About a year after the evacuation a new Christian sect surfaced, calling themselves the Saint Lazarus Church of the Resurrection and the Life, the Undeath and the Unlife. They were trying to resolve questions like whether shamblers had souls. Having never been one for organized religion, Walsh always felt questions of sacred versus profane were intensely private, more so now that the two seemed fused. Besides, the tenets of the Lazarus sect had never seemed particularly inspired or well thought-out to him. They seemed more of a “cut and paste” approach, borrowing from all the major religions and several science fiction novels of the 1960’s. He politely refused membership and they had finally stopped leaving leaflets and donation envelopes in his office mail drop.
Two workmen were repairing a water pipe as they passed, and neither gave them a second glance. It was as Mac had said: if you seem to be on official or authorized business (he used the slang term “righteous”), then people left you alone.
Walsh’s hands were cramped and he realized he was gripping the bouquet too tightly. Mac had balked at the flowers at first, saying Walsh might as well mount a big neon sign on the cart proclaiming “I AM GOING OUTSIDE!” Walsh told him he was being paranoid, that he had often taken flowers with him on his rounds.
He loosened his grip, holding the bouquet with one hand as he flexed the other. His hands had been so nimble, once. Clever little creatures that could stitch a wound or bring a child into the world. Now arthritis was making them strangers to him, twisting them into wicked shapes for cruel shadow puppets. Unpredictable and unreliable, manageable only through more and more frequent doses of various pain relievers.
Old age sucked.
There was a sudden lull in Mac’s monolog and Walsh realized he had never asked Mac about their destination.
“Have you seen it, Mac?”
Mac looked at him, puzzled for a moment. “The Forest of Anubis?” he asked.
“Yes.”
“Yeah,” he said, nodding, “Every zed-head takes a tour of the woods. Course, it changes every year, that’s what makes it even creepier. You never know how it’s going to end up.”
“A colleague of mine was trying to chart migration patterns of the sham - - uh, zeds.”
“Shit, Doc, I don’t care what you call them. You should hear some of the terms we use when we’re not around civs. Maggot-bags, pus-buckets, meat-puppets…”
“I guess you’re right.”
“Migration patterns, huh? Brass has talked about that kind of stuff. Thing is, they always thought they’d reach some point of diminishing returns. Old zeds falling apart, new ones being ground up and burned or recycled. ‘Asses to ashes’ as my old man used to say. Some point where the attrition rate of maggot-bags would outstrip the supply.”
“But that’s not happening.”
“Fuck no. Part of it’s that the damn things don’t seem to fall apart. Oh, they rot plenty fast, but they seem to stop decaying with just enough musculature left to move around. Techs are going nuts trying to figure that out.”
“And some sectors don’t believe in recycling.”
“Yeah, bunch of unlife fanatics. No burning, no grinding. They just turn their zeds loose on the surface as some kind of bullshit living memorial.” Mac looked at him guiltily. “No offense, Doc.”
Walsh waved him off. “I’ve heard there’s also been smuggling, even in here.”
Mac nodded, his mouth drawing in a thin line. “Top brass is really pissed about that. Here they hope to reclaim the surface and our own people are smuggling friends and relatives to the surface before the B & G Wagon arrives. T.B. says that any zed-head involved in or aiding such practices gets a one-way ticket to the Big Blender.”
“I appreciate the risk you three are taking for me, Mac.”
He patted him on the shoulder. “My pleasure, Doc. Besides, all you’re smuggling is flowers.”
They rode the rest of the way in silence, passing several access shafts until they came to one he needed.
Mac parked the little cart near a weapons locker and they were met by the guard on duty, Dana Chang. Dana had been one of Walsh’s patients, as had her husband Andy and daughter Delia. She smiled when she saw him.
Dana helped him out of the cart and gave him a quick hug. Her husband had suffered a burst appendix fifteen years ago and they had nearly lost him. His hands had been faithful and true in those days and worked their magic. Five years later his good hands delivered the Chang’s baby Delia.
