Mountain Man Omnibus: Books 1–3
Author: Keith C. Blackmore
Date: 2015-07-07 04:00:00+00:00
Keywords: Horror; Fantasy; Science Fiction
Description: Three Books. One Volume. One great price! Mountain Man (Book 1) Boomstick. Samurai bat. Motorcycle leather. And the will to live amongst the unliving. Augustus Berry lives a day-to-day existence comprised of waking up, getting drunk, and preparing for the inevitable day when "they" will come up the side of his mountain and penetrate his fortress. Living on the outskirts of a city and scavenging for whatever supplies remain after civilization died two years ago, Gus knows that every time he goes down into undead suburbia could be his last. Safari (Mountain Man, Book 2) Augustus Berry lives a da
Publisher: Podium Publishing

Mountain Man
Books 1-3

Keith C Blackmore

Contents

Mountain Man
Safari
Hellifax
About the Author

Mountain Man (Book 1)
Mountain Man

Mountain Man

By Keith C. Blackmore

Copyright 2011 Keith C. Blackmore

Edited by Lynn O'Dell (Red Adept Reviews)

Cover design by James T. Egan of Bookfly Design

Formatting by Polgarus Studio

This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the writer’s imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locales, or organizations is entirely coincidental.

All rights are reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission from the author.

Special thank you to Donna Beck, Ken Maidment, and Rob Richter for help with those little things.

1

Augustus Berry rolled over to the edge of the stained hardwood deck and vomited. He squeezed his eyes closed, the pressure behind them forceful enough to almost pop them from their orbital cavities. He emptied his guts, took a deep breath, and heaved again, feeling as if someone had taken a fistful of his innards and were wringing them out through his mouth. Once that blast passed, he let one arm drop while he panted for air. He cracked open an eye and gazed at the autumn foliage forty feet below. He took in the concrete blocks and the iron support poles that kept up his deck. He thought he saw the splatter where he had just yarked. He realized he was on the deck itself and had damn near rolled off into oblivion. The night before, he had passed out on the comfortable lawn chair and had later moved to the harder, treated surface of the wood.

Seeing the ground far below made him dry heave twice more and then puke when he thought he had nothing left in his stomach. And he roared, not caring in the least who heard him as he voided, just wanting it over and done. When he finished, he stayed where he lay, gut down, ass up, and felt that sensation of wellness settle in, the kind that formed within one’s core after the body ejected whatever shit had made it sick in the first place.

In his case, it had been Uncle Jack, the South’s finest sour mash whiskey. At least, that was what the bottle said, and Gus was one to believe everything he read in print. Especially print found on a whiskey bottle. Booze didn’t lie.

But it sure as hell gave him the shits sometimes.

A cool breeze rose up and slapped him on his bearded cheeks, hard enough to cause him to wrinkle up his face. He took a deep, shuddering breath and cracked open his eyes again while rolling over onto his back. Gray clouds. Fine and billowy like fat intestinal tracts. October clouds. He sat up with his legs stretched out in a V. He scratched at his beard, a great length of facial hair resembling an old rug. The thing was getting grayer, and he absently thought about mowing it with the clippers. He drew his hand across his face, wincing at the contact of stomach juice there and in his whiskers, then checked his hands before rubbing them on his blue sweatshirt and jeans.

“Shit,” Gus grumbled. A broken bottle of Uncle Jack lay to his left, splayed over the wooden deck like a jagged bear trap. He sighed. That stuff was gold, and he couldn’t remember if he had drunk it or not. He had probably thought, One more drink before bed, then downed whatever was left in the bottle and passed out.

Here. Jesus Christ. Right on the edge of a forty-foot drop. The thought of passing out, then rolling over and splattering on the rocks and scrub below almost made him heave again. He’d have had to clear the wooden railing, which didn’t offer much room below the lowest plank and the deck, but Gus knew stranger things had happened. Looking toward the front of his house, he found some small relief in seeing that the curtains were drawn. At least some part of him had remembered to do that.

Casting his attention toward the city and the bay that lay beyond, Gus sniffed, hoarked, and ejected a gob over the edge of the deck. Rooftops looked back at him, some black, some gunmetal gray. Silence buzzed in his ears, and in the distance, a seagull allowed an updraft to take it up a few levels. The bird hung in the air for moments before Gus realized it was flying away from him, toward the bay. Smart, for a sea chicken. Gus sniffed hard again, clearing his sinuses, and scratched his balls before rubbing his bald crown. He sat and stared, looking for anything of interest or concern. Nothing. Just another morning in the valley.

Then, he remembered he had things to do in the city. Just the thought made him shudder. It was much safer to just stay home, be safe, and get comfortably ripped out of his mind. Being drunk helped a lot at night, so he probably had a drinking problem. He thought back to his long-dead father, how he had been pleasantly plastered for most of his life, and realized that maybe the old man had been right all along in keeping a bottle nearby. It helped with reality. Whatever. He wouldn’t worry about it until the neighbors called the cops.

That thought made him smirk.

He drew in another breath, scratched his junk once more, and looked back at his house. Perched on the side of the mountain, the two-story timber-frame design had high peaks and plenty of picture windows facing the city. Every window had black curtains. Privacy. It was all about privacy. Gus didn’t need anyone from below seeing lights on in his house. He didn’t need the attention. Attention was bad. As bad as going down into the city.

His stomach rumbled, and he felt the urge to get to a toilet. Grumbling, he got to his feet, wincing at the pain in his hip joints and lower back. He walked off the deck, grimacing at the broken glass and vowing to sweep it up later. He moved past the propane barbeque and the sea-green pool half-filled with rain water and yellow leaves. Shambling, he skirted the edge of his house and made for the outhouse at the far end of the lawn. Gus had dug the hole on the lower slope, away from the main house, then fitted thick planks over it and lugged a blue porta-potty to cover the hole. It was a lot of work for one man, and Gus had lost a chunk of body fat from the exertion. His hand lingered on the scar made by crazy Alice six months ago, back when his potbelly had saved his life. The beer paunch had eroded with time and effort, but the scar remained. Ancient Roman gladiators subsisted on a daily diet of barley and rice, fattening themselves for their fights as the body fat served as armor and protected vitals from their foes’ weapons. Gus thought about trying to get his armor back on, but food was scarce, and until he solved the problem of how to grow his own, he would probably keep on losing weight.

And become more of an alcoholic.

He entered the outhouse and emerged a good twenty minutes later, feeling cleaner and somewhat more alert. He had gotten some good thinking done in there and, standing on the planks with the door banging behind him, thought that the quicker he got into town and did his business, the quicker he could be back in his fortress of solitude. Getting comfortably shitfaced. That sounded like a plan.

He went around to the back of the house and entered through the sliding door which he’d reinforced with a wall of wooden planks nailed to the frame. He closed the door behind him, locked it, and studied the inside of the house. Natural light from the upper windows peeked around the curtains. They were too high to barricade, but when the curtains were drawn back, they illuminated the rustic wood of the interior. Not bothering to remove his sneakers, he walked through the open space of the first level and went to the kitchen to remove a jug of drinking water from the fridge. He drained a liter and belched hard enough for it to hurt. After another sinus-clearing sniff, he moseyed out to the door leading to the garage. He thought about breakfast. His stomach probably wouldn’t let him. He’d be hungry later, though. Maybe.

He opened the door to the garage and stepped into an interior big enough to hold four cars. The black van waited, like a battered, dead bull elephant. He walked around the front, mindful of the thick grill guard that looked as if it had once gone through a wall. He gripped the vehicle’s door handle and sighed in exasperation. Had he really been about to head out without his gear? The thought mocked him, and he shook his head. It was too early in the morning for such shit. He had to focus.

Gus went to a storage locker in the back of the garage and opened the two doors. He reached to the top shelf and pulled down a forty-ouncer of Captain Morgan black rum. He sloshed the half-empty contents around in the bottle, staring into the depths of his locker in a morning malaise. He sipped on the rum once, twice, made a face of war, and took a heavier third.

“Christ on a stick.” He looked at the label. The foppish captain smiled back at him, unconcerned with the world. “Happy fucker, ain’tcha?”

He took a fourth shot of rum, then returned the bottle to its shelf and got to work. He’d finished armoring himself on the inside; it was time for the exterior. Leather pants went over his jeans. A hockey vest of protective padding for his chest and shoulders went on next. Snarling at the burn in his guts, he hauled on his worn leather jacket, noting that the padding made up for the missing fat mass, filling out the jacket. A thick neck brace clamped around his throat. Shin guards and hard plastic knee and elbow pads followed, and he huffed as he slapped them into place. Lastly, he pulled on fingerless black leather gloves. With a groan, he opened the rear van door and threw his weapons into the back. Belching again, he fixed his motorcycle helmet over his head and stood in the shadows of the garage for a moment, waiting for the booze to kick in.

“Bad idea, this,” he said. A guy he’d once worked with used to say that repeatedly before climbing ladders. He’d said it often enough to get on Gus’s nerves. The thought of what might have happened to the guy stayed with Gus as he crawled inside the van. The doors closed with metallic groans, and he knew he’d have to get some WD-40 on the joints. Snarling in that day-after-a- monster-drunk way, he stowed his equipment on interior racks, then stopped for a moment and flipped the black visor of the helmet up and down.

He sighed. He didn’t need to go anywhere. He could just lie on the deck and read and drink, or watch TV and drink, or contemplate life and really fucking drink. God drank above. Gus knew it. The Almighty probably got shitfaced all the time. So why couldn’t he? He didn’t need to go down there, imagining his frayed nerves pulling taut like bare piano wire, or exposed veins being strummed with knife tips.

“Bad idea.” He took a deep breath. But he intended to go today.

He shook his head, exited the van, and went over to the crank to manually open the garage door. When the door was up just enough for the vehicle to slide under it, he got back in the van. Hands shaking on the wheel, he steered toward the closed gate set into a ten-foot-high stone wall. The barricade encompassed the property from cliff edge around to cliff wall. The place was something of a fortress, and Gus wondered when he would be placed under siege. Not if, when. It happened in the movies. Always. He had to bank on it happening sometime. Everything he had done was in preparation for that day. The day when they finally got in.

He slowed the van to a stop, where it trembled and died. He got out, bent over, and lifted the timber braced against the gate, swearing at the weight and the pinch of pain in his back.

“Sweet Christ and titties,” came from him as he did the same for the other four. He was no carpenter, but he had managed to reinforce the gate with layers of measured and cut softwood, wire twist-offs, and nails. Lots of nails. The gate opened with a girlish squeak and swung inward. He drove the van through, then got out and closed the gates behind it. He returned to the driver’s seat and stared out at the cleared brush and trees, fifty feet out. It was a killing field, laced with shallow trenches and wooden planks spiked with nails. He had gotten that idea from an old Death Wish movie. He wanted to do more to reinforce his meager defenses, but he couldn’t think of anything. Sooner or later, he’d have to go to the library again and see if he could find anything on home defense.

Before they found him.

Hunched over the steering wheel, he looked at the road and sighed again. The rum had taken off some of the edge, but only a little. Well, fuck. He’d have to drink more in the future. His system was building up a tolerance. The thought of no longer being a cheap drunk bothered him. Booze had become his mental armor, but there was only so much booze left in the world.

Placing the van into Reverse, which was really Drive for the old war wagon, he eased the van down the winding snake of a dirt road. Tall elms leaned in overheard, fragmenting the dim light. He arrived at a wooden lattice concealing the road from the highway. That was his first defense. With a grunt and quick rub of his hip, he got out and shoved the wall back, noticing how the creepers and vines were turning yellow. It wasn’t much concealment anymore, and he wondered how he could hide the side road come winter.

Or maybe he just wouldn’t.

He drove the van through and replaced the lattice, yanking it across the dirt road. Standing back, he could easily discern the road behind it, but that was a problem for another day. He just wanted to get into town and get out before nightfall. Pausing at the driver’s side door, he looked down one strip of the main road, leading into the city of Annapolis, population just shy of a hundred thousand.

You don’t have to go there. This is stupid. You’re still hung over, for Christ’s sake.

Gus belched again and felt the burn rise over his gizzard.

He jumped aboard his van. He cranked the stick into Reverse again and barrelled down the highway like a meteor skidding across the atmosphere. He drove for several minutes, not appreciating the brightening day or the fence of trees on either side. Every once in a while, his eyes would flick to the left or right for quick scans of the thinning brush, and then a few houses that appeared along the way. An emptiness opened inside him and made him feel abysmally alone. Back when there were people around, he’d been something of a loner, only able to take socializing for so long before wanting to just shut himself away in his apartment. Lately, he sometimes wished for those crowds.

The gas tank was half full, and Gus figured he would get to where he was going and back again without running out, as long as he didn’t have any trouble. It was still another chance he was taking, though. He hadn’t been like that before. Only recently did the sense of fuck it seep into him, like that odorless, colorless gas that roughnecks encountered when drilling for oil. The same gas that would kill a person without them knowing it. He was doing stupid things. Pushing it. And God help him, he was tired of caring.

