The final day she stood in the empty house saying goodbye to the last of it, her eyes full of tears. Things blurred and melted and ran down her face, and now and then the house felt crowded, as if she hadn’t moved anything at all. As if the world had suddenly grown so full it would soon push her out.
Before she left she stood gazing out at the back yard, the late afternoon sun making the back fence suddenly golden, and when she blinked the yard was full of grayish statues, like the back lot of one of those monument companies, and when she blinked again they were gone, and she was thinking she must be her father’s daughter when she saw him, standing with his back to her, so quiet as he took it all in, the fullness and the absolute impossibility, the world.
****
Remembrance by Steve Rasnic Tem
Few things have a more lasting effect on a writer than the editorial relationships you have early in your career. Writing is hard on the ego. You’ve put yourself out there on a shaky limb–after all, you’re attempting to practice the same profession as Shakespeare, as Faulkner, as Ray Bradbury. How can you possibly measure up? It’s one of those few professions in which you spend much of your time providing opportunities for people to reject you. Some handle that pressure well. Many handle it badly. What balances that is meeting editors who believe in you, who take the time to provide encouragement and support.
Early in my career I was lucky enough to encounter a hand full of editors who provided me with something that I believed was crucial to me at the time–validation. They let me know that it was okay to call myself a writer, that I had something of my own to offer the world of literature. That’s all I needed, really, just to know that. Editors like Charlie Grant, Alan Ryan, Ramsey Campbell, Roy Torgeson, Lin Carter, Stuart Schiff, Richard Chizmar, and David Silva.
David was always encouraging, and let me know that he genuinely admired what I was trying to do. He published three of my short stories in The Horror Show, the last two (“Bite” and “Self-possessed” being in the Fall, 1986 issue, which was to be the “Steve Rasnic Tem” issue of The Horror Show, including a piece of nonfiction by me and an in-depth interview. I was thrilled. But also intimidated–I didn’t feel I’d been publishing long enough to receive such an honor. But David felt otherwise, and continued to encourage, and I remember putting everything I could into those stories and interview because I didn’t want to let him down.
I wrote this story thinking of David, and the other fine writers we have lost recently, all too soon.
Steve Rasnic Tem
AMONG THE DEAD
J. F. Gonzalez
Editors’ note: J.F. Gonzalez, a long-time friend and a unique voice in the world of horror, was among the first writers to sign up for this tribute anthology. He was also instrumental in the completion of the project, helping out in several key ways behind the scenes. He died on November 10, 2014 - another one of the good ones taken from us far too soon. He is much loved and sorely missed.
****
Dawn was beginning to break when Sammy Valentine pulled the RV off the side of the road and cut the engine.
The others were gathered in the RV’s living space–they were tired, hungry, a sense of defeat weighing on their demeanors. That sense of defeat had been heavy since they’d lost Frank and Jason a few months back. Prior to that, within the first two weeks of the dead coming back to feast on the flesh of the living, they’d lost Robert and Gus when a horde of zombies converged on a handful of survivors they’d met up with in Kansas City. Robert and Gus weren’t eaten–the zombie attack had been so fierce, and there’d been so many, that the twenty or so survivors they’d thrown in with wound up splitting up. Robert and Gus had been forced to flee with two others. Frank had later remarked that he wasn’t worried about Robert and Gus. They were smart; they were resourceful; they would survive.
The loss of Frank and Jason was different, though. That had been a permanent loss, and it had hit them all hard, Sammy especially. After all, it was Frank who had made the decision to take him in all those years ago. The man had been like a father to him.
Olivia was sitting on the sofa half-way back. “She’s getting weaker, Sammy.”
“I know,” Sammy said. He turned around. Behind them, the sky was beginning to lighten as the sun rose in the west. “But we’re almost there.”
“And you still think Lydia’s parents are alive?” Olivia asked.
