by Jack Ketchum
"June," she whispered softly. "June, are you hungry?" A bundle of rags in the back corner shuddered, then suddenly jumped and ran towards Lola, stopping sharply two feet away. The eyes of the child were milky white, the hair thin, her teeth chipped, gnashing, and a grasping arm with curled fingernails reached desperately for Lola's face. The chicken was thrown into the middle of the room and Lola walked back to the steps and sat on the bottom, teary-eyed and wistful. She knew the child would not eat the chicken until she had gone, only as a last resort when there was no living food available. The child still strained against the tight handcuffs that held her to a water pipe, not caring whether it was the pipe, the cuffs, or her arm that broke, just desperate to get to Lola and fill her gnawing stomach. After ten minutes, she stood and began to walk back to the family room.
"I love you, June," she said sadly, having to speak louder over the pained wails of the little girl behind her.
She locked the door and sat down on the couch, staring at her magazine as another Watcher walked by the window like clockwork. Lola sighed and dragged the toe of a shoe through some broken glass in front of the coffee table, pushing together little patterns as she did. Both ends had come quickly, the end of the world, then the end of the threat, but it had been enough time for thousands upon thousands to succumb and suffer the same animated death as little June. She remembered the screaming as her husband's shoddy fortifications had failed the instant they arrived, the planks across the windows snapping under the multitude of pushing, throbbing bodies that sought their beating hearts and flowing blood. She looked through to the kitchen and thought about the instant she went from wife to widow as a dozen living corpses feasted upon his screaming form. She remembered taking June by the hand and running out the back door, leaping fences with a wailing child clinging to her back, dodging the rending fingernails of her neighbours and ignoring any shouts for help she heard. The freshly animated were hard to distinguish and you only knew they had turned when you caught a glimpse of those milky eyes, or when their first reaction was to try and snap your neck. Her reverie was broken by a beam of light that blinded her and she shielded her face, blinking furiously.
"Hey Lola, you okay?" What a stupid goddamn question she thought, taking care not to voice it aloud. Instead she looked through the window to the cool night and gave a slow nod.
"As well as can be expected, Mary-Ann."
"Aye. We have all suffered great pain." Lola seethed a little, knowing that Mary-Ann and the rest of her family had been away during the tragedy and she had lost no one and nothing. Even her house had sustained little damage, as being empty it had attracted no attention from the changed ones. "I hear you're going with the Seekers tomorrow. Are you sure that's a good idea?"
"We must all do our part," Lola said curtly, picking up her magazine and staring hard at blurred words until Mary-Ann moved off into the dark.
Lola was the only woman to have signed up for the Seekers, most women naturally assigning themselves to the cleaning crews and those who were housing orphans and invalids whose carers had died. Some even joined the Watchers, though there hadn't been a single incident in the two weeks since the town had come back to some semblance of normality. The streets here were surely tempting, with plentiful meat as many of the townsfolk returned, but the abandoned sections of town where the stragglers still wandered were full of corpses to satiate them and given a choice, they often chose to feast upon those they knew would not retaliate. It was to these abandoned sections that Lola and the rest of the Seekers would head tomorrow, pistols and axes in hand, to flush out the remnants of the dead so the town could finally be rebuilt.
Lola stood and yawned, whispering a prayer at the basement door before heading up the stairs to her bedroom. She didn't change out of her clothes, the feeling that she might have to leave in a hurry still fresh in her mind, and she lay down with her face buried in the pillows. She had her own reason for joining the Seekers and that was to see the so-called zombies up close. She didn't like that word, though it was what all the newspapers and magazines were flashing about, but when she looked at her broken daughter she didn't see a creature of horror stories and b-movies, just a sick little girl who needed a cure. The long and fearful run from the house on the day her husband died had not given her time to study them as she desired, her eyes were fixed in front of her as she ran, focused solely on keeping moving.
