Restless (12 page)

2
0. MOXIE

ONCE A YEAR,
on the second weekend of July, the otherwise sleepy little town of Lisbon Falls, Maine comes alive with fun and festivity. Normally home to only four thousand or so residents, on this weekend the population swells to two or three times that. The cause of all this activity is the annual Moxie Festival, a three-day celebration of Moxie soda, one of the first mass-produced soft drinks in the United States. The somewhat bitter, cola-like drink was invented in Lisbon Falls way back in the late eighteen hundreds and maintains an almost cult-like following in New England.

Among the many activities spread out over the three days are dances, races, contests, a fireworks display and the centerpiece of the Festival, a big parade.

Peter and Laurie Thibout locked their bikes to the metal pole of a street sign and found seats on the curb along Main Street. For twenty years, the forty-something couple had been attending the Moxie Festival without fail. The parade was one of their favorite events. The beautiful summer morning was perfect for a parade—sunny and nearly seventy degrees, with powder puff white clouds dotting a pastel blue sky.

T
he sidewalks on both sides of the street were crowded with happy families awaiting the arrival of the floats and marching bands. The children were especially excited, not just to see the floats and bands and horses, but because lots of people in the parade would be tossing candy for them to catch. Already, marching music could be heard in the distance from one of the bands near the front of the procession.

Laurie exchanged waves and mouthed “
hello” to her good friend Christy, who was sitting a short distance away with a couple of her cousins. Laurie then linked her arm around Peter’s elbow, snuggling against him and waiting for the front of the parade to come into view.

The music grew louder and a buzz of excitement rumbled through the crowd. Laurie craned her neck and spotted the lead vehicle: an orange truck
lifted off the ground by giant wheels seemingly the size of small Ferris wheels. Resting in the bed of the truck was a life-sized statue of a white horse wearing the famous orange sash with the Moxie logo. Statues of white horses riding on trucks or fire engines, or even seeming to drive antique cars, were a tradition in the parade.

As usual, Laurie clapped and cheered as the various sections of the parade marched or rolled past: colorful floats, r
estored old cars, live horses, Scout troops, school bands and drill teams, among others. Every year, Peter teased her about how the parade brought out the kid in her, but she didn’t care. She loved parades, and this one was her favorite.

Nearly
half the parade had passed by when terrified screams and shouts suddenly began reverberating from a nearby side street. Laurie and Peter shot to their feet to get a better look.

L
aurie could not believe what she saw. Lumbering toward them down the street were several dozen people clad in bloody zombie costumes. Some moved with the slow, awkward gait she had seen in countless horror movies, while others walked almost as quickly as a normal human. She was pretty sure the newcomers were not an official part of the parade; she would have noticed them in the program if they were. Their makeup was amazingly realistic—professional grade, really. It looked like chunks of flesh were actually missing from their rotting faces, revealing yellow-white bone beneath. At first, she thought it was some kind of local prank—after all, the horror writer Stephen King had attended Lisbon High School—but when she saw a pair of the creatures fall upon an old man too frail and slow to get out of the way and begin tearing into his flesh with their teeth, she realized this was no prank. Somehow, beyond belief or explanation, real zombies had descended on Lisbon Falls.

There was no
time to wonder how or where the horrific creatures had come from. Panic-stricken people were screaming and racing in all directions. Peter grabbed Laurie’s arm.

“C’mon. We need to get out of here.
Fast.”

Laurie was about to turn and flee when she spotted something that s
topped her in her tracks. A short distance up the street, a trio of zombies lurched toward a terrified young girl. The child was screaming, but her feet were rooted to the ground in fear. The girl’s parents were nowhere in sight. How the child had become separated from her parents didn’t matter—Laurie knew she had to act now.

Without hesitation, she
dashed forward toward the girl. Peter raced behind her. Laurie scooped the child up in her arms just before the zombies fell upon her.

“This
way,” Peter shouted, leading his wife into a narrow alleyway between two buildings.

Apparently angered by having their prey snatched out from under them—though Laurie had no idea whether zombies could even get angry—the creatures lumbered after them.
Maybe they were angry, or maybe they just figured three meals were better than one. In any case, Laurie and Peter were not too worried. They were pretty sure they could outdistance the zombies over open ground, and knew that help couldn’t be too far away—there was a strong police presence at the festival and a company of uniformed National Guard troops had been marching in the parade. Laurie just hoped their weapons were loaded with live ammunition.

