A Host of Shadows

by Harry Shannon

  In fact, he was crazy about her.

  Damn

  the bitch. She should die and disappear.

  Jack drove back up the hill in silence, feeling defeated and annoyed with himself for being so abundantly pussy-whipped. He glanced over at Luke’s shack and was mildly surprised to see that it was still closed and shuttered. The codger was certainly staying out of the way, just as Jack had requested. Somehow that fact made Jack feel even worse.

  And as for the woman, Jack cringed. For the first time, he allowed himself to ponder that the situation was hopeless. There’s no fool like an old fool, he thought, grimly. And I am certainly acting like an old fool. The sex is still good, even if she’s faking, but that’s all there is to it. She just doesn’t love me anymore…assuming she ever did.

  Becky had to be pried out of the Jeep. Jack helped her up the walkway. His heart was aching, his soul already mourning the loss of her love. The idea of her legs wrapped around some other man made him feel…psychotic.

  “Jack?”

  “Yes, honey.”

  “I don’t want to get married, Jack,” she mumbled. “I’m just too young for you, you know?”

  “Honey, listen…”

  “It’s been fun and everything, but enough is enough, okay? Take me home tomorrow, Jack. We’re done.”

  “You don’t mean that, honey. I know you don’t.” But he knew she did, and the force of the thought nearly killed him. Especially when she took off the engagement ring. He watched it slip from her fingers, strike the floor like a tiny chime and roll off into the living room. It came to rest under the well-worn couch.

  “Shit!”

  Becky fell heavily against the front door. She had tripped over something. Jack caught her, opened the door, flipped on the lights and took her into the bedroom. He placed her flat on the bed and brought a cold wash cloth to cool her brow. He wanted to lie down, too, but then remembered that something was on the front porch. Perhaps Luke had brought another token of gratitude?

  Somewhat excited, despite his aching heart, Jack turned out the bedroom light, closed the door and went back out onto the porch. The sun had dipped below the edge of the mountains, and it was already quite dark. He went back inside, found a flashlight and returned. He splashed the beam around the ground until he found it. His breath caught in his throat. A pair of leather boots, worn and rotted away, lay side by side on the doorstep. They had, at one time, been wonderful hand-tooled and lovingly designed with gold buckles. Now they were encrusted with dirt, held together by small, fraying strands of cowhide.

  Where is he finding this stuff?

  Jack wondered, as he bent over to examine the new gift. He turned one boot upside down and shook it. The bones of a human foot fell out with a clatter. Jack gasped in horror and dropped the flashlight. For a few agonizing moments, he sat there in the darkness, his heart hammering behind his ribcage. He swallowed, groped for the flashlight and turned it on again. Was this supposed to be funny? It wasn’t. Jack found it in very bad taste, not funny in the least.

  I’m going to give that redneck a piece of my mind,

  Jack thought. And he can forget about a percentage of the net. He started down the hill, promptly lost his footing and rolled over the rocky ground, finally landing in a heap near the malodorous septic tank. He looked up at the frigid, indifferent stars. They always seemed so much closer, and brighter, out in the wilderness. Jack grunted, groaned and sat up. He massaged his aching lower back. Was this karma for his evil thoughts?

  “Luke? Are you in there?”

  Jack wiped his nose. His hand came away bloody. He swore under his breath and got to his feet. He stumbled over to the shack and pounded on the splintering, well-weathered, wooden door. It opened.

  “Luke?”

  The shack was dark inside, and reeked of rotten meat. Jack did not allow his mind to examine that fact. He used the flashlight to search the room. Dirty dishes were piled in the tiny sink, and filthy laundry was piled into one corner. Jack saw some old paperback westerns stacked by the window. The beam passed over the cramped toilet and bathroom sink, and Jack noticed a number of pornographic magazines lay strewn about. So much for being born again, he thought, giddily.

  His throat tightened as the beam found the boots and jeans of someone sitting in a rocking chair near the tiny metal fireplace. Somehow Jack knew what he would find. He slowly raised the beam and nearly passed out when he saw the sightless, bulging eyes and hideous snarl of terror frozen on the old man’s features. Luke still held his crucifix in one bony hand, as though warding off the demon that had come to claim his life. Jack forced himself to move closer.

