Wanderers

by Chuck Wendig

Ahead, Pete Corley only sang louder—pointing the neck of his guitar at Weyland as he led the shepherds and the flock closer and closer.

  Twenty yards.

  Ten.

  And now the line was broken. The soldiers stepped aside to let the walkers pass, thank God, because if they hadn’t, and the walkers started to pop pop pop…

  Even still, the army men looked spooked as the sleepwalkers surged past. Shana’s heart leapt into her throat and lodged there like a piece of meat. All it would take is one soldier to lift a rifle, twitch a finger…

  Arav let go of her hand.

  She thought, No, don’t.

  But then he took something out of her pocket and put it into her empty palm—

  It was her phone.

  Also, her camera.

  “Do what you do,” he said.

  And she did, just as it all truly began. She lifted the phone and flipped to the camera app, snapping a pic just as Dale Weyland said: “All right, let’s do this.” He circled his finger in the air like a looping lasso. Click.

  The dam broke.

  The soldiers converged upon them. Hands reaching. Rifles at the ready. Many held a white plastic cord in their hands—zip-ties, Shana realized. Easy makeshift handcuffs. They’re really doing this. Idly she thought about the weapon in her backpack. The gun.

  Instead, she lifted her other weapon, the camera, and began shooting.

  * * *

  —

  THE CDC TRAILER was fast being left behind by the walker flock. Through the window it was impossible to see what was happening—so, instead, Benji and the others climbed out of the trailer windows and onto the roof.

  Weyland released the hounds. The soldiers waded into the fray, reaching for shepherds—he watched as some of the shepherds pulled away, using the walker flock as both shield and obstacle. A crass move, maybe, one that might play cowardly on TV, but Benji understood it—the soldiers were under orders not to interact with the walkers. And they knew what everyone else knew: The walkers, if impeded, would blow. So they were ginger around them, which made them all the more effective as shields.

  Other shepherds, though, went willingly. Chins up, yelling as they were plucked from the flock and dragged off to the side where they were processed fast—zip-tied and left on the side of the road.

  In the chaos Benji saw Pete Corley, who deftly sidestepped soldiers left and right, almost like he was dancing with them, his guitar a partner forever cutting in. He looked manic and mad, an anarchist’s gleam flashing in his eyes like fireworks.

  But Benji’s heart fell ill watching it all.

  He shared a sad look with Sadie and Cassie, and then looked back at his phone, waiting for it to ring. For Loretta to call and to tell him they were pulling back, that Homeland Security’s reign was so brief as to be a footnote. But the call did not come.

  I made a terrible mistake encouraging this, he thought. He would pay for it, he knew, but worse was how they would all pay for it. Shepherds, flock, soldiers, and all.

  What have I done?

  * * *

  —

  MARCY WALKED OFF to the side, watching the clash between soldier and shepherd unfold, as if in slow motion. At present, neither side was particularly aggressive—each playing cat and mouse with the other. The soldiers waded into the shepherds. The shepherds feinted and moved in the midst of the flock. The soldiers were trepidatious, but for the shepherds, this was their home turf; the flock of sleepwalkers was their landscape.

  Part of her wanted to race in and help.

  I’m a shepherd, too, she thought.

  Wasn’t she?

  Now she wasn’t so sure.

  They had rejected her. Told her she did not belong. And Marcy feared they were right. Though she saw the glow of the sleepwalkers—a glow nobody else seemed to see—she felt like an observer, like someone outside a house looking in through the window at a family enjoying dinner, or game night, or a movie on the television.

  Worse, she wasn’t the type to go against a soldier. She had the greatest respect for the men and women of the armed services; she’d thought about joining herself, but her family was a cop family through and through, blue in their blood and badges for hearts. All the same, to go against the defenders of American law and order…it made her sick just to think about.

  So she kept walking. And watching. And waiting for it to get worse.

  Which it was about to do.

