
The zombie’s tongue was a blackened, swollen mass; yet impossibly, the thing spoke.
Jim fired, then worked the bolt on the rifle and squeezed off another shot. The crotch of the creature’s soiled corduroy pants disintegrated.
“Oooo,” it glanced downward. “Mrs. Thompson isn’t going to like that at all.”
With a speed that belied its ponderous movements, the zombie lashed out, clutching the smoking barrel and snatching it from Jim’s grasp.
Stunned at its strength, Jim backed away as the thing examined the gun.
It grinned, swung the rifle around, and pointed it at Jim. The leathery skin lining its fingers cracked as it playfully stroked the trigger.
Beyond the kitchen, the screen door banged on its hinges. More zombies paraded into the house. The thing that had once been his neighbor stepped forward. Jim retreated to the bottom of the stairs, yanking the pistol from its holster.
“I ever tell you about the big war, neighbor? That was a real war, not like Viet Nam or Desert Storm or the ‘War on Terrorism’. I was there.
Well, not ME, of course. But this body was there. I see the memories.”
It advanced down the stairs. A plump maggot dropped from the crater that had housed its stomach, and the zombie squashed it underfoot.
“Of course, you never fought in a war, did you? You don’t know the effects that a gut shot has on a human being. You’re about to learn.”
“Mr. Thompson,” Jim began, “Please. I just want to get to my son.”
“Oh, don’t worry, you will,” the thing cackled. Behind him, more zombies swarmed into the doorframe. “You’ll still be able to get around. I’m just going to wound you, make you suffer a bit Then we’ll eat parts of you. Got to keep our strength up. But we’ll leave enough of you left to walk. There are many of us still waiting to walk again.”
“Many of you-?”
“We are many. Our number is more than the stars. We are more than infinity.”
The phrase echoed through Jim’s head, grimly reminding him of Danny.
He fired six shots in rapid succession. The bullets slammed into the rancid flesh, boring through muscle and tissue. Laughing, the zombie returned fire.
The blast reverberated through the cellar. The slug whined by Jim. Above the shots, the other zombies clamored for him, stampeding toward the cellar. The thing that had been Mr. Thompson moved aside, allowing them to slip down the stairway.
Jim fired the Ruger again. Thompson’s eyeball imploded. The hunting rifle dropped from its grasp as it fell to the floor. Howling, the undead hordes rushed forward.
Jim backed towards the basement window, aiming and shooting as he went.
There were eight shots left in the clip. Eight more zombies dropped to the floor. The others paused, forming a semi-circle around him.
Jim kept the Ruger pointed at them, sweeping it back and forth. He prayed they wouldn’t realize it was empty.
Behind him, half-empty buckets of driveway sealant sat stacked in front of the window. He stepped up, balancing his weight on the lids, and quickly considered his next move. With an empty clip, he couldn’t defend himself. If he turned to climb out the window, they would swarm him.
“Concede,” rasped a zombie that had once been his paperboy. “Our brothers await release from the void. Give us your flesh as our sustenance and their vehicle.”
Slowly, Jim inched his hand toward his back pocket.
“What are you?”
“We are what once was and are again. We own your flesh. When your soul has departed, you belong to us. We consume you. We inhabit you!”
His hand closed around the clip.
Glass exploded behind him as two arms crashed through the window.
Claw-like fingers clutched his shoulders. He was yanked upward, and jagged spears of glass slashed at his arms and chest. Below him, the zombies cheered.
His attacker flung him through the air. He landed on the wet grass, tasting blood in the back of his throat.
“Hello, Crazy-Man,” Carrie teased.
“Oh God,” he sobbed, fishing the clip from his pocket and slamming it into the pistol. “Honey, if you can hear me, stay back! I don’t want to shoot you!”
Her voice was like leaves blowing in the wind. “Aren’t you glad to see me, Jim? I’ve been waiting so long and I’m so very hungry. I missed you.”
Jim scuttled backward as she advanced on him. The tatters of her robe billowed in the night breeze.
“Get the fuck back, Carrie!”
“I’m not the only one who missed you, Jim. Somebody else wants to meet you.”
Beneath the thin material of the robe, something moved.
Her bony fingers released the drawstring, allowing the robe to slip from her shoulders.
Jim screamed.
Carrie’s abdomen was gone, eaten away from the inside. In the hollow cavity, the baby wallowed, clutching the rotting umbilical cord that still attached the two. Smiling, it waved a tiny, desiccated arm. The thing inside the infant tried to speak, but the sounds were unintelligible. Its voice was deep, guttural and old.
“Give your daughter a hug,” Carrie squealed.
The fetal zombie leapt to the ground. Wet strands of tissue fell with it. It scampered toward him, the dangling umbilical cord trailing along behind it like a leash.
“We had a girl, darling,” the Carrie-thing rasped. “Aren’t you happy?
She’s sooooo HUNGRY!”
“Honey,” he pleaded. “Don’t do this. I’ve got to get to Danny! He’s alive!”
“Not for long,” Carrie taunted. “Someone is waiting to take his place.
Someone is waiting to take yours as well.”
The baby padded across the wet grass, panting eagerly as it drew closer.
“Da…Da…Da..”
Its mocking, guttural chant paralyzed him. Each half-formed word sounded like a belch. It tripped over the remains of the umbilical cord.
Finally, it ripped the rancid tissue away from its belly and closed the gap between them.
Small, decomposing fingers brushed against the soles of his boot. A tiny hand gripped his ankle.
Shrieking, Jim opened fire. The shots slammed into the baby, sending it sprawling backward. Jim’s cries were lost in the barrage.
Obscenities poured from her; a thousand promised tortures that she would bestow upon him.
Jim continued screaming.
Smoke poured from the barrel, as the gun grew hot in his hands. The tenth shot hit Carrie in the forehead, dropping her to the ground. His finger clenched and unclenched even after the gun clicked empty.
His mouth was still open, but all that escaped was a low, mournful whine.
Jim sprang to his feet as more of the creatures poured from the house.
He slid a third clip into the Ruger and opened fire again, mechanically aiming for their heads with each shot.
He ran into the road, feet pounding on the blacktop.
He fled from the house, the neighborhood, his wife, his unborn daughter, and his life; and slipped into the darkness, his tears leaving a trail behind him.
His agonized screams echoed through the empty streets of Lewisburg, West Virginia, and there was no living thing left to hear them.
An hour later, as he staggered along the road, fear and despair gave way to cramps. Exhausted, he tumbled down an embankment, and saw no more.
He awoke in a culvert; cold, wet, and wretched-but not alone. The night was alive with the sounds of the dead. He wiped the rain from his brow and shuddered as a horrible, gibbering laugh echoed over the hills.
After several minutes, it faded, but the silence left in its wake was just as awful.
He lay in the dark. Thunderheads covered the moon. He decided against lighting a match or using the flashlight out here in the open. Instead, he thumbed water from the face of his watch and squinted. Three a.m.
He’d passed out on his stomach, and the muddy water running through the culvert had soaked his jeans and shirt. He fumbled in the dark for the pistol, and found it lying on the bank.
His pack had remained mostly dry. Cautiously, he crawled from the stream and eased it from his aching shoulders. Something rattled inside. He searched the contents, nicking his finger on a jagged piece of broken pottery.
The coffee mug, the one he’d packed as an afterthought, was shattered.
The one Danny had bought him for Father’s Day.
Jim could hear Danny’s voice, full of trust and innocence-and terror.
Groaning, half-nauseous, he got up. His knees popped. He froze, waiting to see if he had attracted the attention of anything hidden in the night.
Cautiously, he began to crawl up to the road. Then he heard it. Distant, but unmistakable.
The growl of a Mopar, distinct and beautiful. Two headlights stabbed the darkness. Tires squealed, and the engine roared as gears were shifted.
“Oh, thank Christ,” he sobbed in relief, dragging himself upright. He stepped out into the road, waving his hands above his head. “Hey! Over here!”
The car thundered down the road. The beam from the headlights speared him, bathing him with light.
He took another step.
The car accelerated, hurtling toward him.
“Fuck!”
He leaped out of the way, tumbling back into the culvert. As he jumped, he caught a glimpse of the driver and the passengers.
They were zombies.
Jim rolled to his feet, crouching in the darkness. The car screeched to a halt, the smell of burning rubber filling the air.
