Zombies: Shambling Through the Ages

by Неизвестный

  I’ll take you back there now.

  Night had fallen and the great room of the church proper was lit by candles and oil lamps. Someone had covered Granddaughter Simon’s body with their coat. James Mott had explained the sombie situation to the assemblage. Things were mostly quiet as groups formed to talk amongst themselves, weigh the options, convince each other this was not some sort of collectively experienced nightmare. But towards the front of the church, near the broom closet, the Cooke wife was causing a stir, shouting and crying that she needed her husband, that he was hurt and her son was sick, and what right had we to detain him. Lucretia and James put their heads together in secrecy while Martha went back to guarding the exit doors with her steely glare and I held Mrs. Cooke’s arm, patting and cooing at her as if she were a distressed bird.

  Finally, Lucretia turned to face the assemblage and stamped her foot for silence. The crowd shifted to face her, and then the hall grew silent, save for the intermittent sobs of Mrs. Cooke and the rhythmic thumping of her husband’s body against the broom closet door.

  “Ladies and Gentlemen,” Lucretia began, unaware of or ignoring the absurdity of such a formal address in this situation. “Friends. I fully understand and appreciate how difficult it must be for you to digest all that you have been told about what you have just witnessed. It is devastating, and in that devastation it is all too tempting to doubt the explanation you have been given. To fight against the stark truth of what decency now commands you to do. Decency, you think, has fled this place, hand in hand with your sanity. But I stand here begging you to believe in this fight. To believe in the sombie threat. And above all, to believe that what I do now, I do for your safety. I do out of the strongest sense of decency, out of the strongest love I have for you and for this country.”

  Lucretia approached Mrs. Cooke and held out her hand. “Mrs. Cooke,” she said. “If you refuse to believe that your husband is lost to the living world, then I shall take you to him.”

  Mrs. Cooke gasped back tears and, nodding furiously, took Lucretia’s hand and followed her to the broom closet door. Stirs of protests and questions rose like a swelling tide amongst the crowd, and James attempted to quell them with his soft, even tones and soothing eyes.

  I raced after Lucretia and stayed her arm. “What are you doing?”

  “The people must see the threat,” she said. “They must not be able to misconstrue it or excuse it away as madness or a dream. It is unfortunate, Cady, it is. But it is a necessary sacrifice. If you wish to be absolved of this, then look away, and be assured there was nothing you could do to stop me.”

  “My husband! My son!” Wailed Mrs. Cooke. “Let me see them! Let me in!”

  And so Lucretia let her in, or rather, she let Mister Cooke and his young son out. I watched Mrs. Cooke’s face light up for the reunion, and fall and cringe and turn ugly with regret and pain when Cooke descended upon her. A cacophony of screams rose up from the crowd behind me, and I tore my eyes from the cannibalistic reunion, and ran, hands pressed tightly over my ears, to huddle between the far wall and a boxy piano. I stayed that way for a long time. When finally I let my hands fall away from my ears, Lucretia was speechifying again, with assists from Mr. Mott. They were convincing the congregation that it was vital they witness Mrs. Cooke’s dismemberment and consequential transformation so they could no longer deny the severity and immediacy of the sombie threat. They were asking permission to “put down” the Cooke family. They were not asking it directly, or taking votes, but the question was implicit. And all of us who turned our faces away and fled to far corners, all of us who wept for the remaining Cooke children who wept for their dying or dead parents and brother, all of us who kept our arms at our sides and our tongues in our mouths—all of us indulged in the sin of complicity that night.

  There was a resurgence of the sombie moan that was becoming all too familiar, and then a series of blunt strikes, and one by one the moans cut off. Murmurs and sobs undulated through the crowd. Finally, Lucretia came and knelt before me.

  “I’m sorry, Cady.” She tried to lift my chin to look at her but I refused. “I’m sorry you had to see who I truly am.”

