It didn’t. The next day he felt no better. His eyes burned and his mouth was dry. It felt like an impenetrable fog had descended over his brain, making coherent thought virtually impossible. He sat up in bed, stuck his arms into his Mount Clinton Resort bathrobe, and tried to stand. His head swam, making him sway, but eventually he righted himself. His stomach gurgled and the ache made its way up his esophagus.
“Food,” he muttered. It was the only word he could think to say.
He made his way through the quiet resort, bumping into walls as he walked, poured himself a bowl of cereal in the kitchen, and stumbled to the dining area. By the time he reached his destination, he’d lost half of what had been in his bowl.
Sitting at the large table, Hector spooned cereal into his mouth. It hurt to chew, and the food didn’t feel right going down, but at least it eased his stomach a little. Pressure built up in his skull and he dropped his head in his hands, moaning. A part of him thought he sounded similar to the dead things hanging around outside. He shivered, and it wasn’t completely because of the fever.
Time became an obscure concept, and before he knew it people were filtering into the dining room, performing their morning rituals. Hector watched through bloodshot eyes: Doug chomping on a plain bagel while he strummed his fingers on the table; Luis eating a banana, his hair sticking straight up; Dennis stumbling around aimlessly, cup of coffee in hand; Larry combing his ridiculous blond mullet while simultaneously sipping on orange juice; Corky lying with his head buried in his forearms, as if he didn’t want to give in to wakefulness just yet.
Then Horace strolled into the room. The old man carried a bowl of cold oatmeal, a bowl that fell from his hands the moment he gazed at Hector. His mouth formed a shocked “o”, just as the bowl shattered on the hardwood floor.
“No,” said Horace.
All eyes in the room went to him. Doug leapt from his sitting position and rushed to the old man. “What’s wrong?” he asked.
Horace pointed right at Hector, who tried to grin despite the pain.
“It’s back,” Horace whispered.
Everyone else immediately pushed themselves away from the table. They stared at him, mouths gaping. Hector thought they all looked rather funny, so he laughed.
“Amigo?” said Luis.
Hector craned his neck, gazed up at his friend, and smiled. He felt fluid leak from the corner of his mouth when he did so, but he did nothing to stop it. Everything seemed unreal. It had to be a dream. He punched himself in the head, causing bright spots to flash in his vision. Another wave of dizziness and nausea overtook him. He tried to stand up, but his legs were shaking.
“I’m okay,” he attempted to say, but to his ears it sounded like garbled nonsense. The world rushed by, causing everything to spin. He leaned over, attempted to move his head in time with the rotation of the earth, and then felt the sensation of gliding. He barely felt it when his head hit the floor. The exterior of his body had gone numb; the interior was a torrent of pain.
Hands on him. Trying to help him up. The old man telling everyone to get away.
“Don’t touch him! It’s not safe!” he said.
“He’s burning up!” someone yelled.
And in the coming blackness, that’s just what Hector did.
He burned.
* * *
Shelly bounced along, skipping ahead of her parents while they took their morning walk around the grounds. Mist hung in the air, creating a wall of gray above them that would dissipate as soon as the rising sun broke through the cloud cover. Allison Steinberg strolled alongside her husband, keeping one eye on her daughter the whole time. Yet it was hard to pull her attention away from Tom’s face. There was something wrong. After more than three months of improvement, she saw signs of regression in him. The dark rings beneath his eyes were more prominent than ever, his remaining hair was greasy, and he looked to be grinding his teeth. Every so often he’d mutter to himself, just like he had in the weeks before and after fleeing Fort Meyer. He also appeared even skinnier than before, which scared her to death. He’d only recently begun to put back on some of the weight he’d lost.
“Honey, what’s wrong?” she asked.
Tom’s head slowly turned in her direction. His eyes were cloudy and distant. “Nothing,” he said, and seemed to force a smile.
Allison slipped her fingers into his and squeezed. When he looked at her this time, his smile seemed a bit more genuine.
“Really, Tom. What’s wrong?”
Tom cleared his throat. “I just don’t feel quite right today. I think it’s because of tonight’s dinner.”
