The Living Dead

by Kraus, Daniel

  “God, Oh dear God. Oh Lord, oh God.”

  Perhaps tempted by the protection of a higher power, the sailors shifted their attention from Nishimura to a sooty, oil-stained flight-deck refugee, a refueler according to his purple float coat, whose nose was flattened against a starboard window.

  “Oh Lord. Oh Christ. Oh Jesus Christ.”

  Nishimura planted his hands on the console and leaned forward to get a broader picture of the flight deck. It remained a hellfire maze pillared by fire-engulfed aircraft and walled by flames rising along lines of spilled jet fuel.

  “There he is. Oh Lord. Our Lord. Our Christ. There he is.”

  It was not indiscriminate blather, The purple-shirt referred to a man it took Nishimura another half minute to find among the inferno. Despite the left half of his head being covered in blood and his clothes torn to rags, he walked with deliberate, confident strides as gas fires encroached and ghouls swiped and missed.

  “It’s the chaplain,” someone gasped. “Everyone! It’s Father Bill!”

  It was the Catholic chaplain, all right, a skinny chap, one of those old vets Nishimura barely knew, yet against whom he held a faint professional grudge. Few men that age had much left to offer to the modern military and were too often grandfathered along as ship mascots. That was no way to run a navy.

  But this was something else. Having emerged from God knew where, Father Bill held high with both hands a brass crucifix slithering with reflected fire. He would be killed. Of course he would be killed. Nishimura and the sailors beside him gasped as another fuel tank blew, hurling jags of metal that stabbed into asphalt, walls, ghouls—nearly everything but Father Bill, Red flames billowed and retracted with astonishing timing, allowing Father Bill to keep his regular pace.

  “Go, Father Bill,” someone eked.

  “You can make it, Father Bill!” someone cried.

  A ghoul came at the priest from the front and tripped on a munitions trolley; Father Bill stepped over him. Two ghouls with gaping wounds in Their chests attacked from the left only to be folded in half by an arresting cable that had gotten wound in a crane’s gears; Father Bill took no mind. It looked like a broken-legged ghoul would soon have Father Bill in his clutches until the aircraft elevator below it, operated by someone sealing off the hangar bay, rose flush with the flight deck, pinching the ghoul in half longways, from groin to skull.

  In this fashion, via a mad streak of luck or an outright miracle, the priest resolutely crossed the deck.

  “Praise God!” someone shouted.

  “Praise Father Bill!” someone corrected.

  Only when Father Bill reached the base of the island was he forced to stop. He shut his eyes, raised the crucifix higher, and stood against a barricade of fire. It was a pose Nishimura believed he’d seen in fantasy illustrations of knights raising their swords against undefeatable dragons. Nishimura was stricken with awe even as avowals of Father Bill’s divinity rose to disturbing volume.

  “We have to help him,” someone said.

  “Golding, Merriweather, Tressle. Come on!” someone said.

  For the next several minutes, Nishimura and the sailors who’d boxed him inside the bridge heard the struggles of the rescue party: the hard falls down ladders, the impacts of blunt objects, sporadic shots from someone fortunate enough to possess a firearm. Father Bill did not move an inch. At last, sprays of aqueous foam began dousing the fire at the base of the deck-level ladder, giving his deliverers room to pull him through to safety.

  The rescue party’s return to 010 level was just as slow. A series of resounding clangs announcing the unbolting of each ladder as they passed. Nishimura tried to tell himself it was all right, that orders were bound to get confused in such chaos, that the rescue party might have encountered an officer of higher rank than Nishimura.

  But when the sailors inside Pri-Fly parted, creating an open path leading directly to Nishimura, he saw only the same SRs, SAs, SNs, PO3s, PO2s, and PO1s that had fled to the island, with one addition: Father Bill, clutching a fire-scarred, blood-broiled, half-staffed crucifix before him like a trophy. With eyes bright crimson from smoke, the priest took the path made for him, his boots smacking rain puddles and the tarn of Szulczewski’s blood.

