Death and Biker Gangs (Grave New World)

by S. P. Blackmore

  “I see what you did there,” Dax mumbled. “Clever.”

  Hammond’s idea had probably made sense on paper; the man had always struck me as being a meticulous planner. Hell, I liked the dude—he even managed to keep morale in camp high to the very end. But had his efforts reflected any sort of real military oversight, or were they all his doing? “How much of this grand scheme came from the Franklin base? Weren’t they running the show?” I asked. “Before they went silent.”

  Tony shrugged again. “I didn’t eavesdrop that much. From what I’ve heard about the rest of the country, Hammond did pretty damn well by us.”

  “And things fell apart anyway.”

  No one had a response for that.

  Tony leaned closer to the map, running his thumb along what looked like a main thoroughfare. “We can try to cut through to Hastings this way. Parker Street dead-ends into Adams Way, and if we hook a left there, it should take us straight through.”

  It didn’t look all that far on the map, but I’ve never been good at extrapolating inches into miles. “How far is that?”

  “Not sure. Looks like we have to pass through some kind of park area to get there…maybe ten miles?”

  “Are the big streets a good idea?” Dax pointed at Adams Way. “Remember what happened in Astra? Everyone got stuck trying to get out and we ran into their…bodies.”

  The dripping water overtook the conversation again. From what we’d managed to establish, some sort of warning had gone out, at least in the few minutes before the meteors started vaporizing everything we knew. We’d come across a massive jam in Astra’s main thoroughfare, one that likely stretched for miles. People had gotten stuck, had inhaled the ash, had been cooked alive…

  As an EMT, I’d known there were all kinds of ways for people to die. The years following that gig—the good years, the comparatively cushy years at the magazine—made me forget about all the terrible things that can happen to a body, and how fragile we really are.

  Armageddon brought all of that back.

  Maybe that’s not a fair assessment. Armageddon implies some sort of Biblical final battle, and I still don’t believe God was behind all this. Besides, I like to think I’d recognize an epic showdown between good and evil, as opposed to the dead tangling with the confused and the stupid.

  I leaned closer to the map. “Let’s just make a left turn here, at Verity, and see how far we can get.”

  “We’ll need to stop somewhere for food,” Dax said. “I only have crackers left.”

  I looked at them in confusion. “But you guys were bragging about all the food Tony kept from the last scavenging trip.”

  “I got hungry,” Tony said, conveniently not meeting my eyes.

  I stretched out and kicked his ankle. “And you say I lack survival skills.”

  FIVE

  If you ever find yourself on the run, pursued by ravenous undead cannibals, remember to bring binoculars.

  In the early hours of the next morning, I paced back and forth a few feet away from the gas station, rifle at the ready, squinting in the direction of Elderwood Refugee Camp. A late-night rainfall cleared out some of the haze that crouched over Elderwood, but I still couldn’t see very far down Parker Street. Tony had trudged off twenty minutes prior to take a look, and ostensibly would come back to retrieve us if Hammond had managed to secure things.

  Dax had raised an eyebrow at that, but I figured that Tony had already stuck his neck out pretty far to get us out of the camp—why ditch us now? We hadn’t become more insufferable overnight.

  Then again, I wasn’t sure how well Dax and Tony got along when I wasn’t around. Maybe Tony couldn’t wait to get rid of him.

  I switched the rifle’s safety on and off, then turned around in a circle. Nothing on Parker Street moved. I don’t know how much binoculars would have helped, but I would’ve felt better being able to scope out the far-off crevices of town.

  Tony hadn’t mentioned what we should do if he became an early breakfast for some of the area’s less savory inhabitants, but I figured if Tony got devoured, I was screwed anyway.

  A cold wind blew past my face. I longed to pull my hood up, but the thing screwed with my peripheral vision, and that’s one thing you don’t want to give up when you’re constantly under siege. I hunched my shoulders and hugged the gun the way a kid hugged a teddy bear. Snuggling up to a World War II-era Nazi contraption seemed all kinds of wrong, even at that point, but you do what you have to when things go to hell.

