As though he were processing each detail one at a time, Boone suddenly became aware of the half-completed corpse and stumbled backward. “What … what are you doing?”
“Children need a father, Boone. I told them you’d come, but if you don’t want the job, I’ll make someone who will.”
“Fuck you. I’m going to kill—”
Joy smiled and started to chant. At first, the words were familiar, but as she spoke and hummed, they became heavy and thick. The eldritch incantation welled inside her chest, and with every syllable uttered, the pressure from the ancient speech pushed against her bones. In heated shouts, the words split apart and the larva of hate and malice pushed through and bore its way into Boone’s mind. The sheriff started to spasm, and when he dropped the gun, the children swarmed.
“Only the best parts of him, my loves,” Joy said as her sons and daughters tore into her husband. “But leave enough so he can find his way back. It’s time for Marrow to become the mindless mass it’s always aspired to be.”
Herbert
When Herbert finally found Sheriff Boone, the children had already torn him to bits. Like ants at a picnic, the girls and the lone boy were carrying off pieces of tribute to their pale queen. At the center, a woman lay panting, and as she panted, the island shook, for it was covered in the dress she wore. Gripping the powders in his pocket, Hebert backed away slowly, bumping into Seth as he did so.
“We can’t stand here.” Herbert’s voice was so weak it was as though he’d mouthed the words. With Seth, they looked down upon the dress, where the satin threads had become porous, dilated.
“Don’t go,” the woman said, sitting up. She let the strap of her dress fall down past her shoulder, exposing her breast. The little girl they’d followed here crawled over to her, and when the woman’s nipple began to drip blood, she fed. “Let me introduce you to our happy family.”
Oh god, I’m going to be sick. Herbert covered his mouth. He looked at the other girl and boy, who were hard at work on a second corpse, a ravaged corpse, using Sheriff Boone’s tongue, flesh, and veins to fill it in, fill it out. I can’t do this. His hand began to shake, his skin began to prickle. He felt a warm wave of malaise wash over him, pour into him; it pushed under his eyelids, coalesced in his stomach. His vision became dotted with red, as though the world had been rendered in pointillism. He felt his heart pumping in his ears, his vomit sitting lodged in his throat. I can’t show her weakness, he thought, grabbing Seth’s wrist and finding it just as clammy as his hand.
“No offense to you boys, but men are shit. I’ve tried and I’ve tried, but there isn’t anyone in this world for me. Not yet, at least.”
“Joy …” Seth guessed, and when she smiled at the name, Herbert knew he’d guessed correctly.
“I’ve never been happier,” she said as the little girl, greedy in her drinking, started to cough up blood onto her mother’s chest. “Just stay still and take pride in knowing you’ll be reborn better—”
Seth raised his revolver and fired three shots; each bullet whizzed through the air and caught a child in their head. The little boy and the little girl flew backward, their gangly, grotesque bodies falling into the swamp. The breastfeeding child crashed into Joy with the force of the impact, drenching her mother’s face in arterial spray. Herbert, not wasting any time, emptied his gun into Joy.
Joy
Joy lay there a moment to let the men think they’d won. She could feel pieces of her face dripping down around her, but that was an easy fix. With the eye still attached to its nerves, she looked at Abernathy and the bodies of the girl’s brother and sister in the water. She’d expected something like this to happen the moment they’d left the nest. They hadn’t been her children, not entirely, so she wasn’t wracked with grief, but that didn’t mean it didn’t hurt to watch them die.
The men stood over her now and saw that she was still alive. No matter, she thought as she started to speak the dark words that had birthed her babies and killed her husband. But they came out wrong: They came out weak and limp, without impact and power. She’d spent too much energy on the children, on Boone; she’d used everything up just to buy a little extra time on this secret, special island. She willed her dress to dig deeper for sustenance, but the soil had long since been stripped.
