Entombed

by Brian Keene

  “Maybe the zombies aren’t out there anymore,” I whispered. “Maybe they’ve moved on. Maybe I can sneak out right now before anyone finds me.”

  Even as I said it, I knew I’d be wrong. It was wishful thinking, and nothing more. I might as well have said, “Maybe aliens will arrive and take me to the lost planet of Nibiru, which is populated by Sports Illustrated swimsuit models.” Sighing, I turned my attention to the blast door. Mounted on the wall overhead was a closed circuit television monitor. Since we still had power, the unit was still functioning. I stared at the grainy, washed out black and white image. Hundreds of dead milled around the door, pawing at the entrance. Most of them looked like they’d been out there a while. The ones closest to the door were in bad shape. One particularly fermented corpse seemed to be stuck to the door, as if the sun had melted him onto it like the syrupy remains of a popsicle left out in the sun on a sidewalk. Insects crawled all over—and through—him. Many of the zombies were missing limbs. One had been completely hollowed. The decay and damage were so bad that I couldn’t tell if it was a man or a woman. All that remained of them from the neck down to their waistline was an empty, gaping cavity. Several zombie animals were in the group, as well. The most grotesque of all was a severed head. I caught a glimpse of it as the corpses momentarily parted. Its blackened tongue protruded from its mouth, and its eyes moved back and forth, desperately seeking prey even though it could no longer hunt.

  Suddenly, I was overwhelmed with a desire to be outside with them. The urge was so strong that I had to stop myself from reaching for the wheel to open the door. On the other side of that impregnable steel was the sky and fresh air and green trees and grass. I wanted so badly to experience those things again. I wanted to feel the sun’s warmth on my skin, or to stand beneath the shade of a tree as the leaves rustled softly above me. I wanted to smell fresh-cut grass and honeysuckle and pines. I wanted to hear birds chirping and squirrels chattering at one another. I wanted to feel the wind. To taste it. To hear it. Hell, I’d have been ecstatic just to feel the bite of a mosquito or to hear the buzz of a bumblebee. All I had was the sounds of the bunker, and after being cooped up down here, those sounds had left me demoralized and depressed—and apparently, they’d driven my fellow survivors crazy.

  On the screen, a human zombie repeatedly slapped the door with a severed penis he clutched in his fist. A dead dog licked the steel, slowly and methodically, as if trying to wear down the door with its tongue. Another zombie’s eyeball popped in its socket as I watched. The gooey remnants slipped down the corpse’s cheek like a squashed grey slug. A cloud of flies swarmed toward the hole and began to crawl in and out. Disgusted by what I was watching, yet strangely compelled to watch it anyway, I shuffled toward the blast door, my peril momentarily forgotten. I was thankful that the closed circuit system had no sound. Seeing them was one thing. Hearing them was another, and smelling them was even worse. As I got close to the door, I imagined that I could hear them. Despite the background noise from the power plant and the unbelievable thickness of the door itself, I heard their distant moans. The dead sounded hungry.

  I knew how they felt. My stomach grumbled, as if in sympathy, and I clutched at it through my shirt, feeling my ribs beneath the fabric. I tried to remember how long it had been since I’d eaten, and found that I couldn’t. In truth, I couldn’t even remember the last time I’d taken a shit. I hadn’t needed to for a while. There was nothing inside of me that had needed to come out, other than piss and despair and madness, and I’d been doing a pretty good job of keeping that last one bottled up.

  Still holding my stomach, I returned to the cul-de-sac, climbed over the skids, and ducked down behind them. I laid one of my makeshift spears on the floor and clutched the other one in my fist. After laying it across my lap, I leaned back and tried to lose myself in the shadows. I settled in to wait for someone to show.

  It turned out that I didn’t have to wait for long.

  FIVE

  “Careful now. He could be hiding underneath one of those forklifts.”

  I snorted, coming fully awake, and sat up so quickly that I banged the back of my head against the wall. I winced, barely keeping from crying out. My eyes watered as I rubbed my head. Then I held still and listened. My pulse raced from zero to ninety. I was certain someone had heard me.