S
he and Peter emerged from the alley and found themselves just a few yards from the rocky bank of the Sabattus River. Seeing the water blocking their way, Laurie’s confidence abruptly turned to fear. More zombies were approaching from the right and the left, cutting off any escape. She glanced behind them, back the way they had come. The three zombies were almost out of the alley. There was no escape in that direction, either.

Her eyes fell upon a stairway leading up the back of the building. Maybe they could go that way, but then they risked being trapped inside.

Peter grabbed her elbow. “The river,” he shouted. “We have to jump.”

Laurie looked down at the water, flowing slowly by
more than ten feet below. Even in July, the water would be cold, but she knew they had no choice. She and Peter were both strong swimmers. They would be okay, she thought. She just hoped zombies couldn’t swim. She didn’t see how they could—most of them had enough trouble walking.

The little girl in Laurie’s arms had stopped crying
, but she clung tightly to Laurie’s shoulders. Laurie rubbed the back of her blond head.

“Hold on
, sweetie. We’re going for a little swim.”

The zombies were less than twenty feet away now and closing rapidly. Laurie
turned to Peter.

“Let’s go,
” she shouted.

They ran forward across the
paved path that ran above the river’s edge, counting on their momentum to carry them out over the rock jetty bordering the river. They soared through the air and landed with a loud splash.

The frigid water clutc
hed at Laurie’s chest like a vise. She kicked upward, bringing them to the surface. The little girl sputtered and spit water from her mouth, but she seemed okay. Peter was easily treading water beside them. Laurie followed his glance back up toward the riverbank from which they had jumped.

Three
zombies lurched toward the edge. Laurie thought they were ones she had snatched the girl away from, but she couldn’t be sure. With their rotting visages, the creatures all looked very much alike.

She
watched in horror as the zombies stumbled over the bank and down onto the rocks before crashing into the water and disappearing beneath the surface. Laurie and Peter kicked backward, propelling themselves farther out into the river, their eyes fixed on the spot where the zombies had gone under. When a minute passed without the creatures resurfacing, Laurie began to breathe a little easier. She wasn’t sure whether zombies could actually drown, but she didn’t care, as long as they were lying on the bottom of the river and not swimming after them.

The remaining zombies
up on the bank were apparently less motivated than the three who had stumbled into the river, because they turned away and disappeared in search of easier prey.

Laurie and Peter swam to the opposite side and pulled themselves up onto the shore. They felt safe now, with the river between them and the zombies. The little girl was shivering, so Laurie wrapped her up in a tight hug.

Gunshots began to ring out in the distance, telling Laurie the National Guard and the police had joined the fray. She hoped at least a few of them watched horror movies or Walking Dead so they would know enough to shoot the zombies in the head. If not, it could be a long bloody struggle. She wondered how many of the town folk had already perished—or worse, had been transformed into zombies themselves.

21. FIRST REPORTS

LEESA WATCHED THE TELEVISION IN HORROR.

The story was
being reported on almost every station, replacing regularly scheduled shows. The broadcasts contained much more speculation than hard facts, but the gist of it was that a horde of what appeared to be zombies had attacked a crowded festival in southern Maine. Most people hearing the story would be flabbergasted or disbelieving, but Leesa knew better. Her mother and brother, watching with her and having suffered at the hands of vampires, also suspected the reports of zombies were probably true. Unlike Leesa, they did not know that the powers behind the attack were moving closer to Connecticut. She pushed the thought from her mind and listened to the somber-faced anchorman report what details he had.

“In a scene that seems straight out of the television show The Walking Dead, a crowd of people attending the Moxie Festival parade in Lisbon Falls, Maine were attacked
this morning by what appeared to be several dozen actual zombies. Yes, folks, you heard me right. I said zombies.”

He glanced down at a piece of paper in front of him before continuing.

“Details are scarce right now, because the authorities are trying to keep a closed lid on the incident while they try to sort things out. The National Guard and the State Police have cordoned off the town and confiscated cell phones and video cameras. We’re told that U.S Army units are on the way, as are special teams from the Center for Disease Control. The rapid quarantine and confiscations have led to speculation that the incident may have been the result of some secret government experiment gone terribly wrong. Despite the quarantine, several videos have been leaked to the press and to the internet. We have one such video for you now. Though we have edited out the most graphic images, I have to warn you—this video is definitely not for the faint of heart.”

