Nights of the Living Dead

by Jonathan Maberry

  “Thank you, Mr. Jefferson. For WIC-TV, this is Harvey Lincoln.”

  * * *

  It took forever for Harvey to find a working, unoccupied pay phone in Glenshaw, but he eventually did and told Frank to pull the van over.

  “Can’t we just go back to the station?” Frank’s voice was almost whiny. “It’s only twenty minutes, man.”

  “I just want to check in and see if there are any messages from my father.”

  Frank sighed loudly and pulled the van over.

  Harvey hopped out and put a dime in the phone booth before dialing the station. It was much better to check there to see if Dad had called rather than call Dad directly and have to actually talk to him.

  “WIC-TV.”

  “Hi, Maria, it’s Harvey, any messages?”

  “Linda’s on the warpath looking for you.”

  Harvey winced. He was still trying to figure out a way to ask her how to contact her coroner friend that wouldn’t end with one of her high heels stabbing him in the eye.

  “Also,” Maria added, “your father called. He sounded pretty rattled.”

  “Damnit. Thanks, doll.”

  With a heavy heart, he pushed down the metal lever and then let go, hearing a dial tone even as his dime rattled to the bottom of the phone. He put another dime in and dialed the phone number for the house he grew up in.

  “Hello?”

  Harvey hesitated. His father sounded awful. “Dad, it’s Harvey.”

  “Oh, Harvey, thank goodness! Your mother’s dying, Harvey, and I keep calling nine-one-one and nobody answers!”

  Closing his eyes, Harvey said, “Keep trying, Dad. I’ll be there as fast as I can.”

  He hung up and hopped back into the van. “We’re going to Kittanning.”

  “Say what?” Frank got that deer-in-the-headlights look again. Plus, his mouth hung open, making him look kind of like a fish.

  Pointing at the road ahead, Harvey said, “Drive to Kittanning, right now.”

  “That’s an hour away!”

  “Then you’d better get moving.”

  “No way, man, I can’t—”

  “Drive, Frank, or I tell Jack about the reefer you were smoking when you thought I wasn’t looking last week.”

  “Aw, c’mon, man, that’s not fair.”

  “Since when is life fair? Drive.”

  Frank put the van into gear and grumbled, “This is a bad scene, man.”

  * * *

  By the time they arrived at Kittanning, a town that straddled the Allegheny River, it was dark out.

  “Man, this is uncool.”

  “Will you please shut up?” Harvey was about ready to strangle Frank at this point. He should have just gone back to the station and then taken his own car here. But Dad’s voice was so anxious. He’d never sounded like that, except when Grandma was dying.

  “Shit!”

  Startled by Frank’s interjection, Harvey looked up to see a man standing right in the middle of Market Street.

  Frank swerved to avoid the man—who was just standing there—and drove the van straight for a bank’s façade.

  Harvey was thrown violently forward, his head colliding against the windshield, his ribs smashing into the dashboard.

  For a few seconds, he just sat there on the floor in front of the passenger seat, his ears ringing.

  Reaching up, he yanked at the door handle, and the van passenger door creaked open with a metallic screech.

  His first thought was that he was going to have to fill out a ton of paperwork on the damaged van.

  Glancing over at the driver’s side, he saw that Frank was sitting in the seat, held in by his seat belt. He looked unconscious.

  Belatedly realizing that he should have worn his own seat belt, Harvey tried to climb out of the van, and instead fell to the pavement.

  Something was getting into his eyes. He rubbed his eyes, and then saw blood on his fingers.

  Touching his forehead, it felt slick.

  Clambering to his feet, Harvey looked back to see that the same man was just standing there in the middle of Market Street.

  “Hey!” he cried, stumbling toward the man. “What the hell’s wrong with you?”

  Then he got a good look at the man. His eyes were milky white, his teeth were rotten, and he had a giant hole in his flannel shirt—and also in his chest. In fact, Harvey could see clear through to the other side, bits of gore and shattered bone and muscle dripping inside the hole.

