by Otto Penzler
Dr. Hubertus gestured his interruption. “Tiffany Thayer forecast it for us sixty years ago. Doctor Arnoldi, published by Julian Messner in 1934.” He nodded. “You think-tank people aren’t the only ones who do their homework. Our own researchers have covered everything in fiction which applies to this reality. Lots of scenarios, but no solutions.”
“That’s why you’re here,” the President said. “Solutions.”
Jill leaned forward once more. “We think we have one.”
“What is it?”
“Cremation,” Jill said.
Dr. Hubertus shook his head. “Won’t work.”
“Why not?”
“It’d take years to build facilities. We’re facing an emergency.”
“Then use emergency facilities,” Jill said. “For starters, there are steel mills closed down all over the country, and industrial plants with blast furnaces. Modify present equipment and you’re in business.”
“That kind of business will stir up some real opposition,” Hubertus told her. “We’d need a lot of secrecy—and security—for such operations. Then there’s environmental pollution. Most of these installations are in large urban areas, and we can’t relocate them.”
“What about military bases? There are hundreds closed and idle.” The President and Dr. Hubertus were listening intently now as Jill continued. “They have everything we need. Airstrips, roads, rail access already in place. Housing and accommodations for personnel. Improvise some temporary crematoriums and build permanent structures as you go along.”
Jill watched the President out of the corner of her eye as she spoke. His profile was ruggedly handsome, granite-jawed. She imagined how it would look carved on Mt. Rushmore. Or, better still, lying on a pillow next to hers.
Dr. Hubertus was clearing his throat. “Sounds like a Nazi death camp.”
“I know, but do we have a choice?”
The President had risen, moving to the wall beside a portrait of Washington. Jill’s thought strayed. Father of his country. Father of my child—
“This—uh—final solution of yours,” the President said. “Did you come up with it yourself?”
“I told you there was input from each of the teams on the project. But I’m the only one with access to all of the data. What I did, you might say, was put the pieces together.”
“And came up with this.” The President flicked his forefinger along the side of the portrait frame. “Just wanted to make sure the picture was straight.”
He glanced at Dr. Hubertus, who stood up, moving left to a point beyond the range of Jill’s peripheral vision. “What do you think?” the President said.
“It could work. In which case she’s right about there being no choice.” Dr. Hubertus’ voice sounded from behind her, and Jill started to turn, but the President was nodding, smiling to her, speaking to her.
“Well, then,” he said. “Welcome aboard.”
Jill felt a stinging sensation in her neck, so sharp and so swift that she never had time to bite down on her tooth.
She was dead before she hit the floor.
Actually she never hit the floor, because Hubertus caught her as she pitched forward. He and the President placed her on the couch and it was there that the antidote was administered—also by injection, just as the poison had been. At least that’s what Dr. Hubertus told her when she started to come out of it.
“Medical miracles,” he said, a hint of mockery in the eyes behind the lenses. “Twenty seconds to kill, twenty minutes to cure.”
Jill blinked up at him, “I—I was actually dead?”
“Actually and clinically.”
“And you brought me back to life?”
He cleared his throat. “Nobody dies now, remember? You’d have regained consciousness on your own in a few hours, even without the injection. It merely hastened the process before you suffered brain damage or any immediate inroads of physical decay.”
“But why?”
“Isn’t it obvious?” He shrugged. “You came up with a solution. And your solution is our problem.”
“I don’t—”
“If your plan went into effect it would be a thousand times worse than anything the Nazis or Soviets ever came up with in the old days. Not that it’d matter much to what you call the Type B cases, the brain-dead and fast decaying majority. Eventually some such method will be needed to dispose of their sheer mass. But your solution poses an immediate threat to those still in possession of their faculties and still physically able to function. People like us.”
“Us?”
“Myself.” Dr. Hubertus gestured. “And the President.” No. Dear God, no.
Jill sat up. And he was helping her, smiling at her. “It’s true,” the President said. “We’re Type A.” He nodded. “And now, so are you.”