  “Is that true, Pete?” The speaker was a man, but I couldn’t tell who. It was hard to judge how far away he was, due to the tunnel’s echoing effects. “You hiding out over there?”

  Their footsteps drew closer. I could hear them even over the distant sounds from the power plant, which meant that they were close by. I cursed myself for falling asleep. How had I allowed that to happen, and perhaps more importantly, how long had I been out? Did they know I was here? Judging by their conversation, it didn’t seem that way, but what if they were just toying with me? Trying to psyche me out? I glanced down. One of my spears was still on my lap and the other lay out of reach. It must have rolled away while I slept. I grabbed the one in my lap, gripping the shaft so tightly that my knuckles turned white. I wanted to sit up the entire way and peer out over the skids, but I resisted the urge. My only hope at that moment was that the shadows would conceal me. If they actually entered the cul-de-sac and looked over the forklifts and generators, I’d be caught. I took a deep breath and held it. The footsteps stopped.

  “See anything?” I recognized the speaker as George Laidlaw, a fellow employee of the Pocahontas and up until this point, a fairly decent guy.

  “No.” I knew that soft-spoken voice, as well. It was Jim Mars. “Ain’t nothing here.”

  “He could be behind those skids.” A third speaker. Male, and judging from the accent, a local, but I still didn’t recognize the voice.

  “Pete,” Jim called, “come on out if you’re there. I don’t like it any more than you do, but there’s no helping it. Come on out. You’re only making this harder on yourself.”

  My nose suddenly began to itch. I resisted the urge to move. When my stomach gurgled, I thought for sure they had heard it.

  “Go on back there,” George said. “Let’s make sure.”

  “He ain’t there,” the unidentified third man said. “I still say he’s probably hiding out in the power plant. That’s sure as hell where I’d go if it was me.”

  “Well, it ain’t you.”

  “I’m just saying, is all.”

  “And I said we need to make sure, Clyde.”

  I silently thanked George for filling me in on the third man’s identity. It was Clyde Osborne, a shifty little runt from Punkin Center who worked at the hotel as a greens keeper. ‘Worked’ was a relative term, since all Clyde had ever seemed to do was take smoke breaks. He’d weighed about a buck oh five before we ran out of food, and weeks of starvation hadn’t improved his condition. He’d be no problem, if it came to a fight.

  “Come on,” Jim said. “The sooner we get this over with, the better. My stomach is in knots. This don’t sit well with me.”

  The footsteps shuffled closer and there was a subtle change in the lighting. Without turning my head, I looked to the right and saw shadows on the wall. Whoever it was, they were close enough that I could hear them breathing. I closed my eyes and gritted my teeth. My entire body tensed.

  “Got him,” Clyde shouted. “He’s hunkered down back here behind this—”

  Without thinking, I jumped up from my hiding place and thrust the spear at him. The jagged point stabbed the fleshy part of his shoulder, right between his arm and his chest. There was a brief second of resistance and then the spear sank into his skin. Clyde wailed. I heard the other two men holler. Something slipped from Clyde’s hand and clattered onto the floor. I glanced down and saw that it was a length of pipe that he’d apparently intended to use as a club.

  “Goddamn,” he screamed. “The fucker stabbed me.”

  Jim and George stood just outside the cul-de-sac, gaping at us both. George was armed with a pocketknife. Jim had a piece of two-by-
four. On the closed circuit television, the zombies seemed to be watching the action, as well. I wondered if they could sense the struggle going on beneath the mountain. Grunting, I yanked my spear free. Clyde stumbled backward, his free hand pressing against his wound. Blood welled from between his fingers. I thrust the spear at him and he scrambled away. He bumped against the nearest forklift and fell down. Despite everything, I laughed. At first, the noise confused me. I wasn’t aware that it was me making the sound. Then I saw the panic in Clyde’s wide eyes, and I laughed harder. I lifted my head and stared at Jim and George.

  “Who’s next? How about you, George? You want some?”

  “Fuck you,” George said quietly.

  “No, fuck you, you cocksucker. It doesn’t have to be this way, George. None of this has to happen. I mean, have you guys stopped for just one second and thought about what you’re doing here?”

  Jim sighed. “You killed Krantz, Pete.”

