by Brian Keene
"I don't like it," Miller grunted. "There's nothing moving down there.
No zombies. No survivors. Nothing."
"So what do we do?" asked Kramer.
"We go in," Miller replied. "Skip, I want you on the fifty cal."
Skip jumped in his seat.
"And let a zombie with a sniper rifle pick me off?" he argued. "No thanks! What about those fucking zombie birds?"
Miller's hand slid down to his sidearm.
"You disobeying orders, Private?"
Everyone inside the HumVee froze, watching the exchange. Miccelli was sneering at him in clear anticipation. Kramer casually lit a cigarette and shook his head.
"No Sergeant," Skip said quietly. "Just pointing out the risks."
"The only risk you need to keep in mind is that I'm ten seconds away from putting a bullet in your ass! Are we clear?"
Skip didn't answer.
"ARE WE CLEAR?"
"Yes Sergeant."
He heard Miccelli snicker as he crawled through the turret. "Should have shot the fucker."
Skip slid behind the weapon and glanced nervously at the empty sky. Time was running out for him, he knew. If the undead didn't kill him, the men from the unit were sure to. He'd read about this type of collective psychosis before. Squads in Viet Nam who burned villages to the ground and collected ears. The seven soldiers at FortBragg who killed their wives within a week of returning from Afghanistan. There was something about constant battle that made men crazy-evil.
The HumVee rolled forward and Partridge followed along behind them.
Skip's eyes scanned back and forth, watching for movement.
They passed the church and its quaint graveyard and Skip wondered about what was buried there. The recently dead were capable of reanimation, but what about those who had been dead and buried? What if they'd decayed to the point where they couldn't free themselves? Were they still sentient-lying uselessly beneath the soil and lacking the musculature to dig their way out?
He shuddered at the thought, watching the houses carefully for any sign of a threat. Some of them were boarded up but most looked surprisingly normal, as if the inhabitants had just stepped out for a moment.
Scattered cars were still parked neatly along the curb and in driveways.
Lawns were still green, although overgrown.
Where were all the people? he wondered. Even if they were dead, their reanimated corpses should be lurking about. Had the zombies moved on to better hunting grounds?
He was musing over this when he heard a car's engine turning over. The car raced down the driveway of a house they had just passed, and slammed into the passenger side of the cargo van with a loud crash. Skip swiveled around in time to see Partridge fighting with the steering wheel as both vehicles slid into a parked car.
The doors of the surrounding houses opened and the living dead swarmed towards them.
"Ambush!" Skip screamed.
Zombies were crowding into the street, and more were appearing on the rooftops, armed with rifles and pistols, and even a crossbow, Skip noted.
"Shit!"
Firing, he swung in a circle, spraying the creatures on the rooftops first. Even the thunderous roar of the fifty caliber wasn't enough to drown out Partridge's hideous shrieks as he was dragged from the van and into the street.
"Go!" Miller screamed, and the HumVee lurched forward.
Skip laid down another burst and then jumped free of the rolling vehicle, landing in the street. He crouched there, glancing about frantically. He'd dropped most of the zombies on the rooftops, and the ones in the street were busy eating Partridge and avoiding the HumVee as the massive juggernaut backed towards them, crushing them beneath its weight.
Skip saw his chance and took it. With only a momentary consideration of the M-16 he'd left on the HumVee, he ducked between the houses and ran, fleeing both the zombies and his fellow soldiers.
Partridge's final screams and a fresh volley of gunfire echoed in his ears.
As they crossed the border into Pennsylvania, John of Many Colors suddenly seemed to experience a moment of lucidity, as if awakening from a dream. One moment he was cataloging the colors of the billboards they passed, and the next, he was staring fixedly at Frankie.
"What is your name?" he asked her, almost timidly.
"Frankie," she smiled, "and yours is John, right?"
"It was at one time. I suppose it still is. It is very nice to meet you Frankie."
"Likewise."
"Names are important, I guess. Although I don't think they matter as much now."
"Sure they do. Why would you say that?"
"Because we're all going to die soon anyway."
"I'm not," Frankie replied. "I'm going to live."
"It's foolish to think that way," John scolded her gently. "Look around us. The only things living in this world are now dead. Soon, well be like them."
"There's got to be others like us. All we've got to do is find them.
I've been through hell to make it this far and I don't intend to give up now."
He sat quietly, pondering this, and when Frankie turned towards him again she saw the familiar haze seeping back into his eyes.
"Black," he told her. "The color of death is black." Skip found an aluminum baseball bat in a child's abandoned clubhouse. Gripping it with both hands, he wielded it before him like a sword.
A mummified canine, its feral corpse dry and desiccated, lunged toward him from the shadowy confines of a doghouse. It sprang for his throat before the chain around its neck jerked it back violently. Skip noticed in abhorrent fascination that the dog's collar had sunk several inches into the flesh.
