Still of Night

by Jonathan Maberry

  “God almighty,” she heard someone breath and Dahlia turned to see the black man who’d fought with the loudmouth. John, she thought his name was.

  “What is it?” asked Jumper. “What am I seeing?”

  John pointed. “It’s black blood,” he said, and when Neeko didn’t seem to get it, the man explained. “His clothes are covered with zombie blood.”

  A second person came out of the woods, and this one wore painter’s coveralls, similarly smeared with infected blood, and a similar head covering. He too was blowing a whistle.

  “Oh . . . shit,” said Dahlia. She and John exchanged a frightened, knowing glance. They knew what was coming. Five more of the Rovers came out of the woods, each of them dressed similarly. Then ten more. More and more. They were spaced out in a wide line at least two hundred yards wide. All of them blowing whistles. Some of them walking backward and waving their arms.

  “What are they . . . ?” asked someone, but the words trailed off as the whole front of the forest suddenly trembled and the dead came stumbling, walking, shambling, lumbering into the sunlight. Following the whistles.

  Dahlia’s mouth went dry.

  This was not an army.

  This was an ocean of the hungry dead.

  She wanted to scream. She wanted to turn and run through the town, climb the rear wall and run away.

  Instead she looked up and down the length of the wall. Everyone stood staring in shock. In terror. In helplessness.

  Smaller groups of Rovers, similarly dressed, came out of the woods along a game trail. They were pushing big green carts on fat, low-pressure tires. Dahlia recognized the carts as the kind used at a chain of big home and garden centers. She squinted through the sun glare and tried to make out what the carts were filled with. Bottles . . . ? No, it was worse than that. Each bottle had a piece of cloth stuffed into its mouth, with the edges bouncing as the carts rolled over the uneven ground. Dahlia fished for the word for this, but John supplied it.

  “Holy god,” said the man. “Molotov cocktails. They’re going to burn us out.”

  The Rovers pushed the carts forward, running between masses of the dead. A few zombies took weak swipes at them, but the black gore on their clothes kept the Rovers safe from any real attack.

  More and more of the dead poured out of the forest. There had to be a couple thousand of them. This was no random attack. That was obvious. The Rovers must have been planning this for a long time. Gathering supplies, working out details, and meticulously planning the siege. She could hear the people on the walls begin to buzz with nervous chatter.

  “Hold fast,” she bellowed. “The dead can’t climb the walls. We got this. We . . . ”

  Her words faltered as another group of Rovers walked out of the surging mass of the dead. There were five of them in protective clothes smeared with infected blood. Untouched. Unmolested by the monsters because they, too, smelled dead. They ran in a knot, outpacing the zombies and the Rovers pushing the carts as they dashed toward the walls. Two of them carried rifles, but Dahlia didn’t care about that. It was the other three that really scared her. They carried larger weapons, running with them in both hands. Like oversized rifles but with a big bulbous thing sticking out of the barrel. Dahlia knew what they were. She’d seen movies. She’d watched news footage of the wars in Iraq and Syria and Afghanistan.

  She knew what a rocket propelled grenade was.

  Just as she knew that the walls of Happy Valley were not built to withstand that kind of attack.

  Not one chance in hell.

  — 43 —

  THE WARRIOR WOMAN, THE SOLDIER, AND THE DOG

  I didn’t think a straight run to town was the smart move. Turns out I was right, but not for the reasons I thought.

  The obvious danger was packs of Rovers. That would have been bad enough, but when there were brief pauses in the sounds of whistles we heard something else. Actually, Baskerville smelled it first and went rigid with tension. We stopped, crouching on either side of him, listening.

  There it was.

  The moans. It was like a wave of sound that seemed to come from everywhere. Birds fled from the trees and escaped into the western skies. A pair of deer bolted from within a nest of fallen branches and ran like mad past us. Squirrels chittered as they ran from tree to tree. Everything that lived in these woods and had enough intelligence to be frightened was fleeing. The moans, and the dark intent implied by that sound, seemed to chase them.

  “God,” breathed Rachael. “Orcs.”

