by Brian Keene
Yes, it was true that in the last thirteen days over ten thousand years of human civilization had been rendered a moot point, but that didn’t mean it was the end of the world. Not at all. It was just a denouement.
For Troll, the world had ended many years before. It died with his daughter.
Unlike the new dead, his daughter hadn’t come back.
Pausing in his thoughts, he picked crumbs from his thick, scraggly beard and tried not to cry. He sat in an abandoned bomb shelter left dormant after the end of the Cold War. It had been his home for a long time.
Troll remembered his other home. His other name. Remembered his previous life. He’d worked for fifteen years as a drug counselor at a clinic in Baltimore. He was highly respected in his field and had the accolades and certificates to prove it. But all of that changed when his daughter died. He remembered that night very clearly—it was burned into his consciousness. One night she’d gone to a party. While she was there, she somehow ended up snorting heroin mixed with a household chemical of some kind. She passed in the back of the ambulance, en route to the hospital.
She was fourteen.
He’d never known she had a drug problem. He never asked. Never saw the signs, even though he was trained to do so. Maybe it was the first time she’d ever tried drugs. Even so, he still didn’t know why she’d done it. Maybe it was peer pressure, or maybe the divorce or trouble with a boyfriend. Whatever the reason, it didn’t matter. She died and she didn’t come back—and he died with her. No one called him by his real name anymore. Most people didn’t even notice him. But when they did, they called him what he was—a Troll. Just another homeless person populating Baltimore’s background setting. After his daughter’s death, he’d gone underground, literally. His ex-wife blamed him. He agreed with her. He’d helped so many people, but failed to help his own daughter. So he left after the funeral. Sold his home and all of his belongings and went away. He lived beneath the city streets, inhabiting a network of sewers, maintenance and train tunnels, electrical cable pipes, and other subterranean passageways. He wasn’t alone. When he’d first come here, Troll had been surprised by the number of people living beneath the streets. Like him, not all of them were the dregs of society. There were stockbrokers, lawyers, and even a doctor. Each had their own story, but for whatever reason, they’d flunked out—failed at life and decided to reinvent themselves below or to hide from their mistakes, who they’d been before.
Troll made a new home for himself, a new life. And when the world fell apart above, he figured the apocalypse was just catching up to everyone else. Pausing again in his ruminations, Troll sniffed the air, making sure there were no zombies around. Their stench usually gave them away, even through the thick walls of the shelter. The coast smelled clear. The only corpse was Sylva’s, still lying in the corner because Troll was too exhausted to haul him out. The attacks were increasing in frequency, even down here beneath the city. So far, the undead contingent had been mostly four-legged. A few dead humans had shown up in the tunnels—homeless people who were killed topside and then returned for their friends below. They were easy enough to fight. The zombie rats presented a bigger problem. They were smaller, sneakier, and their numbers multiplied faster. He’d seen them swarm over people, stripping them to the bone within seconds. Whenever he left the shelter, he carried a metal spray can full of gasoline and a lit torch. This makeshift flamethrower had kept the rats at bay so far.It might have worked on Sylva too, if he’d had the nerve to try.
Mark Sylva was one of Troll’s closest friends—or perhaps, the closest thing he had to a friend. Originally from Boston, the younger man had drifted south, going from city to city, staying in various soup kitchens and shelters. He was schizophrenic; never had enough money for medicine or a family to take care of him. Eventually, he’d ended up in Baltimore’s underground. Troll had sort of adopted him.
This morning, feverish, dehydrated, and suffering from dysentery and a nasty bite on his thigh—a wound inflicted by a zombie rat—Sylva had begged Troll to kill him.
Troll shook his head. “I can’t.”
“Please,” Sylva moaned. Bloody sputum had dried on his chin. “I’m dying anyway, man. I don’t want to go out like this.”
