21st Century Dead

by Christopher Golden

  Justine wandered the half-full parking lot while Carson started gathering and preparing his gear. Once he was fully kitted up, he inhaled deeply and started toward her.

  Keeping her back to him, she said, “I thought maybe standing here there’d be … something. A fragment of memory. But no.”

  “In all honesty, it’s almost hard to remember it happening myself. It happened so quickly and there was so much chaos.…”

  “Did anyone try to stop me? Did you?”

  Carson stopped fidgeting before answering.

  “Stop? I mean … the cops tackled you. The thing is, I think the baby was already dead. I didn’t hear crying.”

  “How did I get it?”

  “Uh…” Carson wished for a cigarette more than he had wished for anything else in the entirety of his life. “There was a huge crush of people running out of the shopping center when the police smoked them out. They think the baby was inside, and got … trampled. There was a broken stroller nearby.”

  It was, in fact, in the photograph.

  He heard Justine exhale shakily.

  “Fuck me, fuck you, and fuck this. What’s the point of us being here? I’d want me dead, too. Let’s just get this done so I can crawl back to my hole.”

  Carson silently worked his mouth open and closed, platitudes at the ready on his tongue. They didn’t want to come out, though; every fiber of his being fully agreed with her that being here was wrong. In for a penny, in for a pound, though. The texts he had been getting from his editor were becoming increasingly insistent.

  “Yeah, all right.”

  The photojournalist considered the parking lot around them, trying to avoid looking at the photo again on his iPhone and going solely by memory.

  “The pile of rubble … I’m pretty sure it was over there.”

  He pointed at a grouping of empty parking spaces, completely indistinguishable from any other in the world. Apparently not everything required a plaque.

  They made their way over, the cloud of unease silencing them. Everything was so generic and bright around them that it gave the entire assignment the feel of some kind of ill-planned playacting. The only piece of reality that didn’t seem a part of their make-believe was a small murder of crows nearby that was effectively edging any pigeons out of their territory.

  It seemed easier just to mumble and gesture the whole thing. In the back of his mind Carson supposed he had hoped returning here might summon up at least an emotional memory for Justine, but it was clear that whatever breakthrough he had been hoping for was doomed to die the quiet death of simply going through the motions.

  Carson pointed and shot, getting the majority of his pictures framing Justine in front of the rapidly setting sun. She crouched, stood, and even sat in a few, looking pensive and disconnected in each one. The stark contrast of a traumatized woman in a new parking lot made the whole thing feel a dust-in-the-blood kind of dirty to Carson. The look in her eyes, though …

  “All right, I think we got it. We can go.”

  She didn’t move.

  “What’s wrong?” Carson asked.

  “Aren’t you going to ask me?”

  “Ask you what?”

  “All this time together, and you’re too timid to ask the question I know you want to ask. It’s been all over your face since we met.”

  Carson opened his mouth, then closed it and shook his head.

  “Go ahead,” Justine said, hands on her hips. “Ask me, how can I possibly go on living after something like that? How can I make jokes and drop stupid pop-culture references and eat ribs and laugh and listen to music? Isn’t that what you want to know? Isn’t that what you’ve been dying to ask me this whole time?”

  Carson didn’t know how to respond, mainly because she was dead right. It was the question he’d wanted to ask ever since he’d heard the news a month ago that the Famous Baby Eater—the subject of a photo that had won him fame he didn’t want and acclaim he didn’t deserve—was still alive.

  How do you go on living after something like that?

  Justine sighed and walked past him, muttering, “Let’s get to a hotel with a bar.”

  * * *

  “Thanks for being less of a dick about this than I thought you’d be,” she said.

  They were sitting at the bar in some sports-themed joint on the ground floor of a chain hotel on the edge of Henderson, knees almost touching. Carson stared into his beer, already thinking about the new set of photos he’d just made. Wondering if it was going to do more harm than good. Of course, he’d sold it to Justine as a way to show the world that she wasn’t a monster, that the cure did work. But now he wasn’t so sure.

