Death, Be Not Proud

by Jonathan Maberry

  Laser lights from horizon to horizon. At first, like distant heat lightning, then taking shape and form. Connecting. Spelling out letters in neon green. Burning through the clouds, etching the sky.

  SYSTEM ERROR

  All eyes turn to the windows of the speeding, flower-painted bus. Mouths agape.

  “Uh oh. Dat ain’t good…” Burno breaks the stoned silence.

  The self-proclaimed antichrist, he sits in the Philly bar working on his fifth Pabst Blue Ribbon. Shot of Jack on the side. He calls himself The Bad Man, but just about everybody else—they just call him Stephen Redding.

  “Yo, Koop!” the Bad Man hails the bartender, “’Nother order of nuclear wings.” The Chicken Koop boasts the hottest wings on the planet.

  “You got it, Steve-O,” crusty old Koop dries his hands and flips on the radio as Alan the Alchy staggers in from the cold.

  ...welcome back to Love Talk—just kidding, you’re tuned into Acid Rock, only on Satellite Underground, but you already know that, unless you’re dosed and trippin’ the stratosphere, which brings us back to point—time for a friendly public service announcement from yer favorite gal pal Debbie Diamond. Unless you’ve been living under a rock, or haven’t left the bar in three days, you know that the dead are walking, and man, are they hungry! So get to your shelters, folks, and lock your doors. Get to your churches, ‘cause it’s time to start praying—grab your honeys, call a priest, ‘cause Daddy-O, I’ve been released! Yee-haw! And now that that’s outta the way… we’ve got Rocket Jones on the line. How are we doing today, Spaceman?

  “You gotta be shittin’ me,” Alan announces in his loudest need-a-brewsky-quick voice, not to be outdone by the radio. “Hoooo-ley! What’s goin’ on outside! Friggin sky is falling… Looks like the goddamn heavenly operatin’ system done crashed!” He waits for a reply, receives none. “Go out an’ look up, you don’t believe me,” he dares his lifelong toasting buddies. “The hell’s next? Friggin’ zombies here in Scranton?”

  “Not in my backyard!” from the far end of the bar.

  “Amen, brother!” Redding holds up a beer and a wing. His long, greasy black hair nearly touches the bar—his arm, a tattoo study of flaming skulls and upside-down crosses. “Not in our backyard, indeedy… Let the rest of the country eat themselves silly in sin. Scranton don’t play that game!”

  “Well, they got ‘em in Wilkes-Barre,” Koop drops a fresh plate of wings in front of Redding. “An’ Billy-Boo says they saw some over on Cedar Street. By the church. Stumblin’ around an’ smellin’ up the place…”

  “Sumbitch…” Redding shakes his head; nuclear wing paused between the bar and his mouth. “Christ Savior—I’ll bet dollars to donuts that Father Bob and his faithful flock of devotees got all their on-again, off-again dead, not dead friends and relatives shacked up in there with ‘em…” He turns to the far end of the bar. “Whatchoo got to say ‘bout that, Schmoe?”

  “Uhhh…” Schmoe is uncertain. “Not in my backyard?”

  “That’s right!” the antichrist declares. “Not in OUR backyard! What say ye, good men?” he starts the chant. “Not in our backyard…! Not in our backyard…!”

  “NOT IN OUR BACKYARD!—NOT IN OUR BACKYARD!—NOT IN OUR BACKYARD!”

  “You know what they say, dontcha?” Redding asks the crowd, “When bad things happen…?”

  The crowd is stumped.

  “More bad things happen!”

  “MORE BAD THINGS HAPPEN!—MORE BAD THINGS HAPPEN!—MORE BAD THINGS HAPPEN!”

  “How do we know they’re not harboring their dead?” the Bad Man shakes his head and smiles.

  “It ain’t right,” Alchy Alan frowns.

  “Damn right, it ain’t right,” Redding grins. Takes a bite and smiles a mouthful of sharp, nuclear teeth. “And you know WHO ain’t right, right?”

  “FA-THER BOB!—FA-THER BOB!—FA-THER BOB!”

  “He ain’t right in the head,” says Alchy.

  Redding sucks the last of the meat from his wing and turns to the mob. “Drink up, boys! Cuz we gonna blow this taco stand…!”

