Why she’d kissed him last week was beyond his comprehension, but it caused trouble when one of the dicks on the football team shoved him into a locker and ordered him to stay away from unstamped girls. Corbin didn’t care. He’d liked the press of her lips to his skin. For the length of it, he was normal, just a regular guy once more with a pretty girl kissing his cheek. It was only later he checked his face frantically, to make sure he hadn’t cut himself shaving where she kissed him. Good God, he didn’t want to infect her.
The bell rang and first period picked up in a lecture. Toward the end of the class, Mrs. Ervin said in irritation, “Raquelle, put your cell phone on my desk and stay after-”
“We’re under attack,” the girl said blankly, and held out her phone for the teacher to see. Phones came out everywhere, even in Mrs. Ervin’s hand. Swiftly, she crossed the room and locked the door. Then she turned on the television to the news.
The power had been knocked out in coordinated terrorist attacks on Los Angeles, Denver, and Boston. It had just happened while Corbin was talking to Brennan. The screen showed the pictures of dead traffic lights, some of them blowing back and forth in the breeze. No organization had yet taken responsibility, although some crazy pastor calling in claimed it was God’s judgment for society’s acceptance of same-sex marriage and loose women.
The reporters were talking about America’s vulnerable electric infrastructure and the relative ease of targeting a facet of this enormous network of generators, power lines, and substations. Within the substations were transformers, which increased the voltage for bulk transmission. Poor security, extensive distribution, decades-old equipment, this web ushering along the country’s electricity was a house of cards just waiting for a gust of wind. Or three missiles aimed at those transformers.
Missiles. Corbin stared at the reporters, and at those dead, swinging traffic lights. It was like America was becoming the Middle East. Parts of all three cities were black, traffic in bedlam and houses going cold. At all three sites where the missiles were launched, WE RISE had been written out in giant letters made of rocks.
“I guess we don’t have to worry as much about Los Angeles,” joked a reporter lamely. “Nice place for winter, not so much Boston and Denver.”
“They do have a rather large airport in L.A.,” said a second with pointed sarcasm.
Trying to be discreet in the back of the room, Mrs. Ervin was on her cell phone. “Clara, do you still have power? You do? I can’t get hold of Mom. Is there any way you can leave work and get over there to check on her?”
That was all they did for the rest of their morning classes, watch the news in each one. It had been dubbed Black Monday. At lunch they watched Sombra C News in Mr. Tran’s room. The transformers were obliterated, and replacements could take months since they came from companies oversea and were atrociously heavy. Recovery transformers were on the way to spell the crisis until replacements came. However, the ones for recovery were not as efficient, and the replacements might take weeks to put in place. Stores in the affected areas were offering discounted firewood, but apartments and many homes didn’t even have fireplaces.
The reporters accepted calls. A man called in from Boston to say that he remodeled his house from a wood-burning fireplace to an electric system, and the joke was on him. He was now staying at his sister’s place, since Boston was currently twenty-seven degrees. Another man called in to complain that where he lived, houses couldn’t even be sold unless they had replaced their wood-burning stoves with ones more environmentally friendly. But that was predicated on the notion that electricity would always be available. The next call was from an old man who said in a homeless period of his youth, he stuffed his clothes with crumpled newspaper to stay warm. The arrival of the Internet crashed the newspapers, but now they were poised to make a comeback. Chuckling wickedly, he hung up.
“See? A silver lining for the newspaper industry,” Micah said. “We rise? What the fuck does that mean?”
“I think I’m getting mayhem fatigue,” Quinn noted. “Ford Looper and I was glued to the screen. Traehmer Forks and I was glued to the screen. Squay and I was glued to the screen. Someone shoots down the power grid to three major cities? I just want to change the channel to Me, Myself, & I.”
Corbin ate his sandwich, even though he wasn’t really hungry for it. People were trapped in elevators, besieging banks for their cash and fighting with each other in stores for generators and gas and heating oil. The banks were unable to do anything, all transactions electronic, and closing by the hundreds. Roads were backed up with people fleeing, and anyone driving an electric car was shit out of luck. Sewage was seeping unchecked from a pump station. Some weird woman called in wanting to know when the power was going back on, because her kids were missing their cartoons and crying. The reporter said deadpan that life was hardship, and hung up.