He clutched the pistol.
The motor hummed, idling. Then, a car door slammed, followed by another.
And another.
“Did you see that?” The voice sounded like sandpaper. “Sent him flying!”
“No you didn’t!” rasped another. “You didn’t even tap him.”
“And you shouldn’t have tried,” reprimanded a third. “What use is the body if you’ve shattered it beyond mobility?”
“Bah. There’s enough for all of our brothers. Let’s have some fun with this one.”
Jim crept backward, into the treeline. A skull, draped in tattered flesh, peered over the ravine.
“Hey meat! Where do you think you’re going?”
Two more appeared, and slowly, they began to clamber down the hill. Jim raised the pistol, fired, then turned and fled into the woods.
Their catcalls echoed off the trees as he ran. Head down, he barreled his way through the clinging vines, forcing his way through the undergrowth. Branches from a deadfall clutched at him, and for one fearful moment, he thought that perhaps the dead tree had come back to life as well. Then the branch snapped, and he sprang free.
As he made his way deeper into the forest, the sounds of pursuit faded.
Pausing for breath, Jim leaned against an oak and listened intently. The forest was quiet. No bird sang, no insect buzzed. There was nothing, not even the wind.
Mind reeling, he tried to figure out what to do next. They could talk, shoot guns, drive fucking cars! Was there anything they weren’t capable of?
He thought back to the zombie movies he had watched through the years.
In the movies, the things weren’t smart. They just shambled around-vacant, thoughtless eating machines. In the movies, the zombies didn’t shoot back. The only similarity he could find between the movies and real life was that they were slow, and they ate living flesh.
Their lack of speed was an obvious advantage. All he had to do was stay ahead of them. But what they lacked in quick mobility, the made up for in their cunning. They were intelligent. They could plan and calculate.
Outrunning them wouldn’t be enough. He had to outthink them.
His goal had been to make it to White Sulphur Springs on foot, and steal a car from the Chevy dealership there. Then, he’d planned on taking Interstate 64 to 81 North. That would take him all the way to Pennsylvania, where he could then head towards New Jersey.
Jim realized the folly in that line of thinking now. The creatures could drive, and he didn’t know what shape the highways were in. They could have traps set all along them, waiting for unwary survivors like himself.
But he couldn’t do it on foot! He needed to get to Danny and he needed to get there now! New Jersey was a twelve-hour drive. Doing it on foot was inconceivable. His son would be long dead by the time he got there.
Even the twelve-hour drive offered no assurances that he’d make it in time.
So then what the hell am I doing? He’s probably dead already!
Danny’s pleas rang in his ears. He thrust his fists against them, shook his head, and trudged forward.
For most of his life, Jim had hunted deer and turkey in the mountains around Lewisburg. White Sulphur Springs was roughly five or six miles away, through a deep hollow and over two mountain ridges. Once there, he’d arm himself better, find a rifle to replace the one he’d lost to Mr. Thompson, and move on. Barring any trouble, he’d make it to White Sulphur Springs by dawn.
He needed to come up with a plan between now and then.
He walked on, the shadows between the trees swallowing him.
From high above, a whippoorwill sang its lonely song.
Jim’s grandmother had always said that if you heard a whippoorwill at night, it meant someone close to you was going to die.
The bird sang again, and Jim froze. It was perched directly in front of him.
And it was alive.
It chirped at him, and spread its wings.
“Nice to see I’m not the only one,” he whispered. “I wish I had your wings.”
The bird took flight, vanishing into the darkness.
He pressed on.
The old man sat on the park bench feeding the pigeons.
Their bloated corpses buzzed around him. Frankie watched from the safety of the restroom as the dead birds devoured him. A pigeon swooped down, one of its eyeballs dangling from the socket, and claimed the old man’s left eye in return. Strips of flesh were sheared away by snapping, razored beaks.
The old man did not scream.
He sat in stony silence, seemingly unaware of what was happening. He absentmindedly brushed at the side of his head. The mangled ruins of his right ear stained his white collar.
“Damn skeeters,” she heard him mutter. A pigeon darted for the plump offering of his tongue. When the beak clamped and tore off a small morsel of meat, blood flowed into his mouth.
“Fly! Be free!” he flapped his arms as he sat on the bench. The pigeons around him fluttered and circled. No sooner had he slumped back than the birds descended again.
“Fucking nutcase,” Frankie muttered, grinding her teeth.
The old man continued to move under the barrage of beaks. He squirmed and laughed, as if he were being tickled.
She started shaking again, though whether from revulsion or withdrawal or fear she could not tell. The jones called to her. The scabs dotting her slender arms itched, and three blunt, cracked fingernails dug at them without hesitation. She needed a fix. She needed some skag. She needed.
That need landed her at here at the Baltimore Zoo. Out of the frying pan and into the fire.
T-Bone and Horn Dawg and the others had to have seen her climb the fence. The question was, would they follow? Would they leave her be, so she could rest in peace?
Rest?
Yes, rest. Rest from the running all over town.
Rest forever. In peace.
Frankie thought she could damn well die here, in a men’s bathroom with dead, hungry animals walking around outside, and a gang of pissed-off dope dealers who wanted the bag of dope she now carried. The street value on that particular bag of dope had skyrocketed, because there would be no further bags of dope like it.
Unfortunately, she was down to the last of it. Somehow, she didn’t think T-Bone and the rest would be happy to hear that.
The old man was silent now. Cautiously, Frankie peered out the door. His black suit was a pink, quivering mass of exposed muscle and nerve endings. His chest continued to rise and fall. Stubbornly, the life his parents gave him continued with tenacity. It would not quit without a fight.
Death was stronger.
Patient.
She watched him die and wondered how long before he rose again?
Her arms howled. Her gut clenched, and she felt the pang of emptiness there. She dug into her pocket in search of something to take it away.
The last of it.
She cooked up the batch, blotter and spoon, disposable lighter, and she began to lick her cracked lips. Soon, none of these thoughts would matter. Not the old man, the pigeons, T-Bone and the others; not even the baby. What mattered was the greedy, puckered mouth track marks that dotted her arms, like the insistent mouths of newborns, hungrily demanding a nipple.
She tied off. The needle found a good vein. She shot.
Her blood sang sweet harmonies that lulled, pulled her along. A few seconds after, the familiar euphoria hit. The warmth settled in her belly. She felt like she was wrapped in cotton. Her face flushed and pupils constricted, Frankie drifted out of the restroom and above the zoo, floating beyond the ruins of Baltimore and the living world.
Frankie lay in the hospital. The bright lights were harsh on her eyes.
Faces stared impassively; covered in shrouds. Her blood glistened on the doctor’s glove.
She was in pain. She was turned inside out and the doctor and nurses didn’t understand, or seem to care. They were talking about the morning’s news report (a dead man coming back to life?), and she could see it in their eyes, see the thought reflected.
“Just another junkie whore delivering her unwanted baby into the world.”
Fuck them. What did she care? They should be impressed! Most heroin users developed spontaneous abortions. She’d been strong enough to carry full-term.
The sooner she was done, the sooner she could take her baby and leave-
(get a fix)
-something tore and as she howled in agony, the doctor said he would have to cut,
“Don’t push.”
“Fuck you!” she screamed.
Frankie pushed, pushed with everything she had, gnisiehTR4 pushed till her spine felt like it would snap.
Something broke. She felt it, even through the pain. Something small broke, but it changed everything.
“Push!” the doctor urged.
“Make up your fucking mind!” Frankie screamed, but she continued to try.
The agony built to a crescendo, and then the pressure vanished, all at once, and Frankie was crying.
She was the only one.
She heard a nurse mutter: “I’m not surprised.”
“I’m going to call it as 5:17p.m.,” the doctor replied.
“My baby,” Frankie pleaded through dry and crusted lips. “What’s wrong with my baby?
The nurse walked away with her baby- “MY BABY!”
The nurse turned and stared. She said nothing, but Frankie knew. She knew.
Dead.
Stillborn.
Then the needle pricked her arm. Finally, the blessed needle…
The nurse vanished out the door, along with her baby.
Frankie closed her eyes, just for a moment. They jarred open when, out in the hallway, her dead baby cried and the nurses screamed.
The screaming continued when Frankie awoke. She’d nodded. Usually she was out for three to four hours, and she was unsure as to the time. It was dark now, and she shivered against the cold bathroom stall.