They knew what they were doing, and they knew there was nothing she could do about it. Joy refused to resort to baser behaviors, so as they cut through her arms and legs with their knives, she laughed instead. Weak men, she thought, just like the rest of them. With one of the men holding onto her hair, the other chopped through her neck until it her head was severed from her body.
“Not enough,” Joy taunted, her head sideway on the satin. I knew this was going to happen. Why did I bother? “Going to have to try harder,” she said, snickering. I should’ve listened to you. “You’re not going to like it when you find out what Joseph, Jessica, and Maribel have done.”
The one the other called Seth reached into his pocket and sprinkled what Joy quickly identified as Damnation Dust across her dress. She’s going to want to hear about this. His friend, still nameless, did similarly, except he was throwing handfuls of Rapture. As soon as the materials mixed, green flames erupted over the dress and began to consume it. Joy then felt something much like panic as the fires crept closer to her head. How do they know so much?
“Grab them and throw them in,” Seth said to his friend, who went into the waters and retrieved Ethan and Cali.
Joy watched as her white satin dress cracked and flaked, and knew that this was the end. As soon as it was gone, she would be, too. She closed her eyes, and in the darkness, Joy saw her sister. Though she would never admit it, there was no denying that it felt nice to be going home. Sure, her sister would scold her, make fun of her, but in the end, they’d laugh, and once Joy had rested, they’d have their revenge, too.
After all, they already had Seth’s name, and that’s all they needed.
Herbert
After they had burned and buried the bodies, they returned to Marrow to find their work was not yet over. Beneath a cloudless sky, the town moaned with the sounds of the dead and dying. Exhausted, Herbert and Seth sprinted sluggishly through the woods, until they were on the edge of Marrow and could see what had become of it.
In the hazy, moth-mobbed gas lamp light, the people of Marrow had lost their minds. In huge crowds, the gory remains of things that should not be shuffled and swarmed toward the nearest sounds. They behaved much like Eddy had, like Marie supposedly had; mindless, yet persistent, the human shells shook with spasms of violence, but never attacked one another. Their hate, or hunger, was directed toward the living.
“They’re dead,” Seth said, his breath hot and sticky on Herbert’s cheek. “Joy’s children did this. Joseph, Jessica, and—”
“Maribel,” Herbert finished. He watched as the creatures ambled through the alleys, searching for openings to slide their decomposing corpses into. “They’re the undead.”
“This isn’t Vodoun.” Seth pulled Herbert aside, and they pressed themselves against the back of the nearest house.
“I don’t know what that woman did or what she had her kids do, but those are fucking zombies.” Herbert cringed as he heard one of the creatures scraping its nails across stone just around the corner.
“How did we miss this?” Seth reloaded his revolver and gripped his knife.
“Given the circumstances, I think we did the best we could. Not everything has to follow the rules.”
Seth nodded and leaned out from their hiding place. “Get to the inn, get our things. We have to find those kids before they turn anyone else.”
“The kids didn’t turn them all. It’s not possible.”
Seth pulled back and said, “Then don’t let any of them touch you. I don’t know how it spreads, but if she still has a hold on them—”
An old man hobbled into view. He looked at them pleadingly as the bones in his legs burst through his flesh, their broke
n ends sharper than any blade. The old man’s hands flexed and his jaws started to tremble. And then in the blink of an eye, faster than he had any right to be, he lunged.
“Now!” Seth shouted, checking the old man with his shoulder.
They fell to the ground in a whirlwind of skin. As Seth held the zombie’s neck and pushed it outward, Herbert drove his knife through the base of the man’s skull and twisted until Death came for what It’d been owed.
“Herbert …” Seth said as his friend helped him up.
Herbert turned around; tens of zombies were pouring through the alleyway, each pushing past the other to be the first in line.
“Meet me at the inn!” Seth darted off into the dark, and several followed after.
When is splitting up ever a good idea? Herbert gave the creatures the middle finger and ran to the right, where a house sat elevated off the ground. He jumped, caught the supports, and hoisted himself up to the porch. Herbert pushed through the backdoor into the house, where a candle had fallen over and set the table on fire. Covering his mouth, he hurried across the rooms, until he found the front door and went through.
