by Chuck Wendig
So he waltzed out, guitar in his bony hands, and played the best version of the Pied Piper that he could. His music summoned the people, a rock god calling to his priests and servants, his supplicants, his sycophants—
“Gather around,” he called to them, giving a heady strum to the acoustic, vrommm. “I come here to serve a purpose,” he said, raising his voice, but now he saw a new problem: He was down among them, within them, a part of them. That wasn’t right. That would not do, oh no. He could barely see behind the first faces circling him.
A rock star did not perform within the crowd.
A rock star performed above it. As was the place of a god.
(He urped into his hand.)
He needed a motherfucking stage.
Though the walkers kept walking, the shepherds had gathered to him like piglets struggling to get at mommy pig’s tit, so now he had to look above and beyond them—where, oh where, would he find a stage?
Look from whence you came, Pete, he told himself.
The CDC trailer.
“Follow me!” he whooped, lassoing his arm in the air as he let the guitar belt out the opening chords of “Under Your Thumb,” one of Gumdropper’s first charting hits—they parted the ways as he marched to the trailer, demanding then that they help him clamber atop. They did as he commanded, as they always did; hands under his feet, he used their palms as stepladders. They lifted and he walked—admittedly, he struggled a bit there at the end, and his bones creaked and his muscles pulled taut like the strap of a heavy instrument. But he made hay from that grass as he did a comical Wilder-as-Wonka roll onto the top of the trailer before leaping to his feet anew, the neck of the guitar pointed to the sky.
One more strum and then he begged for quiet.
Time to give them the news.
* * *
—
BENJI LOOKED UP at the ceiling of the trailer.
“He’s on the roof of the trailer, isn’t he?” he asked.
Outside, they’d been mobbed. It was like an impromptu concert. The shepherds and the news cameras were all facing them, crowding them, gazing up in fascination, wonder, and confusion.
“He can climb on top of my trailer anytime,” Sadie said.
“Sadie!” he said, shocked.
She shrugged. “Sorry. It’s true, though.”
* * *
—
“IT’S JUST SOME fucking stunt,” Shana said.
“You’re cynical,” Mia said.
“And you’re an idiot.”
She regretted it as soon as the words fled her mouth.
Mia gave her a scathing look—the kind of look that could light a cigarette just from its intensity. “You’re a mean little girl, you know that?”
“I’m not a little girl. Today’s my birthday. I’m eighteen now.”
“I’d say happy birthday, but you’d probably just think it’s some kind of fucking stunt.” Mia flicked a middle finger in her general direction and stormed off to join most of the rest of the shepherds flocking to hear the old-ass rock star who was now clumsily climbing atop the CDC trailer.
Good job, Shana, you insulted the woman who saved us from a gunman, you alienated the science boy you like, and you just pissed off the one person you maybe thought of as a friend out here.
Well, crap.
She was going to turn and walk away, and head off to see if she could jog and catch up to the Beast and sit with her father for a while—
But turned out, that wasn’t going to be an option.
Because who was coming up now but her father.
He was gawking and gaping at the man on top of the CDC trailer, his mouth so open Shana half imagined his jaw dragging behind him. He staggered up to her and said, “Holy hell, that’s really him.”
“Holy hell, you’re really out of the RV.”
“Well, damn right I am. It’s Pete Corley of Gumdropper! That might not mean much to you, but growing up in the ’80s—”
“You’re fucking unbelievable.”
He stared at her, shocked.
“You wouldn’t come crawling out of that dumb-ass RV for your own sick daughter—or for your healthy one. But some geriatric-ass rock star unretires and here you are like some heartsick tween.”
And, to boot, you didn’t remember my birthday.
Today is my birthday, you jerk.
He looked stung. Hurt. “You’re really cynical, Shana,” he said.
“You gotta be kidding me.”
“Can’t you just enjoy something for once?”
And with that, he went off to, whatever, go worship at the altar of the guitar-playing strip-of-beef-jerky on top of the CDC trailer.
Shana stood where she stood, feet rooted, feeling super-sad and overwhelmingly alone.
Then Pete Corley began to speak.
* * *
—
“THE ENEMY IS at the gates, shepherds,” Pete Corley announced with one heavy chord, brommmm. He stood, legs apart, guitar saddled across his middle. One arm pointed to the shepherds, then swept out into the distance until it was pointing farther down the road.
“Thataway,” he called out, “wait men and women of the US Army, soldiers who plan on rolling up here and ripping you away from your friends, your families, your loved ones.”
Gasps rolled across them like a high tide.
Faces fell. Mouths opened. They turned to one another to ask wordlessly, Can it be true? Meanwhile, the cameras rolled.
“They say the sleepwalkers are a danger. Some say they might be a weapon, others say they might be demons born from the belly of a comet that passed overhead—a sign of the End Times, a horde of devils on the march. But do you believe that?”
A cry went up: “No!”
