by Dana Fredsti
Even Tony wore an expression of unwilling admiration. He wasn’t predisposed to like JT, who he thought was too cocky, too much… well, too much like Kai in a way. Kai’s death was way too fresh for Tony to be able to feel anything but resentment. But to a kid of Tony’s age and with his pop-culture worship, seeing someone make like Spider-Man had to be cool.
It was impossible not to admire him.
A few houses down there were several zombies in wetsuits, looking as if sharks with very small bite radiuses had attacked them. They saw JT land and immediately headed in his direction. Diehard surfers, so to speak, their boards trailed after them, still attached to their ankles by leashes.
Another zombie in a bike helmet and ripped nylon shorts headed toward him from the other end of the block. He ignored them all, leaping onto the nearest car, bounding across it to the next, and then onto an ancient RV parked right next to the bike path. Finally he dropped onto the pickleweed a mere ten feet away, then jogged up to us, barely even winded after his rooftop journey.
He looked very pleased with himself.
“Main pack of them is over by the zoo,” he said nonchalantly. “Most of them didn’t see me head back this way and I saw another bunch heading after the ’copter.”
“How far did you go?” I asked him curiously.
“Sloat and 39th. There were already a lot wandering around the parking lot next to the zoo and banging on the fences there.” He shook his head. “I am pretty sure I saw a lion wandering around outside of its cage.”
Yikes.
“Which,” JT continued, “begs the question—can this zombie bug pass to animals?”
“Not as far as we know,” Nathan said.
“Good. Because if that changes any time soon, we are all screwed.” He continued as we set off across the tangled mass of smashed autos covering the Great Highway, “I mean, can you imagine zombie cats, or even worse, zombie birds? They would totally fuck you up.” He bounced across the hood of a ’70s model Cadillac, skidded off the top of a black Hummer, and hit the roof of a Honda Civic. Hands tinted necrotic gray-green reached out the open windows, fingers clutching fruitlessly at prey it couldn’t hope to catch.
Nathan, Tony, and I made our way much slower, weaving in and out between the stalled cars, cautious of possible undead occupants, of which there were more than a few. I couldn’t stop myself from wondering how they died. Had some of the cars’ occupants already had Walker’s? Had they died and come back “like that,” before anyone else was aware what had happened… stuck in gridlocked traffic in what were now metal tombs.
Lost in my bleak musings, it took me totally by surprise when a middle-aged male zombie in a truly hideous Hawaiian shirt popped out of the driver’s window of a brown Smart car. We’re talking a bright yellow pattern with different tropical drinks in neon colors stamped all over it. The zombie grabbed me by my sword arm and yanked me toward the car window and its gaping mouth. It needed Listerine in the worst possible way.
I reacted instinctively by slamming my free hand against the car right above the open window. I stopped, and we were at a stalemate—it couldn’t pull me in any further, and I couldn’t use my weapons. So I decided to compromise.
Shoving my Kevlar-protected right forearm into its mouth so it would stop yanking me downward, I grabbed my tanto with the left hand, but couldn’t go through the eye socket—its face was bent over my arm as it tried to figure out how to chew its way through the hard shell to the tasty center. I had a clear shot at an ear, though, and drove in the point of my tanto as hard as I could, wincing at the added stink of the black goo that oozed out.
Still, it did the job. The poor fat bastard’s mouth opened and its grip on my right arm relaxed as it slid back into the car.
Aloha, zombie.
The enormity of our task hit me like a big, fat, rotting bludgeon of reality. How could we ever hope to contain this? It was out, it was airborne, and it was spreading beyond any possible hope of quarantine. What good would a cure do for all the people who’d already died? We couldn’t turn zombies back into living, breathing human beings. I mean, once someone had chunks ripped out of their flesh and things started rotting, there was no way to come back from that.
Then I thought of the people trapped in their houses, ones on the run trying to find a safe refuge. And what about the people in places where Walker’s hadn’t hit yet? If there was a cure, they’d stand a chance. They might not become wild cards, but they could fight without fear of infection.