  I heard her telling the assemblage that James would take the bodies into the churchyard to burn. She argued the importance of discretion, briefly recalling, by way of example, some incident in Philadelphia with a Mr. Valdemar which a dreary poet, a Mr. Woe or Poe or some such, kindly painted as a work of fiction. I heard her then tell the congregation about the warning signs of a sombie infection, but how she believed it was now contained, and if they should find that it was not, she prayed they would have the heart and the decency to quell it themselves.9

  And then I heard her say: “As tragic as tonight has been, the tragedy would be ever worsened if we were to leave here forgetting the impetus for our union in the first place. We joined together tonight not out of desire but out of the deepest of human need: the need for what is right.”

  I was drawn out of hiding by the subtle change in Lucretia’s voice, from commanding to near-pleading. I stood across from her, the distance clogged by the attentive bodies of our humble congregation. Although throughout her impromptu speech she never once made eye contact with me, I knew the truth of her words were meant only for my ears. Ostensibly, she spoke about the rights of women and the importance of keeping the sombie threat a secret lest it incite unchecked panic; but something stirred within me and I knew, undoubtedly, she was truly speaking of her passion for me—her need for me.

  Lucretia continued: “Can you weigh our fight for civil liberties against the fight for liberation from the sombie threat? One must, if it is to exist at all, exist in the open, unfettered by our fears and reservations of usurping tradition or emasculating our male counterparts. The other, if we as a species are to exist at all, must be dealt with through discreet means, through a terrible grace relying on strength and sacrifice. We can accomplish both of these things here tonight.

  “You who have witnessed what I have done for you this night—you will say, it came at the cost of moral degradation. But I will say to you there is already a kind of moral stagnation in this country. There is . . . there is . . . ”

  She seemed to cast about for some great metaphor that eluded her. Cautiously, I raised my voice and offered: “There is war, slavery, drunkenness, licentiousness, and gluttony.” Lucretia looked at me with appreciation, and my voice swelled. “All of these . . . these abominations and deformities have been brought fully into the light, yet with idiotic laughter we hug those monsters to our breasts and rush on to destruction. Our churches are multiplying on all sides. Our missionary societies, Sunday schools, and prayer meetings and innumerable charitable and reform organizations are all in operation. But still the tide of vice is swelling, and threatens the destruction of everything, and the battlements of righteousness are weak against the raging elements of sin and death.”

  “The world waits the coming of some new element,” Lucretia took up the charge. As she and I spoke in turns, we moved towards each other through the pews, looking into the eyes of each member of the assemblage as we strode forth. “Some purifying power, some spirit of mercy and love.”

  “The voice of woman has been silenced in the state, the church, and the home,” I said, “but man cannot fulfill his destiny alone. He cannot redeem his race unaided.”

  “There are deep and tender chords of sympathy and love in the hearts of the downfallen and oppressed that woman can touch more skillfully than man.” Lucretia said. “There are evils more dire that walk among God’s kingdom than man knows how to handle. You have seen me handle this evil tonight. You have seen what a woman is willing to do—what a woman must do—to secure safety and justice for everyone.”

  “I have seen what a woman must do,” I said, and this time I spoke directly to Lucretia, and she listened. “I have seen her fight with her full heart for what she knows to be right, and in so fighting, I have seen her suffering. Only when she allowed her heart to sur
render—to surrender to decency, to surrender to hope—did her suffering ebb. Lucretia Mott—tonight you have shown us all the power and the passion of a woman when she is fighting for her love—of civil rights.”

  We now stood an arm’s length apart from each other, and though Lucretia kept her arms at her sides, she reached across that space with her smile. She said, “We do not expect our path will be strewn with the flowers of popular applause—”

  She paused here to allow the audience a hard-earned laugh. I nodded at her hidden meaning and took up her smile. Facing the congregation, I concluded our speech, saying, “But over the thorns of bigotry and prejudice will be our way. And on our banners will beat the dark storm clouds of opposition from those who have entrenched themselves behind the stormy bulwarks of custom and authority, and who have fortified their position by every means, holy and unholy. But we will steadfastly abide the result. Unmoved we will bear it aloft. Undauntedly we will unfurl it to the gale. For we know that the storm cannot rend from it a shred, that the electric flash will but more clearly show to us the glorious words inscribed upon it: Equality of Rights.”

