by James Cook
“Good. Let’s get moving.”
THIRTEEN
I came out of the haze when my consciousness began to slip.
It wasn't death—whatever process keeping my personality active was too strong for that—but rather, it was like being engulfed. I felt the smothering weight of my body's base urges press down on me with the force of a mountain. In the muffled quiet of my fugue state, the weight was overwhelming.
Gathering my will, I fought against it and came up like a diver desperate for his next breath. It wasn't fear of death driving me back to full alertness, it was the fear of being self-aware while the thing keeping my body alive submerged my humanity. Bad enough my body was a merciless killing machine, I didn't want to start reveling in it as well. My brain reconnected with my eyes, and immediately it was clear what caused the avalanche of hunger in my body.
A man was dashing by just outside our swarm.
Mangy heads swiveled on creaky hinges toward the stranger, the motion similar to a school of piranha locking in on prey. It was futile, however; the man easily outpaced us. I caught glimpses of him between the bodies. Thin, tall, ragged coat floating out behind him and flapping like a sail. His hair was long and matted, nearly as dirty as the dead surrounding me. The split-second when I saw his face told me a story all on its own, a single impression but a strong one.
He looked sick. Not the way someone with the flu looks. That would have been too hard to see from a distance. The stranger was hollow-cheeked, skin stretched hard across his face and eyes sunken into pits surrounded by dark circles. His complexion was ashen, a weird mixture of deathly gray—which was common enough among us dead folks—and the yellow pallor of liver failure.
The stranger had a rifle across his back, the weapon bouncing as he loped past and ahead of us. In no time at all he dwindled to a speck, but it stopped there. My swarm moved toward him and he grew again, eventually close enough to show the impatience on his face before darting down the road another few hundred yards.
And waiting there. Again.
A cold chill swept through me, clashing with the fiery hunger in my body. It hadn't taken a huge leap to deduce my swarm was drawn by the sound of gunfire, but right in front of me was proof we were being led. I hadn't wanted to believe it no matter how much the idea squirmed in the back of my mind. After all, who would deliberately lead groups of ghoulish nightmares toward gatherings of living people? Mankind had lost the vast majority of its population, leaving every person still alive a rare and precious thing.
But the evidence couldn't be ignored. Strange as the sensation was, I found my own impulses perfectly aligned with my body. Both of us wanted this man dead.
*****
Anger faded to irritation and a general sense of dissatisfaction as the day wore on. Whatever small wisps of doubt I had held evaporated by the fourth repeat performance. The stranger enticed the swarm on, occasionally vanishing into the woods only to return thirty minutes or an hour later with a new batch of ghouls in tow.
Our numbers grew. Not by the hundreds, but every handful the man brought to the main pack made us more dangerous. More of a threat. Far away as he was, I couldn't catch his mannerisms. But given his obvious psychotic desire to do harm, I could only assume he was walking on sunshine.
That thought put the song Walking on Sunshine in my head, and it stayed with me. It was fucking maddening.
A short aside here: Normally when you get a song stuck in your head you can just hum it or sing it and that process sort of vents the pressure. You still have to deal with whatever annoying tune is dancing around your cerebellum, but it's manageable. As soon as the song began to play, it was like a 1970s era Led Zeppelin show. Imagine speaker stacks the size of school buses, the volume as overpowering as a jackhammer to the temple.
Eventually I pushed it down to a dull roar, but my will grew weak. Not being able to easily handle the myriad strange little things our brains do was just one more blow to absorb. The strain pulled at me.
I made myself focus on the stranger and his activities. A good twenty minutes passed as I imagined all the creative ways I'd like to murder him, both as a living man and as a shambolic corpse. Knives, vehicular homicide, evisceration, a thing involving a bag of nails and sulfuric acid, scenario after scenario. Giving myself fully to the rage kept me from going crazy.