  The hair on the back of my neck prickled, and I turned around.

  A pale face pressed against the window of the diner across the street.

  I snapped the rifle into proper firing position—at least, what I accepted as proper firing position. I glanced around once more, just to make sure nothing was sneaking toward me, then edged closer to the diner.

  The face didn’t move. I had no doubt that it saw me; I felt its stare, and its head moved slightly when I threw in a little two-step to the side. A ghoul would be pounding at the glass or halfway out already in an effort to get me; this figure just stared at me, unmoving, seemingly unblinking.

  Maybe he’s alive?

  I lifted a hand and waved. The thing didn’t move.

  Crap. I looked back toward camp and could just make out a speck of darkness down the street, which probably meant Tony was on his way back. I kept glancing at the creepy thing in the window, half-expecting it to come smashing through the glass to chow down on me, but it just stood there, staring.

  Ugh.

  Tony jogged up to me a few minutes later. He opened his mouth as if to speak, but instead doubled over, coughing.

  This air is gonna be the end of us. Tony put his hands on his knees and wheezed for a good minute or so. I patted his back, not sure it did any good, but feeling some bizarre urge to comfort him.

  He paused to take a wheezing breath, and I gingerly rested a hand on his shoulder. “Anything?”

  “There’s a whole swarm trying to break in through the southern gate. Boy Scout was right; they heard the fighting.” He stared at the ground, breathing as deeply as any of us dared. “I picked off as many as I could. Heard a lot of single shots from inside, so Hammond might well have a hold on things, but going in there would have been…”

  He didn’t need to finish the sentence. Going in there would have been stupid. Dumb. Suicidal. Even if he shot the lock off, he’d have to get through the gate, and while most of the undead might have moved slower than my grandmother, they sure as hell dogpiled quickly. In other words, Dax and I were not about to get back into camp.

  I nodded, trying to ignore the nip in the air. “So we’re going with you to Hastings?”

  “Unless you want me to just leave you here.”

  “Um…pass.”

  He straightened up, resting his hands on his hips. “Hastings is further out in the boonies. They might not have had as much trouble with the old folks. Might just be the radio gear.”

  Some of the soldiers on base had called revenants old folks, I assume because of the slow, shuffling way the ghouls moved. Or maybe they just couldn’t bear to admit the dead had gotten up and walked…which suggested mowing down a geriatric ward was easier than handling the dead? I still couldn’t work that one out.

  Tony, stout as he was, didn’t look like he could handle much more bad news, but I felt compelled to point out that we weren’t entirely alone. “By the way, there’s something in the diner.”

  We started walking back toward the station. “Something?” Tony asked. “Or a few somethings?”

  “Remember those cars we saw in Astra? The ones with…with just the people?”

  “Yeah.” He didn’t sound like he wanted to remember it. Those still, staring faces had done a number on all of us.

  I tipped my head in the direction of the diner. “Well…there’s one in there.”

  He glanced at the diner, but didn’t head that way just yet. “Just standing in there?”

  “Just st
aring.”

  I still couldn’t decide which was worse: the covetous stares of the undead, or the intensity of the other things. Tony produced one of his pistols and started for the diner, and I hurried along beside him. He stopped abruptly. “Where’s the dog?”

  “I left her inside with Dax. She kept wandering off to sniff things, and I didn’t want to keep an eye on her.”

  He turned to face the little shop and waved his hand in the air.

  The station door opened, and Dax and our resident golden came bounding out. See, I almost said to Dax, he didn’t ditch us.

  Evie darted around our legs, her tongue lolling out of her mouth. I reached down and rubbed her back, my fingers catching in her knotted fur. “You need a bath, little dog.”

  “She also needs some kibble or something.” Dax looked between the two of us, his brow furrowing slightly. “What’s the matter? What’d you find at Elderwood?”

  “Think they’re managing, but I couldn’t even get at the back gate.”