  The rigid extremities, now virtually bloodless, the rancid odor: This man had been dead for well over twenty-four hours.

  Jack backed away slowly. He had a sudden, almost overpowering urge to wet his pants. His hand was trembling badly, giving the beam of the flashlight a strange strobe-like effect. In the yellowing flicker, Luke seemed about to rise up out of his chair to praise Jesus. One eye seemed to wink, as if to say: This all turned out really fucking funny didn’t it, Jack? Maybe not funny “ha ha,” but damn sure funny “peculiar.” What did you have in your sandwich today, Jack? Some nice red meat? Huh? MEAT? Jack felt his stomach do a yoga stretch and flip over, and lunch came back up, splattering his shoes.

  The foul odor of his own vomit was the last straw, and he backed out of the shed retching and crying. He kept his eyes fixed on the doorway, half expecting Luke to come out all stiff-legged with his hands up, clutching that cross. There was a telephone in the cabin, thank God. He could call for an ambulance to take Luke away. In the back of his mind, Jack felt a final twinge of guilt. He hadn’t wanted to be bothered introducing Becky to the poor old fool, had even briefly wished him dead, and now he’d been spared that minor social inconvenience, almost as if by divine intervention.

  His feet kept slipping in the slick grass, and his body now reeked of stomach fluids. Jack fought his way back up the hill at last, wiped the tears from his eyes and located the garden hose. He cleaned his boots as best he could and left them on the porch to dry out. The sight of them standing side-by-side with the antique boots filled with human bones made his poor stomach lurch sideways yet again.

  “Honey? Becky?”

  No answer.

  Louder. “Becky? Answer me, honey!”

  Someone he’d never heard from before entered his mind and started to heckle in a gravely voice: What if somebody murdered Luke, and while you were fucking around down there he got inside and raped and killed Becky? What now, hotshot? What you gonna do about it?

  Because now they’re waiting for you.

  Jack tried the light switch, and it worked. The lamp came on, and the living room instantly felt warmer and cozier. He realized he’d stopped breathing. Feeling foolish, he walked over to the shotgun and took it down. Better something to bluff with than nothing.

  “Hello? Is anybody in there?”

  This was just silly, nothing but neurotic anxiety. Jack knew that Becky had just passed out completely, perhaps with her head under a pillow. I could smother her with a pillow. No one would have to know. Would that be easier than losing her to someone else? Would it?

  He knew he was being ridiculous. Nothing was wrong in there, and he was certainly not about to become a common murderer.

  But as he approached the darkened bedroom, a macabre concept intruded in his weary mind, based on something Luke had said about those evil, barbaric Native Americans who called themselves the Horse Humans. Luke had said that perhaps they were grateful for the flowers…and the company. A sick, twisted thought occurred to Jack: Perhaps the antiques were not from Luke; after all, he’d been dead since some time last night. No, they were actually gifts from the rotting, wormy dead people lying in those ancient burial mounds.

  And then it struck him that perhaps the horrified corpse sitting in Luke’s shack was also a kind of present from them, a small token of their appreciation.

&nb
sp; Wishes do come true,

  his mind sang madly. Some wishes do come true…

  But he only knew for certain when he saw it lying there on the area rug; a carpet now splattered with wide rings of rust, totally soaked in human blood. It had the little, golden antique ring upon its dainty, pale finger and the nails were so perfectly painted; oh, yes, these creatures of the night had given him everything he’d wanted, literally everything he could have asked for…

  Including her hand.

  Darkness Comprehended

  with Gord Rollo

  “She’s turning Zom!” Kendall whispered. He had the reddened, richly veined nose of a heavy, lifelong drinker, even though he was still a few years shy of his thirtieth birthday. Zack Pitt stepped forward, heavy work boots crunching through the broken glass, and leaned down to have a look. Kendall raised his shotgun with trembling hands and pointed it at the dead woman.

  “Put that thing down before you blow your dick off,” Pitt said. “Maybe she won’t make it all the way. Some don’t.”

