From Oblivion's Ashes

by Michael E. A. Nyman

While serving in Kandahar for so many years,

  I remembered you smiling, and burst into tears!”

  The words became garbled as Marshal slowly crept out of range. Not that he minded. The CD had been one of the most horrible examples of country music he’d ever heard, the kind you could only find in a dollar store bargain bin. The artist’s name was Junktown Willie, and he was giving the most meaningful performance of his career.

  Crouching down, Marshal heard the lurching scamper, like a lizard scrabbling across gravel, only much, much more powerful. It was the sound of the zombie switching into Hunting Mode. Outside in the street, a dark shape went hurtling past, heading towards the singing teddy bear.

  The main idea, of course, was so simple, it seemed obvious. At some point during the many hours he'd spent watching through the Terrible Window, Marshal had come to realize a very important fact. On many occasions, he'd seen zombies ignore easier prey, simply because they were already chasing something else. After a while, it occurred to him that whenever a zombie went into Hunting Mode, it focused so hard on the chase that it became almost oblivious to everything else around it, and that this tendency became even more pronounced when the creature shifted into Attack Mode. This meant that, if you threw a zombie any kind of bone, they went for it with unconditional restraint. Like a dog running after a ball that was still in your hand, they were so gullible that you could use their own ferocity against them.

  Every zombie within hearing range of Junktown Willie would be drawn to his sad mewling on the girl he left behind. And that was the simple elegance of Marshal's plan. With Junktown Willie running point, he generated enough of a safe window that he could contact the girl, explain himself, and hopefully lead her to safety.

  The air shook from the deafening crash as the zombie struck the wrecked SUV. Marshal resisted the urge to cover his ears as the air resonated with the tortured shriek of twisting metal and breaking glass. Again and again, the zombie tore into the wreck, even as Marshal snuck back to the Dollar Den.

  Somehow, through it all, Junktown Willie continued to sing.

  He reached the front of the dollar store, crouched down, and hid behind a small surviving portion of the storefront wall. Distraction or no distraction, he was taking nothing for granted.

  The little girl was still there, though her courage was starting to falter. Marshal could see her easily now from her trembling. She was terrified. In the distance, defying all logic, Junktown Willie continued to croon at the undead, and the horrible shriek of metal being twisted like taffy raged on.

  “Hey!” Marshal called out. “Over here.”

  The girl’s eyes were closed, but they opened with a flicker at the sound of his voice. Marshal noticed her tears, long trails of clean skin where they’d traveled down her cheeks.

  “My name’s Marshall. I’m here to help you.”

  She didn’t so much as twitch.

  “You have to come with me,” he went on, trying in the same voice to impart a sense of urgency and calm, all at once. “You’re in danger here. I can take you to a safe place, but you need to follow me now.”

  The girl stayed where she was, her eyes filled with panic.

  Marshal felt a hint of doubt. What could he do now? The notion that she might not accept his help hadn’t occurred to him. On the other hand, he couldn’t just leave her. As soon as Junktown Willie was found and silenced, the zombies would return. And then they’d both be dead.

  In the distance, the crashing reached new heights, indicating that there was now more than one zombie. Metal was now being torn like paper, generating an unholy noise that temporarily drowned out the music.

  And yet, when the attacks abated, Junktown Willie was still singing.

  Marshal was beginning to grow concerned. The music was not supposed to have lasted this long. Pretty soon, if the undead continued to be frustrated in the capture of their prey…

  He tried again, with more urgency.

  “Listen! I have food and supplies-”

  His voice vanished under the all-consuming thunder of an ear-splitting howl, which erupted from the direction of the singing bear. In response, Marshal’s heart almost stopped.

  That hadn’t been just any howl.

  That had been a goddamn call to Swarm!

  He’d heard plenty of examples played out on the Internet during the early days of the outbreak. Protected in his soundproof apartment, he’d never heard one in person. Now, the sound of it chilled him to the bone.

  In volume alone, it seemed strong enough to rattle windowpanes and eardrums alike, but the sheer ugliness of it, its mutated, gurgling, baritone shriek, made Marshal’s skin crawl. Spine-chilling, it attacked the human nervous system like an auditory mugging, and one could imagine its evolutionary purpose being its impact on the psyche of humans who heard it.