She nodded. Yes, that had to be it. Tom had worked so hard to impress his new friends, trying to win them over with sheer effort. The others seemed to appreciate it—at least most of them did—but they didn’t see what he looked like at the end of each day, lying in bed, panting and cringing, his sore bones one big ache.
And then there was the dinner. Tom got the idea when he discovered a large honey-roasted ham hidden beneath a pile of frozen vegetables in the back of the walk-in freezer. They survived every day on preserved food and breads from the cooler, so she knew the thought of having a real, honest-to-goodness meal made Tom more than excited. It seemed like he didn’t talk about anything else recently, and she imagined the fact he planned it for this evening, the three-month anniversary of that kind man Stanley’s death, as a token of remembrance, made him nervous.
Allison didn’t think that a reason to be nervous. She thought it was sweet.
They rounded the rear of the building and stopped. There was a commotion going on outside. Everyone had gathered, and their faces were masks of concern. They rushed about, all frantic energy and shouted instructions. Corky, Shelly’s new best friend, and the young Hispanic man Luis were tugging on the massive bulkhead leading into the resort’s cellar. Shelly ceased her skipping and stared.
“Quirky, what’s wrong?” Allison heard her ask.
Corky’s head spun around, his eyes wide beneath stray wisps of his long red hair. “Go inside, darlin’” the kind behemoth said, his voice filled with panic, before his gaze found Allison and Tom. “All of you, get inside. Now.”
Allison was about to ask why, but she then found herself being dragged along the wet grass by Tom. She tried to see her husband’s face as she struggled to stay on her feet, but all she could see was the sweat dripping off his chin. He leaned over to corral Shelly on his way by, and the little girl let out a cry of surprise as his arm slipped around her waist.
Tom shoved Shelly’s face into the crook of his neck as he ran, but Allison, towed behind, had a full view of what was going on. Horace, the kind old scientist, was hovering over Hector, the chubby, funny Mexican. Blood poured out of Hector’s mouth. His body thrashed as if a constant electric current flowed through his veins. The young Marine, Doug, crouched behind him, holding a length of rope. They’re tying him up! Allison’s mind screamed. They’re torturing the poor man! Shame filled her, for all she could do in response was close her eyes, push her feet faster, and follow her husband inside.
Once they entered through the hotel’s rear doorway, Tom let go of Allison’s hand, placed Shelly on the floor, and bent over at the waist, hacking. The sound coming from his mouth was a strange combination of panting, choking, and sobs. Allison gathered Shelly in her arms and backed against the glass, staring at her husband.
“Tom, what’s going on?” she asked.
He lifted his head to her. His eyes were bloodshot and tears streamed down his cheeks. His lips quivered when he said, “It’s happening again.”
“What’s happening, Daddy?” asked Shelly.
That made Tom lose it even more. He collapsed to his knees and cried. Confusion overwhelmed Allison and she started crying, too. Shelly followed not soon after. Before long they were all huddled together, sniveling into one another’s clothes, squeezing each other, as if to let go would mean the end of everything.
For all Allison knew,
given whatever was going on outside, that’s exactly what would happen.
* * *
After getting the bulkhead open and arguing about who would take the lead, Dennis and Luis ended up lugging Hector’s limp, shuddering body down the basement steps. His arms and legs were tied, his eyes were closed, and he muttered incomprehensibly. Horace, Corky, and Larry followed closely behind, their lips thin lines of anxiety. Doug entered last, rifle clutched tightly, unsure of what he should be feeling.
“Where do you want him?” he asked.
Horace clicked on the light, looked around, cleared his throat, and said, “Larry, lay out one of the spare mattresses. Over there in the corner.”
The basement was unusually huge, the largest Doug had ever seen. With a nine-foot-tall ceiling, the space ran for the whole length of the structure above, with a series of support poles standing in three evenly spaced rows. Luis clicked on the lights, given life by the massive generator at the far end of the basement. The lights were dim, giving the place the eerie feel of a dungeon. The generator itself was powered by a series of metal drums containing gasoline—there had to be close to forty of them—sitting on either side of the machine. Doug wondered how many of those drums were still full. As far as he could recall, the only person besides Steinberg to perform the duty of changing the barrels had been Luis. He made a mental checkmark to ask later.
