The Living Dead

by Kraus, Daniel

  Shortly after arriving at Old Muddy in Year Twelve, Greer sprained an ankle. While a doctor—a former veterinarian, really—at the fort’s hospital treated her, he tried to explain the sound’s origin. Evidence suggested a zombie in a temperate clime could last ten to twelve years, at which point the brain itself rotted and the zombie, for the second and final time, died. Before that, lots of other things rotted too, including the plait of ligaments and tendons at the junction of leg and foot bones; Greer recalled words like plantar, dorsal, and metatarsal. Over the years, these tissues dried to a gravelly gum, creating a dry-twig crick with every flex. The foot’s twenty-six bones, meanwhile, knuckled one another, creating a stone-on-stone crack. Put it together and you had the signature sound of an antique zombie inching your way: crick-crack.

  Greer believed she was the first to hear it today. At thirty-two years old, she was the youngest member of this recovery team and fancied her senses to be the sharpest. She was also walking point, thirty feet in front, an old habit. There: a second crick-crack. There: a third. One thing humans never figured out was how zombies so reliably sensed the living, even the near-fossilized ones—and Queen Street was rife with the fossilized. So much so that no one called it Queen Street anymore. Out of habit, Greer glanced at a cankered road sign that had once pointed the way to the closest highway, but over which someone had painted:

  WELCOME TO SLOWTOWN

  Toronto, like everywhere else in Year Fifteen, was largely devoid of zombies. Anytime they were spotted, they were crick-cracking their way to Slowtown. It was another zombie mystery, and newcomers to Old Muddy reported the phenomenon from across the continent: the isolated undead dragging their old bodies hundreds of miles to join larger concentrations of their kind.

  Queen Street, a twenty-minute walk from Fort York, had been an artist’s enclave, packed with galleries, shops, eateries, and boutique hotels, the kind of area where every bare stretch of wall was covered with a mural and every tree base enclosed in a box of bohemian colors. In other words, it was the kind of place Greer had never seen before she and Muse started venturing into cities. Now it was spoil and shambles, as bad as any pre-10/23 slum, Sidewalks were ankle-deep in browned, broken glass. Building fronts displayed faded, painted messages: DANGER ZOMBIES and PAUL WE WENT EAST. Chain-link fences had wilted, soft as grass. Green moss had chosen random structures to swallow. Clumps of electrical wiring blew like tumbleweed. Cars, still neatly in parking spaces, had sunk into themselves, stomped by giant ghosts.

  Unappealing to the human eye, but Slowtown wasn’t for humans. The living who ventured there were visitors, and behaved with respect, careful to avoid agitating the dead. Normally, not a problem, but this afternoon, it would be a struggle, for Greer herself was agitated. This wasn’t just another Slowtown patrol. She was on a private mission, and the rest of the recovery team had no idea.

  Greer held up a fist to stop the four people behind her.

  “Shh.”

  Amid the cricks and cracks came a new sound: a clop. Greer’s gut, hot and acidic all day, cooled. Even the eddy of her breath in the cold November turned a slower waltz. Plenty of other Fort Yorkers had recently witnessed the source of this heavy plodding, but Greer had never been so lucky. At the nearest of Slowtown’s cross streets, the upper limbs of the tallest tree shivered. Instinctively, Greer knelt to make herself less threatening and heard the clunk of buckets as the team behind her followed suit.

  A doe-eyed head emerged way up high, beside a dead streetlight.

  It was a giraffe. It ambled forward, its bright, spotty body shifting into full view. A godlike thing, eighteen feet tall, moving with a gentleness seldom seen in this world, spindly legs tapering to narrow hooves, a ballerina on pointe. It gnashed soft lips at a branch, ducked its impossible neck beneath electrical cables, and gingerly took steps into the middle of the intersection, as if believing in that rarest of things: that the world should be treated delicately. With the grace of an arcing kite, it banked its head toward the people.

  This is why we haven’t lost hope, Greer thought.

