Best New Zombie Tales Trilogy (30 page)

He could hear his own voice, frail and barely audible: “I won’t.”

That vow burned through him. It spoke of a world beyond the darkness. It promised him more. If only he could reach her. Roaring, Ralph rammed both feet against the top of his prison. It refused to budge. He struck it again. Again. Again. The wall creaked. He rained blow after blow until wood splintered and shattered. Flesh tore under the onslaught, but he didn’t care. He felt no pain. Indeed, he felt little beyond a growing need to be out in whatever world existed beyond this box. And underneath the panic, hunger.

He found dirt. It poured inside. He clawed his way through thick, gooey earth, frantic to climb free. Hunger and alarm grew with every stroke. Vanessa’s tear-streaked face filled his vision. She begged him over and over again not to leave her. She needed him. He’d promised. So he dug.

His right hand broke through first, followed by his left. He emerged and looked around. He had never dreamed of such space. A bright circle overhead spread silver light over an otherwise darkened world. Stone crucifixes and other markers surrounded him. Ralph climbed unsteadily to his feet. Now freed, hunger gnawed at him, driving him forward. His steps hurried. He stumbled over tree roots and headstones, but he had to keep moving.

Vanessa needed him. And he needed her.

Paradise Denied

JOHN L. FRENCH

The Apocalypse was a big disappointment. No trumpets, no Second Coming. Maybe somewhere the forces of Good were preparing to do battle with the armies of Satan, but not in Baltimore.

All the signs had been there. Astronomers were suddenly unable to find stars that had always been in the sky. And some quasar that had been 40 million light years distant was now only 39.9 million light years from us. The scientists tried to explain it away by talking of dark matter and refinements in measurements. But the next month that quasar was just a little bit closer and more stars were gone. And then the Righteous disappeared.

It wasn’t like the Fundamentalists predicted. Planes didn’t fall from the sky and cars didn’t crash into buildings as their operators suddenly vanished. It was more gradual. One by one, a few more each day, people just disappeared. A husband and wife would fall asleep together. One would wake up to find only the pajamas the other had slept in. A family out camping would go for a hike. They’d come to a bend in the trail with the children out of sight for just a second. The parents would be left alone. Or a man would leave his house, go back in for his umbrella and would not be seen again.

Police Missing Persons Units were so busy that they stopped taking reports. Terrorists were blamed, then aliens. The religious right had an answer, but no one listened to them. That is, not until all the children disappeared.

By the time everybody figured out just what was going on, the world’s population had been reduced by twenty percent, and all children who had not reached puberty were gone. The Pope, the Archbishop of Canterbury and the chief rabbi of Jerusalem (all three newly elected) made a joint announcement declaring The End of Days was upon us.

What surprised most people was not that Judgment had occurred, but that so many had been Taken. Twenty percent? Who would have thought there were that many truly good people in the world? And they were from all walks of life, although there was a sudden and acute shortage of nurses, teachers and religious ministers. Yeah, I know, the last surprised me too. Maybe dedicating your life to God and the service of others pays off.

More poor people were Taken than rich. I guess having money gives you more time and opportunity to commit the really big sins. Prisons were emptier, by about ten percent. Says something about the legal system.

Who stayed behind? Well, let’s just say there weren’t that many special elections on local, state or federal levels. And those groups that had preached about and looked forward to the Rapture were more than a bit disheartened that no more of them got taken up than anybody else.

After the initial shock went away, a feeling of despair swept through the survivors. We had fought the good fight, we had run the race, and we had lost. Our souls had been weighed and found wanting. We were just not good enough.

Church attendance fell. For who could trust a minister whom God had rejected? Crime went up as the police slacked off. Why bother arresting some when all had been judged guilty? And charities collapsed as donations dried up and most of the remaining do-gooders left to do something for themselves.

The party started shortly after that, one big party that lasted for weeks. When you know that Heaven has been denied you, when there is no hope of a reward after death, why not grab all the pleasure you can? Drugs, alcohol, sex––why abstain? Adultery, theft, even murder––if you wanted to, why not? Do What Thou Will became the first and only commandment for far too many people.

Gradually, though, some sanity returned. A general religious council was called. All were invited––Catholic, Protestant, Jew, Muslim, Hindu, whatever––it didn’t matter, every denomination, every faith was invited. There was a God, and He didn’t play favorites. By mutual consent it was held in Jerusalem. There, Hope was again found at the bottom of the chest.

God has not abandoned us, it was decided. Those that had been Taken were the ones who at that time had found favor with Him. And they had been Taken for a purpose––to warn the rest of us that the end of the world was approaching. It was a test, to see if we could overcome our faults and weakness, to see if we could make ourselves worthy of Heaven.

We had not gotten off to a very good start. But slowly, things got better. Churches filled up again, and charities found even more donors and volunteers. And people went back to work mindful of the fact that each word said in anger, each lie told about a co-worker, each customer cheated, was a step away from Paradise.

That didn’t last, either. Humanity being what it is, things soon leveled off. There were good people, better people, worse people. Mostly, there were just average people, content to live out the days they had left. With all the children gone, and no babies being born, the story of man on earth was coming to a close.

Then the dead returned.

We were ready for them. With the Taken gone and the universe growing a bit smaller every time you looked up, it didn’t take a divinity degree to figure out what was going to happen next. So when the first of the undead crawled out of his grave, there were people there to meet him.

Granted, some of those people had flamethrowers, just in case. No one knew just what we’d be dealing with. Too many late night movies had everyone thinking ‘flesh-eating zombies.’

No one got napalmed. The dead who emerged were more like frightened children––unsure of what was going on, unable to remember what just happened and willing to go anywhere and do anything they were told.

