by Jack Lothian
"There's plenty of food in people's homes."
"Uh, I don't think animals can open fridges," Weasel said.
"Or cans," Gabe said.
She rolled her eyes. "Whatever. I'm not going outside to find out."
"It's...it's a supply run. You know, like they do in zombie movies. Gabe thinks—"
"I don't give a damn what Gabe thinks. I'm not risking my life for a box of fucking hookah tobacco. Seriously, what's with you and hookahs? You're like a couple junkies."
"I... We love smoking hookahs," Weasel said.
"We're passionate about it, okay?" Gabe said.
Pauline groaned. "Madness. Fucking madness."
Gabe laid the shotgun, the nightstick, and the pepper spray on a table. "You take this," he said, handing Weasel the pepper spray. Before Weasel could protest, Gabe stroked his beard and said, "You're gonna need a melee weapon." He went behind the bar and returned with an ornate scimitar. The same scimitar belly-dancers performing at Arabian Nights used as part of their shows, swinging it in rhythm with the music or balancing it on their heads or even holding it in their teeth.
"Umm, Gabe...I think that's just a prop."
"It's not a prop, bro. Look how heavy it is. It's like a baseball bat."
They skinned some pillows and fashioned primitive hoods. Then they donned their clothes for the first time in too long and fiddled with the shotgun until they figured out how to switch off the safety. Pauline watched them, her mouth a straight line. "Are you really going to risk your lives for some tobacco?"
Gabe shrugged. "It's only gonna take like twenty minutes."
She followed them up the stairs and to the door, her arms crossed around her sweaty torso. "Guys, seriously, this is stupid."
Weasel stood in the doorway and offered her the key. When she didn't take it, he swallowed dry phlegm and dropped the key in the nook of her arm, careful not to accidentally touch her breast. He stepped out after Gabe.
Outside, a hundred degrees in the shade. In April. The air was warm and dry, the wind blowing in Weasel's face hot like the fumes blasting from a car's exhaust. Heated asphalt cooking his feet through his shoes. A dead, cloudless sky. Mira II looming over everything, twice the size of the Sun. Necrotic spots like clouds of soot marred its orange tail. A cold yellow light glowed in its iris like a luminescent tumor.
Gabe took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. He walked with his back stooped, the shotgun pointed forward, glancing over his shoulder as if to make sure Weasel was following. The nightstick stuck out of his back pocket like a metal tail. At the intersection, they heard footsteps and turned to see Pauline hurrying after them, trying to move fast and stay quiet at the same time and failing at both. "I'll go mad if I stay there alone," she whispered as she caught up, panting like she had just ran a marathon. In her hand, a lipstick.
"What are you gonna do with that? Paint dicks on their faces?" Gabe asked.
"It's pepper spray, dumbass. I always have it in my bag."
The Arabian Nights area had been lucky. Not so the rest of the block. Cracks cut through streets and sidewalks and even buildings. Some were broad enough to rip tires or trap wheels or swallow people whole. Crashed or immobilized vehicles blocked most streets. They passed through a small park with a playground nestled between the trees. Dead grass, dying branches. Desiccated leaves rustling like ghostly whispers. A swing swaying in the wind, its chains too hot to grasp. Silence sepulchral.
Also, bodies. Birds. Cats. Dogs. People. Some broken under falling masonry, others run over by panicked drivers, others still ravaged in manners most bestial. All reduced to bone and bits of skin and fur. The stench wasn't quite as bad as roadkill, but it was everywhere. It wasn't long before they sprayed the sidewalk with the semi-digested tuna they'd had for breakfast.
Sprawled in the gutter, they found the bastard child of a crab and a turtle. Big as a raccoon, its shell had been cracked open as if with a rock and the insides devoured. Another of its kind rested against a bus, its pincers torn off in what must've been a desperate last stand. More uncanny carcasses dotted the path to Nefertiti. Unlike the crab-turtle things, most of these possessed no exoskeleton, making it difficult to glean their original shapes from what little remained.