  For thirty hours now, he’d been hearing about strange people wandering around and the dead coming to life, and all sorts of other craziness.

  But this was his first time face-to-face with it.

  He ran.

  In pure panic, Harvey didn’t pick a direction, but his subconscious must have been working properly because after a minute, he found himself on Sampson Street, running toward the house he grew up in.

  Aside from that—that animated corpse, he hadn’t seen anyone on the street at all.

  He wasn’t sure what was stranger.

  It took him several seconds of fumbling to get the latch to the front gate open—his hands were still slick with his own blood mingled with sweat—but he managed it. The gate squeaked like it always did, and he ran down the cracked pavement of the walkway to the front door.

  “Dad?” he said as he yanked open the screen door. It was unlocked, the inner wooden door left open on this warm evening. “You home?”

  “Harvey? Harvey, is that you?”

  “I’m here, Dad.”

  His father came out into the foyer from the living room dressed in his usual around-the-house wear: a white T-shirt, boxer shorts, and leather slippers. Tears were streaking down his cheeks and into his thick mustache. “Harvey, I don’t know how much longer your mother will be with us.”

  He led Harvey into the living room, where Mom was lying on the couch, plastic tube in her nose connected to the oxygen tank, her drawn, wrinkled skin white as a sheet. Her stomach was moving up and down ever so slightly, so she was still alive, but that was the only indication that she was.

  Against one wall was the giant wooden credenza with the television inside it, and one of the anchors was on the air. Harvey found himself unable to remember the anchorman’s name—he wore his glasses on the air, which Harvey thought was dumb—and he was droning on about how important it was to cremate the bodies of anyone who dies.

  “Harvey, what happened to you?”

  Only then did Harvey remember that he’d left Frank in the van. “I’m fine, Dad. I mean, no, I’m not fine, but—”

  “Sit down, I’ll take care of that. Army taught me first aid, might as well use it.”

  Within minutes, he had out bandages, alcohol, cotton, paper tape, and paper towels. It stung when he rubbed the alcohol on the cut on Harvey’s head after he wiped it down.

  Once he taped the bandage onto Harvey’s forehead, Dad said, “I’ll call nine-one-one again.”

  “Yeah, that’s a good idea. Tell them about Frank.” He’d explained about what happened on Market Street while Dad dressed the wound.

  Dad went over to the phone, and Harvey could hear the ringing after he dialed “1” the second time.

  All he heard was ringing.

  After the twelfth ring, Dad violently hung the phone up.

  Just as he did, the camera cut to Harvey’s interview with the cemetery caretaker at Mt. Royal.

  “Why don’t you wear your glasses on the television like that anchorman does?” Dad asked.

  Harvey sighed. “Because I look stupid with the glasses on, Dad. Everyone does. Look, maybe I can go over the hospital, see what—”

  Suddenly, Mom’s body shook with a tremendous coughing fit.

  “Rifka!” Dad cried, and ran over to the couch, kneeling by her side, grabbing her hands with his even as she choked out several watery, ragged coughs.

  Helplessly, Harvey just stood there. He wanted to do something for his mother—and something for Frank—but callin
g 911 was what you were supposed to do. It was why they’d just adopted 911 for emergencies, so you didn’t need to know the local precinct number or the hospital number.

  But if it wasn’t working …

  Reaching into his pocket for his notebook, he flipped through the pages until he found the number for the emergency room at the Armstrong County hospital over on Route 28.

  However, dialing it just got a busy signal.

  He tried the Armstrong County Sheriff’s Office, but that one just rang and rang like 911 did.

  After slamming the phone down even harder than his father had, he started, “Dad, I’m going—”

  “Rifka!”

  Moving over to the sofa, Harvey saw that his mother had stopped coughing. And also stopped breathing.

  Getting to his feet, Dad tugged at Harvey’s arm. “You have to save her!”

  “What? How?”

  “Didn’t you learn mouth-to-mouth that time last year?”

  “I did a story on it, Dad, I never learned it.”

  “Why won’t you help your mother?”