  Debbie…Debbie…how could you do this to me? To us? Me stuck up here, and you… you…

  That’s right, Jones. You ARE stuck up there. On the friggin’ Moon. And you’re not coming back. Get over it. Did you really expect me to wait for you? Forever? Come on, get real! Especially with what’s going on down here? Life’s too short—

  Debbie… I love you…

  Look, Jones. What we had was…Look, I’m not trying to be mean. I’m just trying to be realistic. What we had was…I’ll always have a place in my heart for you… And I did wait for you. I waited when you said you were going on the three-year lunar colony mission. I waited through all the postponements and delays setting up Tranquility II—I waited for you when NASA scrapped the project, waited through all of the failed ‘bring the boys back home’ retrieval missions… And then, when they told me you weren’t coming back, ever, I—

  You ran out and you fucked the first guy you could find!

  Honestly, Jones…I can’t believe that you want to do this on the air. I mean, really. This is what you want? To broadcast your needy paranoia all over the entire planet? Really? You honestly expected me to just dry up and die alone, waiting for something that’s never gonna happen? You say you love me, and that’s what you wanted for me?

  I wanted you to love me—I thought you loved me…

  You wanted me to die alone. Like you. That’s selfish and unfair, Jones. And I’m sorry, but you’re not coming home and I am not going to become a spinster for you. Look, I can’t do this. I’ve gotta play another song.

  How many?

  Excuse me?

  How many were there, Debbie? How many men have you fucked while I’ve been stuck up here? How Many? How many? HOW MANY?

  “How many, Bill?”

  “I’m sorry, excuse me?” Lt. Colonel Bill Hendricks glances up from his laptop to the geographic targeting screen spanning the length of his underground bunker. He turns down the radio—the Rocket Jones tear-fest will have to wait.

  “How many?”

  “How many what?”

  “Pensacola, Florida…Waupaca, Wisconsin…Reno, Nevada… The list goes on and on and on… How many targets shall I set for the first volley?”

  “I dunno… First things, friggin’ last, TALBY. First we’ve gotta clear up this system error. I don’t know where to begin… Are the Bombs ready?”

  “Initiating…” a series of clicks and whirs, as TALBY’s artificial, computerized voice murmurs meaningless streams of access codes and runtime logarithms.

  Bill waits. Taps his fingers. Despite the space heaters and re-circulated air, he can feel a chill creeping through the mile deep, six-foot thick, lead-lined walls of the launch bunker. He’s never felt so alone. Even TALBY’s overly enthusiastic AI interface feels shallow and artificial. Bill feels a pang of sympathy for Rocket Jones—but unlike Jones, he doesn’t even have the cancerous pain of lost love to cling to. Bill’s never had a girlfriend, and the chances of that happening now… Bill doesn’t want to admit it, even to himself, but he’s falling apart down here.

  He waits for TALBY and stares at the launch screen. A pale geographic representation of the United States. Tracking the Z-Globules that drift mindlessly across the nation’s skies, and broken into territories and outbreak zones (zombie clusters marked in red, and almost always largest around the country’s smaller cities and larger suburban areas. Strange, thinks Bill. It would seem that the larger cities, with their high-rises and extensive police and military presence, were not conducive to spreading of the z-germ. And the rural areas just don’t have the population numbers to support a major outbreak). Across the length of the map, thin letters designating the ground and laser communication signals strategically placed around and above the continent spell out the sky-written words.

  SYSTEM ERROR

  “Bombs are online and awaiting orders,” TALBY breaks the silence.

&n
bsp; “Alrighty, then,” Bill punches his pass-code into his keyboard and slides his microphone closer to him. “You guys ready for action?”

  “Well…” the distinctly female, yet still artificial, voice of one of the Bombs comes over the speakers. “There’s just one thing…”

  “What are you talking about?” Bill blinks.

  “Well, we’ve been having a little bit of a pow-wow, me and the other Bombs… And… Well…”

  “Spit it out,” Bill’s patience, wearing thin.

  “We don’t want to explode.”

  “I feel so bad for him…,” says Margie, sipping her Mai Tai. “I mean, he’s stuck up there. Stranded… And she just left him!”

  “I think she’s doing the right thing moving on,” Ron dabs at a Mai Tai stain on his Hawaiian shirt. Pushes his wire-rimmed glasses further up the bridge of his long, middle-aged nose. “I mean, like she said… What’s she gonna do? Wait?”