“Look, Zaley, some of your friends,” Micah said about the Shepherds now on the screen.
“Fuck you!” Zaley said, not in the teasing way they usually did, but sincere. “You honestly think I want to spend my time with those people?”
“You must, because you do.”
“It isn’t that easy.”
“It is that easy. You’re a Nazi or you’re not. You don’t get to be both.”
“Shh,” Austin said, his eyes never leaving the screen. “You didn’t want to go to the Imbolc ritual, but you did. Lay off her.”
“From the information I’m just now getting, this is being called an opening shot,” the reporter said. “Speaking through an emissary, a large Shepherd organization based in a hidden compound in the Midwest is taking credit for Black Monday. They call themselves Shepherd Prime. Their message to the government is that they’re armed and unafraid. They demand confinement points be set up in all fifty states for anyone diagnosed with Sombra C, no matter the percent, to be sequestered for the rest of their natural lives. Until that happens, they claim license to kill any Sombra C person on the streets or in the homes of this country in the interest of public safety.”
The bell rang.
None of them moved from the table. The reporter listened into her headset and then said, “Word is coming that the president will be addressing the country tonight.”
“What the hell?” Janie at last spat. “Shepherd Prime? Zaley?”
Heads turned. As their reluctant resident Shepherd expert, Zaley shook her head. “News to me, too.”
“This isn’t how I imagined the zombie apocalypse,” Corbin said seriously. “We’re not ending the world, they are.”
“I just want to go to college,” Elania said tiredly to the Shepherds cheering at the outskirts of the blackout in Los Angeles. “You hear that? This zombie wants to graduate and get a job. What is Mr. Dayze doing today? Do I need advance warning?”
“It’s a sub who has to be a thousand years old,” Micah said as they gathered their things to go. “Mr. Dayze left no lesson plans, so she just put on a kids’ movie and told us to shut up.”
Everyone hesitated before walking out into the hallway. It was hard to pay attention in fifth period. This teacher was staying on task with lecture, and Corbin wanted to look at his phone. Shepherd Prime. Prime sounded like something out of a video game. But what had struck him over the last months was how so many of these people were leading video game lives out in the real world. Micah wholeheartedly believed that that was what the attack on the party had been, a video game playing in their heads where the innocent students and Sombra Cs who fell evanesced when their bloody bodies hit the floor. From what he had seen that night, Corbin couldn’t disagree. But taking down transformers, directly challenging the government . . . this had gone too far. Someone had to hit the off button on these people’s games.
In sixth, he sat in the back and listened through his earphones to the news in the darkened room. The sub read a novel while the movie played. He couldn’t speak for texts but listened to the ones coming in. His friends were still excited about Deadlock Five
despite it all, and their excitement drew Corbin back in. That was mayhem fatigue in action. Austin confirmed that Game Tix was carrying copies while Janie comparison-shopped at Bulls-Eye and Dusters. Dusters was sold out and Bulls-Eye had it cheap, but not so much cheaper that it made sense to drive across town when Game Tix was on the way to Corbin’s house.
Some fool might look at Zaley hanging out on a street corner late at night and think she was a hooker. The thought popped into Corbin’s head, and then it wouldn’t leave. He focused on the letters and wrote: You shouldn’t be a Shepherd. It isn’t safe.
Zaley quickly wrote back, since she also had a sub and a movie. After today, I’d say you’re less safe.
Can you tell your dad no?
Her answer came broken up into bubbles on his screen, which his phone read to him piece by piece as they arrived. He doesn’t care. He’s a Shepherd, so I’m a Shepherd. Now I hang out with modern-day Hitler Youth. I had to go again over the weekend. And guess what? I’m the cool one, since I took a bullet fighting zombies in Blue Hill. That’s not what I said, but that’s what they heard. We saluted our Patron Saint, some dude named Evan Hudson, swore loyalty and secrecy, and divided by fitness into our subs. Cripples and fatties are statues. I’m excused from hazing due to my arm. A new guy got hazed in front of me though, walked through a line of kids punching and kicking him until he made it and kissed the empty case where The Book is sometimes kept. It isn’t there right now. Someone said there are six places it rotates between.