Cars dotted the sides of the road, deserted and picked over. A scorched black skeleton of a truck loomed ahead. A semi lay dead just past that, driven through a roadside billboard, its empty trailer busted open and scoured clean of whatever it had contained. A motorcycle was on its side with the seat gutted, yellow foam fluttering. Skid marks and dark stains covered the pavement while occasional flicks of white gleamed. More cars littered the highway, and though Gus had already cleared a path through the worst over the past year, seeing the dead things still made him feel even more empty. And grim.

Doors hung off their frames. Windshields were smashed in. A roadside collage of broken glass, bent steel, and bruised fiberglass, all under an October sky of blah.

But no people.

For that alone, Gus felt a pang of relief. The booze coursed through his head, softening the bludgeon of the wrecks he passed. He lifted his hand and saw that it trembled. It shook often these days. He made a fist. His father once had the same problem, and Gus had sworn never to be like that. There was no cure for him until the booze finally ran out, and he wondered what would happen when that time came. There was never a doctor around when he needed one. But then, he had avoided hospitals since the last one. Since Alice.

The houses thickened on both sides, and suburbia bloomed with rotten magnificence. Bones picked clean dressed some front lawns, laid out before garden gnomes with their heads bitten off at their ceramic grin. Some cars and trucks stayed in the driveways, and he figured there had been a second vehicle to take the residents to safety. Maybe. He scowled as he slowed, driving a comfortable forty kilometers per hour through the residential area gutted by flame and mobs of flesh. He came to an intersection and, while scratching his balls again, turned right, not bothering to signal in the somber dawn. More houses. Big ones, with pools in back no doubt. They were slapped together so close he had to wonder what the city planners had been thinking, or expecting.

Ahead, a pedestrian staggered onto the road. Gus shook his head. The bastard could not have timed it better. He would reach the center of the lane at the same time as the van. The figure lurched on, its features as smoky as the clouds above. White hair hung off its head like a half-eaten wreath. The thing slowed to a stop, right in the middle of the street, skull cocking at the sound of the approaching vehicle.

Gus exhaled and flexed his fingers on the steering wheel. He glanced at his speed. Forty all the way. He gripped the wheel harder. Full ahead, Mr. Robinson, full ahead.

The figure in the road turned to face the van, arms rising as if in worship.

Gus’s attention flicked from the pedestrian to his grill guard, then back.

“Unlucky fuck,” he growled.

He caught a glimpse of empty eye sockets and a widening mouth with cheeks that had been chewed through by shards of teeth. The arms went up higher, and a moan wasn’t far behind, a sound that would issue from shrivelled lungs that did not breathe.

The grill guard smashed into the figure dead on, splashing the front of the van in a cloudburst of grime and sludge that might have been blood at one time, something Gus didn’t want to think about. Arms buckled, flopped, and flattened against the front of the van, all in a split second. The head whipped forward and cracked open on the grill. White brain matter spurted like bad jam from an expired jar. Gus couldn’t see the face—pulverized upon impact––but gravity eventually did its job. One of the legs of the thing got caught underneath the right tire and pulled the body down. The van bumped once, twice, and continued smoothly.

The needle stayed at forty.

Gus let out his breath and started breathing again. He blinked. He had just run down a pedestrian. Probably would get a ticket for that one. He felt the subtle smirk on his face. He knew what he’d just run down.

He’d killed enough of them.

2

The van plunged deeper into a desolate suburbia where the only color to the world seemed to be the skid marks left by tires on the asphalt. Gus slowed to thirty, hunched over the wheel and attentive, watching the empty sidewalks and yellowing front lawns, the grass grown high enough to resemble wheat. He’d seen it yesterday when he was housing-picking in this part of the city where he hadn’t been before. A red and blue mailbox looking as if it had had the living shit kicked out of it leaned against a street lamp on the corner of another intersection. Place could be like a goddamn maze, and Gus had lived there for almost forty years.

Movement in his peripheral vision made him jerk his head to his left, but he didn’t see anything. He took a breath and concentrated on the road and the landmarks. It was there, somewhere.

There.

A mini-mart. Part of the Needs chain. The glass of the shop’s front dull in the daylight.

Clenching his jaw, Gus fumbled as he fastened his seatbelt and increased his speed to sixty. The shop lay across a T-intersection, welcoming him like a steel-tipped torpedo leaping from a concrete surf.

In his experience, it was always better to drive through than walk in, whenever possible.

The van crunched through the glass storefront, accordionizing at least one shelf, the counter, and the zombified clerk standing at attention behind it. The grill guard rammed into the clerk’s shoulder, shoving it and its head into the wall beyond. On impact, the engine fumed, shuddered, and raged like the beast it was. Gus cranked it into Drive and reversed out of the store. Glass and metal debris tinkled to the ground. He did a three-point turn, and shoved the van’s respectable ass up to the hole it had just made. The engine died with a gasp, and the length of the van trembled and shook on its chassis, as if its guts struggled to get something out of its hide. He opened the rear doors and hopped to the ground with a clatter of motorcycle boots on pavement.

With his short-barrel twelve-gauge primed and ready, Gus stepped inside the Needs shop. He had slung an aluminum bat across his back, samurai style. He looked right, then left. Seeing the coast was clear, he advanced.

The gimp behind the demolished counter moved and hissed. Gus examined the not-yet-dead undead and pointed the barrel of the shotgun at the creature’s head. The weapon hung in the air, wavered, and dropped.

His boot heel crushed the skull on the first kick, but Gus stomped twice more on the thing just to be sure. When it stopped moving, he grimaced and wiped his boot on the dust-coated shirt of the once-employee. As protected as he was in leather and hard plastic, he was still vulnerable to the stink of the things.

Leaving the gimp where it lay, he quickly went back into combat mode. He slapped his visor up and raised the shotgun. He edged out from behind the wrecked counter, watching his step, and moved like he remembered seeing U.S. Marines doing in action movies. He sidestepped from one aisle to the next, noting the shelves were ransacked. Upon reaching the last, he quickly walked up its length and checked the rear. Marking it all as clear, he went to the storage door at the back of the shop. It swung both ways, and he took a deep breath before opening it. Anything could be behind that door, and the risk increased if it was dark on the other side. Keeping the butt of his weapon planted firmly against his shoulder, he kicked open the door.

A memory popped into his head, of once surprising his girlfriend in a similar shop while she was doing the tedious task of taking inventory. Tammy’s startled face had made him laugh, and when he’d tried tickling her, she’d gotten furious. He’d apologized and cooked for her later that night, which softened her up and won her back. He’d never done such a thing to her again, remembering her angry face.

Gus forced the image from his mind and returned to the present.

Inky shadows. More aisles and shelves full of canned goods and dry foodstuffs. A veritable gold mine in goods. He shifted his back to a wall, made certain the line he was going to proceed in was clear, and advanced. He snaked in and around the aisles, eyeing the corners and whirling left and right when reaching them.

All clear.

Gus relaxed, but only a little. He spotted a washroom. He moved to the door, noting the pile of toilet paper stacked on the concrete floor and smiling in spite of himself. Gold. His ass felt happy already. Who would’ve thought that the second most important thing in the world after the fall would be ass wipe. He paused before smashing through the door, and exhaled when he found the room empty. He went back out front and briefly sized up the neighbourhood through the remaining glass windows.

Nothing. No activity. Yet. There would be soon.

Gus stood by a row of freezers full of a sludge of melted ice cream, water, and rotting containers. He placed his shotgun on the glass top of a freezer and grabbed two of the wire baskets from a nearby stack. He rushed back to the small hill of toilet paper and began scooping up the rolls, stacking them in the basket as rapidly as possible. He returned to the back of his van and dumped the basket into one of three gray plastic storage bins he had appropriated from the docks so very long ago. Hunched over, he glanced out the windshield. The coast was still clear.

He made two more runs to the storeroom for toilet paper. Each time he boarded the van, he peered out the front and glanced around before going back inside for further pickings. Once all of the toilet paper was safely aboard, Gus began going through the back shelves, taking boxes of unopened canned food, as well as bags of snacks. He found some cases of soda and struggled back to the van with them.

On the fourth aching armload of soda, he spotted a figure emerging from between two houses. It slowly banked in his direction. Gus froze on the threshold between the store and the van, watching the thing do a drunk man’s shuffle down the street. He still wasn’t sure if they saw or smelled or heard, but they sure as fuck ate––ate like his uncle Leo at an all-you-can Chinese food buffet. The features were indistinct in the distance, but the way it moved told him it was a gimp.

A zombie.

And where there was one…

A sense of urgency cut through the haze of booze in his system, and he sped up his packing. He stacked the soda inside the van and ran back into the store, knowing other boxes of goods waited: cleaning products, batteries, even porn magazines still in their plastic wrappers. He scooped up a box of beef stew and speed-walked back to the beast, dumping it into the back. The gimp shambled toward the store, still a good hundred meters away, but closing. Worse still, through the front windshield, he spotted three more dark forms, which froze him to the spot. They approached the van with ungainly steps, spread apart like three gunslingers looking to drive the black-garbed stranger from their town, else they reckoned shit would happen. Ayup.

Time was something Gus still had, so he sprinted back into the store, feeling sour sweat seeping from his pores and catching a whiff of his own bad breath rebounding from inside his helmet, despite the visor being up. There were still dry goods in the back, and he wanted them all. He might not need them or like them, but he knew when one was hungry and desperate, they would make do with anything. He grabbed bunches of beige work gloves, beef jerky, packets of instant coffee, and a huge cardboard box of breakfast cereal, then spotted some huge flats of bottled water under a tarp. If he had missed that, he would have never forgiven himself, but in the end, he left it, deeming it too heavy for his aching arms. He dumped everything into the back of the van with an increasing sense of dwindling time. The three gimps in front of the van had tripled. Doors to houses banged open, and zombies came out of their homes as if hearing the cheery ring of an ice cream truck. The image put Gus in mind of old vampire movies, where the dead rose from their coffins. The first gimp, coming in from the side, had picked up friends as well, perhaps more than two dozen, and the pack had covered half the distance to him.

But there was still more stuff back in the storage area, enough for months perhaps. Gus stalled in the doorway, wasting seconds vacillating on what to do. Ever since the end of civilization not quite two years ago, he prided himself on one rule when foraging for supplies. That one rule had kept him alive when all others died. He had learned it from a youth gorged on action and horror movies––flicks where the main cast were a bunch of unknowns screaming their heads off in the face of a sadistic killer or monster or alien.

Don’t be stupid.

Followed closely by: Don’t take any risks. The risk part was optional, as Gus felt any trip into the city was a risk. But any risk he took was a calculated one, like the one today. The tried-and-true routine was to get in, check things out, pick up whatever, and retreat before the gimps showed.

And the gimps were presently showing.

With a glance at the closed backroom door, Gus decided he would have to come back another time. He snatched up his shotgun and jumped aboard the rear of the van. The doors shrieked as he slammed them. He thumped his way through the supplies and hooked his shotgun overheard on a gun rack nailed into the roof above the driver’s seat.

Before him, the zombies thickened, filling the road. He looked out his side window and realized dozens more were only ten feet away and closing.

Realizing the slight booze buzz had left him and that his breath was coming in rapid huffs, he found the keys and started the beast. The engine roared to life.

Inhaling deeply, Gus steered his van to the right of the mob ahead, aiming toward the thinnest point. He had tried bashing his way through a mass of zombies before, at much higher speeds, but the mess afterward had left him reluctant to try such a thing again. Accelerating, the beast got to thirty before he bumped into the edge of the undead, the grill guard spinning the walking corpses away like broken robots. Hands and arms thumped against the left side of the van, hitting it hard enough to make him grimace. He ran down four shambling stiffs, bouncing in the seat as he drove over their flailing bodies. He felt his sphincter clinch and swore to sunny Jesus he wouldn’t shit himself.

He grabbed for his seatbelt and struggled to fasten it. He took his eyes off the road for a split second to get the seatbelt secured, and the van thumped as it went over a curb and onto a yellow front lawn. He snapped forward, almost crashing into the steering wheel. He glimpsed lawn gnomes going under the van, their half-destroyed faces going dark as the vehicle rushed over their heads. He regained control of the beast and steered left, catching a peek of the mob turning around for him. He longed for side mirrors, but one encounter where the gimps had actually hung onto them, grinning and hissing until he shot them off, had left him no choice but to remove the things. He wondered if he would have to do that with the door handles someday.

The van bounced back onto the asphalt, narrowly avoiding a fire hydrant and a punched-in mailbox. Gus got the vehicle back on course and looked ahead, seeing nothing but open road. Getting his breathing under control, he drove a block before stopping and glancing back at his merchandise. He had almost a full load, but there was still room for more. The question was where to look for more. How he had missed that particular convenience store was beyond him, as he’d been up and down that particular stretch of town many times. He thought he knew the area.

Don’t be stupid. Don’t be greedy.