Dana led Mac and him to the hatch, which was being guarded by a fresh-faced young corporal named Oganesyan. It didn’t matter what his first name was, all newbie zed-heads were called “Chuck”, as in “ground chuck”. Some found the appellation distasteful, but Walsh knew it was to remind the newbs that that’s all they were to shamblers topside: fresh meat.
Chuck wasn’t happy about breaking the rules, but wasn’t about to argue with vets like Mac and Dana. The hazing of zed-head newbs was the stuff of nightmares, with some losing a finger (or worse) or becoming infected with Zed-17 and ending up in the grinders. The brass tried to curtail it, but they knew that living underground created a lot of lethal pressures that had to be vented.
Dana had shut down the west perimeter cameras “for maintenance”. She had also overridden the sensors so that the hatch could be opened without setting off alarms. Such procedures were not unheard of; several times a year outer cameras and perimeter fences had to be repaired. And security was a bit more lax this time of year, everyone thinking of the big holiday festival in the central quad. People feasted and prayed, exchanged gifts and decorated homes, sang and danced and lit candles, all to show gratitude for another year of survival.
Both Dana and Mac were armed with the latest n-guns, what the zed-heads called “poppers”. Each popper could deliver exploding “jiffy-pop” or freezing “popsicle” rounds at a rate of fifty per second. Walsh had treated a Chuck or two in his time who had taken a popsicle round to the foot or thigh. The limb always had to go. Those who were unfortunate enough to take a jiffy-pop round usually bled out before the medics could do anything. Newbs killed topside were given three additional pop shots: one to the chest and two to the head. They were then left to rot, harsh examples for the newbs that followed. Those killed below in the training centers went straight to the grinders, eventually becoming fertilizer for the agri-combine or food for the Tri-Sector Zoo predators.
Dana nodded to Chuck and he punched in the code to open the access hatch. It opened with a sharp hiss and then silently slid into its recess. Dana and Mac had their weapons trained on the opening and Walsh held his breath, but nothing was there.
Dana held Walsh’s flowers as he pulled on the gloves and wool hat he had stuffed in his jacket. He took the bouquet back, and then Doctor Dylan Walsh walked out of the hatch, his heart beating fiercely.
He walked out into the snow, breathing topside air for the first time in forty-five years. He took in great draughts of it, delighting in the sensation of air actually cold enough to chill your insides. His eyes teared up and he coughed, doubling over for a moment. Mac moved toward him, but Walsh waved him off, laughing.
“The air is so sweet,” he gasped.
Mac nodded and grinned.
The sun shone sulkily through the haze, just enough to provide a pearlescent light. His breath puffed out in little clouds and his boots crunched through the snow as Mac and Dana led him to the perimeter fence, a sturdy affair of steel plates welded in a large circle. It was ten feet high, fifty feet in diameter and surmounted with cameras and razor wire. No shambler could surmount that barrier. They reached the gate, which was secured with a heavy sliding bolt.
Dana had her tru-vu and checked the outside. She did a complete sweep and nodded. Mac unlocked the gate and they opened it far enough for him to slip through.
“You know where you’re going?” Dana asked.
He knew she was actually giving him a chance to back out, to change his mind. He held up the little GPS mon
itor and it peeped once, as if answering her.
Walsh squeezed through the gate, and then stopped in stunned silence.
He had seen photos and film of “The Forest of Anubis” before, but it was something else to be in it.
Instead of trees there were hundreds of shamblers, perhaps thousands, frozen in place. Many stood, silent and still, their arms at their sides, temporarily suspended from their ceaseless wanderings, their insatiable appetites. The sun sparkled off their agonized and ruined faces, now crystallized and dusted with snow, terrible spun sugar confections for an unending Dia de los Muertos.
Each shambler had a clearance of about three or four feet around it, as if they did not want to be crowded during their period of suspended animation. Walsh wove his way carefully through the figures, forcing himself to remain calm in this Land of the Dead. He listened for the customary growl of a shambler, for their mournful, awful wailing, but there was only his own breathing.
Walsh chuckled. Seventy-five and he was still able to get the heebie-jeebies. He consulted the monitor and moved forward, hearing only his own breathing and the crunch of ice under his boots.
Then there was another sound, a strange low whistle. Walsh thought there might be a bird singing, but then he remembered that a strain of the zed virus had killed most of the birds topside.
