Part of me hoped I had made a mistake, that somehow she was still alive, or maybe she had even been cured. A lot of crazy thoughts went through my head. I hoped that the government had made some cure and then dropped it from planes over the city and hadn’t told anyone. However, I was an experienced cop and knew what was really going on, despite how much I hated to admit it. She gripped my hand, shockingly strong. I really struggled to pull free. I backed off as she sat up in bed. It was like she was coming to a new awareness, as if she was discovering the world for the first time.
There was no recognition in her eyes. Just a sudden hunger there. She wanted to kill me. I left as she tripped over the bedsheets, stumbling to catch me. I closed the door behind me and locked it. For a long time I could hear her pounding on the door, then she seemed to settle down and only occasionally move around the room, unless she heard me in which case she tried to get out again.
For two days I didn’t know what to do. I don’t think I ate anything or drank during that time. I was lost within myself.
Then a knock came on the door. At first I thought it was Bethany again. My mind immediately rushed to the conclusion that somehow she was cured and now knocked to be let out of the bedroom. But the knock came from the front door.
I would have happily stayed sitting on the kitchen floor in a cold patch of sunlight if the person hadn’t been so insistent. Eventually I got to my feet, getting a head rush from having been sitting so long, and I fumbled towards the door. Normally I’m very careful about opening the front door, always cautious about home invasions, but this time I undid the three deadbolts without even looking to see who was on the other side.
It was my best friend, Rory. He was one of the few paramedics’ still working, making house calls on his motor bike. He looked haggard but also determined, the kind of man that would never give in and would keep on trying to save lives. He asked me how I was and I mumbled something, he spoke to me about how desperate it was outside, how there were almost no police left, how dangerous it had been just to visit me.
He stopped suddenly and asked me, “Where’s Bethany?”
I looked at him. I didn’t know what to say. Then Bethany began thumping on the bedroom door again, softly but urgently.
Rory looked to me, a frightened and puzzled look in his eyes, but my eyes were dead calm.
“She’s in there,” I said.
Rory crept closer to the bedroom door, “Beth? Are you okay? It’s Rory. I just came to see how you’re both doing.”
He tried the door handle. It was locked.
He turned to face me and I was right there beside him. I looked him in the eyes for a moment. Then I undid the lock and opened the door.
Rory walked through into the dark bedroom. It was hard to make out much except for the sheets twisted off the bed onto the floor.
“Beth?” he said.
There was a sound somewhere in the dark of Beth moving and I closed the door, locking it. For a moment there was no other sound. Then Rory began screaming, loudly. I leaned with my back against the door as I listened to my best friend die.
[Lewis looks thoughtfully at the handcuffs on his wrists. He is no longer a police officer, instead Lewis has been a prisoner at the police station for years. His charge is murder.]
Moments later there was silence and it was as if I was awaking from a dream. The full realisation of what I had done just hit me –not only had I been concealing a dangerous ghoul from the authorities I had also allowed my best friend to die. I was in no position to judge anyone else who kept their dead relatives at home.
I resolved then and there to end this. I opened the door and there was Beth, a horrible zombie version of her, standing in the doorway with blood on her chin. I stood with my hands by my side, determined to be with her, either in the afterlife or as a zombie. The front door was locked so there was little chance of us getting out to harm the rest of the world.
My beloved Kitten looked at me as if surprised I would voluntarily let her out. Those frightening eyes filled my vision. She was very close, I could hear the raspy sound of her low growl. I hoped the end wouldn’t be too painful, but after what I had let happen to Rory, a hero who was badly needed in these dark times, it was what I deserved.
She threw her arms around my neck and pressed her lips to my face. I thought she was attacking me and I fought to restrain my own survival instincts. But no, this was her clumsy approximation of a kiss.
Then I understood –there was a feint trace of Bethany in there, she seemed to realise that I would bring her food and for that reason it was worth keeping me alive. As long as I fed her I was safe. I held her at arm’s length, scrutinising every detail. The aggression was gone, she wasn’t agitated with me like she had been with Rory. If I kept her fed, why . . . all I had to do was keep her fed.