Interesting side effect, though. That damn song ended up being the soundtrack—stuck on constant repeat—to my murderous fantasies. I was reminded of the night Sheila and I rented and watched A Clockwork Orange for the first time, the part where Alex assaults the woman while belting out Singing in the Rain. I was supposed to be the strong manly man, but Sheila—
Oh, Jesus. Her name. That was my wife's name.
Memories hit me all at once. It wasn't just the missing ones, but even the pieces I'd already recalled suddenly bloomed to full color in my mind. They ceased to be still photos and cracked old films, and burst into full high-definition across the inside of my skull. Details emerged, creating context to the rapidly expanding catalog of events surging to life.
My life. With her. Coming back to me in glorious, agonizing detail.
I was caught up in the flow of it like a starving man suddenly plopped down at a buffet. I feasted on the good and the bad alike. Anything and everything about who I was. A warmth spread in my mind as the recall continued, a contentment I hadn't realized I'd possessed in life until I finally felt its absence.
My preoccupation with the flood of memories nearly made me miss the stranger when he appeared from one of his frequent side trips. The road we traveled was overgrown and winding, but even swimming in the waters of recollection, I'd noticed the world around me in a passive way. The entire country was littered with the debris of the world that was, but it still stands out to you when you pass through an area littered with military hardware.
This fact didn't seem very important to me as I rummaged through my new memories. After all, the US military was a huge and well-populated beast, especially before the bad luck that cost me my first life and pulled me into my second. I'd seen enough abandoned gear to consider it a curiosity at best. So when the sick man leading us around like ducklings emerged from the tangle of Humvees and troop carriers with a rocket launcher, I noticed. Even as a walking corpse, that’s not the sort of thing you see every day.
It wasn't long until dark, the colorful striations of sky and sun blazing above us. As the stranger led us forward, his pace slower because of his new toy, I had a brief moment of hope. Maybe he'd use it to kill the swarm. Maybe he was tired of this game.
He didn't, of course. I watched the business end of the weapon bounce around as he jogged, and another brief flash of memory hit me. It wasn't a logical process, but a recollection of a movie with the same kind of rocket launcher in it, or something similar. Some hapless soldier with no experience being told to use it on a tank.
Damn. Whatever the sick man was planning, it had to be big.
*****
Long hours later we came upon a town.
It wasn't the white picket fence, mom and pop sort of place that comes to your head when you think of a small town. The first thing I noticed from my position at the front of the pack was how relatively bright the place was. The world was a darker place without streetlights, headlights, security lights, and every other source of illumination long since gone the way of the dinosaur.
Not this place. It was far from a metropolis, but like any piece of civilization, it glowed even in the small hours of the night. Torches guttered along the wall at regular intervals, and there were even some bulbs burning. Although I was hundreds of yards out, I could see the difference in the sources of light. Some steady, some flickering. Now and then a person would pass along the wall, but not often enough.
My heart sank. As the swarm closed in, we breasted a hill, giving me a view of the place from just high enough to see most of the town.
I caught a glimpse of heavy gates at one end of a mostly ruined bridge. W
e were already circling past that, which made sense given how heavily fortified the gate beyond the bridge was. We moved around widely, the horde eerily quiet. The only sound was the gentle hiss of our feet against the grass.
The stranger changed direction suddenly, jetting toward what looked like the edge of a large ravine. There, he was less than a hundred yards from a second gate, which was smaller but no less heavy than the one at the bridge. I tried to work out why our pied piper thought this was the best place to strike since the swarm would have to cross the bridge to fully infiltrate the town, but I couldn't quite get there.
The stranger ran along the bank, gaining distance from the swarm even as he drew us on. When he was as close to the gate as he could get without falling into the ravine, he dropped to one knee and reached around for the rocket launcher. After fiddling with it for a few seconds in the dark, he raised it to his shoulder and fired.