The scream had come from outside. It took her a moment to get her bearings. The listlessness still clung to her limbs.
Tingling from a combination of heroin and fear, she crept to the door and peaked outside.
The old man was moving again-
-and Marquon had found him.
More terrible shrieks poured forth from the gangster’s gaping mouth as the old man reached into his belly and pulled forth a prize, ropy and wet. He thrashed, legs and arms flailing wildly as the zombie dug deeper. Marquon’s Tec-9 lay discarded, forgotten in the grass. Something inside him popped, and ran through the clawed fingers like Play-Doh.
Marquon grew silent.
Frankie slid down the wall, panic eradicating the remains of the high.
If Marquon had made it in, that meant the others were here too.
They were inside the zoo with all the other beasts.
As if on cue, she heard distant gunfire, followed by a shout. Marquon’s cell phone began to ring.
She didn’t believe what happened next. She was sure it was the dregs of the smack.
The old man picked up the cell phone, stared at it, and then spoke.
“Send more…”
It turned off the phone with one gore-streaked hand, and then resumed eating.
On hands and knees, Frankie crawled into the nearest stall. She reached into the stained porcelain, splashing water on her grubby face. Then she stood, trying to think.
She heard voices now, much closer. Voices she recognized.
“Damn, G! Check that shit out.”
Horn Dawg.
“Mother-fucking Marquon. I told that nigga to watch his ass. Now look at him.”
T-Bone.
“Hey, look at this. Dessert! I’ll be right with you gentlemen.”
The zombie.
Their reply was a volley of gunshots, followed by more ringing. At first, Frankie thought it was in her ears, but dimly she realized it was another cell phone.
“Yo,” T-Bone snapped, cutting the chime off abruptly. “Whassup?”
Silence, and then “You stupid mother fuckers! Wha’chu mean he let it out of its fucking cage? Shit, did he think the bitch was gonna hide in there wit it?”
Frankie resumed watch at the door, in time to see TBone viciously jamming the phone into his pocket. The zombie lay in a bullet-ridden pile at his feet.
“Who that is?” inquired Horn Dawg.
“Fucking C. He said Willie let the damn lion out of its cage. Thought that ho’ might be hiding inside. Stupid mother fucker shot the lock off.”
“Yo, maybe we should forget about all this,” Horn Dawg replied, his face turning ashen. “A fucking lion on the loose? Naaayo. I don’t think so.”
“Man, fuck that lion,” T-Bone spat. “And fuck you too. We ain’t leaving until we find her. And put a bullet in Marquon’s head. We don’t need him getting’ back up and trying to eat a brother.”
Horn Dawg complied with a single shot. He looked at T-Bone.
“Did C say whether that lion was alive or dead?”
“What the fuck you think, nigga? They been stuck in those cages for how long now. You think it was still alive? And I’ll tell you something else. Fucking C is on fucking crack. He say the lion be talking to him and shit!””
The sudden growl from the bushes beyond the fountain was deep and rumbling, a symphony of perfect bestial rage. Then the foliage parted and it padded into the moonlight, the king of the jungle.
The king was dead. Long live the king.
The lion grinned.
It broke into a run and the two gangsters fled for sanctuary.
Frankie’s sanctuary.
She dashed into a stall, slamming the door shut and pulling her feet up just as the outside door crashed open.
“Shoot the fucker,” Horn Dawg screamed. “Nail that sumbitch!”
Instead, T-Bone shoved the door closed and braced his shoulder against it.
“I can’t shoot it, nigga! My clip’s empty. That’s why I had you shoot Marquon! Now drag that trash can over here and put it in front of the door!”
“Man, ain’t no damn trash can gonna stop no dead lion,” Horn Dawg said as he slid the trash can into place. “I jus’ hope he’s too big to fit through the door. Otherwise, we’re fucked.”
“That bitch-that ho is fucked if I catch her stinkin’ junkie ass.
Gettin’ me into this shit-“
A scratch at the door silenced them. Frankie stood on the bowl in the locked stall, her breath locked tight in her chest. If the thing got in here, it would not stop with TBone and Horn Dawg. If she moved, and alerted them to her presence, the lion would be a blessing. Of that she was certain, and the certainty expelled through her pores in thick sweat as she realized that she was going to die.
Oh, God, why did she have to run out of junk? Why like this? She could not die like this-why couldn’t she die happy? Why couldn’t she die high?
The toilet was cold under her feet.
The lion spoke, each word punctuated by a growl, as vocal cords that had never formed words before began to do so now.
The words were in no language Frankie had ever heard-nor anybody on the planet had probably ever heard. It was like something inside the lion was trying to speak-as if it were borrowing the animal’s vocal chords for its own purpose. But a lion’s tongue wasn’t designed for speech.
Was it?
“Motherfucker,” T-Bone whispered as the lion scratched at the door again, this time more insistent.
“Damn yo, we need to get the fuck out of here, like, with a fuckin’ quickness.”
“Well,” T-Bone shouted, “start lookin’ for a fucking way!”
The scratching was furious now, as were the growls of rage, and the terrible, mangled words between them. The garbage can vibrated and shook as the lion’s paws batted the other side of the door. Frankie heard them run past her stall, and try to climb up to the window on the other side.
It was set high in the wall, so T-Bone was standing on Horn-Dawg’s shoulders to reach it. She heard the smash of glass as his pistol butt crashed into the pane.
Frankie willed every cell in her body to silence, to stillness. If she betrayed her presence here, she was dead.
At least T-Bone was out of bullets. She might have a chance. A slim one, but it beat squatting on top of the toilet as a dead lion forced its way into the bathroom, or getting caught by T-Bone and Horn Dawg.
She held her breath because if she gave her position away right now by drawing air, that would be the last breath she ever took. She had to wait until the lion got in.
T-Bone cleared the glass out of his way, and started to pull himself up as the bathroom door crashed open. Horn-Dawg screamed. T-Bone scrambled to the window ledge.
“Pull me up, nigga! Pull me up!” Horn Dawg yelled. Frankie heard him trying to climb the slick tiled wall. His shoes scraped uselessly against it. Then Frankie heard a thud. T-Bone pulled himself through the window.
“You fucking piece o’-” Horn Dawg never finished before the lion’s jaws snapped his spine.
Frankie closed her eyes, tried to ignore the sounds of the lion eating, tried to ignore the smacking, ripping sounds. There was another sound too. Smaller, hidden beneath the symphony of carnage. A constant, incessant buzzing. It took her a moment and then she realized it was the flies living beneath the dead lion’s skin.
The stench was horrible, a cloying miasma of wet fur and decaying flesh that made the urinals in the far corner pleasant by comparison.
Leaping from her crouch, she shoved the stall door open as her feet hit the ground. All sound had stopped, save for her harsh, ragged breathing, amplified by the tile. The lion turned its tattered mane slowly toward her, roaring on mute. T-Bone screamed something from his vantage point at the window, but this too was silenced.
The lion turned, faced her. Bits of Horn-Dawg dangled from its blackened gums. Hunger flashed within its sunken eyes. Dead muscles, free of rigor mortis, coiled like steel cable as it prepared to leap.
Frankie grasped at the door handle, kicking out desperately at the trash can that the lion had knocked aside. She pushed hard, but the door didn’t budge. Whimpering, she slammed against it with her shoulder.
Still, the door didn’t move.
The sounds were rushing back now, growing louder. The lion roared, a dry, desiccated rasp that lost none of its ferocity. The carrion stench filled the room.
“You dumb bitch,” T-Bone cackled from the window. “Can’t chu’ read the sign? That’s it for your ass!”
Frankie glanced above her head.
PULL the grimy sign screamed at her.
Frankie yanked the handle.
The lion sprang.
Then she was out the door and into night. The air was foul and unmoving.
It was the sweetest air she ever breathed. Filling her lungs deep, she ran.
Behind her, the bathrooms shuddered on their foundation as the door swung shut and the lion slammed against it. More clawing sounds from inside. The lion roared, trapped.
Frankie walked backward, her senses hyperaware. The sound of the lion’s rage, the dry papery rustle of leaves in the bushes; each sound electrified her spine with dread. She felt like a field mouse knowing an owl was watching from a tree branch, or a snake from its subterranean pit.