  Justine laid her hand over his and gave a gentle squeeze. Her other hand fiddled with her cell phone on the bar top.

  “Hey.”

  Carson met her gaze. Said nothing. What could he say? That he was about to ruin her life all over again?

  The photo of Justine eating ribs alone … ugh. She had no idea what she’d agreed to.

  “Look, I’m serious,” Justine said. “You’ve been good to me, despite everything. Which is why I feel bad about doing this.”

  “Doing what?”

  Without warning she leaned forward and pressed her lips to his.

  To a passerby it would have looked like a couple doing a parody of a cover of an historical-romance novel, except with the man in the submissive stance. Right in the thick of it, however, was a demented sincerity. Justine used her tongue to pry open his lips. What the hell was she doing?

  Justine didn’t have “death breath.” He could taste peppermint and beer; her lips were warm. But still, all he could think about was where her lips had been, and about the chunks of flesh her tongue had once licked away from her teeth.…

  Before he could break the embrace he heard the sound of a fake camera shutter snapping closed.

  Oh God, Carson thought as his eye popped open and saw the cell in her hand. She’s taken a photo of her own.

  “Wait,” he said. “Please…”

  But Justine’s fingers were already working the keypad, and the photo was already on its way to a wireless-cell tower, and from there … who knew? She glanced up at him.

  “Sorry, I grabbed your boss’s number when you left your cell alone at the barbecue place. He’s just one, though. I guess I could have sold this as an exclusive, but that felt a little tacky.”

  Carson pulled back from the table and just stared. His eyes felt feverish as they flitted from Justine’s face to the phone, to the staring bar patrons surrounding them.

  “You want to know what it was like, to have you worst moment broadcast to the world?” Justine asked. “Buddy, you’re about to find out.”

  She smiled, and reached back to hold his shaking hand. “But at least we have each other, right?”

  COUCH POTATO

  Brian Keene

  ADELE DIDN’T KNOW MUCH about the zombies until they interrupted The Jerry Springer Show. It happened during an episode about—well, Adele wasn’t sure what it was about. She never paid that much attention to Jerry Springer. Her momma sure did, though. That was how Adele knew something was wrong. She’d been sitting on the floor, playing with her four Disney princess dolls—Belle, Cinderella, Ariel, and Sleeping Beauty, all purchased for her by their neighbor, Mrs. Withers, at the Goodwill store (“And ain’t a one of them black,” the older woman had complained)—when the audience chants of “Jerry! Jerry! Jerry!” were suddenly interrupted by a monotonous, urgent tone. Her mother groaned, muttered a curse, and reached for the remote control. Adele was quietly hopeful. Momma got upset when her television viewing was disturbed, but it was also the only time she tended to pay any attention to Adele.

  The droning alarm continued, and letters scrolled across the bottom of the screen. Adele read them as they flashed past: E-M-E-R-G-E-N-C-Y … B-R-O-A-D-C-A-S-T … S-Y-S-T-E-M. She didn’t know quite what that meant, but it sounded scary, whatever it was. Still muttering, Momma pointed the remo
te at the television.

  “Wait, Momma. Maybe it’s important.”

  Her mother turned toward her. The gesture was slow and exaggerated, as if she’d forgotten that Adele was in the room and was surprised to hear her voice. She didn’t respond. Instead, she just stared at her daughter with a blank, indifferent expression, then turned back to the screen.

  Jerry Springer was gone now, replaced by the local news. The ticker was still scrolling across the bottom of the screen, but the words were going by too fast for Adele to read them. Her mother began scanning through the channels, but all her favorite programs were gone, replaced instead by newscasts. Momma cursed. Adele listened.

  And that was how she learned about zombies.