The only time she had seen one of the creatures up close that day had been when it happened. When June slipped off her back and the creature crawled out of the darkness, a broken leg and one eye missing, hissing through the gaps in its teeth. Lola pushed the thought away and replaced it with a plan for the morning. Study, kill, study. She knew they could die, starve, she knew they slept and breathed, but what she needed was a way to prove that their minds could be brought back, the insatiable flesh-rending desires quelled and their memories and personalities renewed. It was the only hope that kept her going.
When the dawn came, Lola changed into a fresh set of clothes and went downstairs to take a ham hock from the fridge. It seemed this processed meat wasn't as nutritious to June as bleeding flesh and many times Lola had planned to find a butcher shop that was up and running again, ask for all their offal and raw junk meat, but she feared it would be too suspicious so she kept her going with joints from the grocery store. As she went down to the basement and sat on the steps, ham lying ignored on the floor while June's unrestrained hand grasped and grabbed, spittle dribbling down greying unhealthy skin, Lola found herself questioning her own logic. Was this thing really still her baby girl? Could the balding head and teeth filled with chunks of rotting meat really return back to the glossy perfection of a beautiful five year old? It didn't seem likely, sitting there in the dimness with the child to whom she had given life trying so desperately to kill her, but even with all her doubts and fears, she couldn't ignore the fact that without living flesh, June would soon die her final death.
Sighing, she left the basement, locked the door, and made herself toast and coffee, brushing her hair in between bites and sips. She was to meet the rest of the Seekers by the town hall in an hour and she went through the checklist she had been given in her mind. Clothing should not be too tight or long enough to interfere with walking or arm movements, sensible shoes, make sure you've eaten because you'll need the energy. She laughed to herself as she recalled giving a similar set of instructions to June the first time she went on a field trip. She'd only just started school so it was a day trip to the park to learn about the wildlife in the river, but she had been so excited, jumping up and down and squealing about newts and ducklings and…
Lola stopped herself. Getting emotional is going to make this whole thing harder, she reminded herself. They had tried to talk her out of it, what place does a woman have hunting down dangerous creatures, especially one so recently widowed and childless? She didn't care. Let them think she'd lost the will to live, was running blind into a suicide. If there was a way to help June it was there among those who were like her and joining the Seekers was her only option to examine them.
When Lola arrived at the town hall, fifteen men stood crowded around it brandishing weapons and comparing them with their fellows. Guns had proven ineffective against the zombies; hand held weapons worked best. Many of the men had discussed acquiring cutlasses and samurai swords, but at the end of the day they lacked the finesse to make use out of them, so every hand gripped a common axe, heavy, sharp and needing no specific expertise to wield. An axe, gun, whistle, and a small jar of paint were handed to Lola as she joined the group, most of the men ignoring her, some sneering and a couple even looking at her with sympathy, as though her losses had driven her to madness. The man who had put himself in charge of the Seekers did a quick headcount and then shouted at the throng to gather around him.
"Okay, there's sixteen of us, so I'm putting everyone into fours." The man began to divide everyone up with many of the men shooting glances at Lola, unwilling to have the woman o
n their team.
"Hi, I'm Paul," said one of the men assigned to work with her. He shook her hand cordially and hefted the axe on his shoulder. Lola smiled and turned to the others.
"Ian," said an older man with still visible muscles despite his grey hair. "I joined to serve in 'Nam the last few years of the conflict, the day I turned eighteen, so you're in good hands with me." He smacked the flat of the axe blade against his palm and grinned. "I've seen worse than zombies." Lola cringed at the use of that word, picturing June in the basement, chewing frantically on a ham bone. She turned to the last man, who scowled at her and pointedly addressed himself to the other two men instead.
"Conner," he stated, not offering his hand. The Seeker's leader called back to the groups and everyone gathered to hear him.