He could hear the sounds of pursuit behind him now, even as the sounds of battle took on a fevered pitch. The heavy staccato of M-16 fire was interspersed with the short, sharp reports of single action rifles. The zombies were shooting back at them.
A hoarse shout behind him indicated that he'd been spotted. He jumped over a fence and cut through another backyard. A child's swing swayed lonely in the slight breeze. A plastic wading pool sat off to the side.
The water inside it was black and full of algae.
He dashed by it and a child-zombie that had been lying at the bottom of the pool erupted from the brackish water, clawing at him and dripping slime. Ragged, filthy nails sliced through his shirt and into the skin of his back. Skip spun on his heels and swung the bat. It connected with a wet thud and the creature's head collapsed in on itself, reminding Skip of the rotten jack-o-lanterns he used to smash apart after Halloween. The foulness escaping from the thing's ruined head was overpowering, and he staggered backward, wiping the bat in the grass.
Another zombie emerged from the house, carrying a rifle. The screen door slammed behind it as it lurched toward him and clumsily raised the weapon. Skip grinned, shot it the finger, then turned and fled.
Determined, the zombie chased after him in single-minded pursuit. He came to a wide-open soybean field and paused. Hands on his knees, gasping for breath, he hastily considered his options. The water tower was close, and a rung ladder snaked up its side. He could easily fend off his pursuers from atop the tower, as they would have to climb up single file to reach him. But that left him vulnerable to attacks from the birds and other creatures that could easily reach the top. Also, there was no escape if the living dead simply surrounded the bottom of the structure and decided to wait him out.
The Interstate glinted in the distance, a black and silver ribbon cutting through Maryland and Pennsylvania's rolling hills and farmland.
If he could make it to the highway, maybe he could find a car. At the very least, he'd be away from the town and the majority of the living dead. But the highway also offered no protection from above.
He glanced nervously into the sky and his fears were realized as he spotted a black cloud far away on the horizon. His terror grew as the cloud changed direction in mid-air and moved swiftly towards the town.
On the ground,
an army of the living dead moved steadily towards him.
Out of choices and out of time, Skip turned and fled across the field toward the highway.
The dead followed him.
"I see him," Miccelli hollered over the bursts from the fifty caliber.
"Little fucker's heading across that field!"
Miller and Kramer turned to where he was pointing. Sure enough, a green clad, fast-moving figure was crossing the open field next to the water tower. An army of slower moving figures followed in his wake.
"He's heading for the highway," Miller observed. "But we can get to him before those zombies do."
"I think we should just let those ugly fucks tear him to pieces, the way he let them do it to Partridge."
"No, Kramer. Schow is going to want to make an example of him. That boy is definitely going back with us, even if I have to shoot him in both legs and keep him alive until we get there."
"Hey Sergeant," Miccelli called from the roof. "There's a flock of bird zombies coming in!"
"Then get your ass back in here!" He nodded to Kramer. "Floor it and get to that fucking Skip before those zombies do. Cut across the field."
"Roger that," Kramer replied and gunned the motor. "I can't believe he deserted like that."
"I can," Miller commented. "He knew he was fucking up, questioning orders and shit. Ain't no room for somebody like that. And we almost paid the price for his cowardice."
Miccelli slid back into his seat and checked his weapon. He wiped the grime from his forehead and face, and took a long swig of water from his canteen.
"Fucking things were waiting in ambush! I still can't believe that."
Miller didn't respond. His attention was focused on the fleeing man on the horizon, and the figures trailing along behind him.
"That's your ass, Skip," he muttered under his breath. His knuckles turned white as he gripped the console and fantasized about the tortures Colonel Schow would have in store for the Private upon their return. And if Skip got a little injured between here and Gettysburg, who would care?
Frankie was opening a bag of chips with her teeth when a haggard-looking man in a tattered military uniform ran into the road, frantically waving his arms. His hair was askew and his face was streaked with dirt and blood, but she could tell that he was alive and not one of the living dead. He clutched a bat in one hand, waving it above his head as well.
Frankie braked, made sure the doors were locked, and rolled the window down halfway. She pointed the pistol at him and waited.
"Jesus Christ, lady, don't shoot!" Skip gasped.
"Drop the bat, and keep your hands up where I can see them."
Gasping, he did as he was told. The bat clattered to the pavement and Skip shifted nervously from one foot to the other.
"Green," observed John of Many Colors. "That man is green. And red too."
"Look," he said slowly, fighting to keep his voice calm, "there's a shitload of zombies chasing me. We need to get away from here, and we need to do it now!"
