Early Morning of the Living Dead

by Raye Larson

  "It's one thing to know it. It's another to see it in action."

  "Would you have us risk ourselves?"

  "No. I'd want you to take a calculated risk, though."

  Blake frowned.

  Charlotte frowned back at him.

  She was a very mature adult. Maybe not right then, but usually.

  Footfalls approached.

  A glance back showed a thin shadow moving down the hall toward them.

  “Spencer?” a man said.

  Someone who called Blake by his first name. Wow. This person either knew Blake back when he’d been a recently laid off college graduate or the person whose last project got the company onto the financial map.

  Blake smiled and headed toward the figure. Past him, Charlotte saw a tall dark haired man in a white coat and dark slacks emerge out of the darkness of the hall.

  “Charlotte.” Blake looked back at her. “This is Zach. He’s in the R and D department.” Blake turned to Zach. “Charlotte’s with the Spectator.”

  “The who?”

  “No, the Spectator,” Charlotte said. “We’re an e-zine, not a music group.”

  Blake laughed.

  Zach blinked. “I don’t suppose she has anything to do with the fact that people are quietly freaking out upstairs.”

  “No,” Charlotte said. She was interesting but she wasn’t that interesting. “I don’t suppose you’ve secretly been R and D-ing some secret weapons that could kill something that’s already dead?”

  Zach frowned. “That’s a rather pointed question.”

  “The things outside have very pointed teeth.”

  “Outside?” Zach turned and headed toward the windows. “What’s going on outside?”

  Blake followed, catching Zach by the arm and drawing him back. “I’m sorry but they’ve finally forgotten us. While I want to keep an eye on them, I also want it to be at a distance. They don’t seem to be able to see anything past a fifteen to twenty-foot radius. When we’re in shadow, anyway.”

  “Fascinating.”

  Yeah. And scary.

  Zach looked back at Charlotte. “I don’t.”

  “What?”

  “I don’t have anything that could kill them,” Zach said. “Even if I had, there are confidentiality issues. I mean, if I walked into your e-zine and asked to see your notes, I’d expect you to hand me my ass.”

  Point. Charlotte would. If her notes stood between them and surviving whatever was happening outside, though...

  Okay, Charlotte would still hesitate for a second, but in the end, she’d share.

  “I appreciate your question, Charlotte,” Blake said. “Unfortunately, we focus on software, not warfare. Well, outside of the occasional nerf battle after any product release, we don’t dabble in warfare.”

  Charlotte didn’t know whether she was disappointed that Blake wasn’t secretly working on weapons manufacturing or relieved. Forget a possible story: having a bunch of guns would be great right now.

  Like it’d helped the Sunnyvale PD?

  “How bad are things?” Zach asked, looking back at Blake.

  “Those things have overrun the Sunnyvale PD. I encountered a terrible car accident on the freeway on my way in, which I now wonder if those things caused it. Even if any of the other police stations in the area were doing better, they’d have problems reaching us.” Blake frowned thoughtfully. “I’ve been trying to get into contact with our friends up north. No one’s picking up.”

  “How north are you talking about?” Charlotte asked. “San Francisco or Alaska?”

  “It’s none of your concern, Charlotte.”

  “It is in that it would tell me how far this has spread. Has anyone checked on-line or seen what CNN is reporting? Do you have a map of the area? Someone bit Faith–the reporter who was originally coming to interview you–this morning. It’d happened near the Spectator, which is in Saratoga. That was just one guy and he didn't see anyone else like that until–”

  Until he opened the door to Faith.

  "Charlotte?" Blake asked.

  She looked at him. “You encountered a bad accident coming in this morning. Where were you?”

  Zach raised an eyebrow at her. “Wow. You’re still a reporter, even now.”

  “I’m trying to establish a map.” Asshole.

  “Yeah, I’m sure that’ll make your future Pulitzer look even shinier.”

  Not really. Intro to journalism 103: awards didn’t help one sleep easier at night.