We could beat this.
Wow, I thought as I crossed the last lane of zombie-infested traffic. Way to talk myself in and out of the pit of despair, and in record time.
HARAJUKU, JAPAN
Upstairs, Ayako’s body remained silent and unmoving on her makeshift sickbed. Then, without warning, her hand began to twitch. A few moments later, her body shuddered and arched, then settled again.
Her eyes opened.
Stiffly, haltingly, the girl arose, and began slowly moving toward the stairs. She descended them like a sleepwalker, silently, slowly winding her way around the shop’s maze toward where Natsuki stood, slumped against the glass wall, facing the horde outside. Ayako reached out for her, and at that moment Natsuki turned to face her.
Ayako screamed.
Natsuki’s eyes were clouded over. Her jugular had been torn open. She opened her mouth and a gutteral moan emerged as she lunged.
Ayako threw up her forearm to defend herself, and Natsuki’s teeth sunk deep into her flesh. Shrieking in pain, Ayako lashed out with her free hand and connected. The thing that had been Natsuki flew back and into the window, striking it so hard it cracked. The zombies outside grew even more agitated, whipped into a frenzy.
Breathing heavily, Ayako sensed movement behind her. She wheeled around just as an armored figure—with a sword in his gut—blundered through the nearest clothing rack, shattering the bar and scattering blouses and hangers. Ayako ducked his clutching hands with a nimbleness that surprised her, and somersaulted out of his reach.
She came up out of her roll into what she imagined a fighting stance would be. Her left arm was bleeding, but her mind was clear.
A piece of the broken clothing rack lay by her feet. Ayako had never picked up a sword, but she had played badminton. She stooped, grabbed the bar, and gave a wicked swing as she stood, clocking Natsuki in mid-charge and sending her flying into a mannequin. Then she whirled around with a two-hand grip that smashed into Tetsuo, only to have the bar rebound off armor and pinwheel out of her hands.
Tetsuo reached out and seized her throat with both hands, lifting her kicking feet off the ground as he pulled her face toward his waiting teeth. Ayako managed to interpose one hand and force his snapping jaws back with a strength she couldn’t explain. With the other hand, she reached down and fumbled for the hilt that was sticking out under the bottom of his chest plate. With a twist and a sickening sound, she pulled the wakizashi blade free and brought it swiftly up through his chin.
The armored monster became a corpse once again, crashing to the ground like a fallen statue.
Meanwhile, the Natsuki-thing stumbled to its feet and came after her from behind. Ayako snapped a vicious kick into its face, knocking it off its feet. She quickly retrieved the short sword and, as the female zombie rose, thrust the blade into its heart.
No effect.
So she pulled the blade out and shoved it through the ear, instead.
* * *
Ayako didn’t cry after the fight. She was shaky, but strangely exhilarated, and suddenly ravenous, too.
She tore designer T-shirts into bandages for her wounds, and traded her sweet little shoes and flimsy lace jacket for Natsuki’s cavalier boots and long black military duster. She kept her frilly red velvet dress, but added Tetsuo’s cuirass.
Finally, she strapped on his wakizashi and katana, and moved toward the door.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
We reached the other side of the Great Highway, fog cu
rling up around the sand dunes on the gentle breeze. The water was the same uniform gray as the sky. It looked like a soundstage, and the sound of water dripping was a constant backdrop to the other, more ominous noises still coming from the streets we’d left behind. It could only have been creepier if it were night, instead of morning.
I took a brief pause to wipe the zombie drool off my forearm onto a patch of pampas grass, then followed the three men down between two dunes toward the large square storm drain that marked the Vicente Street opening to the beach.
Sand drifts partially covered stretches of hardscrabble rock, and the remnants of cement rubble marked the ocean’s relentless ability to wear almost anything away over time. Rusted pieces of pipe stuck up seemingly at random, and I wondered what they’d been a part of before the waves had torn them from their moorings.