She stared at him. “But it can’t be. I mean, nothing’s changed. I don’t feel any different—”
“You will,” said Dr. Hubertus. “When the hunger sets in.”
Hunger? That part was true. She was hungry, unusually so, as she’d had a full breakfast. Granted, it had been an early one, but substantial—juice, toast, eggs with bacon.
Jill’s stomach churned. The thought of bacon nauseated her—that burned, dead meat. The real need was for something fresh, vibrant, pulsing with life. That would truly satisfy hunger, and hunger was the sole sensation she felt now.
Dr. Hubertus confronted her with his glassed-in gaze. “Beginning to understand, are you?”
“I don’t know.” Jill tried to ignore the oncoming hunger pangs that were growing stronger, more insistent, commanding attention, demanding satisfaction.
Hubertus spoke softly. “You had to die because you knew too much. There was no alternative.”
“Then why revive me?”
“So far Type A seems to be a rarity. We need allies, people with your skill and intelligence, in the time ahead.”
Jill frowned. “How could you be sure I’d cooperate?”
“Matter of necessity. You’re one of the few fortunate to come through without physical or mental impairment, but it won’t always be that way unless you get proper care and take proper precautions. We must help one another if we intend to survive.”
He bent over her, speaking softly. “How long do you think we’d last if the general public knew what we were? And the only way to keep them from knowing is through constant vigilance. As you pointed out, Type A isn’t immune to necrosis; all we can do is slow its ravages by cosmetic means, disguise them with deodorant and antiseptic aids. If we can buy ourselves enough time we may be able to come up with additional methods—various surgical procedures, tissue replacement techniques. Eventually we might be able to synthesize organs, or even entire bodies. But right now we must conceal our condition to remain in control.”
“That’s the big thing.” The President’s voice echoed approval. “Once we lose control of things, it’s all over. For us, and the whole world.”
Jill shook her head. “But whatever you do is just a holding action. Sooner or later the end will come.”
“Don’t be too sure.” The President smiled his familiar photo-opportunity smile, grinned his campaign grin, but as she watched him now Jill realized for the first time that he was wearing makeup. Carefully, artfully and almost unnoticeably applied, but makeup, nonetheless. Disguise the ravages.
All right, so what was wrong with that? She wore makeup herself, and for the same purpose. Only her reasons would be greater now. Intensified, like the hunger.
Jill tried to put away the thought. Focusing on the President’s face, she noticed a tiny white fleck at the corner of his lower lip. It was moving.
“There’s still a chance,” the President said. “Given enough time we might find the source of this plague, and the means to halt it. But to buy that time we must be prepared to do what’s necessary. Conceal our condition. Stay in power.”
“But how do we protect ourselves?” Jill said. “Where do we go?”
“Nowhere.” The smile on the still-handsome face was reassuring, though lightly-lipsticked. “This is the White House. I’m the President. Right now that’s all the staff and employees know, and with luck we’ll keep it that way. Good luck, good care, good diet—that’s all we need to see us through.”
Diet? Jill’s twinge of revulsion gave way to the demands of a stronger instinct. Hunger. What was the President saying about hunger now?
“I’m beginning to think that diet is perhaps the most important factor in our survival. A Type B will feed on any form of flesh, no matter how infected or malignant. We’ve got an advantage here, and with the help of a few other Type A allies at the source, we’ll continue to maintain a proper diet.”
Jill hesitated. “Where does your food come from?”
“Bethesda.” It was Dr. Hubertus who answered. “It’s really a fine hospital. As Surgeon General I have certain procedures and priorities with no questions asked.” He cleared his throat. “They offer quite a wide selection on their menu. And best of all, they deliver.”
The President glanced at his watch. “Lunch time.”
It was true, Jill discovered; Bethesda did deliver, though almost three-quarters of an hour passed before the SS man arrived with the order.
“Not to worry,” Dr. Hubertus said, as the man departed. “He’s one of us.”