Camps had been set up, and those who returned were led to them. There they were photographed and fingerprinted, their identities checked against the names over the graves out of which they had crawled.

One thing we didn’t know was how many would return. Would all the dead rise, or just some? Would there be centurions wandering Europe, wondering just what the Hell had happened to their perfect world and the Pax Romana? Would legions of soldiers rise up and resume fighting the wars that killed them?

It turned out that not everyone came back, just those who had died in the past ten years or so. When a final count was finally made, about the same number returned as had been Taken. Some kind of balance had been made.

It was commonly believed that the recent dead who didn’t return were those who, if they’d been alive, would have been among the Taken. The ones who returned hadn’t earned Heaven in their lifetime, and were sent back to try again.

One thing that no one thought of at the time was the legal issue. What rights did the Returned have? I guess that’s why so many lawyers were left behind, to argue that point. In the end, a heavily conservative Supreme Court ruled that precedent held––that most rights of citizen ended at death, and unless Congress acted, it didn’t matter if the dead had come back or not.

Congress didn’t act. Mindful of the fact that their living constituents, the survivors and (more importantly) heirs of the deceased could vote and those Returned could not (except in Chicago, where the dead had been voting for over a century), the House and Senate did nothing.

The camps closed. Most of the Returned were taken in by family. Some just wandered from place to place. Still others found their way into the cities, where they took shelter in the poorest of dwellings and did the work no one else wanted to do.

All this had been a year ago. Back then I was cop, a good cop. At least, I thought I’d been a good cop. I guess I was, by the standards of the day. Sure, I’d planted evidence, but only when I knew my guy was guilty. And maybe at times a suspect got roughed up, but he wouldn’t have talked any other way. And if somebody ran from me and I caught up to him, well, he had to get a beat down, just to teach him some respect. But I did my job––catching the bad guys and protecting the average citizen. And I never took more than I deserved, and then only when it was offered.

It was back when the big party ended. A lot of people started taking a good long look at themselves, trying to figure out why others had left and they had stayed behind. I was one of them. I remember sitting home alone. My wife and I had split and my son, well, he would have been eight this year. I remember looking at my badge and for the first time seeing the tarnish on it.

I almost quit. For a long time I wondered if the kind of cop I was could give way to the kind of man I had to become. What could I do––go private? Same job, same environment, less pay and no pension. I could give it all up and do the 9-5 bit, but that would leave me too much free time to find trouble and get in it. So I’d kept the badge, and did what I could to polish it up.

The first thing was to get out of narcotics and vice. Too many temptations. My record was good, so I was able to wangle a transfer to the Northeast Station as a district investigator. It wasn’t a high crime area. A few shootings in the trouble spots, the occasional B&E in the residential areas and hold-ups along the Belair Rd. and Harford Rd. corridors.

The District Investigation Section office was set up in the old courtroom. When they moved the district courts to a central location the judge’s box and prisoner benches went with them, leaving a large empty space to fill. Some cheap drywall and spackle, second hand desks and chairs from city surplus and a few computers with obsolete operating systems and it was office space.

Being the new guy, I got the desk closest to the door. That meant I’d be the person anyone coming in and looking for help would see. I got the cranks, the complainers and the kooks. I also got the people who came in with real problems, the ones who had no one else to turn to, the ones I needed to help.

I was reading reports about a B&E suspect called the Spider for his ability to get into otherwise inaccessible second floor windows when I heard laughter out in the hall. It wasn’t the hale and hearty kind that comes from a shared joke told well, but rather the hard-edged laughter that comes at someone’s expense. Then I heard, “Dead man walking.” More laughter. After it died down, a slow, deliberate voice asked something. “Through that door, freak,” the desk sergeant answered. “Office on your left. And don’t touch anything. Hey, somebody hold the door for this corpse.” Funny that, fear of contamination leading to a basic human courtesy.

I turned in my chair and watched as the zombie came in. He had the same deliberate gait they all did, moving a limb at a time as his conscious mind gave the orders that once came automatically. They might be up and about, but fully alive they weren’t.

I stood up and waited while he shuffled over. As he did I took mental notes. He dressed well, a suit with a clean, white shirt and knotted tie. That must of taken some time, given the undead’s usual lack of hand-eye coordination. He carried a briefcase, and if it wasn’t for his shambling walk and grey going to white pallor, he could have been any businessman coming in to file a complaint.

When he finally got close enough, I held out my hand in greeting. His face showed what little surprise it could, then he brought up his hand and we shook, me trying not to flinch at the touch of his cold grip, him pretending not to notice. Civilities over, I invited him to sit down with a wave of my hand.

I was ready for anything but that. Sometimes the undead will come in and try to file a theft or assault complaint. I’d have to explain to them that, being dead, they had no legal standing under the law, so technically, whatever anyone did to them was not considered a crime. Then I’d find out what happened and try to find a way to charge their assailants. Desecrating a corpse is a misdemeanor, so is robbing one. One of those charges generally sticks if brought before a liberal enough judge.

Murder was a different story, and I told Foreman that. “Not my division, Mr. Foreman. If you witnessed a murder or know of one that’s been committed, I can call a Homicide detective for you.”

He sat there unmoving, not saying a thing. Maybe he was forming his words. Maybe he was waiting to be told to leave.

“Give me the details,” I finally said, breaking the uncomfortable silence. “I’ll look into it and call Homicide myself. Now whose murder are we talking about, Mr. Foreman?”

“Mine.”

This was new. I’d talked to many a murder suspect, but never a victim. And it suddenly occurred to me that a lot of cold cases could be cleared up if we could only locate the victims and ask them what I asked Foreman, “Who killed you?”