The Book. Some Shepherds kept personal Books, but there was only one big Book for a squad. He wondered if his name was in it. Zaley didn’t know, since the case was locked at all times and only the most senior Shepherds had keys. Anyone with knowledge of a zombie living in the wild was duty-bound to report it up the chain of command. Once it reached one of those senior Shepherds, The Book was withdrawn from whichever place it was currently residing and the personal information of the zombie was entered on its pages. His or her name, school, home and work address, phone number, type of car and license plate number, stamp percent . . . Fearing that the information put on a website would be hacked by the government, The Book was only allowed to be in a physical copy. Micah had asked if duty-bound Zaley reported them, making everyone gasp. Sometimes Corbin really disliked Micah. If their information was in The Book, he knew it hadn’t come from Zaley.
He sent a message. Micah is being a bitch to you about all of this.
Bubbles came in one at a time. Yes. But she has a point. I can’t balance this. It’s like being in a community of Dale Summits and Rudy Frenches and worse. Half of them know my father and love him. He’s the morale booster with his thumb in every branch, the teen branch, adult branch, retired benefactors, even the coffee-bearing Shepherd Wives Support. The sheer size of this group is astonishing. Actually, if anyone knew I just told you the name Evan Hudson, they’d probably beat me even with my arm. It’s one of the truths that we hold self-evident: no matter how fucking crazy an organization can be, there will be an even crazier rich man to secretly send it money.
How are all of these organizations linked exactly, from community to community? Do you think this group here is linked to Shepherd Prime? Sorry if I misspelled anything.
I don’t care, even if you do. I wish I could come over today and play with Bleu Cheese. Last time I tossed a ball, she let it hit her forehead. Then she toppled over for a tummy rub. I think I knocked out her last IQ point. Apologies.
He smiled. Bleu Cheese had loved Zaley since she was a puppy. That’s okay. She’s still breathing.
Anyway, it’s organized and disorganized, from what I’ve seen. They’re supposed to report to CSO, the state Shepherd organization. But not all squads do, especially not the renegade factions. There’s a lot of dissension within the ranks. This one isn’t affiliated with out-of-state groups. It’s sort of like a Hydra, you know what the heads closest to you are doing, but less and less the farther you go out. No one ever said Prime in my hearing. And did I mention the saluting? Let me mention that again. I had to SALUTE a picture of some old businessman who lives in Penger and encourages the people of the surrounding communities to play commando.
The bell was about to ring. Typing furiously and trying not to care about words coming out wrong, Corbin wrote: Is there a cullers group?
I don’t know. Not out in the open. Everyone approves of what they do, but nobody cops to being one. I heard a weird comment between adults that some people are Reaction and others Action. My dad keeps saying big things are coming. Can’t type any more, sorry. My left hand is thrashed.
The bell rang. They met up at the minivan, Brennan anxious that he was not contributing enough, Austin looking overhead like he expected missiles to hit Cloudy Valley next, and Janie on the phone with her brother being guided through a glitch on level three of the game. Driving was a little awkward but manageable, and Corbin pulled into the long line of cars waiting to break free of the parking lot. Janie hung up as they sat patiently in a line that wasn’t moving. “At the end of level three when we’re fixing the hidden deadlock, we have to make sure to pick up the bar before the baling wire. Or else you can’t close it at all, and you have to quit the level and start over. It doesn’t matter for any other deadlock, just that one.”
“Teach us to colonize the moon when it’s already inhabited by Zorks!” Corbin said. Some cashiers hated taking money from people with Sombra C, but he could hand the red envelopes right to them. He had just looked inside and not taken it out.
“You are so happy when you cannot play for long,” Brennan observed.
