The Dark Trilogy (75 page)

Somehow, Megan managed to hold onto the gun all the way to the bedroom. Later, she would contemplate using it on herself again, but always at the back of her mind was her husband’s dying wish. She kept the weapon close, telling herself it was there, just in case.

Megan, Part 2

There was plenty of noise outside. Beyond the reinforced doors and boarded-up windows, she heard them. The infected had come to the neighborhood in force. Megan could hear the moaning and, every now and then, a scream.

Sometimes they were close. So close that they seemed to be right outside the window. And when Megan heard them that close, it wasn’t the moaning that bothered her. It was something far worse. She tried hard to pretend she didn’t hear it, but it burrowed down beneath the thick layer of blankets and pillows with which she had shrouded herself. It burrowed through her ears and down into her soul.

It was the sound of them eating.

That was when Megan realized there were far worse ways to go than suicide or being forced to starve to death as you waited in the darkness, alone.

The fear that those things might discover her hiding place opened up a black and shriveled-up part of Megan. The idea of them breaking in and tearing through the house, which would force her to pull the trigger again, held her in thrall for days at a time.

But they never came for her.

One particular memory of those dark days stuck in Megan’s mind. It must have been a couple of weeks after everything had fallen apart. A giant crash echoed up and down the street as several gunshots were fired. Megan refused to look past the blinds and see what was transpiring outside.

She did sit up in bed and then froze, staring at her shuttered window, wanting to go to it, wanting to do something to help whoever was out there.

Megan was terrible at categorizing guns or the report that occurred when any was fired, but the shots sounded like they had come from a rifle. After the first few shots, a different weapon discharged and sounded similar to the handgun sitting on her nightstand.

The gunfire had snapped Megan out of her paralysis for a moment, but even as her heart raced and she had to steady her breathing to avoid hyperventilating, she could feel lethargy creeping back in. She shivered inside the sweat-drenched nightshirt she’d been wearing for days as she pushed her feet over the edge of the bed and stood up, her legs aching in protest.

Megan hovered near the window but refused to pull the shade to look out onto her sun-drenched street. The monsters out there were not coming for her this time, so she could drown in her sheets and pillows once again.

As the gunshots played out and the screams began, Megan stared at the .357 Magnum. What amount of energy would it take to burst through the front door and rush to the aid of the people out there? Wouldn’t trying to help be better than burying herself alive once again?

But in the end, all Megan did was stand next to her bedroom window and listen to the cries of agony, the sounds of pleading, and the ripping and tearing that always came at the end of the attacks. She listened and let her mind create images of what was going on outside, because she couldn’t bear bending the blinds to know for sure.

There were more crashing noises, and the gunshots subsided. The moans and screams grew frantic, an opera of voices covering every octave. Megan wanted to close them off but couldn’t. She couldn’t react at all—to help or to hide. She knew this was her punishment for letting Dalton die … and for participating in his death.

That was when Megan started to scream.

It took her a few moments to realize what she was doing. She was screaming into a pillow she had managed to pull off the bed.

Even as she screamed, Megan had a moment of clarity. The only thing to hope for was that it would go quickly for whoever was being attacked. For the next few minutes, all she heard was an increase in moans as her muffled screams were drowned out. More and more of the infected joined their brethren to take down the survivors.

Later, Megan realized then that her screams had stopped and her throat was a ragged mess. She had ripped it raw. She remained standing, holding her pillow with quiet desperation, as the undead tended to their needs outside.

At that point, someone must have broken free of the house in which they’d been hiding and got out to the yard, and perhaps even the street. He was shouting for someone, but Megan couldn’t make out a name over the cries of the reanimated. Several more shots rang out, and the screaming began again. It was a deep wailing at first—definitely a man—but toward the end, it grew shrill and high pitched.

Megan tried to pretend she couldn’t hear what happened next, but there was little doubt the man was being torn limb from limb. It sounded so close that she imagined the man making it to her front yard before her rotting neighbors pulled him down, swarming over his warm body. As his clothes were ripped away, the moans turned to hisses and squeals of delight as the creatures tore into their prize. Long after she believed the victim had mercifully ceased feeling any pain, one last scream rose above the sounds of eating. It was the cry of someone who no longer cared to be saved, but who was drowning in a pain that overwhelmed all else.

Then the scream cut off. A sound like a wet branch snapping and then a short gurgle marked the end of the man who died on Megan’s lawn.

That was all Megan could take. She felt her knees give out as she collapsed to the bedroom floor. Curling up in a ball, she began to hum. It was what she did as a child to drown out people she didn’t want to listen to. As she curled even tighter and smashed the pillow over her eyes, Megan remembered her favorite rhyme.

Ms. Mary Mack, Mack, Mack, all dressed in black, black, black with silver buttons, buttons, buttons …

Megan repeated the rhyme over and over in her head to blot out the feeding noises as she crawled underneath her bed. The chant continued as the monsters that had been riled up by the introduction of new flesh continued their aimless wandering long after their feast was over. Megan didn’t realize she was sucking her thumb until it grew sore a few hours later.

Over the next day and a half, the creatures drifted away and Megan faded in and out of a fitful sleep. Each time she woke up, she would repeat the rhyme to avoid hearing them crashing around outside, searching for more food.

Megan was finally able to crawl out from underneath the bed, stiff and aching, two days after the attack.

She stared at the window for another day, teased by the idea of sneaking a peak outside. Nothing out there could be as bad as she had imagined, could it? She had to know if the cold creep of insanity tugging at her could be pushed back or if she should just embrace it, wrap it around her body like a warm winter coat and drift into oblivion. Megan got close enough to touch the wispy material of her thin drapes. The fabric rippled gently in response to her touch, but she could go no farther.