"We're going to walk to the section of town we're clearing today. When we get there, we split up, but as the zombies are few and far between, it's unlikely you'll come across more than one at a time and it's nothing that a group of four can't handle. We're working Park Street and all the side lanes, up to the intersection for Mill Road. Don't go any further than that! Once a house is clear, put an 'x' on the door with your paint so we don't go checking the same place twice. The most important thing to remember is, don't split up. These damn creatures are ruthless and strong, they don't get incapacitated by pain and injury..." The man continued to talk but it was drowned out by Conner hissing softly at the group.
"Like we don't fucking know this already. Just a few weeks ago, I was pressed against the wall of my kitchen, fending the fuckers off with a carving knife..." The man seemed volatile but Lola was forced to agree. Everyone had fought, many had died, some had been infected by whatever the creatures carried in their blood and passed on to others. There was no one here who hadn't done this before, and now they were a thousand times more prepared than they had been that night, when a hoard of the things came running into town in the darkness, smashing windows and climbing in, hundreds dead before the rest of the town was awoken by the chaos. She pictured her husband screaming, trying to board the windows while Lola woke June and they stood in the kitchen and cried. She, and every other man in the crowd, would take great pleasure in their task today.
"...and last but not least, if you get into trouble, blow your whistle and keep blowing until help comes. If you hear a whistle, leave whatever you are doing immediately and go to assist. Is everyone clear?" The man finished and the group was nodding around him, aiming pistols into the distance and testing the edges of their blades with careful thumbs.
They began to walk through the town, people watching them as they passed, awed at their bravery or horrified at their stupidity, Lola couldn't tell which. As the people thinned out, they entered streets closed in with newly built fences, the areas already cleared by the Seekers being prevented from re-infestation until the whole town was safe. The final plan was to build a large stone wall that circled them completely, the construction having begun almost before anything else. The cities were safe again; the military and police forces having dedicated themselves almost exclusively to them, and many of the villages had been permanently abandoned and thus held no interest to the walking dead. It was the towns that were suffering the most, those too small to warrant government attention and the area around Leverton, Lola's town, was surrounded by other similar ones that had been left to deal with the crisis on their own. While the people of Leverton had banded together and begun to rebuild their shattered lives and homes, some had not been so well organised or determined, and stories had floated back and forth about towns that were still in the grip of the chaos, hiding in their homes and watching their loved ones die or worse. It wasn't hard to see how it could spread again and without military assistance their only option was to isolate their town from the world.
When they reached Park Street, they were quietly directed to the side streets, Lola and her group taking the first on the left. As they entered between the rows of houses, the smell hit them, rot and decay, bones picked clean in the streets, adults, children and animals, amid broken glass and scattered possessions that the stupid ones had tried to rescue as they fled, losing their lives in the process. Conner took the lead and headed straight to the first house, smashing his axe into the door even though the windows were broken open.
"Are you trying to draw them here?" Ian hissed, hard-trained muscles tensing. Conner just sneered and shrugged, pushing down the wreckage of the door and entering. Ian followed and Lola stood in the doorway with Paul, watching the street in case any others came.
"I don't think you've gone mad," Paul offered, out of the blue. Lola turned to him, almost tempted to yell at him for his blatant pity, but saw genuine sympathy in his eyes.
"Thank you. I...appreciate it."
"I lost my sister," he continued, kneeling down and sifting through some of the broken possessions on the street.
"I'm sorry to hear that."
"Well...we weren't really close. She was just visiting for a week. It had been a while since I saw her. My house is on the very edge of town and the rest of us were woken by her screams. My wife and I managed to escape while they were..." He stopped, voice choking up and Lola knelt beside him with a hand on his shoulder.
"We have all suffered," she said. "It's not much comfort though, I know. At least she died." Paul glared at her intensely and Lola hastily finished her thought. "No, please, don't misunderstand. I just mean that those who were bitten instead of eaten...well it could have, I mean, she could have suffered a worse fate." Paul's face softened and he nodded.