  “Because you guys were going to kill me. It was self-defense, man.”

  “So is this.”

  I groaned with frustration. “Are you really so far gone that Chuck’s idea seems like a good one?”

  “It’s better than starving to death,” George said.

  Jim nodded in agreement. “I want to make it back home to my family, Pete.”

  “I don’t think that’s going to happen anytime soon.”

  He shook his head. “Sooner or later, the zombies will go away. They’re rotting. Eventually, there won’t be anything left of them. We’re just waiting for the last zombie.”

  “That might take a while.”

  “I’ll wait. Sooner or later they’ll be none left. When that happens, I’ve got to get home to my family. With the zombies gone, there won’t be any law or order. I’ve got to protect my family from what comes next. I’m no good to them if I’m dead.”

  “You’ve got no family to go home to!” Spittle flew from my lips. “If they were outside, then they’re as good as dead already. Don’t you see that?”

  Jim flinched, and took a faltering step backward, as if I’d physically slapped him. When he spoke again, his voice was barely a whisper.

  “That’s not true. It’s not true. We have a basement. They probably hid down there. I’m sure of it. They—”

  “They’re dead,” I insisted. “I’m sorry for your loss, but you’ve got to face the facts. They’re gone, and you can’t get them back again.”

  On the floor, Clyde moaned. I lashed out with my foot and kicked him.

  “Shut up.”

  “You stabbed me, you fucker.”

  “You’re damned right I did, and I’ll do it again if you don’t shut up.” I turned my attention back to Jim and George. “It’s time we take a good, hard look at reality. We need to focus on ourselves. Everyone we love is probably dead. They’re probably walking around like the rest of those things outside.”

  “That may be true,” George said, “but we’re dead, too, if we don’t eat something soon. I’m not saying Chuck’s plan is right or decent or moral, but it is necessary, Pete. You just had the bad luck of being the first to be chosen. If it’s any consolation, I’m sorry about how things turned out. We all are.”

  I snorted. “Yeah, you seem real choked up about it, George. You’re a real humanitarian.”

  He shrugged. “Believe me or not. It’s the truth. I puked twice on the way up here. I ain’t no killer, but I’ll do what I have to do. We all will.”

  “And what about after I’m gone? Huh? What then, George? What are you guys going to do when there’s nothing left of me but bones?”

  “Well, then we’ll put you in the incinerator, I guess.”

  “That’s not what I mean. Eventually, you’ll get hungry again. You’ll have to pick someone else. What if it’s you, the next time? Or you, Jim? Or you, Clyde? What then? You’ll be standing in the same place where I’m standing now. Is it still going to be okay then? Come on, guys. I know things are bad, but this isn’t the way.”

  “Do you have a better idea? One that doesn’t involve going outside and getting overwhelmed by the zombies? Because if so, then I’m all ears.”

  “No,” I admitted, my voice faltering. “I don’t. But even if you go along with Chuck’s plan, how long do you think I’d last, once you killed me? How long before I’m inedible? A day? Two? Let’s get real—we’re talking about meat. We’ve got no way to preserve it. You’d have to kill somebody again pretty damn quick.”

  “There’s a refrigerator in the kitchen,” George said. “One of those big stainless steel jobs like the kind you find in restaurants. I know it’s just part of the exhibit, but it still works. I reckon we can keep you fresh a lot longer than two days.”

  I paused before responding. I felt sort of stunned. I’d forgotten all about the refrigerator. I suddenly had an image of my various organs and body parts sealed inside of Tupperware containers and stuffed into the vegetable crisper drawers.

  “What if the power goes out?” I asked. “What happens then? The diesel fuel won’t last forever. One of the generators could break down.”

  George shrugged. “If the power goes out, then we’ll smoke you. Charles Smith thinks we can set something up in the incinerator room to do just that.”

  “You’re insane.”

  “No,” George replied, “I’m not crazy. I’m just hungry. I’m hungry and I want to live. I’m sorry about this, Pete. I really am. You were a nice guy. You don’t deserve this. But I want to live. We all do. This isn’t personal. This is just the way it has to be. I want to live, and if killing you makes that happen, then so be it. Now, are you gonna come out of there like a man, or are we going to have to come get you and drag you out?”