  Dax nodded slowly, focusing his gaze on the dog. I didn’t blame him; it was much easier to stare at a grinning, happy canine than at the bleak gray surroundings we’d fallen into. “So what do we do?”

  “We hit up Hastings,” I said. “It’ll be fun. The three of us on the road again, dodging the undead and jackasses on bikes…”

  “Sweet.” Dax pumped his fists in the air with exaggerated enthusiasm. “Road trip!”

  An answering groan sounded from somewhere behind us, and a zombie in a flowered housedress came limping around the side of the building. She had a shower cap perched atop her matted gray hair, and clutched a half-eaten head in her left hand. Most of the fingers on her right hand were gone, and something white squirmed between her toes.

  She had probably been dead at least a couple of weeks. I was stuck on the head. Had she been snacking on it and then forgotten to drop it? Was it someone she’d known?

  Evie snarled. I managed to grab her collar before she could take a flying leap at the shuffler. “First one of the day,” I said. “Let’s get out of here before she calls her friends.”

  Tony glanced at his pistol, then at the dead woman. “Dax, you woke her up, you can put her back to sleep.”

  Dax felt around for his holster, then flushed as he realized he hadn’t put it on. “Uh…Vibby…can you…?”

  How was it that I ended up ready to deal with the freaking undead? I tugged out my pistol and handed it to him, then had to watch him waste three shots before he nailed the bitch in the head. I swear the gun felt lighter when I holstered it.

  Tony pointed at the store. “Pack up the stuff and let’s get out of here before her pals show up.”

  “But the thing—”

  “It’s not bothering us,” he hissed.

  When Tony hisses, it’s usually time to do as he says. Besides, there was probably plenty of bizarre stuff waiting for us on the road.

  Oh, if only I knew.

  ***

  It only took about three blocks to figure out General Hammond and his men hadn’t come through here much after the initial evacuation.

  It was just as well we were on foot; even if the bike had worked, it would have had trouble picking through all the debris scattered across the road. We passed cars, trucks, and everything in between, all of them in varying states of repair. Some looked intact underneath layers of still-damp, congealed ash, but others had smashed into houses, roadblocks, or other vehicles.

  They faced every which way, some with doors flung open, others with hoods popped. Tony paused next to a big SUV that seemed relatively untouched. “Now what happened here?”

  “Panic?” I suggested.

  Something thumped around inside the SUV. I turned to stare at the window, but it was coated in a fine layer of ash, concealing anything inside. I pulled my jacket sleeve over my hand and reached out.

  “Vibeke,” Dax muttered, “don’t…”

  Hey, I used to be a reporter. I was supposed to go digging for the real story. I wiped away some of the ash.

  The ghoul slammed against the window, its jaw hanging from the left hinge. I couldn’t even tell whether it had been male or female; the short, stringy blond hair could’ve belonged to anyone.

  It threw itself against the window again.

  I wish I could say I felt some sort of empathy, or that the sight of it made me ponder the deeper questions in life, but all I could wonder was whether its jaw had been ripped off before it died, or whether it had jarred loose during decay. It’s the important things, you know?

  “Moving on,” Dax said. “Now, please.”

  We edged ahead, easing between car doors. After five minutes, we came to a complete stop, the way blocked by what must have been tons of abandoned belongings. “Not sure about this,” Tony said.

  When people fled, they brought all kinds of stuff with them. When they realized they couldn’t carry the stuff or were simply banned from bringing it with them, apparently they’d just dropped it and moved on, leaving it behind as they ran ahead into darkness. All of it had stayed where it fell.

  I pictured Hammond and his men standing there at the roadblock, ordering people to bring only food and warm clothing and themselves, forcing them to drop the heirlooms, the cutlery, and the portable televisions.

  I caught sight of a mangled-looking pile of fur, and quickly looked away. We had a few pets in the camp: a handful of dogs and cats, and one very irate parakeet that I suspected would outlive us all.

  Still, I had expected a greater animal to human ratio. Millions of people had pets; how was it that only a few had been brought along?

