The Zombie Plagues Dead Road: The Collected books.

by Geo Dell

  Billy Jingo: L.A.

  Billy paced the hallway, trying to think it out. Telling himself it was the right thing to do. The problem was that he was not used to doing the right thing. So unused to it, in fact, that he wasn't sure he wanted to try... should try.

  The world had been turned upside down for the last few days. There was no official word that anything was wrong at all, but someone had fucked up. Of that he had no doubt at all.

  The police? Gone. Fire department? Ditto. Army? Well, wasn't the National Guard supposed to show up when the shit hit the fan? But so far the army had not raised a finger to do anything for them at all. There was a base right over in Jersey, but there had been no sign of them.

  He lived on the North side, a high-rise that had been new sometime back in the seventies. He had gone up to the roof twice during the day and looked over the city.

  It appeared to be dead. There was a precinct only two blocks away, deserted, doors hanging open. Looters were carrying away cheap computer systems and who knew what else, a steady stream in and out of the front doors.

  There were fires over past the park. It appeared to be the projects, or most of the projects, but there were other single fires all over the city too. There had been for two days now, and no one had come to put those fires out. And there was more; you could hear gunfire from all over the city all night long. He continued to pace the hall.

  This was not normally a bad neighborhood, but it was no picnic either. There had been a few fires. Dozens of buildings had come down or were now tilted crazily. The looting had started at some point, and now there were armed men prowling the streets in gangs.

  He had acquired a gun from a pawn shop a few blocks over, ransacked, left open to the world. He had loaded it and waited, but the few that had ventured to his door had turned away when they had seen him with the gun.

  Winston, the old man that lived in the back basement apartment, had called them all down to listen to the radio just a short time ago. Not your average radio, a Short Band receiver. They had ended up listening to military talk, military talk that was probably supposed to be restricted. The stories that had come from that radio said the rest of the world was no better off. Explosions or earthquakes, there was a great deal of devastation everywhere.

  A few years before, the CDC had issued a warning about Zombies, the inevitability of an attack. How it would come. Why it would come. What you should do. How to survive it, and more. Billy and his friends had gotten a good laugh over it. He had been down in Mexico at the time because of some trouble he had gotten into in New York. And he had been living like a king. What sort of trouble could come? What he had listened to on the radio in the last few days had changed his mind completely.

  Washington D.C. was completely overrun, the President gone. They weren’t even sure he had made it into hiding. New York and Atlanta, overrun with the risen dead. Mexico, absolutely silent. Canada, the same. Millions of people absolutely silent. How could that even be? And right here in L.A., there was talk on the radio about dead roaming the streets too, and probably every city in between L.A. and New York, because if they had overrun the big cities, what kind of chance did the smaller cities and towns have, he asked himself.

  CBS had stopped broadcasting here three days ago. It had apparently not stopped broadcasting soon enough in the west, where T.V. viewers had witnessed the network studios being overrun, and the anchor of the evening news attacked on camera. The United states was under attack by an army of the Un-Dead.

  He had spent some time checking the other stations, cable, internet. Univision? Nothing at all. ABC? NBC? Dead air. Cable? Satellite? Frozen pictures on some channels, nothing at all on the others, and not a single channel you could actually watch. The internet was dead. That had seemed worse than all the rest of it. Google didn't load the page for his browser, but it also didn't tell him why. Nothing.

  And it wasn't just the United States and North and South America. Germany had not been heard from in a week. England, France, all the European countries were incommunicado. The radio man's words, not Billy's. Australia had seemed fine up until two days ago. They had been talking about the problems facing America and Great Briton. They seemed to be wondering what was going on the same as everyone else. Then the newscast had stopped in mid sentence. Shortly after that, the satellite feed had gone to static, and the few HAM radio operators that had been relaying information from there had gone silent too.