With that thought, he eased the van up to forty. He took a turn down another road and drove on the main drag of Annapolis, weaving in and around the derelict vehicles still on the road. On the left and right, he saw food warehouses, shopping malls, drugstores, and gas stations, all looking as if they had had the living shit kicked out of them. Gus wasn’t the first person to pick through the larger shops, as there had been plenty of looting going on back when the world up and died. There had been enough looting and danger to make him steal away to the wilds beyond South Mountain, where he waited for almost a month until he ran out of camping supplies and was forced to return. Return to a civilization gone mad. Feral.

He drove by the fast food restaurants, McDonald's, Burger King, Dairy Queen, all broken into and left gutted. On his left, he passed a ramshackle Canadian Tire and Home Hardware, where Gus had gone several times to find building supplies and weapons. Two years ago, he had sometimes seen other people. He remembered seeing police and even a squad or two of green uniformed soldiers, but not anymore. In fact, getting right down to it, Gus figured he hadn’t seen another living soul since… last spring. Not anyone. He heard people at times, up on his mountain estate, gunshots and cries of terror and agony that always went on for too long, haunting the hills and valley and either fading away or abruptly stopping.

Last spring. The thought made him frown. It was fall and heading into winter.

He turned onto the highway that led out of Annapolis, up a ramp that warned he was headed the WRONG WAY, like he gave a shit. Out of reflex, he looked over his shoulder as he merged with the major road, even though traffic wasn’t an issue anymore. As he drove home, weaving in and out of abandoned cars, he glanced at the forests, and sometimes the houses, but he usually kept his eyes on the road, just in case a gimp wandered into his path.

He turned off the highway and got back with his load in the afternoon. It happened like that at times. If the pickings were slim—as they were growing more and more—he would be out longer, but getting what he wanted and returning before dark was fine by him. He wouldn’t go back to that part of the city until a few days had passed and the nest relaxed.

Satisfied with the day’s events, he parked his van and went about unloading his newly found supplies.

3

After parking the van in the garage, he got out of his gear, returning it to his locker. He took a welcome home shot of Captain Morgan, then another because it tasted good, and knew he’d have to replace the bottle soon.

“Saucy fucker.” He glowered at the captain’s grinning face. Gus turned around and took in the van full of booty. It would keep him for a while and fill the storeroom nicely. With a huff, he jumped into the back of the van and studied what he had scavenged. He liked keeping it in the packaging for as long as he could, as it reminded him of new, the concept of new, and perhaps fresh, even though each of the canned goods would have to be checked before he ate it. The packaging and preserving process the food went through seemed near perfect, and most times the canned food was fine. If he did open a bad can, it usually smelled or looked off and went into the garbage.

With a resigned sigh, Gus got to work. He lugged the drinks and boxes of food into his house and down to his basement. Two bedrooms converted into storerooms were filled with supplies, and in one of those, he stowed the new food. He spent a good two hours restocking the room, checking dates on the new canned food, and rotating the old out so he could access and eat that first. Old meant little to Gus, as all food production had halted when everything went to hell. Most of the canned food had passed the expiration dates, but it was still edible, as the polymers kept the food preserved. Gus would eat anything, but he recognized the problem facing him. The canned food would run out eventually, and when it did, he either had to grow his own or perish.

With the day moving into evening, Gus figured to relax and have himself a smile. He entered the second storeroom, which was filled with boxes of alcohol. Rum, whiskey, gin, Irish cream liqueur, vodka—though he hated that shit—liqueurs, wine, and plenty of others. He even had a case of apple brandy, though he had only opened one bottle of it. The one place that people seemed to ignore was the liquor store for whatever reason, and he had been able to clean out what was on the main floor’s shelves alone in six separate runs. He had gone back several times, taking more from the storeroom behind the liquor store. Someday, that would change. A scavenger like him would find it eventually.

However, he had stockpiled enough spirits in the downstairs room to go into business for himself. He took out two forty-ounce bottles of a Crown Royal special reserve and another bottle of Captain Morgan dark rum. The Captain Morgan he walked back to the garage and placed on the shelf as reinforcement to the dwindling supply there. The Crown Royal whiskey he brought out front.

The air had turned cold, which forced him to get a couple of sweaters and change into a double layer of sweat pants. When he returned, the sun was dropping in the west, and the clouds parted, colored a reddish violet. He walked out to the edge of the wooden deck, seeing the broken glass from the night before and telling himself he had to clean that shit up—tomorrow. Anytime he made it back from Annapolis still intact was something to celebrate. He plopped down in one of two plush chairs situated underneath a huge green garden umbrella. He wanted a drink––a smile, as his grandfather used to say. Maybe four drinks, before getting something for dinner. Just to relax.

Facing Annapolis, he unscrewed the top of the bottle and sipped. The rush and burn woke up his taste buds, throat, and stomach. Fire one, he thought, and then, Fire two. He settled back into the lawn chair, keeping the whiskey bottle in his lap, and spotted the blanket on the other, just out of reach. That might be needed a little later, but he was content to sit, drink, and watch the city go to sleep.

Wind cut across his bearded face, and for a moment, he wondered if he needed a toque. Another sip. Another grimace. The booze took the thought away. He adjusted himself in the chair, the material squeaking, and scratched his balls. The events of the day replayed in his mind. Fear. Diluted by the booze––the only and best way he knew of calming himself before going into action––and the driving of his van into the front of the store. Toilet paper. Good stuff. Had to have the shit to wipe yourself. In the movies, it was food, water, and ammo. Never said anything about crap wrap. That was something they didn’t cover in the movies. Someone fucked up.

Gus chuckled, took another shot of the Crown Royal, and studied the darkening cityscape and the Bay of Fundy beyond it. His thoughts became a slow drip of anesthesia as he watched and sipped. Somewhere, he forgot his limit again and lost count of the shots he downed. The city became a basin of black and as biting as the dragging wind. He could see no lights at all, which was, he supposed, a good thing. He didn’t know what he would do if he ever spotted light out there in the void. He certainly wouldn’t do anything at night. That was as certain as all fuck. Sometimes, he caught a scream, or the end of one, waking him from a doze. Sometimes it might repeat, and mostly, he convinced himself it was just his mind becoming a little more unhinged.

Things might have been a little more bearable if he had company, but with company came another set of rules, and he felt, no, he knew that being on his own for so long had both saved and warped him. The angst of laying those rules out to a person who might not be receptive to following them turned him off from the idea of company entirely. In the movies, it was always the same––the greater number of people in a group, the higher the probability of there being an idiotic douchebag, which led to a higher chance of the douchebag placing the others at risk. That thought made him shake his head. He’d considered finding a dog at one point, but most of the dogs had long perished, especially the short-legged breeds, not having the speed to escape the zombies. In fact, he couldn’t remember the last time he’d seen any kind of wildlife other than birds. Something probably existed out there, but he just hadn’t seen it yet.

No, it was better to be alone in this world.

It was better.

Another long draw of whiskey took away any argument that another part of his mind might have voiced.

4

“Jesus Christ,” Gus moaned upon waking and squinting out at a red sky. He woke up stiff, hung over, and facing the cityscape of Annapolis from the comfort of his lawn chair. Sometime during the night, he had hooked the blanket off the nearby bed and covered up with it. He squinted at the nearby bottle of Crown Royal and realized it was half gone.

“Goddamn alkie.” He stared at the morning sun. Perhaps seven thirty or around there. He sat up, snarling out a yawn. Deep blue, the likes never seen before due to eighty thousand or more flights a day, greeted him warmly. That was one good thing about the apocalypse. The absence of flights cleared the sky of the usual silk worm gauziness that paled the color. Car emissions had once added to it as well, but the airplanes were just as guilty of fucking up the atmosphere. People just didn’t hear about it as often, if ever. The sky that he opened his eyes to was the color of paintings. He wondered if that was a conspiracy of some kind. Fuck it. The only conspiracy he wanted to hear about at the moment concerned breakfast. Rising to his feet with a grunt, he turned to the kitchen with a long lingering scratch of his nether regions. He threw down his blanket and left the whiskey on the table. His core complained of a chill, and he wondered if he could pick up a cold without other people around. That was that. No more sleeping in the great outdoors, even if it was in a plush lawn chair.

In the kitchen, he boiled water on the electric range and unpackaged a bowl of instant noodles. Gus thought about checking the solar panels on the roof, but decided against it. He wouldn’t know what to do with them anyway, beyond clearing them off. There was a wind turbine to supplement the limited power supplied by the solar panels, but it didn’t seem to work. The batteries in the storage shed collected and stored enough power from the panels to keep the house going, as long as he didn’t do anything too heavy. He had no idea how long the power was going to last, and trips to the shed where the batteries were housed gave him no clues. The meters and their numbers meant nothing to him. Any day, he fully expected the things to die on him, and whatever electricity the batteries had stored up to that point would be the last.

He opened the fridge and mixed himself a glass of powdered milk, which he swore curdled as it splashed down onto the contrary pad of his stomach. No dry heaves, which was good. He held out his hand, flat, as if he were about to walk like an Egyptian. It quivered slightly.

Gus grunted. He stared out a mostly boarded-up window that gave him a nice view of his wall out front. Moving to a cabinet, he got out a rare can of Coke, as well as a bottle of rum, and mixed a drink. Half a smile, Pop, he thought to his long-gone grandfather. Sighing, he shook out four aspirin from a bottle and palmed them all into his mouth. Raising the drink in a toast to the outer wall, he downed it. With the Coke, the rum tasted sweeter. His grandfather and father had it right after all. It was better than milk.

Gus gasped as the mix and medicine went down, then took a deep breath. When the noodles were cool enough, he ate, feeling the revulsion in his guts, but determined to get something in there besides booze. After breakfast, he rinsed the dishes in the sink and dumped the plastic packaging from the noodles into a garbage can. The sofa in the living room called out to him, and he walked to it, half in a daze. Lying down and getting comfortable, he realized that he hadn’t opened the curtains in the last two days. A deep weariness settled over him then, and he knew he wasn’t about to open them now.

Wasn’t it bad to take drugs and booze together? was his last conscious thought before drifting off.

*

Six hours later, he woke up, still feeling hung over. He lounged about the house, carrying a bottle of rum with him wherever he roamed. He went down into the rec room, opposite the storerooms, and flopped down on the soft sofa there. He lit candles, both for the light and the relaxing effect. There was something pure about candles. Something even Christmasy, if that was a word. Tammy had gotten him into the practice, as she often had rooms illuminated with candles, some scented, most not, as they were the cheap variety. It never bothered her, as they all burned the same.

For the next four hours, Gus watched Disney animated movies, chuckling while drinking water from a four-liter plastic bottle with a chaser of Bacardi White and cola, not thinking about having Tammy snuggled up next to him. After the last movie, he flicked off the screen and covered up on the sofa. Thoughts seeped into his mind like vines forcing their way through the mortar of a brick wall. He lay there in the semi-dark of the basement, basking in the calmness of scented candles, and listened to the house creak above, noting that the sounds were only caused by a hungry October wind. He took another glittery-eyed sip of his rum and Coke. It was a big house, and he remembered when he first found it, how he would get up and investigate every sound he heard. He had stopped doing that perhaps a year ago. Winter was coming to Annapolis. It would be his second on the mountain.

Winter was coming, and its breath made the bones of the house ache.

*

The next day, Gus stayed off the rum and whiskey all morning. Work needed to be done, and he was feeling industrious. The good weather stayed, and he decided to get on the things that both needed to be done, and what he wanted to do.

A book he’d picked up from the library had taken up his reading time when he actually felt like reading. In the book entitled Medieval Campaigns And How They Were Won, Gus came across the idea of defenses. He’d gone out and studied the wall about his world, ten feet high and a foot thick. The wall wouldn’t be enough if they ever got up there, and he had to count on the day when they would… and what would stop them when they did.

He was only one man, and he could only do so much, but he had time aplenty. He lived on the side of a mountain, with the ground on one side still soft. That would change with the colder weather. He had wanted a second wall, but didn’t know where he could find the brick to do it, and he didn’t know how to prepare mortar to stick it all together. But for the month of August, when he started having ideas of improving his defenses, he made the effort to get digging supplies from the warehouses in town. Picks and sharp black-bladed spades, crowbars and long iron bars for leveraging, chainsaws and handsaws for cutting. All of those things and more he loaded into his van and brought to his garage.

Moats were effective in throwing off armies. He didn’t have enough water to fill one, but he would worry about that later. He wanted to dig. His wall extended from one side of the mountain, curved around his property, and ended with a forty-foot drop. Some small spruce trees had to be removed, but Gus meant to encircle the entire length of the wall with a deep trench. How deep he would be able to get it, he had no idea. He had already marked the earth with a shallow groove, no more than a couple of inches deep, that ran parallel with the wall.

September was already a write-off. He had gotten very little done, with the exception of cutting down the trees in his way near and on the mountainside. Today, he meant to start digging deeper. With a wheel barrel, he lugged the pick and spade through the crack he had opened in the gate and, counting off five feet from the base of his wall, started hacking out his trench. He took short gouges with the pick to tear up the turf and loosen the topsoil. After ten minutes of picking, he stopped and looked back at his progress. Three feet. Three feet not even cleared of the loose dirt. He sucked at ditch-digging.