  * * *

  —

  INSIDE, CORLEY WAS a house on fire, all the cats and children running out of the open doors as the whole thing threatened to collapse in on itself. He was panic and mania, he was sweat and piss, he was in his mind running for the hills like the fucking roadrunner chased by that fuckwit coyote.

  Outside, Corley knew eyes were on him. The cameras watched. Somewhere, Landry did, too. And his wife. And his children.

  And Elvis.

  (Prick wanker fuck.)

  So he mugged for the media. He stuck out his tongue. He strummed the guitar and juggled a pair of middle fingers between power cords. He did a lanky, janky polecat tango as he got up in the faces of one soldier after the next, ducking their swipes as they came for him. He shuffled backward in a half-assed moonwalk, merging with the flock of walkers and their shepherd attendants. He laughed and spit and strutted. He was anarchy and power, he was the dance and the dissent, he was fire and fuck-you, motherfucker.

  And then, it happened. Elbows out, he spun away from one soldier only to knock into a second one who had come up behind him.

  He thought, Yeah, go on, put your hands on me in front of all of America—hell, all of the bloody world!

  Rough hands spun him around.

  The soldier—a boy with cherub cheeks flecked with fresh stubble—came at him. Rifle up. Not the barrel end. The other end—the stock.

  The butt of the rifle stabbed out.

  Crack.

  Pete’s head rocked back. The dark behind his eyes lit up with paparazzi flashbulbs—he could see his own veins forking like lightning. His left heel caught his right, and next thing he knew he was dropping down hard on his assbone. Pain grappled up his spine as a knee caught him in the chin. He tasted blood. His tongue felt fat. The back of his head hit the pavement. A boot pressed down on him—no, not on him, but on the guitar pressed against his chest, and he struggled to yell out, No, no, you fucking animals, that’s a Taylor custom guitar—it’s made of Hawaiian koa wood, it blooms and sings in the mid-range like a chorus of gossiping angels, and the bridge has a climbing vine inlay, the damn guitar is sweet like honey and Tahitian vanilla. But then the bridge snapped off it with the sound of a bone breaking, and the Elixir-brand strings jangled and twanged as they unmoored from the bridge. Another foot connected with the side of his head and once again he saw stars streaking and veins illuminating in X-ray pulses—

  For a moment, too, he thought they must be shooting at him.

  He saw more throbs of light above him. Flash, flash, flash.

  But then, just before blackness dragged him down, he saw.

  A girl, a teen girl, standing above him.

  Her phone out.

  Pointed at him. Taking photos. Flash on.

  And then with one last flash came the deep and unabiding dark, welcoming him home, a fitting end.

  * * *

  —

  MARCY WATCHED THE rock-and-roller go down. She knew who he was, though she didn’t much care for Gumdropper’s music—the 1980s were a wasteland of music, and Marcy was a child of the 1990s, anyhow, with Nirvana and Smashing Pumpkins and Soundgarden—but just the same, seeing the rifle strike out and knock him to the road…

  Her stomach lurched.

  The soldiers know what they’re doing, she thought. Maybe Corley did something she couldn’t see—maybe he struck first. She didn’t kno
w. Couldn’t tell. From over here, off to the side, she didn’t have much of a vantage point, and the media was crowding around the edges, trying to film the conflict as it unfolded. Then she saw the girl.

  Shana. Sister to the first sleepwalker.

  She was right up there at the front. Camera in her hand.

  Capturing the hit on Corley.

  Then capturing his fall, too—he tumbled to the ground. Soldiers kicked out, broke his guitar. She heard the sound of it—it was notable, because the song he was singing and strumming ended suddenly in the jangly-tangle of strings and the snap of wood. Crack.

  All the while, the girl kept capturing it. Pointing her phone, taking shots, even making video, Marcy didn’t know. Corley cried out and then was silenced.

  Is he dead?

  Then a soldier reached for the girl.

  A big soldier, broad shoulders and pig-pug nose, reached out and grabbed at Shana’s phone with a wide hand. His fingers wrapped tighter around it. The girl struggled. He pulled harder. Then the two of them were lost to Marcy behind a fresh wall of news cameras and reporters.