  “Dad, there’s nothing I can do! The hospital’s line is busy, the cops aren’t answering, I don’t—”

  But his father was now pounding his chest with what little strength he had. “You always hated us, you were always ashamed of us!”

  “Dad, that’s not fair—”

  “That’s why you changed your name, because you hate me and you hate that she took my name, and now you’re happy she’s dead!”

  “Dad!” He grabbed his father’s arms at the wrist. “Stop it! Listen to me, we have to burn her body.”

  “What?”

  “We have to—”

  He pulled away from Harvey’s grip. “How dare you! How dare you reject your heritage again for your stupid job!”

  “Dad, for pity’s sake, you’re not being fair! None of this has anything to do with my job! You’ve been watching the news, dead people are coming back to life!”

  “Only the Lord can do that, and it’s the Lord who tells us not to burn a body like it was trash! Get out of my house, you filth! Get out!”

  “Dad, I—” Harvey cut himself off, and stormed past him, through the kitchen and out the back door to the yard.

  As he figured, there was a pile of firewood. Dad used to cut it himself, but then he got too old, so they hired a neighborhood kid to do it.

  Harvey may not have known mouth-to-mouth, but he was a Boy Scout years ago, and he knew how to start a fire.

  Within minutes, he’d arranged the logs into a shape that he could put Mom’s body on, and gotten them ignited.

  “What are you doing? Are you trying to burn the house down?”

  Turning, he saw Dad standing in the kitchen doorway.

  “No, Dad, I told you—we have to burn the body.”

  “There is no body, you smart-aleck! She’s still alive!”

  Harvey whirled around to face his father, who had a very smug smile on his face. “What?”

  “She’s alive!” He stepped aside, and Harvey saw his mother stumbling forward toward the doorway.

  His heart beating like a trip-hammer in his chest, Harvey cried out, “Dad, get out of there! Dad!”

  “You never cared about us at all, did you, Harvey? No wonder you changed your—”

  Then one of Mom’s hands clamped down on Dad’s shoulder.

  “Rifka, what’re you—”

  And then Mom’s mouth levered open and she bit Dad’s neck.

  Harvey couldn’t tell where Dad’s strangled screams ended and his own frightened screams began.

  He ran to the door, pulling Dad away from Mom’s attempted mastication of his neck.

  Dad fell to the floor, blood pouring from his neck.

  Mom started clawing at Harvey, but Harvey was able to fight her off as easily as he had done with Dad.

  Then Harvey grabbed Mom’s wrists the same way he’d grabbed Dad’s and dragged her out to the backyard, throwing her into the fire.

  Strangely, Mom didn’t make a sound, didn’t struggle, she just stood there, burning. The smell of acrid flesh assaulted Harvey’s nostrils as he ran back to the house, grabbing Dad’s much heavier body and dragging it out into the yard. Harvey had covered enough murders to know that Dad would never survive the amount of blood he’d lost that was now pooled on the kitchen’s linoleum floor.

  Mom was still just standing there, burning up. It was the strangest thing Harvey had seen. And today, that was up against some fairly stiff competition.

  He dropped Dad’s body into the fire at Mom’s feet, hoping that the Lord would understand why he was violating the proscription against cremation.

  Certainly, his father was unlikely to have ever understood.

  As their bodies burned, Harvey said, “I just wanted to be a good reporter, Dad. Nobody’s gonna say, ‘Let’s go to Harvey Lipshitz in the field’ with a straight face. Lincoln was a great president. Lipshitz is a punch line. I don’t know why you couldn’t understand that.”

  After a few minutes, he found himself unable to watch anymore.

  He walked around the house to Sampson Street, where he saw more people shuffling along, not picking up their feet, moving at an insanely slow pace.

  One of them was Frank.

  Without thinking, Harvey ran toward the little twerp, never more glad to see his idiot cameraman than he was now. “Frank, thank goodness! Get your camera, we’ve got to—”

  But Frank hadn’t stopped walking. And as soon as he was close enough, he bit down on Harvey’s arm.