She felt the ground beneath her left foot change: from the bathroom’s concrete path to the asphalt-paved walkway leading through the zoo. In the distance, TBone shouted into his cell phone for reinforcements.
Two monkeys, long dead, reached for her through the bars of a cage to her left, and that was all the incentive she needed to keep running.
Better to be dead than the living dead.
A stagnant breeze ruffled her greasy hair, carrying with it another distant sound. The sound of a baby crying.
She came to a low, flat building on her left. She pulled a door open, and stepped inside. Something wet crunched under her foot.
She did not want to look down, but did anyway. Whatever it used to be was now red and wet and unidentifiable. Maggots, pale and blind and bloated, wriggled throughout it, carving highways in the unknown flesh.
Whimpering, Frankie skittered out of the mess. Her feet left gory tracks on the tiled floor.
The maggots continued about their business, unperturbed. Were they alive or dead, she wondered. Did it matter?
Above her, concealed in the shadows and spider webs, something rasped-like sandpaper on a board.
She backed up quickly and collided with a glass wall display. Biting through her lip, Frankie turned. The terrarium was dark. Inside it, something crawled lazily toward her. An skeletal iguana head, cadaverous and menacing, bumped against the thick glass, leaving bits of itself stuck to the barrier.
Above her, the sound came again, a dryness to it that she couldn’t place. Before she could determine its location, a shadow crossed the doorway.
“Well lookit here,” said C. “Got you now, Frankie!”
Frankie froze. Her tired, bloodshot eyes locked onto the knife C clutched in his right hand. Behind her, the iguana slammed against the glass, its insatiable hunger refusing to be thwarted by the barrier.
“Yo,” C said into his cell phone. “I got the bitch. She in the snake house.”
“Listen C,” Frankie pleaded. “We can work this out. I can take care of you. T-Bone doesn’t have to know.”
“Bitch please,” he spit, “like I’d stick my dick up you? Shee-it! Sides, I ain’t gonna waste you just yet. TBone will want to have some fun wit you first.”
He leaped, and Frankie dodged. Dropping the cell phone, C snatched a handful of her hair and yanked- hard. Frankie screamed in fright and pain. The cell phone slid across the tiles, in time with the slithering sound from overhead, drawing closer.
C slammed Frankie to the floor. Her head cracked on the tile. Her ears rang, and her vision swam away from focus. Warm, salty blood ran down the back of her throat.
Laughing, C straddled her. His weight crushed her chest. He sliced open her shirt. His blade drew a bead of scarlet between her breasts.
“Yeah, now we talking,” he gloated. “Maybe I will break me off a little somethin’ before the crew get here.” His grin was lascivious, and his gold tooth glinted in the near dark, as he slid the blade just below her nipple. “You hear what I’m sayin’?”
Frankie held her breath, too afraid to move.
C pushed the knife a little harder, drawing more blood. “Answer me, bitch. You hearin’ me?”
“Please, C, don’t-“
Something long and white dropped from the ceiling and coiled around him.
C’s eyes bulged in terror as decomposed flesh wrapped around him. The anaconda had once been the talk of the Mid-Atlantic region, and even in death, it was still magnificent. Frankie didn’t stop to ponder its morbid beauty however. She was too busy scurrying backward and bleeding to marvel at the snake’s power and speed.
Her mind did take in its swollen length, and the bones that protruded through the parchment-like hide. It squeezed its prey, glaring at her with one malevolent eye. The other socket was empty save for the maggots wriggling within.
Again, Frankie screamed.
C did not. His dark skin turned purple as the undead serpent twisted around him, hiding his legs and his waist and his chest beneath one hundred and fifty pounds of decaying flesh.
Frankie slid to her feet and stumbled into a side office. Trembling, she slammed the door shut behind her. She pressed the tattered remains of her shirt around her wound, stopping the flow of blood, and examined the cut. She was relieved to find that it wasn’t deep. Her nipple was still intact.
She glanced around the room, searching for a weapon. Oak bookshelves displayed dusty tomes of forgotten zoological lore, never to be used again. A matching desk was in the room’s center. Occupying it was a blotter, an in-and-out basket overflowing with paperwork, a tape player, and a coffee mug from which several pens jutted.
She crossed the room and began to rifle through the drawers. A family, framed in glass, smiled back at her, watching her actions with eternally frozen stares. An all-American family: husband, wife, and two kids-a boy and a girl. The girl was the youngest, probably around four or five.
Adorable.
Was she still alive?
Again, she thought she heard the cry of a baby.
She flung her hands to her ears, clenching her eyes shut. “Stop it stop it STOP it!”
The ghost noise continued.
She considered the pens on the desk. Did she have the courage to just jam one into her eye, forcing it back until it puncture the membrane and sank into her brain?
She opened the bottom drawer, and a revolver stared back at her. An old one. She scrabbled through the drawer, searching for bullets and finding only the moldy remains of several packages of Twinkies. She opened the cylinder, and laughed out loud when she saw that it was full. Six bullets gleamed at her from their snug confines.
She slammed the cylinder back into place, and began to believe.
Then she heard the baby again; louder, more insistent.
She went to the window and peered outside. A hedge blocked her view from the main concourse, but the backside of the Reptile House looked deserted.
Gritting her teeth, Frankie forced the window upward and crawled outside into the night air.
Crouching, she crept toward the bushes.
Something rustled on the other side. Frankie raised the pistol.
She burst from the foliage and almost tripped over the baby stroller. It was lying on its side, half on the curb, half in the grass. Strapped safely in the belts was an infant. It raised its tiny head, looked at her, and wailed.
The frilly pink blouse it wore was dirty and stained, both from the elements and from its own juices. The scalp, once covered with a fine layer of downy hair, had peeled back in places, exposing the dull gleam of bone. It struggled uselessly in the restraints, reaching for her. Its lilting cry continued and in that keening sob was hunger and a need to be comforted.
Frankie’s face crumbled. She shuffled toward it, tears streaking through the grime and blood that spattered her pale cheeks. She reached for the stroller, setting it upright, and the infant cooed at her, grubby outstretched fists pumping the air. She offered her finger and the cold, skeletal fingers curled around it happily.
Slowly the infant’s eyes rose to Frankie’s. Its hollow-eyed stare was extinguished as the infant suddenly lunged forward, its ravenous blackened maw widening in an attempt to latch on to her hand.
Frankie screamed, snatching her finger back from the zombie.
“What the fuck was that, yo?”
Frankie dived behind the hedge just as T-Bone and two other thugs rounded the corner, attracted by the baby’s cries.
“Latron, go on around front,” T-Bone ordered one of the men, who trotted off around the corner of the Reptile House.
“Damn, holmes,” sputtered the other. “That’s a baby!”
“No shit, nigga,” spat T-Bone. He had to shout over the infant’s shrieks. “I look stupid to you, Terrell? Blast it while I go check out that window.”
Terrell leveled the shotgun he was carrying at the stroller and jacked the pump. His eyes were wide.
“I ain’t never shot no babies, T-Bone.”
“It ain’t no baby no more! Now shoot the fucking thing and let’s go get that ho!”
As if to prove his point, the infant’s squeals turned to curses.
Terrell blasted it in half. Still it continued to curse. Ejecting a shell, he fired again, obliterating its head.
Yelling, Frankie erupted from the shrubbery. She emptied four bullets into the would-be gunman before he could even pull the trigger.
She snarled, and fired at T-Bone. The gangster flung himself to the pavement, raised Marquon’s recovered pistol, and squeezed off a burst of his own. The shots went low, spraying Frankie with fragments of asphalt and dirt, but missing her.
From inside the Reptile House came a horrified shout, as Latron discovered the same fate that had befallen C. Startled, T-Bone was distracted by the man’s screams. Seizing the moment, Frankie fired. A crimson flower bloomed in the middle of T-Bone’s forehead. He grunted once, his chest rising, then lay still.
Frankie emptied the last bullet into Terrell’s head, making sure he wouldn’t get up again either.
In the aftermath, the zoo had grown quiet.
She glanced over at the remains of the baby, then turned away.
Escaping through the city streets was hopeless. On any night, the streets of Baltimore teemed with people. Now they would be crawling with the walking dead.
She wondered just how many had been attracted by the gun battle, shuffling toward the zoo even now.