  * * *

  The people on television said it was a disease. Adele knew about diseases. Cancer, the thing that had taken her grandma away last year, was a disease. So was Momma’s addiction to heroin, or at least that’s what some people said. But she’d never heard of the disease that was turning people into zombies. It was called Hamelin’s Revenge. Adele hadn’t understood what the name meant. She heard a pretty newscaster say it had something to do with the story of the Pied Piper, but the only version of that story Adele was familiar with was from an old Looney Tunes cartoon that she’d seen on one of the rare occasions when her mother wasn’t watching television.

  Apparently, the disease came from rats—dead rats, crawling out of the sewers and subways in New York City and attacking people. The people who were bitten got sick and died, and then they came back as zombies. And it wasn’t just people and rats, either. Dogs and cats could catch it, too. So could cows, bears, coyotes, goats, sheep, monkeys, and other animals. A few animals, like pigs and birds, were immune, and for that Adele was glad. There weren’t any pigs in Baltimore that she knew of, but she saw birds every time she went outside. She hated to think what would happen if they all turned into zombies.

  All the shows that Momma liked—the court programs and soap operas and talk shows—were preempted by twenty-four-hour news footage. She’d had no choice but to watch it, and as a result, Adele had watched it, too. Much of what she saw was confusing or scary, and in those first three days, it became a hodgepodge of horrific imagery. New York City was quarantined. National Guardsmen blockaded the bridges and tunnels and rail tracks, and fired on people trying to escape. Then the troops began fighting one another. The disease spread to other cities and then to other countries. More and more people became zombies. The news said that all it took was one bite, one drop of blood, pus from an open sore or cut—any exposure to infected bodily fluid. People who died normal deaths stayed dead, but those who came into direct contact with the disease became zombies. A law was passed requiring the dead to be burned, and the television showed pictures of bulldozers pushing bodies into big, smoking pits. Chicago and Phoenix burned to the ground. Zombies overran an airport in Miami. A nuclear reactor melted down in China.

  More and more people died every day, and then came back as zombies. There were also regular people—still-living people—who were just as bad, if not worse, than the zombies. Adele knew all about bad people, of course. Her neighborhood was full of bad people (although there were some good ones, like Mrs. Withers next door, and her son, Michael). But there were more bad people than good, and more zombies than either. The only thing that hadn’t changed was that the police still didn’t show up when people called for help. Now, the bad people finally had the opportunity to do everything they’d ever dreamed of.

  Not so for Adele. Her dreams didn’t involve rape or murder or robbery. All she’d ever wanted was for her momma to pay attention to her. But that didn’t happen, either. Not even when the power went out on the third night. It was off for an hour before it came back on. Adele lay there in bed, hoping her mother would come in and check on her.

  She didn’t. Instead, she called the electric and cable companies to complain about the outage. Outside, the streets echoed with more gunshots and screams than usual. Adele fell asleep listening to Momma complain on the phone.

  When she woke up the next morning, the power was back on again, but several stations had gone off the air.

  * * *

  Although Adele was only nine years old, she knew what a normal, loving family was like. She’d seen plenty of examples on television. She’d seen plenty of the other kind, as well. Oftentimes, the people on the television used big words to refer to those bad relationships. One of the words was dysfunctional. Another was neglectful. In time, Adele came to understand that those words applied to her own home life, especially when compared against the lives of the kids on television. Those kids usually lived in nice houses, with one or two loving parents that took an interest in what they were doing, and talked to them, and played with them, and let them know that they were loved. Adele’s mother didn’t do those things. It wasn’t that Momma was abusive. She was just neglectful.

  Before the zombies had come, Momma’s daily routine had been: wake up on the couch, fix, make coffee and light a cigarette, then sit back down on the couch again. She’d sit there all day and watch television between fixes. Occasionally, she’d make something to eat. Sometimes she’d even remember to make something for Adele to eat, as well, but Adele had become accustomed to making meals on her own. She liked school because she knew she’d get breakfast and lunch there. At home, she could never be sure. Adele put herself to bed most nights—bathed herself, put on her pajamas by herself, brushed her teeth, and read herself a bedtime story. She always told her momma good night. Occasionally, her mother would grunt in response. In rare moments, she might even spare a hug or a kiss on the cheek. But usually she just nodded, eyes glued to the television, cigarette smoldering between her fingers, discarded needle lying on the coffee table. Momma usually fell asleep on the couch at night. The television stayed on, even while they slept.

