At length, he falls into a deep and profound sleep and dreams he’s sitting on a stone bench on the edge of a precipice overlooking a valley of scorched, burned, blackened woods. He wears a tunic, as though from another time. The wind tosses his hair.
“Are you my son?”
The voice comes from behind him, a soothing, oily voice … the kind of voice one would expect a snake or a lizard to have if snakes or lizards could talk.
Jeremiah turns and sees a tall, dark man in a long black robe. The man’s face is gaunt, sunken, cadaverous, his long coal black hair loose. His yellow eyes seem to absorb not only the light but all the energy around them. A pair of knoblike polyps extrude off the top of his skull like horns. His smile makes Jeremiah’s flesh crawl.
“I’ve never even met you,” Jeremiah finally replies in a breathless, nervous whisper. Then he says, “I have a church—I’m tax-exempt.”
The tall man glides over to the bench, takes a seat next to Jeremiah. “I bid you greetings at long last.”
“Are you…?”
The tall man nods. At this close proximity, his flesh looks iridescent, like the scales of a fish. He smells of smoke and embers. “I am indeed,” he purrs. “You once thought of me as your adversary.”
“You’re the Enemy…?”
The man raises a tapered index finger, its nail sharpened to the point of a claw. “Ironically, no. I am no longer the enemy. I am merely a cog in the machine of prophecy.”
“Prophecy?”
The man nods. “You are the son, the follower of fate, and this is the Rapture, and it is your destiny to turn the entire human race.”
Jeremiah doesn’t understand. “Turn them to Jesus?”
The laughter that tumbles out of the tall man recalls a million barking hyenas. “Oh, dear, no … That’s adorable. Your destiny is no longer to proselytize Christianity. That ship has sailed.” More oily laughter. “On the contrary, your destiny is to turn every human being into the walking dead, each and every last soul.”
“This is my destiny,” Jeremiah repeats as though learning a lesson in school.
The tall man puts his arm around Jeremiah, the touch of the man’s hand like a cold compress. “It is written, you shall be the last of the human race, the last true human on earth. You shall rule the hordes as a king. You shall become a god in human form.”
In the dream, Jeremiah jerks back with a start when he realizes the tall man has his father’s bulbous, ulcerated nose, his father’s droopy, bloodshot eyes, his father’s crow’s-feet and cleft chin and five o’clock shadow, and Jeremiah opens his mouth to say something but nothing comes out.
His father smiles.
* * *
Barbara Stern hurriedly gathers the six children at the end of the main tunnel near the west exit. She catches her breath, adjusts the straps of her pack, then pulls her unruly gray curls back into a ponytail and quickly snaps a rubber band around the hank of hair. Clad in her anachronistic floral-print muumuu with the gun belt around her midsection, Barbara surveys her young charges. “All right, here’s the deal.” She speaks to the kids in her patented tone, a mixture of two parts den mother and one part drill instructor, and she fiddles with her gun belt as she talks, securing the cumbersome pistol with its long suppressor into the holster. “We’re going to go up top on a little adventure.”
“Like a field trip?” Tiff Slocum asks with wide-eyed wonder. One of two identical twins, the cherubic little eight-year-old girl wears the same soiled jumper as her sister, Mercy Slocum. The two girls have been compulsively wearing the things since the group went underground. Weeks ago, Barbara had discovered a forgotten box of hand-me-downs in the courthouse basement earmarked for Goodwill, and had brought different outfits into the tunnels, but the twins insisted on dressing in the same threadbare jumpers every day of their lives from that point on, forever and ever, amen. They claim the blue gingham jumpers are good luck, and had informed Barbara of this just this morning.
“Exactly like a field trip,” Barbara replies, cupping her hand around Tiff’s little cheek and giving the girl an encouraging smile.
“What are we studying?” little Lucas Dupree asks, his blond bangs, badly in need of a trim, dangling down across his big doe eyes. He clutches at his sister’s dress, as he’s been doing all day. In fact, Lucas and Bethany Dupree have been clinging to each other, practically without a break, from the moment they were brought into the tunnels. Still shell-shocked from the loss of both of their parents, they are indispensable to each other, and that’s fine with Barbara. She needs all the comfort and succor for these children she can get, and she’ll get it wherever she can find it.