The streets and alleys were out, as was the beltway. She considered hiding on a nearby tenement rooftop, but that was no good either. She shuddered, remembering the old man and the pigeons.
Her skin began to itch. Already, her body was demanding another fix.
A nearby manhole cover caught her eye. She ran to it.
Something chittered from the shadows. A monkey perhaps. Alive or dead she did not know nor did she want to find out. She clawed at the iron cover, straining. It didn’t budge. Her yellowed nails bent, then snapped, and still she pulled.
Footsteps rang out behind her.
Still struggling, Frankie turned and screamed.
Three of them approached her, still dressed in the garments of their former existence. A businessman, red tie now sinking into the bloated, mottled throat. A nurse, whose formerly white uniform was now a tie-dye of various bodily fluids. A maintenance worker, the zoo logo still prominently displayed on his left breast. He carried some type of electric prod, and thrust it outward. It crackled in the darkness.
Laughing, they advanced on her.
Frankie shrieked, yanking frantically at the stubborn cover. Something in her back tore. Still she pulled. The abscesses in her arms burst, spurting with pus-yellow blood.
The cover rose with a screech, and she slid it to the side.
The zombies drew closer. They did not speak, and Frankie found their silence even more disturbing than the others. She thought of the baby.
That evil zombie baby that had seemed so harmless…
Arms weak, collapsed veins turning to water, she still found the strength to raise her arm and extend her middle finger. Then she dropped down into the hole and was swallowed by the darkness.
She was on the run again, and while she could outrun the zombies, she couldn’t escape herself-or the craving that was building in her veins.
Martin stared at Jesus on the cross and thought about resurrection.
Lazarus had lain dead in his tomb for four days before Jesus came along.
Martin opened his Scofield Reference Bible and turned to the Book of John. In Chapter 11, Verse 39, Martha told Jesus “by this time he stinketh; for he hath been dead four days.”
That was pretty specific.
So was the account of Jesus bringing Lazarus back from the dead.
“Lazarus come forth!” and the dead man did just that, still bound in graveclothes. Jesus then commanded the crowd to turn Lazarus loose, after which John dropped the narrative and moved on to the conversion of the Jews and the Pharisee conspiracy.
Nowhere in the Bible did it say Lazarus went around eating people.
The Bible that Martin had known, taught, and loved for the last forty years was full of examples of the dead coming back to life. But not like this.
“He that believes in me shall have eternal life,” Martin spoke aloud.
His voice sounded very small in the empty church.
He wondered if the things he had glimpsed in the street were still believers. At one time, many of them had been members of his congregation.
Martin had seen a lot in his sixty years. He’d survived a copperhead bite when he was seven and pneumonia when he was ten. He served as a Navy chaplain during Viet Nam, and made it back home alive, only to have Desert Storm claim a son of his own in return. That had been their only child. He’d outlived his wife, Chesya, gone five years now to breast cancer.
His faith had gotten him through it all.
He needed that faith now, clinging to it as a drowning man would grasp a lifeboat.
But he also found himself questioning it. Not for the first time-the Lord had given him all kinds of tests over the years, though never anything so fundamental as this. But, as Martin was fond of telling his flock, the good Lord didn’t waste his time testing those who didn’t have much to offer.
He moved across the church to the boarded-over stained glass window and peered through a knothole in the plywood.
Though not quite dawn, the darkness was already receding. Becky Gingerich, the church organist, had lost her soiled dress overnight. Now she squatted among the shrubs, clad only in a filthy pair of once-white cotton panties. Her sagging breasts swayed freely. She gnawed on a forearm as if it were a chicken leg, then cast it aside, staring off into the distance and moaning softly. Something had attracted her attention.
A man appeared, cautiously limping down the street. His jeans and flannel shirt were dirty and torn. He clutched a pistol, but the weapon dangled limply by his side. He did not seem to notice the corpse moving in the shadows. Wearily, he collapsed to his knees on the sidewalk.
The hedges rustled and Becky darted forward. Half conscious, the man seemed unaware of the danger.
“Hey!” Martin shouted, beating his fist against the plywood. “Lookout!”
Mouthing a quick prayer, he dashed into the narthex
and struggled to move the heavy wooden pew propped against the door.
Sliding it aside, he grabbed the shotgun from the coat rack, undid the four recently installed deadbolts, and ran outside.
Hearing the commotion, the stranger turned as the zombie lurched toward him. He raised the pistol and fired. The bullet tore through her shoulder. Running across the yard, Martin ducked as the second shot missed its mark completely.
The man squeezed the trigger again, and missed. He fired a fourth time, but the clip was empty. Confused, he looked at the pistol, then stared up at Becky.
He closed his eyes, and Martin heard him whisper “I’m sorry, Danny.”
Martin slammed the shotgun into the creature’s back. The former organist toppled face first to the sidewalk; yellowed teeth breaking on the pavement.
Martin jacked a shell into the chamber, and placed the barrel against the base of the zombie’s skull.
Becky screamed in rage.
“Go with God, Rebecca.”
Brain matter and skull fragments sprayed across the sidewalk like a Rorschach pattern.
The sun peeked over the rooftops. The roar of the shotgun echoed through the quiet streets, greeting the dawn.
“I’m afraid that’s going to attract attention. We’d best get inside!”
The elderly black man held his hand out to Jim who took it. Despite his age, the man’s grip was firm. He wore crumpled khakis and black shoes.
Something white peeked out from beneath the neckline of his yellow sweater.
A preacher’s collar.
“Thank you, Father,” Jim said.
“Pastor, actually,” the old man corrected him, smiling. “Reverend Thomas Martin. And no need to thank me. Give your thanks to the Lord after we’re safe.”
“Jim Thurmond, and yeah, let’s get off the street.”
A hungry cry, followed by another, was all the incentive they needed.
“Is this your church, Reverend?”
The old man smiled. “It’s God’s church. I just work here.”
Martin fixed him a makeshift bed using blankets and a pew. Jim resisted, insisting that he only needed to rest for a moment, and promptly fell into a deep but troubled sleep. Martin sipped instant coffee and stood watch, listening to the occasional shriek of the things outside.
Shortly before noon, a wandering zombie discovered Becky’s corpse and began to feed on her remains. Martin watched in revulsion as, like ants, more of the creatures were attracted to the feast. Occasionally, they would glance around at the surrounding houses and the church. Martin wondered if they would be moved to investigate, but they seemed satisfied with the free lunch.
An hour later, when the knot of fetid things scattered, nothing remained of Becky except bones and a few red bits, smeared across the sidewalk and grass.
Jim awoke at sundown, alarmed at first and unable to remember where he was. He sat up, looking around the church. This wasn’t the shelter! Then he saw the preacher, smiling in the candlelight, and he remembered-
-and in remembering, he thought of Danny.
“Here you go,” Martin handed him a steaming cup of coffee. “It’s not very good, but it’ll wake you up.”
“Thanks,” Jim nodded. He sipped it and took in the surroundings. “Pretty secure. You do all these fortifications yourself?”
The preacher laughed softly.
“Yes, by the grace of God. I managed to get the place squared away before it got bad. I had some help. John, our janitor. He’s the one who got the windows boarded over.”
“Where is he now?”
Martin’s face darkened. He didn’t speak for a moment, and Jim wondered if he had heard him.
“I don’t know,” he said finally. “Dead I suppose. Or undead more likely.
He left two weeks ago, insisted on getting his pickup truck. Planned on driving us out of here. He was convinced this was a localized problem, thought the government might have this section of the state cordoned off. John figured we should make for Beckley or Lewisburg, or maybe Richmond. I never saw him again.”
“It’s like this everywhere, as far as I can tell,” Jim told him. “I-I came from Lewisburg.”
“On foot too, it would seem,” Martin commented in wonderment. “How did you manage that?”
“I almost didn’t,” Jim admitted. “I was on auto-pilot I guess.”
“These are times when men are forced to do what they must,” the Preacher sighed. “I had hoped it was different elsewhere. I prayed for a ham radio set, or even a decent pair of those AM/FM headphones I see the kids wearing, just so I could know what was happening. I’ve had no contact with folks, and the power has pretty much been out, except for a few streetlights here and there. I heard a plane go overhead a few days ago, but that’s been it.”
“The power was still on in Lewisburg. I had radio, TV, and the net.
They’re worthless though. There’s nothing, no one. As for this being a localized event, it’s been over a month. I think they’d have had troops in here by now, if that was the case.”