  There was some applause, and then much discussion of how we would discreetly handle all that had transpired this night. Our friend Mister Douglass of The North Star agreed to report nothing out of the ordinary in tomorrow’s early edition. Everyone vowed their silence on the matter, and the Cooke children were remanded to a kindly older couple who promised to seek out their next of kin. Most everyone agreed they would return on the morrow for the proper convention, feigning as if they had already experienced a full day of proceedings, and bringing with them many family and acquaintances who were unable—much to their good fortune—to attend this evening.

  Much later that night, after the plans had been planned and the plots had been plotted, I met with Lucretia Mott in a secluded location under the cover of darkness. She swore many things to me, and I to her. But I shall stop here, for I have already given up too many of the lady’s secrets.

  Pegleg and Paddy Save the World

  Jonathan Maberry

  I know what you’ve heard, but Pat O’Leary’s cow didn’t have nothing to do with it. Not like they said in the papers. The way them reporters put it, you’d have thought the damn cow was playing with matches. I mean, sure, it started in the cowshed, but that cow was long dead by that point, and really it was Pat himself who lit it. I helped him do it. And that meteor shower some folks talked about—you see, that happened beforehand. It didn’t start the fire, either, but it sure as hell caused it.

  You have to understand what the West Side of Chicago was like back then. Pat had a nice little place on DeKoven Street—just enough land to grow some spuds and raise a few chickens. The cow was a skinny old milker, and she was of that age where her milk was too sour and her beef would probably be too tough. Pat O’Leary wanted to sell her to some drovers who were looking to lay down some jerky for a drive down to Abilene, but the missus would have none of it.

  “Elsie’s like one of the family!” Catherine protested. “Aunt Sophie gave her to me when she was just a heifer.”

  I knew Pat had to bite his tongue not to ask if Catherine meant when the cow was a heifer or when Sophie was. By that point in their marriage Pat’s tongue was crisscrossed with healed-over bite marks.

  Catherine finished up by saying, “Selling that cow’d be like selling Aunt Sophie herself off by the pound.”

  Over whiskey that night, Pat confided in me that if he could find a buyer for Sophie, he’d love to sell the old bitch. “She eats twice as much as the damn cow and don’t smell half as good.”

  I agreed and we drank on it. Shame the way she went. The cow, I mean. I wouldn’t wish that on a three-legged dog. As for Sophie . . . well, I guess in a way I feel sorry for her, too. And for the rest of them that went to meet their maker that night, the ones who perished in the fire . . . and the ones who died before.

  The fire started Sunday night, but the problem started way sooner, just past midnight on a hot Tuesday morning. That was a strange autumn. Drier than it should have been, and with a steady wind that you’d have thought blew straight in off a desert. I never saw anything like it except the Santa Anas, but this was Illinois, not California. Father Callahan had a grand ol’ time with it, saying that it was the hot breath of Hell blowing hard on all us sinners. Yeah, yeah, whatever, but we wasn’t sinning any worse that year than we had the year before and the year before that. Conner O’Malley was still sneaking into the Daleys’ back door every Saturday night, the Kennedy twins were still stealing hogs, and Pat and I were still making cheap whiskey and selling it in premium bottles to the pubs who sold it to travelers heading west. No reason Hell should have breathed any harder that year than any other.

  What was different that year was not what we sinners were doing but what those saints were up to, ’cause we had shooting stars every night for a week. The good father had something to say about that, too. It was the flaming sword of St. Michael and his lot, reminding us of why we were tossed out of Eden. That man could make a hellfire and brimstone sermon out of a field full of fuzzy bunnies, I swear to God.

  On the first night there was just a handful of little ones, like Chinese fireworks way out over Lake Michigan. But the second night there was a big ball of light—Biela’s Comet, the reporter from the Tribune called it—and it just burst apart up there and balls of fire came araining down everywhere.