  Uncertainty raged inside Marcy, a brushfire of conflicting feelings. Yes, she believed in law and order. Damn right she was a supporter of the military and its servicemen and servicewomen. But part of the law was a support for the First Amendment. For the freedom to gather and to speak out. That girl—just a girl, mean as she was to Marcy—was just taking pictures. Wasn’t violent. Wasn’t doing something she wasn’t supposed to do. Hell, Marcy would argue she was doing exactly what she was supposed to do, exercising her freedom of expression in a troubled time.

  “To hell with this,” Marcy said, and hard-charged into the fray.

  * * *

  —

  MY PHONE!

  The soldier sneered at her, yanking on her wrist to bring her close—in one hand he had a set of zip-ties, and with his other he was pulling her closer. She planted her feet and yanked, but she was no match for the man. He reeled her in like a fish, even as the crowd was erupting all around them, soldiers and shepherds locked in battle in the midst of the walkers. Already Nessie was walking on even as Shana tried to escape.

  “Come on,” the soldier said. “Come on, little girl.” Even though he couldn’t have been more than a year or two older than she.

  Shana bared her teeth like a cornered animal, then fumbled for the phone, thinking, I’ll at least get some snaps of you as you hurt me. She pointed her lens, and he let go of her wrist without warning. The surprise of sudden freedom made her almost fall over.

  But he wasn’t done. He grabbed the phone again with a hand and instead of pulling—he pushed it. Mashing it into her face before trying to rip it away again.

  Her nose throbbed. Her face hurt. She used both hands to wrestle with it. As her head peeled away she looked for Arav, and saw that he was being dragged away by another soldier. He called her name. She tried to yell back but again the cameraphone pushed hard against her mouth, grinding into her teeth, and her cry was cut short.

  Then, a new voice—

  “Hey!”

  Both Shana and the soldier turned to see.

  Just as a fist appeared out of thin air like a divine hand, pounding the soldier hard in the jaw. His head spun sideways and he let go of Shana. But he wasn’t down for the count. He lurched back up, springing toward whoever hit him—

  Which, as it turned out, was Marcy Reyes.

  His attack on her was fruitless, though. He came for her and found himself grossly outmatched—she used his energy to let him keep going in one direction as she came up behind him. Next thing Shana knew, Marcy had the zip-tie in her own hand and was fastening it around the soldier’s wrists, binding him tight as she shoved him back toward the crowd of his brethren.

  Shana stared at Marcy. Jaw slack.

  Marcy just nodded at her, then bent down to scoop up the supine body of Pete Corley, plucking him off the road and carrying him away.

  Shana was about to yell thank you to her, but then gunfire split the air as someone started shooting.

  New Monmouth University public poll: 46% in favor of Homeland Security taking over flock operation, 47% against, 7% undecided

  @AP_Politics

  32 replies 352 RTs 787 likes

  JULY 3

  Mercy General Hospital, Iowa City, Iowa

  PETE CORLEY LURCHED UPRIGHT, GASPING for air like a man surfacing from deep water. He pawed at whatever had tangled itself around his legs—which he saw was just a white bedsheet. He blinked. Looked around.

  I’m in the hospital, he realized.

  He had the gown and everything. No IV drip, though. Pity that. Because that was how you get the really good drugs.

  And gods did he need them. His head was pounding like a kid’s kickball driven again and again against a brick wall, whumbbb whumbbbb whumbbbb. Sound bled in at the edges and at first it was just the teacher from Charlie Brown, womp womp bwomp waaaamp, but then it resolved into actual words—words from a television screen. He saw a TV in the corner of the room showing some eldritch horror from the deep rising through bleak blue waters. A narrator was saying, “The Humboldt squid is an occasional cannibal, turning on other sick or injured squids in their own shoal and tearing them apart with tentacle and beak…”

  He looked over, realized he wasn’t alone.