Mighty poetic thinking, all things considered. I’d always sucked at poetry. Hated it and all the symbolic metaphorical crap therein, but I guess something about the end of the world brought out the latent poet in me. Maybe I’d start wearing berets, smoking skinny French cigarettes, and spouting existentialist bullshit when this was over. Hell, I was already wearing black, right?
I tripped on a rock, barely catching myself before I pitched face forward the rest of the way down the slope. Maybe the Universe was warning me away from the life of a beatnik. Whatever it was, I focused on navigating the uneven slope without breaking my neck.
From the point it emerged out of the pickleweed and pampas grass to the two-level housing platform at the other end, the storm drain was about twenty feet long. It consisted of two large cement-covered pipes with large rectangular concrete slabs covering them every few feet or so. The entire thing was covered with colorful graffiti and artwork.
Stairs led from the beach to the platform, where steel-pipe fencing and a padlocked gate discouraged people from climbing up. If the discarded beer bottles littering the platform were anything to go by, it didn’t work.
JT couldn’t help himself from leaping from concrete rectangle to rectangle with total disregard for the drops that lay in between, scaling the platform in less time than it took Tony, Nathan, and me to navigate the slope and hop down onto the sand.
Nathan paused, holding up a hand for silence.
The fog was noticeably denser on the beach and visibility pretty much sucked, the sand vanishing into the mist after a few hundred feet. It was even thicker over the ocean, the water and sky merging together in a wall of pale gray. Both beautiful and eerie.
The sound of the surf didn’t quite cover up the sounds of moans coming from the streets above, but it did its best, the booming of waves hitting hard on the beach. The fog was thick enough to hide a ghost ship full of vengeful pirate leper zombies. Although I suppose technically those would be revenants. In a world where the dead really did walk, it was probably best to get it right.
The tide was at a midpoint. I could see the high water mark at the edge of the pampas grass—detritus, driftwood, and bits of shells indicating the demarcation point. Water still lapped at the base of the storm drain as waves rolled in, and then receded.
JT swung over the fence separating the lower and upper level of the platform, and landed with a thud. Nathan shot him a glare. JT gave an apologetic shrug and Nathan cocked his head to one side as he listened. I couldn’t tell if he actually heard something beyond the chorus of the damned, or was just being cautious, but he’d survived more situations and more years than the rest of us, so I trusted his judgment.
Finally he relaxed ever so slightly and nodded.
“Okay,” he said quietly, “I think we’re good. JT, can you see any action on the beach from where you’re standing?” JT shook his head.
“Nope. Maybe one of you super-visioned types might have better luck seeing through the fog.”
Nathan nodded at me.
“Ash, wanna give it a try?”
“Sure.” I clambered across the pipes to the stairs, climbed those, and carefully grasped the gate, preferring a more traditional approach. “We can see further, and more clearly,” I said to JT, “but it doesn’t mean we have x-ray vision.”
“And here I wore my special Superman undies for nothing.”
Snorting, I grabbed the top pipe of the gate to hoist myself up. It was slippery under my palms, damp from the mist, but also a little sticky. I didn’t think about it until I’d hopped down onto the platform and my foot made a slight sloshing noise, as if I’d stepped in a puddle. I looked down, and saw that the puddle was tinged with red.
I glanced quickly around the rest of the platform’s surface. The telltale signs of Walkers were spattered all around—droplets of blood, black bile, and on the circular metal access cover, bits of flesh as if something had been trying to pound its way in. The story it told didn’t promise a happy ending.
“Shit.” My voice was flat.
JT looked at me inquiringly.
“Don’t touch anything,” I told him. “There’s blood, and it might be infected.”
“What is it?” Nathan asked.
“Nothing now,” I said, “but looks like something happened here. I think someone tried to get into the storm drain to hide, but couldn’t get the cover up and—”
An even worse thought sprung into my head. I quickly climbed back over the railing onto the top of the stairs, jumping the five feet down into soft sand. I landed in a crouch and ran over to the base of the storm drain, splashing ankle deep in the surf.