  They had entered the deserted supermarket in search of supplies. Pitt hadn’t seen her at first. The blonde, half-naked corpse lay beneath a huge pile of shelving and masonry, near some usable, if dented canned goods. Her breasts had flattened in death; her neck was broken, head lolling at an odd angle. At one time she’d probably been quite pretty. Pitt ordered the younger men to search for food while he guarded the entrance. He’d left Kendall to guard the body. Everything had been fine until she’d started moving again.

  “Bart! Jon! You guys almost done back there?”

  Muffled acknowledgements from the storeroom: Almost done, boss. Pitt wrinkled his nose. “Stinks in here.”

  “Maybe it’s a fucking nest,” Kendall whispered.

  Pitt grimaced and rubbed his face. The thought had crossed his mind. “Jesus, let’s hope not.” His vision swam out of focus, bursting into white dots before darkening. He lost his balance and stumbled a step forward.

  “You okay, boss? You don’t look so good.”

  Pitt shrugged and grabbed a plastic bottle from the shelf. He opened it and sipped some tepid water. “I’m just tired. Can’t seem to sleep through the night.”

  Kendall’s eyes widened and he raised his weapon. “Damn!”

  The dead woman was writhing in the rubble now, making eerily erotic sounds. Some plaster fell away, exposing her face. Rats had eaten away her nose and one blue eye was missing. Her teeth were pulled back in an involuntary snarl. Her dress was ripped and shredded. She was wearing sexy pink thong underwear.

  Bart, a skinny teenager with long black hair that contrasted sharply with his pale white skin, came out of the back offices. He was lugging a canvas sack. Back before the world went to hell he would have been labeled a Goth, but now people belonged to only one of two groups: Us or Them. Bart said: “Scored some boxes of ammo, Mr. Pitt.” Then he saw the dead woman and cringed. “Shit, she’s turning.”

  Kendall looked panicked. He started edging towards the door. “She’s almost all the way back, Pitt. For Chrissakes, do her!”

  “No, the noise could bring more,” Pitt said. “Let’s just get the hell out.”

  Just then the woman sat up, arms stiff at her sides. Her one remaining eye was spider-webbed with reddened veins. Her mouth opened impossibly wide and a sound like the distant shriek of a hurricane filled the market. Time seemed to elongate and slow. Pitt found himself frozen: I wonder what she’s feeling? Thinking?

  Jon, a muscular black kid in his early twenties, came running into the market. He tripped over a box of cat food, regained his footing and closed the gap. “Shut her up!”

  Kendall’s finger twitched. The shotgun roared. The top of the woman’s head vanished in a spray of blood, tissue and bone. Her body collapsed again and the room went silent. The four men froze in place and held their breath, listening with a desperation that transcended the senses. Their eyes met like football players in a huddle. They waited.

  Bart was the first to speak. He brushed back his long dark hair and grinned. “I think we’re cool,” he said. He moved toward the plate glass window and peered out into the street. “Nothing happening outside.”

  “It’ll be dark soon,” Kendall said. His face was pale, voice hoarse and crackled with tension. “We got a pretty good haul today, why push our luck?”

  Pitt nodded and decided Kendall would be replaced on the next run. His nerves are shot. He’s losing it. “You’re right,” he said, soothingly. “Jon, Bart, you move those boxes. I’ll take point. Kendall, just cover the rear.”

  Each man dropped into position, Kendall visibly relieved to not have point. Pitt turned too rapidly and endured another wave of dizziness. He stepped out into the middle of the street, rifle at port arms. Keep it together. He searched the alleys for movement and trotted through the trash and debris. Jon followed, wobbling along with a wheelbarrow full of dented soup cans; followed by Bart with three crates of powdered milk and a twelve-pack of cheap beer.

  Kendall, still inside the nearly deserted market, turned his back to the street. He backed carefully towards the front door. He found himself humming tunelessly, some pop song from the Twentieth Century, baby, baby I think I love you… He froze as two things struck him simultaneously. First, that he had not reloaded the shotgun.

  Second that a nearby pile of trash nearby had just…moved.

  “Pitt?”