  They looked great on resumes, though.

  “Charlotte has a point, Zach.”

  Zach frowned. “Oh hey, I think I just figured out why the press was so set on blaming you for Ben’s disappearance, Spencer. Some reporter somewhere played twenty questions with people who had no idea what was going on and went from there.”

  “Actually," Charlotte said, "that had more to do with Blake being the last person to see Cooper. Asking people where they were when they first encountered the zombies is asking the source. Asking you where you thought the zombies first originated based on those encounters would be a bit more conjecture.” Asshole.

  “Oh, my bad, Orson Welles.”

  “I think you mean Charles Foster Cane, not Orson Welles.”

  “One guy caused a panic with his radio show, the other told people to supply photos and he’d provide the war. I think–”

  “The zombies are real, Zachariah.”

  Zach opened his mouth. Shut it. And glowered at Blake.

  Blake looked at Zach evenly.

  Zach’s glower eased into a frown.

  Blake turned back to Charlotte. “I encountered the accident near the Fremont exit, coming off highway eighty-five.”

  Eighty-five.

  A chill crept through Charlotte. Faith took Eighty-Five to work. She lived off it in Sunnyvale. Derek lived off Seventeen, down in Campbell. Charlotte was the odd one out and lived in a quiet cul-de-sac, off a backstreet she used to get to the Spectator. There were just times she didn’t want to deal with traffic. The highways were the veins of the Bay Area but sometimes they clotted.

  “Did it looked like it’d happened recently or some time before?” Charlotte asked. Even as she asked, she pictured the area. Her first instinct had been to think it had begun in Sunnyvale because of which police station was overrun first. Now she could better trace things.

  Blake and Faith had been heading south, two, maybe three hours apart. Wherever this began, it began north of Sunnyvale, somewhere where the future zombies could access Eighty-Five.

  “It looked like it’d happened sometime before.” Blake looked thoughtful. “There were several response teams there. Police, paramedics.”

  So... at least five minutes. One could’ve gotten there within a minute. Both required a little bit of time.

  “I thought they were struggling to work with the injured. I thought...” Blake laughed. The sound was uneasy. It sounded like it hurt. “God. They were probably fighting for their lives and I didn’t even notice.”

  “Blake–Spencer–” Charlotte wanted to say...

  She didn't know. Blake could order an injured man to be sent out to an awful fate. Spencer might do as well, but he’d hate himself. Just as he’d hate himself for driving past people fighting for their lives without noticing.

  He could do all of that, though, and then turn around and care. It was surprising.

  “There was no way you could’ve known,” Charlotte said.

  “I saw them struggling,” Blake–Spencer said.

  “Let’s say you noticed,” Zach said. “You would’ve out of your car to help–”

  “He’d probably sent Weatherby.”

  “You’re right.” Zach turned back to Spencer. “You send Mr. Weatherby out, he gets eaten, and then you have to drive yourself in.”

  Spencer stared at them.

  Then, he laughed, that surprised, amused, rumbling laugh.

  “Point," he said when the laughter faded.

  “You said yo
ur friends up north,” Charlotte said. “How far north?”

  “Mountain View,” Spencer said. “We had–have, I hope–some contracts with some former military people. I’d hoped we could coordinate things with them.”

  “By any chance is their office off Eighty-Five?”

  “One-Oh-One, actually. It’s a few minutes from the Eight-Five exit, though, why?”

  “This is all conjecture–”

  “Aha!” Zach looked delighted.

  “–but with you and Faith encountering or passing zombies around Eighty-Five, and judging by how quickly Chaucer changed, I think ground zero is somewhere along the Eighty-Five, maybe the One-Oh-One route.” Asshole.

  The asshole in question now looked less pleased. Charlotte imagined that thinking about ground zero took the joy out of the situation.