  Paddy and I were up at the still and we were trying to sort out how to make Mean-Dog Mulligan pay the six months’ worth of whiskey fees he owed us. Mean-Dog was a man who earned his nickname and he was bigger than both of us put together, so when we came asking for our cash and he told us to piss off, we did. We only said anything out loud about it when we were a good six blocks from his place.

  “We’ve got to sort him out,” I told Paddy, “or everyone’ll take a cue from him and then where will we be?”

  Pat was feeling low. Mean-Dog had smacked him around a bit, just for show, and my poor lad was in the doldrums. His wife was pretty but she was a nag; her aunt Sophie was more terrifying than the red Indians who still haunted some of these woods, and Mean-Dog Mulligan was turning us into laughingstocks. Pat wanted to brood, and brooding over a still of fresh whiskey at least took some of the sting out. It was after our fourth cup that we saw the comet.

  Now, I’ve seen comets before. I seen them out at sea before I lost my leg, and I seen ’em out over the plains when I was running with the Scobie gang. I know what they look like, but this one was just a bit different. It was green, for one thing. Comets don’t burn green, not any I’ve seen or heard about. This one was a sickly green, too, the color of bad liver, and it scorched a path through the air. Most of it burned up in the sky, and that’s a good thing, but one piece of it came down hard by the edge of the lake, right smack down next to Aunt Sophie’s cottage.

  Pat and I were sitting out in our lean-to in a stand of pines, drinking toasts in honor of Mean-Dog developing a wasting sickness, when the green thing came burning down out of the sky and smacked into the ground not fifty feet from Sophie’s place. There was a sound like fifty cannons firing all at once, and the shock rolled up the hill to where we sat. Knocked both of us off our stools and tipped over the still.

  “Pegleg!” Pat Paddy yelled as he landed on his ass. “The brew!”

  I lunged for the barrel and caught it before it tilted too far, but a gallon of it splashed me in the face and half-drowned me. That’s just a comment, not a complaint. I steadied the pot as I stood up. My clothes were soaked with whiskey, but I was too shocked to even suck my shirttails. I stood staring down the slope. Sophie’s cottage still stood, but it was surrounded by towering flames. Green flames—and that wasn’t the whiskey talking. There were real green flames licking at the night, catching the grass, burning the trees that edged her property line.

  “That’s Sophie’s place,” I said.

  He wiped his face and squinted through the smoke. “Yeah, su
re is.”

  “She’s about to catch fire.”

  He belched. “If I’m lucky.”

  I grinned at him. It was easy to see his point. Except for Catherine there was nobody alive who could stand Aunt Sophie. She was fat and foul, and you couldn’t please her if you handed her a deed to a gold mine. Not even Father Callahan liked her, and he was sort of required to by license.

  We stood there and watched as the green fire crept along the garden path toward her door. “Suppose we should go down there and kind of rescue her, like,” I suggested.

  He bent and picked up a tin cup, dipped it in the barrel, drank a slug, and handed it to me. “I suppose.”

  “Catherine will be mighty upset if we let her burn.”

  “I expect.”

  We could hear her screaming then as she finally realized that Father Callahan’s hellfire had come aknocking. Considering her evil ways, she probably thought that’s just what it was, and had it been, not even she could have found fault with the reasoning.

  “Come on,” Pat finally said, tugging on my sleeve, “I guess we’d better haul her fat ass outta there or I’ll never hear the end of it from the wife.”

  “Be the Christian thing to do,” I agreed; though, truth to tell, we didn’t so much as hustle down the slope to her place as sort of saunter.

  That’s what saved our lives in the end, ’cause we were still only halfway down when the second piece of the comet hit. This time it hit her cottage fair and square.

  It was like the fist of God—if His fist was ever green, mind—punching down from Heaven and smashing right through her roof. The whole house just flew apart, the roof blew off, the windows turned to glittery dust, and the log walls splintered into matchwood. The force of it was so strong that it just plain sucked the air out of the fire, like blowing out a candle.

  Patrick started running about then, and since he has two legs and I got this peg, I followed along as best I could. Took us maybe ten minutes to get all the way down there.