  Father Bill stopped in front of Nishimura. His face was painted gray with smoke. His left hand was coated in dried blood, His left ear was ruined, and half his neck was black from blood that had poured from the injury. The sparse hair on his head and the plentiful hair of his eyebrows were singed black. He blinked and regarded the men, all of whom stared silently, a congregation more rapt, Nishimura felt certain, than any Father Bill had ever enjoyed in the chapel.

  “God,” Father Bill proclaimed, “is taking command.”

  Nishimura felt the nods of the sailors around him, most of whom, he knew, had lost half of their minds when their dead colleagues quit dying. These men—and they were men, not even Diane Lang had made it this far—had run from danger. They were the sailors most likely to crack in an emergency, and here they were, cracking in pursuit of quick salvation. The military’s dirty secret was that it attracted not only the best Americans but also the worst—the racist, the sexist, the bloodthirsty, the continually furious—and a carrier threw both halves together in a thousand-foot, ninety-seven-ton, nuclear-powered coliseum.

  Nishimura’s worst hunches solidified as Tommy Henstrom manifested at the priest’s elbow.

  “What should we do, Father?” Henstrom asked, “Stop circling? Resume course to San Diego?”

  “Drop anchor,” Father Bill said, “We’re not going anywhere, my son.”

  Question: How long could Big Mama last without refueling?

  Nishimura knew the boat’s most dramatic figure as well as anyone.

  Answer: Fifteen years.

  Maybe better people were belowdecks. Nishimura did not know. He only knew that the deck separating above from below was devoid of whang, absent of whoosh, and crawling with Millennialists, who chuckled at the turn of events. They knew the badness gathered in Pri-Fly had always been waiting. Nishimura stood opposite Father Bill and Tommy Henstrom in more ways than one; he’d need to conceal his famous glow if he was going to survive another few minutes, much less days, weeks, or years. He had to survive, even if it meant hardening his heart a lot more before exposing its leathered muscle to Larry, Atsuko, Chiyo, Daiki, Neola, and Bea.

  I’m sorry I’m not there to protect you, he thought. But I will be. Someday. Hang on for as long as you can.

  You Are Not Alone

  You did not expect the world to look like this.

  Fire is everywhere. You do not like it. Fire hampers your hunt for that which might assuage the hunger. Though it has become clearer the hunger cannot be assuaged. You have bitten many fast-moving ones. Most of their meat has fallen out of your mouth, Some has fallen into your stomach, where it floats in blood. Hunger, you understand, has nothing to do with eating. You sensed this from the start. Hunger is about hunting. Even that word is insufficient, It is about communication.

  There has been much communication.

  The first fast-moving ones you found ultimately ran, leaving behind those who were no longer fast-moving, You waited, curious and hopeful. One by one, they woke up. They were you, you, you. You did not feel happy. Only satisfied. You have a gray memory of feeling this same flat satisfaction upon completing tasks when you, too, were a fast-moving one. The difference now is you also feel the satisfaction of the other yous as you spread out across the ship. It is like having long fingers. You cannot feel every detail, but enough to know you are united.

  You communicate more efficiently than the fast-moving ones. Perhaps more efficiently than fast-moving ones have ever communicated.

  You have learned a lot about yourself in a short while. You learned you can feel things that are very cold or very hot, but have trouble distinguishing between the two. You learned this when you grasped the muzzle of a fired gun and the flesh of your palm began to smoke. Your inferio
r hearing is less of a deficit than it was at the beginning. Fast-moving ones, you have found, are loud. They shout and scream. They slam doors. They fire guns. They do not seem to realize how easy this makes it to find them. Your inferior eyesight has also been of small consequence. When threatened, the fast-moving turn on lights, lots of them. Their guns even flash when fired, making the most dangerous ones the easiest to pursue. Most wear light-colored clothing. Some have symbols on their chests, so shiny you can see them in the dark.

  You understand that you were born without language only when certain words begin to return. To recall words, first you must hear them. It is a slow process, helped by repetition. Certain words and phrases are shouted into your face more than others. Die. Fucker. Asshole. Piece of shit. Pile of shit. Pile of walking shit. From these words you begin to build an understanding of yourself and how you are regarded.

