Nation Undead (Book 1): Neighbors

by Ford, Paul Z.

  He awkwardly climbed over the center to the driver’s seat. The keys were still in the ignition so he turned them back and forward. The car stuttered on a dead battery, but did not turn over. Kahn tried several times, but the engine did not start. He waited a few moments before opening the door and stepping out.

  The ground was wet and slick. The light mist floated about in the cool air. He looked around and tried to get his bearings. His vehicle was parked neatly along the divide, passenger side sidling perfectly along the straight edge of the lane. It was dark and he couldn’t tell how many hours he had been unconscious in his car. He peered around cautiously as he shuffled his feet in a small circle. Overlooking his position were several of the larger hotels and convention centers downtown. The details were hard to make out in the dark, but some fires flickered and burned through various windows. Some of the streets were dark but an ominous and unnatural color. The color of multiple fires on the ground level around the densely packed tourist destination. He saw the shadow of the Tower of the Americas, looming over the landscape. He always thought the tower here looked like a squat version of the Seattle Space Needle, and he remembered the carnage at the base of the latter building reported several weeks ago. There was no way to know the condition of downtown San Antonio, and he did not want to be this close to it anymore. He looked and tried to think of a solution for his dead car.

  The Escape faced the wrecked van. It was crumpled on one side and sat perpendicular to the correct line of travel, taking up two lanes. Further along, the curve of the road darkened. He feared the shambling corpses would appear out of the darkness, but he saw and heard nothing. He turned around and saw his neighbor’s red truck. It was in the far right lane at a slightly crooked angle to the straight white lines of the highway. But the momentum of the crash took the truck onto its passenger side. It was too dark to see, but he knew if the Neighbors chasing him had survived, they would have found him by now.

  He had a sudden urge to urinate. He ducked behind the tailgate of the SUV and unzipped his jeans while looking into the pile of cars across the road. Twenty or thirty cars were abandoned here. Some of the doors were open and an eerie silence made it feel like a graveyard. Kahn thought he saw movement in his peripheral vision coming from one of the leading cars of the pileup. He shivered as he tried to look closely. He quickly finished his business and, seeing nothing, turned and limped toward the red truck.

  He approached the bottom of the truck, since it was the part tilted up toward him. Five steps from the vehicle he heard a noise like a person clearing a sore throat. He froze, waiting to hear it again and determine the source. After a minute he slowly moved toward the opposite side, the roof and truck bed, lying along the shoulder. As he walked around the rear of the bent and crumpled tailgate he tried to slide his feet along stealthily, looking for danger.

  He jumped and gasped at the unusual sight of a pair of legs sticking out from under the passenger side window of the truck. The truck had crushed the body of the person, and it was sitting just above the buttocks of the corpse. The legs and feet were splayed in a large V at such an angle that his attacker must have been thrown and pinned under door. The stain of his blood was being washed away by the black wetness of the cold rain. Kahn stopped, there was nothing for him here.

  Then he heard the noise again, a guttural mark in the otherwise quiet night. He nervously stepped closer to the cab of the truck. The rear window, Kimble’s huge Texas flag, was sadly shattered. Kahn bent and tried to see inside. He could see the small backseat and several items that had been thrown around scattered around the broken window.

  A deep noise hit his chest like a shockwave a second before it hit his ears. It was a loud, single crunch like nothing Kahn had ever experienced. He looked around and saw the bright flash of an explosion billowing from the windows of the downtown tower. He watched as the black and orange flames rolled into the air and around the close edge of the building before fading into a small fire from the windows near the top. The flames illuminated thick, black smoke pouring into the misty sky. Feeling more urgency, Kahn turned back to the wrecked truck and tried to see if there was anything to salvage through the shattered window.

  He spotted an object, a black box about the size of a lunchbox sitting in between the front seats like it was placed there. It had red and black clamps at the end of short black cables that were dangling down the passenger side. His eyebrows rose and he kneeled into the truck bed trying to get a closer look. He shuffled on his hands and knees, avoiding glass, and crouched, putting his head almost into the back window. Across the front of the box were the words “JumperKable” in white block lettering.

  “Unbelievable,” he sighed, shifting and trying to get into position to grab it without cutting himself. He had to shift down and get almost onto his belly to get his arm to reach through the frame. He slowly moved his arm in, watching closely that he didn’t scrape against the jagged edge.

  A gray-brown hand came from the front seat and grabbed his wrist. He screamed and pulled his hand back, jerking it out of the hasty grip and scraping the top of his hand along the broken window. The safety glass tore a layer of Kahn’s skin, drawing deep red lines and making blood swell from the wound. He gripped his injury and settled onto his knees. He heard the sound of struggling and low breathy growls from the animated corpse inside the cab.