While Larry rushed off to perform the duty Horace had given him, Doug took the opportunity to stroll in the opposite direction, where a massive beast of a contraption awaited. It was the furnace that heated the Clinton, and it was huge—at least five feet wide at the base and seven feet tall. Thirteen gauges, like eyes, protruded from its upper front half. Cooper piping roped around the thing, forming a maze of red and green tubes. At the bottom was the grate—the size of a beach ball and steaming—and above that a series of three motorized pumps. The machine clicked on and flames licked out of the grate. Someone’s running hot water, he thought. The air in the cellar grew warm.
“Uh, guys, is this thing safe?” Doug asked.
No one answered.
He stood in front of the thing and went from gauge to gauge. All the dials were in the middle or left-of-middle, which Doug took to mean that everything was operating as it should. With his flesh becoming increasingly irritated by the searing gasses the furnace gave off as it rumbled, he walked past it to a gigantic oil drum that was oval in shape and just as tall as the furnace. He slapped his palm against the drum’s metal hide. The echo was hard to hear over the furnace’s thunder, but he guessed it to be a little less than a third full. When he glanced up and saw the gauge at the top, its red line sitting just where he thought it would be, he chuckled to himself.
“Yo, kid, get over here.”
Doug turned to see the others facing him. They stared with pleading eyes and locked expressions, as if none wanted to risk looking at the man lying on the floor.
“What?”
“Um,” said Corky, “you think you could…um…”
A hand fell on Doug’s shoulder. He turned to see Horace there, his face a vision of concern. “I think what our large friend is trying to say,” the old man said, “is that we need your help to tie Hector to the pole.”
“Okay.”
Doug propped his rifle against one of the support beams and went to work. He undid the ropes that bound Hector’s wrists and pulled a longer one from his belt loop. As quickly as he could, Doug alternated between the prone man’s wrists and the beam, weaving in and out five times before tying it into a constricting knot. He used a heavy chain and the electrical wire he’d tied up Steinberg with so long ago to wrap Hector in a cocoon. Hector moaned, and Doug’s free hand brushed against his pocked flesh. It scorched with fever. He withdrew with a start and watched as Hector breathed in and out with hoarse, grinding expulsions of air. The image of the pudgy little man sitting at the bar, playfully slapping his back while he stammered on in his mixture of Spanish and English popped into his head, and Doug hitched. He stumbled backward, striking the back of his head against a pile of old furniture.
“He’s not going to get better, is he?” Doug asked.
Horace, standing over their friend, simply shook his head.
“What should we do?” asked Dennis. His voice was low and respectful, lacking its usual braggadocio.
“I don’t know,” replied Horace. “We wait and watch.”
Larry added, “Should we just kill him?”
“Fuck you, compadre,” Luis shot back.
Horace held out his arms as the two men approached each other. “Let’s not have this,” he said. “There’s no need for in-fighting.”
Doug cleared his throat, ignored Luis’s glare, and asked the only question he could think to ask. “But why are we keeping him down here? He’s gonna get worse, and then he’ll try to kill us. Right?”
Horace nodded. “Probably. But I don’t know how this happened. I don’t know why he suddenly sprouted symptoms. I thought the disease was gone. It doesn’t make any sense. I have to find out why. Or at least see if the things outside,” he jabbed his thumb over his shoulder, “have brought it back.”
Everyone fell silent at that. Even Luis retreated a bit.
After a few quiet moments, Doug and Dennis set up a dish of water and some spare food beside Hector, and the group prepared to leave the basement confines. Before they could, Hector choked out a cough and muttered. Luis ran up to him, as did Doug. Luis leaned over his friend.
“What’s that?” he asked. “What’re you saying?”
“El cielo…es negro,” Doug heard Hector say in a gruff, weak tone.
Luis shuddered, but didn’t reply.
Hector went on. “Cielo…negro…y el mundo…todo muerto…”
Luis leaned back and stared at Doug. There were tears in the man’s eyes, tears that dribbled over his brown, shuddering cheeks. No one else said a word or even breathed.
“What did he say?” Doug asked.
“That the sky’s black,” replied Luis, “and the world’s all dead.”
Doug nodded and closed his eyes. Tell me something we don’t already know.