This sound had a mournful quality to it, like blowing into a bottle or jug, and he realized many of the frozen dead had ragged wounds that went entirely through a limb or torso. The same wind which was chilling him and sending up little frost devils was also whistling through this frozen charnel house, making the corpses into a sort of hellish pan pipes, an instrument worthy of the god Hades. What madness and despair would be found in such music?
Walsh shook his head, chiding himself for being seduced by the strange and perverse amusements of this place. He had to hurry, so he walked a bit faster, trying to ignore the eerie sound and concentrate on his goal.
Come the spring, the sun would thaw them out. Their chaotic neurons would begin firing again and they would lurch, shamble, crawl and worm their way in search of food.
Mac and Dana caught up to him, leaving Chuck to guard the gate and contact them if there were any unwarranted movements on the perimeter sensors.
“Welcome to the Forest of Anubis,” Mac said, gesturing in an expansive manner. “Also known as ‘The Valley of the Corpsicles’ and ‘Maggot-Bags on Ice’.”
“What do you think brings them here in such number?” Walsh asked.
“Prof of mine said it’s the smell of the grinders,” Dana said, “they smell the tang of flesh and blood that isn’t quite turned. Guess it’d be like good barbecue to us.”
“I heard it was sound,” Mac said, “the maggot-bags are like dogs, they can hear all kinds of shit we can’t. Somebody else said they can see emanations from power sources, some kind of adaptation to find living people.”
“It’s a marvel that people just… let them be,” he said.
“Believe me, Doc, if they could get the funding, they’d have us out here every year with some porta-grinders making pus-burgers.”
“Or at least expending a few thousand rounds for head shots,” Dana added.
“The newbs do come out here for target practice,” Mac said. On seeing the alarm on Walsh’s face he quickly added, “No one goes as far as we’re going, Doc. It’s okay.”
Walsh nodded, relieved.
The three of them hiked about a quarter of a mile, watching the ground for crawlers who had frozen low to the ground. There was no danger of attack, of course, each was frozen solid, about as dangerous as a leg of lamb just out of the freezer. However, tripping over such an obstacle might mean a serious injury for an old man like him. He did not want Dana and Mac to have to carry him back to the hatch.
Most of the undead they passed were dressed in rags that had long ago faded to colorless tatters or were soiled beyond recognition. Still others were completely naked, their clothes no match for the punishment of endless wandering.
And there were those whose role in life was still recognizable from their costumes or uniforms. People released or smuggled into the open by grieving families or well-meaning friends.
They passed soldiers and cops, joggers and toddlers, business types and the elderly.
Here was a contingent of Scots, dressed in the proud kilts and tartans of some clan, their visages something out of Macbeth.
Here a nanny with a stroller, its occupant like some grotesque doll, its lips a clown smear of crimson.
Here a naked young man, frozen in an attitude of lithe grace, a latter-day David save for a missing hand and ribbons of flesh hanging from a ravaged abdomen.
Here a group of little girls, still in their school uniforms, their pigtails and pixie cuts belying faces of demons and ghouls, carved now in ice and frost like Norse trolls.
Here was a zed-head pinned under a sno-mobile who had been set upon by others as the temperature had dropped. Come the thaw he would join them, all previous hurts forgotten as they searched the countryside for living flesh.
The forest was a good square mile, packed with nightmare growths that would move on in spring, Shakespeare’s Birnam Wood made flesh.
Every race, every variant of humanity was represented in a great sculpture garden of flesh and ice. A spectrum of hues dialed down to varying shades of blue-gray.
Dana checked her tru-vu and pointed, but Walsh had already spotted her.
Marie.
His heart quickened because, unlike the others, Marie had a hand out, as if beckoning to him. Walsh hurried to her and Dana and Mac hung back a respectful distance.
Even under the patina of ice and snow he could see she had not changed in forty-five years. He had become old, but his Marie was still twenty-five, her flawless skin now rendered like a work of fine crystal. Her hair was still as fine and blonde as when it had smelled of flowers and cinnamon.
She had been so beautiful, so young.