  The giraffe’s breath formed swirling planets. Greer was pretty sure zoo-born giraffes shouldn’t fare so well in winter, but animals, like people and zombies, had adapted fast over a decade and a half. The magnificent giraffe, a reminder of bigger things, blinked its black-orb eyes and carried on in lovely silence, ducking beneath the sagging network of streetcar cables and disappearing so rapidly it had to have been a fevered vision.

  The only sound was five people’s soft, astonished breaths.

  Then: crick-crack. Time to get back to work.

  As previously decided, the group split like a zipper, the two men taking the right side of the road, the three women fanning to the left. Weapons were purposefully hard to come by at Old Muddy, bricked up in the Armory, but recovery teams were allotted a single emergency firearm, so far used only in rare cases of animal attack. Many creatures had adopted metropolitan habitats, and not all were as docile as giraffes. Zoos had unleashed tigers, bears, leopards, crocodiles, and true to their original instincts, they hunted what they needed.

  One of the men had today’s gun, but the women were not bereft, thanks to Greer. She armed her bow but kept it pointed at pavement. Zombies usually recognized weapons, and frightening them off wouldn’t help her search. She didn’t really need the bow—it had been two years since anyone on a recovery job fired a weapon—but she’d take carrying it any day over the stinky buckets.

  Zombies tended to stay indoors anyway. Largely, they loitered in windows, in doorways, on front steps. They eyed the living with what Greer categorized as distrust, an annoying reaction she’d come to terms with. The living hadn’t hurt a Slowtown denizen in ages, but they sure had in the past. It was like the zombies shared a collective memory, and that memory didn’t seem to be going anywhere.

  From her position creeping west along the curb, Greer spied five zombies. Four huddled against a storefront while a fifth, crick-crack, appeared at a second-story window, eyes like silver dollars in the graying sun. Not abnormal, Zombies often expended great effort to haul their fragile bodies up staircases. Greer blamed it on habit: living or dead, you hewed to precedent, no matter if it was pointless. Also not abnormal was discovering fallen zombies at the foot of stairwells, brittle bodies shattered while their jaws still gnashed and their white eyes still rolled.

  Greer heard a scrape and whirled quickly enough to embarrass herself. The man in the rear position had set down his bucket to dart into a former eyeglasses store to snatch what looked to be a package of batteries, A score, but where had it come from? Probably the zombie standing six feet deeper into the store; Slowtown dwellers were known to pick up odd objects and drop them where the living would find them. Were the batteries a gift? An offering? The zombie didn’t advance, but lifted her arms in a token territorial display. Dry, brittle flesh slid from her bones like bark from a dying tree.

  Irritation nettled Greer. Nabbing those batteries alone like that? In that dark lobby? A needless risk, but she told herself to let it go. She’d done far worse. Besides, fits of courage like that were par for the course for Karl Nishimura.

  Greer blamed her jitters on the man’s presence. How was she going to search Slowtown with the boss here? Nishimura, tiresome goody-goody, would tut-tut her for calling him the boss. Old Muddy had no leader, blah, blah, blah. Everyone knew it was Nishimura who’d turned Fort York into something special. He’d been the prime mover behind most of its strange, yet indisputably successful, undertakings, including these recovery jobs. Despite the big vote looming tomorrow, Nishimura had taken his scheduled turn to volunteer today, most likely to emphasize he was a regular citizen, just like anyone.

  The vote, she’d nearly forgotten. She was probably the only person in Fort York who had. While her mind was locked on her private search, everyone else was fixed on the drama of Blockhouse Four, which boiled down to Karl versus Richard, and the whole fort knew it. Even a hard-ass like Nishimura had
to be nervous.

  A finger-snap. Greer turned, stupidly fast again. She was really on edge.

  The man in first position was using his non-gun hand to gesture at a narrow bramble squeezed between buildings. Though Greer was a full four car lanes away, she believed he’d found what they’d come to recover. Good for them, bad for her. She wasn’t nearly finished. She’d need to wiggle away, and fast.

  They’d found a “softie,” another cherubic word devised to defang a troubling concept. A zombie’s body typically gave out about a year before its brain. This was of course contingent on natural constitution, the travails it had survived, and climate—a zombie in Louisiana putrefied a lot faster than one in Ontario, Regardless, once a zombie had fallen that final time, there was no getting up. Some might rock in place. Some could grind their jaws, All could watch you with white eyes that were more pleading than eerie. Most softies had the consistency of rotten melon; they were mucky, overripe, soft.