Then Nefertiti was up ahead, and in the midst of that fetid graveyard bathed in the glow of a baleful star, Weasel felt the corners of his lips twitch. Its windows were gone, the doors hanging from their hinges, the great sun shade that shielded its terrace torn to strips. Half the building had collapsed. Sticks of rebar poked from smashed walls like malformed ribs.
The little hookah store didn't fare much better. Its front window was shards and the hookahs had tumbled from their shelves, covering the floor with shattered glass. Gabe crept up to the store like a kid playing soldier. He peeked inside, and gave a thumbs-up. The door was jammed, so he cleared the remains of the window with the nightstick and clambered into the gloom. Minutes oozed like blood. Then Gabe said, "Bingo," and Weasel let out a breath he didn't remember holding.
Gabe emerged with a plastic bag full of little carton boxes with drawings of lemons, apples, bananas, strawberries, and cherries plastered above photos of blackened lungs and Smoking Kills signs. He gave the bag to Weasel and said, "Didn't find any freshmint. But I bet there's some in Nefertiti."
"Are you for real?" Pauline said.
"Real as they come, baby."
"Fuck you."
"Anytime, anywhere."
"No, fuck you because my ex-boyfriend used to drop that same stupid line and now you reminded me of that asshole."
Gabe frowned. "You said you were into chicks."
"I sure did."
He snorted, shaking his head. Then he headed for Nefertiti.
They stepped on its terrace and stood in its ruined doorway. A two-level establishment, its second floor was wreathed in shadow and its first littered with torn cushions and broken bottles and fallen hookahs. The stench of rot wafted from within. Under the bar, rooted at the edge of sunlight, lay a couple dozen brown objects. Each was about the size of a fist. And they pulsed.
Weasel heard himself say, "Eggs," in a child's voice, and then something on the second floor shifted. A segmented, serpentine body covered in a gnarled carapace. As long as an alligator and almost as thick, it uncoiled itself from the darkness above and fell to the floor with a meaty thud. It stood on its many legs and wiggled its antennae and clicked its mandibles, and he had just enough time to think, A centipede, a giant fucking centipede, oh my God, it's a giant fucking centipe—
It charged. Pauline screamed, and so did Weasel and Gabe. The shotgun roared and a hole burst in the bar and then the thing lunged. It embraced Gabe's leg and drove the many moving parts of its mouth into his thigh. He shrieked and went down on his ass. It started shaking him up and down, its head spattered crimson. He pumped the shotgun and shoved the barrel in the thing's face and its head exploded like a dropped melon.
Another centipede rushed from Nefertiti. Still screaming, Pauline raised her fake lipstick and drenched it in orange poison. But the thing never slowed. It had no eyes. It had evolved in a lightless place that rendered vision minimal and oculars wasteful. It clamped its many legs around Pauline's torso and dug its mandibles into her throat and slammed her on the concrete like a lioness tackling a gazelle.
Weasel grasped the scimitar in both hands and brought it down on the centipede's head. The blade cut into the carapace in a spurt of blue ichor. The thing screeched and tore its face out of Pauline, yanking the scimitar from his hands. It hissed at him, the sword still planted in its skull, the many appendages around its maw spreading like a flytrap from hell.
"Move, bro!" Gabe shouted.
Weasel's feet tangled and he stumbled and fell against the terrace banister. He felt thunder in his chest and saw a hole yawn in the thing's side like a mutilated orifice. It screeched again, then spun around and fled, trailing ichor and bits of carapace. It skittered up a ruined wall and disappeared into the buildi
ng. A hush ensued.
Weasel looked at what remained of Pauline's throat. After that, he looked at her no more. He pushed the decapitated centipede off Gabe and helped him to his feet. In death, the thing's legs squirmed, slathering its own fluids over the tiles like a Rorschach pattern. Gabe's jeans were shredded and drenched red, the flesh of his thigh crisscrossed with gashes.