“We’re studying how to survive an attack,” Barbara says, choosing not to mince words. “Now, I want everybody to follow me in a single file. Do you all remember what that means? ‘Single file’?”
In the back, Jenny Coogan shoots her little hand up as though sitting in the fourth grade back at Marietta Park Elementary. The little girl wears thick eyeglasses, one of the lenses cracked. “It means, like, walking in like a single line?”
“Everybody knows what ‘single file’ means!” Tyler Coogan snaps at his sister, making an exaggerated, dramatic gesture of complete exasperation with his sibling’s colossal ignorance. The ten-year-old wears OshKosh jeans and a Braves baseball cap and looks like the Campbell’s Soup Kid. He shakes a lot, which breaks Barbara’s heart. It’s one thing to see an adult trembling like this, whether it’s illness, terror, the cold, or withdrawal … but it’s quite another to see a child this age with a chronic case of the shakes. Somehow, it puts something that Barbara can’t quite come to terms with in perfect perspective—whatever that perspective might imply. She’s not sure. But she knows it’s not good.
“Okay, enough with the squabbling.” Barbara claps her hands and then points at her eyes. “Look at me. Everybody, look at me. I’m going to climb up and make sure the coast is clear, and then I want you all to follow me quickly, quietly, in an orderly fashion, and try not to talk unless it’s absolutely necessary. Okay? Everybody clear on that? We good?”
Most of the children give her earnest nods or shrugs, except Tyler, who has his hands on his little hips, his petulant expression suddenly puzzled. “There’s no coast in the middle of Georgia. What coast are you talking about?”
Barbara gives the boy a look. “I’m lost. What are you referring to?”
“You said—”
“Oh, right, right. Very astute. That’s correct—there’s no coast up there.” She pats the boy on the shoulder. “But there’s walkers, so I want you to follow me quickly and quietly, okay?”
“Sure, whatever.” The boy shrugs, trying to keep himself from shaking by thrusting his hands in his pockets. “You already said that.”
“Okay, so right now I’m going to climb up there, and I want you all to make a line and keep your eyes on me and wait for the signal.” She looks around at all the little faces. The fear is so thick it seems to pollute the air. Barbara manages a smile. “Here goes.”
She turns and maneuvers her feet into the steps embedded in the petrified hardpack of the wall.
She climbs. The manhole cover is locked in place by vise clamps that Bob procured from the ruins of Woodbury Paint and Wallpaper. The moisture tends to rust and congeal everything in the tunnels within days, and Barbara has to struggle a bit with the clamps in order to loosen them. She grunts and finally loosens the lid, then feels the half dozen pairs of young eyes on her as she pushes it up and partially open.
The fecund odors of the forest and the acrid stench of the dead greet her, wafting on the afternoon breeze. It’s almost six o’clock and the daylight has faded to an indigo glow behind the trees.
“Okay, listen up, people,” Barbara whispers over her shoulder to the kids. “When I say go, everybody follow Bethany up the ladder.”
She glances back outside at the immediate area—a narrow clearing in the woods bordered by thickets of creeping vines and foliage�
��and it appears to be walker-free at the moment. About a hundred yards away, through a break in the trees, Barbara can see her destination: the main building of the derelict train station.
“All right … ready, set, go!”
She pushes the manhole the rest of the way open, and the iron lid flops to the dirt. She climbs out and pauses on the edge of the opening. She pulls the .45 tactical pistol with its four-inch suppressor (originally taken off the remains of one of the Governor’s men) out of its holster, thumbs the safety off, and sets it to single action. Now she’s shaking. She can hear the distant dead getting agitated. Twigs snapping nearby. Her post-outbreak gun skills—if not the accuracy of her aim—have improved dramatically, but she wants to avoid having to shoot in front of the kids if at all possible.