  He paced the hallways. He should talk to Jamie... Beth... Winston... Scotty, a few others. It might be time to talk about getting out of here. The thing he was concerned about was the non action from the Army. That was not Military like. For them to be sitting by and allowing this to happen, it must be a serious thing. And he had no doubt that eventually they would get their shit together, or think they had their shit together, and then they would act. And who knew what their remedy for zombies might be?

  He stopped his pacing. Who did know, he asked himself again. Nobody. He stood in the hall for a second. Jamie was upstairs with Beth and a few others. Night was coming. Traveling in the night was not an option, at least not one he wanted to explore. But maybe they should be ready to leave in the morning. Maybe, maybe not. Maybe it was not something they should do hastily, but he did believe they should not stay too much longer. He turned back towards the stairs, debated only briefly, then walked back and climbed them to the second floor. He would start with Beth. Let Beth make the decision. She would know what to do.

  March 6th: Watertown New York

  Candace's Diary

  I've decided to leave. I can't stay here. There was a tremor last night, and not one of the really bad ones, but even so I was sure the house would come down on me. It didn't. Maybe though, that is a sign, I told myself. And scared or not, I have to go. I have to. I can't stay here. Maybe tomorrow.

  Mike's Journal

  There were planes overhead in the night. I know that sounds crazy, but I awoke to hearing them. There was a strange smell in the air and I was thinking, in my dream? Maybe in my dream or maybe awake. Anyway, I was thinking crop dusters. Like they were crop-dusting, spraying something. It was weird. Today when I went out, I could see traces of blue... powder? Something on the snow, and it made me remember the dream. But I pushed it away and walked. Too much to see and comprehend as it was without worrying over bad dreams.

  March 9th: 618 Park Avenue: Seventh floor. 2B

  Donita's Notebook:

  March 8th (Morning): Fresh snow. Made it all look like it never happened... Clean.

  March 9th (Afternoon): Warming up, days longer. Nothing works, so I can't track the hours, but I know the days are longer.

  Donita folded the cover back on her notebook and slipped it into her pocket. She stood on the balcony that overlooked the city, watching the fires that still burned here and there. It was ironic to her that the balcony faced West. Like she had never really left that world, only acquired a different view of it.

  This was so much different from their own place. The west side, even the other side of the river over in Jersey, was almost entirely in flames now. Across the river, the same west side she was looking over at now, still burned brightly. And Harlem was strange. The gangs had taken over. First fighting among themselves, then taking over the streets. The drug infested blocks just off the interchanges where the white folks had sometimes driven down into, pretending to be lost so they could buy their shit, take it back to their cozy, safe neighborhoods - probably a place just like this, Donita thought - and get high with their friends, closed down. The whole area blocked off, city buses pulled across the streets. They had tried to go there. She knew first hand what it was like.

  She and Bear had left that area after just a few hours of wandering the streets, ducking in and out of the alleys to stay hidden, hearing the gunfire. The dead were one thing to have to deal with. She guessed the living would be the other thing everyone would have to contend with there, and there were too many dead. Too many poor in life, too many
dead in death. And that was bad because death was not death any longer. Death was... Donita twisted her head and tried to put it into context, but she couldn't. There was no context. It made no sense. Death was still death, except death was also now life. And life, the kind of life she knew, breathing, drawing breath, was becoming rare. Over there, if the dead didn't get you, the gangs would. It was a no win situation. Her heart fluttered in her chest, and she took a short breath involuntarily. Little angel wings flapping against her rib cage. It was what always came to mind when it happened, always.

  Fires burned over on the west side too. Nothing like Jersey though. There seemed to be a concerted effort, behind those barricades of buses, to get the fires out. It had been just over a week now since the city had collapsed. She and Bear had come here two days before. She thought back on it, playing the scene over in her head as she watched the fires burn across the river. Cliffside, North Bergen, Union City. She couldn't tell where the fires burned and where they left off. Maybe all of Jersey was on fire.

  Two days prior...

  They had walked right down the middle of the street, looking up at the buildings as they walked. Park Avenue looked bad, but nowhere near as bad as Harlem had looked.