“Fuck,” he breathed, feeling the sweat rolling down his face. It would take a year to do what he wanted to do. There was no way he could get an excavator up without drawing the gimps. And the sound of the work would only bring more. It was with the pick and shovel or nothing at all.

Jesus.

His hands became raw as he worked, reminding him of a time he’d had to quit a construction job because he got too many blisters. He stopped at the top of the hour for a shot of water, wishing it were rum. He was fine with that, though, knowing full well he’d treat himself after the day’s work. He inspected his hands and swore at them for becoming sore so quickly. He returned to the house to fetch some work gloves from the garage. He quickly found a pair next to the skin magazines he’d liberated from the shop. His brow arched in interest, but in the end, he left it.

He stepped outside the house and heard a gunshot.

The sound froze him in place. Another shot rang out, the echo of a pop coming from the front of the house. Gus ran to the deck and gripped the railing as he leaned into the wind, listening. The city looked deserted, cold, and while he watched, didn’t make a sound. Gus strained to hear something, anything.

A scream.

It was a long drawn-out thing, full of pain and grating on the nerves. A man’s scream. It continued on for seconds before finally faltering and petering out. Gus strained to hear more, but there wasn’t any more to hear. After a long minute, he half-turned, scanning the city for a sign of some kind. The scream had originated from the center, but that was as much as he knew. The man had taken a long time to die, and he wondered why only the two shots. Perhaps he only had two shots left. Two shots to take on a small city’s populace? If Gus were caught in some situation where he was faced with certain death, he knew what he would do, and how he would use those last two shots. The thought entered his mind to go down there and investigate, but he decided against it. Whatever had happened down there had happened, and that was that. Gus wasn’t about to venture into the city for a stranger.

But he did return to the house for three calming shots of rum.

With the booze in his belly, he went back out to the trench, placing the scream behind him.

*

In the days that followed, Gus learned that it was going to take a long time to complete the moat. He had gotten almost to the end of the wall, and that was only a shallow and narrow cut that widened the initial groove. Expanding it and making it deep would take longer, perhaps even a year, with just him working on it. That thought alone almost made him abandon the project, but after watching a few more zombie movies, the more he felt he needed extra barriers to protect his home. The trench would be the new first defense.

And he rigged a surprise as well, one he was particularly proud of.

On the slope of the mountain, he cleared an area and rolled two plastic drums, capable of holding thirty liters of gasoline, into place. With a hammer, some wood, nails, and caulking, he rigged a pen for the drum, filled it with gasoline, and placed it on an angle on the mountainside, hidden by brush, but positioned above a shallow groove. He stoppered the gas drum with a rubber plug attached to a length of rope knotted to other lengths, making it long enough to run over the wall at the far end. If he yanked on the rope, the gas drum would spill and empty into the groove, running down its length and filling the little trench in front of the wall.

In theory, it looked good. Sounded great.

He even made a few Molotov cocktails for throwing, just for added oomph.

Looking at his work, he thought that starting a fire was only a drop in the bucket. With the trees he removed, he could use the brush and wood for fuel. The more he worked on it, the more Gus liked home defense.

When it was time, he dined on noodles, canned stew, meatballs and gravy, and even sardines, though he found them to be quite salty. He drank conservatively while he worked. He had almost gone through a case of Bacardi White, and he thought about the liquor store below with its remaining treasure trove. There wasn’t a need to go yet. Not yet.

In the evenings, he relaxed and watched movies on the television. At night, he read books by the light of a single, environment-friendly bulb in his room, with all windows facing the city curtained. The wind snaked around the house in the late-October evenings, sounding as if it searched for just him. On the evenings when the wind was especially strong, he would simply lay on his bed upstairs in the master bedroom illuminated by candlelight and listen as it struggled. Every sound pricked his ears and made him pause just to see if there was a pattern, above or below. Those nights were spent sipping on straight whiskey or rum––Uncle Jack and Captain Morgan, his favorite companions—as well as the occasional visit by the women pictured in the skin magazines. And memories of Tammy.

There were no other screams from the city. Nor gunfire.

*

At the beginning of November, Gus had begun to dig down into the cold earth, grimacing at his back, which still disliked what he was doing. His hips ached from time to time, forcing him to take some generic painkillers to silence them. At the far end of the wall, he dug down a respectable foot and widened it about the same for about a hundred feet. Only five hundred or so more to go. Then, he would work on the deepening and the widening of the defense.

Smacking woolly lips, he felt he needed to go house picking again to stock up before the snow came in December. He would have to go down to the city soon. The van wore all-seasonals, but he didn’t fully trust them in a full-blown Nova Scotia winter. He didn’t have snow tires, nor did he have any idea how to get them on the beast if he managed to find some. Last winter, he had stayed on his mountain for the duration. It was extreme and monotonous. But safe.

He thought about finding another vehicle. As much as he hated to admit it, he would lose the beast sooner or later. It would be wise to have a replacement on hand, as much as the old war wagon would hate sharing the garage with another machine. The image made him smile. The beast. He’d given the van human qualities. With the absence of living companions, the vehicle was a friend, as loyal as any dog, and he would do what he could to keep it running as long as possible. Gus carried those thoughts into the evening, while he stood on the deck and sipped on a hot rum toddy. He studied the shell of the city and made a list of the things he would need. He needed more gas, since he’d used so much for the home defenses. More food, tools, water, toilet paper—his current stock was fine, but he could never have enough in his opinion—and entertainment. Meaning… books. The world had existed on electronic tablets for the most part in the days leading up to the end, but at that time, Gus really hadn’t been much into reading at all. That had changed. The house had come with a huge library of digital movies on the terabyte video unit hooked up to the television, as well as several bookshelves full of hardcovers and paperbacks. He had to admit there was something peaceful in simply lying on a couch or bed and just reading. There were books by Sun Tzu, Charles Dickens, Stephen King, Robert McCammon, Tom Clancy, J.A. Konrath, William Meikle, Steve Vernon, and countless others. Whoever had owned the place enjoyed a lot of military and horror fiction, which was fine with Gus.

Oddly enough, he could deal with the horror in fiction.

The hot rum and buttery goodness slicked his throat. He’d learned how to make the drink from another friend who had once lived up in Antigonish. Taking a second sip, Gus nodded. He would head into town the next day and see what he could find. It would take multiple trips, in shorter daylight hours—not that he screwed around with the nonsense known as daylight savings anymore. He knew that the time would come when nothing was going to get off the mountain. Unless he had a snowmobile. That thought had merit.

The trench would have to wait. Tomorrow would be the beginning of the last great rush before the holiday season. The idea made him feel a little brighter. Perhaps he would grab some Christmas decorations. He never knew what he might find when house picking.

Just as long as whatever he found didn’t try to eat him.

5

It couldn’t have been any more than five or six degrees the next morning. He suited up, saluted the Captain in his locker, downed four quick shots, and prepped the beast. Frost had turned the lawn to crystal, and he breathed out steam for a few minutes before getting in the van and driving into Annapolis. With the heat on and the heated driver’s seat, he felt wonderful in the early morning sun, even while wearing all of his combat gear. With a scratch or two at his crotch for luck, Gus felt that the day would be a busy one. He wanted to haul ass in and out of the city before sunset, roughly eight hours away. The drive into the city took twenty minutes, all to the music of John Denver coming from the CD player. It wasn’t the morning music he wanted, but he didn’t have anything else in the glove compartment.

The beast sped by the intersection where he had run down the gimp the previous month. The dead husk was missing, but that didn’t really concern him. Crows or some other scavenger had probably finished off the thing. He wondered for a moment what would happen if a live animal did in fact feast on the carrion of zombies. He remembered the movie Resident Evil and how the crows that ate gimps turned into gimps themselves. Freaky shit, but he didn’t worry about crows or ravens or seagulls just yet. Seagulls. Gus smirked. What a way to die, being chased down and picked to pieces by a bunch of sea chickens.

He drove through the maze of streets and eventually found the smashed-in storefront of the Needs store. He slowed the beast to a stop, facing the hole he’d made the last time, and peered inside from over the steering wheel. Empty, or so it looked, and the surrounding coast appeared clear. Sniffing, he turned the van around with a three-point turn, backing its fat ass up to the opening.

He swung open the rear doors, and the sound of his motorcycle boots hitting pavement stung the air. Visor down, he kept his shotgun pointed forward. He inspected the devastated aisles and deemed them clear. Taking a breath, he proceeded to the swinging door leading into the back. He eased it open with the barrel of the shotgun, fully ready and expecting trouble, only to face a dark and empty storeroom.

“Fuck me,” Gus breathed and flipped up his visor. He studied the gloomy interior. There had been a lot of supplies there back in October. Admittedly, he’d dragged his ass in getting back to the shop, but it was still a surprise to find the placed looted.

Someone else was afoot.

The idea sent a surge of hope through him, and he hoped, for a split moment, that it was a woman, an attractive woman who would appreciate having a man about. He certainly wouldn’t mind having female companionship, but the question of whether she would need him was something else. Gus wasn’t the best looking guy, or the brightest, or the hardest working. In fact, even when the world was sane, the women he’d wanted didn’t want anything to do with him, and he recalled being flat out rejected so often that he just didn’t bother anymore. He often wondered how the hell he’d wound up with Tammy. She could have easily had someone better.

Images and forgotten feelings of hurt and embarrassment flooded his mind, stalling him on the threshold of the shop. He eventually freed himself of the paralysis and got back to the task at hand. Lifting his weapon, he went into stealth mode and moved shotgun-first around the dark room.

Empty.

The person, or persons, had taken everything he’d left behind. The idea didn’t bother him too much—other folks had to live, too—but he would have to be on the lookout. Then, he thought, what if they found the liquor shop? Oh, Jesus. He retreated from the storeroom and passed the counter. On instinct, he glanced behind to where the dead gimp had been mashed into the wall.

No gimp.

That put wrinkles into his forehead. He eased around the counter and searched, but the body wasn’t there. There wasn’t anywhere to go. The thing must not have been dead then, he concluded, just somehow pinned behind the counter. When he’d pulled out, the bastard had probably dragged himself along the floor and out into the open air. Gus studied the ground, but saw no indication of anything crawling away.

Thinking on it more than he should have, he got in the van and closed the doors behind him. He plopped down in the driver’s seat and looked ahead, remembering the path he had taken a month ago. The engine started when he turned the key, and he eased away from the Needs shop. The road was empty. He knew he had struck a few of them in his escape, but he didn’t think he hit them hard enough to outright kill them.

“Aw, fuck it.” He eased up to thirty and headed toward another part of the city. He knew of another area where he could do his house picking, a continuation of where he had left off a while ago. His original plan was to move from subdivision to subdivision, mentally checking off the places he’d been to, but sometimes he deviated. Houses were the best stops, and he never went into apartment buildings. Those were too dangerous. Houses could be dangerous as well, but not nearly as much as the potential nests of apartment buildings. Realistically, any building could harbor a number of gimps. Schools, office buildings, and he already knew about hospitals. He wouldn’t go back to a hospital unless he was desperate.

The van oozed exhaust as it moved through the sunlit, empty streets. From his driver’s window, he spotted gray figures stumbling out from between houses. They shambled in his direction. He turned a corner and saw more of them coming out to fill the road. He drove up over a yellow lawn to avoid where they were thickest, but it was impossible to avoid them all. A thin line of them led by an ashen-fleshed woman wearing a one-piece bathing suit shambled in front of the beast. Her left arm was missing, and her jawless face turned as the van passed. The grill guards split the line of undead, and as he drove through, arms thrashed and thumped against the sides of the van, rattling his nerves a little more. Gus took a breath and wanted a shot of booze.

Turning the steering wheel to the right, he knocked four more zombies on their asses, glimpsing an executive-type guy and one dressed in only a pair of walking shorts. He turned right and then left, giving the van a shot of gas to escape the clingers. Without windows in the rear, he had no way of knowing what was behind him.

He turned the van onto a larger road and wove through the derelict cars. He drove through a series of main streets, passing mom-and-pop shops—how they ever survived among the chain giants amazed him—until he eased the van to a stop in another subdivision. Placing the van in reverse, he backed up to the open front door of a white split-level house. Once the beast was in place, he killed the engine and took a quick look around to ensure the coast was clear.

Gus rattled his way to the back, opting to leave his shotgun behind, and threw open the rear doors. He jumped onto the front steps and glanced inside the house. Seeing and hearing nothing, he entered, closing the door behind him.

Two flights of worn-looking hardwood stairs greeted him on the landing, one heading to a hallway and kitchen above, the other down into the gloom of a basement. Sunlight came in from upstairs, and Gus flipped down his visor. He pulled his bat from his back scabbard, bringing it to guard. Armed and ready, he crept up the stairs, noticing that the air smelled fresh. A good sign.