  And they were at the mercy of the living. A lowered boot heel could dispatch one. That was precisely why, Nishimura had argued four years back, Old Muddy residents should behave the opposite way, If they wanted the world to be better, they had to set the example, Greer wasn’t one for ideology, but she supposed it made sense, Most things Karl Nishimura said, no matter how tedious, did.

  The man in first position holstered the team’s gun and leaned down to make a closer assessment, then straightened and beckoned everyone closer.

  Greer grimaced, She’d known the man for three years, and still his face had the ability to shock. In fact, that’s what he was called: the Face. He refused to divulge his real name, or much about his life, prior to 10/23. His face, though, said plenty. It was a basket-weave of scar tissue from crown to neck. He had nice, salt-and-pepper hair but only in jagged stripes, sprouting from areas of scalp that hadn’t been peeled off. Glossy cicatrices sphinctered the flesh around each socket so that only dark, sparkling animal-eyes shone out. His nose was a knuckle-sized nub, its tip and one nostril sliced away. Deep scars whirlpooled into the center of his face—less a mouth than a gaping fissure. He had no lips, and the skin had healed to pale blisters sucking inward over his teeth, Only the periodic flit of his tongue interrupted the black void.

  The Face should have been a cruel name, but nothing in the new world was predictable. By calling himself the Face, the man claimed ownership over what couldn’t be ignored, forcing those who’d accepted so much horror over fifteen years to accept one thing more.

  Dealing with the Face’s face was never easy for Greer. But working with him was the definition of easy. He had a stunning voice, so expressive she’d asked him if he’d maybe been an audiobook narrator; as ever, he’d declined to respond. He was a man of staggering empathy, sincerity, and honesty. Almost as well known as his face was his utter inability to tell a lie; kids had a lot of fun with that. His capacity for deceit, it seemed, had been ripped away with his skin. Everyone loved the Face, including Greer. Looking at him was like looking at the sun: it hurt, even while it saturated you in warmth.

  The rest of the team moved toward the Face, Greer, by previous arrangement, stayed back to keep an eye out for surprises: the occasional inquisitive zombie, a mischief of zombie rats, the dreadful lope of a lone zombie dog. Nishimura, the busiest of bees, had already gotten started. He stood at the threshold of the doorway east of the softie; beyond him, inside the building, Greer could hear the shuffling of three or four zombies: crick-crack, crick-crack, crick-crack. Nishimura tipped his bucket until blood spattered out, followed by the smacks of horsemeat.

  Greer hated this part. It reminded her of a night of camping with Daddy and Conan when a grizzled coot had approached their campsite with a rifle and a bucket. Freddy Morgan went tense and apologetic: middle of nowhere, armed white man, no witnesses. But the guy was only headed out to leave slop for local black bears, thereby drawing them away from campers. Zombies didn’t crave horse like they craved human, but for unknown reasons, if given it, they’d pick it up, taste it, swallow some, and go still, as if it contained the THC that used to chill Greer out at Remy’s parties. In the unlikely event Slowtown had any quicker zombies around, spilled horsemeat would distract them long enough for the living to complete their softie recovery.

  Horses didn’t grow on trees, but Old Muddy’s accelerated husbandry efforts had grown their herd to some three hundred thick, as if, instead of peaceful farmers, they were a band of Comanche raiders. Great effort was spent on fencing them into cleared parks, growing and storing hay, and keeping them safe from natural predators. Still, they were amateurs. Horses died more often than they would on farms. When they did, their blood and meat was harvested and chilled to be used on outings like this, That’s when recovery jobs spiked. Zombies knew spoiled meat when they smelled it and turned up what was left of their noses.

  One of the women jogged to the doorway west of the softie to pour horsemeat from her own bucket. This was Charlie Rutkowski, and after Karl Nishimura, no one at Fort York was held in more esteem. Arriving only months after he had, she’d helmed several expeditions to acquire hard-to-find items the fort needed to make a real go of it. Greer, who’d gone on her share of missions, respected that. It took guts, a level head, and sharp instincts.