The original mouths of the pipes were inside and under the platform, now covered with metal plates riveting them to the cement walls. Two smaller black pipes like sink faucets protruded from the wall above them. Some enterprising idiot had tried to pry sections of the metal plates open. He or she had succeeded in making an opening large enough for someone to squeeze inside.
Faded graffiti marked the dank walls, making me wonder why on earth someone would want to mark a sewer pipe as his or her territory. The only way in or out was through the access cover up top, and the metal ladder that hugged one wall below it. Thick steel bars enclosed the front, creating a sort of cage with concrete sides. Maybe a very skinny adolescent could squeeze through those bars, but they were meant to keep people out.
They also did a very effective job of keeping people in.
We all float down here.
I stared at the two waterlogged corpses now occupying the space. Both had been teenagers, a boy and a girl. The girl’s long, dark brown hair splayed out in the water on the floor, some clinging like seaweed to her swollen face, body flush up against the bars. Crabs skittered around her jeans-and-hoodie-clad body, warring with ravens and seagulls now picking at her flesh. The boy lay next to the ladder, one arm still looped around one of the lower rungs. I could see the bite marks on that arm where his shirt sleeve fell away from his bicep.
Nathan joined me.
“They must have been caught on the beach,” I said dully. “Climbed in here from the top to get away. The zombies wouldn’t be able to pull that metal cover up.”
He nodded. “They probably thought if they could wait it out and hide long enough, the zombies would go away.”
Tony looked bewildered.
“But… the zombies did go away. There aren’t any down here so why didn’t they climb out?”
I looked at the way the boy clung to the ladder, even in death. The kid had probably held on as long as he could before either exhaustion or hypothermia got the best of him.
“The tide came in,” I said softly. “The zombies wouldn’t go away as long as the kids were alive, so they had a choice—go out and get torn to pieces, or hope the tide didn’t rise too high.”
I can hold my breath for a long, long time, I thought, and then I shivered.
“By the time they figured out they were gonna drown, there had to have been zombies all over the top. They probably couldn’t have moved the cover back off even if they’d had the guts to try. They didn’t stand a chance.”
Tony s
tared at the bodies for a long moment.
“That really sucks,” he finally said.
I wondered if he was picturing the same grim scenario as me, the two huddled on the ladder, trying to keep their heads above water and resist the numbness brought on by the frigid water as it slowly rose around them. Did the girl finally give up, let go and slip under the water? Or had she fought until the last minute to stay alive, same as the boy?
Tony was right, though. Either way it sucked.
“Why didn’t they come back?” JT looked at the bodies with a clinical compassion.
“It doesn’t look like she’s been bit,” I replied. “But the kid over there definitely took one for the team.”
“The rate of infection varies,” Nathan added. “The bite doesn’t look too deep, so there’s a good chance he drowned before succumbing to the virus.”
“So at least she didn’t have to see her boyfriend turn,” I said, almost to myself as I thought about my own experience with Matt.
Just then the boy’s hand twitched, the fingers clutching the rung in a brief spasm before releasing it. JT drew in his breath with a sharp inhale, and then let it out again in a sigh.
“Ah,” he said.
Slowly the boy’s corpse lifted its head, swiveling it around until its dead eyes stared straight at us. Its mouth opened as it gave the inevitable moan. A hermit crab scuttled out of its lips and plopped to the ground. The newly minted zombie got to its feet, every movement yielding grotesque squishing noises from its waterlogged flesh and clothing. The ravens and gulls scattered as the figure staggered over to the girl’s still lifeless form. The crabs stayed where they were.
I wondered what it took to scare a crab.
After a cursory examination, the zombie moved away from the corpse. Guess the meat wasn’t fresh enough—too cold maybe. Instead it lurched over to the bars and reached toward us, moaning plaintively. For a brief instant I understood why someone would want to believe there was still a spar of humanity inside of these empty, rotting shells. It sounded so damn sad, and so lonely, and I suddenly couldn’t separate the poor kid from the soulless monster he had become.