He stepped into a modern kitchen filled with steel appliances, granite countertops, and a dark wooden finish. Nice place, he thought and went to the double-door fridge. He opened it, got a whiff of the remains inside and quickly closed it. He opened the cupboards and found a bag of flour as well as an unopened box of raisins. Going through the rest of the kitchen, he realized that this particular family had grabbed whatever food they could before running. Smart bunch. He moved around the island table in the center of the kitchen and peered into the combination dining and living room, undivided except for a floor of carpeting underneath the sofa furniture. A flat-screen TV interested him for a moment, as did a stereo system with an actual turntable. A picture window covered in drapes gave a gauzy view of the outside.

Retreating to the kitchen, he quickly went through the drawers. Nothing of interest, as he possessed enough cutlery at home. Next, he went to the bedrooms. In the drawers of the master bedroom, he found a flesh-colored dildo hidden underneath some clothes. The sex toy was almost the length of his arm––the things that got left behind. He started to throw the thing back, then reconsidered and tucked it under his arm. Wondering who had lived in the house, he rummaged through the rest of the drawers and closets, and even checked between the mattresses. He pulled out two skin magazines featuring twenty-something co-eds on the cover and a pair of fuzzy handcuffs, which he almost took, but couldn’t find the keys. A box on the top shelf held a leather mask with a zipper mouth and eyes, as well as a one-piece bathing suit with the crotch and nipple areas cut out. Who were these people? Gus shook his head as he stuffed the mask back into the box and left it on the shelf. He moved into the second bedroom, which appeared to belong to a little girl––pink walls, small bed immaculately made, and a collection of stuffed animals. God help the kid, he thought, with parents into the leather scene and dildos of mass destruction.

Moving on, he found an empty hockey duffel bag in the basement and several pieces of old furniture. A second storage room contained a box full of old paperbacks, military fiction and erotica titles, but the rest of the area lay bare and coated in a layer of dust. He began to wonder if the house had already been looted. He took the duffel bag and books back to the landing, throwing in the dildo, the box of raisins, and the flour. The odd mixture made him smile. What would happen if he added water? He also found eleven rolls of toilet paper, which saved the place from being a total loss. But that was how it went. Sometimes he found something of use, and more times he didn’t. He slung the duffel bag over his shoulder, went outside, and crashed into a hissing gimp.

The fright of colliding with the undead woke Gus up. He dropped the bag as the creature swung both arms around him, its yellow-black teeth fastened onto his shoulder for only a second before Gus pushed the thing back. It staggered, off-balance, and hit the front steps with a smack of flesh on wood. Three others hissed, lurching around the open doors of the van and hurrying as fast as their stiff limbs could carry them.

Taking a breath, Gus drew his bat.

Swinging with bad intentions, he crushed the skull of the first zombie, a gray-skinned man dressed in a jeans and a T-shirt. The connection drove the thing off the steps and onto the front lawn. Gus retreated to the open door of the house while two gimps stumbled over their fallen friend. He checked the clearance for the bat. Plenty of room.

The first zombie coming up the stairs got its skull bashed in, the bone shattering like a thick mason jar. As that one crumpled, the next gimp, a woman with her long hair hanging over her face, pawed its way forward. Its hands reached out for him, and he saw that it had no fingers on the right hand. Not even a thumb. Bringing the bat down from overhead, he smashed the gimp on the crown of its head. It collapsed. Gus looked up and saw his first attacker get up, baring its winning smile. It took a moment for him to realize the thing had no lips. Something had chewed them off.

He stepped to the side and swept the dead thing’s legs out from under it with his bat. The zombie crashed to the ground, and Gus took two steps to get into position before bludgeoning its head. He straightened up in case there were others. Seeing the area was clear for the moment, he scooped up the bag and plunged into the van, slamming the doors behind him.

“Shit!” He dumped the contents of the bag into a bin. It should never have surprised him. He knew how damn quiet the things could creep along. Gazing down at the treasures collected from the house, he saw something out of the corner of this eye that made him glance toward his windshield.

There, a dozen more of the creatures, spread out like a fucked-up offensive line, shambled toward the van. Gus snarled and gripped his bat. Anger surged through him. Why couldn’t he get a break from the things? Why couldn’t he house pick in peace?

Stupid…

He ignored the inner voice.

Drive away, it said.

But he didn’t feel like driving away. He’d been driving and running away for the better part of two goddamn years. Fury took hold and his inner voice shut up.

He moved to the back, opened the rear doors, and jumped out. Visor down, he walked with purpose to the front of the van, his rage building.

“You fuckers want something?”

Shambling forward, the mob hissed.

“Yeah, thought so.”

He swung the bat, almost taking the head clean off the nearest decomposing gentleman. The impact of bat hitting skull rang briefly in the air, but damn if it didn’t feel good. He glanced to his right to confirm the position of a large female zombie closing in from that direction, then he tore into the others with vicious strikes. He killed two almost immediately before he heard the clatter of shoes on asphalt. An alarm klaxon went off in his skull an instant before the fat zombie plowed into him from behind.

Runner! His mind shrieked as about two hundred pounds of dead flesh bowled him over. The freshly dead could actually move when they wanted to, unlike the older ones. His helmet protected his head as he bounced off the sparkling road, saving him from an otherwise serious gash. Gus felt the woman on his legs. He sat up just in time to see her mouth, gray and speckled with black sores, open wide and gnaw on his shin protectors. Hands clamped down on his shoulders and helmet, and panic rose in his chest.

They swarmed.

Something grabbed his arm, and he felt fingers gouging into the leather of his gloves, gloves that had no protection on his fingers. Another embraced his head with both arms. Yet another thumped down on his midsection, flattening him. Clawed fingers raked across the leather protecting his guts, pulling on it, attempting to dig through to the tender bits underneath. Teeth snapped furiously over his helmet, and another set of teeth squeaked-smeared across his visor. The owner bit too hard, and some of its black teeth came free of its gums upon connection. They stretched him out, and he saw it then, like he had seen in countless movies where the zombies swarmed their victim by sheer volume, searching with their mouths alone and biting and biting and biting until they found flesh. He pulled in a quick breath when something crashed into his balls, robbing him of strength. His limbs suddenly felt as if he were struggling beneath twenty feet of water. He felt invasive fingers twisting at his helmet, trying to solve its riddle. On the other side of the visor, an angry mouth gnawed, giving him a graphic display in a torturous slow motion that part of him knew he should do something about, but the agony of his balls held him.

He felt the zipper on his leather jacket give.

Felt the fingers on the hockey vest underneath. More scrabbling on his helmet and inside his thighs.

And he lost it.

Gus bucked, twisted, and turned. He snapped out a boot, breaking the face of the thing on his legs. He yanked his fists from the grips of the dead and punched. He grabbed and snapped the wrists of the man clawing through his leather. He brought his knees up and under him and reached out and placed his hands on the cold asphalt, in between the shoes and boots of the dead. They clawed at his back and his helmet, their hissing and moaning loud in his ears. Dead fingers worn down to bones dragged down his spine. Fists pounded his back.

Propelling himself with both legs, Gus shot upward and through the mob like a supercharged linebacker. He broke free and circled around them, their dead faces tracking him as the ones he’d knocked down climbed to their feet. Fear and rage coursed through his system. His leather coat hung open, the zipper torn apart, and his protective vest bore the scratches of the throng. He ran back to his van, hearing the pursuing clop clop clop of the shoe-wearing bitch that had tried to bite off his legs. He jumped in the open rear of the van.

Don’t be stupid.

He slammed the doors.

Don’t be stupid.

He got the shotgun and groped for a fistful of shells. Things almost had me. Fucking runner took me down.

Don’t be stupid, countered his inner voice.

Something pounded on the rear doors. The inner voice pleaded with him to get behind the wheel, not to go back out there. He wasn’t prepared for that kind of fight. He was on bad ground. He should just get behind the wheel and drive away before things really got out of hand.

That thought brought on a savage grin. Things were already out of hand. And two years’ worth of running, hiding behind a very big wall, and eating canned slop well past its expiration date suddenly came to a boil.

He threw open the rear doors and blew the head off the runner. He cocked the gun, ejecting a spent red plastic casing, and blasted a meaty hole in the chest of another, flinging it back. Another pump of the shotgun, and another head exploded in a chunky spray. He shot a fourth and fifth, the skulls bursting in the roar of the shotgun. Finally, he hauled the doors closed again, placed his back against the wall, and reloaded.

Fuckers wanted to play.

He was all up for playing this particular day. He was all up for it.

“All right.” He went to the front of the van and looked through the side window. His bat was out there, and he wanted it. Badly. He filled his pockets with more red shells, his fury escalating into something terrible. Kicking open the driver’s door, he got out and turned to the rear of the van. He finished off the zombie with the hole in its chest, blowing its head away as it struggled to get up. Placing the butt of the shotgun to his shoulder, he took a wide stance and fired four more shots, punishing the mob collected at the rear of the beast. He placed his back to the van and reloaded, his mouth a tight line of concentration as he jammed red shells into the breach. Gimps walked toward him. He chambered a round, placed the butt firmly to his shoulder, and blasted the face from a zombie reaching for him. He moved to the side, pumping and firing. It was impossible to miss his targets at such close range. He entered the street and focused on reloading as well as retrieving his bat.

Right in the middle of the street? his inner voice screamed. You’re in the middle of the fucking street!

Four gimps closed in on him. Four craniums were blasted open. He reloaded and fired more rounds into the approaching gimps. More were coming from the houses, drawn to the noise of battle. Through the gathering mass, another runner charged, barrelling through on legs not yet stiffened by the elements. Its arms rose, and it got within five strides of Gus before he fired, taking away half of its skull with one blast. He inhaled the smell of gunpowder, and that odor brought him back to his senses. He jammed his last shells into the smoking shotgun. The bat lay at his feet, and he scooped it up in a motion that his hips would remind him of later, when the adrenalin left town.

The dead closed in.

Gus grunted furiously, fighting down panic as he retreated. He shrugged aside hands reaching for him and made a run for the van. He reached the driver’s door and threw the bat inside. Taking aim, Gus destroyed three more monsters before he emptied the gun, and again, he felt a surge of longing to take the butt of the shotgun to the rest of the advancing corpses and bash in as many heads as he could.

Instead, he whirled and climbed aboard the beast. He started the van and rammed four gimps standing in front of it, their forms mashing against the grill guard for an instant before rolling under the wheels. The beast bucked and bounced over the bodies as if they were logs. More zombies came into view, oozing from the sun-bright, yet sepulchre houses, and a chill descended over him.

That was the horror of the things. They simply kept on coming. Not stopping, no matter how bad a shit-kicking they got. It was impossible to throw the fear of God into them. The things had no fear whatsoever. Gus remembered the expression from way back. No fear. Nothing. Just a form with teeth and a driving hunger.

His foot hit the gas, and the beast shot across the street. The van swung to the right and narrowly missed a fire hydrant. The near impact reminded him of the almost collision a month ago, and he swore at the red stump of metal. Little fuckers were as ubiquitous as ATMs. The front right tire crashed up and over the flower beds of an overgrown lawn, then roared across driveways until Gus edged it back onto pavement. The right corner of the beast clipped two zombies and sent them flying into a knot of the creatures, bowling the works over like moldy tenpins. Still more filled the road, arms wide as if attempting to corral their dinner.

Gus gave the beast another shot of gas and drove through them.

The van whumped and jumped at each body going under it. Arms and heads careened off the grill guard. One head exploded on contact like a rotten melon, its fragments plastering the windshield. An arm struck the tempered glass almost hard enough to split it. The zombies battered the ribs of the beast as it passed. Gus held on tight to the wheel as he didn’t have time to buckle his seat belt. Heads pick-packed off the van’s metal face and dropped out of sight. More gore dappled the glass, and he had to crane his neck to see where he was driving. He slammed over another wave of dead, jumping in his seat with the multiple impacts as the knot of bodies went under the beast. He felt the wheels spin for a brief, colon-blowing second before finding traction and plunging onward.

More undead blocked the way.

Drawn to the noise, Gus thought, and turned left. The van flew up a driveway and toward a high fence. He stretched his neck to see if he could see anything beyond the barrier and made his decision a second before the van smashed through it. Wood fragments flew as if in a tempest, and the beast crashed into another backyard. The right front tire crushed a plastic fire truck big enough for a toddler. Gus steered the van beside the house, down the driveway, and onto another road. He turned left, thinking he knew how to get out of the area. Ahead, he saw a thick stream of zombies lurching down the street he had just escaped from. He swerved to the right, and the beast ran over only a handful of gimps as it broke through, smacking into one after the other fast enough that the noise sounded like gunfire. The van burst through the last zombie, snap-pirouetting it until it fell and was gone.

Gus drove on, the beast roaring in elated victory as he accelerated. When he reached the city limits, he slowed a bit, holding a hand up in front of his face to check. The thing shook as if he were being cattle-prodded anally. He gripped the wheel and didn’t let go until he reached the poorly camouflaged gate of the road leading home.