  * * *

  On the fourth day, Mrs. Withers sent Michael over to check on them. Momma didn’t like the Withers family very much, on account of the time Mrs. Withers had threatened to call social services on her, but Adele liked the older woman and her son very much. They were always nice to her. Mrs. Withers always had a kind word and gave her hugs and smiles, and Michael could always make Adele laugh, and would talk to her about how school was going. Both took an interest in her, and for Adele, that meant everything.

  When Michael knocked on the door, Momma’s eyes barely flicked from the images on the television screen—footage of dead people and animals marauding through the streets of Camden. There was dried spit on Momma’s cheek and she hadn’t changed her clothes in days. Adele went to the door, peered through the peephole to verify that it wasn’t a zombie, and smiled when she saw Michael.

  So far, the worst part of the zombie apocalypse had been the loneliness and boredom. Staying cooped up inside the apartment, Adele missed her friends at school and the people she talked to on the block. She was no stranger to loneliness, of course. Living with Momma was a lot like living alone. But in the past, she’d been able to temper the loneliness with occasional interactions with others. Now, it was just her and Momma and the people on television, so seeing Michael made her happy.

  He hurried inside and shut the door behind him, and advised them of the situation outside. Zombies were all over Baltimore, but it hadn’t gotten as bad as some of the other cities yet. He’d heard that the National Guard and something called FEMA would have the situation under control soon. All they had to do was wait it out. Momma grunted in response to all this, and got mad and impatient when Michael reminded her to lock the door and barricade all the windows. Michael ended up doing it for them. Adele helped him as best she could, and when they were done, Michael slapped his forehead in mock surprise.

  “I almost forgot!” He reached into his shirt pocket and pulled out a candy bar. Then he handed it to Adele. Smiling, she gave him a big hug.

  “Thank you,” she said.

  “You’re welcome.” He hugged her back, and then sighed. “Ad
ele, listen. Maybe you should come stay with me and my mom. I could talk to your momma about it. I don’t think she’d mind.”

  Adele heard the tone in his voice, and her smile faltered. She knew what other people thought of Momma, and sometimes she felt that way, too, but still—it was her momma, and she loved her.

  “I can’t,” she said. “I’d like to, but I guess I better stay here with Momma.”

  “Maybe we can convince her to come over, too. There’s safety in numbers.”

  Adele shook her head. “You know Momma. She won’t go.”

  “Then you should come.”

  “No,” she repeated. “I need to stay here and take care of her.”

  Michael frowned. “Okay. But if you need anything, you come over. Check outside first. If you see anybody—zombie or otherwise—you stay inside. But if the coast is clear and you need us, you come hollering.”

  Adele nodded. “I will.”

  Michael gave Adele another hug and then left. Momma barely acknowledged the young man when he said goodbye. He made Adele promise to remain quiet and keep away from the windows, and told her to lock and barricade the door behind him, and she did.

  Later that night, after she’d eaten her candy bar, Adele wondered what they’d do if they ran out of food. She never got the chance to find out, because they ran out of heroin and cigarettes first.

  * * *

  Adele woke to the sound of gunfire. That in itself wasn’t unusual, even before the zombies. But the gunshots were right outside their apartment, and they went on for a very long time, punctuated by screams. Adele couldn’t tell if the shrieks belonged to a man or a woman. When the sounds finally faded, she got out of bed and crept to the window. Michael had nailed it shut and put a blanket over it, preventing anyone from seeing inside. Adele lifted a corner of the blanket and cautiously peered outside. Several bodies lay in the street. She couldn’t tell if they’d been living or the living dead. Now, they were just old-school dead. Each one had been shot in the head.