There was a whole city of people with miserable, frightened lives who would better serve as food for my girlfriend.
I laughed. Touching her face lightly with my fingertips. Joy filled me, I was delirious to be reunited with the love of my life. She only looked back at me calmly.
“Beth,” I said, “You’re back.”
NEW YORK CITY, NEW YORK
Central Park
Interviewer: Susanne L. Lambdin
INTERVIEW 8:
The famous park looks beautiful. You imagine after the War against the living dead that it would have burned along with most of the city. I am seated beside Lobo, a leader of a gang called the Night Breed. His black hair is shaggy, not a shred of fat on his lean body, and his eyes are curiously slanted. I find little comfort in the presence of two police officers in navy blue who slowly walk along the sidewalk. They too seem interested in Lobo.
Not many people are in the park today. Do you find people many people returning to the Big Apple?
It’s not like it was before . . . before the dead walked. You won’t find any graves, not in this park, or anywhere else in this city. I heard they might build a memorial, but millions died, and who wants to spend the time listing everyone who died? It would take years to come up with such a list. Families are still looking for lost loved ones they will never find. If you go into the subways and walk the tunnels, you can still find skeletons.
That’s where you were, isn’t it, when the outbreak occurred?
You’re not quite as morbid as the last reporter I met with. All she wanted to know was how many people I killed, where I hid the bodies, and if I kept any mementoes. I offered to take her on the B train, where I was the day rioting broke out, but she said she’d heard the horror stories about the subways. She was too afraid to walk the tunnels with me. Not much of a reporter if you ask me. If you want to see what happened, then I’ll be glad to take you down there.
This bench is fine. Maybe later. Just tell me about yourself.
I’m from the Bronx and grew up near Minerva Place where they have big rocks that weren’t fenced off back then. Everyone called them the Red Rocks, and when I was a kid, my friends and I would climb on top of them and howl at the night sky. My family was poor so I’d have to steal a bike to ride with my friends. We’d ride down University Avenue to a park to hang out at Fort No. 4. It dates back to the Revolutionary War, built near another large outcropping . . . we liked to climb rocks. But I wanted to get out of the Bronx, and when I was seventeen, I left home. I got a job making pizzas uptown where I shared a room over the restaurant with five other guys. Eventually, I ended up owning the restaurant, about ten years later, but the rent was too high. I needed money so I burned the place down and collected the insurance money.
I met a woman, Marge, from Brooklyn soon after. I moved into her place over in Flatbush, on Church Avenue, where we lived for eight years. I couldn’t keep a job, but I always had a knack for stealing things, so I paid the bills by lifting wallets out of the back pockets of tourists. Marge finally got sick of me, threatened to toss me out, so I had to resolve the problem. I won’t say what happened to her, but when she was gone, my old friend
s from Minerva Place moved in with me. Stan, Frank, Antonio and Gaslight were guys I could depend on. Gaslight was big, an intimidating SOB, but he could spin a story to any tourist and get them to go where he wanted. We’d always be waiting, take what we wanted, and leave our prey stuffed in a trashcan.
Alive?
[He smiles at me – his teeth are very white and large.]
Anyway, one night I was to meet up with a guy in the Upper West Side of Manhattan. My friends and I were hanging out at Coney Island when I got the call. This guy owed me over eight thousand bucks, so I decided it was worth the hassle to get over there. So, we headed to the station to catch the D. In the summer, the temperature is hot and humid, and what little air was in the car barely circulated. The subways are supposed to be air conditioned, but I guess it wasn’t working, and it felt like an oven in that car.
Was anyone else riding the subway?