  You—Fucker, Asshole, Piece of Shit, Pile of Shit, Pile of Walking Shit—watched fast-moving ones climb ladders until your body remembered what to do. You ascended from darker chambers to a place where air is crisper and light saturates. Up here, fast-moving ones are abundant, but you do not like to chase them. It is because of the fire. Fire comes from fast-moving ones. It is their furious words turned into heat, light, sound, smell, taste. You have not moved since beholding the fire. You do not think you will go any farther. You are afraid. It is a new feeling for you.

  Over time, things change.

  You passed the knowledge of how to climb ladders to other yous, and you did not let you down. You will never let you down. Fucker, Asshole. Piece of shit. Pile of shit. Pile of walking shit, None of these fire words matter. The fire cannot get all of you. New yous will replace the yous that fall.

  Smoke cannot hide fast-moving ones. They move too fast to hide. They have always moved too fast to survive.

  You see a you that you recognize. This you turns to look at you. You do not know how long it takes you to reach you. But once you are standing close to you, you feel something inside you. Inside both yous. Confirmation. Affection.

  You were once called Scud. The other you was once called Jean. Inside the dead womb of Jean-you is a ball of blood and meat heavier than the blood and meat in your stomach. It is yet another you. If this little Scud-Jean-you were strong enough, it would rip through Jean-you’s muscle and skin to get out. You feel something like longing.

  You both stagger. Your hands touch. This is by accident, unless it is not by accident. Scud-you has broken fingers, and one jabs through a hole in Jean-you’s palm. Your hands are fastened. You do not try to detach them. Scud-you notices a hard, hot ring on one of Jean-you’s fingers and Scud-you feels a nice lightness. You walk together, side by side, for no reason at all. You believe you used to do this. It is not an easy walk. Giant works of machinery create barriers. Fire is everywhere, and fire is a fast-moving thing. But time has no meaning, You are in no hurry.

  Scud-you and Jean-you reach the edge of the world. Metal posts prevent you from walking farther, Beyond is a sky of smoke and water aglow with the flaming ruins of other floating machines. You sense more yous out there. You have an inkling of the scale of things. If you can stretch across water, you might also stretch across land. There is no telling how far you will go.

  The firelight behind you competes with the aurora of a dying day.

  You hold hands and picture an overripe world.

  You turn back to the fast-moving ones. You walk. Both of you do. All of you do. You hunt. You bite, Some of you burn. More of you are born. All happens just as it should.

  Death by death, the world becomes less of me and more of you.

  KILL US

  BLOW

  IT ALL UP

  END THIS

  If the World Goes Gooey

  Senior statistician at the United States Census Bureau’s American Model of Lineage and Dimensions was Annie Teller’s second career. Two decades before fleeing AMLD’s Washington office the day the dead began to rise, Annie was twenty-two years old, recovering from a spinal injury that had brought her pro football career to a premature end.

  She’d been in her London hometown, crossing Haymarket at Coventry, when a motorcycle traveling double the speed limit plowed into her, folding her around a traffic light pole. The incident itself imparted no psychological trauma, for she recalled none of it. What she remembered was hearing she’d likely never walk again, a verdict delivered by a surgeon with the obduracy of a man who knew the reaction coming.

  Footballing had paid well. Annie could afford the best treatment. For twenty-eight months, she worked with therapists at the Mansfield-on-Sherwood rehab center in Nottinghamshire, the forest where Robin and his Merry Men once roamed. Even under the circumstances, the adjacency brought Annie joy. As a teenager, she’d been a better archer than footballer, though the latter had superior long-term prospects. Practicing at home in her backyard, she would plant an old wooden arrow in the dead center of her target and shoot at it from a hundred yards with the goal of splitting it down the middle, like Robin of Loxley. Sixteen times she’d nailed the shot, but not once had her steel-tipped High-Flites managed to split the wooden arrow.

  In her earliest weeks in Mansfield, Annie could only turn her head, but being able to see the lush green treetops of Sherwood from her window, hissing like a dare, inspired her to consider feats of recovery beyond those posited by medical staff.