“Sweet hot hell, I don’t believe it, either!” he bellowed. Christ, his voice was going to be hoarse in the morning. But fuck it, let his vocal cords go to cinders—and let his voice cry out and sing loud and cast high to the heavens. Most important, let the cameras see him, hear him, transmit his words to everyone across the country—
And especially to Elvis.
You think you can steal my mojo? he thought.
Try again, Elvis.
You prick wanker fuck.
Onward he bellowed:
“Even as we speak, President Hunt is going on TV, and she’s announcing that Homeland Security and the US Army are taking over. The CDC will be ejected! You will be ejected! Who knows what agenda they serve?” Truth was, they probably had a perfectly good reason, but what did he care? Homeland Security was a bunch of thugs and soldiers were just mercenaries working for them, and they were trying to rob him of his chance to do exactly what he was doing right now: go out to the people, strum this guitar, and be loved by them.
“Will you be run off?” he yelled.
“No!” they roared.
“Then I’ll stand with you. Let America know—” And here he looked right at one camera, then the next, then the next. Just like he would on stage if they were recording a show for DVD release. “We will remain as shepherds with this flock. None shall move us. And if they try, then may all the gods in all the heavens spare them our resistance!”
A clumsy, awkward, but perfectly vigorous cheer arose.
Gods, this felt good.
He felt electric and alive in a way he hadn’t in forever. Gone were thoughts of his wife, his children, his lover—he had even shed his anger over Elvis and Gumdropper in that one shining moment in which he existed in his own head, a perfect form standing tall and gold, like a heretical idol from an ancient civilization. And then, as if the moment were not perfect enough, as if the universe were not already kindly elevating him to the pedestal on which he belonged—
It gave him one last gift.
A dramatic moment, laid bar
e, like something out of a movie.
In the distance, miles up the road—
There came the soldiers.
Three troop carriers rolled forward—from here, looking more like Matchbox cars than anything, though he feared that up close, they’d not look like toys at all. Those vehicles were probably loaded for bear with army men and women. Ready to fight.
No! he thought. We are the ones who are ready to fight. Glorious and wild. Like barbarians against the Roman Legion! Bones in their beard, blood in their hair, roaring like beasts.
Was that who fought the barbarians? Romans?
Fuck, who cares, history is for tossers.
He pointed: “Look. Here they come. As I said they would.” On this last bit, he really got the voice loud and shrieky, a hard rock heavy metal yell that sounded like his vocal cords were welding steel. “Gird your loins and stand tall—we must resist!”
And then he jumped backward into the crowd.
Now, Pete Corley was no dummy. He knew the score—once in a while some newblood lead singer decided to leap into an uncertain crowd for them to surf him around, and that newblood took the leap of faith and ended up belly-flopping on the fucking concrete. He always told them, Check the crowd, read the room. No leaps of faith. Make sure they know you’re coming, he said. But this time, Pete didn’t check the crowd.
He gave off no signals.
He simply pivoted and fell.
Like Jesus Christ.
Wait, did Jesus Christ ever crowd-surf?
Surely that was in the Bible somewhere. Or some Bible movie? Fuck it, whatever, it made sense to Pete.
Pete, who leapt. Pete, who fell.
He felt himself whishing through open air, whoof—
A stray thought hit him:
What if I hit the road?
They aren’t watching me, they’re looking for the army trucks.
What if after all that, the cameras capture me cracking the back of my skull on this Podunk country road.
Oh fucking hell.
Then his body hit.
His neck jerked. His head dropped even as his chest rose.
A dozen hands buoyed him aloft. Lifted to the sky. Carried by the faithful and the reverent, his rock-and-roll supplicants. Up he went, moving this way and that, until he could hear the roar of the trucks approaching. They turned him and eased him to the ground. Boots on asphalt. Someone put his guitar into his hand.
Pete Corley turned and faced the three trucks bearing down. The crowd stood behind him, angry and sparking like a fraying wire.
He felt alive and insane and divine.
And then, when he saw what they were facing, he felt very, very afraid.
A neural network invents new band names:
The Skull and the Boy
Fangdriver!
Grandpa’s Going Down
Discount Ghostwriters
The Human Division
Monkey Clump
Robot, Party of Four
Nude Slot
—as seen on the US of AI blog, US-of-AI.com
JULY 3
Lone Tree, Iowa
FOR A TIME, IT FELT to Shana like a dream. A nightmare, really, one that you recognized for what it was but could do nothing about—you just sank deeper and deeper into the phantasmal mire. The trucks rolled up. Soldiers spilled out. They had guns—black guns, military rifles, the kind you use to cut down insurgents and terrorists, not the kind you point at your own people. Anxiety tightened in her middle as she imagined them turning their weapons on the flock and the shepherds—the imagined chatter as the rifles chewed through ammo, cutting apart innocent people. She had to willfully force that image out of her mind even as real soldiers with real guns lined up a hundred yards away. Even as the sleepwalkers marched onward.
Right toward them.
She stayed by Nessie the whole time. As the trucks rolled up and the soldiers spilled out, some shepherds followed Pete Corley to the front lines. Others retreated to the sides. Others still, like Shana, went to their people. They fed into the flock and stood by their loved ones. An unspoken message carried by them and between them: Come and try to remove us.