  “A whole goddamn lot of them,” I agreed.

  Suddenly the woods transformed from being a cloud of relative safety inside which we could hide and move, to a cloth of sickness into which we were sewn as fragile threads. I checked my ammunition. Two full magazines and a third with seven rounds. Rachael had a shotgun from one of the townies, but it was a single shot version and there were four rounds plus one in the breech. Not enough for a war, and too loud to risk using.

  I tapped her shoulder and we moved off. Every now and then we caught glimpses of the horde—that’s the only word that really fit—and it chilled us.

  “How can there be this many of them?” asked Rachael as we ran. “And why are they all heading toward the town?” Then she raised her head as a fresh burst of whistles filled the air. “Oh,” she said, then amended it. “Oh god.”

  Happy Valley was in deep shit. We’d started out thinking we were going to be able to help. Now it seemed as if all we’d be able to do was maybe bury the dead.

  — 44 —

  HAPPY VALLEY

  “Down!” screamed Dahlia as she dove for cover. John and Neeko and the others scrambled away, tripping and falling. People flung themselves from the walls, landing hard on the ground ten feet below.

  There was a sharp, rising sound like steam escaping from a boiling kettle and then the whole top part of the wall seemed to lift itself from the structure of reality and fly through the air. A massive red flower of superheated gas bloomed, spreading burning petals arching into the town. Trees caught fire and people screamed as fiery debris landed on them, igniting clothes and hair.

  For Dahlia the world went red and then black as she lost herself for a moment. Seconds? Longer? When she opened her eyes, she was still on the wall, but she was alone. Her ears rang with a sound like an electronic wail and her hair was burning. She panicked, swatting at it, slapping her scalp, her face.

  “Ne—Neeko . . . ?” she croaked, but if there was an answer she could not hear it. The noise in her ears was too loud. It took her a thousand years to climb to her feet. Hot smoke scorched her lungs and every breath rubbed her throat raw. “Neeko,” she screamed.

  A figure moved in the smoke. Blackened and unreal. Staggering as it moved toward her. Shambling. It was Neeko sized and Neeko shaped, and it moved with artless clumsiness like one of the dead things. It reached for her with gray hands.

  Dahlia backed away. Of all the horrors in her world, she could not bear this. Not Neeko. Not him.

  She saw his lips move but there were no words.

  “No . . . ” she begged.

  Dahlia drew her kukri knife and tried to brace against a kind of pain that could not be endured. Neeko stumbled toward her.

  She raised the knife.

  A voice rang out. Harsh, and loud enough to punch through the incessant ringing in her ears.

  “No!” roared Mr. Church.

  Dahlia turned to see him come striding toward her, a pistol in one hand, his tinted glasses gone, dark eyes filled with pain and concern. Neeko turned toward him and reached for him instead.

  And Old Man Church wrapped his free arm around the little scout’s shoulders and pulled him close.

  “You’re okay, son,” said the old man. “You’re okay.”

  Neeko clung to him, and Dahlia saw that he was alive. She had not been able to hear him speak because of the ringing. His skin was gray because he was covered with dust. She staggered over and nearly tore him away from Church and kiss
ed him and then crushed the boy to her chest. Then she looked around. Others were not so lucky.

  Down on the street level, a Latina who had been one of the helpers manning the wall was struggling to rise, but it was clear the fall had killed her. A huge piece of jagged masonry stood out from between her breasts and her eyes were empty of everything. The black man, John, was backing away from her, shaking his head. Unwilling in the moment to accept it.

  Church raised his pistol and shot the woman through the forehead. She puddled down into true death. And John stood there, still shaking his head, tears glistening in his eyes.

  Dahlia turned away. The damage to the wall was significant. The RPG had struck a few feet from the top and it was as if a giant had bitten a half-moon shaped chunk out of the peach stucco and cinderblock. The gap was eight feet wide and a yard deep, which meant the bottom edge of it was only seven feet from the ground. An easy climb for a man. If all those dead crammed the walls, the ones in front would be crushed and the others would simply crawl or climb over them to get in. Plus there was a pile of debris at the foot of the wall. In effect, there was no real defense.