  618 rested above the door of this building in two foot tall brass letters. The door had been partly open. They had seen that from the street and walked closer.

  The doorman, an elderly white haired man, had been dead, lying in the doorway preventing the door from closing and locking. The dead had killed him but not turned him. Or at least he had not turned yet. What a lot you learn in three days, she told herself now, as she remembered. They had dug in, shifted him outside the door. Bear had dragged him to the gutter as she had held the door. They had no sooner let the door close than he had sat up in the gutter of the street.

  “Bear! He's only hurt,” she had said, shocked. She had turned to Bear where he stood behind her in the hallway. The words coming to her lips automatically.

  “Baby,” he had started. But that was when the doorman had hit the glass door. Rattling it in its frame, scaring her so badly that she had peed herself a little. Bear had dragged her unprotesting, backwards down the hallway.

  They had used the elevator, taken it to the top of the building. There had still been electric in the building that first day. Now the elevator was dead, wedged open on their floor.

  There had been an old lady in the apartment across the hall. She had come and stared as Bear had forced the handset and let them into the apartment.

  “You know, Amanda Bynes will not care for that at all,” she had told them as she stood in her doorway, clutching her dressing gown to her throat.

  “Well, fuck Amanda Bynes,” Bear had told her. He turned to her. “Not to put too fine a point on it,” he added. She had shrunk back.

  She blinked. “Well, I don't suppose she'll be back. Do you?” She hadn't waited for an answer, but answered for herself. She lowered her eyes to the floor. “No. I don't suppose she will.” She looked back up. “Well, you're welcome to it I guess. I guess it doesn't belong to anyone anymore. You just scared me is all.” She stood blinking. Donita walked across the short distance and stuck out her hand.

  “I don't think anyone who isn't here right now will ever be back,“ Donita had told her. She had held the old woman’s cold, thin hand.

  “Alice,” the old woman said as Donita told her, her name. “Jefferson,” she had added.

  Bear chuckled from across the hall. Donita had turned her eyes to him. “Just found it amusing is all,” Bear had told her.

  “I wonder what Mister James might think about all of this,” Alice had said. “We've never had... trouble like this,” she had finished quietly.

  “Mister James is your husband?” Bear had asked kindly.

  He tended to snap at people and then regret it after. He was so big that he scared people when he did that. Six foot three, and at two hundred and ninety, very close to three hundred pounds. But he was really an easy going soul, Donita knew. He had been trying to make up for snapping at the old woman a few seconds before.

  “No, dear, our doorman. He's not supposed to let anyone in at all.” She had clutched at her throat and the collar of her housecoat once more.

  Donita had looked at Bear. He had opened his mouth and then closed it. She had turned her eyes to Alice. “Alice... Alice, the Zombies got him. They got your Mister James... I'm sorry,” she had told her.

  Alice had blinked. “I see. Well he'll probably lose his job if he's... well if he's unable to do it,” she had looked at Donita. “Do you think he's unable to do it?”

  Donita nodded. “I'm pretty sure,” She had said.

  “Well, I wonder who will do it then?”

  The silence had held in the hallway for a short time and Bear broke it. “Do you think you might want to come over here with us? We're going to try to ride it out. Can't last forever, right?” He had finished with the lock-set, swung open the door and looked into the gloomy interior of Amanda Bynes' apartment. He turned back to face her.

  “No. Thank you, but I have always lived alone and I can't see changing it now. Have you seen these Zombies, these dead people? I saw it on the T.V. before it quit working.” She had peered up at Bear.

  “Yeah. We've seen them. Had to fight our way through them.” His hand had come up and scrubbed at his face and the beard that was beginning to grow there..

