by Amy Cross
"There is, huh?" he replies.
"You have to believe me," I continue. "I've seen it. It makes people get really ill and then they die, except some of them turn some other way and they start walking again. They become, like, these creatures that talk in this weird way, and some of them seem to not really have minds of their own, and some of them are people you might even know!"
"Dead people walking?" he asks, raising an eyebrow.
"I've seen it," I say. "With my own eyes. We were in Scottsville, in Oklahoma, and there were all these things. I don't know how many there are, but they were everywhere, and they were talking. My brother got hurt, but we managed to escape, and then we just drove and drove but we didn't see anyone and finally we got to this place, so we took a look around and..." I pause, realizing that I'm not ready to tell the next part. "Please," I continue, "you've got to understand. It's like the whole world's just gone wrong."
"Like an apocalypse?" he asks. "Like the Lord has finally seen fit to wash the sin and horror from the surface of this miserable world?"
"I don't know," I reply. "Like... I saw this woman explode. She got all sick and festering, and then her body burst. And my own mother, and my father too. And then my brother got crushed by a truck, and he was in agony, and..." My voice trails off as I realize how insane the past week has been. "This is day ten," I say eventually. "I think, anyway. I've been counting. It started ten days ago. Maybe it hasn't reached you out here yet, but I swear to God, it's happening."
He stares at me, as if he can't quite believe what I'm saying.
"It's true," I tell him.
"Maybe," he replies, frowning, "and maybe not. It's certainly an eye-opener, boy, but I really don't know if I can trust you. You wouldn't come up here and try to trick an old man, would you? I've never done anything to you, so I hope to God that you wouldn't think I'm an idiot. If you're lying to me, I'll see through it. I'll get to understanding what you're doing and I'll punish you, don't think I won't."
"It's all true," I insist. "Why else do you think my brother and I ended up out here?"
He pauses. "Few days ago," he says eventually, "I noticed something weird. I used to see jets going through the sky, over to the north. Then they stopped, maybe about a week ago."
"That's because of everything that's happened," I tell him. "I saw a whole jet just come crashing down last week. I bet they all just fell out of the sky when the power stopped working and people got sick."
He smiles. "I guess I'm lucky none of them landed on my head, huh?"
"It's not a joke," I say firmly. "People are dying."
"Sinners," he mutters.
"Everyone," I reply. "Not just bad people. Good people too. My parents died."
"Then they must've been sinners too."
I stare at him. The old guy seems so resolutely stuck in his ways, it's hard to see how I can ever convince him to see the world any other way.
"I've been expecting something like this," he continues. "Some kind of change. I never thought I'd live to see the day, but it seems I've finally been shown that I was right. God does listen, and he does punish those who've lived unholy lives."
"God isn't like this," I reply. "This isn't God's doing. God helps people. God's going to put all of this right. He didn't start it."
"That's the modern world for you," he continues, with a hint of a smile still on his lips. "Everyone pretends that God is some great big teddy bear who's going to make everything fair and just. Sometimes I wonder if anyone's ever really read the Bible at all. Doesn't matter much to me, though I've gotta say, I saw it coming. I actually read the text, you see, and I understood a long time ago that the real God, the one who exists, is much more vengeful." He pauses. "The question is, what are we gonna do about it? Assuming it's all true, of course. I mean, it doesn't change the fact that you're a murderer and a thief, does it?" He raises the rifle, aiming straight at my head. "Do you know what we do with murderers and thieves around here, boy?"
Elizabeth
Pennsylvania
"You're looking pretty good for someone who got shot today!"
As I step out through the double-doors, onto the wooden porch that runs alongside the front of the farmhouse, I find Erikson sitting with a bottle of beer.
"Isn't this luxury, huh?" he asks, lifting the bottle. "Toad's been home-brewing, so he's got a fair old stash. Doles 'em out, one a week for everyone. Who'd've thought that one beer a week could taste better than one beer an hour? You want one?"