"There was another Seeker on the team a couple days ago. He joined up to look for his wife. He'd defended her from a group of the things while she ran but he couldn't find her again when he escaped himself. I was on his team and we were doing the houses up by the mini-mart when she appeared, leapt at him, ripping out one of his cheeks and snapping his arm. He shot her right in the face. Then he shot himself. I don't know whether he did it from grief or because he knew that he would have turned into one of them, but it's a memory that will haunt me longer than that of my sister's death."
Conner and Ian returned from inside the house and Ian painted an 'x' on the door with his finger.
"Nothing," he said as he did so.
"Not nothing," said Conner, holding up a fistful of bills and grinning.
"You would steal from the dead?" Paul yelled, making a grab for the money as Conner snatched it away. "Anything of value is meant to help rebuild the town, not line your pockets."
Conner just laughed, pushing through the three of them and heading to the next house. This time Lola and Paul entered while the others waited, climbing through one of the windows into the kitchen. Lola gagged on the smell, the fridge lying open on the floor with its contents rotting inside it. The table was pushed up against the door and they pulled it back with an effort before cautiously opening it and looking round the sitting room. The house was as empty as the first and they worked their way up one side of the street, finally reaching the supermarket.
Conner smashed the glass doors in, grinning while he did so, and the four of them entered. The smell inside was worse than any of the houses, an entire warehouse of rotting food. Lola found some comfort in knowing that since the town had been infested at night, no one would have been here and they were unlikely to come across any dead shelf stackers or cashiers. Ian and Conner walked to either side of the store, looking down aisles as they went, and Paul started to walk towards the back. Lola wandered up and down the supermarket lost in thought, memories of death, running, the horrible gut-squeezing pain of knowing that June would soon die. She was so absorbed that she nearly walked into the hunched figure standing in the aisle ahead of her. The figure turned, and a whimper escaped from Lola's throat as she stood immobile in the aisle. Her hand moved unconsciously to the whistle hanging from her neck as the zombie began to advance on her, slowly, cautiously. It had obviously taken a beating in the mass escape to the town hall that happened the night of their inva
sion, as its entire lower jaw had been ripped away and it walked with a limp. Lola backed up, hand moving from her whistle to her gun and just as the creature began to run she emptied her cartridge into its brain and turned to get away.
The smell hit her the second she did, coming face to face with another zombie covered in smears of food from smashed jars, a streak of blood and excrement running down one side of its body. She backed into the shelf, pistol empty, axe dropped too far away when she pulled her gun out, feeling behind for anything that could help her, hope dying as her fingers touched bags of pasta and rice. The first zombie was still up, though wounded enough that it would bleed to death sooner or later, but the second was whole, milky white eyes in the face of a middle-aged man, an illegible tattoo emblazoned on its forearm. It leapt, then shuddered to a halt as it was hit with six pistol shots in its vital areas, eyes, elbows and kneecaps. It crumpled on the ground and Lola looked up to see Ian crouched on top of the shelves, glaring at the jawless zombie shuffling towards them. He hefted his axe and jumped down in front of her, but as he went to swing, Conner came running around the corner of the aisle and buried his own axe into its back, again and again, splitting the creature in two. The blood flew in every direction and splattered across Lola's face.
"I told you she'd be useless," Conner said, pulling his axe from what was now just a corpse. He looked over to the second zombie which was incapacitated but still writhing on the ground. Sensing Conner's bloody intentions, Ian stepped over and cleanly sliced off its head.
"Shit," said Ian. "Where's Paul?"
A long, shrill whistle blast echoed around the store and Lola grabbed her axe as the three of them took off across to the rear doors which moved in and out sporadically, the mechanism broken, and through them they saw Paul in the middle of the parking lot, a ring of zombies thick around him. Ian charged, swinging his axe wildly and Conner knelt in the doorway, firing his pistol into chests, taking down three and missing three others. As he joined Ian, Lola stood, axe hanging limply in her hand, watching Paul's terrified form flashing back and forth in her mind between himself and her dead husband, screaming at her to run. Half the zombies had turned to pay attention to the others, wailing with rage and surrounding them from all sides. The rest still advanced on Paul who was carving a way towards Lola.