Cradling the shotgun and the tobaccos to their chests, they trundled back. Past the hookah store and the carcasses of what they now recognized as the centipedes's previous meals. Past the park with its dying trees and empty playground. Through a broad street clogged with cars that shimmered in the sun like a desert highway. Into a trashed drugstore to stock up on bandages, antibiotics, disinfectants, and painkillers. By the time Weasel had finished dressing the wound, Gabe's face was so pale it resembled porcelain.
A couple hundred feet from Arabian Nights, Gabe stumbled and fell on one knee. He had to lean on Weasel the rest of the way. As they unlocked the door, he looked up to the sickly blue heavens and the alien star reigning above, and said, "Fuck you, you fucking bitch. Damn, I feel like crap."
"Jesus, Gabe, you're burning up."
"Just gimme more painkillers."
Weasel helped him down the stairs and laid him on a couch and brought him water. Gabe emptied the bottle and said, "Freshmint with lemon. Fix me a freshmint with lemon."
"Sure, man," Weasel said, and went behind the bar. He filled the hookah's vase with lukewarm water, added the silicone grommet, and mixed the two tobaccos with his fingers. He placed the mixture in the bowl, then tore a portion of aluminum foil and wrapped it over the top of the bowl so that it resembled a tiny drum. With a toothpick, he poked holes in the foil. It was only after he had affixed the bowl to the hookah that he realized he had forgotten to heat up the charcoals. He opened another drawer and looked at the orange carton box within. Coconut coals. The best. He flipped up the lid and reached inside. His face contorted.
"Oh man, Gabe, you...you won't believe this."
No answer.
"Gabe?"
Still no answer.
Weasel leaned over the bar. Gabe lay on his back with his eyes shut and his mouth open. Slowly, walking on tiptoe, Weasel approached the couch. No snoring. He hovered a palm over Gabe's mouth. No breath. He checked his pulse. Nothing.
"Oh, Gabe," he muttered, inspecting the bandage. Some red had seeped into the cloth. Hands shaking, he undid it and looked at the wound. Swollen black veins spread from the gashes like skeletal fingers. He should've known. After all, centipedes were venomous creatures.
Weasel drew his fingers through his hair. He had nothing to cover Gabe with, so he piled cushions on his head and chest until only his legs were visible. That made it worse, somehow. He went back behind the bar and just stood there, staring at the charcoals box. A single black cube sat within. He needed at least two for a hookah. They had been so obsessed with getting more tobacco, they forgot to check how many coals they had left.
Weasel staggered to the center of the room like a drunkard and placed his hands on his face. Sweat and tears against his palms. Something snapped in the back of his mind, and before he knew it he was prone on a couch, laughing. And crying. And laughing and crying at the same time. Then he began to scream.
Far up in the barren sky, Mira II shone brighter.
Thirteen Days
Toby Alexander
CHAPTER ONE
The Day I Died
I have never felt pain as I did the moment I died. It wasn’t the injury that caused me to writhe in agony. I would have settled for that being the worst of it. Instead, there was more beyond that single wound, and I should explain what has happened to me and why.
The time was two twenty-seven, and I crept along the side of the building in silence. My back against the rough stone, I could hear something around the corner ahead of me. My heart, still working back then, was thumping like a wild animal in my chest. Unconsciously I wrapped my fingers around the grip of my pistol and unlatched the retention clip.
Edging closer to the end of the wall I steadied myself, calming myself with a handful of deep breaths.
My head swam.
Adrenaline coursed through my veins, and I chastised myself as I felt my fingers trembling.
“Pull yourself together,” I recall whispering to myself. "What’s the worst that can happen?”
The sky was clear, and the moonlight threatened to betray me as it cast long shadows across the floor. Reaching the end of the wall, I pressed the side of my face against the rough stone and risked a quick peek around the corner.
They were there.
Six of them, all gathered around the remains of a shattered wooden box.
It had been months but still the sight of them churned my stomach.