It had been seven years since The Incident. Their first and only son Taylor was a healthy little boy five months of age. They had been scheduled to evacuate to the Sector 25 complex, and Marie had fallen in the tub. She had died instantly. To this day he had cursed the irony of surviving an apocalypse only to be killed in such a banal way. People with shamblers or potential shamblers in their homes were legally bound to destroy them by decapitation and burning before evacuating.
He couldn’t do it.
Apparently a lot of people couldn’t. The size of the forest attested to that.
He had taken their baby and left Marie dressed in her favorite sundress, one that had been a gift from him early in their courtship. Knowing she would soon wake to a strange world, he had secured a GPS cuff to her ankle. He had then kissed her goodbye, his eyes blurring as he got onto the bus, their baby wailing in his arms.
Every night he would check the tracker’s monitor for some sign of her. When Taylor grew older he joined his father. They placed the monitor between them on the kitchen table like some oracle, and waited for a pronouncement on the fate of Marie. As they waited for a signal, they wondered where she might be, wondered where her travels might take her.
They had dreamed of exploring the world as husband and wife, and Walsh thought that desire might be in her, still. Of course, the fact that she might be looking for him, some steadfast memory driving her too-cool flesh in restless search had caused him many a sleepless night. Had he doomed her to a futile, meandering existence?
Walsh had never remarried. As long as he knew Marie was out there somewhere he had worn his ring and stayed true.
Taylor had grown into a fine man and left to raise his own family in a nearby sector. He was a supervisor in hydroponics and had long ago stopped wondering about his mother. To Taylor, the important part of her was in heaven, the rest an empty shell of which he had no real memory. If his children had ever wondered about their grandmother, they had never asked Walsh.
Walsh stopped ch
ecking the monitor about fifteen years ago. He had first put it in a drawer, then in a box that contained their wedding album and a light blue sweater Marie used to wear, the scent of her long faded, except in his memory.
Three months ago, the peeping of the monitor brought him out of a deep sleep. He had awakened thinking he was hearing a clock radio alarm he had owned as a boy. He stumbled to the closet and gazed at the monitor in wonder and guilt.
He had given up. She had not.
Now they were together again, meeting in this impossible place where the dead waited for the sun to free them.
“I brought you some flowers,” he whispered, “Margarites, your favorite.” he tried to place them in her hand but they fell to the ground. He chided himself. She was not some doll to pose and make pretty. “I’m sorry,” he said.
He took off his gloves and stuffed them in his coat. He ran quivering fingers over the sweet curve of her cheek, the pads of those fingers freezing slightly on her generous mouth and stinging as he pulled them free. Would she taste him come the spring thaw? Would it spark some atavistic memory, some inchoate longing?
He ran his fingertips lightly over her left breast, its size and shape halted by viral alchemy and freezing temperatures in the youthful contours of their courtship. He worried now at her being so scantily dressed, the sundress sheer and lightly patterned with light yellow margarites over a field of pale blue. A blue now faded to match her pale flesh. He tried to ignore the blood stains down the front, daisies turned to macabre roses, and the fact that much of the dress was torn and tattered. His Marie would have been appalled by her own appearance, and for a moment he feared she might be embarrassed.
In life, she had worn the dress on a picnic in Griffith Park. They had found a little knoll under a huge oak. The park had been full of sound, the music of a carousel, the distant laughter of playing children and birdsong in the trees. So many birds in those days! Finches, wrentits, mocking birds, jays, thrashers and quail. Even the hummingbirds and crows had added to that marvelous cacophony of life. He and Marie had eaten fine old cheeses and artisanal breads, crisp red apples and luscious, juicy plums. They shared a bottle of wine he had been saving, and he toasted her beauty and the sheer joy of being with her. Then Marie had slyly revealed that she was wearing nothing underneath her pale blue sundress. Out from under the shade of the old oak the sun had shown through the light fabric, illuminating her soft curves, the cleft of her sex, the rosy pink of her nipples. They had made love near the site of the old zoo, a place no longer frequented by visitors and echoing with the ghosts of creatures long extinct. Her eyes had widened slightly as he had entered her, and then a knowing smile touched her as their rhythms matched, their breathing becoming that of a single creature.
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