For the next few days, as Megan stared at the pattern the wallpaper border made around the room, she thought of Dalton a great deal. He was the only one of the dead who didn’t whisper to her, telling her to let go, to give up this charade of living. The others would tell her that all she had to do was open the front door and step outside and all the lies would be over.

But Dalton never tried to speak to her like her dead neighbors did. The man who had died on the lawn, as well as the woman he had been with, came to her the most. The pain was fleeting, they said. It was just the body’s way of resisting its passage into the new existence they had all embraced. It was only a pain of transition, of shifting to a better existence.

She tried to ignore them, but as the hours ticked by and daylight faded into night, the strain of the words wore on her as her eyes drifted from the wallpaper to the gun on her nightstand.

Not yet. I made a promise to you, Dalton. Not yet …

Dalton pulled her out of the bedroom and down the steps. Megan nearly tripped as she tried to keep up with her excited spouse. She managed to avoid a fall as they landed in the foyer.

Dalton pulled his wife toward the front door. Megan resisted, but he smiled and gently shook his head. “I have something to show you.”

Megan looked at the door and saw that the boards Dalton had nailed over it were gone. Dalton put his hand on the knob, and before Megan could protest, he pulled the door open.

Megan tried to scream and clawed at the hand wrapped around her wrist. She shook her head, pleading with Dalton.

Glancing outside, she saw the dark shapes of the dead. She stopped struggling and noticed that none of the stiff forms was moving forward, coming toward them.

Megan had never seen one of the walking corpses with her own eyes before. She had seen them on television, but had been hidden away in the house since the beginning, with curtains drawn and eyes firmly shut to what was going on outside.

The dead people on Megan’s lawn did not react like the crazed monsters she had been expecting. Instead, they stood silently, swaying back and forth, staring at her and Dalton in the doorway of their house, as if waiting for them to do something.

As they looked upon her, their eyes did not hide the emptiness behind them. There was no life there, no comprehension.

“I have something to show you,” Dalton repeated and put his hand on Megan’s shoulder as he pulled her out onto the porch. Megan looked in her husband’s eyes, and her resistance faded.

The bright sun hit Megan’s face, nearly blinding her. Even with her limited vision, she could see the huge crowd that had gathered for them. As the two living people moved forward, the sea of rotting flesh stepped back to allow them to pass.

Megan smiled as she realized they were being allowed to leave! With that jubilant revelation, she noticed something about the stiffened corpses all around her.

These diseased creatures were not moaning.

They were as silent as she was. Although they stared at Megan, there was no hunger in their eyes. They didn’t reach out to touch or pull at her; they seemed to have no desire to violate her at all.

After a few minutes of trudging on blood-soaked grass, Dalton spoke again. “Almost there,” he beamed at her as he looked back and grinned, his teeth dazzling in the sunlight.

Megan couldn’t tell how long they walked before the crowd ahead parted, revealing an opening. Not a large one, just a small circle of space free of the dead. Megan could see something on the ground, a bundle of some sort. But since Dalton was in front of her, leading the way, she couldn’t make out what it was.

Dalton turned away from Megan and dropped her hand. She stopped, watching as the man she loved knelt down and wrapped his arms around the bundle. He made quiet noises she could barely hear as he rose.

When Dalton turned around, Megan knew what he was holding. Dalton was smiling down upon the swaddled shape in his arms, slowly bouncing it and cooing. It was their baby. Their little girl!

Megan tried to reach out to take the baby and cradle it, but here arms felt like lead weights at her side. She had always known they would have a girl; it had been her dream all along. Tears rolled down her cheeks as she watched Dalton hold their infant in his arms.

Dalton looked over at Megan and smiled. “She wants her mommy. She’s hungry.”

At his words, Megan’s limbs felt lighter and she was able to move forward. It was some cruel twist of fate that had kept the child from her for this long, but Megan knew, deep in her heart, that she would never be separated from her again.

As Megan moved closer, Dalton smiled encouragement at her. She saw a curl of black hair peeping out of the snug blanket, and her heart quaked in anticipation.

Megan reached out for her child as she stepped up to her husband. She had forgotten the dark figures surrounding them, though the dead appeared to be leaning in to get a closer look at the child. Dalton gently handed the child over to his wife.

A scream burst forth from Megan’s lips. She wanted to drop the bundle, but Dalton’s arms were wrapped tightly around her and the baby. Megan’s scream continued, piercing the silence of the netherworld like a knife.

Her child, her baby girl, was one of them. Its grayish skin was stretched tight over its skull, its eyes filled with pus that nearly obscured the murky pupils fixated on its mother. Its mouth was lined with jagged little teeth that gnashed and clicked together with menace. As Megan’s screaming stopped, she heard the unearthly moan of the dead escape the baby’s lips.

“She needs to feed,” Dalton hissed, and Megan looked at his face. He was one of them too. Half of the skin on his face had rotted off, and the stench was overpowering as he leaned in. “She needs to feed … and so do we.” A thick green line of drool trailed from the corner of his mouth where multiple jagged and broken teeth sat. The moans rose as Dalton lifted the baby up to Megan’s breast.

***

Megan was torn from her nightmare, clutching at her belly, sweat-drenched as she attempted to hold in the screams. The pain she felt in her gut was real, as real as anything else in this dark, dank place she inhabited. The once almost impossibly strong desire to bring new life into the world had shriveled and died as dreams such this one haunted Megan’s sleep, tormenting her endlessly.

As she sat trying to regain her composure, it dawned on Megan that it wasn’t some simple mercy that had woken her before her dream could reach its evil conclusion, as it had done so many times before. Something else had disturbed her sleep.

Megan didn’t have to wait long to discover that it wasn’t the sound of moaning or some window shattering nearby that had jarred her slumber. It was an explosion.