  That was not its primary function however.

  “Mother of God,” he muttered out loud, trying to think.

  His gaze fastened on the girl one more time.

  “We have to leave now!” he half-shouted. He could hear more running footsteps in the distance. Dear, fucking God, how many would answer? “Do you understand? That howl is going to-”

  He was interrupted again as the zombie let loose another Howl, every bit as deafening and horrible as the first one. Every molecule in his body was screaming at him to run madly back to his hiding hole, as quick as possible. His vision was, quite literally, rippling from the terror arching though his body.

  And yet, the girl held his gaze. Frozen with fear, she only stared at him.

  Somehow, from some reservoir he didn’t know he had, Marshal pulled himself back together. Gritting his teeth, he searched for something, anything, that he might say to get the girl to follow him to safety.

  Be direct, he thought as the Howl slowly died out.

  Somewhere, in another dimension, fucking Junktown Willie was still crooning!

  “In… in less than a minute,” he stammered. “the… the entire street… the zombies will-”

  The next interruption came without warning. Like a lumbering freight train, a zombie came barreling down the street, right between the two of them. It was another big one. Well over six feet tall, the stones and rubble on the road crunched beneath its feet. It moved with a horrible elegance of motion, taking giant steps, rippling with preternatural power, speed, and agility.

  Marshal’s words died in his throat, as a real awareness of how precarious his situation had become dawned on him. With cold lucidity, he realized that had he not hidden behind the storefront wall, the creature would surely have spotted him.

  What, he asked himself in mounting terror, was he even doing out here? Was he fucking insane? And for that matter, why was he still here, risking his life to try to get this girl to follow him?

  And in that moment, everything became as clear as crystal.

  Before he realized what he was doing, he jumped to his feet and ran openly across the street. In a flash, he scooped up the petrified girl and ran back, even as the hideous thumping of more approaching feet reached his ears.

  Time seemed to slow all around him as he re-entered the Dollar Den, expecting at any second to feel the iron grip of undead hands close on him from behind. Then he was inside the store, tripping over a fallen fixture and causing the little girl to squeak from surprise. He got up again and ran.

  He reached the doorway to the back hallway without being grabbed, but the sounds of moaning, the fast scrabbling of heavy footsteps were all around him now. He froze with uncertainty. Footsteps were in the hall ahead of him. Were they already there, waiting for him? If they were, then it was over.

  Focusing all of his remaining self-control, he peered around the corner and found the hallway miraculously empty. Noises were coming from the alleyway out back, but for the moment, he was clear. He put down the girl and pulled the remote from his pocket and activated it.

  Slowly, the platform began to descend.

  The crunch of broken glass und
er foot somewhere behind him told him that something was rummaging around the front of the store. Had they picked up his aroma? He’d been sweating heavily as he’d crouched up against that piece of wall. Could they have detected his scent?

  He didn’t wait. Picking up the girl, he rushed forward to the slowly descending platform and heaved her up and onto it. He hit the button to reverse its direction and pulled himself up afterwards. His hands were slippery as he struggled to roll up and onto the platform, but he managed to make it up, pulling his leg through just as the skid lift threatened to snap closed on it.

  The sound of footsteps in the hallway below as the ceiling closed was like the voice of dread. But nothing reached up to stop them and nothing smashed through at them from below.

  They were safe.

  Chapter Three: Day 15: The Swarm

  Marshal lay flat on his back, as the light from the chandelier above him filtered through his eyelids. He couldn’t move, only wonder if any of the undead had spotted the stairwell closing. If they had, they might still burst through the floor beneath him. Zombies could be slow thinkers.

  So he simply lay there, eyes shut, waiting for the sounds of the floor ripping apart. The time crept by, milking the silence for drama.

  After almost a minute, relief flooded his body.

  He was going to live after all.

  He opened his eyes. The oil painting of the fat Italian man dressed as Elvis was the first thing his gaze came to rest upon.

  “God damn it, Frank,” he murmured. “It was just a singing teddy bear. You didn’t have to make such a big deal out of it.”