  Alice had nodded. Her long robe lifted at floor level and a small white dog had stuck his head out from under the hem and looked up at Bear and Donita. Alice followed their eyes down. “Ge-boo,” she had said. The dog looked up at her and then slipped his head back under the hem of the robe once more. He had poked his nose back out a few seconds later, fixed his eyes on Donita, and then slipped back under the robe for good. It seemed to Donita as though it hadn't really happened.

  “A dog,” Bear had said.

  Alice had nodded. “I have been walking him in the daylight. They said... the T.V. said... they can't come out in the daylight. Like vampires or something. They haven't bothered Ge-Boo and me. Have you seen them in the daylight?” She had asked.

  “No,” Bear had told her.

  “No,” Donita had agreed. “But you shouldn't go out. There are bad people out there... not just Zombies.”

  “You mean people that break into people's houses?” Alice had asked. She had looked from Donita to Bear.

  “Yeah, well, okay,” Bear had agreed. “Just be careful... Alice,” He had added her name as an afterthought. “Donita,” Donita had nodded at Alice and then stepped into Amanda Bynes' apartment.

  Now she looked out over the fires burning in Jersey. The air was full of ash and smoke. It seemed like it always was now. She turned and went back into the apartment, sliding the balcony door shut behind her.

  Madison and Cammy

  The street was empty. Madison went first, taking her time, then called to the others. Cammy and Mickey came around the corner a few seconds later. Cammy stopped, watching Madison where she waited. Mickey came slowly, trying to look everywhere at once, holding the machine pistol he carried pointed up at the sky.

  Harlem was crazy. There were very few dead, but there were very few dead because the gangs were running all the sick and elderly out of the neighborhoods. They had watched from the safety of a rooftop that overlooked the projects, as some gang members had gone apartment to apartment in the projects, running the people there out into the street.

  They had lined them up in the middle of the road and run them out of the projects, past the buses. Three different times one of the oldsters had turned to argue, or maybe just to make a point and they had clubbed them down, dragging them unconscious, out past the buses, and then shooting them in the head. After that they had begun going house to house looking for any other old people, sick, injured. Yeah, it was crazy in Harlem. They had decided to get out. There was no telling what might happen if they stayed.

  Mickey finally lowered the machine pistol he carried to th
e ground, took one more look around, and then his eyes came back to Madison as he walked.

  The shot rang out, and they all flinched. Madison went into a crouch. She had reached out and grabbed Cammy, pulling her low too, so she did not see Mickey begin to fall. Did not look that way until he was crumpled on the ground like a small pile of dirty clothes. Her eyes shot up toward the buildings quickly, but they dropped as a voice spoke.

  “Get the fuck up, bitches.” A tall, dark-skinned kid - a kid, no more than that - walked from the darkened doorway of a building across the street. “I said, get the fuck up,” he repeated as he walked toward them.

  Cammy stood from her crouch and Madison stood with her. “You don't have to hurt us,” Madison began.

  “Good... Good. You bitches just get your asses moving and it'll be cool then.” He motioned back the way they had come with his gun. Madison looked down at Mickey crumpled in the street, blood pooling around him, and got her feet moving. She held Cammy close as they walked slowly back into Harlem.

  Watertown New York March 9th

  Candace's Diary

  I saw a man across the river this afternoon when we were on our way back from the south side of the city. He seemed to be climbing the riverbank. I only saw him for a few moments, and I could not be sure where he was going. I had to set down the bags I was carrying to get a better look, foodstuff we had picked up at the markets over on State Street. As I watched, he disappeared into the brush on the side of the bank.

  Two days ago I had seen boot prints at the market. Then again yesterday. I know this has to be that man. Has to be.

  Anyway, I'm leaving in the morning to go over there and find the man that I saw. I know that sounds crazy. I know it does, but I'm going. I'm getting up at sunrise, and I'm going. Jan and Bob said they would go with me. I was outside until way after dark looking for firelight on the other side of the river. I didn't see any at all, but I know he's there.

  I don't know that area though. Maybe I wouldn't see a fire over there. Maybe he is being careful. I want to know so much. When will I know it?