Sammy nodded. Lydia was lying on the bed in the rear chamber of the RV, curled into a fetal position. Of the four of them, Lydia had been more weakened due to lack of sustenance. Lydia was originally from Manheim Township, Pennsylvania. “She said her parents were apocalypse preppers… that they had six months of food stocked up, with plenty of water and supplies.”
“I assume they had the place fortified and that they’re well-armed.”
Sammy shrugged. “True. But how long has it been now since everything has gone to shit? It’s got to be well over six months. They might be tapped out by now.”
Olivia frowned at this. Melissa said nothing–she had been Frank’s life-partner, and ever since Frank was killed she said little.
Lydia didn’t say anything either.
“Lydia’s parents… it’s a fifty-fifty chance they’re even alive,” Sammy said.
“And it’s a fifty-fifty chance they are, too.”
“Where are we?” Melissa asked. She was looking out the RV’s front windshield.
“We’re just outside of Lancaster on Route 272,” Sammy answered.
Melissa didn’t respond directly. Olivia regarded the older woman for a moment, then looked out the curtained side window. Sammy waited for a reaction, then turned back to the RV’s massive dashboard and keyed the ignition to give the vehicle electrical juice.
“But what if they didn’t make it?” Olivia was serious about the odds being against them. “Those kids we came across back at that rest stop–we have a better chance catching up with them. If that rest stop hadn’t been so overwhelmed with zombies–”
“We can catch up to those kids within a day,” Sammy said.
“But Lydia–”
“She’ll make it!” Sammy said. He turned back to Olivia and Melissa, emphasizing this point. “She can go another two days.”
“And what about us?”
Sammy stopped. For a moment he felt washed out, as drained and tired and hungry as Lydia obviously was. He had no response to Olivia’s question. All he could do was move them forward, follow up on the information Lydia had given them before the world turned to shit: that her parents had been doomsday preppers and had stockpiled six months of food, supplies, and weapons in their large suburban Pennsylvania home. Lydia had been adamant her parents would have survived the initial breakdown of society and were probably still holed up in their house. Once they saw their wayward daughter, they would let them in. They had to. She was their little girl.
And then there was the young couple they’d come across thirty miles back, at the turnpike rest stop.
For some reason, the walking dead had not managed to completely overrun this broad section of roadwork. And while abandoned vehicles were common along every major and minor road they travelled, it had been the two BMW motorcycles they’d seen sitting just shy of the entrance to the rest stop’s entrance that had caught Sammy’s attention as they approached.
The sound of the motorcycle’s engine had obviously attracted the walking dead from miles around. Olivia had remarked on their eastward trek down the turnpike that she’d seen a few zombies in the woods along the side of the turnpike, heading east. They’d been honing in on the sound of the motorcycles. And the kids riding them had been stupidly unaware that their sound had been attracting them.
Sammy was attracted to the motorcycles for the simple reason that more people meant a better chance of finding others, of finding food. Of surviving.
But the zombies had been rapidly approaching, and Sammy and his group knew it. Sammy had pulled the RV up to the motorcycles just as the ki
ds exited the structure, arms laden with filled backpacks. Sammy and Olivia had hopped out of the RV, weapons ready. The kids had dropped their backpacks, surprised to see Sammy and Olivia brandishing guns. The kids had started fumbling for their own firearms when Sammy said, “Your motorcycles have been attracting them, you idiots.” Then Sammy and Olivia had turned away from the kids and began bearing down on the zombies that were now converging in the rest stop’s parking lot.
“Oh shit,” the guy had said.
The firefight that followed had been fierce, but brief. Over a dozen zombies had already converged on the rest stop from the south and the east. A gaggle of them were coming around the corner of the building as Sammy took aim and fired. Headshot. He was setting each zombie noggin’ within his sites and taking them down with a single shot each.