“You’re not dying,” Troll lied. “We just need to get some more liquids in you, and I need to find some antiseptic for that—”
“Fuck the antiseptic!” Sylva coughed. His entire body shook. Yellow-white pus oozed from his swollen thigh. “Grab a pipe and bash my head in, Troll.”
“No. I can’t.”
“You have to. It hurts.”
“I can’t do it. Please don’t ask me to.”
“You used to help people,” Sylva said. “You told me that. You used to help people who were in pain. That was what you lived for.”
“But this is different.”
“No, it’s not. You can help everyone else, but you can’t help me?”
“That’s not fair!”
“Why?”
“Because I did help everyone else and none of it mattered. Look what happened in the end. I wasn’t much help to my daughter now was I?”
“So start again,” Sylva wheezed. “You want to forgive yourself for that? You want to live again? Well then help me out, man. Kill me.”
Rather than responding, Troll got to his feet and grabbed a candle. He tipped the wick into the flame burning atop a second candle next to Sylva’s makeshift cot. The younger man’s flesh looked waxy in the flickering light.
“I’m going to look for something to clean that wound up with. Some medicine, too—something for your diarrhea. You rest. Try to drink some water while I’m gone. You need to stay hydrated.”
“Troll…”
“Rest. I’ll be back soon.”
* * *
Troll had spent the rest of the morning searching for supplies and battling the dead. When he returned, Sylva was gone. He’d left behind a note, scrawled on the back of a soup can label. It said that if Troll couldn’t kill him, then he’d do it himself. He didn’t want to suffer any longer, and he didn’t want to come back as one of them.
But he did, anyway.
Later that evening, while Troll read a Stephen Crane poetry book by candlelight, Sylva’s corpse came back. It opened the hatch door and lunged into the shelter, giggling like a child. The suicide method was immediately obvious. Sylva had cut his wrists and slashed at his throat, mistakenly believing that it would prevent him from returning. But it hadn’t.
“You should have killed me when you had the chance, Troll.”
“You’re right. I should have.”
After a brief struggle, Troll put him down again by driving a rusty railroad spike through the zombie’s head. Then he knelt over the body of his friend and wailed.
Not for the first time, Troll wanted to die. He wanted it with all of his being. But he couldn’t. Couldn’t summon the courage to end it all no matter how bad he felt. Couldn’t surrender to the rats or other zombies, no matter how badly he wanted to sometimes. His survival instinct always overrode those urges. All he could do was suffer while the world fell apart around him.
The end of the world? Hardly. Everyone had their own personal apocalypse. His world had ended the same day as his daughter’s life. He’d died with her. And all of the things that had happened since: the homelessness and hunger and sickness, and more recently, the zombies—everything that came after his pocket apocalypse?
This was just Hell.
Troll wanted to live again. Instead he was a ghost, haunting the underground. A living dead man battling the living dead. Maybe Sylva had been right. Maybe, if he embraced his purpose and found someone to help again, maybe then he could finally start living.
Several days later, he did. Her name was Frankie. And though he died while helping her, Troll died alive.
* * *
THE VIKING PLAYS PATTY CAKE
The Rising
Day Fourteen
Detroit, Michigan
> The air burned their lungs, thick with smoke from the fires—and the cloying miasma of the dead. Chino pushed a branch out of the way and peered through the bushes. “What’s wrong with him?”
“Don’t know.” King shrugged. “He ain’t a zombie. Looks more like a Viking.”
They studied the giant on the park bench. He was impressive; early forties but in good shape, well over six feet tall, decked out in tattoos and earrings. His hands clutched an M-1 Garand, the barrel still smoking from the round he’d just drilled into a zombie. The creature sprawled on the ground ten feet away—minus its head. The grass and pavement were littered with more bodies. An assortment of weapons lay scattered on the bench: two more rifles, four grenades, a dozen handguns, and boxes of ammunition for each. Next to those was a large backpack, filled with bottled water and food. The Viking sat like a statue, his eyes roving and watchful. Another zombie closed in on him from the right. The rifle roared and the creature’s head exploded.
