Hannah sighs and pokes at her fire with a wet stick. The bark peels away under her palm. She knows she should make herself something to eat, but she has not been honestly hungry for a long time. Her clothes fit a little looser, and she knows it’s not just from all the dirt and grime and wear. It occurs to her that when her mother died, her father stopped making real meals for himself; he would just throw together sandwiches or pour himself some cereal and soymilk to eat it in the lab. When she’d chided him, worried about his health, he’d looked her in the eye and shrugged.
“Cooking for one is a fucking drag,” he’d said before turning back to his work.
Hannah frowns at the memory, but it is not the remembrance of her father’s attitude that upsets her. It is the recollection that she had once, and not too long ago, felt the need to worry for someone’s future health.
She decides to go measure out a few handfuls of lentils and rice from the bags she snatched from the bulk bins at Horn of Plenty, the little “natural” market that once served Miskatonic University students and professors, when she catches sight of a ragged figure lurching across the intersection of Lich and Parsonage. Her stomach rolls over on itself, and she decides she doesn’t actually want any food right now. Watching the horror shamble away on some unfathomable errand, Hannah just about jumps out of her skin when a rattle, like a bottle rolling over concrete, disturbs her melancholy peace. Quickly realizing the source, she groans, resigned to seeing what he wants. He’s prone to drying out, so likely he needs her to wipe him down with a damp rag. Or maybe he’s bored and wants to talk. Neither prospect thrills her, not particularly … but then again, it has been several hours since she’s spoken a single word. Some conversation might be nice.
The jar has fallen over, so she rights it before opening the lid and reaching inside to withdraw a living, severed head crowned with a mop of filthy grey hair. He blinks at her through thick, old-fashioned spectacles, sour-mouthed, as she sets him carefully on the inverted lid.
“Hi, Great-Uncle Herbie,” she says. “Need something?”
“I have asked you on more than one occasion to call me Dr. West,” he says primly—very primly, considering what and where he is.
The tomb isn’t much warmer for his coldness, but Hannah smiles anyway, until her lip cracks. Then, she sobers. “Doctor West,” she says, overemphasizing the syllables as she daubs at her lip with the back of her hand. “Can I get you anything? Scalpel? Curette? Forceps?”
“Very amusing,” he says. “My eyelids are dry. I need you to moisten them.”
“Well, Doctor West—”
“Please!”
They must be really dry for him to ask so nicely. Without further ado, Hannah grabs her head-wiping rag and trots to the edge of the mausoleum. After holding it out in the rain for a bit, she returns and sponges him off. Then she applies a dab of under-eye lotion—organic, the good stuff, also pilfered from Horn of Plenty.
“That’s better,” he says. “I thank you. You can put me back in my jar now.”
“Oh,” she says, actually a little disappointed he doesn’t feel like harassing her further now that he’s out and they’re talking. “Okay.”
“Is there something else?” he asks, his left eyebrow quirking up. “News, perchance? Or perhaps you’ve had some kind of heartfelt revelation in the face of adversity, and you’d like to share?”
“No,” she says, stung. “Just, you know, living in this mausoleum, wondering what’s next for me.”
“They’ll find you, and then they’ll either kill you or make you one of them,” he says, not a shred of emotion in his voice.
Hannah stares at Dr. West in disbelief. Sure, he’s just a head in a jar and has been since long before she was born, but she’s still surprised at his callousness.
“Oh, don’t look so wounded,” he drawls. “I told you … well, I don’t know when, it’s difficult for me to tell in my jar, but I told you some time ago that you should leave Arkham as quickly as possible, and yet …” he scans the interior of the mausoleum, eyes rolling dramatically to make his point.
“Where the fuck else do you want me to go?” asks Hannah, pleased to see his mouth shrivel up like a cat’s butt at what he’d on numerous occasions deemed her “unladylike” language. “I know where everything is in Arkham. I know where to go when I need supplies. It’s three miles of open road to Kingsport, minimum, and Boston’s even farther. All I have is a bike, and anyway … we have no idea what we’ll find there.”