  “God, look,” said one of the remaining guards on the wall. She did. The Rovers were aiming a second rocket-propelled grenade.

  “Down,” she cried, and they all leapt from the wall as the missile tore through the air and detonated. It struck fifteen feet to the right and struck in the middle of the wall, blowing a hole clean through. The gap was only three feet high, but there were cracks all around it.

  “Get everyone back to their jobs,” Church said to Dahlia. “Keep them busy. Stick to the plan.”

  “We didn’t plan for rocket launchers,” she gasped. “How—?”

  “Stick to the plan,” he said again, leaning into it. “We need people on every wall. We need to find every possible weapon. You thought it through, Dahlia, now see it through.”

  “But . . . what are you going to do?”

  “Buy you some time,” Church said. “We can’t take too many more hits.” He looked around and spotted an armed helper running for the wall. “You! Your gun. Now.”

  The man skidded to a stop and looked doubtfully at the white-haired old man. “You even know how to use this?”

  Church took it from him without answering. It was a sturdy Weatherby Vanguard RC bolt-action hunting rifle with a twenty-four-inch barrel. He checked the loads and found that he had only three .300 Winchester Magnum bullets.

  “Is there more ammunition?”

  “Took it from one of the townies,” said the man. “He didn’t have any extra rounds on him.”

  “Find more or find me another rifle,” ordered Church as he climbed to a spot between the two breeches. Out on the field the Rovers in protective clothing were still blowing their whistles while the forest continued to vomit forth the dead in an unending stream. They were all coming from the sections of the forest where the Rovers themselves had emerged, suggestive of them having followed the whistles like the children of Hamelin following the Pied Piper. He frowned because there was something about that process that seemed wrong to him.

  First things first.

  He crouched behind an unbroken section of wall, propped his elbow on the top and leaned into the stock as he sighted his target. One of the Rovers was crabbing sideways to get a better angle on the wall twenty feet to the left of where the first grenade had hit. His frown deepened because it a was poor choice of targets. Whether the Rovers themselves wanted to invade the town or if they intended the dead to be a forlorn hope, it was a bad choice of target when you wanted to break down a wall.

  If, in fact, that was their plan at all.

  Time to sort it out later. Church sighted through the deer-hunter’s scope and drew his bead. Then he fired, leaning in to take the shot, keeping the weapon steady. He exhaled and squeezed the trigger just as the Rover was pulling his. The heavy bullet struck the launcher’s metal tube and ricocheted along the weapon, exploding the fingers of the man holding it and then glancing off to punch a red hole through his lower lip and out through his cheek. The Rover screamed and his finger jerked the trigger, but the launcher spun and twisted as he fell and the grenade went skittering and hissing across the grass toward the oncoming tide of bodies. It struck the ankle of one of the Rovers in bloody coveralls and exploded, flinging red rags across the faces of the dead.

  The zombies went mad with the smell and taste of fresh meat and suddenly the driving herd was a disordered mess. The Rovers with the bloody clothes and whistles had to back sharply away from clutching hands. Two Rovers were splashed with blood from their dead companion and they vanished beneath a wave of the dead.

  Closer to the wall, several of the zombies turned to rush at the man Church had shot. The bullet had done terrible damage, but he was alive. However, he was splashed with his own blood, as were the others in the RPG team. A dozen zombies swarmed over them, driven wild by the smell and sight of fresh human blood. It trumped the nullifying effect of the zombie blood on their clothes. Church watched this with a cold eye, noting the effect and nodding to himself.

  He worked the bolt and shifted the rifle to another target—a pair of Rovers leading a huge mass of zombies—and fired a single shot. He aimed for a stomach shot and hit the Rover just off center. With only muscle and organs to punch through, the bullet went all the way through the first Rover and into the groin of the second. Lots of blood.

  The effect was immediate and appalling. The zombies following the Rovers went from a shambling mass drawn only by the whistles and became a pack of predators sparked to frenzy by blood. They fell on the wounded Rovers and even from that distance Church could hear the screams.