Olivia had picked off the zombies from the east with her own AR-15 and for a moment it appeared they would be overwhelmed–that’s how many there were. The kid had a semi-automatic handgun, a Glock from the looks of it, and his female companion was brandishing a Remington hunting rifle with what looked to be a 12-round clip. She was a better shot than her companion. The guy was nervous, too. After the initial firefight, as everybody was reloading, the kids realized they were low on ammunition. Olivia darted back in the RV and came back with a brick each of .45 and .22 caliber ammunition. She scooped out a handful of each and gave them to the guy and his female companion. “Thanks,” he said.
Sammy was on alert, keeping track of those zombies that were still a good distance away. They’d either destroyed all of the ones in the immediate vicinity or had seriously compromised them–several were trying to drag themselves along after being blown in half. Some tried to crawl toward them with the help of only one limb. The guy reloaded and his female companion tried to get the meager provisions they’d found in the rest stop strapped on their motorcycles. “How much did you find in there?” Sammy had asked.
“Not much,” the woman had said. “Most of what’s left is snack foods.”
“That’s about what I figured. Where you headed?”
The girl had finished strapping her pack to the back of the bike. She slung her rifle over her shoulder and glanced westward. “Come on, Bobby.”
“Any other rest areas like this along the turnpike?” Sammy had asked. He’d been incredibly anxious at this time; more zombies were converging on the area, and he was certain a bunch were coming from the east. He directed all his mental energy toward getting something out of the kids–any scrap of information would do. “We’re down to our last few days of provisions ourselves.”
“Next one’s about fifty miles from here, in Lancaster County,” the girl said. She looked at Sammy. “You think more are coming?”
“Which way are you heading?”
“North.”
Sammy looked at her, making sure they made eye contact. “New York?”
The woman nodded. Her gaze locked with his briefly, then tore away back to her male companion. “Bobby!”
Sammy had stepped over to the north end of the rest stop. He motioned to Olivia, who walked over. About a dozen zombies were approaching from this end. Sammy and Olivia raised their rifles and let out a volley of shots, taking the zombies down. Sammy called back to the kids. “If you take off now, we’ll cover you.”
‘Gee, thanks, man.” Bobby’s backpack was still on the ground near his motorcycle. He picked it up, attempted to strap it to the motorcycle, and it fell, spilling foodstuff and other items out. Olivia helped him pick it up and strap it to the motorcycle while Sammy covered them. A moment later, the kids sped away, heading east on the turnpike. Sammy and Olivia picked off another dozen or more zombies, then retreated back to the RV.
They were on the road a moment later, the kids about a mile ahead of them. It was then that Olivia had laid down a tattered wallet on the RV’s dashboard. “This fell out of his bag, but I think it belongs to the girl.”
The wallet was indeed the girl’s. It contained a driver’s license. The address inside gave a Buffalo, New York address.
Now sitting on the side of the road just off the turnpike with the RVs electrical system on, Sammy punched in the address in the GPS system. “We’ve got directions now.”
“We should wait until tomorrow, after we get to Lydia’s house,” Olivia said.
“You’re right.” Sammy looked out the front windshield toward the east. The sky was much lighter now and the sun was definitely peeking through.
“Why are we stopped?” Melissa said from the back. “Lydia’s hungry… she’s suffering back there.”
“We’ve been on the road since dusk,” Sammy said. “If we keep going, the more chance we have of being discovered by others. Lydia’s parents don’t live far from here, but we’ll never make it by sunrise, and I don’t want to risk being seen in the daytime.”
“But there’s food there!” Melissa said, a little more forceful.
“And we’re camping out here for now!” Sammy responded more forcefully. “You know what happened last time we tried travelling during the day. More zombies, more chance of running into other survivors. More chance of what happened to Frank and Jason happening to us. We can’t run that risk.”
At the mention of losing Frank, Melissa said nothing. She looked out the side window, her face blank.
“We’ll get off this highway and head east a ways,” Sammy continued. “Find an old farmhouse to park behind. Get some rest. We’ll resume at dusk.”
Nobody countered his plan. Sammy nodded, then turned back to the dashboard, started the RV’s engine, and piloted it back onto 272. Fifteen minutes later he took the 772 exit towards Manheim Township and Lititz.