  Harvey screamed in pain as Frank bit into him. He tried to shake the cameraman off, but Frank wouldn’t let go—he was like a dog with a bone.

  He tried to pull away, but all he did was stumble backward and fall to the pavement. Frank was on top of him now, straddling him, staring down at him with milky white eyes.

  I can’t die like this! I can’t! It’s not fair!

  As Frank went for his neck, Harvey’s last thought was, Since when is life fair?

  * * *

  “The scene in Kittanning is a vicious one this morning, as deputies from the Armstrong County Sheriff’s office have managed to capture and burn several bodies before the arrival of the National Guard to take control of the situation. I was able to briefly speak with Sheriff Emmett Nelson, who reiterated the cautions we’ve all heard during this horrible crisis.”

  “I know the government’s been saying all sorts of things about what caused this, but truly, it doesn’t matter where it all came from. What does matter is that everyone should stay in their homes, and if they encounter one of these ghouls, or whatever they are, to try to damage their heads or spines. That seems to kill them. And for God’s sake, cremate any dead body you see! Even if it’s just lighting a damn match, do something!”

  “This reporter was able also to ascertain that two of the bodies that were cremated in Kittanning belonged to WIC-TV employees Harvey Lincoln and Frank DeMartino. We all mourn their loss, and those of all the other citizens who, in essence, lost their lives twice. For WIC-TV, I’m Linda Kamin. Back to you in the studio.”

  DEADLINER

  by Neal and Brendan Shusterman

  Some people called Owen a “profiteer.” But there was a much better word for it. “Survivor.”

  This destabilization of society—this sudden outburst of wandering dead, eating friends and neighbors—was an opportunity for a consummate survivor who could play his cards right.

  He’d been a carnie for years before the outbreak. Aside from selling rubes on sucker games, society had no place for him: he wasn’t wanted. He was expected to move on when the carnival did, and he obliged. He didn’t like the rubes any more than they liked him. But when the hungry dead took to the streets, he knew this could be his chance to win the big prize. They called the summer of 1967 the summer of love. 1968 had brought the summer of death.

  When it had first happened, he’d just finished setting up the circus tent in Savannah, Georgia. Tha
t’s when they came wandering in. He’d watched men he’d worked with for five years getting eaten alive by the incoming assault—and the carnies with enough connective tissue intact after being bitten joined the forces of the dead with a passion. On that day he saved five people, and the legend about him began to grow.

  He’d killed hundreds of them in the streets and neighborhoods of Savannah over the next few weeks. He went from dirty townie to town hero. A son of the pacification. That’s what they called it. “The pacification.” After six months, the living dead were under control, or so the official reports said. People were advised to travel in groups, always have a weapon, and stay away from dark deserted places. A common-sense practice when your rotting mother might just show up to eat you. We could go back to worrying about the Commies, who, people agreed, were far more of a threat than zombies.

  And through it all, the big top still stood. Silent. Waiting. Owen knew it was waiting for him. There would be a new show now. And Owen would be the ringmaster.

  * * *

  “Careful with that truck! And keep your hands away from the windows!” Owen was amazed that he had to warn his workers to be careful with the cargo. He had thought all the people without common sense had been obliterated by this new form of natural selection. But idiots were as resilient as cockroaches.

  “We got seventeen,” Cristoph, his lead hunter, told him. “Five fit the profile you asked for. One of them you ain’t gonna believe.”

  But after the things he’d seen, Owen could believe anything. The hunter told him who they had. Owen believed it—but only barely.

  “A grand each for the normals, five grand for the specials, and twenty for your headliner.” The hunter reminded him that there had been ten men on his team when they set out. Now there were seven. “The rest got bit and had to be put down. So you’ll give me ten grand each to give to their families.”

  Owen doubted the money would go to the families of the dead men, but that wasn’t his business. He and his investors were willing to pay far more for this delivery than Cristoph was asking—so he only haggled him down a little before shaking hands.

  “But you and your men will stay on,” Owen insisted as part of the deal. “We’ll need sharpshooters. Security. We’ll work out a good wage.”