Best New Zombie Tales Trilogy (100 page)

“Fine, but I want to show you guys something first. Something my brother told me about.” Dan pointed the barrel of his shotgun into a thick patch of inky shadow and strode forward.

Most of the big trees in Old Town were gone, knocked down for safety, but saplings, crooked grass, and snaking weeds groped toward the sky all around. I was surprised at how well I could see with just the moon. With the bright searchlights back at the wall, the rest of the night world look as black as spent oil, but the hunched backs of old houses, broken business, and other buildings rubbed against the blue night and field of stars in plain detail as we walked through Old Town.

I’d heard some stories, mostly from Grandpa, that the bigger cities had drained the plains of their population long before the end. In the meantime, the big corporate farms finished off the aquifers and sucked the land dry. Without water, there wasn’t much reason to live in the flat land. Without too many people out here, there couldn’t be too many of
them
, the zombies. Hell, I’d only seen maybe a dozen in my life, but they left the taint of decay smeared across everything. You could see it all over Old Town.

As we stumbled down the split asphalt of an ancient street, Dan reached into his pack, rummaged around, and produced a jar of booze. It was nothing but rot-gut moonshine, but it was all we had because most drivers wouldn’t risk a run through the wastelands just to drop off some beer for a bunch of hold-out hicks. That’s the way Grandpa painted it, anyway. The scavengers in the wastelands seemed worse than a whole stockyard of zombies. Dan screwed off the lid, tossed back a swig, and shook his head. “Not bad, boys.” He slowed, passed the jar to Davin.

“No,” Davin said, waving Dan off with the barrel of his gun. “Not until I’m kicked back in the church.”

“Nate?”

“Sure,” I said, cupping the jar in one hand while clutching my shotgun in the other. The gun had been my great-grandfather’s. Grandpa said he used it on birds—quail and pheasant, mostly—as a boy. I’d only fired the thing a few times myself, typically at wooden targets that wouldn’t bite. The guns did make me nervous; we were warned against using them as the report would rouse any undead in the area. I tossed back a swig from the jar. Damn, that shit tasted awful, but the warm humming feeling that grew out to my fingertips after a few swigs kept me going.

“Did hear about Stacy’s cousin over in New Colby?” Dan asked, reaching for the jar.

“Yeah,” Davin muttered.

“Gawd, I never want to see another burning in my life.” Dan spat on the street. Davin’s eyes narrowed. “I don’t want those superstitious old bastards to set me on fire when I kick off.”

I shook my head and fingered Dad’s old lighter in my pocket, fighting a shiver born of too many burnings. Mom, for one, after Melina was born. Too much blood, not enough medical knowledge, a bad mix of both. Dad tried to explain the need for a burning, the whole ritual, but I wanted none of it. I know you can’t just bury the dead anymore—paranoia, hysteria, and the real likelihood that the undead will sniff out a fresh corpse. When I was five, watching my mother burn to black ash, none of that rationalization amounted to a hill of shit. Grandpa whispered something about Viking warriors in my ear that day, trying to cheer me. “Great big pyres, big as a house,” he said, “it was
pride
, not fear and shame made ‘em build those pyres.”

Dan clicked on the lantern he’d taped to the barrel of his gun. “Here we are fellas. Used to serve food here. C’mon.” The light reached out, starting to grope the heavy shadow inside a mashed up brick building. I’d never heard anything about that particular spot, and I couldn’t figure what he wanted us to see.

Rows of benches stretched down a tiled hallway; some broken with bits tossed askew to the grid. Across a counter to our right sat the old kitchen, a steel grill and some broken cash machines. A few coins littered the floor, shining on the floor like dead minnows. The whole place rested under a thick dust like frost on a January morning.

“Ssssh.” Dan, walking just ahead of us, waved back with one hand. My heart started pumping against my ribcage until I thought it would spring free and skitter across the floor. I heard why Dan shushed us then, I could smell the thing, too––a rotten, fishy stench mixed with mud.

Davin pushed forward, raising his gun. “Dan, give me a little,” he whispered, and Dan obliged, poking his flashlight around the corner.”

Use a baton,” I whispered, fearing gun’s report and its siren song to other zombies. I reached down to my side and fingered the black rod hanging on my belt.