  Frank Sabbatini was a fine, upstanding citizen.

  All the shopkeepers along the street knew it.

  The city officials, local unions, the banks, local charities and the street gangs knew it too. Even the police knew it – police especially, since Frank made a point of reminding them. Whether they were the lowest of beat-cops or the top brass, police would always receive five-star treatment whenever they frequented one of the Sabbatini’s many, splendid restaurants. He gave generously to multiple charities, sponsored children’s hockey and baseball teams - boys and girls - and sent leftover food to a number of the inner city's outreach soup kitchens, free of charge.

  He was the portrait of a Canadian success story.

  His father, Antonio Sabbatini, had started life in Canada at the age of 31,working construction. He met another immigrant, a tall, wiry, hard-working Swede named Lars Einarsson, and the two men became best friends. After a couple of years, they broke away from the construction firm they both worked for to form their own company, and their business flourished.

  If there were any concerns over Antonio's business style, and how contracts seemed to 'magically' flow their way, they never evolved beyond the status of rumor. Certainly, there was nothing that could ever be proven in a court of law. It was, however, noteworthy that after only five years in the business, Sabbatini and Einarsson Construction employed a regular force of fifty men, and controlled assets in excess of three million dollars.

  On the side, Antonio was also a well-trained butcher, and his wife, Maria, a fantastic cook. Together, they opened Sabbatini’s Delicatessen and Restaurant, which shortened over time to become simply Sabbatini’s, that now-famous franchise that Frank, in later years, would spin into a chain with eleven locations.

  That first restaurant, built on the site of what would one day become Marshal’s apartment, started out as a humble operation. Initially, it served only to feed the Sabbatini clan, who were quite numerous, the Einarssons, who were not, as well as their friends and favored employees.

  Lars’ wife, Astrid, and her sister Ellie, were welcome contributors in the kitchen, sharing family recipes that, to this day, remain on the menu and lend a greater breadth to the palate that has made Sabbatini’s so cherished. Sabbatini’s was one of the few Italian restaurants to serve and celebrate Swedish meatballs and pannkakor alongside their regular fare. Word of mouth spread, and soon, Sabbatini’s was hosting sold-out dining rooms, night after night. After only ten years, the restaurant was forced to relocate to a larger venue, and leave its first location, the site of so many happy evenings, in its rear-view mirror.

  Frank was the oldest of the Sabbatini children, three boys and four girls. He was only four when that first Sabbatini’s opened up, and it was there that, under his mother’s watchful eye, he first picked up a broom and started sweeping, so that he could 'be just like his mama.’ His first poem, written at school, was recited before family and friends in that very dining room, to raucous applause, and he would play amid the stacks of pasta and pesto in the storerooms. In the streets around that restaurant and apartment where he lived, he met the neighborhood boys, most of whom were the children of his parents’ friends, and it was here that he formed his first gang. And it was in this restaurant that he would taste his first sip of wine from his father, meet his future wife, and learn various aspects of ‘the family business’.

  Marshal pulled himself to his feet, then looked around for the little girl.

  She sat huddled on the exact place where he’d thrown her, looking around at the front hall with wide eyes of disbelief.

  “Are you okay?” Marshal asked, feeling awkward. God, she was filthy! Not just dirty, but… really dirty. Could anyone get that dirty by accident? And…. UGH! The smell! Holy crap, the smell!

  “Whu…?” He sniffed his arms where he’d grabbed her and reeled at the odor that had rubbed off on him. “What have you been rolling in?” It wasn’t mere body odor, and he doubted that a little girl could ever stink that bad on her own. “Jesus Christ! You absolutely reek!”

  The girl hung her head in embarrassment, tears forming in her eyes.

  “Sorry,” he said, instantly penitent. Way to go, Marshal, he told himself. Way to make the little girls cry! “I didn’t mean to, uh… you, it’s just that you-.”

  “Rotten eggs,” the girl answered in a small voice, looking like she wanted to shrink into the floorboards. “Old dog poo. Sour milk. Other stuff. It… it…”

  “…Helps keep you hidden,” Marshal finished, guessing the rest and fighting to hold his nose. “Very clever. Kind of brilliant, actually. Still. Whoooh! First thing we’re going to do is get you a shower. Sound good?”

