Planet of the Dead

by Thomas S. Flowers

  Across the city, the frantic jarring bells of the Puebla Cathedral were heard. Vibrating off the pebble roads and old colonial buildings, many of the Talvavera tiles, once beautifully crafted with blooms of blue and orange and gold flowers, now fell and shattered along the streets as people rushed frantically to the east of the city. Typically used for calling faithful to prayer, the bells were now sounds of warning. Abandoned the city. Disease. Pestilence. Some fell along the way, trampled underfoot in the panic. Sister Reina del Carmen stood at the open doors of her monastery. For the first time in years, the abbess was ushering frightened outsiders within the confines of her secluded cloister.

  Two novices stood out along the road, guiding people inside. Many more continued east, following the main route towards Huejotzingo, a small municipality with a dense population. Perhaps it was safer there. Maybe these fleeing mob would fund refuge. But it was a long journey and Puebla was quickly becoming a dangerous place to traverse.

  Though Abbess Carmen had a mind to help all in need, she knew in her heart she must save as many of the passing children as she could. Orphans or newly minted, they would not be able to make the long journey east toward safety. And even then, would Huejotzingo be habitable, or any place for that matter? She could not risk abandoning the little ones, not when she had the space to shelter them, not when she felt in her heart God's touch to save them.

  "The children," Abbess Carmen shouted to her two novice nuns.

  Nodding, the pair of tunicked and veiled women began pulling wide eyed children from the crowd as they passed. Some came attached to their mothers, equally frantic, many in tears.

  Someone screamed farther back towards the city, people within the crowd began falling over one another, some scrambling back to their feet to rejoin the sea of tan and strained faces, others were kept penned to the ground. Somehow, the sound of gnashing and gurgling could be heard above the chaos.

  "Hurry, sisters. We must close the gate." Abbess Carmen shouted. Turning to a group of pre-teen girls, all of whom stared up at the aged nun teary eyed. She cooed them, as a mother would, as if they were her own flesh and blood. "It'll be okay," she promised, speaking tenderly and meek. "Go on inside, its safe here."

  The pre-teens nodded and hurried inside.

  Abbess Carmen watched them, wondering for moment what had become of their parents. Taken, she had little doubt, by this terrible plague. This fever that diminished the body to a husk, a virus she had witnessed firsthand on this very morning when Sister Margarete perished, twice. She'd been bitten while offering a homeless man some food. And then she's fallen sick, sweat permeated and soaked her habit and bed sheets, she shook and spoke nonsense, perhaps to some, but to the abbess, it was prophecy. And then she passed--and then she woke, deranged and behaving as some feral beast. Thankfully, the abbess had been the only one in the room at the time. And thanks be to God, His Son's crucifix hung on the wall where she stood.

  In all her many years, Abbess Carmen had never taken a life, nor did she have want or ever would. But as Sister Margarete came at her, raving and drooling yellowish red bile, she used that cross and consecrated it through the nun's skull.

  Both novices were working their way back to the monastery doors, guiding a flock of children no older than ten years of age. They all looked frightened by the mayhem, wide eyed, some weeping, none of whom came accompanied with mothers or fathers.

  "Come, it will be okay," Abbess whispered quickly to the children. To the nuns, she said, "Hurry, get them inside. We must close the gates."

  The novices nodded, the hardship, the woe of everything they'd seen and done clearly depicted in their expression. They ushered the little ones inside, neither looking back.

  Abbess Carmen watched them go and then turned back to the tide of fleeing Puebla citizens. None of which seemed to even notice the tall walled monastery with the thick iron gates protecting tall thick wooden doors. They ran, following the progression away from the city. Out of belief, she had little doubt. This wasn't an act of faith, this was sheer pandemonium. The Devil had come into this hub of Renaissance-era architecture and culinary history, this monument of painted roofs and historic significance, the Devil came and he brought with him our dead. And now where did those feats of human ingenuity stand in face of Revelation?

  Turning to close the thick iron gate, Abbess Carmen paused.

  "Sister, help me, please," someone called from the river of people.