She didn’t worry. And she was no longer repelled, no longer afraid of what had happened or what was to come. Let the whole world rot and wriggle; it would, in time, and she wouldn’t care. All that mattered was the hunger.
Whatever virus destroyed natural existence also perpetuated itself in this hunger, a craving that didn’t succumb to decay. She wasn’t really alive, it was the hunger that lived on, the hunger her companions shared. And it could live, would live forever. Unleashed and unchecked now, ready to rend and tear, ripping and splintering, chomping, chewing, feasting full.
And so it was Jill’s dearest and most secret wish came true. She was having a baby with the President.
THE ASTONISHINGLY PROLIFIC Kevin J.(ames) Anderson (1962– ) was born in Racine, Wisconsin, began writing as a young child, and never stopped. Since selling his first novel, Resurrection, Inc., at the age of twenty-five, he has produced more than a hundred books in the ensuing twenty-three years. He was a technical writer and editor for a dozen years before becoming a full-time author. He claims to have received a trophy in the “Writer with No Future” category while amassing 750 rejection slips. After he had published ten novels, Lucasfilm offered him the chance to write Star Wars novels, and he has gone on to write more than fifty tie-ins for the company. In addition to being prolific, Anderson is successful, with more than twenty million books in print. Among his best-known works are the ten novels coauthored with Frank Herbert’s son Brian, prequels and sequels to the iconic Dune, all of which have been international bestsellers, as were the three books based on television’s X-Files series. Among his frequent collaborations are works with Dean Koontz, Doug Beason, Tom Veitch, and fourteen bestselling volumes with his wife, Rebecca Moesta, in the Young Jedi Knights series. Anderson has also written comic books (for DC) and graphic novels. His numerous honors include awards or nominations for the Nebula, Bram Stoker, SFX Reader’s Choice, and American Physics Society Awards, as well as having Dune: House Harkonnen named as a 1999 New York Times Notable Book.
“Bringing the Family” was first published in The Ultimate Zombie, edited by Byron Preiss and John Betancourt (New York: Dell, 1993).
BOTH COFFINS SHIFTED as the wagon wheels hit a rut in the dirt road. Mr. Deakin, sitting beside his silent passenger, Clancy Tucker, clucked to the horses and steered them to the left.
The rhythmic creak of the wagon and the buzz of flies around the coffins were the only sounds in the muggy air. Over the past three days Mr. Deakin and Clancy had already said everything relative strangers could say to each other.
Clancy rocked back and forth to counteract the motion of the wagon. A sprawling expanse of prairie surrounded them, mile after mile of green grassland broken only by the ribbonlike track heading north. Clancy looked up at the early afternoon sun. “Time to stop.”
Mr. Deakin groaned. “We got hours of daylight left.”
Clancy made his lips thin and white. “We gotta be sure we get those graves dug by dark.”
“Do you realize how stupid this is, Clancy? Night after night—”
“A promise is a promise.” Clancy pointed to a patch of thin grass next to a few drying puddles from the last thunderstorm. “Looks like a good place over there.”
With only a grunt for an answer, Mr. Deakin pulled the horses to the side and brought them to a stop. The rotten smell settled around them. Clancy Tucker had insisted on making this journey in the heat and humidity of summer; in winter and spring, he said, the ground was frozen too hard to keep reburying his ma and dad along the way.
Clancy grabbed a pickax from the wagon bed and sauntered over to the flat spot. By now they had this ritual down to a science. Mr. Deakin said nothing as he unhitched the horses, hobbled them, and began to rub them down. These horses were the only asset he had left, and he insisted on tending them before helping Clancy on his fool’s errand.
Clancy swung the pickax, chopping the woven grass roots. His bright bulging eyes looked as if someone with big hands had squeezed him too tightly at the middle. He slipped one suspender off his shoulder, and a dark, damp shadow of perspiration seeped from his underarms.
As he worked, Clancy hummed an endless hymn that Mr. Deakin recognized as “Bringing in the Sheaves.” The chorus went around and around without ever finding its way to the last verse. Over the hours, between the humming and the stench from the unearthed coffins, Mr. Deakin wanted to shove Clancy’s head under one of the wheels.