The Viking never left the bench. He brought down three more before the rest of the creatures fell back. From their vantage point, Chino and King heard one of the monsters ordering others to find guns. Several of them raced off.
The Viking began muttering to himself. “Patty cake, patty cake…”
Chino crouched back down. “The fuck is wrong with him? Why don’t he hide?”
“I don’t know,” King said. “Maybe he’s crazy.”
“Got an awful lot of firepower,” Chino observed.
“We could use that shit.”
“Word.”
The Viking fired another shot. From far away, deep inside the city, more gunfire echoed. Chino’s fingers tightened around his .357. “That the Army guys shooting?”
“Maybe,” King said. “They’ve been trying to take the city back. Held it up to the railroad tracks down on Eight Mile, but then they got overrun by them things.”
Chino shook his head. “Why bother? Ain’t nobody in charge anymore. Why don’t they just bail?”
King peeked again. The zombies still kept their distance from the man with the guns, but more were coming: dead humans, dogs, cats, squirrels. The Viking calmly reloaded, still mumbling under his breath.
“Patty cake, patty cake, baker’s man…”
“What’s he doing?” Chino whispered.
“Playing patty cake.”
Chino grunted. “Whole world’s gone crazy.”
“There’re still people in charge. You know Tito and his crew?”
“The ones holed up inside the public works building?”
King nodded. “I was talking to him three days ago. Went out there and traded six cases of beer for some gasoline. They got a ham radio.”
“How they working it? Power been out for a week.”
“Generator,” King said. “They heard some military general got parts of California under control. And there’s a National Guard unit in Pennsylvania that’s taken back Gettysburg. Could happen here, too.”
Chino frowned. “That would suck. I like the way things is. Do what we want, when we want. We got the guns.”
“Not as many as that guy.” King nodded at the Viking.
Both men peeked out of the bushes again. The zombies inched closer, circling the park bench. Some now carried rifles as well. The Viking put down the Garand, and picked up a grenade. His eyes were steel.
* * *
“Open fire,” one of the zombies commanded. “He is just one human.”
With one fluid movement, the Viking pulled the pin and tossed the grenade toward the undead. There was a deafening explosion. Dirt and body parts splattered onto the grass. The Viking threw a second grenade, but one of the creatures snatched it up and flung it back. The explosive soared towards the bushes—the bushes concealing Chino and King.
“Shit…” King shoved Chino forward. “Move your ass!”
The grenade failed to detonate, but neither man noticed. They were too busy dashing from the shrubbery—and directly, they realized too late, into the firefight. The M-1 Garand roared, and the zombies returned fire.
“Motherfucker,” Chino shouted. “We done it now!”
Bullets plowed through the dirt at their feet and whizzed by their heads. Chino and King opened fire, helping the Viking mow down the remaining zombies. Within seconds, all of the dead were dead again.
The Viking turned his weapon on the men.
“Whoa!” King held up his hands. “We’re alive, yo. Don’t shoot!”
The Viking didn’t respond.
“Chino,” King whispered. “Put your gun down.”
“Fuck that.” Chino spat in the grass. “Tell that puta to put his down first.”
King smiled at the Viking. “We don’t mean no harm. Hell, we just helped you.”
“Why?”
King blinked. “Because you were in trouble, man. Why you sitting out here in the open like that, Mister…?”
“Beauchamp.” The Viking’s shoulders sagged, and he put the rifle down. “Mark Beauchamp.”
Chino lowered his weapon, wondering what King was up to.
“Why you out here on this bench, Mr. Beauchamp?” King’s eyes flicked over the stranger’s arsenal. He licked his lips. “Wouldn’t it be safer trying to find some shelter? Come wit’ us, we can hide you.”
“No.” The Viking shook his head. “I don’t think so. I’m waiting.”
“Waiting? For what?”
The Viking’s eyes turned glassy, and King realized the man was fighting back tears.