Bethany Lucas is the first child to emerge, peering nervously over the lip of the hole. Barbara helps the little girl wriggle the rest of the way up, and then assists her little brother, who comes out still clutching the tail of Bethany’s Hello Kitty sweatshirt. Barbara motions for Bethany to stay put and whispers, “Stay right there, honey, until I get everybody else out.”
Bethany crouches down, her little brother beside her, furiously sucking his thumb.
Barbara gives her a reassuring nod and whispers, “It’s okay, just stay there until we get everybody out.” She turns back to the hole. The others come out one by one. The Slocum twins emerge, wide-eyed, scanning the woods in fits and jerks. Tiff Slocum looks as though she’s already hyperventilating. Barbara strokes the girl’s shoulder and points to a spot on the mossy ground behind Bethany and Lucas. “Girls, just stay right over there for a second.”
Jenny Coogan comes out next. She has a tragic look on her face, her lips pressed together tightly, chin jutting, fists clenched, eyes glassy with fear. Barbara can tell the poor little thing is fighting a losing battle with her fears, but God bless her, she’s trying. That’s all Barbara can ask of anyone. Just try to be fucking brave and get the fucking job of survival done.
“Okay, everybody, look at me now, and remember what I told you earlier,” Barbara addresses the gaggle of children in a low whisper after the last of them, Tyler Coogan, has emerged and shoved the manhole cover back across the top of the aperture, then quickly brushed dirt across the lid to camouflage it as best he can. Barbara whispers, “We’re going to hurry—but not too fast—across that train track to the building on the other side.”
A shadow looms behind little Tyler, something slithering out of the foliage.
Things start happening quickly. Barbara can’t get off a shot quick enough to neutralize the sudden attack, and the biter lunges at Tyler. It’s a gangly middle-aged male in farmer’s overalls with a sunken skull, milky white eyes, and flesh weathered to the consistency of parchment. It snaps its jaws at the empty space that Tyler’s foot occupied a moment ago before being yanked out of harm’s way.
One of the girls lets out a piercing little wail, as shrill as a teakettle whistling, and a switch goes off inside Barbara: That’s it—cover blown—now it’s a race. There are more screams as Tyler kicks at the monster. Barbara fires at the thing—the blast of her Charter Arms .44 Bulldog making a thin, muffled pop, like a wet firecracker—and the tree behind the creature erupts. C’mon, Annie Oakley, she thinks frantically. Tyler scoots away as fast as his little butt and legs can carry him. The walker claws at the boy, snagging a piece of his OshKosh jeans. Barbara fires again. The blast chews a chunk out of the thing’s shoulder, barely fazing it, hardly slowing it down. But her third shot hits the bull’s-eye, creating a trough through the crown of the thing’s skull and punching through half its rotting frontal lobe.
Pink soupy fluid gushes out the back of its head as it deflates and collapses.
Tyler scurries into Barbara’s arms. She catches him and hugs him to her breast, and lets him silently sob for a moment, but only a moment. The shift in the tide of shadows behind the trees all around them can be felt more than seen, can barely be heard under the rustle of the wind through the pine boughs. “That was a badass move on your part,” Barbara soothes the little boy in her arms. “But now, the thing is, we have to move even faster.”
He looks up at her through tears. “What are we waiting for?!”
* * *
In Olympic track and field, a gold medalist can traverse a hundred yards in a little under ten seconds. A high school track star can do it in maybe eleven seconds flat, perhaps a little less. But on this day, as the dusk begins to close in on the outskirts of Woodbury, and the horde—drawn to the noise of terrified squealing—surrounds the children, Barbara’s gaggle charges across that weed-whiskered lot toward the train station with a purpose far more intense than that of those competing in a track meet. There is no official record-keeping for preschoolers running the hundred-yard dash, but if there were, one would have a difficult time dissuading Barbara Stern that each and every one of her kids now deserves a medal.