Frankie glanced across the field. A throng of the living dead, both human and animal and in various stages of decomposition, swarmed towards them. Closer, and cutting between the hordes and the highway, was some kind of military vehicle. As it bore down on them, the man grew agitated.
"Lady, if we don't go now, they'll fucking kill us! They're crazy!"
Frankie didn't know if he was talking about the zombies or whoever was inside the onrushing vehicle, but one glance at the darkening sky made up her mind. It was filled with undead birds, all soaring directly towards them.
"Get in," she barked, cocking her head to the passenger side. "Don't try anything either, or I'll kill you."
Visibly relieved, the soldier ran around to the side of the car and jumped in.
"Thanks!"
"What are you? Army?"
"National Guard," he gasped. "Can we go please?"
The HumVee crashed through the guardrail and slammed to a stop in front of them. A man popped out of the top like a jack-in-the-box, and leveled the biggest machine gun Frankie had ever seen directly at them.
"Out of the car, now!"
"Shit!" Skip turned to Frankie. "Do you have another gun?"
Before she could reply, two Guardsmen were running towards the car, weapons pointed at them. Bewildered, and still not knowing who was who, but only that any of these men were preferable to the zombies closing in on them, Frankie stared in silence.
"Drop it, bitch!"
Miccelli yanked the driver's side door open with one hand and shoved his M-16 at her head.
"Into the HumVee, now! Move it!"
"Hi Skip," Kramer taunted, pulling him from the car. "Where'd you think you were going, you chicken-shit little fuck?"
He slammed the butt of his weapon into Skip's back, knocking him to the ground. Then he began to club him, savagely bringing the stock down again and again on his back and shoulders.
"Fuck you, Kramer," Skip spat blood at him and rolled over. He saw the butt of the M-16 descending and then he knew no more.
Miccelli bound Frankie's wrists and she screamed as the first bird swooped down and nipped at her hair while he was doing it.
John of Many Colors crawled from the car and hopped up and down, hooting in fright.
"What about him?" Miccelli asked, tossing a thumb at the vagrant while he shoved Frankie into the HumVee.
Kramer leveled the weapon at him. "No room at the inn."
He opened fire. John of Many Colors danced in the road, his body jerking as the bullets slammed into him. No sound escaped his lips, except for a low sigh as he collapsed to the ground. Blood pooled on the pavement beneath him.
Kramer knocked a bird away, took aim at a human zombie that was clambering over the guardrail. Then he and Miccelli threw the unconscious Skip into the HumVee and closed the hatch behind him.
"Nice-looking black cooze," Miller said, leering at Frankie as they sped away. "I've got first dibs."
Frankie closed her eyes and shuddered. She was in trouble, of that she was certain. But she was still alive.
"We're all going to die soon." John of Many Colors had said.
"I'm not. I'm going to live."
John of Many Colors lay twitching on the hot pavement. The birds began to peck at him, but he couldn't feel it. They flew away with strips of his flesh hanging from their beaks. Then the other zombies encircled him, pawing at him hungrily.
"I was wrong," he told them. He held his bloodstained hands up to them, and they proceeded to gnaw on his fingers.
"The color of death isn't black. It's red." He saw a zombie sever his index finger, biting through both flesh and bone, and then his sight faded. "It's red. Everything is red. The whole world is dead." Later, after his soul had departed and another entity had taken possession of his body, he learned that he was right.
Dear Danny,
I don't know why I'm writing this because even when I find you, I probably won't let you read it. Maybe I will when you're older, and you can understand it better. I guess I'm writing it just to make me feel better. I keep thinking about you, all the time, and remembering stuff.
I miss you son. I miss you so bad. It's like somebody took something out of my chest and left a big hole. I can feel the hole in there. It hurts.
I'm used to feeling that way. I felt it every time I took you back to your home (well, where you lived with your Mom and Rick-- I never thought of it as your home), and I felt it when you were gone. I used to go into your room after the summer was over and I'd sit on the bed and look at your toys and books and videos and I knew they would sit there, unused, until you came back again. Some nights, I would try to go to sleep and I would start to think about you, and suddenly, I couldn't breathe. Carrie called them panic attacks, but they were more than that. I missed you all the time, and I felt so empty.
It's worse now. There are times I feel like one of those zombies out there. A lot of bad things have happened, Danny. Carrie is gone and your baby si
ster is gone. You remember our friends Mike and Melissa? Gone.
Our house is gone, and I don't guess we'll ever be able to go back. I wish I had thought to grab some of your favorite toys before I escaped, but I didn't. When I find you, the first thing we'll raid a toy store. And this time, you can have whatever you want. We don't have to worry about whether or not I can afford it. Then we'll find a comic book store, and you can get whatever you want there too (except Preacher and Hellblazer-you're still not old enough to read those). We'll go to someplace safe, someplace without monsters.