It was late at night and the only other person in the car was an old woman wearing a long coat, a hat and sunglasses. She just sat there during the ride, her chin to her chest, and I had the feeling something was wrong with her. Folks were coming down with the flu left and right. The hospitals were overcrowded, and the Mayor had told people to wear masks in public, but we didn’t bother with that crap. None of us were sick, only Frank had a soft spot for the elderly; I guess it’s because his grandmother raised him. He approached the old woman and tapped on her shoulder. She suddenly grabbed Frank and took a bite out of his hand. Gaslight did what a good friend would do and shot the crazy bitch twice in the chest. But that didn’t stop her. That crazy woman moved fast and came after Frank right before the train came to a jarring stop. The motorman announced there were people in the tunnel, so he just stopped near Fulton Street, and the door opened. Antonio pushed the old woman aside so we climb out. As we made our way through the tunnel, I turned back and spotted the old woman tackle the motorman to the ground. I’m telling you, she was rabid, that old bird, and none of us was going to go back to help him.
I didn’t know then what she was, or that Frank was infected, so we wrapped his hand with a bandana. The lights in the tunnel kept flickering on and off. I didn’t know what was going on, but Antonio got spooked when we ran into thousands of rats headed in our direction. The rats must have known Frank was bleeding because they swarmed over him. We had to leave him behind to make a run for it to the platform, and that’s when we spotted a mob of people coming down the tunnel. They were sort of shambling down the tracks, so we knew something was wrong with them. Now and then one of them touched the third rail, and you’d hear a zap and then sizzling sounds. It was a gruesome sight - their skin turned gray and steam rolled out their nostrils, but the rest kept right on towards us.
What did you do then?
Well, we naturally thought it was the ‘mole people.’ They are nothing but bums and junkies who live in abandoned and forgotten substations and tunnels. At first, we didn’t think much of it, and decided they were trying to get away from the rats. Even from a distance, I could see they were covered with blood, and some were eating rats. We wanted to ditch those freaks, and fast, and made it out of the station.
In all the confusion, I thought it best to walk across the Brooklyn Bridge. It’s then we noticed a fire raged in uptown Manhattan, and the sky lit up bright orange. You could see choppers in the sky, along with smoke, and a crowd of frightened people headed across the bridge back toward Brooklyn. A line of cars had come to a stop on the bridge, and you could hear horns honking, people shouting and screaming, and a few cops trying to maintain order. People crawled over the roofs and hoods of the cars and taxis, anxious to get out of Manhattan, and it seemed like a good idea to follow them. But this guy owed me a lot of money, so I wasn’t about to turn back.
It took about 45 minutes to make it across the bridge. When we reached City Hall we ran right into a police barricade. Rioters were trying to reach City Hall and the cops were firing into the crowd. We fought our way through the crowd, trying to reach Broadway, hoping to catch the R - that’s when the lights went out. The rioters were throwing bricks at store windows and looting. Antonio wanted to hit a few stores, but Stan and Gaslight didn’t want any part of that nightmare. No matter what direction we looked, people headed toward City Hall, but they didn’t look right . . . they were messed up, like they’d been in a battle, covered with blood, and seemed intent on taking a bite out of us.
I suppose you know that Manhattan was ‘ground zero.’ A soldier returning from Afghanistan was the first person to come down with the H1N1z virus. He died three days later, only to rise from the morgue and bite a doctor. That’s how the virus spread so fast. You were right in the middle of it, Lobo.
No shit, sweetheart. I wasn’t about to be bitten by one of those zombies. My friends and I had guns, and we weren’t afraid to use them. We got anyone who got in our way, trying to reach Chambers Street. At this point I knew going uptown was suicide and our best chance of staying alive was reaching the Holland Tunnel. I thought if we could steal a cab we might be able to get out of Manhattan. I wasn’t about to back down to the subway. SoHo was burning like a Christmas tree, and so was everything north of us, and Gaslight convinced me we should head to Liberty Island. He thought if we could get to the stop of Old Lady Liberty, we’d be able to see what was going on, and maybe hold off those zombies.