  She gazed out, scanning the flowing crowd. Running towards her she saw a woman cradling what she could only assume to be a baby. Abbess Carmen considered the woman's face and saw the same she had seen all night. Desperation.

  "Are you seeking refuge, child?" Abbess Carmen asked, already knowing the answer. She didn't like the look of her, her seemed too young to be a mother. Dark wet stains painted her cheeks and clothes. She held out the wrapped baby as if making a sacrifice.

  "For my daughter," the woman said, pleading. Her eyes were filled with turmoil, of grief and sadness and perhaps some hope there too.

  "There's room for you both," Abbess Carmen said, speaking as gently as she could. There was something not right about this young woman.

  The woman shook her head. "No, no, just her." Again, she held out the baby, as if an offering.

  Abbess Carmen gazed at her and the baby doubtfully, unsure, her brow furrowing.

  Someone, another woman, not far away shrilled. More bodies fell in the rushing mob. Abbess Carmen glanced at the road, knowing she could wait no longer to seal the gate.

  "Don't be naïve, girl. Your daughter will need her mother," Abbess Carmen whispered hotly, urgently, gesturing for the woman to enter through the door.

  Shoving the wrapped baby into the nun's arms, the young woman stepped back, tears swelling and bursting down her bloodied cheeks. "I...I can't...I..." she bent her neck, tugging on her collar, exposing a gnarled and purplish wound, a bite mark. Festered and bruising. "I've seen what happens after you are bit. This infection...I cannot be with her...I...tell her I loved her." And with that, the woman turned and ran into the crowd, forcing her way against the current.

  Abbess Carmen watched her until she was swallowed by the horde.

  Another nun appeared beside her, perhaps wondering why the abbess had not closed the gates.

  She gazed down at the wrapped bundle. The baby within the blankets cried, perhaps aware of her mother's departure, in the way babies somehow know. The smell, maybe. Her mother's perfume. Her sweat. Her loving kiss. Her tit. The abbess cooed with baby and then handed her off to the waiting nun.

  "Take her inside. I'll shut the gate."

  The nun vanished, cradling the wrapped infant.

  Abbess Carmen listened to the wails of the baby and then she closed the large iron gate, one side at a time. The creaking metal gripped her heart, as if listening to the jaws of Hell closing. Finished, she watched as the flowing crowd thinned. More than a dozen was shambling with that same vacant stare sister Margarete had earlier that morning. Some with yellow-red puss drooling wounds, some growling, some gnashing, and some moaning.

  "We've become pan de los Muertos...the Devil's bread," she whispered, clutching her worn rosary in her right fist, instinctually counting the beads as she breathed deep and slow.

  More screams and shouts. Some, despite, ran to the gates, begging to be let in.

  Time had come.

  With chains and a pad, she ignored their pleas and their curses and locked the gates to the Monastery of Saint Agnes of Puebla and hurried inside the tall wood doors, bolting them shut.

  Polk

  Part 4

  Shoreacres,

  Texas.

  She ran through the house, taking with her the screwdriver she fished out of Jonny's tool bag in the garage. She found seven doors she could use, but needed to pop out the long screw to take them off the hinges. Only seven doors...and more windows than there was wood to cover them. The whole damn house seemed like a giant window. Polk had never noticed be
fore, not until she needed to board them up. It was the smartest plan she could think of, if she wanted to wait out whatever this is that was going on, this epidemic, this government made plague, biblical Revelation, the end of the world, whatever it was, she would need to keep those nasties (as the surfer called them), the diseased, the walking dead from getting inside. But she would also need to keep a way to let people in, people like Jonny and Karen...when- if they were coming back.

  The most concerning windows were the large front and back windows, the one overlooking the lawn and Forest Avenue out front, and the one overlooking the porch and the backyard. The front was where most of the traffic looked to be coming from. Wandering shambling bodies aimlessly walking across yards, falling into the ditches, listening, waiting perhaps for some sign of life, some sign of food.

