Best New Zombie [3] - Best New Zombie Tales, Vol. 3 Read online

Oh, God, no! I...

  Must eat.

  ~

  "Mom, why can't we leave? Everyone else is gone." Bobby Grainger set down his binoculars and turned his piercing blue eyes, so much like his father's, towards his mother.

  "You know why, sweetie. It's too dangerous. Those things are out there. There's no place for us to go." Sheila ran a hand through her hair, smoothing it back from her face. Her hand came away greasy. It'd been four days since the dead rose up. Since then, the closest she'd come to bathing had been washing her hands and face in the kitchen sink.

  There was no way she was leaving Bobby and Stacie alone, not even for ten minutes. And at ages nine and eleven, they refused to stay in the bathroom with her, or bathe together.

  She knew the severity of the situation hadn't sunk into their MTV-trained attention spans. To them this was something new, something exciting, not a life-threatening catastrophe.

  Not yet.

  It would take them a while to realize television, school, their friends, the mall, all those things might be gone for a long time to come.

  Maybe forever.

  "There're zombies here, too, Mom," Bobby said, using the one word she hated to hear. "Maybe we could drive into the city, find the police. Or go deep into the woods, to a cabin or something."

  Sheila shook her head. "No. All the cities, from Princeton to Manhattan, are full of them. Don't you remember the news before the TV went out? And we don't know what's in the woods. They could be there, too."

  "Besides, dorkwad, you don't know the first thing about camping. You couldn't start a fire with matches and gasoline." Stacie, her dark blonde hair still streaked with pale yellow from their vacation at Seaside last month, gave her younger brother the kind of smug look pre-teens seem to develop from nowhere.

  "Oh, yeah? Well you..."

  "Enough, both of you." Sheila used what her kids called 'the tone.' Four days stuck in the house with her two children and they were already on each other's nerves.

  For the thousandth time she wished John was here with them. He had a way of saying just the right thing, a funny, off-the-cuff comment or a calming word, to diffuse almost any situation.

  He'd gone missing the same day the dead began rising from their graves. He'd been working late----she hadn't expected him back 'til after midnight----so it wasn't until morning that she'd realized he'd never made it home.

  By then, the police had their hands full and weren't even answering the phones, let alone looking into missing persons cases.

  Every time she thought about him, a reluctant acceptance of his death struggled with the hope that he'd gotten off the turnpike and found a place to hide, a motel or office building, and that he was alive.

  And if he was alive, she knew he'd find a way back to them. That was the real reason they weren't leaving. But she couldn't broach that subject with Stacie and Bobby.

  It wouldn't be fair to get their hopes up.

  Not when the chances were so small.

  ~

  John Grainger looked down at himself.

  God help me, I did it.

  The memories had returned, his thought process almost normal. As if...

  As if the flesh and blood restored them.

  He wiped his hands on his torn and filthy shirt, leaving red smears, strings of skin and tissue, and pink gobs of brain.

  He'd devoured the man from the truck. Torn his throat out. Clawed into him until he reached the softest parts, the juiciest tidbits.

  His mind had screamed in horrified disgust but something else had control.

  The craving.

  The human meat had tasted better, more satisfying, than any meal he'd ever eaten in his life.

  And it had restored him.

  I'm a monster.

  But was he? Maybe it was only this one time; maybe the human flesh had returned his sanity, his 'self.'

  I need to get back to Sheila and the kids. They'll be worried. Have to make sure they're safe, then they can get me to a hospital, a research lab. Someplace where they can study me, find a cure.

  Return me to normal.

  John stepped over the remains of the driver and looked inside. The oversized gear lever and confusing array of buttons and gauges convinced him he'd be better off walking.

  Home. Have to get home.

  John headed north on the Turnpike towards Fort Lee.

  Towards home.

  ~

  "Mom, I see something."

  Sheila hurried over to the front window, alarmed by the quiver in her daughter's voice. It had been three days since the last creature approached their cul-de-sac, let alone came near their house. One of the neighbors had shot that one, just before he'd packed his whole family into their Denali and taken off for God knows where.

  The body still lay on the sidewalk, a bloated sack of putrefying flesh after seventy-two hours in the hot, muggy July weather.

  It's like a giant version of a dead woodchuck, she thought, barely able to contain a sudden insane giggle.

  Now isn't the time to lose it. Get a grip.

  She moved Stacie aside and peeked out the window. Sure enough, something was moving at the far end of the street where it branched off from Culver Avenue, right by the Henderson's house.

  "Bobby, give me the binoculars." The sudden magnification made it seem as if she'd leaped down the street.

  The person was dead, no doubt about that----the herky-jerky movements, the shuffling feet, the dirty, torn clothes covered in blood.

  Sheila's stomach did a flip-flop, threatening to release the tomato soup she'd had for lunch. She closed her eyes and concentrated on keeping the food down.

  They didn't have enough to spare to waste it on being squeamish.