When he parked the van in the garage, much of the fright had left his system, or so he thought. He didn’t bother with unpacking the scant supplies. Going inside his home and locking the door behind him, he went into the kitchen, grabbed a bottle of Captain Morgan, and held it up to the light. The foppish officer on the label smiled at him, coaxing him to do what Gus needed no coaxing for. He took three burning swallows of the rum before taking a breath. The rum bungee-jumped down his throat and poisoned his belly. He bared teeth at the impact, but he didn’t put the bottle down and kept those first shots inside.

He moved out the back door and onto the deck, taking violent sips from the bottle. He marched over to the edge, eyes narrowed in anger and frustration and residual fright. He took two more swallows, grimacing at the shots to his body as solid as any fists, and stared murderously at the still bright, indifferent husk that was Annapolis.

Today had been close.

Too goddamn close.

Replaying the events in his head, he swooned at the stupidity of his actions. A fucking bat! He had a spare one in the van, for Christ’s sake. The memory of being hit from behind by the runner gimp made him take another furious swig from the bottle. The Captain seemed to wink at him. Gus recalled the opening mouth of a zombie on his visor, so close he couldn’t focus on it. The force on his jacket. His jacket! He glanced down, spread apart the flaps where the zipper broke, and felt the vest that had kept the gimps out of his guts. He had never been swarmed before, never come so close to dying, so close to being ripped open.

So close to being eaten. Alive.

Gus screamed, a short powerful blast straight from the gut. With a bark of outrage and spent adrenalin, he flung the Captain out over the railing at the city. Rum fluttered in the sunlight like a lady’s dark handkerchief as it spilled from the bottle, then the bottle broke somewhere below. The soft tinkle of breaking glass served as a hypnotist’s bell, waking a subject from a deep sleep. Gus didn’t feel restful, however, so he plopped his ass down on the nearby lawn chair while holding his bald head in his trembling hands.

The rum did its work after a few minutes, charging into his brain and dousing his anxiety. He lay back on the chair, eyeing the city under bushy brows, waiting for it to make a move. It didn’t. Not even a sound. He palm-wiped his face and took a deep breath. He couldn’t do it anymore. He couldn’t go on like that. He just couldn’t.

He stayed like that for a while, feeling the booze soak into his consciousness like a deep penetrating anesthesia. The sun fell and clawed the sky red. He relaxed, the alcohol calming him, making him forget the error of his day. Gnawing on his lower lip, he knew he would have to go back down there. Perhaps the sooner the better. No better way to face the mistakes than to get up and do it again. But not tonight. And not tomorrow. Tomorrow, he expected to be too hung over to move.

Hell, tomorrow he’d be surprised if he rose at all.

With that thought, he got to his feet and went to get a bottle of anything with alcohol in it.

*

Two days later, the hangover that had kept him glued to his sofa finally dissipated. Gus swore off all booze, but had a drink of rum and Coke by early afternoon, filling the glass half and half, trying hard to ignore how his hands shook as he poured. He shuffled through the house in warm pajamas, knowing he should be doing something, but not sure what. He finally decided to outfit the van again and get back up on the horse. There wasn’t much time before the snow came, and he used the thought of being cut off on the mountain for four months to get him moving.

Making his way to the garage, he consulted his mental list of what he needed and scratched off dildo. That made him smile.

Cold air embraced him as he opened the door to the garage and went around to the rear of the van. He opened the doors and pulled out the duffel bag full of the items picked up on the last trip. He looked back to see if he had everything and noticed a spray of holes in one side of the beast.

Gus’s jaw dropped.

Someone had shot at him.

He went around to the van’s side and ran a hand over the wide cluster of bullet holes. Obviously a shotgun blast, but who would want to fire on him? Someone in the house? Not possible, as he checked it from top to bottom. Someone in another house? That made sense, but why? It was one thing to have to worry about gimps, but to add a shooter to the mix made things worse. Who had he managed to piss off enough for them to take a shot at him? He stood back and thought about when the zombies had crowded in, pounding on the walls of the van as he escaped. Then a thought hit him.

Maybe the shooter had been taking some of the heat off of him.

That put an entirely new spin on things. There might be living people in the subdivision, and he had left them behind to face a mob of gimps he had attracted in the first place. As much as he thought being alone was a good thing, he didn’t like leaving behind people who tried to help him. And he had left them down in the city for two whole days while he got drunk, then recovered from a hangover. The notion sank his heart, and he slumped against the van. What were the odds whoever might be down there was still alive after two days?

Scowling, he got ready to find out.

6

The black SUV came from the east, from the direction of the Cape Breton Highlands. It followed the Trans-Canada Highway all the way down to Halifax County, where it eventually hooked up with Highway 101. Having never visited that part of the country before, the driver thought he would take the scenic route and make the best of it. He had all the time in the world to play tourist, and he knew that sometimes, great bits of fun could be had on side excursions. The final destination remained Halifax, and the armory located there, but it didn’t concern him if he got there this week or next. He suddenly longed to see the valley and the city of Annapolis.

The landscape meandered by, and as he drove around the occasional derelict car or truck, he admired the colors of the season. He pushed a button on the armrest, and the window came down. A blast of fresh air rushed into the interior, and he took a great whiff, missing the smell of burning leaves. That was one thing he loved about fall in Nova Scotia, that wonderful drifting scent that would cut under one’s nose when least expected. No longer, however, he thought with a frown. Maybe even not ever again. Unless he was the one doing the burning.

An Irving roadside service station came into view, with a number of cars and trucks parked around it. He had always enjoyed the meals at the restaurant attached to the station, back when the world still had all of its marbles. He glanced at the fuel gauge and saw that the tank was half empty. Why not? he thought, and flicked on his indicator. It was important to him to observe the rules of the road.

He pulled into the parking lot, parallel with the gas pumps, and let the motor run for a moment, craning his neck to see if there was any reaction from inside. He saw none, but knew that really didn’t mean anything. Opening the door, he got out of the SUV and stretched. Standing at almost six-five, he thought of himself as a high cross of a man, thanks to his broad shoulders. His frame had been much more powerful two years ago when he maintained a better diet, but lately, he felt his strength ebbing away. Motorcycle boots covered his feet, complementing a pair of faded black jeans and a drab-looking, dark-olive sweater. His black hair, streaked with silver, ended in a fox’s tail at the back of his head. The silver in his hair highlighted the silver pricks deep in otherwise black eyes. Shark’s eyes, he liked to think. Soulless and hungry looking. Back in the day, his name was Joseph Tenner. He thought of himself as simply Tenner. It possessed a certain Road Warrior charm about it.

Tenner gazed at the cloudy morning sky and took another breath. He walked around to the rear of the SUV, depressing a button on his key fob and getting an answering chirp. He opened the rear door and squinted at the station, thinking he should’ve worn his sunglasses. He reached in and took out twin leather holsters, which he leisurely slipped one arm into and then the other.

From the station came a hissing. Tenner paused in arming himself and placed one hand on an aluminum bat that he sometimes used. The hissing continued, from multiple points, but he didn’t see any targets. From the back of the vehicle, he extracted a Glock 18. The older pieces were more for show at one time, as were most of the other weapons in the back of his ride, but they were just as good as anything else out there, based solely on availability. Or in other words, they were the weapons his father had stockpiled in his basement as part of his once very illegal gun collection, complete with ammunition. Tenner had to hand it to dear old Dad. What point was there in having a cache of automatic weapons if you had no ammunition for them? Like a broken pencil––pointless.

The hissing intensified, and he heard the scuffing of footsteps. Moans. He should’ve worn his sunglasses, but they were up front.

Tenner loaded an extended magazine capable of holding thirty-three rounds into the Glock 18. He flicked the selector switch to semi-automatic, not wanting to blow his load too quickly. He then pulled out the twin of the Glock and loaded it as well. He holstered both pistols, inspecting each magazine.

In the shine of the SUV’s body, he could see a shadow lumbering toward him from behind. His peripheral vision picked up movement coming at him from the station itself. It was a veritable mob. Tenner would never have suspected the Irving station to be such a welcoming pit stop for so many motorists.

He looked over his remaining weapons and ammunition in the rear, wondering if there was anything he missed. None he could see. He didn’t like using the heavier stuff for such occasions, preferring the more personal devastation of the pistols. Believing he was ready, he turned around and saw the first zombie staggering toward him with its black mouth open. About a dozen others followed.

“Philistines.” He wasn’t religious, but he liked the sound of the word. He drew both of his pistols and extended his arms.

In three seconds, he unleashed thunder at the zombies, their heads exploding with each measured shot and their bodies dropping in rapid sequence. The last zombie spun with half of its skull missing, and Tenner put a finishing bullet into the brain matter that remained. He then turned to face the zombies coming at him from the station. Tenner stepped away from his SUV, waiting patiently for the zombies to close, shaking out the shock in his arms from firing the Glocks so rapidly. His father would have bawled him out for doing that. His father didn’t need much of a reason to bawl him out, which was one of the reasons Tenner had had no problem putting a bullet in the old bastard’s head. The old man had already turned into a zombie, but that was beside the point.

One corpse stepped out from behind a sedan, and Tenner took aim. The head shattered when he fired, and Tenner mentally thanked his old man for not only stockpiling the weapons and ammo, but the hollow points as well. Well over two thousand rounds of ammunition. If Tenner didn’t know better, he would’ve thought his father had actually anticipated the rise of the Philistines and prepared accordingly. That, or he just felt nothing killed better than the specialized bullets. Tenner had to admit that having the extended twins in his hands gave him an incredible surge of power. With his boys, he felt there wasn’t much on the highway he couldn’t handle. And if there was, well, that was just more of a challenge.

Tenner fired a round into the kneecap of one zombie, exploding the joint, while at the same time blowing a huge hole in and out of the body of another. He chastised himself for wasting bullets, but goddamn if it didn’t feel good to play. He executed both corpses as they tried to rise from the ground, the tops of their heads splattering to the stutter of the Glocks. He took an arm off at the shoulder of one, spinning the zombie about like a top before stopping its whirl by firing a round into its ear. He blasted the heads off three in quick succession before dropping to a knee, sighting another target, and blowing out one zombie’s pelvic region. He turned from left to right, killing the undead with the focused calmness of one used to playing first-person video games. He took the heads off two zombies with the gun in his right hand, while putting down the pelvis-shot zombie crawling towards him with his left. Three more had their faces shot off and wholly destroyed. A boy-sized zombie came around the corner of a car, not ten feet away from where he knelt, and Tenner took his time lining up the smaller cranium before bursting it with one squeeze of the trigger.

Then there were no more.

He got to his feet and surveyed the dead. The place had gotten much quieter. He shook out his arms, feeling the after-ache of firing so many rounds, and got to his feet. Carnage. Raw and unimpeded by anyone’s law, that was what he liked about the world of today, the ability to unleash hell and muzzle it as he saw fit. Jesus Christ and balls of holy hand grenades, but it was awe-inspiring. And satisfying––better than a cold beer after a ten kilometer hike, that was for sure. Tenner wanted the dead to rise again so he’d have just cause to blow the fuck out of them once more.

They did not, however. Well, fuck ‘em, Tenner thought and went among the cars, searching. Nothing made a grab for him as he reached the Irving station’s open door and looked inside. The shelves had already been picked clean of supplies, not that he had expected to find anything. It was becoming harder to scavenge anything of use. He suspected that, unless he found the armory in Halifax, his days with the twins were numbered.

He entered the station and walked to the men’s room. There, he holstered his pistols and took a leak, peeing in the sink, across the wall and broken urinal, and making a loop. Once finished, he tried the water and got not even a trickle. He flick-dried his hands, knowing they weren’t wet in the least, but not giving a shit. Next, he went through the restaurant area, ignoring the dry human remains littering the floor. The kitchen area was empty, as was the dining area. Nothing to scavenge anywhere. Unfortunate. Food might become a concern, as it was running low. Tenner thought it too bad that he couldn’t eat one of the zombies. That would make things bearable instead of foraging from town to town.

Having made the stop, he figured he might as well get some gas. He walked back to his SUV and hauled out a twenty-liter red plastic gas container, a metal stake and mallet, a funnel, and two large plastic bowls. He went to the nearest car, a Dodge sedan, and got under it. He located the plastic tank and got the bowls into position to catch the falling gas. Tenner worked quietly, looking around occasionally, though he knew he’d hear anyone before he saw them. He punched a hole in the tank and let the gas flow into a bowl. Gasoline. Twenty years after peak oil, and the world still thirsted for it. Well, he mused, not anymore. It was probably the most abundant resource on the planet. Every derelict car and truck was a mini-deposit of regular or unleaded. He repeated the tapping process for six more cars until he filled the gas container. He used the container to top off the tank of the SUV, then filled the container again. Once finished, he lugged it back to the rear of his ride, grimacing at the weight. He secured the fuel in back, scanned the highway left and right, and sized up the Irving station.