I shake my head.
"Sorry about what happened," he continues, smiling awkwardly. "I guess I over-estimated Toad's sanity when it came to defending his castle."
"Toad didn't shoot her," says Patricia, stepping past me and walking over to join Erikson at the table. "I shot her. I'd do it again, too. Around here, we can't be too careful." She takes a seat and turns to look out across the fields that spread out into the distance. "We don't have a way of verifying new arrivals yet," she continues. "Fortunately, the symptoms seem pretty hard to miss, so once we get a good look at you, it's possible to be certain. There seems to be a latent resistance to the strain in a small section of the population, but it's hard to really be sure who's resistant and who just hasn't been exposed yet."
"You're a doctor?" I ask, loitering by the door.
"Don't get too excited," she replies. "This kind of thing isn't my specialty, not by a long shot. I can take out bullets and deliver a baby when the time comes, but I'm not going to be much use when it comes to trying to work out what the hell's going on." She pauses. "I'm pretty good with a sterilized needle and some thread, though."
"We're gonna stick around for a few weeks," Erikson adds. "I've spoken to Toad, and he's fine with it. Well, maybe 'fine' isn't the right word, but he's gonna let us stay. Patty's a doctor, so we figure it'll be useful to have the baby here, just in case there are any complications." He pauses. "You're welcome to get going by yourself, but if you want to wait for us, we're still probably gonna take the van eventually. It's just gonna be delayed, that's all."
"Where's this Toad guy?" I ask. "I haven't met him yet."
"Out in the woods," Patricia replies. "Some of the others go off foraging during the day. Most of them come back empty-handed, but Toad knows the land. He always finds something, and he's pretty good at setting traps. He knows which mushrooms are safe to eat, and berries, and he's already been cultivating some patches of land for a while. In a way, he's the only person I've met so far who seems remotely equipped to deal with this situation. He's got a huge stash of canned food in his basement, too, and pitchers for collecting rain-water."
"Toad was a survivalist," Erikson continues. "Sort of, anyway. He moved out here and started going a little peculiar. You know, one of those people who decide to go and live alone in the sticks and become totally self-sufficient, because they think the end of the world's coming."
"To be fair," Patricia says, with a half-hearted smile, "he might have had a point."
"I guess maybe it was a good idea after all," Erikson mutters. "I mean, he's sure saved our asses." He pauses. "But this isn't the end of the world. No fucking way. This is just a little pause while everything goes nuts. It's a correction. Things'll be back to normal soon."
"You'll meet Toad later," Patricia adds. "Just don't go expecting much in the way of conversation. He keeps himself to himself."
"Not in a good way, either," Erikson says, before taking another swig from his bottle of beer. "In a potential serial killer kind of way. The guy's totally fucked up." Getting to his feet, he comes over to join me at the door. "I know it's against the rules, but seeing as Toad's out, I figure I might go down and get one more beer."
"That's stealing!" Patricia says firmly.
"I think the world owes me one fucking beer," Erikson replies. "After everything that's happened in the past week, one beer isn't too much to ask for!"
"Toad doesn't owe you anything," Patricia says.
"It's just a beer," he mutters, stepp
ing past me and heading inside. "Just one time. Keep your mouths shut. I'm celebrating the imminent birth of a baby. I'll skip my beer next week or something."
"He's an idiot," Patricia says after a moment, fixing me with a curious stare. "Please tell me he's not actually a friend of yours."
"I met him yesterday," I reply.
"That's better," she says. "I've met men like him before. They're no good, in the long run. I pity that poor bitch who's carrying his baby. Christ, I can't imagine letting such a waste of space into my bed, but I guess it's different strokes for different folks." She pauses. "Can you fire a shotgun, Elizabeth?"
"Me?" I stare at her for a moment. "I guess so."
"Wrong answer," she replies. "Either you can or you can't. If you can't, it's fine, but you need to be honest so we can teach you." She stares at me for a moment. "That's a good general rule around here. Don't try to cover up anything. If you can't do something, just say so, and someone'll teach you."