  “Who the hell are you?” He shook the sharp pain out of his hand and got back into his low crawl position. The creature had dark skin and was hard to see at all in the darkened cab of the truck. It moved and struggled from the driver’s seat. “You’re belted in!” Kahn moved closer, trying to get a better look. He moved his neck into the frame of the window, watching the monster struggle against the seat belt. It turned and grabbed again, at a surprising and unnatural angle. Kahn avoided its grasping claws and saw that the engine of the truck had pressed inward, onto the driver, because of the high velocity crash. The driver was pinned with his legs invisible under the steering wheel at his waist. Blood coated the seat and the body hung and twisted, reaching for its target. It shook and struggled frantically. As Kahn watched, the flesh of the belly and torso began to rip away from the steering wheel. He could smell blood in the air and each thrust from the monstrous corpse severed more flesh from the trapped midsection.

  Kahn grabbed the battery pack and backed his head carefully out of the truck. As he stood and began walking briskly back to his dead vehicle, he stopped in shock. He stood in the middle of the road and tried to think through the situation. He had crashed and spun out. Then the red truck hit the same van, but head on. Then the truck overturned, killing the unsecured passenger by crushing.

  “How did you die?” he whispered into the air, looking back at the truck. The wind blew a gust down the abandoned road and Kahn felt a chill up his spine. If he was bit, where was the biter? If he died from the crash, and it looked like he did, why did he resurrect as undead? How did he get infected? A bite? Why didn’t he die from the bite? If he wasn’t bit, Kahn realized, they probably knew less about this infection than they all had assumed.

  He pushed away the introspection for another time and moved swiftly back to his car. He reached under the steering wheel and popped the hood. He opened it, placed the box down, and tried to read the buttons in the dark. A rectangular gray button on the front said “Quick Start.” He shrugged, guessing this was his best option, hooked the device’s leads to the battery and pressed the button. An amber light flashed and a cheap red LED screen displayed RDY above the button. He went back to the car, reached in, and turned the key.

  It struggled and cranked more slowly than usual, but after a second of breath the car shuttered and jumped to life. The passenger side headlight was shattered and remained dark, but the driver’s side lamp came on and lit the road ahead.

  Glittering eyes flashed as Kahn saw the faces of dozens of the silent, staggering creatures. They had walked out of the shadows of the road and were within about five car lengths of reaching Ka
hn’s SUV. They staggered and moved at random, but the ones in front now moved faster and seemed to aim directly at the blinding headlight. Kahn jumped to the front of the SUV, tearing the clips away from the battery and slamming the hood. He threw the battery starter across to the passenger floor and slammed the door just as the first of the creatures began to raise their arms almost in unison toward the light. He shifted into gear and lurched forward, scraping noisily against the concrete and moving almost stuck to the low wall.

  After a moment, he was able to steer the car free and make a wide turn to the left away from the undead bodies right as they reached him. The engine knocked a bit as he passed Kimble’s destroyed truck, and he took the first exit off the highway a quarter mile up the road. The car seemed to warm up and drive normally as he took a right turn through a dark neighborhood.

  Kahn drove on a course that he strongly thought was at least the right direction to get home, or to a junction he recognized. The neighborhood streets were dark and quiet. He didn’t bother with stop signs as he creeped carefully forward, single headlight illuminating nondescript shadows as he went. He stopped in the middle of a wide, four-way intersection with plenty of room and nighttime visibility on all sides. He quickly turned off the vehicle, having driven long enough to charge the battery a bit he thought, and fished for the overturned gas canister in the back. It had bounced forward and come to a rest between the folded down backseat and the front passenger seat. He exited the vehicle, sloshing the gas and looking into the darkness of each side street. Satisfied he was alone, he opened the gas tank on the SUV and started to fill it up. He listened and watched as the liquid glugged into the tank. The key was in the ignition and the door was open, so all he heard was the steady ding ding ding of the vehicle. All around him was still. There were no insects, birds, or other animals making noise. No lights. Complete silence.

  Then, as he was about halfway done emptying the canister, he heard a low rumbling noise. He looked around, trying to see if the noise was a vehicle. It was in the distance, but rapidly coming closer. Then the sound burst loudly overhead. It was three military helicopters, thundering in the sky. He thought they looked like Blackhawks, running with no onboard lights with which to identify them. Were there soldiers on board? Where were they going? He shielded his eyes and turned his head to watch. They moved so fast and low he had a hard time seeing details. He watched them as they faded away, flying toward downtown, with the noise fading to a low thudding rumble. He watched the dimly blinking strobe lights on each tail until they too faded from view.

  His canister emptied, he closed the fuel tank on the vehicle and got back in the driver’s seat. He tossed the empty canister into the back on top of the other supplies. A bit nervous, he turned the key and the engine sputtered into life. He sighed and wiped stress-induced sweat from his brow. He was exhausted, sore, and frightened. Again, his wife and son’s faces flashed into his mind. He needed them, he needed to know they were safe. He pushed aside his apprehension and continued toward home.

  He came to the darkened intersection of a road whose name he recognized as running all the way from downtown and ending at a railroad junction and small county road that would wind him around toward his property.