Quiet. Too damn quiet. The natives were obviously planning something. Chuckling, he removed his leather holsters. He hauled out a box of nine-millimeter shells, the hollow tip kind, and took the time to reload each of his pistols’ long magazines before placing them back into their toolboxes. Ordinarily, he would clean them at the end of an encounter, but being the only guy around was making him feel relaxed. He would do it tonight, just before sleep.

Checking on the gas container and guns once more and ensuring all was secured for transport, Tenner closed the rear door and walked around to the driver’s side. He reached up and patted the plastic carrier on top, where he stowed a few extra goodies. He got behind the wheel and started up the engine.

Ahead lay the carcass of one of the Philistines. Headless and staining the asphalt with brain matter.

A bad place to lie down, Tenner thought, and shifted into drive.

He slowly drove over the unmoving body, relishing the soft squish and bump as it went underneath his wheels.

7

Gus replaced his motorcycle jacket with his spare, thankful for the practice of keeping at least two of everything when he could, and hosed the dead matter off the van and grill guard. That was one thing he didn’t like doing, cleaning up after hitting some of the fuckers. He didn’t throw the damaged jacket away, thinking perhaps he could repair it somehow later.

There would be no mistakes this time, he thought while arming himself with shots of Crown Royal. The freak-out from before was an isolated incident. Or so he hoped.

Gus drove down the highway toward Annapolis. The late morning sun glowed in a cloudless sky, but its heat didn’t reach the city. He drove through the outskirts, spotting a gimp every now and again, and thinking it strange to see so much activity. Their movements on the whole struck him as tidal, being in one area one day, and drifting to another en masse, driven by whatever mystery animated them in the first place. Smells and sounds attracted them, but sight couldn’t be possible. Not with some of the undead he’d seen with their faces chewed off. Whatever the reason, more of them were wandering the streets of Annapolis than before, and that made him nervous.

Perhaps there was someone alive there. Someone who had shot at his van.

He proceeded at a speed of forty and kept his visor up to see better. He found the turnoff for the subdivision he had almost died in two days ago and slowed to thirty, looking for signs of the living.

What he saw made his jaw drop.

The zombies he’d put down were gone, all gone. Whatever fluids had remained in their husks stained and marked the places where the creatures died, but the bodies had disappeared. A feeling of unease swelled within him. He exhaled in wary amazement, feeling his breath reflect off his helmet and heat his face. Where had they gone? He eased his foot onto the brake and stopped the van, taking in the sight before him. The door of the house he had visited remained open. He stretched to see, making the leather seat creak, then sat back and just listened. There was no sound but the dull buzz of silence. He lowered the window and stuck out his head. The area seemed clear, and the fresh air chilled his face.

Raising the window, Gus mulled things over. He backed up to the open door of the house. Loaded shotgun in hand, he opened the rear door and jumped to the porch. Cautiously, with his shotgun held firmly against his shoulder, he entered the house. He paused on the threshold, listening, but heard nothing. Fear began to take hold, and for a moment, he wished he had a bottle of something to drive it away. He struggled with going back into the house or simply bolting back to his fortress, forever leaving the seemingly haunted place. Perhaps the dead had become able to get up and move around without heads? That thought made his jaw drop. If that was possible, what other way was there to stop the things? Dismemberment? Fire?

Taking a breath, Gus flexed his fingers on the pump of his weapon and proceeded down the stairs, focusing on the corners just ahead. He moved right, then left, swinging the shotgun in each direction. He quickly established the basement area as clear and went upstairs, waiting to hear a thump of something moving. A squeaky floorboard, something dragging along the floor, or something.

Gus snaked into the living room, his shotgun sashaying from side to side. He sized up the room though the sights of the weapon, then crept into the kitchen. Clearing that, he moved into the bedrooms, all the while waiting for a gimp or some other unknown fright to pounce. He expected the worst, and even when he inspected the closets of the house, not finding anything did nothing to release his tension in the least. And Christ, did he want a drink.

He retreated back to the van, still wary. The thought of how soldiers in combat situations ever coped with the constant alertness, of being ever aware of their surroundings in the field, was beyond him. All he wanted to do was get home and do shots. Many shots.

With a sense of relief, he boarded his van and got behind the driver’s seat. The road, houses, light poles, and fire hydrants were all forlorn-looking in the growing sun. Gus sensed the not-rightness of the scene, and it bothered him, bothered him enough for him to want to get the hell out of there and back to his bat cave. He pulled out of the driveway and turned back the way he had come. In the distance, a zombie pulled across a front lawn, the dark body leaving a crease in the tall yellow grass. Behind that one, three others emerged from around the corner of the house.

Gus picked up speed. The zombie crawling along the lawn moved quickly, like an energized snail, dragging one leg that appeared broken. Only four of them, Gus thought, and decided to crush the nearest one under the front tires of the van.

Gus pushed on the gas.

The gimp crawling on the ground looked up and clawed at the air.

And Gus’s eyes widened.

8

Four Days Earlier

“You ready?” Teddy looked at them, squinting because of the sunlight coming in through the windshield.

“Yeah,” Lea answered from the passenger’s seat, strangling her aluminum bat with both hands. Her eyes were wide and eager, like a bungee jumper about to take the plunge.

Scott nodded with a souped-up kind of jerk that spoke of nerves and adrenalin. He held his shotgun with the barrel pointed to the ceiling of the minivan.

Teddy grinned at him. “You look like you’re about to shit yourself.”

“Yeah.” Scott’s eyes flicked to the window. His scruffy face hitched up on one side in a sinus-clearing snort.

“Remember to breathe out there, okay?”

“Fuck off, Teddy.”

Teddy grinned again and held up his hardwood nightstick to inspect the surface. Bats and clubs were better than shotguns in his opinion. The only thing you had to worry about with them was getting in close enough to use it. A shotgun was fine when you had ammo, but Teddy knew Scott only had two shots left in that boomstick of his. Then Scott would have to use his medieval-looking, spiked horseman’s pick that he had gotten from the museum. Teddy didn’t like the pick. Originally a cavalry weapon, the thing was heavy, made of metal, and had a hammer head on one side and a single, slightly curved spike on the other. Teddy thought it was great for puncturing skulls, but after that, Scott really had to wrench hard to free it for another swing. The guy still held onto the century-old weapon, finding comfort in the weight of the thing. Teddy thought it was simply too slow. Give him a bat any day… if he didn’t have a gun on hand, that is.

“Awright.” Teddy put his hand on the door handle. “Get it done.”

He burst from the side of the blue Dodge minivan, while the others jumped out of their own doors. They ran for a large green two-story house, only twenty feet away. The three of them wore plain clothes under puffy winter coats. Lea’s ponytail flopped as she zigzagged, and Teddy had the image of her bouncing up and down on top of him. Those thoughts always seemed to happen in the morning and whenever he saw her without her coat. It hadn’t happened yet, but it would soon. She didn’t seem too hot on Scott, who was something of a bruiser, which made Teddy the only ride left in town.

They clustered around the front door of the home. Lea got a hand on the knob while Scott stood behind her with his back to the house, keeping a lookout with his pump shotgun and his horseman’s pick slung across his back with a loop of rope. The door opened without any problem.

“Go, go!” Teddy urged, pushing Lea on her lower back and urging her inside. He went in right behind her. Scott followed and closed the door a moment later, pulling a curtain aside to keep an eye on the minivan.

Teddy held up a hand, and they listened for movement. After a moment, Teddy rapped the wall twice. To the right lay a hallway and open living room. To the left was a kitchen and a pair of sliding doors leading to the backyard. A set of bare wooden stairs in the living room ran up to the second floor and down into a basement level.

Teddy rapped the wall a second time. “Nothing,” he finally said.

“Could be downstairs,” Lea suggested.

“Could be,” Teddy agreed, wondering how her breasts would feel in his bare hands. Shaking the image out of his head, he moved ahead of her and peered down. He rapped the wall there and stood poised for action. When none came, he edged around and looked up toward the second floor. “Nothing here. They would’ve come running if there were. I’ll check downstairs.”

He descended and checked around. He went back up minutes later.

“What’s down there?” Lea asked.

“Den, laundry, and extra bedroom. Anything move up here?”

“No.”

“Scott?” Teddy asked.

“All clear,” Scott said from where he waited on the porch.

“Okay, let’s check upstairs,” Teddy said, holding his nightstick in one hand. “Watch my back.”

They moved up the stairs cautiously and stepped into a reading area with a large wooden shelving unit pressed against the wall. Paperbacks and hard covers filled the five shelves, and a cozy reading chair and foot rest stood nearby.

“Looks good,” Teddy commented. “Love to read.”

“Me too. Wonder what’s there?”

“Go ahead, I’ll check the bedroom.”

“I’ll come with you,” Lea said, and Teddy hoped she would. Often.

They slipped inside the master bedroom. A dark blue comforter with matching pillows covered a king-sized bed. A fan hung motionless overhead. A chest of drawers rested against one wall, and a flat-screen TV on a dresser faced the bed. To the right lay the open door to a bathroom.

Teddy looked in. “They have a big tub.”

Lea moved into the doorway, close enough that he could smell her. He didn’t know how she did it, but she always managed to smell fresh.

“It is a big one,” Lea said, eyeing the creamy white tiling.

“Almost big enough for two,” Teddy threw out there and got a funny look from her. He seized up, bracing for whatever reaction might come. They had been together for a month, the three of them having met, oddly enough, on the same day in the business section of city, but it was the first time he had dared crossed the line.

To his shocked relief, Lea smiled. “We’ll have to try it to see.”

Teddy could only nod like a dummy.

“Hey.” Lea pointed to the window. “Look over there.”

Teddy gazed out of the window toward a neighboring house. He went to the window and looked out across the fenced backyard, complete with a swing set. On the other side stood the house facing the next road over. Teddy never liked city planning, didn’t like the way houses crowded in on a person from all sides. Looking over the fence, they were at an angle to see straight into the other house’s living room through a curtained sliding door.

“What?”

“That curtain just got shoved back. I saw it just now.” Lea stood beside him, closer than before.

“Just now?”

“Yes, just now.”

“Hmm.” Teddy kept his eyes on the curtain, but it didn’t move. “Want to check it out?”

Lea seemed to mull that over. “Couldn’t be a zombie. They don’t care about curtains.”

“Agreed. So what do you want to do?”

“Let’s check it out.”

Teddy studied the backyard. A fixed gate in the fence separated the two houses. The owners had probably been good friends or even family. They moved back downstairs and went to the sliding door.

“Scotty,” Ted called from the kitchen area.

The man appeared with shotgun at the ready.

“Lea spotted something in the next house over, so we’re going to check it out.”

“Spotted what?”

“Something pulled a curtain across the window.”

“A curtain?” Scotty’s face screwed up in disbelief.

“Yeah, you coming?” Lea asked, standing at the sliding door.

“I guess,” Scotty said, not sounding confident in the least. It didn’t bother Teddy. Scotty worried about everything.

“All right. Let’s go. Ready?”

Scotty lumbered over to where he and Lea poised to bolt. Lea nodded, and Teddy unlocked the door and slid it open.

“Go,” Teddy whispered and launched himself out of the doorway, staying hunched over. All three bunched up at the gate in the fence, and Teddy opened it without a squeak. Inside the other backyard, they quietly and quickly gained the steps to the new house’s deck and paused at the sliding window.

“Where to?” Lea asked.

Teddy tried the door. It opened easily with a hushed rumble. He pulled back the curtain and went in, the others following in turn. They entered a dining room with a modern kitchen to the right. Just past the table was an open living room, complete with a brown sofa, matching chairs, a fireplace, and a widescreen TV. An open stairway led up and down, in the same fashion as the previous home. They spread out in the kitchen, and Teddy strained to listen, but heard nothing.

He looked at Lea and shook his head. Lea shook her head back. Scotty pulled the sliding door closed and stood ready with his shotgun. Hooking the curtain with a finger, Scotty peeked outside.

“You stay here,” Teddy ordered Scott before motioning for Lea to follow him. They moved to the right and found an empty bathroom and bedroom for a teenage boy.

“Nothing,” Lea whispered.

Upstairs, something creaked.

They both froze. Teddy pointed to the ceiling, and Lea nodded. He listened, but the sound didn’t repeat. From the sliding door, Scott stared at both of them with a look of unease. Teddy shrugged, and a clump sounded overhead, the sound of a heavy boot coming down on the floor.

Stepping lightly, Teddy backed up, following the direction of the sound and keeping his eyes on the ceiling. He held his nightstick at the ready. Across from him, Lea did the same, lifting her bat.

Clump.

They froze. Scott divided his attention from the outside to the ceiling. Teddy lifted his shotgun, asking if he should be ready to shoot or not. Scott waved him off. He knew Teddy had an itchy trigger finger. It was better to save the sh––

Clump.

Then, the soft squeal of planks pressing against each other.

Clump.

Teddy heard the sound of something being slowly pushed, as if bumped, followed by another clump, moving across the ceiling.

Teddy backed up, his eyes fixed upward. He clacked his bat against the wall to get the zombie’s attention.

An answering clump, followed two long seconds later by another.