They reach the side door of the ancient wood-sided edifice at the same moment the horde crosses the adjacent tracks and starts toward the fresh young meat in their midst. Tiff and Mercy Slocum begin jumping up and down in panic, and Lucas goes deeper into himself and the folds of his sister’s sweatshirt. Barbara refrains from looking over her shoulder—she’s too busy fishing for a key in her dress pocket, while recalling that the last time she visited this building, the Governor was in charge of things around here, and they were using the station warehouse for the safekeeping of valuables and confiscated items. Barbara finds the key, thrusts it into the lock, turns the tumblers, and throws open the door.
They pour into the building one at a time, some of them tripping over discarded packing straps and trash on the floor. A few of them tumble and fall. Barbara brings up the rear and slams the door shut behind her.
She lets out a heavy sigh of relief as the thudding noises of walkers bumping into the door and brushing up against the boarded windows start reverberating. Barbara pulls the shade down on the barred door-window and leans back against the wall, another sigh issuing out of her. The kids help one another up, some of the younger ones still whimpering. Barbara asks if everybody’s okay, and she gets nods all around from the little troupers.
Catching her breath, Barbara drops her pack—heavy with her extra ammo, batteries, a walkie-talkie, and provisions—and then regards the dusty room.
The high ceiling has long fluorescent fixtures that haven’t seen power in over a year. The tall windows on the west side of the room are boarded on the outside, painted over with black Rust-Oleum on the inside, the air permeated with sour-smelling must. Boxes and crates rise to the rafters on all sides, some of the stacks forming aisles down the center of room, where more crates and pallets brim with forgotten riches such as oil paintings, cash drawers from store registers, home safes, wardrobes draped with furs, and all sorts of expensive knickknacks, ivory, fine china, and heirlooms.
Barbara shakes her head as she takes a closer look at the center aisle. She remembers the Governor scouring the abandoned homes along Bartee and Narnina Streets, trolling for valuables that might be of use if the apocalypse ever slouched to an end. Barbara remembers thinking it was sick, and thinking of Hitler harvesting gold teeth from the dead.
She reaches down and opens a velvet-lined jewelry box. Inside the compartments lie the tarnished and gleaming worldly treasures of some long-forgotten Southern dowager. Barbara picks up a tiny diamond-encrusted broach in the shape of a uniformed black attendant, a racist symbol reminiscent of little black lawn jockeys—“Pickaninny Pins,” they used to call them—and it brings on a wave of unexpected emotion. She shakes her head some more as she throws the ridiculous lavaliere back in the ridiculous jewelry box.
“Listen up, everybody!” She doesn’t take her eyes off the jewelry box. “I want everybody to move to the other side of the room where there are no windows. Do it now, please.… No talking, just move!”
The kids drift to the far side of the room, each of them wide-eyed, nervous,
jittery. Bethany Dupree takes charge and motions for Lucas and the younger kids to hurry up. They all crowd together under a huge Regulator clock that stopped at midnight many months earlier and will probably never tell the correct time again.
Barbara pulls the .44, double-checks the safety, and calls out, “I want everybody to go ahead and cover your ears!” The four-inch suppressor apparatus—contrary to what the movies say—does not completely silence a pistol; it only suppresses the blast, taking it down a few decibels from its normal harsh, sibilant boom.
She fires a single shot into the jewelry box, sending shards of wood, velvet, stainless steel, and precious gemstones up into the air.
The echo finally dies down, and then an avalanche of silence presses down on the warehouse. The kids freeze—gaping, terrified. Barbara sighs. She holsters her gun, then turns and walks over to the side door.
She pushes the shade aside a couple centimeters and peers outside at the grounds, the far outskirts of Woodbury, the wall off to the right, and the rooftops of the town buildings beyond the barricade. “I know you are all too smart, too grown-up, and too brave to be treated like babies.” She says this loud enough for the kids to hear her, but she doesn’t take her eyes off the horde of walking corpses outside in the setting sun, crowding the train yard and milling about the town’s welcome sign. “Am I right?”
A few of them—Bethany Dupree, the Coogans—mumble affirmatively.
“Then I’ll give it to you straight. There’s a war coming. Not a play war, not a pretend war—a real one. It’s not a game.” She turns and looks at them. “We have a job to do. We need to be very, very quiet—above all other things—no matter what happens. Do you understand?”
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