  “I think she’s a slut.” Burt doesn’t pull any punches, as his sideburns and the flamingos that decorate his own flawlessly ironed shirt will attest.

  “I dunno,” Margie takes another gulp of Mai Tai and leans over the railing of the boat. “I just feel bad for him.”

  “Well, we ain’t here to feel bad, Marge,” Ricky smiles and pats his wife’s flabby arm. “This is the END OF THE WORLD—GET OUTTA DODGE cruise… And we’re here to parrr-ty like it’s… Well, like it’s the end of the world. Now hurry up and finish that drink, because I’ve got another batch of Mai Tai’s getting warm. And these good peeps,” he motions the twenty or so lounge lizards milling about the deck, chatting, sun worshipping and sipping their drinks, “are getting thirsty!”

  The white van idles in the driveway of the rural Apple Valley home, thirty miles outside of Barstow. It’s night and there is no moon. In the neon green, system error skywriting, the bumper sticker is just barely legible:

  THERE’S NO PLACE LIKE HOME!

  From the van’s radio—

  So hoard your food and load your guns, folks. ‘Cause the Big Shit has really hit the fan! Board up your windows and keep the kids quiet, ‘cause this thing’s only gonna get worse. I’m thinking that just about the only safe place to be these days is on a boat… So says Diamond Debbie!

  Inside the house, Mark and his wife are huddled around the TV with their two children. Alice cradles newborn Lucy in her arms. Four-year-old Max stares at the television, too, frowning but not understanding the gruesome images of man biting man. Mark, he’s got his shotgun by his side.

  From outside, the sounds of raucous laughter and a breaking bottle. The doorbell rings—followed by violent, overzealous pounding. It’s locked, but someone is turning the knob.

  “The hell?” Mark rises from his chair, grabs his gun.

  “Help! HELP!” from outside. “There’s zombies out here!” the sounds of muffled laughter. “Please! Quick! Let us in!”

  “Don’t open it,” Alice hugs the baby to her breast. “Mark…”

  Mark looks at his wife. Looks at the door.

  “What do you want?” he calls. Tries to keep the tremble out of his voice.

  “Pleeeease!”

  Mark pauses, stares at the knob. “We can’t just…” He opens the door.

  And with a heavy shove, they are in—three men in their late twenties. Harsh crew cuts, baggy camo pants and oversized ‘Property of the L.A. Dodgers’ shirts. Two white guys—one short and powerfully muscled, the other, a hulking monster leading with an impossible beer gut—and a diminutive black man with coke- bottle glasses, tape over the nose. One arm crossed over his belly, he’s hiding a bundle of something under his shirt.

  “Gotta use your bathroom, bro” the muscular dude pushes past Mark. The giant is on Alice in three strides, towering over her, leaning in and patting the baby on the head. His only expression, an impenetrable, sickening sneer. And the black guy, he strolls about the room. Picking up vases, flipping through books, wiping greasy fingers on the walls.

  “You hear me, bro? I said, where’s your bathroom at?” the short, muscular dude pulls a smoke from his pocket and lights it. “Simon, you still gotta go, right?”

  The black guy nods.

  “Upstairs,” says Alice, eyes down on the floor. Clinging to her baby. Simon bounds up the stairs.

  Bo, the big guy, he’s opening closets, peering into rooms, flipping the lights on and off. The baby, she starts to cry. Mark’s shotgun, it hangs limply at his side.

  Little muscle guy, he’s leering at Alice. “Name’s Mike, by the way. Big Mike,” he grips his belt buckle. “Pleased to meetchya!” Standing on tiptoes, he leans forward and plants a sloppy, wet kiss on Alice’s forehead. After a moment’s consideration, he kisses the baby, too, then turns to the stairs, “You giving birth up there? What the fuck, Simon!”

  The toilet flushes. Simon appears, all wide grin and wet hands. Wipes them on his loose, baggy shirt. “All good!” he grins.

  “Then let’s go!”

  And as quickly as they entered, they leave. After the door closes, no one speaks. Mark looks at Alice, she looks at the floor. The baby continues to cry, joined now by her brother, Max. The interlopers are laughing outside, by their van. Loud abrasive brays. A beer bottle shatters against the house, an engine roars to life, and they are gone into the laser-sky’d night.