Davin glanced back at me and uttered a low, “Naw.”

Then I saw it, a little thing, bobbing its matted blonde head up and down as it munched on something—most likely a rat or stray cat. Davin clicked his tongue to get its attention, and the thing rotated to face us. It was a girl, six or seven maybe, although she could’ve been six or seven for years now. The undead didn’t age like us. Her little mouth, blotted with blood, opened and a little moaning sound trickled out. I closed my eyes for a moment and saw my sister’s face.

Davin raised the gun, butted the stock against his shoulder, and said, “bye, bye sissy.” The building shook with his report, frozen for an instant in a muzzle flash, and settled under Dan’s dim yellow beam. Its body slumped over on the ground, headless.

“Nice shootin’, Tex.” Dan thumped Davin on the back. Davin nodded, fished in his pocket for a folding knife, and carved a notch in the stock. I staggered to bench and held my head.

“You alright, ya pansy?” Dan kicked my boots.

“Yeah. Fine. Hand me the jar, okay?” After Dan and I swallowed a few more swigs, he led us out back, to the barrels. In my mind’s eye, every shadow grew arms and reached for us. All the warnings about the guns materialized in my imagination.

“This is what I wanted to show you boys.” He leaned his shotgun against the grey boards of an old fence, a little shelter that hid two black-steel drums. “My brother told me about this shit. Says they used to cook food in it, but even the rot-bags won’t touch it.” His hands worked one of the lids free, and it dropped to the ground with a dull
THUNK
. The barrel looked to be half full of thick oil, black as midnight blood. The smell—heavy and sweet—knocked me back.

“Can you believe people used to eat this?”

~

The world started spinning while we humped over to the church. Not the whole world, just my piece of it—my brains sloshing around inside my skull, knocking against my ears. I thought maybe it was the booze; loads of stories circulated about bad home-brew. Dan seemed fine, striding ahead like usual, and Davin hadn’t touched the drink.

“Gawd, you’re a pansy.” Dan called after I stumbled and called for a break. I didn’t wallow on his insult, but the shadows started poking their fingers at me. I kept seeing that little girl’s face, smeared and dead, hissing at us as Davin sprayed her brain matter across the dusty tile. We slipped from the relative safety of the compound, only to find our freedom rotten and decayed.

I staggered to my feet after a few minutes. We made the church while the moon was still high, floating overhead like a glowing bobber in a still, blue-black pond. I huffed and puffed up the hill a little more than I’d like to admit. My stomach and head still danced, but I knew once inside we’d loiter a bit and I could lounge, letting my guts come to a rest. Davin spotted something ahead and sprinted out in front of Dan.

“Mother fuckers,” he hollered.

“What?” Dan jogged to his side. I stumbled behind, nearly slipping to the ground on a patch of fresh mud.

“They chained the god-damn door.” A heavy chain was wrapped in repeated loops around the handles, and Davin tapped it with the stock of his gun. “Somebody cries about a few ‘bags and they lock down the fucking church.” He was a small guy, but swelled when angry, his skin burning through a few shades of red. The compound militia had done it; they must have locked up the place.

Davin and Dan took a few steps back. Davin raised his gun like he was going to take a shot at the chain, but lowered the barrel a moment later. This was a thick, coiled bit of steel; a blast from his shotgun wouldn’t scratch it, and we weren’t prepared with anything that could get at the lock. If it was anything but the church, we’d quickly smash up the windows and hop in. All the stories were about the beauty of those windows, and I doubt any of us wanted to smash those stories.

“Give me the jar,” he called to Dan.

I stood apart from the other two and glanced into the night behind us, half expecting a few lumbering undead to stumble from the paper-thin shadows. The waiting, the not knowing, grabbed and twisted at my stomach. I turned back to the church, admiring the long windows decorated with faint images. Grandpa called them stained glass. Almost every other hunk of glass in Old Town had been shattered many times over by guys like us, but something in the artistry of those high panes kept them from harm. I thought how odd and almost blank they looked from the outside, when inside they supposedly burned color across everything.

I looked around at Davin as he tossed an empty jar to the ground, having polished off the last bit. He reached down, palmed a hunk of rock, and stared at the building. “Nobody tells me what to do,” he muttered, taking a few steps closer to the big windows.