  When she had herself under control, she opened her eyes. The thing----zombie, dammit. Call it what it is----had turned away and was now walking towards the Henderson's front door.

  She realized the Henderson's car was still in the driveway. Were they still home, hiding out the same way she had her family hidden here?

  The zombie stopped and tilted its head, turning first one way and then the other. She couldn't see its face but it looked as if the creature was sniffing at something.

  Smelling for food? Can they do that?

  "Bobby, Stacie. Shut all the windows in the house. Hurry."

  "But Mom, it's hot out. If we shut the windows..."

  "Goddammit, Bobby, shut up and do what I say!" She kept her voice low, not shouting. If the things could smell people they sure as hell could hear them.

  Footsteps behind her let her know the kids had gone off to do what she'd told them. She'd explain later. She pulled down the windows nearest to her, the ones on either side of the front door, and closed the gauzy, blue curtains as well.

  She pushed aside the material just enough to aim the binoculars out.

  The undead man had moved again. She managed to catch a glimpse of his leg as he went around the side of the house, heading for the Henderson's back yard.

  She watched him open the gate, realized they couldn't be as mindless as the news said. Theirs is funny. It sticks. You have to jiggle the latch and pull up on the gate at the same time. Unless you knew that you could stand there forever trying to open it.

  The kids came back down the stairs, Bobby's sneakers thump-thumping on the wood. The way his feet grew, he'd soon need another pair.

  Doesn't look like we'll be shopping anytime in the near future. By now the Paramus Park and Garden State malls look like something from Dawn of the Dead.

  Hell, we might all be barefoot by winter.

  If we're still alive.

  That last thought was a black crow that circled endlessly through the landscape of her thoughts. She'd catch sight of it during the day, sometimes far away, sometimes close by. At night it roosted right over her as she lay on the bed, Bobby and Stacie sleeping on either side of her.

  "Mom, can I have something to drink? I'm thirsty."

  You think you're thirsty now?
Wait until the water's shut off and we're living on what falls from the sky, she wanted to shout at him, but John's face appeared, telling her to stay calm.

  They're just kids, he would have said. You're the adult. Act like it.

  As long as the water's working let them drink all they need.

  "Go ahead. In fact, let's all go get one."

  ~

  I'm a monster.

  John couldn't deny it any longer. He stood in the Henderson's living room, which resembled a charnel house more than the relaxed, classically-decorated space it had been before he'd arrived. The last thing he remembered was opening the gate, the one that stuck all the time.

  When his awareness returned he'd been standing over Tom Henderson's corpse, his mouth full of blood and tissue and loops of intestines around his hands, their other end still attached to Tom's body.

  Puddles of blood soaked into the Persian rug; more splattered across the walls and furniture.

  And the taste----oh Lord, the exquisite, wonderful flavor!

  A gaping hole in Tom's abdomen revealed where the delicious bounty had originated. Chunks of brownish-red liver lay strewn around the floor.

  From where he stood John could see into the kitchen. Enid Henderson lay on the linoleum, her gray-haired skull shattered and empty. A brick lay beside her, which he must have used to crack open her head like a walnut.

  All to satisfy his unholy lust, his craving for human flesh.

  "Jesus Christ." It came out as garbled moan.

  The past three days had been spent alternating between cloudy awareness and bestial savagery. Walking the Turnpike. Scavenging among the corpses in their cars.

  But now his head was clear.

  He remembered why he was here.

  Bobby. Stacie.

  Sheila.

  He had to get them somewhere safe, away from the monsters.

  Monsters like him.

  John closed his eyes, tried to block out the explosion of gore surrounding him. There had to be a way to be around his family without losing control.

  A shadow moved past one of the front windows.

  He walked to the front door, peered outside. Three men staggered down the center of the street, heading towards the far end of the cul-de-sac.

  Towards his house.

  Quietly, slowly, he eased the door open. From the small front porch he could see to the end of the road. There was movement in one of the windows of his house, a twitch as a curtain fell back in place.

  Sheila and the kids. They're still alive. And those things----things like me----are heading towards them.

  But how can I save them? I can't even trust myself around them. What if I get hungry again? Images of his wife and children torn apart to feed his unnatural appetite filled his head.

  No!

  He turned away and was immediately confronted with the abattoir he'd created. Even now, with his stomach filled to bursting, the sight and scent of the bloody organs sparked a hunger in him.

  Wait. That's it!

  He knelt down by Tom Henderson's corpse and started stuffing pieces of intestine and other organs into the pockets of his gore-crusted pants. From a closet he took one of Tom's jackets and put it on, filled those pockets as well.

  The only way to keep from becoming a dangerous, crazed monster like those things outside was to keep his stomach filled. And if that's what it took to save his family, by God he'd do it.

  He chewed and swallowed two big pieces of Enid's liver and then ran out the back door. This time he didn't bother with the gate. Instead, he crashed through the hedges separating the Henderson's property from the Thompson's. From one backyard to the next, dodging lawn furniture and swimming pools, he made his way towards his family.