  Four months in, she handed her favorite chiropractor, Mildred, a credit card and asked her to take the BRR and a DD-Red to Hetherington’s, a sporting goods shop where she could purchase an old-fashioned pine bow with a string tension to match historical limits Annie had written down, plus a single wooden arrow with natural quills.

  “I’m going to shoot that arrow into Sherwood,” Annie declared, “then ask you to mark the spot where it lands.”

  “The bosses won’t be thrilled about seeing arrows flying from windows, love,” Mildred said.

  Annie spoke quickly, as she had the next few bits memorized. “When I’m able, I’m going to walk to that spot, all on my own, and find that arrow, and that’s when I’ll know I’m cured. You might think I’m off my trolley. But the only reason anyone puts up with life’s swamp of shit is because they believe it might turn to milk and honey on the far shore. I know I won’t be playing sports again, but I will walk. And it’s into those woods I’ll walk first, So you’re going to mark where the arrow comes down, and mark it in a way that’s likely to last for some time. All right?”

  Mildred looked as if she, too, had a memorized script of sensible replies. Annie ought to be setting smaller goals for herself, taking things one day at a time, all those clichés. But Annie trusted the chiropractor for good reason. Her forehead might frown when she smiled, but the smile itself was enough.

  “I believe you’ll be the blighter to do it, love, certain as green apples,” Mildred said. “I’ll park a Rover on the bit o’ sod and remove the engine, if that’s what it takes. God favors you. I know in my heart he does.”

  Annie didn’t believe in God, but the gasp from her throat was a sound she hadn’t made since before the accident. It was the sound of tasting delicious food, being erotically touched, witnessing a sports play beyond belief, living again, wanting again.

  “Two years,” she promised in a trembling voice. “If I can’t walk to that spot in two years, then it’ll be the spot I’ll ask you to bury me.”

  Annie Teller had come to Mansfield-on-Sherwood alone, Teammates visited for the first few months, but they were busy, forever traveling, and Annie knew seeing an athlete bedridden drove other athletes to existential panic. Annie’s sisters visited, but her parents never even called. Her mother, whom Annie preferred to think of as “Juditha Teller,” had sexually abused her as a child. Her truck-driver father, whom Annie preferred to think of as “Wilfred Teller,” let it happen. Both had been devout, so-called Christians; Annie, once free of that house of sin, never entered a church again.

  It had been Wilfred Teller who’d
endowed Annie with her competitive drive, something she’d realized when she told a teammate, “I suppose I’d like to beat the drunk bastard at something.”

  And she did. Eighteen weeks later, Annie shot her wooden arrow into Sherwood Forest. Certain muscles had atrophied, but physical instincts had a way of lasting. The arrow sailed long and true, sinking into green leaves and black shadow. Mildred waited for the thud of indignant footsteps, which did not come, then pulled on boots, coat, and hat, and dropped Annie a wink before embarking into the woods to find the arrow and mark its spot.

  One month before her self-imposed two-year deadline, after weeks of shorter, indoor jaunts, Annie inched downstairs and, for the first time since the motorcycle hit her, went outdoors. There were no walls or railings out there, but her desire for achievement pushed her harder than any coach. It took three hours to find the spot where her arrow had landed. Mildred had marked it with a large, iron crucifix, which, to Annie’s shock, the chiropractor had coerced a groundskeeper into mounting in cement.

  A wave of gratitude shook her. Her weak legs gave out, and she dropped to soft moss. Curled around the crucifix, she found herself incensed at the woman’s misattribution of credit. Annie wrestled the cross until she’d upended its concrete anchor. She turned her gasping, sweaty face to the light drizzle.

  “God had nothing to do with this!” she cried. “It was Robin Hood!”

  Juditha Teller’s American citizenship was the only helpful thing she’d ever done for Annie. Two years more and Annie was at the Robert Emmett McDonough School of Business at Georgetown University in the United States, getting her advanced degree in statistics, though she’d never forgotten the Mansfield staff’s belief that she belonged in nursing. With a work visa in place and green card application pending, she accepted a job at AMLD, where she processed, among other things, data from the Vital Statistics Data Collection network, a system tracking the country’s births and deaths, The work felt fitting: she was living a second life, her limp the only sign she’d had a first.