The New Dead: A Zombie Anthology (18 page)

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Authors: Christopher Golden

BOOK: The New Dead: A Zombie Anthology
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We started going into houses we hadn’t had a chance to explore before, and we found the remains of eight people. None of them were zombies, that we could tell: Rot had taken them all, and some of them were badly mauled and chewed, their bones and remains strewn around. None of them was Fiona. I went to great pains to sift through the remains, gagging, puking several times when the smell became too much, and I never found anything of her I recognized. No jewelry, no hair, no clothing. It was a continuation of the most terrible thing I had ever done - we’d been shifting and hauling bodies for three weeks - but I had to make sure.
 
Bindy came with me every time, but she always stayed outside those rooms. I could not blame her at all, though as time went on that day, I found myself missing her company more and more, as I moved splintered bones and stinking things aside.
 
By early evening we were exhausted, and we went back to the hotel. They’d been there while we were away and installed cameras in the upper corners of the hallway, bar, kitchen, pantry, and the corridor upstairs outside our room. Greasy footprints marked their route up and down the stair carpet, and I was outraged at them for not removing their boots.
 
‘They’re really interested in what happens to us,’ she said, as if truly realizing our predicament for the first time.
 
I nodded, not wanting to speak.
They’re watching us right now. Maybe O’Driscoll is with them, drinking good coffee, eating a doughnut, and they’ll be looking for signs of infection or madness or rage
. I had no wish to say anything to them, so I motioned for Bindy to come into our room.
 
I spent some time looking around for cameras and microphones. Would they really have any respect for our privacy? There were no bootprints on our light room carpet, but maybe that was just them being sly. I could find nothing - no cameras, whose presence would have been obvious, and no microphones either. I actually caught Bindy smiling as I looked inside the lamp shades and behind the mirror, and I smiled back, remembering what I’d said to O’Driscoll.
What movie do you think you’re in?
 
We ate downstairs in the bar, sharing a bottle of wine, and it was the most relaxed meal we’d had since being thrown together by this. Jamie’s agitated presence had always been a pressure, but something about Bindy had changed. I thought that Jamie being gone perhaps allowed her to assess her panics and fears without his own stoking them.
 
We slept in the same bed again that night, sharing comfort, relishing contact. Though I was aware of the heat of her more than before, and the feel of her molded to me, still there was no tension at all. I appreciated that, and I fell asleep dreaming of Fiona planting roses in our garden, laughing, and wiping dust out of her eyes with delicate thumbs.
 
 
The helicopter didn’t come the next day. As we continued our search through the deserted town and the sun reached its zenith, I saw a column of smoke rising far in the distance.
 
‘Is that another cremation pit?’ Bindy asked.
 
‘I don’t think so. Something about it’s different.’
 
‘How do you mean?’ She came closer and held my hand.
 
‘It’s a long way away.’
 
She squeezed. The implications of that did not need stating. It was a wide column, and high, and if it was several miles distant, the fire must be huge.
 
When I said that I was going to the edge of town to see what I could see, she shook her head and backed away from me.
 
‘I don’t want to see,’ she said. ‘I don’t want to know.’
 
‘Bindy, the chopper hasn’t been around this morning.’
 
She nodded, looking away from me.
 
‘And you’ve noticed the cameras?’
 
‘Yeah.’ They weren’t turning to follow our progress.
 
I’d been keeping a wary eye on them since I noticed that, first thing in the morning, but I hadn’t wanted to mention it to her.
 
‘We have to know.’
 
She was shaking her head, but there were no tears. She was far from the Bindy she’d been just a couple of days before. Now I saw calculation and consideration in her eyes, not blind panic.
 
‘
I
have to know.’ I went to her and held her, and she was hot, her skin already tacky with sweat. It was the hottest day I could remember, and I felt a rush of affection for her then. I kissed the side of her head, she kissed my shoulder, and we both hugged tighter.
 
‘I’m going to keep looking,’ she said, nodding toward the street we’d been searching. They were big houses, and there were five left on this row.
 
‘You’re sure?’
 
She touched the claw hammer she carried in her belt. We’d both agreed that it would be handy for breaking the locks out of doors, but it didn’t need saying that it was also a weapon.
 
‘I won’t be long,’ I said, but that turned out to be a lie. It would be eve ning before I saw Bindy again, and by then our whole world had changed once more.
 
 
I went back toward the roadblock by the school. I stood there shouting for a while, waving at the cameras, trying to get their attention, stepping left and right across the road. The cameras did not follow my progress.
 
‘I need to speak with O’Driscoll!’ I shouted. Silence was my answer.
 
In the distance to the south, beyond a range of hills, the column of smoke still rose. It could have been Cwmbran several miles away, or maybe Newport, several miles farther. Whichever it was, I judged its fiery base to be miles wide.
 
Waving at the cameras was stupid. There was no one there to see.
 