The Preacher thought about this, then excused himself and disappeared into a side room. Jim began to lace up his boots.
Returning, Martin offered him Oreo cookies, bread, animal crackers, and warm grape juice for dinner. “Got the cookies and crackers from the Sunday School room. The bread and juice were for communion.”
They ate in silence.
After a few minutes, Martin caught Jim staring at him.
“Why?” Jim asked.
“Why what?”
“Why did God let this happen? I thought the end of the world was supposed to be when Russia invaded Israel and you couldn’t buy anything without having a 666 on your credit card.”
“That’s one interpretation,” Martin nodded. “But you’re talking about end-time prophecy and you’ve got to remember, there are many, many different ideas about what it all means.”
“I thought that when the Rapture happened, the dead would return to life? Isn’t that what’s happening?”
“Well, the actual word ‘Rapture’ never occurs in the Old or New Testament. But yes, the Bible does speak of the dead returning to life, after a fashion, to live with the Lord upon his return.”
“No offense Reverend, but if He’s returned, He’s made a hell of a mess of things.”
“That’s just it, Jim. He hasn’t returned-not yet. What’s happening isn’t of God. It’s Satan who was given mastery over the Earth. Yet even in this, we must stand firm and trust in the will of the Lord.”
“Do you believe that, Martin? Do you really believe this is God’s will?”
Martin paused, choosing his words carefully.
“If you’re asking me if I believe in God, Jim, yes. Yes I do. But more importantly, I believe that there is a reason for everything, good and bad. Despite what you may have heard, bad things are not caused by God.
When there’s a tornado, that isn’t God’s will. But it’s his love and power that gives us the strength to carry on in the tornado’s wake, And it’s that same love that will get us through now. I believe we have been spared for a reason.”
“I have a reason, alright,” Jim nodded, standing. “My son is alive, and I’ve got to make it to New Jersey and save him. Thanks for the meal and the shelter, Reverend, and more importantly, thanks for saving my ass today. I’d like to pay you, if you’ll let me. I don’t have much, but I’ve got some extra sardines and Tylenol in my pack-“
“Your son is alive?” Martin repeated. “How can you be sure? New Jersey is a long way off.”
“He called me last night on my cell phone.”
The old man looked at him as if he were crazy.
“I know it sounds crazy but it happened! He’s alive and hiding out in my ex-wife’s attic. I’m got to get to him.”
Slowly, Martin rose from the pew.
“Then I’ll help you.”
“Thanks Martin. Really, thanks. But I can’t ask you to do that. I need to move quickly, and I don’t want-“
“Nonsense,” the preacher interrupted. “You asked me about God’s will and the meaning in all of this. Well, it’s His will that you received that call, and it’s His will that kept you alive to receive it. And it’s also His will that I help you.”
“I can’t ask you to do that.”
“You’re not asking me. God is.” Martin stamped his foot, then more quietly, said “I feel this in my heart.”
Jim stared at him, unflinching. Then, slowly, a grin spread across his tired face.
“Alright,” he reached out a hand. “If it’s God’s will and everything, I guess I can’t stand in the way of that.”
They shook hands, and sat back down.
“So what’s your plan?” Martin asked.
“We need a vehicle. I don’t reckon the church has one that we could use?”
“No,” Martin shook his head. “That’s why John left. To get his truck.
But there’s plenty in the streets and driveways.”
“I don’t suppose a man of the cloth knows how to hot wire one?”
“No, but there’s a dealership just off the interstate. We could get one there, keys and everything. It’s right off Sixty-Four.”
“Works for me,” Jim said, mulling it over. “When can we make a move? I can’t waste any more time.”
“We’ll leave tonight,” Martin said. “Those things don’t really sleep, but the darkness will give us more cover. That’s how I’ve avoided discovery so far. I stay quiet, watch for them during the day, and sleep at night. With the boards over the windows, they can’t spot the candlelight, and I’ve been careful not to give them a reason to be curious.”
“Well, let’s hope that luck holds.”
“I told you, Jim. It’s not luck-it’s God. All you have to do is ask Him.”
Jim began reloading his clip.
“In that case Pastor Martin, I’m going to ask for a tank.”
“They can drive?” Martin sputtered, astonished.
Jim pored over the atlas spread out on the pulpit in front of him. “The ones I saw last night sure could. They can shoot, use tools. Everything you and I can do. They’re just a little slower at it. That’s our only advantage.”
“I saw one a week or so ago,” Martin told him, while waterproofing his boots. “Mike Roden’s boy, Ben. Mike was the manager over at the bank.
Anyway, Ben was carrying a skateboard at his side. Not riding it, but carrying it, as if he was planning on riding it if he could find a suitable spot. I just figured it was some kind of rudimentary instinct-a trace memory of before.”
“It’s more than just memory, I can tell you that,” Jim said, then paused. He thought back to the basement, and to what Mr. Thompson and Carrie had said. A part of them, the physical part, were people he had known and loved. But there was something else too. Something inside of them that was-old. Ancient.
And very, very evil.
“I was there,” Mr. Thompson’s corpse had said, when talking about the war. “Well, not ME, of course. But this body was there. I see the memories.”
“I don’t think these zombies are the people we knew.”
“Well of course they are, Jim. That one I shot this morning was Becky Gingerich. She’d been our organist for almost seven years.”
Frustrated, Jim struggled for the words to express what he was thinking.
He was a construction worker, damn it. Not a scientist!
“The bodies are the same on the outside, yes, but I think what’s making them come back is something else. A force of some kind.”
The zombie’s taunts came back to him. “We are what once was and are again. We own your flesh. When your soul has departed, you belong to us.
We consume you. We inhabit you!”
Jim told Martin of his escape from the shelter. He paused when he came to Carrie and the baby, then finished, swallowing hard. “It’s like they possess our bodies, but not until after we’re dead. Like they have to wait for our souls to leave or something.”
The old man nodded patiently. “Demons.”
“Maybe,” Jim agreed, “but I’ve never taken that stuff seriously.”
“The dead walk the Earth, Jim. What could be more serious than that?”
“I know, I know!” Jim slammed his hand down on the pulpit. “But if they’re demons, then shouldn’t we be able to throw holy water on them, or exorcise them or something? There’s so much we don’t know! Why can you fill them full of holes and they keep coming, but hit them in what’s left of their brain and they drop? They eat us, but is it for nourishment, or just because they’re sadistic bastards? Their bodies keep rotting, the meat just slides right off the bone, and yet they keep going!”
He stopped, shocked by his outburst. He hadn’t realized he was crying till he felt the wetness on his cheek.
“I’m sorry, Reverend,” he apologized. “I’m just worried about Danny.”
“I don’t have the answers, Jim. I wish I did. One thing I can tell you is that God does have the answers, and with his strength, we will win the day. We will save your son!”
Jim nodded in acceptance, and turned back to the atlas. Inside, he wished he could believe it.
An hour later, they were ready, and sat discussing the plan one last time.
“I still think we should avoid any population centers,” Martin said.
“The more people that lived in a town, the more zombies there probably are in that area. Let’s stick to the back roads.”
“I agree,” Jim conceded, “and if it was just you and me, I’d say we head higher up into the mountains. But the longer we take, the less chance Danny has. Other than the Appalachians, the whole East Coast is pretty much one big population center. At least on the Interstate, we can avoid going through the center of any town, large or small. If these things are on the move, and driving in numbers, we’ll have a better chance outrunning them on an Interstate I’m familiar with, rather than some winding back road.”
“So,” he continued, “we hit the Chevy dealership, get us a vehicle, and see what kind of attention we’ve attracted. If we don’t have company, we do a quick stop at the Super Mart next door, stock up in the sporting goods section, and then we’re on the road. Sound good?”
“Not really,” Martin grinned, “but I’ve got nothing better.”
Jim smiled back. “Let’s go.”
They walked to the door, moved the pew aside, undid the bolts and peered out into the night.
The street was empty.
Stealthily, they made their way across the street and slipped into the shadows. Martin led the way, and Jim was surprised at the older man’s stamina and speed. They crept between houses, careful to stay out of the moonlight and the few scattered areas where the automatic streetlights still worked. Martin led him through backyards, a small urban woodland, around a baseball diamond, and through a culvert.