  One might guess Greer Morgan and Charlie Rutkowski would get along like a brush fire, but that wasn’t true. Their conversations were awkward, if not antagonistic. Greer blamed her own feelings of bullshit inadequacy, Charlie was pretty and idolized, and after her courageous quests, she’d forged an even more illustrious career by founding Hospice—the spine upon which Old Muddy was built.

  Greer watched Nishimura cede space in the weeds for Charlie to minister to the softie. Greer allowed herself a smirk, Just as Nishimura put pressure on Greer to act sharp, Charlie put pressure on Nishimura. Greer understood that’s how effective workplaces functioned, though too often she felt an eighteen-year-old’s knee-jerk disdain for authority, from anyone, of any kind.

  Nishimura was not himself today, no question. He permitted himself to be nudged aside as the others unloaded straps and buckles. Greer made a quick count of zombies to make sure none had advanced, then went back to watching Nishimura. What does a workhorse do when forced, for a few precious minutes, not to work? His eyes landed on Greer. Oh, shit, That’s what: get up in her business. He ambled over.

  “Morgan.” He nodded.

  He was ex-military, though Greer never remembered which branch, Honestly, she didn’t try. Nishimura’s bygone status only hardened her rebellious reaction. She gestured her chin at his dusty pack of Duracells.

  “Those double-As unopened?”

  “Affirmative.”

  “What are you planning to stick them in?”

  “I scrounged up this heat-stick gadget a while back. It’s like a cigarette lighter, I’ve always thought it would be a handy thing, if it worked.”

  “How exciting.”

  He gave her one of his patient, inscrutable looks, “I’m open to ideas.”

  “I’ve got a vibrator that doesn’t vibrate.”

  He blushed and Greer felt bad, Nishimura was too easy to embarrass.

  “I don’t know,” she sighed. “Some of the kids have ray guns that might light up and make noises. You could blow their minds.”

  “We probably shouldn’t encourage firearms.”

  So much for feeling bad. She groaned. “They’re not going to work anyway, Nothing we find out here works. Including them.” She gestured at the zombies struggling to lower their rickety bodies toward horsemeat puddles. It looked like a couple might never make it back up. “You know, pretty soon there’s not going to be any left to recover.”

  “That’s years off.”

  “Fine, a few years. Then what? If we can’t do your recoveries, what’s the point of the whole thing?”

  “They’re not my recoveries. They’re for all of us.”

  For a block of stone like Nishimura, this was touchy. Richard and the specter of the vo
te had him acting almost human.

  “All’s I’m saying,” Greer said, “is, you know, picking up softies—it’s the reason for the season and all that. I just wonder what comes next.”

  She waited for his frown; he had a whole tie rack of them. Instead, he smiled, Nishimura had to be closing in on sixty, old enough to be her daddy, On those rare occasions when she hadn’t been fucking up, Freddy Morgan had given her looks just like this. Greer huffed in derision. It only made Nishimura’s smile widen.

  “You remind me of someone,” he said, “A fighter pilot. I didn’t know her long, but she was the most fearless person I ever met.”

  “Let’s not go overboard here.”

  “I’m not trying to flatter you. This fighter pilot, before she died, said zombies were golems. You know what that is?”

  “Tolkien, right? Skinny guy, wanted a ring.”

  “According to this pilot, golems were monsters that rose up because we needed them. And what we needed them to do was wipe us out. One of the last things Jenny said was I had to tell people that. So we’d stop fighting them, I guess.”

  “And you believed her?”

  “At the time? No, Eventually, yes. How can we see all we’ve seen and not think that, in some ways, it’s all been for the best? A hard reset, For all I know, Jenny’s to credit for Fort York, Hospice, everything.”

  “And why do I get this special insight?”

  “Because you’re the tip of the spear, as we navy used to say.”

  “Sounds violent for a guy who’s against plastic ray guns.”

  “I only mean you’re out in front, You’re thinking of the future. That’s good. We relics won’t be around forever. Folks might mess it up again, and it’ll be up to people like you to remind everyone how we got there.”