"I can't fire a shotgun," I admit. "I mean, I've never tried."
"I'll teach you this afternoon," she says. "You'll have a hell of a bruise from the kickback after the first couple of times."
"Why do I need to be able to fire a shotgun?" I ask.
"Two reasons. First, you need to be able to shoot at random people who drive up to the house." She pauses. "That was a joke. But seriously, those creatures we talked about, they're real and they're bad news. The policy here is to shoot on sight. No questions, just get a couple of shots off. Fortunately, they seem to drop pretty easily. Blam, if you're a good shot, you can get 'em down. Blam blam if you're not so steady. Anyway, once one's been killed, you keep the hell away from it. Someone's always on watch, twenty-four-seven, which is why we're happy to have a few new arrivals. You're gonna have to take your turn, Elizabeth, and the first couple of times are pretty damn spooky."
"You mean they come here?" I ask, shocked at the idea of those things suddenly appearing on the horizon. I turn and look out at the field, but there's no sign of anything so far.
"We've only had two so far," she replies. "Actually, one was before I got here, and the other was two days ago. Still, they were both headed straight for the farmhouse, which has got us a little spooked. It's almost as if they're drawn here, like moths to a flame. I'm assuming it's either scent-based or they're attracted to heat. Granted, we don't know what they'd do if they actually got here, but none of us wants to find out."
"They talk," I say.
She raises an eyebrow.
"The one in New York talked," I continue. "It didn't really make much sense. It seems confused, but it seemed kind of lucid. Like it was taunting us."
"I didn't know they could talk," she replies, visibly a little shocked. "That's gonna make shooting them a little more interesting."
Feeling as if my legs might give way, I walk across the porch and take a seat. The enormity of this situation has suddenly become very apparent to me, and I can't help thinking that maybe we should just keep running. After all, if those creatures are attracted to this place, we're clearly not safe.
"It's okay," Patricia says after a moment. "It's going to be fine."
"What is?" I ask.
"This. The world. I don't know how or when, but it's going to get fixed. This is just a temporary emergency."
I stare at her. "Who's going to fix it?" I ask, thinking back to a few days ago when I told Henry more or less the same thing, only to be proved wrong when Bob opened fire.
"You don't think the government's out there, working on something?" she asks, taking a cigarette packet from her shirt pocket and removing a single cigarette. "This is my last one," she continues, turning the little paper tube around and around between her fingers. "Fuck, I'm gonna miss it when it's gone. It's the one damn thing Toad hasn't been bothering to grow himself. No tobacco. It's gonna be a problem when I've finally smoked this one, but I'm saving it for a special occasion." She pauses, and it's clear that she's genuinely struggling to refrain from lighting up. "I just hope there's a special occasion before..." Her voice trails off, before she slips the cigarette back into the packet and puts the whole thing back in her shirt pocket.
"I think Erikson might have some cigarettes," I say after a moment.
She shakes her head. "He smoked his last one earlier. Don't think I don't know he's got his eye on mine, either. There's no way he's getting it, though." She pauses. "So, Elizabeth, I guess we should start training you up on one of the rifles. There's no point sitting around wasting time." She turns and looks out at the horizon. "We don't know when another of those things might turn up around here, but it could come at any moment, and I figure it's better to hit them while they're still fairly far out." Getting to her feet, she turns to me and smiles. "Come on. It's not that scary, really. Once you know how to use a gun properly, you'll feel a hell of a lot safer."
Before I can say anything, there's a distant rumbling sound and the whole world seems to shake for a moment, rattling the house before the tremor subsides.
"Not the first time," Patricia says, staring at me with a look of fear in her eyes. "You felt that before too, right?"
I nod.
She pauses. "Whatever it is," she continues eventually, "I don't like it. It doesn't feel natural."