Occasionally they spotted or heard the undead, but were careful to stay hidden until the danger had passed.
Finally, upon exiting a cornfield, they reached the car lot. The dealership shared the highway exit with a strip mall and several fast food restaurants. Ghostly sodium lights bathed the parking lots in a yellow glow.
“Looks deserted,” Martin whispered. “Do you think it’s safe?”
“I don’t think anything’s safe anymore, Reverend,” Jim said grimly, “but we’ve got no choice.”
Crouching between the rows of new vehicles, they crept across the lot. A few of the cars showed signs of vandalism-a smashed windshield, several slashed tires; but most still looked brand new. Banners and stickers in the windshields promised o% FINANCING and warned TWO-DAKS ONLY!!, begging them to TAKE ME HOME TODAY.
A black Suburban caught Jim’s eye.
“How about this one?”
“I reckon that should do us just fine,” Martin agreed. “But how do you plan to get us going?”
“Follow me and I’ll show you,” Jim told him. “My friend Mike used to sell cars. They usually keep the keys in one location.” Jim stood quietly for a full minute, memorizing the Vin number on the sticker by repeating it over and over to himself. Then they walked toward the showroom.
Something hissed behind them. Something else joined in. Then several more.
“What the hell?”
They turned, and with a howl, something small and black and furry launched itself at them. They stumbled backward, pressing against the garage doors, and the blast from Martin’s shotgun cut the leaping cat in half.
Three more undead felines crept forward. Their fur was matted with dried blood and gore. One’s entrails dragged uselessly along behind it.
The feline zombies leaned back on their haunches, preparing to jump.
Martin stared in disbelief.
“They’re cats!”
“They’re zombies, Martin! Shoot the fuckers!”
They opened fire, dropping two where they crouched. Spitting with rage, the third ran beneath a car and darted out the other side. Martin fired after it, but Jim held up a hand and stopped him.
“Forget about it! If the shooting didn’t let the whole town know we’re here, then that furball will. We’d better find those keys quick!”
“Even the animals,” Martin hyperventilated. “Oh Jim, I had no idea.”
“I forgot to tell you about that. I’m sorry about my language too.”
“No need to apologize. It was the heat of battle.” The old man reloaded the shotgun. “Besides,” he gave Jim a wink, “I’ve been known to say worse upon occasion.”
“How you boys doing this evening?”
Both men whirled around as the glass doors swung open. A zombie stepped into the lot. It grinned at them, revealing blackened gums and a grayish tongue. Fly larvae wriggled in its nose. The formerly white shirt and gray dress slacks that it wore were stained with the corpse’s juices. A tie hung askew around its neck.
“Shit.” Jim raised the gun.
“Now son,” the zombie rasped. “There’s no need for that. Tell me, what do I need to do to put you in a new car today?”
“No thanks,” Martin’s voice quavered. “We’re just looking.”
Jim fired, the shot sinking into the creature’s chest. It took another step toward them.
“Well then, maybe the question is, what do I need to do to put my friends in the two of you!”
It ducked a second before Jim’s follow-up shot. Weaving to the left, it lunged forward and it made a grab for Martin’s thigh. The black man shrank away.
“Mmmm, dark meat!”
Jim’s third shot found a home in the zombie’s temple, and an exit on the other side. It collapsed to the pavement, thudding against the bumper of the truck in front of them.
“Let’s move!”
They scanned the showroom and cautiously entered the building. Jim quickly found what he was looking for; a lock box mounted on the wall, directly across from the sales manager’s desk.
“Here goes nothing.”
He fired a shot at the lock, and they both ducked as the bullet ricocheted off the metal lock box and into a filing cabinet.
“Damn! That thing’s strong. I thought we’d be able to shoot the lock off.”
“Maybe he has a key,” Martin offered, pointing outside at the re-killed corpse.
“Maybe,” Jim agreed. “Go look. It should be a small, round key. I’ll check the shop.”
Jim disappeared into the back, and Martin said nothing, staring after him.
He walked back outside and eyed the zombie warily. It lay in the same position it had fallen in.
“The Lord is my shepherd,” Martin recited, creeping closer. Then he was above it. The stench was overpowering. Something wriggled beneath the skin of its forearm, tunneling beneath the waxy flesh.
Taking a deep breath, Martin bent down and reached for the creature.
The lights went off, plunging the lot into darkness.
Martin cried out, scrambling backward. He heard Jim holler in surprise as well. Something crashed inside the dealership. The building was dark too, as were the strip mall and the restaurants.
“Jim?” He ran back inside. “Jim! You okay?”
“I’m fine.” Jim stumbled back into the showroom. “Looks like the rest of the power finally went out. Wonder if it’s just this grid or a wider area?”
“I don’t know, but if that cat and all the shooting didn’t get them stirred up, this certainly will. We need to go. I didn’t get a key.”
“That’s okay,” Jim said, hefting a crowbar. “I found one.”
He went to work on the lock box. Breaking into it with the crowbar was harder than he’d thought it would be, and it was ten minutes before he cracked it.
“Shit!”
“What’s wrong now?”
“We need the Vin number! After everything that happened, I forgot it!
Run back out and get it for me, but be careful.” He grabbed a tablet and a pen off the salesperson’s desk and tossed them to him.
Breathing another silent prayer, Martin walked across the lot to the Suburban. The sticker was hard to read now that the lights were off, and it took a moment for his eyes to adjust. Finally deciphering it, he jotted the number down and trotted back toward the showroom.
Halfway across the lot, he smelled it. Like the zombie they’d just killed, but stronger.
Much stronger.
Martin ran back into the building.
Eye’s wide, he exploded into the showroom.
“KLKBG22J4L668923!”
Jim rifled through the keys, searching for a matching number.
“What’s the last four numbers?”
“8923! But-“
“Wait a minute.”
There’s something else, Jim!”
“Just a second-got it!” The grin on his face died when he glanced up at the preacher.
“What is it?”
“Sniff the air for a moment.” Martin told him. “Do you smell it?”
Jim breathed deep and then gagged.
“Jesus, what is that?”
“They’re coming!”
They charged across the lot, reaching the vehicle as the first few zombies loped through the rows of cars. More of the dead stepped out of the cornfield, or shambled across the adjacent parking lots. Dozens poured out of the doors of the Safe Mart next door.
Spying them, the zombies lifted up a horrifying cry, and began to half-run, half lurch toward them.
“Time to go!” Jim shouted and pressed the button on the remote dangling from the keychain.
The door didn’t open. He pressed harder and still nothing happened.
“Shit!”
“What’s wrong?” Martin demanded, watching in horror as the zombies drew closer.
“It’s one of those remote locking systems, and the batteries in this thing aren’t working!”
A zombie in overalls and suspenders had almost reached them. It stopped less than fifteen feet away and raised the pitchfork it was carrying, shaking it at them.
“Give it up, humans. Our brothers await release! Surrender now, and we promise we’ll make it quick.”
Jim’s answer was a shot to its head. Gurgling, the creature fell, and the others rushed forward.
Martin raised the shotgun and blasted the passenger window. Knocking glass out of the way with the stock, he clambered through the opening.
His joints groaned and creaked in protest.
Jim picked his targets carefully, waiting till they were close, aiming for the head, and then firing.
“Hurry!”
Martin dropped into the seat, felt something pop in his back, and fumbled with the lock as a white-hot pain raced down his spine. Gritting his teeth, he gripped the latch and opened the door.
Dozens of the creatures swarmed the car lot, and reinforcements were closing the distance quickly. Jim dropped two more in their tracks and then jumped inside, throwing his backpack onto the seat between them. He thrust the key into the ignition and turned. The engine purred to life.
Jim slammed it into drive, and they lurched forward in their seats.
The SUV roared in protest, refusing to budge.
A pair of mottled arms reached through the shattered window, clutching at Martin.
“The emergency break!” he gasped, and shoved the barrel against the zombie’s chin. He squeezed the trigger as they sped forward, the roar of the shotgun momentarily deafening them both.
Another zombie jumped in front of them and ran straight toward the vehicle. Jim stomped the gas, running it down. Cursing, it bounced off the bumper and lay writhing in their wake. The impact jolted them, and Martin screamed as another bolt of pain tore through his back. Through watering eyes, he watched as the undead flashed by them. Jim guided the Suburban up the ramp and onto the highway.