  “That’s a good point.” Spencer looked out towards the windows. “Since the Sunnyvale PD was hit so hard, so fast, it makes me wonder if this situation began around there. We should check on other departments, though. If the Mountain View or Palo Alto PD's are down, then this might’ve begun further north, and now it’s gradually making its way down.”

  “Shouldn’t we have heard about this before now, if it began elsewhere?” Zach asked.

  “Faith was attacked early this morning. Really early.” And unlike her, zombies didn’t need coffee. “It was an isolated incident. Everyone just thought it was road rage.”

  “Let’s try to get the news up,” Spencer said. He walked around the receptionist’s desk, dropped onto a leather chair, brought the keyboard over to him.

  And then.

  Began tapping into the keyboard.

  Slowly.

  Charlotte fought to keep from offering to type for Spencer.

  Judging by the frown creeping across Zach’s face, so was he.

  A minute later–seriously, a minute, Spencer was wealthy, he could hire someone to type for him–Charlotte and Zach stood behind Blake, watching CNN load.

  The top story was about a plane crash in France. Unpleasant, but far away.

  “Try something more local,” Charlotte said. “Mercury News, NBC, or KNTV.”

  “The Merc’s print,” Zach said. “I don’t know if we can wait until they release the evening edition.”

  “The front page updates frequently.”

  “Doesn’t that go counter against getting people to buy their papers?”

  “Most of the real money comes from advertising.” Intro to journalism 104. Or was it 105? Either way: advertising provides the ink upon which news is printed. People’s need to know provided the paper. Sometimes the two fought.

  Spencer keyed things.

  Onto.

  The.

  Keyboard.

  “Spencer.”

  “I’ve got this.”

  Charlotte hoped she would never be in a place where she needed Spencer to type something quickly or else the zombies would get them. Because the zombies would get her. Hell, they'd probably get frustrated, stop eating her, and go over to Spencer to finish typing for him.

  On the screen, the Mercury News page opened up.

  Charlotte scanned the top three photos–failed kidnapping attempt in Campbell, storm warning for the weekend, the Sharks won a game–and then looked at the news bytes along the right side of the page. Federal study about anti-psychotics, a gang member was sentenced to a hundred and eighty years, five car pile-up ends in riot.

  “There. The third one.”

  Spencer blinked. “The Sharks one?”

  “No. To the right. Third one down.”

  “Wow. A potential zombie apocalypse barely merits two sentences.”

  “There’s probably more if we click on the link.”

  There wasn’t.

  The news article was brief. Driver A was heading down Eighty-Five when he lost control of his car. He hit car B, who then lost control and struck C. D and E had been following closely behind and weren’t able to stop in time. People got out of their cars to change information and check on one another when driver A began attacking people. Eyewitnesses report that A had been driving erratically for a few miles before the accident.

  Charlotte read the article twice. No names, no hint of where the drivers had come from. Just the knowledge that it’d begun on Eighty-Five.

  “How often does this site update?” Spencer asked.

  “Often. We could get something new in a minute. It could happen in half an hour.”

  Spencer clicked his mouse. On the screen, the page went back to the homepage. “We can’t just sit here and wait for news. I’ll ask someone to watch this and tell us if–”

  A new link had appeared.

  Riot in downtown Sunnyvale.

  Zach snorted. “No, really?”

  “Hit reload,” Charlotte said.

  Spencer clicked the mouse.

  The page went white. A moment later, a new link appeared.

  Police quarantine business park in Mountain View.

  Click.

  Rioters attack people in Sunnyvale hospital.

  Click.

  Isolated riots reported in Gilroy and San Francisco.

  Click.

  Police caution people in riot areas to remain indoors.

  Click.

  Rioters numbers growing. Cause of unrest unknown.

  “Rioters.” Zach released an annoyed sounding sigh. “They’re zombies. Just call them zombies.”

  “They can’t.” Intro to journalism 106. Or 107. Let’s just call it 107. “They can’t call them zombies until someone with medical or security credentials calls them that.”