Outside, the main street of Marrow had become a river of blood, and a horde of zombies were shuffling back and forth in its crimson waters. Screams rode in on the coppery wind, as townspeople were ripped from their homes and eaten.
Herbert caught sight of Seth near where they’d first snuck into town. But before he could do something irrational, like trying to beat his friend to the inn, someone jumped on his back and he dropped hard to his knees.
“Daddy, daddy,” the little girl—Jessica, Herbert realized—whispered as her nails dug into his skin.
He reached around, and as he felt her wet teeth on his neck, he yanked her over his shoulders and threw her into the street. Jessica slid in the stream of blood, her eyes, too large for their sockets, blinking out the gore that got in them. She started to speak, perhaps to beg, but before she could, Herbert put a bullet in her head.
He had the horde’s full attention now, which, if he were lying to himself, which at this moment he was, had been his intention all along. He jumped to his feet and ran directly at the creatures. Twenty, thirty … Christ, how many people live here? The horde picked up its pace, causing some to slip in the blood and be trampled by their blighted brethren. Hebert fired five shots into the crowd and sent three to the ground. When they were close enough to grab him, he ducked and made a sharp turn, causing the horde to overextend itself and topple over one another.
“Herbert North!”
Herbert paused for a moment; his attention fixed on the ten zombies by the carriage ahead, and listened again for what had been Mayor Covert’s voice.
“God damn it, man! Up here!”
Herbert looked to the second floor of one of the larger houses in Marrow—Must be the mayor’s—and saw Roger Covert standing there with a hunting rifle. He waved to Herbert and then fired into the group of ten. A scream, but not from the creature he hit: An old woman and a small girl emerged from the carriage and bolted through the breach left by the wounded monster. But they were slow and wounded themselves; they didn’t get two feet before the rest of the zombies were on them.
“Please, they’re my people!” Mayor Covert fired and shattered one of the creature’s jaws. “Ms. Carol, Lisa, hold on!”
Herbert’s stomach sank. By simply saying their names, the old woman and the small girl were elevated above the unknown corpses piled high around him. Knife in hand, he ran and ripped through the group of zombies, driving the blade into their necks and ears. The zombies moaned and drooled as they fell backward and on their sides. But by the time Herbert had a clear view of Ms. Carol and Lisa, he wished he hadn’t.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered, backing up before the zombies, so intensely ravenous in their feasting, realized he was there.
Under the cover of gunfire, Herbert made it to the mayor’s house unscathed. As he pulled open the door, he caught sight of a group of armed townspeople making their way through Marrow.
“Where’s Boone?” Mayor Covert said, startling Herbert.
Herbert shut the door behind him and caught his breath. He shook his head and said, “Divorced.”
Mayor Covert’s eyes were red-rimmed and filled with tears. He fell against Herbert, bawling as he managed to say, “She did this. She did this. Herbert, how did this happen?”
“We have to get out there.” Herbert patted Roger’s back, and when he pulled his hand away, he found his palm covered in red. Was it the mayor’s blood, or the blood of all those he’d loved too much to let live as undead? “Did you bring people to the inn?”
Mayor Covert nodded. He stood upright and swallowed hard. “Some. There’s two upstairs. I was on my back with them.” He sniffed his nose, fell against the bannister of the staircase, and started to cry again.
“We have to keep moving. Once we have the … living … secure, we’ll take care of the rest. Okay?”
Again, Mayor Covert nodded. “What’s happening, Herbert? Where’s your partner?”
“Seth’s going to the inn, too. It’s a lot to explain, mayor. Just … if you see one of the missing children … blow their fucking head off. Trust me.”
Joseph
They don’t like it when I kiss them. Mommy said they would. They always cry. Crying makes them taste funny. Mommy said she filled us up with love. Mommy said we should fill them up with love, too. They yell at me and ask me to stop, but I know they like it, because after a while, they get real quiet, and I can kiss them as much as I want.