  It wasn’t for lack of effort. Hammond, that hardened military man, had flung open the doors to pets and livestock. They’re someone’s family, he said whenever someone’s beloved critter turned up.

  I think some people just left them behind. How many more were still in houses? How many had waited for their owners to come back?

  Our own pet yipped nervously, pacing back and forth. I kept a tight grip on her leash, fearful she might dart off into the gloom.

  We edged forward another half-block before Tony stopped us. “We might as well see if we can scavenge anything.”

  A sea of human cast-offs crowded the street in front of us. Suitcases and other luggage clogged our path, and stray pieces of clothing—jackets, shoes, a ridiculous amount of socks—were strewn everywhere. A box sat off to the side, and I steeled myself before taking a look. Dust-covered video games, family photograph albums, and a handful of horror novels sat inside.

  I reached in and picked up the top book, one with a grinning, malevolent-looking skull on the cover. “Beach Getaway of the Dead,” I read aloud. I turned it over to read the back cover copy. “They came for the sunshine. They stayed…for the flesh!”

  The boys stood there, possibly trying to decide if I had made the title up.

  Dax peered into the box, and his eyes lit up with rather unholy glee. “Oh my God, the owner was a zombie fan. Look at this. Farm of the Dead, The Dead Machine…” Dax began pulling out other titles. Most of them looked well-worn, as if they’d been read many times. “Subway of the Dead, Cab Ride of the Dead, Dead Mennonite Walking…”

  “Oh, I’ve heard of that one.” Tony casually plucked the book out of Dax’s hands. “Ezekiel Amman and a washed-up action star team up to take on the living dead. In Amish Country.”

  For a moment, the only sound was the dog’s panting.

  “Amish zombies,” Dax mused. “I never thought of that. Wait, are Mennonites actually Amish?”

  “No. They’re different groups.” I only knew that because I’d once interviewed a drummer who had discovered punk rock while on rumspringa.

  “Yeah, well, most of the country doesn’t realize that.” Tony flipped through the book. “It’s a sequel. In the first book, Mennonite Man, Ezekiel is killed off, but is resurrected before he can zombify.” He tapped the cover. “Hence the title. He’s chosen by God to fight off the outbreak.”
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br />   Dax seemed to perk up at that. “So he’s like the Boondock Saints?”

  “Sort-of. He has a better hat, though.”

  I rooted through the box a little more and came up with a candy bar. “Tony,” I said, “why do you know this?”

  He didn’t even look embarrassed as he tucked Dead Mennonite Walking into his backpack. “I read Mennonite Man when it came out. It won a bunch of awards, you know.”

  “I did not know.” I hadn’t realized zombie literature existed, much less won awards, and I had always pegged Tony as the kind of guy who’d polish an antique rifle before picking up a book, much less a zombie book.

  This required further investigation. “So,” I said, “do you read a lot about the undead?”

  He suddenly seemed to find our surroundings fascinating. “Not really.”

  Dax nudged me and cleared his throat. “Did you have a zombie escape plan, Tony?”

  Tony scoffed and strode off toward a discarded group of suitcases. “If I’d had a proper zombie escape plan, I wouldn’t be traipsing all over the Midlands Cluster with you losers.”

  “Did you have an improper zombie escape plan?” I asked.

  “I don’t know if it’s worth picking our way through this.” Tony surveyed the debris field, doing his very best to evade the question.

  Dax sent me a genuinely delighted smile. “He totally had a plan.”

  “Why am I not surprised?” I asked.

  Tony continued to ignore our side discussion. “Check some of those boxes, will you? Maybe there’s food in them.”

  I waded a little deeper into the debris field and came up with a pair of stilettos. I stuck a finger underneath the ankle strap and lifted one of them up, brushing some of the ash from its red surface. “Damn. These were some chick’s pride and joy.”

  Dax barely looked up from his book juggling. “Who brings that shoe with them during the freaking apocalypse?”

  I considered the shoe. “Actually, I bet you could brain someone pretty easily with this. Look at that heel.”

  Dax looked at the heel, then at me. “You're very interesting, Vibeke.”