“Exactly,” he says in such a know-it-all tone she’s tempted to grab him by the hair and hurl him not back into his jar but into the night. “It might be safer for you.”
“Or it might be full of more …” Hannah gestures at the world beyond the door of the mausoleum and lets her arm drop. It is just too damn depressing. “Jesus Christ,” she says, “this is my fucking life. I’m arguing with a severed head about what to do during the zombie apocalypse.” She guesses she should have been watching The Walking Dead instead of all those seasons of Game of Thrones. Likely, it would have provided her with some useful hints and tips given her current circumstances.
“I’m as surprised as you are,” says Dr. West. “I always assumed my work would be shelved along with me, but my brilliant nephew had other ideas.”
“Don’t talk about my father,” says Hannah, a lump rising in her throat.
“Why not? He was a fool to think he could duplicate my research, much less advance it. When he asked my opinion, I told him—”
“Shut up!” cries Hannah before stuffing her great-uncle’s head into his jar. She doesn’t want to think about how this is all her father’s fault. She doesn’t want to lay the blame for the world’s demise at the feet of a scientist whose only crime was letting grief rule his reason.
But Dr. West is right. Her father had been unable to let go of the dead … and because of that, as far as she knows, the world now belongs to them.
Hannah tries to remember when she first realized everything was going wrong.
It wasn’t when her father had called her, demanding she come home right now. She’d wondered what was going on, as he pretty much lived at his lab, and only went to his dusty house to do laundry; her answer had come when he hugged her, tears standing in his eyes.
“Ask him what to do, if it comes to that. He’ll know if anyone does,” he’d said before injecting her with something that had knocked her out. Then he’d locked her in the basement.
No … she’d known something was wrong before that stupid day. She just hadn’t known what to do about it.
“It’s sad, but it’s also just so humiliating, don’t you think?”
Hannah had overheard two of her father’s colleagues talking at her mother’s funeral after the service. She’d sidled closer, curious: the catty bullshit of academia intrigued her, even if it’s what had made her decide she was better suited to a “career” as a barista halfway through her PhD.
But you’re so smart, they’d said. What a waste when you showed such promise.
Yeah—fuck that shit. She’d rather swim with sharks when she was on her period. It was safer.
“Humiliating doesn’t describe it.” The man pulled a face. “Her life’s over and so’s his career. Can you even imagine? I always thought it was a mistake for him to let his wife volunteer for his ‘revolutionary’ new cancer treatment. Let’s see him apply for funding now.”
Hannah hadn’t said anything to either of them; quite frankly, she didn’t see the point since nothing she could say would feel as good as punching them both in the face. Unfortunately, controlling herself turned out to be the wrong choice for once. Her father had ended up overhearing some of their spiteful gossip, and given his choices after that night, she couldn’t help but wonder … if she’d hushed them up, one way or the other, would it have come to this?
She’d awoken in her dad’s basement, a crick in her back and a spider running across her nose. A quick swat resolved the latter concern, but the forme
r took a bit longer. She’d risen, gingerly, and climbed the stairs, pointlessly rattling the knob for a good long while before resigning herself to looking for an axe or something to force her way out.
“What the fuck, Dad,” she’d said—sadly, not angrily. If she was angry at anyone, it was at herself. She had known he was losing it and had chosen to remain a spectator, hoping he’d pull himself out of his depression, his obsession, without her demanding he give up his research.
Then again, she hadn’t known what exactly he was researching.
Hannah thought it telling that she had no idea if it was her father’s foresight or mere coincidence that led to her finding the fire axe next to her great-uncle’s head, but that’s how it happened. She’d been overjoyed to finally find an implement that would allow her to get out and take a piss somewhere more dignified than the cellar floor until she’d startled at the unmistakable sight of a human profile sitting in a large Ball jar.