  Turning over the kitchen table, Polk knocked off the legs and turned the oak sideways. Using her hips and her shoulder and her prosthetic, being careful not to pierce the wood with the three-foot spike mounted on the apparatus, she braced up the table against the window sill. Miraculously, she had found a nail gun in Jonny's garage, along with the screwdriver and 2x4s and planks. Without the mechanized tool, there would have been no way for her to barricade the window.

  Pop.

  Clank.

  Pop.

  Clank.

  Polk hated making any excess noise. Those infected seemed to be drawn to the sound. Glancing between the crack, there were two more shuffling bodies stumbling into the yard. She would have to deal with them eventually. Just a few hours ago, she watched as a dozen or so had seem to gather, surrounding the house across the street, smashing in the windows. Sound attracted them and when enough of them came together, it was like a...feeding frenzy. Not yet though. No need for unwanted attention. Moving away, ignoring the white draped frame of Karen's dead mother on the floor, she ran the extension cords through the kitchen and to the back window.

  Pop.

  Clank.

  Pop.

  Clank.

  It took four of the seven doors she'd taken down to barricade the back window. Securing the boards used what remained of the 2x4s and planks. Exhausted, she slumped to the floor, breathing hard and already sweating through her shirt. Outside, the sun had finally set, extinguishing the dark orange glow into utter darkness. How much more was there to do? Fishing empty soda bottles from the recyclables, she already filled them with water, including all of Karen's pitches and flower vases. Might as well fill as much as she could with water while they still had it. Soon, everything most people take for granted would be gone, assuming the news and what she's seen with her own eyes was a testament to what was about to come. The end of internet, cell coverage, emergency first responders, air conditioning, pizza delivery, electricity, it was all about to disappear.

  What else? Maybe drape whatever blankets there were here, anything thick, comforters perhaps, nail them over the windows without boards, the upstairs windows especially. No need risk being seen inside, by the living or the dead.

  Dead...is that what they are?

  Undead, like the surfer had said, burnt out by an infection, and then...they come back, but not like how they were before. No, they aren't there anymore. No longer--human.

  How could this have happened?

  Conspiracy, like the surfer suggested?

  Did it matter. Here we are.

  Just got to learn how to survive, and learn quick.

  Only way to kill them is to kill the brain...

  ...kill the brain, Jesus, where is Jonny?

  Why am I doing this alone?

  Exhaling, Polk struggled to her feet. There was still the smaller windows in the front of the house in what Karen called her "reading room." Slinging the nail gun around her neck, she grabbed one of the leftover doors. Again, using her shoulder and prosthetic to brace the door as she nailed it into place.

  Pop.

  Clank.

  Pop.

  Clank.

  Pop.

  Clank.

  Tires squealed outside. Bright lights flooded into the front room. Dropping the nail gun, Polk peered through the crack between the barricade and the window.

  "Jonny?" she whispered.

  Rushing to the door, Polk unbolted the lock and ran out on the stoop, peering into the darkness, trying to see who it was in the drive.

  She recognized Jonny's big ugly Jeep, but couldn't see Jonny.

  "Jonny, Karen, is that you?" she called.

  Climbing down from the Jeep was someone small, too small to be Jonny.

  Polk stood there, staring, wondering where they'd been.

  "Ashley?" Karen stood on the driveway, her eyes wet and strained. There was blood on her dress, her knees scraped. Hesitating, she ran up the narrow walkway that led to the front door.

  Being careful with her prosthetic, Polk held her with her one arm. Squeezing, she didn't care at that moment where they had been or what took so long. To hold this warm soft body. To smell her hair. It was intoxicating.

  But they were outside.

  And outside was dangerous.

  "Where have ya'll been?" Polk asked, still clinging to her. Holding her best friend's girlfriend firmly. Comfortingly, as best she could. "Where's Jonny?"

  Karen began trembling harder. Weeping and shuddering. "Dead...he--"

  Polk held Karen back, glaring at the girl approaching, staggering up the walkway towards them. "Get inside." She took a step forward, posing her three-foot spike prosthesis.

  Sniffling, Karen protested. "Wait, Ashley, that's my sister. We need to get her inside."

  Taking another step forward, "She's not coming inside with us."