The blast was enormous and painfully loud. A tremendous crack-BANG and a brilliant plume of fire from the back of the weapon. The warhead—I think that’s what it’s called anyway—hit the gate like the hammer of God, smashing it from its concrete supports and leaving it burnt and twisted on the ground. An alarm began to sound, a ringing bell, followed by others along the wall. Soon, bells echoed all throughout the town. Shouts went up in their wake, spreading like wildfire.
Blinding anger took over my mind for a few seconds, and I felt a sort of resonance from my body. Bestial as it might be, it wasn't a total fool. My body locked eyes with the stranger as we approached him. We came within twenty feet, close enough for me to see his nightmare grin of blackened and broken teeth.
So close. I wanted to hurt this man for what he was doing. For what he was making me do. I wanted to tear into his flesh every bit as much as my body did, if for different reasons.
My body and I in agreement, we rushed forward, following the stranger toward a community already losing its mind in the chaos.
*****
It made sense to me once I saw it.
The large, obvious bridge above was just a decoy, barely adequate for even one person at a time to cross. Below it, hand built but obviously sturdy, was another bridge, cleverly concealed. Hiding in the shadow of the first, the second bridge was a mass of heavy wooden slats bolted and supported with long metal joints. It was wide enough to fit a small car, and looked strong enough to hold the weight.
The swarm was thinner behind me, but still pushing. Still strong. Space opened between us as we shuffled across the bridge. The stranger moved like a snake, shooting away into the darkness. My body climbed a set of switchbacks up a steep hill, which I realized was actually the bank of a low river, and then burst through the small clearing at the bridge's terminus.
“Blow it!” I heard someone shout. “Blow it and drop the backup!”
The stranger was ready, however.
“No, don't,” he shouted. “There are others coming from the northern section. Just hold here for a minute!” The stranger was moving the entire time, closing in on the poor guards trying to minimize the damage.
“Hey, who the fuck are-”
The stranger slashed the man's throat, then whipped around to knock his partner to the ground, the knife gleamed wet and red as he pushed the blade into the man's heart. Once, twice, three times and done.
My body nearly had him then, but the stranger pelted away from the large, ruined doorway before we could snatch at him. We followed, of course, senses tracking every whisper of sound. The stranger ran on, doing his best to blend in until he was right on top of someone. It was a good act, worthy of awards. The stranger wailed and screamed as the horde pursued him, only dropping the mask from his face when someone got close enough to realize he wasn't one of them.
I remember following him doggedly, my body so intent on destroying the stranger it paid little attention to the people he killed along the way. Quick slashes, precise thrusts, and bodies fell. More people dead, and all because this man wanted to watch the world burn.
The swarm that pushed at my back like a tidal wave was quick to pounce on those easy meals. Once or twice, my errant flesh nearly got distracted, its attention wavering from the stranger. The only thing keeping it on task was the difficulty of fighting off the other ghouls for those meals.
Besides, I could feel that resonance. My body wasn't capable of the higher functions, but as a predator, it recognized threats. Its wants were vague and less powerful than my own, but some part of me was getting through, reinforcing its own small urge to eliminate the enemy.
The swarm flooded across the front half of the town with depressing speed. The rest of the ghouls moved around me, hunger driving them after the scattered settlers fleeing into the night. The urge to devour was rising in my own flesh as well, and would have taken over if we hadn't looked up at just the right time.
There he was. Feet dangling from the roof of a one-story building, back sitting against a partial wall behind him. Greasy hair surged with faint orange highlights as the swarm moved toward the pile of bodies the stranger left below his perch. Rhythmic as a heartbeat, his face glowed again, and he laughed to himself.
Rage like an exploding star surged through me. My body locked onto him, ignoring the dead and dying at our feet. Our hands swept upward in a clumsy attempt to grab the stranger's foot, but the distance was too great.
He laughed again, playfully wiggling his feet as he dropped a small crystal into the pipe sticking out from his fist. The lighter glowed, his breath sharp as the smoke hit his lungs. My body didn't give up, still swiping as the stranger grinned down at us.
“Gideon,” the man said to himself, surveying the carnage. “You sure know how to throw a party.”