We turned south on Church Street but I was tired from running and Gaslight was limping. He said the rats had taken a few nips out of his right leg, which was bleeding, but I had a feeling he was lying. Turns out, I was right. A zombie had taken a bite out of his leg only he didn’t let on. Stan took pity on Gaslight. He pointed out a cop car in the middle of the street with its lights on. A cop sat behind the wheel with the door open. He was still human, and he was scared, and aimed his shotgun right at us. I approached the cop, told him who we were, and he let us climb into the backseat. That crazy son-of-a-bitch turned on the siren and blazed a path down Church Street toward Bowling Green. Even if we wanted to head to the piers at Battery Park City we’d never have made it due to the sheer numbers of zombies. All we could do was head toward the South Ferry, at the tip of Manhattan, and hope we’d find a ferry still waiting. It seemed like a longshot, but one we were willing to take, and as there were fewer cars on the road it seemed like our chances were good.
What happened next?
Other folks had the same idea but the cop didn’t bother to slow down. He ran right over people, even those who stopped to flag him down. Blood splattered on the windshield, and using the wipers made it worse. Somehow, we made it to the pier. We could see Whitehall Station was on fire and made our way down to the water to see if anything was floating. We could see the big orange ferry out in the water, burning, and people jumping into the water. But we were in luck. A private yacht was just pulling away from the pier that we managed to board. It wasn’t supposed to be there, but the captain had wanted to avoid other boats on the Hudson River, trying to leave at the same time, and wanted to avoid a bottleneck further south. He and his wife were the only ones on the yacht. They took us to Liberty Island, but when they saw folks swimming from the burning ferry to the island, they got spooked and left us at the pier. I don’t know what happened to them. We followed the cop to the Statue of Liberty. No one living was on the island, only zombies, and we fought our way to the door.
Once we got inside we locked the door. In the dark we climbed the winding staircase, three hundred steps, to reach the crown. We found a woman and her two children hiding up there and from the windows watched Manhattan burning.
Did anyone else make it to Liberty Island?
Folks from the ferry who made it to the island gathered outside. If they were human they didn’t remain that way for long. No other boats stopped to let folks off and we could see a procession headed down the Hudson River.
When did Antonio turn?
When we reached the top Antonio tried to grab a kid. The cop shot him in the head and Stan and I tossed him out the wind
ow. We stayed there for several days, until the Coast Guard arrived . . . we hung a shirt out the window to flag them down.
However, you were infected, weren’t you?
That happened later.
How?
You’ve heard of the Wolves of Wall Street. Well, if you wanted to stay in New York, you could either join them or evacuate. Gaslight, Stan and I decided to stay in the city, so we joined the pack. If you want to know the details, then why don’t we meet later tonight? There is going to be a full moon.
I think I have all I need for a good story, Lobo. Maybe another time.
Suit yourself, but be warned. The Night Breed owns this city, and I’m the leader of the pack. The War isn’t over, not by a long shot.
[The two cops stop and stare at me. I intend to leave New York just as soon as possible, print my story, and warn others to stay away.]
IVANOFRANKOVSK, UKRAINE
Interviewer: Mick Franklin
Interview 9:
The Ukraine hasn’t truly been independent since the 14th century. It was part of Russia, part of Lithuania and part of Poland. Washington came close to taking over the Ukraine in 2004. Their goal was to try and reduce Russia’s power against the US by stationing missile bases on the Ukrainian border with Russia. On the world stage this would only really have left China as a significant opponent. I sit opposite the young woman Ulya in a small cafe.
Can you give us some background to the political problems facing the Ukraine before the War?
Under the Soviets millions of Ukrainian people starved when socialism was inflicted upon us. This despite the Ukraine being known as “the bread basket of Europe” due to our incredibly fertile soil. The Soviet Russian occupation was even more brutal than that of the Nazis.
I remember the statues in the courtyard of my school, put there when the Soviets were running our country. The funny thing is all the statues got preserved –all the statues to Nazis and Communists. We never tore them down. They were a constant reminder of our past.
Zombie War: Interviews From The Frontline Page 7