  “Don’t do this,” I begged, hating the plaintive tone in my voice. “Please…”

  They both charged me at the same time, as if responding to some unspoken signal. Jim came in from the left, his makeshift club held at arm’s length like a baseball bat. George moved slower, more stealthily, creeping forward with the pocketknife at the ready. I raised the spear to meet Jim’s attack, and moved toward him, but Clyde reached out from the floor and grabbed my ankle. His fingers were warm and sticky with his blood. I could feel it through my sock. Repulsed, I jerked my foot from his grasp and kicked him hard in the chin. I heard his teeth clack together as he hurtled backward. Clyde uttered a garbled scream as blood rushed from his mouth. I remember thinking that there seemed to be a lot of it—too much blood for what I’d just done, but then Jim was upon me. He lashed out with his club, swinging hard and grunting with the effort. It was the grunt that saved me. I managed to step backward, narrowly avoiding the blow. I jabbed my spear at him, but he sidestepped it. Jim was breathing heavy. His mouth hung slack and his eyes seemed tired and unfocused. He raised his weapon to swing again, and I thrust my spear into his armpit and shoved hard. It sank in like a knife cutting through a block of cheese. Jim opened his mouth. Whether to speak or cry out, I don’t know, because all he managed to do was wheeze. His knees bent. He reached behind him, frowning in confusion, and then toppled backward, taking my spear with him.

  Weaponless, I stood there as George closed in on me. He moved silently, stepping over Jim’s body without even glancing down at it. He didn’t speak. I wasn’t even sure if he was breathing. If it hadn’t been for the grim determination showing in his eyes or the tiny muscle twitching in his cheek, I might have thought he was a zombie. He approached with caution, but his steps didn’t falter. He moved in a sort of crouch, head ducked low, arms pulled in tight to his body, knife at the ready.

  “It doesn’t have to be like this,” I told him. “There’s still time, George. Put the knife down.”

  He didn’t answer, nor did he pause. He continued toward me, and now his determined expression had been replaced with a look of something else.

  Hunger.

  George was hungry. Hell, he wasn’t just hungry. He was ravenous. I noticed for the first time the thin line of drool leaking fro
m the corner of his mouth. In that moment, he wasn’t a man at all. Instead, he reminded me of an animal. George was something primal and savage. He was a hunter.

  And I was the prey.

  At that moment, I felt a fear unlike anything I’d felt before. It was stronger than what I’d experienced in the movie room and more powerful than the day Alyssa left me. I imagined this was how a squirrel felt as it watched the headlights of an onrushing car. I stumbled away, hoping to reach my other spear, which was still lying on the floor behind the skid. Before I could, George seized my flapping shirttail and lunged at me. My fear dissolved into panic, consuming me. I didn’t think. I just acted. The sounds I made didn’t seem like my own—a long, keening scream that had no words. I punched and kicked and screamed, lashing out with my fists and feet, biting and head-butting and doing anything I could just to prevent the inevitable—just to stay alive for one second longer. All sound ceased. I was dimly aware that I was still screaming, but I couldn’t hear it. I couldn’t see, either. Everything in the cul-de-sac, including George, became a blur. I remained in motion, delivering blow after blow, not knowing if they were connecting or not—and not really caring if they did. The important thing was to not stop.

  Eventually, I did stop. The first thing I became aware of was the sound of my own breathing. I was hyperventilating. My arms hung limp at my sides, and my shoulders sagged. The floor seemed spongy and uneven, and my feet felt wet and sticky. When I glanced down with half-open eyes, I saw why. I was standing on top of what was left of George. At first, I didn’t recognize him. Both of his eyes were blackish-purple and swollen shut. His lips were split and swollen, too, and his nose resembled a squashed kiwi fruit. There was a hole in his cheek—a ragged, raw wound that looked chewed. Blood leaked from his nose and ears and the corners of his eyes. It covered the front of his shirt and had dribbled down his neck. I stared at him in confusion, wondering what had happened. Then I realized that it was me that had happened to him. I had done this. I’d killed him.