Leesa watched in abject fascination.
The video was grainy and jumpy—clearly taken on the cell phone of someone fleeing the attack—but it showed the creatures falling upon helpless citizens and seemingly biting into their flesh. After perhaps a minute or so, the video came to an abrupt halt.

“That’s absolutely horrible,” Judy said, shaking her head in dismay.

“I know, Mom,” Bradley said. “I can’t believe they showed even that much on television.”

“That’s all we can show you here on television,” the newsman said
, almost echoing Bradley’s words. “If you’d like to see the full video, you can log on to our website and watch a much less edited version.”

“
Ugh. I think I’ll pass on that,” Judy said.

“Me, too,
” Leesa said, though she was pretty sure she was going to have to watch it eventually with Dominic. He would want to see and hear as many details as possible.

The newsman
shuffled some papers in front of him. “As I said earlier, complete details are still sketchy, but here’s what we know so far. The attack lasted less than fifteen minutes, thanks to a heavy police presence and the inclusion of a National Guard unit in the parade. Witnesses report that the initial police on the scene tried pulling the attackers off their victims, but were quickly turned upon by the creatures. Their comrades had no choice but to begin shooting. When shots to the body failed to stop the attackers, police and National Guard troops were ordered to aim for the head.”

The anchorman paused and
sucked in a deep breath. “I can tell you from watching the unedited video that’s exactly what happened. When the shooting was over, more than three dozen bodies littered the usually peaceful streets of Lisbon Falls. Eleven have been identified as visitors to the festival. The rest, due to injuries inflicted by the head shots, have been more difficult to identify. None were carrying identification of any kind. Unconfirmed reports say a cemetery just north of the town suffered heavy vandalism. If this attack was indeed the work of zombies, perhaps that’s where they came from. Nobody knows—or is saying, at least—what might have brought the creatures to life.”

Leesa shut of
f the television. She had seen and heard enough for now. And she certainly didn’t need her mother to see any more.

“This is terrible,” Judy said. She turned to Leesa. “Does Rave know anything about zombies? Are they as real as vampires?”

“I think so,” Leesa replied. She had no intention of telling her mom about the zombie dreams or last week’s small attack. “I’ll ask him about it the next time I see him.”

Judy shivered. “I just hope this isn’t the start of some kind of zombie apocalypse.”

“You and me both, Mom.” The rest of Leesa’s thought—“more than you know”—went unvoiced. If she and Dominic were unable to thwart the Necromancer’s plans, she was afraid that a zombie apocalypse was exactly what might happen.

Her
cell phone sounded with Cali’s ringtone from Pink. Leesa was pretty sure what this call was going to be about.

“Are you watching this shit?” Cali asked breathlessly.

“Yeah. With my mom and Bradley. It’s totally gross. We just shut it off.”

“Oh. I guess
with them there you can’t really talk about it right now, huh?”

“Yes. Exactly.”

“Have you watched any of the videos on your computer yet? They’re un-freaking-believable.”

“No. I think I’ll wait on that.” Leesa looked
over at her mom, who was watching her from the couch. “I don’t need to see that kind of stuff,” she added for her mom’s benefit.

“Have you called Dominic yet?” Cali asked. “With no TV, he may not even know about it yet.”

Leesa strolled into the kitchen, not wanting to appear like she needed privacy.

“I’m sure he sensed something. I’m going to call him as soon as you and I hang up. He’s going to want to meet right away, I think.”

She poured herself a glass of water—an excellent reason to have gone into the kitchen.

“When you know where, will you call me?” Cali asked.

“Yeah, sure. If Dominic says it okay. I gotta go now. Talk to you soon.”

Leesa broke the connection and stuck her phone into the
back pocket of her shorts. She returned to the living room.

“I’m going out for a walk,” she announced. “I might meet up with Cali—I’m not sure.
If I do, I may be gone for awhile.”

Her family knew nothing about Dominic, but going
out for a walk meant that she didn’t have to lie to them. Since she took long walks pretty much every day, there was nothing unusual or suspicious about taking one now.

“Put sunscreen on,” Judy said. “The sun is hot today.”

“I will, Mom.”

Leesa headed to the bedroom and
quickly slathered sunscreen onto her face, arms and legs. She grabbed a ball cap and threaded her hair through the opening in the back.

“See you both later,” she said cheerfully as she crossed back through the living room.

As soon as she was outside and heading down the walk, she took out her cell and punched in Dominic’s number.