“Well now,” Jim chuckled, pointing ahead. “Look who it is!”
The cat that had escaped them earlier stood frozen in their headlights.
A second later, it crunched softly under the tires. Jim glance back in the rearview mirror and saw it splattered across the road.
Martin groaned in pain.
“What’s wrong?” Jim asked, concerned. “You okay?”
“I’ll be fine,” he gasped, opening his eyes. “Hurt my back when I climbed through the window, is all. I’m not as young as I used to be.”
Leaning forward, Jim turned on the wiper fluid. It sprayed across the windshield, washing the blood away.
“There’s painkillers in my backpack. Help yourself.”
“Bless you,” Martin sighed, and undid the hasp. He reached inside and shuffled through the contents, looking for the bottle. His fingers closed around a photograph, and he took it out, appraising it.
“Is this your son?” he asked.
Jim glanced over. Martin held the photo from the shelter, the one of them with the Soap Box Derby trophy.
“Yep,” he said quietly. “That’s my son. That’s Danny.”
They drove into the night.
Baker camped in the janitor’s office of a Rest Stop along the Pennsylvania Turnpike. Smashing open the vending machines, he ate a dinner of chips and candy and washed it down with warm soda. He’d used the butt of his rifle to break the glass on the machines, and for a brief moment, wondered if anybody would call the authorities. Then he chuckled at the absurdity of the thought.
He wished his only crimes against humanity were mere vandalism and petty theft, but two days of panicked observation had confirmed otherwise.
This was his fault.
The escape from Havenbrook had been harrowing. Fleeing down dark tunnels and hallways, the sounds of Ob’s furious pursuit echoed closely behind him at all times. Finally, he’d made it out, but only after an exhausting climb up an elevator shaft.
What he escaped into was far worse.
There was no hole in the sky, no gaping wound from which another dimension could be glimpsed. Baker surmised that the experiment had probably weakened the walls between this world and the place Ob and his brethren came from, blurring the invisible boundaries. Whatever the portal was, it wasn’t obvious.
The facility grounds were deserted, and he had no trouble temporarily outfitting himself from the guard shack. He then ransacked the first house he came to and managed to find a hunting rifle and a pistol, along with a supply of food.
He easily avoided the few zombies remaining in Hellertown, simply by sticking to the woods. But it was in those woods, halfway to Allentown, that the real pursuit started.
Baker had forgotten about the fish.
Walking like a zombie himself, the full enormity of what he had helped unleash upon the planet starting to sink in, Baker didn’t hear the squirrels until they were almost upon him. He was grateful for the annual hunting trips he’d taken with his colleagues. He managed to drop four of the creatures in quick succession. But while he was reloading, the rabbits emerged from the brush, and the chase began.
Branches and thorns tearing at him, he’d run through the woods, chased by a pack of undead bunny rabbits. Thinking about it in retrospect, Baker could almost laugh, but he was afraid if that he started laughing now, he’d never stop. Something inside of him felt like it was ready to break.
He’d managed to kill or elude his smaller pursuers, as well as an undead turkey buzzard and four human zombies.
That first night, he’d come across a baseball diamond overlooking Allentown. He’d taken shelter inside a portable toilet and was awakened by screams. He’d watched in horror as a group of zombies mounted on offroad bikes hunted down a young couple who were still very much alive.
Baker had considered helping them for a moment, but paralyzed with fear and hopelessly outnumbered, he could only watch from his hiding place as the creatures shot them, aiming to wound, and then feasted upon their flesh.
They’re hunting us, he’d realized.
Baker had noted with horrified detachment that while they consumed organs and skin, the zombies left enough intact for the victims to remain mobile.
Soon they were. Inhabited by something else, the humanoid shells rose, joining their brethren. Then they moved on.
Baker spent the rest of that night shuddering in the darkness, unable to sleep.
The next day had been a long, slow, and terrifying trek, until he’d stumbled onto the Turnpike. The highway had been surprisingly vacant; the zombies having moved on to better hunting grounds. He cautiously passed around a few abandoned cars and some orange construction cones, but that was all.
Now that he was settled and relatively safe for the moment here in the rest stop, the fear slid away, replaced by shock and an overwhelming guilt.
He couldn’t stop thinking about his responsibility for all of this. He was surely damned, and this was hell.
Swooning, Baker clenched his eyes shut and gripped the corners of the janitor’s sink. He wailed, forgetting for a moment that silence was the key to staying alive. The tears were too much to keep bottled up inside-too great to be controlled. A scream of anguish burned in his throat. The tears kept coming, and he crouched there for a long time.
He did not hear the door open behind him.
Baker’s back was to it, his shoulders heaving as he cried. He opened his eyes for a moment, peering down into the sink. The room was spinning, and Baker began to shiver, despite the sweat on his brow.
A shadow fell across him.
Baker’s legs buckled, and his head struck the rim of the sink as he crumpled to the floor.
Moaning unintelligibly, the figure in the doorway shuffled toward him.
Baker stirred, then froze; his eyes shut. Something moved in the darkness.
“Nnnuuhh.”
Oh God! One of them got in here while I was passed out!
He kept his eyes closed; thinking. Judging from the sounds, the zombie was right on top of him. His pistol was inside his pack, which meant it might as well have been on the moon. He was helpless.
The creature warbled to itself in a strange, lilting pattern; as if its tongue had been removed.
“Nnnuuuhh. Nooonah.”
Baker realized it was singing.
The thing brushed up against him, draping something cold and wet across his forehead. Water ran into the corners of his eyes and down his cheeks.
“Wata. Nowhooo beh awwllyht. Aykuhp.”
A firm hand patted his cheek softly. Baker willed himself to remain still, fighting the urge to scream.
The flesh against his face didn’t feel dead. It was warm and smooth. The creature didn’t reek of decay either. Rather, it stank of unwashed armpits and sweat, much like Baker himself.
“Ayk uhp fo Wohrm.”
Heart pounding, Baker opened his eyes.
A round, grimy face drooled over him, smiling happily when it saw he was awake.
The boy leaned back on his haunches and spoke.
“Oooayyk! Yaaayy!”
Baker removed the wet rag from his forehead, studying his benefactor.
His age was indeterminate, somewhere between fourteen and nineteen, Baker guessed. Judging by his facial features and deformities, the boy suffered from some form of retardation. Baker couldn’t determine what type.
“Thank you,” Baker nodded, smiling gently.
“Ellkohm!”
Welcome, perhaps?
Baker turned away to lay the rag on the sink, asking “My name is Professor Baker. What’s yours?”
The boy made no reply. Baker looked back over his shoulder. The boy peered up at him curiously.
“Ellkohm!” he cheered again.
“What’s your name, my friend?” Baker asked. The boy stared at his lips, brow knitted in concentration. He shook his head in frustration, and continued staring, waiting for Baker to repeat himself.
He’s reading my lips! He’s deaf!
Baker knelt before him on the floor, forming his words carefully.
“My name is Baker,” he pointed to his chest. “What is your name?”
Understanding flickered in the boy’s eyes and he clapped.
“Wohrm!” he chirped, poking a thumb at himself.
“Worm?” Baker queried. The boy nodded gleefully, and then pointed at Baker.
“Baykhar?”
“Yes, Baker.” He placed his hand on the boy’s shoulder and squeezed. “It is very nice to meet you, Worm.”
“Nyyyz to eeet oo!” Worm agreed.
Baker laughed, his tears and guilt forgotten for a moment.
Baker shared his vending machine spoils with his new companion.
Conversation was nonexistent, save for Worm’s delighted grunts as he devoured the candy bars. He whistled and hooted in enjoyment, and Baker grinned.
How had he survived, alone and without guidance? Baker had no way of knowing.
He tapped Worm on the shoulder. The boy looked at him expectantly.
“Where are your parents?”
Worm’s glance fell to his lap, a shadow passing beneath his soulful brown eyes.
“Mmm-myss,” he stammered. “Myss eeght Mawmee.”
“I don’t understand,” Baker told him, moving his lips carefully.
Worm reared backward, holding his hands before him like claws. His lips wrinkled back into a sneer, and he squinted his eyes and began to squeak.
“Myss,” he said again, crawling around the room on all fours. Then he looked at Baker for understanding.
“Mice?”
Worm nodded excitedly, then stopped, sadness washing over him again.