“I had a job at the Ford stamping plant, just south of the city. Wasn’t what I wanted to do with my life, but it was okay. Fed my family. Had a wife, Paula, and four kids. My son’s twenty-one. My daughters are fifteen, fourteen, and five months.”
The Viking paused, and despite the tears welling up in his eyes, he smiled.
“I think raising my boy was easier than the girls.”
King nodded.
Chino shifted from foot to foot, his finger flexing around the trigger. Was King just going to talk the guy to death?
“I was at work when it happened. I heard it all started in Escanaba, but it spread to Detroit fast. By the time I got home, Paula and the kids were gone. No note. Nothing. The evacuation order didn’t go out until a day later, so I don’t know what happened.”
His face darkened, and then he continued.
“There was blood in our kitchen—a lot of blood. I don’t know whose it was. And one of the windows was broken. But that’s all.”
“Sorry to hear that,” King said.
“I spent the first twelve days looking for them. But then I got an idea. We used to come here. I’d sit on this bench with my daughter, Erin, and we’d play patty cake. So I’m waiting, see? They’ll come back. Paula wouldn’t just leave like that. She knows how worried I’d be. I’m waiting for my family. I miss my kids.”
“And just shooting zombies?”
“Yeah. I’ve become a pretty good shot. Used to have a kick-ass pellet gun.”
“What about the birds, man? How you gonna shoot them?”
“Haven’t bothered me yet. And my family will be here before the birds show up. You’ll see.”
King glanced at Chino, then back at the Viking. He tried swallowing the lump in his throat.
“Sure you won’t come with us?”
The Viking shook his head.
King slowly approached the bench. Chino tensed. Here it came. King had the guy off guard. Now he’d pop him, they’d grab the shit, and get the hell gone before more zombies came back. But King didn’t waste the guy. Instead, he shook his hand.
“Good luck.”
“Thanks.”
King turned back to Chino. “Come on. Let the man wait in peace.”
Chino’s eyes nearly popped out of his head. “Say what?”
“You heard me,” King growled. “Let him be.”
King trudged across the grass, and Chino ran to catch up with him. He grabbed King’s arm and spun him around.
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“The fuck was that all about? We could have smoked him.”
“No,” King said, his voice thick with emotion.
“We ain’t touching him.”
“Why not?”
“Because,” King sighed, “I miss my kids, too.”
An artillery shell whistled over the city. The explosion rumbled through the streets. Beneath it all, they heard the Viking playing patty cake.
* * *
IF YOU CAN SEE THE MOUNTAIN…
The Rising
Day Fifteen
Hawera, New Zealand
There were nine of them inside the water tower; Mean, Charlie, Ross, Greenberg, Sally, Rachel, Sid, the unconscious old man, and the Maori, unable to tell them his name because his tongue had been ripped out by a zombie. Mean didn’t know them, having only recently moved back from England. The old man was a dairy farmer, brought in by Sid. Rachel and Charlie were teenagers; Ross a butcher, paunchy and asthmatic; Greenberg an accountant; Sally an American on vacation (visiting the locations where The Lord of the Rings was filmed). The zombie plague was slow to strike Hawera. The first week, the townspeople watched it spread to other parts of the world, horrified—and perhaps a bit annoyed that the coverage preempted rugby.
Slowly, it infected their little corner of the world, first with dead animals, then with people. When the creature’s numbers increased enough to launch a full-scale assault, the town—population 10,000—collapsed within an hour. Home by home, street by street, they eradicated the living, further swelling their ranks. The nine survivors took refuge inside the old water tower in the center of town. The structure, which could be seen for miles, hadn’t been used for decades. When it was built, it leaned so badly that the construction workers dug underneath and jacked it up. Still, it leaned. But it was dry, empty, and secure. They sat inside, waiting in the darkness for an attack that never came. That was four days ago. Since then, they’d run out of food and had one bottle of water between them. They still had weapons and ammunition—