  The girl looked shocked. “You… you have a shower?”

  Marshal raised his hands expansively. “We have that and more at Chez Marshal. And please, call me Marshal. I look forward to showing you around, but really - man, oh, man - not another step until you’re clean. My eyes are watering.”

  “Sorry,” the little girl said.

  “For what? Figuring out a way to stay alive?” Marshal shook his head. “If you only knew how… how thrilled I am to find out that there’s somebody else alive. Anyway, please just follow… oh.”

  Marshal’s eyes had come at last to rest on his front door monitor.

  There were three of the undead milling about in the hallway downstairs. They were clearly in ‘Hunting Mode’, though whether that was because of the Swarm or because they had detected hints of their presence, it was impossible to tell.

  “Eeep!” the girl squeaked, seeing the screen. Then she covered her mouth and looked up at Marshal apologetically.

  “It’s okay,” he assured her, still gazing at the screen with a chill down his spine. It was an eerie feeling to know that the zombies on the screen were only a few feet beneath them. “There’s a reinforced, concrete layer separating us at the moment, with padding and hardwood on top. The floor was designed to support the movement of multi-ton skids without disturbing anyone below. Once that door is closed, we could take a sledgehammer to this floor, and they wouldn’t be able to hear us, no matter how good their hearing is. Little ‘eeps’ like that are not going to be a problem.”

  “You have cameras!” the girl exclaimed in surprise. “How do you power them?”

  “Central bank of batteries,” he answered, “although they only get used at night. I
’ve got a computer program that monitors and maintains the flow. During the day, we get our electricity from solar panels on the roofs of the building above us. We have about three dozen of them up there, which is more than enough to keep the batteries fully-charged and provide three times the electricity needed to power everything in the place at full blast. It varies on cloudy days or if they’re covered with snow, depending on how thick it is. I installed them myself a few years ago. I’m a freelance electrical engineer, by the way.”

  She stared up at him like she didn’t believe him.

  “Look,” he said, “I don’t want to be rude, but we’ve really got to get you showered before I start puking. Plus, there’s a front window I think you really ought to see. It’ll give us an idea of how much trouble we’re in.”

  “Okay.”

  He turned to lead her to his main apartment, and then paused.

  “Um. What’s your name, anyway?”

  “Angie,” the little girl said.

  “Angie,” he repeated, and then smiled. “It’s a pleasure to meet you.”

  Frank Sabbatini was a fine, upstanding citizen.

  His brothers, on the other hand… well…

  Vincent had a gambling addiction, one that had haunted him much of his life. He’d been forced to admit it, while holding back tears, on the witness stand in front of a judge in a court of law. The brave confession had come in response to the Crown Prosecutor’s question on how it was that every bookie in Ontario, Quebec, and much of the northern United States seemed to know his name. The Crown had then inquired after Vincent’s healthy bank account (not often associated with gambling addicts) and the fact that no bookie (those who were willing to talk) could recall Vincent placing any actual bets in the last three years. Vincent responded with lavish praise to Jesus Christ, his lord and savior, and to the love of his family, for helping him crack the addiction.

  Lucenzo, or Luca to his friends, had a different range of problems, most of which seemed to involve anger management. Poor Luca, it turned out, had been the victim of bullying from a very young age, until one day he learned to fight back. In fact, he became so good at fighting back that there wasn’t an enforcer, street thug, or bodyguard in all of Toronto that didn’t tremble at the sight of him. In an effort to channel what many witnesses described (and then later inexplicably recanted) as an explosive, homicidal rage, Luca had taken up the noble sports of boxing, jujitsu, target shooting, and karate during his teenage years, with great deal of success. He’d always been big for his age, but adult Luca made oak trees seem small. He was six foot five and 400lbs of solid bone, muscle, and hair, with shoulders like a bull and very little discernable neck. He had a face sculpted by violence, with a nose that had been broken so often, Picasso might have felt the urge to sign his name to it.