Eventually my body gave up trying to catch him, submitting to the hunger. Its feeding, for once, didn't even register to me. I had thought being trapped in my own walking corpse was the worst thing imaginable. This man—Gideon, apparently—showed me how wrong I was. He was worse by miles.
Feeding would keep my body going, terrible as it was. Gideon needed to destroy, to hurt, to burn his way across the earth. My body did things because it had to. This monster did them by choice.
For that, he was going to pay.
FOURTEEN
Ethan brought Hicks along for his tracking abilities, but as it turned out, he needn’t have bothered. The broad swath of coagulated body fluids, crushed plant life, trampled detritus, and the occasional discarded body part made it obvious which way the horde had travelled. Ordinarily, they would have taken it as a warning and given the horde a wide berth, but there was just one problem.
It was headed straight for Broken Bridge.
After setting out from the U-trac, they picked up the massive trail just before sundown, and not wanting to get caught in the open after dark, took shelter for the night on the roof of a long-abandoned gas station. Zebulon’s nephew, Michael, tethered the horses in a tire shop across the street and stayed the night with them. They expected to see infected wander in during the night, but surprisingly, none appeared. While convenient, Ethan found the lack of ghouls disturbing. As far in the red as they were, and as much noise as the horses made, they should have seen at least a few. Despite the calm, he got little sleep that night.
His party struck camp at first light and followed the destruction for eight miles, hoping against hope their fears would go unrealized, until finally they crested a low hill less than a kilometer away from their destination.
In the valley below, Broken Bridge was in ruins.
Zeb—as he insisted everyone call him—sat quietly astride his horse, sadness creasing the lines of his weathered face. Ethan lowered his field glasses and felt his shoulders slump. The first steady hammerings of a migraine began thumping at the base of his skull.
“See any movement down there? Anybody alive?” Zeb asked, his voice tight.
Ethan shook his head, suddenly feeling tired. “Movement, yes. Anything alive? No. I’m sorry, Zeb. Did you have friends down there?”
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The old lawman’s jaw twitched as he nodded. “Better go down and see if there’s any survivors.” He touched his heels to his horse’s flanks and the animal slowly began descending the valley.
“There are still a lot of infected down there,” Ethan called out.
Zeb drew a weapon from behind his saddle that looked like the mother of all meat cleavers. It had a three-foot, single-edged blade half as wide as a man’s palm, a two-handed hilt wrapped in athletic tape, and a simple brass crossguard. Dark ridges, whorls, and hammer marks spiraled up the oiled steel, wide at the spine but growing close and clustered near the edge. Folded steel. Somebody forged that by hand.
“Feel free to stay here if you want, Sergeant. We’ll catch up with you when we’re through.”
Ethan glared at Zeb’s back, biting down a sharp reply. He turned to his men, motioning them forward. “Come on. There might be someone still alive down there.”
The others frowned, but followed. As they drew closer to the town, Ethan got a better look at the materials comprising the twenty-foot wall surrounding the outpost. It was built from a random hodgepodge of railroad ties, hand-cut logs, telephone poles, masonry, wide steel plates, and crushed vehicles like the kind found in junkyards. Surrounding it was a partial secondary wall of cargo containers with breaks for the main gate and a smaller service entrance around the side. The main gate looked to be intact, save for a collection of scorch marks and bullet pocks of varying sizes, indicating the town had been attacked more than once. He wondered what level of force it would take to overrun a place so heavily fortified.
Upon reaching the shattered expanse of bridge the town was named for, it didn’t look to Ethan as though the horses could make it across. The bridge—one of those ugly old concrete and steel monstrosities built back in the 1950s—had long ago been destroyed, undoubtedly by a retreating military force during the early days of the Outbreak. Since then, it had been replaced by a rickety-looking wooden span with nothing but two lightly tensioned ropes for support. It looked barely strong enough to support one person, much less a full-grown horse laden with a rider and kit.