  He thought of Aisha and imagined her worry of his absence over the last several days. She would have been alone with a hungry toddler, hungry herself, and scared for her husband. She had no way to know what had happened to him, or even the danger the world posed now. He hoped she would not have taken her car out to look for him. She might run into a group of the dead, or worse.

  There were several cars packed in tightly here. None of them were facing toward downtown, but they abruptly stopped at the left of the intersection Kahn was approaching. As he came to the dead street light, he saw the reason so many cars were filling up all the lanes in either direction heading away from the city. There was a police roadblock just to the right of the turn. The flash of his headlight gleamed on the red and blue assemblies on the top of half a dozen vehicles. They were parked in rows behind makeshift metal barricades, facing the stopped traffic. Doors were open and several limp, black shapes littered the ground. The road surface sparkled with broken glass. Kahn saw windows and windshields shattered or with neat, round holes. He looked toward the mass of civilian vehicles facing them and saw similar damage, and several more immobile bodies littering the area.

  Kahn turned right and made his way in between the police vehicles. He used the front of his already-damaged vehicle to push the thin metal barricades aside. The car was just able to fit in the middle of the row of police vehicles, and he drove carefully forward through the standstill. He felt like he was being watched, a disturbing sense he couldn’t explain. He looked into the line of commercial buildings lining the far side. Dark windows stared back at him, any number of which could house people watching and waiting to ambush a defenseless driver.

  Once through, he sped away and the buildings morphed into some older neighborhoods. He kept his eyes forward, hoping that the sparser population of this area of town would leave him safe from both the living and the dead. From here, the roads gained curves and widened. Neighborhoods opened up into overgrown fields and abandoned plots. He passed a run-down school next door to a large and well-built church. He tried not to think of the irony of impoverished neighborhoods with terrible schools and millionaire pastors. He shook his head. No more schools for now. No more churches. There was no room for faith in the nation of the undead.

  Chapter 24

  Cleansed

  He approached his home slowly, for the first time in days. His heart pounded as he pulled onto his street from the highway. He had won! It wasn’t the trial he expected, but he had left to get supplies for his family to survive. Now he was coming home with those supplies. He rubbed his eyes, tired from exertion and ready to collapse and recover in his own bed. He looked down at his shirt, realizing he had his own blood and his brother-in-law’s blood as a dried stain all over him. His excitement faded as he realized he would have to tell Aisha her brother died. And not just died, but was violently executed by a madman.

  They would leave. He would wait until morning to tell her about Ash. Then they would leave. He had to get away from here. It was too close to these people, and their dangerous leader, who called themselves Neighbors. Kahn’s neighbor was captured by them, but he couldn’t do anything about that. He couldn’t risk himself again, like he did retrieving the food. He decided to take the risk because his family desperately needed it. But Ash, his family, had died because of that decision. He would tell her Ash died because of the Neighbors, he would have to explain they weren’t safe here. They had to leave the safety of their home to survive.

  He rolled down his window and listened to the sounds of his street. Crunching gravel and cold air welcomed him down as he watched the familiar homes. There was darkness in each home, not even a candle. No people. They must have each had their own reasons for leaving. Maybe some were there, hiding in the dark, cold night. Hiding from the noise of his engine, or the shine of his single headlamp. He took deep breaths of the cold air, thankful for the sensation.

  His brake lights lit the road behind as he slowed before entering the gate of his land. The gate was open. That was disturbing and worrisome, but not entirely surprising. Aisha might have left it open if she came to the edge of the property, not realizing the danger an intruder might bring.

  But the discovery that sent disturbing chills up Kahn’s spine was the swaying body standing in the shadows in between the two open gates of his and Kimble’s properties. His light shone onto the opening and up the slightly inclined gravel driveway. The outline of the person was sent into deep shadow, but it stood and swayed in the darkness. It wore some sort of a hooded jacket, so the outline was indistinct.

  This was his home. It was time to defend it himself, no waiting for someone to come and do it for him. Anger replaced the fear he felt as he thought of this creature frightening his wife. He looked around the c
ar and placed it in park. He considered the pistol on the passenger seat, but decided against the noise. More of those things might be nearby and it might frighten Aisha more than she already was. He needed to quietly infiltrate his home, secure the doors, and move them out early tomorrow. Somewhere safe. He flipped his pistol belt onto the seat from the passenger side floor and spun it in his hand, searching for the sharp camp knife he carried. Flashes of memory showed him the way. Kimble saving him in the woods, the pit of the dead grabbing and tearing at the live flesh Kahn gave them, the shuffling crowd moving slowly and quietly to reach him on the highway. He held the rubberized hilt; it felt solid in his hand.

  He threw open the door and left it open as he moved briskly to his target. He watched the shadowy outline as it swayed slightly, focusing on the head as it turned in recognition. It growled and took a shaky step out of the shadows toward him. The dark hood covered all but the dead face as it bit and snapped at the air, no breath coming from its lungs even as Kahn approached with big puffs of white fog exhaling into the air.