Brian Keene (2 page)

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

12 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.

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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 13 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?"
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"But there's this girl at school. Anne Marie Locasio. She won't leave me alone."

"What does she do?"

14 "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
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thousandth time.

15 "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

16 pour themselves through it and ...

It stopped. The silence was deafening.

The display blinked at him. Someone had left a message.

"Oh fuck."

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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

17 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.

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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.

18 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.

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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. 19 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."

20

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.

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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.