* * *
After some bickering in regards to how humane it was to leave their sick friend alone and in the dark, Horace eventually intervened. They left behind a battery-powered lamp and promised that twice each day two people would go check on him, give him food and water. It was decided that Doug would be present each time, seeing as they needed someone confident with a gun in his hands, just in case. Corky couldn’t help but feel sorry for the kid. He already appeared unsure and dejected. He didn’t think seeing Hector devolve each day would help that any.
As they sealed the bulkhead, Corky wandered away from the group, heading around the building to the front gate. There were more walking corpses out there. He could hear them, stumbling and moaning. When he rounded the corner he saw there were only two, one standing with its hands wrapped around the bars, the other pacing behind it like a robot with faulty programming.
He approached the gate and stopped, staring with hands on hips. The one holding the bars looked up at him. It was female, with folds of flesh drooping on the right side of its skull and fingers shredded to the bone. Its one good eye lit up at the sight of him, and it snapped its jaws. Corky sighed and closed his eyes. Their tight-knit family had already lost one member, and now they were most certainly going to lose another. Things were falling apart, and falling apart fast.
Why’s this happening?
He had no answer.
Corky felt a presence beside him and turned his head to find Horace standing there with him, watching the beasts on the other side of the gate, wearing an expression he could only describe as sympathetic. The old man coughed slightly, wiped his mouth with a handkerchief, and then stuffed it into his pocket. Corky couldn’t believe how tired the old timer appeared. The bags under his eyes had grown and his posture sagged. If Corky hadn’t seen the man in this state before, he would’ve th
ought Horace was sick, as well.
“So where’s the kid?” he asked, breaking the silence.
“He went to be alone for a while. I don’t think he is handling this very well right now.”
Corky uttered a humorless chuckle. “Hell, none of us are.”
“Very true.”
They stood there in the quiet as the sun rose high in the sky. The two beasts outside the gate soon became three, then four. They stumbled and mumbled as usual, acting like mindless drunks, but Corky thought they appeared even more sluggish than usual. Then one of them—the woman who’d been holding the bars—suddenly leaned to the side. She kept leaning and leaning, until she eventually fell over. She then just lay there, not moving at all. Insects gathered and landed on the corpse. The one who’d been pacing the whole time then did the same. The remaining two, the newcomers, crouched over the fallen bodies and began picking at the remains. Corky and Horace exchanged a confused look.
“What the hell was that?” asked Corky, his stomach churning in disgust.
“I don’t know, Charles,” replied Horace. He arched his eyebrows. “Go get Doug. Tell him to bring his rifle.”
CHAPTER 4
HERE COMES THE CAVALRY
Sergeant Cody Jackson stared out the window of the jeep in awe. All around him, the walking dead were either stumbling around, ready to collapse, or had already done so. The highway was littered with their lifeless, unmoving forms. It baffled him to no end. Only a week before they were strong as ever—so strong, in fact, that when the SNF first entered Richmond, Virginia, General Bathgate seemed uncertain they would have the manpower to pull off a full cleansing. They’d lost more than five hundred able-bodied men in the process, men Cody had been commissioned to replace. And now look at them, he thought with a frown. If we’d only waited a week, no one would’ve died, and I wouldn’t be here…
Here was a cluttered stretch of highway in northern West Virginia, traveling from town to town with seven trusted men, former members of the People’s Militia just like him, searching for survivors to add to the ranks of the SNF. He’d been on the road for two days, and had had very little luck. The few pockets of living, breathing people he’d come across were either too weak to contribute or the wrong color and therefore left behind (Jackson didn’t waste any ammo on them like the general would), or aggressive and untrusting, which had already led to three small firefights. Luckily there was a sturdy 20MM cannon propped on the back of his jeep, which meant all of the skirmishes ended quickly and he got to put his Polaroid camera to good use. But he still found it frustrating. He wondered if this was the reason Captain Hawthorne, the man Bathgate sent south over a month ago with the only other tank in their arsenal, the Bradley, hadn’t arrived back yet. Probably. The Captain was most likely dead or in a shit storm of trouble, which now left them without a very valuable piece of equipment. Cody cursed the situation. He would’ve loved to have a tank at his disposal, too, just in case, but the general didn’t want to let the Peacemaker, his last bit of military superiority, out of his sight. Cody understood the decision, but it didn’t mean he had to like it.
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