  I'll show them I'm not a monster.

  ~

  Sheila watched the three zombies shambling down the street and knew her family was in trouble. They hadn't looked at any of the other houses; in fact, from the moment they'd appeared they'd been staring in their blank, malevolent way at only one home.

  Hers.

  Damn John. Why couldn't he have owned a gun?

  Why couldn't he be here now to protect them?

  "Bobby. Go get your sister's baseball bat."

  The fact that he didn't ask any questions, just took off at a run for his room, let her know the seriousness of the situation must have finally sunk in.

  "Mom?" Stacie stood by the other window. "There's more coming."

  Sheila looked past the three approaching in their lumbering but steady fashion and saw that her daughter was right. More of the creatures were visible at the end of the road, their heads and shoulders cresting the top of the hill where Turtle Dove and Culver split. Six of them, maybe more.

  Bobby returned with the bat.

  "Go down to the basement and hide," she told them in her best no-nonsense voice, the one she only used when they were in the worst of trouble.

  "What about----?"

  "Just go! I'll be fine."

  She grabbed each of them and gave them a hard kiss, then pushed them towards the kitchen. As she turned back to the window, a flash of movement behind the Pasternack's house caught her eye, but when she looked nothing was there.

  Too fast to be one of them. Must have been a cat or something.

  The first three zombies----the word came so much easier now that she'd accepted her fate----were only two houses away. Close enough to see their green-brown rotting skin and the way their sunken eyes and open mouths gave them a death's head appearance. One of them wore the remains of a white lab coat with Pascack Valley Hospital stitched on the breast pocket; the other two were naked, with giant 'Y'-shaped autopsy incisions on their chests.

  The squeal of tires from of the Pasternack's driveway startled her so badly she dropped the aluminum bat and felt a sharp pain in her chest as her heart gave an extra kick. The lime-green Cadillac roared down the driveway and into the three reanimated corpses, sending them into the air like human bowling pins. The car skidded to a stop and then backed up, crushing the skull of one naked zombie and sending grayish matter flying across the blacktop.

  The driver leaned out the window and time seemed to freeze for Sheila.

  John!

  Then he ducked back into the car, turned it around, and gunned the engine, aiming the heavy vehicle right at the large group of walking dead further up the street.

  He's alive!

  Then, on the heels of that thought, the image of his face came back to her. The pale flesh, the dark hollows under his eyes.

  No. It's impossible. He can't be one of them.

  She watched the car drive over the dozen or so zombies at the beginning of the circle. John piloted the car back and forth, a neon-green shark feasting on trapped seals. None of the zombies attempted to avoid being struck, further evidence in Sheila's mind that none of them had enough brainpower to start a car, let alone drive one.

  That meant John had to be alive. Hurt, maybe. Tired, exhausted, even sick.

  But alive.

  With the final zombie dealt with, the car turned and came back down the road at a more sedate pace. Without warning it swerved and struck a mailbox, coming to rest halfway across a front lawn. The driver's door opened and John staggered out, his movements uncoordinated and slow. Even from three houses away she could see blood covering his clothes.

  Oh, God, he's hurt. She grabbed the binoculars and hurriedly focused on her husband.

  Just in time to see him pull something that looked like a giant pink sponge from his pocket and shove it into his mouth. Gobs of the strange material fell onto his shirt as he chewed and gulped like a starving man who'd just found a steak.

  Her stomach did a slow somersault as the hammer of truth struck her.

  John, her John, was gone. Replaced by something that shouldn't even be possible.

  As she watched, the man who had once been her husband shoved the remains of the unidentifiable organ into one pocket, straightened up, wiped his arm across his mout
h, and began walking in a normal fashion towards the house.

  What the hell's going on?

  A crash from the kitchen interrupted her thoughts. Turning around, she found a fat woman with one arm climbing through the broken glass of the patio door. Two more of the undead waited behind her.

  "John!" The unintentional scream burst from her. Without looking to see if he'd heard, she picked up the aluminum bat and prepared to defend her home.

  ~

  John Grainger knew Sheila had seen him. He was too far away to tell what her expression had been, but there was no mistaking the flash of blonde hair as she turned away from the window. Hopefully she'd noticed how he'd taken care of the monsters, that he wasn't like the others.

  "John!"

  Sheila's voice. Something was wrong. He sprinted for the house, slammed his shoulder into the front door. There was no pain, just a loud crash as the door pulled from its hinges and fell to the floor. He looked around the living room but she wasn't there.

  Glass broke in another room. The kitchen.

  He hurried across the room.

  ~

  The bat hit the dead woman's head with the same sound as when Stacie connected with a softball. The corpse's face caved in on one side and her jaw hung at an angle, but the single hand still reached forward. Behind the woman the other two zombies entered through the shattered door.

  She tried to swing again but the bat struck the wall, throwing her aim off.

  "Mom?" Bobby shouted from the top of the stairs.

  She leaned against the door. "Stay there! Don't come out!" With one hand she pushed the button to lock the door.