Thirty minutes later the RV was parked behind an old barn set about two hundred yards off Route 772 and all four of them were fast asleep behind closed curtains and a windshield cover that blocked out the sun.
****
At dusk the next day, the area behind the barn was completely overrun with the walking dead.
Olivia was already up and peering through a crack between the curtains. Her black hair hung about her face, her features pale as spoiled milk. “They’re just standing around like cattle.”
“Isn’t that what people did when they were alive?” Sammy took a peak at them. “Just stand around like cattle?” Behind them, in the rear bed chamber, Melissa and Lydia were beginning to stir. Lydia was still curled up in a fetal position. Her eyes were closed, and Sammy could tell she was still hanging in there, but barely. She would need to eat soon.
Hell, they all needed to eat soon. Hunger gnawed at him, screaming to be fed.
“Let’s go,” Sammy said. Despite the weakness in his limbs from lack of nutrition, he headed to the front of the van and removed the windshield covers. A throng of fifty zombies shuffled in the field ahead of him, unaware that Sammy, Olivia, Melissa, and Lydia were in the RV.
Sammy started the vehicle and carefully pulled out from behind the barn and back onto the road.
The dashboard clock showed the time as five-thirty. With winter only two weeks away, the nights would be longer now. That would give them more driving time. More time to continue north into New England, which had been the plan when the dead began to rise.
They’d been working the city of Topeka when it happened. Frank and Jason had just returned from pulling a job when they burst into the three-bedroom townhouse they’d all shared and told them the news: all the major news networks were reporting that the dead were rising and attacking the living. The resulting mayhem was infectious–riots were already breaking out in New York, Detroit, Chicago, and Los Angeles. A far left-wing organization was demonstrating at the CDC in Atlanta, and their ringleader was inciting the crowd, claiming the fascist corporate government was responsible. And Sammy thought the constant whine of police and ambulance sirens outside was just a busier than normal Saturday.
“You shittin’ me?” he’d asked Frank.
Jason had looked deathly afraid; even Frank looke
d grave, and Frank wasn’t scared of anything. “I wouldn’t have believed it myself if I hadn’t seen it. We were working by the hospital. We saw an attack go down–dead guy strapped to a gurney in an ambulance came back, went after the EMTs.”
“It was just like in those George Romero movies,” Jason said. He had changed into a fresh shirt and emerged from the kitchen with a dirty backpack. His face was pale, his eyes wide with panic. “It was…”
Frank was fixing them all with his penetrating gaze. “We should probably get out of here now. Get out of the city as quickly as possible.”
They’d packed up and left an hour later. Leaving Topeka hadn’t been too difficult. So many idiots had taken to not paying attention to the news that they were continuing about their normal activities blissfully unaware of what was going on outside their little bubbles. By the time they’d reached the outskirts of the city and saw the military vehicles heading into the city, Sammy knew things were fucked. They’d gotten out just in time.
They’d regrouped a hundred miles out of the city limits. For the most part, they’d remained in the RV and watched the news. They were well-stocked, had plenty of supplies, and watched as society crumbled within the space of a week.
When the first zombie shambled onto the farm they were camping on, Frank had stepped outside and taken a shot at it with his favorite handgun, a Kimber 1911. .45 caliber. Pow, right between the eyes. It didn’t rise back up. “Guess those movies were right about shootin’ ’em in the head,” he’d said.
That’s when they learned that sound–especially gunshots–attracted their attention. An hour later a whole pack of them converged on the farm. They wandered around the farmhouse, the barn, and the RV, not really noticing that Frank, Sammy, Jason, Melissa, Olivia, Gus, Robert, and Lydia were safely inside the vehicle. They’d watched as the mindless horde shuffled around outside, realizing that as long as they stayed quiet and inside the RV, the zombies wouldn’t try to break in.
Better Weird: A Tribute to David B. Silva Page 16