  Another man sat in the bed next to him. An older man, maybe in his sixties (and Corley tried very hard not to realize that put him closer to this man’s age than he liked). The old fellow was bald but for a few delicate hairs draped across the desertlike expanse of his liver-spotted scalp. He lay back in his bed, staring at the television, his lips in a sour pucker.

  “Where the fuck am I?” Pete said, except it came out more like, Wheredafugg am I.

  The man shot him a disgruntled look, his lips pursing further.

  “Hospital” was his answer. One word. Barked out.

  “Yeah, not helpful,” Corley said, blinking crust from his eyes and trying to bring some saliva to lips that felt like dry, old pottery. He cleared his throat. “What hospital?”

  “Iowa City. Do you mind? I’m trying to watch TV.”

  “And I’m trying to get my goddamn bearings. When is it?”

  “What?”

  “Not what. When. Is. It. What’s the date?”

  “What are you, some kind of amnesiac?”

  “No, I’m not a—” He growled. “Just tell me the bloody date, mate.”

  “Issa third.”

  “Third of what?”

  “July, dumb-ass.”

  Corley stood up. Which was a mistake. He wobbled like a broken lamp. His hand shot out and braced himself against the hospital bed as he fought through the wooziness. What the hell happened? He remembered dancing around, strumming the guitar—then a rifle butt to the head, then he went down. They stepped on his guitar. Kicked his head. That girl took photos…

  If it was still the third, what had happened since he ended up here? What time was it that they swept over the flock? Five in the afternoon, wasn’t it? “What time is it?”

  “Just after nine.”

  He needed to see the news.

  “Gimme that remote control.”

  “I’m watching something.”

  “Yes, something…disgusting. What is wrong with you? You’re sitting here in the hospital and you’re watching a show about…squid devouring other squid? I mean, really? That’s fucked, mate.”

  On the TV: “Their eyes flash red when they attack, giving them the nickname ‘Red Devils’…”

  “I like nature programs,” the man said. “Besides, I been in here longer than you. Had my gallbladder out. You just had a knock on the head.”

  “I don’t care what happened to you. Give me that remote.”

  “No!”

 
; “Do you know who I am?” Pete hated to pull that trick. Which was a lie, of course: Ha ha, he loved pulling that trick, but he’d never admit it out loud, no way. False humility was just one weapon in his human arsenal.

  “Some kind of hotshot.”

  “Yes. Yes! Some kind of hotshot, indeed. The hottest of shots. I’m a fucking rock star, sir. Now gimme the remote.”

  The man groused, “That must be why all the local newspeople are outside. Cameras and trucks. You’re just causing problems.”

  Yeah, well, what else is new?

  Pete hobbled over, pointed a crooked, condemning finger at the man like he was the Grim Reaper selecting his next soul to snatch from this mortal coil. “You give me that remote, old man, or I will personally hunt down your old rotten gallbladder and stick it back in the slot from whence it fucking came, you hear me?”

  “Meh,” the man said. He handed over the remote. “No need to resort to violence. Thassa problem with you hotshot types. Always gotta get your way, always gotta—”

  But Pete was tuning the old man’s droning voice out. He pointed the remote, pulled up the guide, and went to find local news, but ended up with CNN instead. Just as good.

  He clicked it on.

  And instantly saw his own face.

  Onscreen was a photo. A nearly perfect photo, as it were, capturing the exact moment that rifle butt was clocking him in the head. The timing was impeccable. His eyes were pinching shut. His mouth was screwed up in a frozen sneer like he’d just gotten socked by a boxer. You could even see where the rifle butt was wrinkling up the skin of his forehead like a boot rumpling a poorly laid carpet.

  Someone was saying, “Gumdropper lead singer, Pete Corley, is seen here, hit in the head by a soldier’s rifle—”

  The photo onscreen flashed to a newscaster speaking outside a hospital at night. This hospital, Pete guessed.

  “Corley is said to be in stable condition, having suffered a concussion—”

  Just then a doctor came in. A brutish woman with a helmet of red hair and the jowls of an aging basset hound. She smiled brightly. “Mister Corley! I’m glad to see you up—”