There are so many people here to play with. They look scared. I tried to play with the girls and boys in their rooms, but I think I hurt them. All their mommies and daddies are in the front. They look scared, too. I think they’d feel better if they were together.
I let them out. They really didn’t like being locked up in those rooms. Everyone is kissing everyone now. Mommy will be happy. I like making mommy happy.
Herbert
When they finally reached the inn’s wraparound porch, Herbert stopped and introduced himself to the father and daughter he’d helped escort there. He hadn’t wanted to know their names, or for them to know his, until he was certain they were safe. It had always been better this way. Too many victims haunted him at night as it was.
“Dale Jones,” the father said, shaking Herbert’s hand with the kind of firm grip only the grateful can manage. “This is my beautiful daughter, Scarlet. She’s eleven.”
Scarlet smiled. If she hadn’t been surrounded by putrid death, she may have even blushed at this strange stranger. “Thank you,” she said, her voice softened from a night of screaming. Her dark blonde hair fell in front of her face as she asked, “What happened, Mr. North?”
Mayor Covert, having lagged behind, finally arrived outside the inn and said, “Come on, come on. Inside, let’s get inside.”
“I’m not sure, Scarlet,” Herbert said, looking into the girl’s eyes, which begged him for an answer, a justification for what had happened to her small, quiet, uneventful, can’t-wait-to-leave-here-for-the-big-city town. “But we’re going to get you out of here. Ready?”
“Ready,” Scarlet said, the hint of a smile behind all the dirt and blood on her face.
“Ready,” Dale said, looking at his daughter as though he were trying to figure how he could be as courageous as her.
Mayor Covert nodded as he held on tightly to the rifle that had so quickly killed so many of his own.
Herbert North took one last look at the place he would never truly know. He looked at the faded yellow houses, soft and bloated, and the fire spreading between them. He looked at the bone-white earth and the blood tide washing over it. He looked at the creatures roaming through the town, scavenging for flesh in all the places flesh may hide. How did they end up here? How did things turn out this way? The kind thing to do would be to leave some of the zombies behind for others to find and to give credence to the stories the survivors would tell. But
could they take that risk just to raise awareness, just to fend off psychosis? He caught a glimpse of the group of armed townspeople again—already their numbers seemed thinned—and when he looked back to the zombies, he counted several more than before.
“Mr. North?” Scarlet’s words shook him from his thoughts. “Are there more people like you?”
He smiled and turned away from Marrow. Reaching for the inn’s front door, he said, “Not enough.”
“I could do it,” she said, squinting her eyes to look scary, like a soldier surveying a battlefield.
“Better than us, I bet.” Herbert nodded at Mayor Covert, and Mayor Covert nodded at him. “Stay close. There may be a few in here since you last left. I don’t know how long it takes to turn.”
“I made sure,” Mayor Covert said.
“Good.” Dale bent down and Scarlet climbed up his back and held onto his shoulders. “Good, thank you, good, good.”
Herbert pushed open the front door and, for a moment, time stopped. Everyone was there, just like the mayor had said, but what he had brought and what now stood before them was not the same. They were zombies, all of them. Under the bloodstained ceiling, from each blood-drenched wall, men, women, and children stood tightly packed, their fresh, seething wounds rubbing into one another’s. And beyond the hungering horde, at the top of the stairs, Joseph sat, his cheeks fat like a chipmunks’ as he stuffed his face with strips of flesh.
“Herbert! Get the hell out of here!”
He spotted Seth at the furthest end of the second floor, where most of the balcony was in splinters. He looked as though he were about to collapse, and his clothes, his expensive, entirely inappropriate for the occasion clothes, were shredded.
Herbert turned to his companions. “Mayor, go, please. Run. They’re slow. You’ve got your gun.” And before they could object, he stepped into the inn and slammed the door shut behind him. He didn’t bother barring it, because he knew they wouldn’t follow.
All Things Zombie: Chronology of the Apocalypse Page 35