The nearest had his back to me, or what was left of his back at least. I could see ribs through the tattered flesh, the bones stained red with dried blood. The clothes had long since been torn from his upper body, and in the moonlight, his flesh looked brown and mottled.
I could smell them, they were so close.
The taste of decaying flesh was thick in the air, and I resisted the urge to gag. Quickly I secreted myself back behind the cover of the wall and decided what I was going to do. I needed desperately to get across the courtyard but between me and there were the half-dozen undead monsters.
I still struggled to call them zombies, but that is what they were.
On October 3rd, 2019, the first one had been sighted, and within thirteen days the world had gone into meltdown. It had taken less than two weeks for the epidemic to become global and those survivors that managed to evade the infection now lived a life of hiding and fighting for survival.
It was tiring.
It was something I could never have imagined myself doing before it happened. I had been an accountant, a boring run of the mill office worker, and now I walked the streets with a gun fighting to survive. I would never have imagined I could have managed as long as I had before the world became full of death and decay.
You may ask what was beyond the courtyard that would make me even consider crossing against six of them. The answer was simple. Beyond that courtyard was the marina and I had my sights set on a boat to take me away from The City and hopefully to a life away from all this.
I had watched the marina for two days straight. Every day I came up with a new way to get in unseen by them. For some reason, they were attracted to this place, and the perimeter fence was crawling with them day and night.
The old car park and the courtyard were the places that had the least gathering, but tonight they seemed to be out in force.
I couldn’t wait another day, though. I was short on supplies.
At night they were at their peak. I put it down to something to do with their brains struggling to process the light of the sun. Don’t get me wrong, they were still a danger in the day, but they seemed less precise in their attacks during the day.
At night, however, they seemed more comfortable, their attacks more accurate. In the day they staggered around in larger groups or even crowds whereas under the cover of darkness, they split off into smaller packs.
It interested me to watch them. I suppose it would be easy to say that during the day they were the stereotypical bumbling zombie we have all watched in films and TV series. The sheer quantity that gathered together made them a bigger threat. At night, though, they moved with animalistic poise and purpose. They became sleeker, faster and more like a hungry animal hunting and stalking through the streets.
At night they moved faster, and their hearing seemed attuned to the slightest of sound. They seemed most at home in the darkness. Of course, being gathered in smaller groups made them easier to circumnavigate but their heightened senses made them all the more deadly.
Although there were only six now between me and the marina, I knew that I was putting myself in an almost impossible situation.
Readying myself, I pulled a knife from my wai
stband and prepared to move.
As I went to step around the corner, something grasped my arm and pulled me back roughly.
CHAPTER TWO
Not Alone
My heart sank and as I sliced the knife through the air, my other hand was caught mid-swing.
Instead of a face of torn flesh and blood, I was confronted with a survivor. A human face stained with dirt and grime stared at me with wide frenzied eyes.
“Please,” she pleaded, her voice barely louder than a whisper.
Immediately I relaxed my arm, and she released her shaking grip on my wrist. I dropped the knife to my side and looked down at her.
She was young, too young to be alone in this new world. Matted black hair was tied in a rough ponytail, and her clothes looked two sizes too big.
“I need your help,” she began, but I silenced her with a hard stare and indicated around the corner to the stalking monsters.
Before I dared to speak, I chanced another glance around the corner.
We had gone unnoticed. They were still focused on the shattered wooden crate in the middle of the courtyard, most with their backs to where we now stood.
I watched for a handful of seconds before turning my attention back to the young girl.
“Who are you?” I hissed through gritted teeth. Everything about this situation was making me feel exposed and vulnerable.
“My name is Cassy, I’ve seen you watching this place and need someone to help me. I’ve got nothing, and I don’t want to die.”
“How have you survived this long?”
I was dubious.
That’s how much this world changes you. Before all this happened, I would have done anything to help someone in need. Now, in the face of impending death, it was a matter of staying alive. I hadn’t made it this far by giving lifts to strangers or offering help to those who also fought for survival.
“I was hiding in my school,” she pointed to the old high school across the street from where we stood.