  Pitt, across the street, stopped in his tracks and turned just in time to have another long, slow black-hole experience: Kendall fumbling through his suddenly bottomless pants pocket for some cold, tubular shells; meanwhile, a figure coming up and out of a huge stack of garbage, something that had once been a rent-a-cop. It still wore tattered strips of grey uniform and an absurdly comic hat with a shiny black bill. Then Kendall cracking open the weapon; the Zom on its feet and lurching forward while making that high keening a Zom makes when he’s starving; Kendall trying to load those shells with shaking fingers, dropping the first but getting the second; the Zom snarling and extending bloody fingers with yellowed and cracked nails, hungrily closing the gap.

  “Get out of the way!” Pitt called.

  They all wanted to shoot but couldn’t without hitting Kendall, and by the time the man tried to run he was toast. The Zom grabbed Kendall’s right arm and twisted it around and up so that it made a hideous craaaaking sound. Kendall grunted and spewed out a mouthful of thick, syrupy vomit. The Zom clawed at his guts with those Fu Manchu nails, trying to open his soft lower belly. Kendall dropped his hands to protect himself. It closed with him in an obscene parody of a slow dance and bit deeply into his neck, severing the carotid artery. Dark blood spurted with each desperate pump of his weakening heart, arcing high and away. Kendall kicked his legs like a man on the gallows and his eyes rolled back as he died.

  Pitt crossed the deserted street, closed the distance. He watched as it fed. His skin tingled as he looked deep into the creature’s empty eyes for a long, dark moment. Where has your soul gone? Do you hate what you’re doing right now…or lust for it? Or is it both at once? What the fuck is going on in your head? Pitt shuddered, shook the cobwebs from his head.

  “Mr. Pitt?”

  It was his crew, awaiting orders. Pitt crossed himself, raised his weapon and barked. “Waste them both.”

  The others came out of their trance to fire. The three continued firing, the barrage going on and on until the red, white and purple pieces that had been Kendall were indistinguishable from the remnants of the Zom. Silence, and the fading stench of cordite. “Their heads, too,” Pitt said sadly. “Make sure you destroy the brains.”

  They jogged back to camp. Not for the first time, Pitt found it difficult to keep up. At forty, he was by far the oldest of the twenty-three ragtag survivors, many of whom were half his age. They followed him because he’d managed to keep them alive for the last few years. During that time, Pitt had lost his right eye to a Zom who got too close, and his hair had gone completely white. He wondered if hi
s leadership went unchallenged because the others were afraid of him. In his own mind he was just a football player gone to seed; an ex-marine turned ex-bouncer.

  They paused near some trashcans at the entrance and whistled sharply. The sun was sinking into the bloody red skyline and time was short. The guard whistled back and they jogged up to the next level of the airport parking lot without incident. The women greeted their men warmly and took the food to storage. Pitt went alone to the railing and looked down. The undead were already coming out to howl at the moon. Pitt shivered, although it was not yet cold, his weary mind still obsessed with questions. What are they thinking? Feeling? What would it have been like for Kendall if I had left him there, let him turn?

  The others had opened the beer and had begun to celebrate. Pitt slid further into the shadows. He reached into his jacket, removed a tattered leather wallet and took out his last remaining picture of Maria. His features softened. It was a shot from their honeymoon. Maria was standing on the hotel steps. She had her hands on her skirted hips and was smiling sweetly into the camera; long black hair swept out to one side, held aloft by a sudden gust of wind. Pitt stared at the photograph for a very long time. He did not cry, not anymore. His tears had dried, turned to dust and blown away. In a way, the picture calmed him; reminded him of other lives in other times and places.

  …Down at Waterfront Park walking hand in hand, because even with the trash and floating human waste it is their place, and they need to talk about the baby. Pitt scolds her, forces himself to ignore the hurt in her deep, brown eyes. “How could you have been so stupid, Maria? We can’t bring a poor innocent child into this crazy fucked up world.”

  She states her case, and it is for life even in the face of death. Pitt weakens. Soon they are sitting on a wobbly bench on the outer edge of the park. Pitt is rubbing his hand over Maria’s swollen belly, feeling his child’s feeble kicks, when the group of undead swarms out of the old public washroom building. There are too many of them, no time to reload the rifle. The bench rests against a concrete wall. Pitt stands on the seat and scurries up for a quick drop to safety on the far side. He reaches, starts pulling Maria up out of harm’s way, but her hands are slippery from sweat. He loses her. She looks up at him, both terror and forgiveness in her beautiful eyes.