  Click.

  SJ police chef warns that rioters committing acts of cannibalism.

  Spencer made a quiet hmm sound. “You’re right, Charlotte. The information does seem more believable now that someone with some initials is saying it.”

  Charlotte was going to go back to calling him Blake now.

  chapter five

  One.

  Pick up, Derek.

  Two.

  Pick up.

  Three.

  Please don’t be dead.

  Someone picked up.

  Charlotte smiled. “Derek–”

  “Hi. You’ve reached Derek Rutherford’s office at the Spectator. I’m not in right now but if you leave your name and–”

  Shit.

  Charlotte returned the phone back to its cradle. Derek was busy, maybe. Or out of the office. Or...

  Or dead. He might be dead.

  Charlotte hoped the people at the Mercury News were doing better.

  Click.

  She was almost afraid to find out.

  Almost, because she turned, and thought it felt like she was moving through molasses, Charlotte looked down, past Blake’s shoulder. To the computer screen.

  Rioters spotted in Mercury News parking lot.

  Charlotte turned away.

  She’d interned there. At the Merc. Years before, after she graduated from San Jose State. At one time, she’d hoped to be there forever.

  She couldn’t say she wasn’t happy to not be there now. Not when she wished she was at the Spectator. What she could say was that she hoped the heavy doors protected the people inside the building. And that none were already injured.

  And that if any were, that someone quarantined them before they hurt anyone.

  Click.

  “The Mercury News is under siege,” Zach said.

  Charlotte winced. She knew a few people who still worked there. They weren’t friends but...

  They could’ve been friends. If Charlotte hadn’t been afraid. If she’d tried. If...

  Charlotte Stevens: the woman who would risk letting zombies bite her to help people she didn’t know, but wouldn’t risk herself, emotionally.

  Egads. No wonder she slept with Lord Bearington.

  “They’ve lost contact with the people in the main entrance.”

  “Zachariah.”

  Silence.

  So
quiet, that when a soft thump began, Charlotte wondered if it was her heartbeat.

  It wasn’t, she realized quickly. They were footfalls. They were coming from down the hallway past the elevators.

  They were coming closer.

  Charlotte looked around. If it was one of the zombies–

  She grabbed a figure of a knight. It had a good weight, had nice looking sharp edges along the square base, and looked like it’d make a better weapon than the tape dispenser.

  Charlotte turned.

  Across the room, a shadowy figure appeared. As it drew approached, details emerged. Tall. Dark suit. Grim expression.

  Weatherby.

  “Mr. Weatherby,” Blake said. He stepped into the edge of Charlotte’s sight, revealing that he’d picked up the baton.

  “The situation has been taken care of,” Weatherby said. “When I heard someone screaming out front, it cleared the area in the back. I saw a couple people out to their cars and locked the back door behind me.”

  “They got away okay?” Blake asked.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Thank you, Mr. Weatherby.”

  “Who has keys to the backdoor?” Charlotte asked.

  Blake raised an eyebrow. “Curious, aren’t we?”

  “More like paranoid.”

  “Then allow me to allay your concerns. At least on this. I have a key, as does Mr. Weatherby, and my security.”

  “If any of them left–”

  “I took the keys of the ones who did,” Weatherby said.

  Practical. Also terrifying, to know there was no return, but practical.

  “You mentioned a situation,” Zach said. “Did one of those things get in here?”

  “Briefly.” Blake frowned. “It was taken care of.”

  Charlotte touched his shoulder. He'd tried. They both had. They'd failed spectacularly but...

  Maybe next time they'd succeed.

  She wanted to think it was possible.

  Blake reached up and gently squeezed her hand.

  “I think we’ve gotten all of the information we’re going to get from the Mercury News for a bit,” Blake said. “Right now, I want to get everyone who’s left upstairs, in the west meeting room.”

  Blake looked at Weatherby. “I want you to get everyone in the room in fifteen minutes.”