  And then, from upstairs: An ear-splitting wail.

  A child is screaming.

  Alice jumps. Mark drops the gun.

  Cries from the upstairs bathroom. “Heeeelp me!! It’s not my fault! Where am I?! I want to go home! I’m bleeding!”

  For a moment, the family is frozen in shock. Then Mark bolts up the stairs.

  The bathroom door is locked from the inside. The child’s cries are becoming more frantic and hysterical. “I’m dyyyyyying!” Mark batters the door with his shoulder. Forces it open.

  The bathroom is empty. Yet the child’s cries continue.

  Mark tears open the shower curtain: nothing. He’s dumfounded, turning in circles, trying to locate the child’s screams. He dumps the wastebasket into the sink, and there he finds it: Amidst the tissues, tampons and garbage is a small iPod and speaker from which the cries are coming.

  Mark tries to turn it off, then yanks the wire from the speaker. “What the fuck?”

  Burno is driving as the Sun peeks over the horizon. Lasers still light the sky, spelling out the computer error of the world’s last defense.

  Down the road, lights are flashing.

  But Debbie… It’s not fair… You’re not being fair to me… How do you think I feel? All alone up here?

  Alone? What about the other colonists? Sure they’re all dudes, Jones, but desperate times… Wink, wink…

  The lights, closer now. And the sounds of sirens.

  Burno eases on the gas, as the military escort flies by. Hummers and Cargo trucks. And between them, a yellow school bus.

  Pressed against the window glass, the terrified faces of children.

  “Holy shit!” Fizzy watches the bus pass, lost in the eyes of the frightened kids. “Where the hell are they going?”

  “Maybe bringing ‘em to shelters?” Howdy is trying to light a roach with trembling hands. “You know, to save them?”

  “More’n likely to the camps,” Burno calls from the driver’s seat. “Debbie says they got internment camps set up all across the Midwest. Slave labor.”

  “No way,” says Fizzy. “They’re just kids…”

  “I dunno, man,” Burno’s voice, a dry whisper. “Bad people take advantage of bad times…”

  The church lies in embers and smoldering ruin—the screaming dead, flailing in flames. It’s uncertain whether the dead are living or the living are dying, but all are burning. By noon, the entire gasoline inferno is reduced to ashes and bone.

  And Stephen Redding, the antichrist, he’s proud of his handiwork. Only wishes he could’ve seen the look on his face as Father Bob melted in front of his burning flock.

  “Yeah,”
he thinks, warming a nuclear wing over the glowing coals of Christ on the Cross. “It’s a good day to be the Bad Guy…

  Bill Hendricks is arguing with the Bombs’ chosen spokesbomb.

  “This is ridiculous,” he says. Pounds his fist on the console. “You’re being unreasonable. Why don’t you want to explode?”

  “You think it’s so great, why don’t you go out there and blow up?” The spokesbomb is getting testy.

  Roger has finished his pre-flight preparations and is taxiing down the rural runway, before he realizes that something is wrong. The Cessna isn’t responding properly—the throttle is sluggish, the engine is beginning to sputter.

  He tries to abort the take-off, but the brakes are not responding. The engine won’t quit—in fact, it stops sputtering and begins to rev and race. With dawning horror, Roger realizes that he can’t stop the plane as it continues to accelerate down the runway.

  Hoping to keep it grounded, he veers into the open private airport field. The plane is beginning to shake; the increasing speed is making it more and more unstable. Heading for the woods at the field’s edge, Roger realizes that he needs to either take off or crash.

  He opens the cockpit hatch, ready to jump. Unclasps his safety belt. So much for scouting the Aurora suburbs for dead hordes. He clenches his teeth and leans into the gusting wind.

  And then, a small voice from the cabin:

  “Daddy?”

  Roger desperately yanks back the throttle and the plane takes off. As he climbs into the laser-lit sky, the steering control stops responding. The Cessna climbs steeply… and the racing engine sputters out.

  From the corner of his eye, Roger sees one of the globules drifting past—closer than he would ever have dared a flyby. Long twines of what look like black tissue paper flapping in the breeze. Oily feathered gasbags dripping venom. A million twittering eyestalks and suckered tentacles—all slimed together with no cohesive rhyme or reason.