She’d screamed—of course she had—and when her heart slowed again, she’d inspected the head. Her whole life, she’d heard stories about her creepy great-uncle, and given the nature of those tales, it didn’t totally surprise her to find some decapitation victim in a jar.
“The fuck?” She’d poked at the glass.
Then the eyes had fluttered open, and Hannah no longer felt the same urgency in her bladder.
She lets her great-uncle languish in his jar all night. Whether he sleeps, she does not know. She certainly gets no rest.
The rain stops sometime in the wee hours. When the day dawns, the sky is a brilliant blue that’s almost obscene in its perfection. She has thought long and hard about Dr. West’s advice—about what it would mean to try and leave Arkham, to see if the world beyond the town’s borders is also a shambles—and she has decided to risk it. Sooner or later she’ll either be caught scavenging for food, or her sources for supplies will run out entirely. Better to make the run while she’s still healthy and can afford to spend a few days on the road. Finally hungry, Hannah pulls some Primal Strips out of her bag and tears into them. Thai peanut was always her favorite back in the before-time. The familiar flavor brings tears to her eyes.
She’ll need a map. She’s been to Kingsport many times, but though the bridge across the Miskatonic tributary should be easy enough to traverse, she has no idea what the state of the roads will be like on the other side. With all the rain they’ve been having there could be flooding. With only her bike and no access to antibiotics, she’s not sure how wise it would be to cross anything too nasty.
She packs what she can into her backpack, but before strapping on the fire axe she takes out her great-uncle to tell him her plan. He seems pleased, probably because she’s finally taking his advice.
“I figure a gas station might still have a map,” she says. “The problem is … I have no idea what else will be in there.”
“Did you think this would be easy?” Dr. West sniffs derisively. “You’re certainly your father’s daughter. ‘I’ve been reading over your project notes, Uncle, and I think where you went wrong was injecting the cadavers with reagent. If I vaporize it, then—’”
“Shut the fuck up,” says Hannah, shocking him into silence. “That’s my fucking father you’re talking about, okay? And,”—she swallows— “my mother,” she whispers when she can.
Hannah cannot really blame her mother for her part in all this, given that she was already dead when it began. Nevertheless, it was mom’s thrashing that sprayed the other corpses in the morgue with the formula, causing the chain reaction that ended … well, everything.
After a moment, her great-uncle’s lips unpurse. “You’re quite right,” he says, the first time he has ever sounded apologetic over the course of their acquaintance. “Forgive me. I have never been sentimental about the dead, but of course, you would have reason to be in this case.”
“In this case. Jesus.” Hannah shakes her head. “Anyway, I know it won’t be easy. I was just wondering if you … well … fuck. In case I don’t make it back, where should I, you know … leave you?”
“Oh.” It clearly had not occurred to her great-uncle that she might care about what happened to him in all this. “I suppose … any place is as good as another. You’ve been very kind to me, but I existed for years without anyone to sponge my brow and all that. Who knows, I may live longer than … everyone. Forever, even.” He chuckled, the creep. “All this to say, just put me where you can grab me if you do make it out alive. I’ve enjoyed the novelty of your company, Hannah, and if it is possible for me to come along wherever you go … I’d like to.”
Touched, Hannah replaces him more carefully than usual in his jar.
There is a gas station at the intersection of Peabody and Washington on the way out of town. Hannah heads there with her great-uncle and everything she owns in the world on her back. She spies a few of the dead on her ride, but she either speeds by them or swerves to avoid their notice.
Her great-uncle had once told her his few successes involved very fresh specimens. Many of those exposed to the vaporized reagent had been in the ground for years, if not centuries; they are mobile and possess an unnatural strength but not particularly acute faculties.
When the gas station comes into view, she pedals past it but not too far. She figures she can sprint away, if necessary, and parks her bike in the lee of a neglected forsythia.
The only thing she takes with her is her axe.