Thomas
Missouri
"Faster!" the guy shouts, standing at the top of the hill and watching as I struggle with the barrel of water I'm supposed to be dragging to the house. "We haven't got all day!" he continues. "I want this done before it gets dark! There's still a few more jobs I need doing!"
"It'd be easier if my legs weren't chained together," I mutter.
"What was that?" he calls out.
"Nothing!" I shout, giving the barrel another heave as I finally get it onto the level ground that surrounds the house. It's taken me almost half an hour to get the damn thing up a slope that seemed at times to be running at a forty or fifty per cent incline. Given that the barrel is completely full of rain water, I guess I shouldn't be surprised that I almost collapsed several times. "Why do you keep this thing down by the road, anyway?" I ask, out of breath and generally feeling as if I might black out at any moment. I swear to God, with the late afternoon sun beating down on me, I'm sweating like a pig, and there's no sign of any let-up.
"None of your business," he replies, raising the rifle so that the barrel is once again pointed at me. "You're not done yet. I want this thing over by the door. It's the best clean water source we've got right now. I don't know how long I'll be having you around, boy, but I might as well make use of you while you're here."
Figuring that there's no point trying to argue, I start rolling the barrel toward the house. There's a part of me that wants to just make a run at the old bastard and try to knock him down. Sure, he might manage to get a shot off and blow my head to pieces, but on the other hand I might just manage to get to him. It's not that I want to kill him, but I sure as hell don't plan to let him keep pushing me around like this. I've already got some kind of plan worked out: I'm going to lull him into a false sense of security, make him think he can trust me a little, and then I'm going to bash his head against a rock.
"This is what happens to murderers," he says, watching me for a few meters away. "Thieves, too. You're gonna have to work off your sins, and I intend to make sure that you do just that. God wouldn't want it any other way."
"This isn't anything to do with God!" I say, but before I can add anything else, there's a kind of rumbling sound, and for a moment everything starts shaking. I look over at the guy, and I'm just about to make a lunge for the gun when the trembling stops and everything goes back to normal.
"See?" he says. "That's what God thinks about you. He's sending a message. You've sinned, boy, and you've got to make it right. There's no point pretending otherwise."
"That wasn't God," I tell him.
"Who else can make the ground shake?" he asks. "Who else can make the whole world tremble? You'd do well to remember that the Lord's watching
you, boy. He can see everything you do, and he knows what's in your heart. He's everywhere. Don't they teach you kids anything these days? Don't you even know what God is and what he can do to you?"
Setting the barrel in position next to the door, I take a step back. I've always thought that I'm in pretty good shape, but that was by far the hardest job I've ever had to do in my life, and right now I feel as if I need to rest. It's pretty clear that this guy is going to keep pushing me until I drop.
"Grab a shovel," the guy says.
I turn to him.
"Do I have to say everything twice?" he asks. "Get a shovel. There's plenty resting over by the side of the house. Just grab one. Doesn't matter which, as long as it's sturdy. You're gonna be using it for a few hours, though, so make sure it's one you can grip properly. Don't get the biggest one. It's too big for you."
Sighing, I walk over and pick up the nearest shovel. It's clear that this guy, whose name I don't even know, has decided that I'm going to be his general, all-purpose slave, and while he's holding that rifle, there's no way I can even hope to get the hell out of here. Still, he's pretty old and frail, so I'm sure I can overpower him once I've managed to get close enough, so once again it's clear that my best option is to find a way to make him think that I'm harmless. I need to spend a few days, maybe even a week, being obedient and well-behaved, and then I need to watch out for the right moment to strike.
"Come on!" he calls out. "The longer you delay, the later you'll be working!"
Carrying the shovel back over to him, I follow as he leads me over to the trees. We walk a few hundred meters into the forest, before finally he stops and turns to me. As usual, the rifle is pointed straight at my head, and I have no doubt that he'd use it if he thought I was going to try anything. I can only hope that his trigger finger isn't twitchy.
"Dig," he says firmly.