“It’s fun to watch, too,” Corbin said. He was playing in a way, helping them to solve puzzles and spotting important details at the periphery of the scenery when those manning the controllers were focused on the middle. When they got stuck, he watched walkthrough videos online to see where they were going wrong. His physical therapist was supportive of him playing for as long as he could last, but then again, she’d be supportive if he spent ten minutes scratching his butt for exercise. The woman was alarmingly hyperactive and enthusiastic. She bragged that she drank a six-pack of Pizoom every single day. It was the rankest and most caffeine-laden soda on the market. Corbin had had a taste of one at Stephen’s last summer. Now Stephen wouldn’t even say hello in the hallways. He walked by like Corbin didn’t exist, years of friendship gone in a poof.
Corbin couldn’t be mad about that now, not with Janie and Austin razzing each other about who was going to play more poorly, and Brennan putting aside the cloud of worry he operated within to watch the preview of the game on his cell phone. Mayhem fatigue. Fingers on the radio dial, Corbin flipped from news about the start of gas rationing next week to music. Austin’s cell rang, Quinn reporting over speakerphone from the back seat of the V-6 that everyone should get comfy because someone’s land yacht had died while trying to turn out to the road.
“Fuck this shit!” Micah yelled in the background. Its horn roaring, the V-6 broke away from the line of cars ahead to travel the forbidden alley through the teachers’ lot. They cheered and pumped their fists in the minivan as Micah whipped past a proctor and took the corner so hard that her tires screeched. The car rocketed up the slope to the orange cones blocking the teachers’ lot from the road.
“She wouldn’t!” Corbin said, taut with excitement. Sometimes he liked Micah a whole hell of a lot. Brennan was open-mouthed.
“Go! Go! Go!” Austin yelled into his phone as a second proctor raced after the V-6 in the taped-up golf cart, demanding over the bullhorn that Micah pull over. Speeding up, she nailed the cones and shot out into the road. Everyone in the minivan howled and shouted to see those cones flying through the air. From the bus loop and sidewalk, students jumped up and down and cheered.
“I can’t believe you did that!” Elania was screaming on the other end.
Helpless with laughter, Janie shouted, “You’re fucking crazy and I love you!”
“See you at home, Corbin!” Mic
ah called cheerfully, and the connection cut out.
Traffic had to be rerouted through the teachers’ lot anyway, since the dead land yacht was proving to be a nightmare to move. Adrenaline was still rushing through Corbin when a proctor finally waved them onto the road. Rock music pumped from the speakers, all of them moving with it as he turned. Traffic was going slowly, everyone caught up at the stop sign.
“Dude, she’s going to lose her campus parking privileges,” Janie said.
“Trust me, she doesn’t give a shit,” Austin said.
Going through his backpack for the envelopes, Corbin cracked up while they sat there to see a destroyed orange cone flung all the way across the street. “Someone take a picture? I want that for my HomeBase avatar.”
“What are those?” Brennan asked.
“Chinese New Year money.” He wished that he liked his cousin Kalhoun better, but he was so spoiled. Zoe was nice but much older, and the only thing she and Corbin had in common was that both liked girls. Gramma Lulu had forgotten about Corbin’s karma in due time to go after Zoe for being twenty-six, unmarried, underemployed, and fifteen pounds overweight. Zoe never came out to her, since Gramma Lulu would understand being gay about as much as she understood dyslexia.
The parking lot at the strip mall was only half-full. People trailed in and out of Mr. Foods, and whoever had been assigned to cart retrieval was slacking off. All three corrals in the lot were packed and shoppers had started leaving carts hooked to islands or just sitting there in parking spaces. Corbin motored past a space being used as an informal cart return, four green Mr. Foods carts sitting there and one orange cart from Pet-Pet. He pulled into another spot and plucked out the red envelope with eighty dollars in it.
Fixing their scarves and getting out, they crossed the lot and stopped outside Pet-Pet. Five kittens played boisterously in the window display. Two tabbies, two blacks, and a fluffy tan kitten were engaged in a mighty battle for control of a cat tree. One of the blacks was perched on the crown of the tree, and he was bopping his contenders to the throne.
The Zombies: Volumes One to Six Box Set Page 43