Dale Weyland stood with some kind of military-grade bullhorn, the same drab green as the trucks and the soldiers. He announced:
“Shepherds, I am Dale Weyland of United States Homeland Security. You are being forcibly evacuated. Please depart the sleepwalker flock in an orderly fashion or you will be removed and detained.”
Some did. Some shepherds retreated backward and to the sides.
Most did not.
The walkers kept on walking. As was their way. They would not be turned from their path. Nothing had turned them yet.
Shana walked with them. As did many of the others.
She felt sick. Nausea rolled up inside her like a boiling tide. It felt like being strapped into a roller coaster you didn’t want to ride—but she couldn’t stop it, couldn’t get off. Even though she knew she could. At any point she could just retreat like some of the others. She could leave the flock. Let the walkers walk on through the gauntlet of soldiers.
But that would mean leaving Nessie.
And that was not an option.
Pete Corley stood at the front, strumming his guitar and giving out marching orders: “March on, shepherds! Form a wedge! Don’t let them take you. Remind them that the world is watching.”
Onward they marched. The soldiers were a hundred yards away. Then ninety. Then eighty. Her heart raced in her chest. She looked back, saw Mia walking with Mateo, saw Lonnie Sweet with Darryl, saw Aliya with her friend Tasha. All of them looked scared.
And all of them looked resolute.
Someone bumped Shana’s arm. She turned, thinking, It’s Dad, finally making good, finally showing the hell up—
But it wasn’t.
It was Arav.
He reached down and took her hand.
Arav didn’t say anything, he just gave her a small nod.
They walked together, with Nessie, toward the soldiers.
* * *
—
IN THE BACK of Pete’s mind he wondered, On a scale of one to ten, how bad would it be if I pissed my pants? Certainly, as a rock star, he was afforded the luxury of behaving a bit like a lunatic. But pissing his pants in public (he’d done it in private before, obviously, as a seasoned druggie-and-drinker) was probably a bridge too far, and yet here he was, honestly considering it.
Oh, he was putting on a good face, of course. He had to. Marching back and forth in a zigzag as he approached the wall of soldiers—well, he had to look like the stage-seizing badass that he pretended to be. And up until five minutes ago, it seemed easy-peasy-play-Parcheesi. Back then it was like he was just warming up the crowd.
Now that same crowd was not just warmed up—they were fired up. And they were at his back as he marched toward the soldiers.
Soldiers with guns.
Big fucking guns.
Every cell in his body screamed to turn tail and run, just as he had run from the rest of his life, arriving only hours ago.
But he couldn’t. Not now. What would that do to him? He’d lose all credit. Respect for him would be out the window. No more rock god. No more whiskey-fed Jesus. He’d only be a tragic Judas.
Be the Judas, a voice in him warned. Run, you craven fuck, run.
And yet, onward he went. He pretended like he was someone else with bigger principles, bigger balls, and no sense of self-preservation. Pete grabbed the guitar and belted out the chorus to one of Gumdropper’s biggest and angriest songs: “We’re Not Going Anywhere,” which admittedly was a hit song he and Elvis wrote to announce their unretirement in 1989 (after a slew of failed solo projects), but fuck it, it sounded good enough as a makeshift fuck-you-eat-shit protest
song.
He screamed it loud and proud, others joining in—
We’re not going anywhere!
Our feet are firm
Our hearts are bare
We’re not going anywhere!
You go to hell!
We’ll stay right here!
The key to that lyric, of course, was to rhyme here with hair so that it lined up nice with anywhere and bare—simple enough to do with his Irish twist. Beyond that, all he could do was put on a good face and try very hard not to piss his pants.
Or shit them. Or puke on himself. Gods, was sobriety setting in? Had his buzz worn off? It had. Shit shit shit.
We’re not going anywhere, he thought as he sang. A mantra for himself more than for any who followed him.
* * *
—
FIFTY YARDS NOW.
Shana could see the looks on the soldiers’ faces. Some looked just as scared as she did—scared and confused, like they didn’t know what this was or if they should even be here. Some looked angry, ready to fight, eager to scrap with these diseased walkers—in their eyes she saw a different kind of fear, a fear that Nessie and the others might be weapons or terrorists, a fear born of knowing that each one of the walkers was a not-so-secret bomb ready to blow like a coffee can full of gunpowder. Other soldiers looked just as dead-eyed as the walkers themselves, empty of anything but, she imagined, their sense of duty and their willingness to hurt or kill in the name of nothing but the pride in following orders.
She wanted to yell out at them: Just go home! You don’t have to be here. This isn’t your fight. Leave us alone.
But she didn’t. She just held Arav’s hand tighter as they marched on.
Forty yards.
Thirty.
Dale Weyland used the bullhorn again, repeating the same warning as before: “I am Dale Weyland of United States Homeland Security. You are being forcibly evacuated. Please depart the sleepwalker flock in an orderly fashion or you will be removed and detained.”