Derby’s Gas-n-Go looks deserted, but in her experience, that’s no indication of anything. She approaches cautiously and skulks around the perimeter. No windows are smashed, which is usually a good sign. Still, when she pulls on the front door, she does so cautiously.
It’s not locked, but it does ding upon being opened wide enough for her to squeeze through. The chime is terrifyingly loud, and Hannah suppresses a giggle, imagining being mobbed with the undead, succumbing at long last … in the Gas-n-Go.
Once inside, the store is almost silent—though it should be even quieter. The electricity is off, everywhere, but here there is that characteristic subtle hum of lots of refrigerators. There must be a generator still working. She glances around, sees nothing, and heads for the wobbly kiosk filled with self-guided tour pamphlets, postcards—and maps.
Hannah grabs a likely handful, stuffing them into the back pocket of her jeans, intending to sort through and pick the best one later—but before she goes, she wonders about the humming of the generator. Her gaze tracks to the wall of drinks at the back of the store, and she is suddenly parched. It has been weeks since she last had a cold beverage, and the temptation is irresistible. The desire for a soda, icy and sweet and fizzy, takes hold completely, and before she is consciously aware of her actions she is in front of the cooler, setting down her axe and thanking the God she’s pretty sure doesn’t exist for university students’ penchant for Mexican Coke—the kind with actual sugar instead of corn syrup.
The door opens after the satisfying resistance she remembers from when she wasn’t the last woman in the world, and it was still commonplace to grab a drink at a convenience store. The cold air on her face is glorious; the feel of the bottle in her hand even more so. Remembering her grad school years, she pops the top on the handle of the fridge and drinks half of it in one go—guzzling it, reveling in the experience—and sighs before belching richly.
Only then does she notice the eyes staring at her from behind the rest of the beverages.
She drops the bottle on her foot, feels the impact on her sneaker and the liquid seeping over her toes. It has seen her. She grabs her axe before backing up.
“Son of a fuck,” she mutters when she realizes the corpse is not alone. They have congregated in the cool of the refrigerator, and when they begin to move, she hears the bones creaking in their skin.
She is going to fucking die. And for a fucking Coke.
The dead are pretty quick for being, well, dead, but they will have to go around and find some way to get to her, given that they’re tr
apped behind rows of bottles. Hannah decides to run for it. It’s not her usual choice since she has always hated running but needs must and all that shit. She turns, hearing a door squeal somewhere to her left, throws open the front door, and puts on a burst of speed, heading for her bike.
Three corpses, two of them naked, the third still in its funeral suit, are milling around her stuff while one in some terrible Laura Ashley gown scrabbles at the zipper. As she approaches, its stiff fingers find the tab and yank the bag open, revealing the jar containing her great-uncle’s head. He is looking around wildly, helpless, panicked, and his eyes meet hers for only a moment before Hannah looks away to do what must be done.
Before her legs stop pumping, Hannah’s axe is swinging up above her head and chopping into the thief. It is a fairly dry body, and the cut sinks deep into the corpse’s putrid neck. She yanks out the blade and swings again—this time, the head spins away as if she’d been wielding a driver in some unholy game of golf.
The body drops, twitching, but Hannah doesn’t stop to admire her success. She turns around and chops at the closest of the other three, the one in the suit, lopping off an arm and its head before spinning to whack at the second, which is horribly naked. A few swings and that one falls, too, and though blisters are starting on her palms, Hannah takes down the final body in a cloud of dust that her half-elf necromancer would have paid 30 gp for back when she still had an RPG group.
Hannah zips up her backpack, kicks her bike’s kickstand for all she’s worth, and is fucking out of there as the rest of them come up behind, her now-gross axe laid across the handlebars. The dead are fast but not as fast as a scared thirty-something on a bike. She pedals for all she’s worth until she’s over the bridge and reaches a crossroads.
Tomorrow's Cthulhu: Stories at the Dawn of Posthumanity Page 2