  He shifted and used his last round to get a similar gory effect on the left flank of the assault.

  ***

  Dahlia stood watching from the wall and was amazed at the effect of three carefully chosen shots. It was surgical, calculated, and horrible. But it was perfect, too, because now the attack was in total confusion.

  What disturbed her, though, was the complete lack of emotion on the old man’s face. He was not only an excellent shot, but ice cold, too. No flicker of human emotion showed at all as he caused people to die in awful ways. She wondered if that was something she should aspire to, or something she should fear.

  — 45 —

  THE WARRIOR WOMAN, THE SOLDIER, AND THE DOG

  We could see daylight through the trees and I signaled Rachael to stay low and be very quiet. She moved well, and we crept to the edge of the forest. Up ahead were three people dressed in what looked like white hazmat suits covered with black muck. There were no obvious rents or tears in their clothing and they moved with the coordination of living men, not the awkwardness of the dead. Baskerville sniffed and looked uncertainly from them to me and back.

  I waved Rachael to a spot behind a tree and held a finger to my lips. She nodded and crouched, still but ready. I gave a hand signal to Baskerville to circle and take up a flanking position. While he was doing that I crept forward for a better look.

  The three people in the white suits were struggling with a big plastic cart. The left rear wheel had come off and they were trying to fix it without the use of any tools. There was a lot of cursing. Dead people don’t curse. Their language was very colorful and included descriptions of improbable sexual acts that would have been both gymnastic, humiliating, and painful. I caught one comment, though, that told me who they were.

  “Big Elroy’s going to have your balls,” said one of them.

  “Yeah, well fuck your mama with a donkey dick,” was the reply. “Are you going to help me with this thing or not?”

  Ah. Rovers. Nice people. Bet they’re great at family picnics with Grandma and all the kids.

  The fact that Rovers were here, dressed like this, and splashed with zombie blood made a lot of things make sense. The whistles and moans had a clear logic to them now. It was a smart plan, and there was a damn good chance it would work, especially considering how
goddamn stupid the people manning the walls of the town were last time I checked.

  I shifted around so I could see past them, and my heart sank. Out in the field between the forest and the town was a fucking war. Other Rovers, dressed just like these three, were leading masses of zombies toward the town. The walls of the town were smoking and there were two big holes. How had the Rovers accomplished that level of damage?

  The answer came with the sound of a gunshot. A heavy-caliber rifle. I took out my binoculars and saw zombies swarming over a badly-injured man. Other men stood with him and they carried shoulder-mounted RPGs. Well, hell. That wasn’t good. From the carnage around them, though, it was clear someone from the town had returned fire and the fresh blood had trumped the protective clothing. Either a lucky accident or a smart plan.

  There was a second shot, and a third. In each case the victim was wounded rather than killed. In both cases there was a lot of damn blood, and that’s not a happy thing for them when you’re surrounded by an army of flesh-eating ghouls. I watched with some amusement as the living dead tore into the wounded Rovers, and anyone else splashed with their blood. I waited for more shots from the walls, but there were none.

  Even so, whoever had fired those shots was a cold and clever bastard. Shame he or she was a resident of Happy Valley. It’s hard to admire talent in someone who is otherwise a total rat bastard.

  The three Rovers near me were watching all this, too.

  “Shit,” said one of them. “Those dead cocksuckers are going batshit.”

  “No,” said another, pointing. “The handlers are working them. See?”

  And it was true. The flurry of murder did not last long, and from what I could tell it accounted for only about eight or ten of the Rovers. There were many others, and they ran along the ragged lines of the dead, blowing their whistles and shoving them toward the town. I saw several more carts like the one near me, and some of the Rovers were reaching into them and removing bottles. One person at each cart lit something—a torch of some kind—and the other Rovers leaned toward the flames, lighting cloth streamers stuffed into the necks. Molotov cocktails without a doubt. Then they ran and hurled the bottles, smashing them onto the ground. The oil or alcohol in each splashed out and the flames leaped up.