The next moment leaked into my eyes slowly, like the whole planet groped through molasses. Davin’s arm sprang forward like a little catapult; the rock tumbled end over through the air, and struck a window dead on. The glass cried out, split, and crumbled in a tinkling heap. It had been the picture of a lady in blue with a little kid on her lap—Mary and Jesus, I think. The frame held, but most of the glass fell, just leaving this odd grey outline of a woman suspended across the opening.

Davin went pale; I think he was struck by how easy the whole thing crumbled. The low buzz of night bugs and bullfrogs slowly swelled to fill the silence. I scanned the slope behind us. Nothing.

“Damn, Davin. Nice toss. Well, might as well head back. Fun’s over, I suppose.” His voice fell flat, like he couldn’t really disguise his disappointment. We’d all expected something else out there, maybe legions of undead that would make us happy we stuffed our pockets with shells. Dan trudged downhill, back toward the road leading to the gate. I followed, still queasy and a little unsteady. Davin’s boots crunched against the gravel behind me, and then stopped. I turned and looked at him, this flat emptiness across his face.

“No.”

“No?” My palms started to sweat. The little guy had a temper. I remember one time he knocked Dan flat, bloodied his nose, just because Dan gave him shit about being so short. I’d seen Davin drop a handful of other guys the same way.

He looked at the moon for a moment, and I caught the shine shimmer off the whites around his eyes. “No, I’m not done yet. The whole world has gone to hell.” He flashed around, hurried up the hill to the side of the building, and tumbled inside the rectangular entrance left by the broken window.

I cupped one hand against my mouth and called down the hill. “Dan!” He stopped about thirty yards away, turned, and moved toward me.

Shotgun blasts rocked from inside the church. Dan passed me and paused at the side of the building. All I had was the moonlight, but some of the glass glistened a bit, wet with what I confused for oil or some of that grease in the old barrel. Dan and I kicked in the rest of the window, hopped inside, and found our buddy reloading his shotgun, his face covered in a mix of sweat and blood.

“Fucking bullshit, all of it.” He raised the shotgun again, pointing at the large windows opposite us. Five more shots in rapid succession rocked the inside of the chapel, shattered the windows, and brought years of dust and debris raining from above. Sheets of bright glass cascaded to the floor.

Dan placed his hand on Davin’s shoulder. “C’mon, man. Let’s get out of here.” I backed away, ready to flee, afraid of being trapped inside. Surely the noise would bring the dead. My ears still rang with the recent display of firepower, but my eyes jerked to a noise—a snarling, moaning wail from outside the window. I glanced outside and saw a small group of meat bags shambling towards us. Five of them—fifty yards away.

“Guys…”

Davin shrugged away from Dan and rushed to the window. “It’s about time,” he muttered. He knocked out the remnants of the window with the butt of his gun and sprang outside. “Bring it, you bastards,” he hollered, charging down the slope. The dead responded, lurching toward him, moths to a fire. He hadn’t reloaded his shotgun, but hurried toward the ghouls with it raised like a club.

Dan pushed me aside and started out of the window. As I followed, my pounding heart choked the breath from my chest.

Shadows danced in front of us. Davin howled—not pain, but pleasure. He screamed like a berserker, a mad warrior in his final fight. The stock of his gun smashed through a few skulls; one head came completely off. Dan raised his gun, trying for a clear shot, but cursed under his breath. It was over before we were close enough to help.

Davin knelt, panting, in the midst of five ruined bodies. He managed to bludgeon each into submission, a pile of grey flesh like rotten logs. His clothing, arms, and face were caked with zombie sludge, blood, mud—all except two streaks trailing from his eyes down either cheek.

“That… was… fun,” he breathed. His eyes met mine, sparkling in the moonlight. He held up his left arm, leaning on the shotgun like a crutch with his right. A red gash cut across the forearm where one of the things bit into his skin. “That last little bastard got me…” I looked at Dan. His face flushed white. “No…”

“You gotta do it, fellas. I’m toast.” Davin shook his head. “What a way to go, huh?” He grinned, white teeth flashing from a mask of blood and offal.

“No.” Dan dropped his gun. “I can’t.”