When he finished with the horses, he pulled a shovel from between the two coffins and went over to help Clancy. To make the daily task more difficult, Clancy insisted on digging two separate graves, one for his ma and one for his dad, rather than a single large pit for both coffins.
They worked for more than an hour in the suffocating heat of afternoon, surrounded by flies and the sweat on their own bodies. Mr. Deakin had run out of snuff on the first day, and his little pocket jar held only a smear or two of the camphor ointment he kept for sore muscles, which he also used to burn the putrid smell from his nostrils.
Mr. Deakin’s body ached, his hands felt flayed with blisters, and he did his best to shut off all thought. He would work like one of those escaped slaves from down south, forced to labor all day long in the cotton fields. Clancy Tucker’s family had kept a freed slave to tend their home, and she had spooked Clancy badly, filling his head with strange ideas. Or maybe Clancy just had strange ideas all by himself.
A month before, Mr. Deakin would never have imagined himself stooping to such crazy tasks as digging up coffins and burying them night after night on a slow journey to Wisconsin. But an Illinois tornado had flattened his house, knocked down the barn, and left him with nothing.
Standing in the aftermath of that storm, under a sky that had cleared to a mocking blue, Mr. Deakin had wanted to shake his fist at the clouds and shout, but he only hung his head in silent despair. He had worked his whole life to compile meager possessions on a homestead and some rented cropland. It would be months before his harvest came in, and he had no way to pay the rent in the meantime; the tornado had crushed his harvesting equipment, smashed his barn. After the storm, only two horses had stood surrounded by the wreckage of their small corral, bewildered and as shocked by the disaster as Mr. Deakin.
His life ruined, Mr. Deakin had had no choice but to say yes when Clancy Tucker had made his proposition. . . .
“Make it six feet deep now!” Clancy said, throwing wet earth over his shoulder into a mound beside the grave. Fat earthworms wriggled in the clods, trying to grope their way back to darkness. Mr. Deakin felt his muscles aching as he stomped on the shovel with his boot and hefted up another load of dirt.
“What difference does it make if they’re six feet under or five and a half?” he muttered.
Beside him, standing waist-deep in the companion grave, Clancy looked at him strangely, as if the answer were obvious. The floppy brim of his hat cast a shadow across his face. “Why, because anything less than six feet, and they could dig their way back up by morning!”
Mr. Deakin felt his skin crawl and turned back to his work. Clancy Tucker either had a sick sense of humor, or just a sick mind. . . .
Only a day after the tornado had struck, when things seemed bleakest, Mr. Deakin stood alone in the ruins of his homestead. He watched Clancy Tucker walk toward him across the puddle-dotted field. “Good morning, Mr. Deakin,” he had said.
“Morning,” Mr. Deakin said, leaving the “good” off.
“You know my brother Jerome recently founded a town up in Wisconsin—Tucker’s Grove. Can I hire you to help me bring the family up there? You look like you could use a lucky break right about now.”
“How much is it worth?” Mr. Deakin asked.
Clancy folded his hands together. “I can offer you this. If you’d give us a ride on your wagon up to Wisconsin, my brother will give you your very own farm, a homestead as big as this one. And it’ll be yours, not rented. Lots of land to be had up there. In the meantime, we can loan you enough hard currency to take care of your business here.” Clancy held out a handful of silver coins. “We know you need the help.”
Mr. Deakin could hardly believe what he heard. The Tuckers had no surviving family—Clancy and his broad-chested brother Jerome were the only sons. Who else would they be taking along?
Clancy nodded again. “It would be the Christian thing to do, Mr. Deakin. Neighbor helping neighbor.”
So he had agreed to the deal. Not until they were ready to set out did he learn that Clancy wanted to haul the exhumed coffins of his recently deceased mother and father. By the time Mr. Deakin found out, Clancy had already paid some of Mr. Deakin’s most important debts, binding him to his word. . . .