  "What are you talking about? She's hurt. She needs to sleep is all."

  "Karen, listen to me. She's not your sister anymore. Look at her, do you see, do you know what's going on?" Polk turned slightly so Karen could see her sister. Kristy, still dressed in her pajamas, pale sickly skin, and yellow-white fogged eyes. The cut on her leg looked swollen and purple, dark black nerves rooted out around it. She staggered forward, groaning, dragging her feet.

  Karen whimpered, choking on her tears. "No, she's...she's fine. She just needs sleep. Please, Ashley, please... Kristy, tell her you're alright..."

  Kristy said nothing. Continuing towards them, she picked up speed, hunger warping her expression into something feral.

  Refusing to take her eyes away from this growling girl, Polk said, "She's infected. She's not alive anymore. Can't you see that?"

  Falling to her knees, Karen wept, but said nothing else.

  Poised, Polk rammed her spiked apparatus through Karen's sister's eye, impaling her through the other side of her skull. The walking corpse shuddered, yellowish-red froth foamed and drooped from her open mouth. She spasmed and finally collapsed, sliding off the metal.

  Karen screamed, tears pouring down her face, fists balled tightly together.

  Polk glanced around. More of them were appearing, drawn no doubt by the commotion. Dozens, judging by the many moving shadows. Some coming into view. One man in shorts and a polo, bite marks mapping his arms. Another, a woman in a skirt and tank top. Part of her face was torn, the skin peeled back as if she were an orange. There was a man in a suit, his tie missing. And another in a pair of slacks and a button down, jaw hanging horribly low, lips gone.

  "Come on, we have to get inside." She pulled on Karen's arm.

  Karen refused, flinching at her touch.

  "Karen," Polk hissed.

  "What's the point?" Karen sobbed.

  "Its safe inside."

  "Is it?"

  Finally, Polk pulled Karen to her feet and guided her quickly into the house. She closed the door and bolted the lock.

  Drake

  Several Weeks Later

  Houston,

  Texas.

  "Is there nothing?" Drake hissed, his body half tilting inside the dumpster behind 888 Bistro. He was holding his breath, struggling not to inhale the putrid sour stink of s
poiled Chicken Lo Mein and what he could only assume to be vomit or, so he imagined, a festering decomposing corpse as he searched the ripped black plastic trash bags for something edible. Worming another inch inside the foul bin, he opened another bag. This one smelled fresh, as fresh as one could get he was sure.

  Bingo, he smiled. Floundering, he wiggled out of the dumpster. Holding his price, clenching the half-eaten eggroll in his dirty soiled hands inspecting for signs of mold. There wasn't much light available inside the bin, but out in the alley he could pick away whatever fuzz was growing. And if it was too bad...well, a decision would have to be made. Starvation or risk having the shits all night.

  His mouth watering, Drake took a bite. Cold. Mushy. Greasy. But god if his stomach wasn't grumbling happily. Pleased with having at least this much to eat.

  Suddenly, beside the dumpster, the thick metal door of the Chinese restaurant opened. A short man with short black hair and a yellow stained apron took a step out, staggering with that clumsy gait that was all too popular among the city's populace of late. He stopped and stared at Drake, yellowish-red drool drooping from his mouth.

  Drake swallowed the cold mushy bite, likewise staring at the dead cook.

  The cook stepped forward, growling, moving with a sense of urgency.

  Looking at what remained of his prize, Drake nearly laughed. "It's trash, man. What do you care?"

  Uncaring, the dead cook kept toward him, dragging one of his feet across the pavement.

  Sirens blared at the end of the alley.

  Drake glanced behind the cook, his eyes widening at the sight of the dirty white patrol car marked with the City of Houston Police Department and the "take a bite out of crime" logo. As if the dead cook wasn't bad enough. Now he had to deal with what remained of law and order since the epidemic. The swift and too often cruel justice system that not so surprisingly still didn't give two rats' ass for the homeless.

  Was there even a distinction anymore?

  Wasn't everyone homeless now?

  The cook noticed the cop too, turning and growling at the sight of them, lumbering off towards the patrol.