So I climbed the roadblock and started walking along the road. To begin with, I cursed myself with every step, knowing how foolish I was being, wincing at the expectation of a high-powered rifle shot.
I’ll be hit before I even hear the shot
, I thought, and that was no comfort at all. But there was no gunfire, no helicopters, and no loud mechanical voices exhorting me to ‘Please don’t attempt escape.’ Right then there was nothing I wanted to hear more.
 
The road ran for a mile before splitting and filtering down onto a dual highway heading north and south. It was deserted and quiet, save for the wildlife that was becoming braver day by day: I saw a fox watching me from a large house’s garden, and a buzzard sat on the road eating something it had just caught, not even glancing up at me as I passed within fifteen feet of it. I tried to identify what it was eating, but I could not. There was no fur.
 
I saw them from far away. I knew what they were. And I gave thanks to gods I had never believed in that the military had seen fit to erect a second line of protection.
 
The fence spanned the road just before it split to curve down to the highway. It was high, heavy-duty, and I could track its route across fields and in front of a distant copse of trees, curving around the north end of the town. In the other direction it was soon lost to view, but I hoped it was just as long, and just as strong.
 
I sat down in the road and watched them pressing against it.
 
Most of them wore army uniforms, those who weren’t in underwear or naked. Many bore terrible wounds, and the blood still flowed. Dead blood must have been different, though, because its stench did not attract their brethren. A zombie’s heart, it seemed, did not taste so sweet.
 
There were maybe fifty of them. Most were clumped against the section of fence built across the road, but I saw a few down in the fields as well. One of those still seemed to be carrying a rifle across his back, though now I hoped he no longer remembered how to use it.
 
They were making very little noise. A few moans and groans, but none of the raging growls that had marked the first phase of infection. All these were past that now. They’d gone mad and killed and died, and now they were back again, and all they saw when they looked at me was my succulent still-beating heart.
 
There’s been a recurrence
, O’Driscoll had said. Smug prick. I looked for him but didn’t see him. I hoped he’d been killed and torn apart, found true death, because however much I hated him, I’d had contact with him, and he was a human being like me. He was only doing what he thought was right, and this was no way to end up.
 
I tried to make out exactly what this meant. The Purge had worked in Usk, for a while at least, and now that there had been an outbreak beyond the town, surely the military would launch another Purge . . .? But there was no sound of vehicles anywhere, neither ground nor air, and I could see no plane trails in the sky.
 
And there was that burning city.
 
I sat and watched them for a while, trying not to appreciate the stark truth of things - that this plague had gone farther, and perhaps was still traveling.
 
Then I knew what I had to do before returning to Bindy, because I couldn’t go back to her with half-truths and suppositions. I had to make sure that we were safe and that our prison had become our refuge.
 
 
I walked north first of all, following the fence all around the town until it reached the river. I looked into the town at the stone bridge, and from here I could just see the clumsy block barrier that they’d built at its center. The fence extended right across the river and continued on the other side, obviously encompassing what had been their encampment.
 
I followed the fence back around the town, crossing the road where most of them were still gathered. They pushed and shoved, but the fence was solid, and they had no real strength.
 
A mile to the south of town I saw O’Driscoll. He was naked, and his entire front was a mass of dried blood. I couldn’t make out whether or not it was his own, and I gave him a wide berth. He leaned against the metal upright, banging his head rhythmically against it as he watched me pass.
 
The fence reached the river on that side too and crossed over, and I knew I had to swim over to make sure. I half-swam, half-walked, and on the other side, where their encampment had been, I found that the fence only enclosed a small part of it. Gates were built in at two points, both of them padlocked and chained. I’d found no breaches and no areas where any of them could climb over. The military had been very thorough and determined to keep us in and, as I forded the river again and walked back into town, I thanked them for that. It was a good thing they’d realized how dangerous we could be.
 
 
Bindy was in the hotel bar, sipping nervously from a glass of wine. When I entered she jumped up and ran to me, cursing and crying and wrapping her arms around my neck.
 
‘Where the fucking hell have you been?’
 
‘I’m sorry,’ I said, ‘I’m sorry.’
 
‘You’re all I’ve got, Toby; you’re all that’s left. Don’t you dare scare me like that again,
ever!
’ She pulled back and held my face, staring into my eyes, and I realized something both striking and comforting then: in her own quiet way, Bindy was in charge.
 
‘I won’t,’ I said. She held me tightly again, and I hugged her back. ‘You’re all I’ve got too, Bindy.’
 
She pulled away, stalked back to the bar, poured some drinks. She wouldn’t catch my eye.
 
‘It’s spread outside,’ I said.
 
‘I know. I guessed. I walked and saw the fence, and some of . . . them.’
 
‘That big fire’s still burning.’
 
‘Yeah.’
 
‘Maybe they’ll starve.’
 
We sat down together and drank, shoulder to shoulder on a leather sofa, the contact so important. There was so much more that needed to be said, but I knew it could wait. We both realized the truth - that our entrapment had become the only freedom left.

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