Adjusting his grip on the nightstick, he slipped into the living room and faced the stairway. Lea flanked him with her bat held across her midsection. He pointed to the landing above and the shadow drawing bigger on the wall beyond it. He heard another step. The thing was wearing boots of some sort. It drew closer to the edge of the wall, walking very slowly, and both Ted and Lea held their breaths, waiting to see what the horror was and anticipating the worse.

Once before, they had entered a house where they heard the squeaking of a rocking chair and eventually confronted the undead grandmother, still in her pink house coat. The creature had rocked and grinned at them with white dentures half hanging out of a mouth festered with black sores.

The one above moved slowly, but then a tip of something came into view, at hip level, and withdrew.

“C’mon out, you bastard,” Teddy whispered.

“Excuse me?” a voice said, and a face timidly peeked around the corner.

Lea let out her breath, and Teddy’s relief made him smile.

“Hey,” Teddy said. “Thought you were a zombie, man.”

“Really?” the face came into view, partially in shadows. “I thought you guys were zombies. Christ. I think I shit myself.”

Lea giggled.

“What’s happening?” Scotty asked from his position at the door.

“It’s okay, man,” Teddy assured him. “Just another scavenger. Whew.”

“Don’t shoot me, okay? I have a gun, see? My name’s Tenner.” The man moved onto the landing and held up what looked to be an impressive sidearm with something long sticking out of the grip.

“Not gonna shoot you,” Teddy said, watching Tenner come halfway down the steps and look in the direction of Scotty at the sliding door. “Man, I’m just glad––“

With frightening quickness, Tenner shot Scotty in the back, blowing him face first into the glass door. The sound of the shot exploded in the narrow confines of the house, and Teddy was momentarily paralyzed by the scene. More than enough time for Tenner–– who had a wild-looking ponytail––to swing the gun back at Teddy and shoot out his knee. Lea screamed and turned to run. A bullet caught her heel, splitting her boot and separating the pad of hardened flesh from the bone. She fell face first into the sofa.

Teddy groaned in agony and clasped his ruined knee. Tenner stepped over to him and aimed the gun at his face. Teeth clenched and tears streaming from his eyes, Teddy moaned loud enough to cause his attacker to frown.

“You weren’t careful enough, man.” The gun didn’t waver. “Can never be too careful.”

A motorcycle boot broke Teddy’s jaw and knocked him unconscious.

*

The girl screamed. Tenner stood over the first guy’s body long enough to be satisfied that he was out, while keeping his gun on the girl. Finally satisfied, he stepped away from the unmoving man and moved closer to her, levelling the gun at her face.

“Oh, my,” Tenner said. “You’re a sexy one.”

She swung her bat at his knees, but he knew it couldn’t have much power behind it with her stuck sitting on the sofa. He easily hopped away from the blow. “Now, now. Relax. I don’t want to shoot you again.”

“Fuck you!”

“I can do this the hard way or the easy way. It’s your choice.”

“Fuck you!” she screamed again.

He shook his head and sprang forward. She swung the bat again, and he caught it with one hand and punched her in the face with the other, once to split her lips, a second to break her jaw, and then a third time to blacken one of her eyes. She didn’t make any noise after the second punch.

Satisfied his guests were subdued, he went back to the one he had shot in the knee and kicked his face, just in case he was napping. He pointed a finger at the woman on the couch and kissed the air as he moved past her and went to the sliding door. The third guy lay in a widening pool of blood. Two out of three, Tenner thought. Not bad for a morning’s work. Rolling up the sleeves of his sweatshirt, he dragged both the woman and the man he’d shot in the leg down into the basement. Tenner had discovered earlier that the previous owner of the house had been something of a carpenter. There were plenty of wooden support beams in the guy’s underground workshop.

In the basement, he put duct tape over their wounds. Then, he used it to tape their ankles and wrists together. He tapped a long spike of a nail into one beam, then turned and put another nail into a second beam. He lifted the man onto the first beam, and then the woman to the other, hooking their taped wrists on the nails. After adding more duct tape to their ankles and wrists, Tenner stood back and admired his work. Both of them looked like offerings one might see in a jungle movie, where the hero or heroine gets tied to a pole by god-fearing natives, facing the jungle where something would emerge.

Thinking about old movies, he went out to his SUV and got his knives. They were special ceremonial knives he’d once bought online for top dollar, shiny and curved with skinning edges, molded handles, and spiked metal bands to protect his fingers.

Tenner hadn’t worked on a living person in a while, and he suspected he was somewhat rusty. He wanted to save the woman for later, but he knew he wouldn’t be able to keep his hands––or his knives––off of her. Shrugging, he gave in. Living people were increasingly hard to come by in the new world, but it was a world where someone like Tenner could hunt without fear of reprisal. The one nice thing was that he didn’t have to rely on chemicals like ether to subdue his victims. He could be brutally direct, provided he could find living people. Before the collapse of the world and the dead rising, Tenner had taken the lives of eleven people across the country. He’d planned to hit Nova Scotia last before taking a ferry from Yarmouth and going down into Maine. Or Boston. Wherever the ferries went. And have a travelling slit show right down to the Mexican border.

He’d read on some very select forums online that a lot of fun could be had in Mexico.

The world turning upside down had ended all of that. Not that it mattered. Tenner liked the new world just fine.

The woman woke up as he removed her sweater with a knife. She screamed when he went to work on her bra.

*

Somewhere in his night, Scott heard the screams. He heard Lea cry out repeatedly, and he struggled to wake up. Then he heard Teddy scream, screams like something a dying animal might make. Those sounds stayed with him as the tide pulled him back, deep into unconsciousness, protecting him like a dark cloak being drawn over his head.

*

Scott opened his eyes.

It was dark. His face was on the floor. His back wailed, and he turned his head, feeling something sticky against his cheek. Taking a breath, he lowered his head back to the floor with a grimace and listened. Quiet. Too quiet. His back throbbed. He stayed prone for a while before rolling over, which was a bad idea all-around. When his back hit the floor, a web of pain rippled out from one point, and Scott thought he remembered being hit with a hammer of some sort. That was the last thing he could recall. No, wait… he remembered the screams, those terrible pleading screams that started off as human, but became frayed, like vocal chords under extreme duress, and finally snapping, if such a thing were possible.

Taking in shallow, but steady breaths, he studied the shadows of the ceiling. He strained, but heard only the wind outside, and the occasional creak of the house. No footsteps, no snoring.

Gritting his teeth, he pulled himself up from the sticky floor, and with his limited night vision, he saw the dark white of the linoleum covered by a messy black circle. Puzzled, he reached around and probed his hurting back. He felt holes and a sting that was more like a stab, and drew away fingers coated in black. Holy shit. He’d been shot! He hadn’t been hit by a hammer; he’d been plugged! Blown away!

Groaning, he got both knees under him while grabbing a nearby countertop. With a push, he got to his feet and flopped over the counter, suddenly dizzy. He took deep breaths and listened to the house. Whoever had shot him might very well still be around. He spotted the dark rod of his shotgun at his feet. Gritting his teeth, he bent over and picked up the weapon, all in one slow motion and thanking Christ that he got it right the first time because he knew there was no fucking way of going down there again. Not in his current world of hurt.

He looked into the kitchen area—empty. He looked toward the living room, saw the pale glow of moonlight outside, and shambled over to the stairs. The stairs. The guy had been coming down the steps.

My name’s Tenner. He’d heard that much before being shot in the back. Shot in the back. His train of thought drew him up short. He staggered to the nearby sofa and lay down his shotgun. He unslung the horseman’s pick from his back and brought it up close to his eyes. In the gloom, there was light enough to see where the bullet had hit the metal shaft of the weapon. He dropped the thing onto the sofa and prodded his right side, just under the arm. There was a bloody hole in his coat there, no doubt to match the one in his back. The bullet must have hit the metal shaft, not square on, but enough to deflect it to one side, where it cut through the meat of his back at an angle and popped out the front. He took a breath. It hurt, and he wiped his mouth. Blood covered his palm and gave him a fright. Then, he realized he had been lying in a pool of his own blood for hours. He bent over and wiped his face on the upholstery of the sofa, then coughed into his hand. It hurt, but after a palm wipe and intense study, he knew his lung hadn’t been pierced. He might have broken a rib or two, but he’d broken one of those when he was a kid, and knew there wasn’t anything he could do about it.

Retrieving his shotgun, he walked over to the stairs. He shambled upward, leaning heavily against the wall for support. Three quarters of the way up, he decided that either Tenner was stone deaf or wasn’t upstairs any longer. He reached the top and went around to the bedroom, reading area, and bathroom. All empty. That left the basement.

The basement. The very word sent a chill through him. The basement had always been one of those places in houses that scared him, more so than an attic. People were buried in the ground, and Scott believed that existing below the earth, even, he thought with a shudder, sleeping in basement bedrooms, somehow violated some mystic rule that only the dead knew, but were more than willing to let the living in on the secret. Still, Teddy and Lea were probably down there, and he owed it to them to save them.

If they were alive, which he didn’t think they were.

Scott eased his way back down, and made his way around to the steps leading to the basement. He couldn’t see anything below. As black as the grave, was his clichéd thought, but it still gave him a feeling of dread going down there. He knew it was going to be bad. His heart told him not to go down there. Told him they were both dead.

Aiming his shotgun, he took the first step. Then another. Then a third, grimacing at the wood’s squeal.

On the fourth step, his foot became entangled with something, and his feet went out from under him. His head hit the edge of the steps, and the impact yanked his consciousness back from his eyes and plunged him into that same black well.

*

The smell roused him.

Scott opened his eyes to daylight shining in from a window and winced. Realizing he had landed on his back and slid down the steps, he gingerly moved his arms and his legs. His right ankle screamed. It probably wasn’t broken, but it sure as hell wasn’t happy. He looked around the room and gasped at what he saw hanging from the support beams in the basement. His two companions, stripped of clothing and gutted, their flesh as pale as pearl. Bloody innards pooled at their feet like a macabre heap of sausage skins and coffee grounds. He looked away, not wanting to see any further details, not wanting to see their faces. The smell grew more powerful in his nose and mouth, and he tried to limit breathing in air fouled by decomposing tissue, shit, urine, and whatever else. Making a face, he retrieved his shotgun which had, thankfully, not fallen far from him. On the floor in a pool of blood lay Teddy’s nightstick, which Scott thought was most likely what had tripped him. He took a painful breath and hopped onto his one good foot. He got halfway up the steps before having to stop.

Then, he heard the gunshots.

The noise made him jerk his head up, and he looked wonderingly at the top of the steps. Was it Tenner? Setting his jaw, he climbed. More shots rang out. Had the undead caught up with the killer? A killer! Scott shook his head as he struggled upward. Of all the sick bastards to survive the end of the world.

He heard another barrage of heavy gunfire as he reached the top of the steps. He knelt on the carpet and crawled over to the drape-covered picture window. Hooking a corner of the curtain, he peeked out at a swarm of undead gathering in the street. They walked toward the house next door, and he spotted a van parked in front of it. A man, decked out in leather and wearing a motorcycle helmet, got aboard the battered vehicle. Undead crowded around it like flies to shit.

Anger flooded Scott’s senses. He yanked open a smaller window set in the larger frame and punched the barrel of the shotgun through the screen mesh. Ready to exact revenge, he aimed for the driver’s window, trying to steady himself, but a second later, the van lurched forward. It grill-butted a bunch of zombies and plowed onward, bursting through several more as it sped off down the street. The sounds of walking corpses being hit filled the air. Then the driver did a crazy thing. He turned and crashed through a fence. Even through the glass, Scott heard the impact and the ferocious roar of the engine as it cut through to the road behind the row of houses. The van came back, gaining speed, and Scott knew he would have an almost impossible shot. He shouldn’t even waste the shell, but then he thought of Teddy and Lea hanging in the basement.

Tracking the speeding van as it flashed through the gaps between houses, he saw it appear for a second at the mouth of the street, framed in his mind’s eye, and he squeezed the trigger. The blast knocked him on his back and almost caused him to black out from the pain. He struggled back up to a sitting position and gazed out the window. The van was gone.

The undead remained in the street.

Fright engulfed him as he pulled the window closed and lay flat on his back, breathing rapidly. He thought about closing the curtains entirely, but he was afraid they might see the activity. Then, he remembered the smell from below, and how he had opened the window.

Whump.

The front door.

He clutched at his shotgun, knowing he had one more shell in the weapon and hoping to fuck he didn’t have to use it. Getting to his knees, he made the painfully slow crawl toward the steps. He couldn’t go down into the basement. Not with them down there. He made it to the stairs and headed up.

Whump. Whump-whump.

Shadows against the window. How long before they came through the glass? The door? He pawed his way up the stairs, pushing his shotgun ahead, blood pounding in his ears until he came to the landing. The reading area on his left, the bedroom on his right. The sound of a door opening below made him jerk around in fright, splayed out on the landing like a turtle caught on a narrow beach.

Hissing.

He moved toward the bedroom. Somehow resisting the urge to charge that last room, he crawled to it as quietly as possible. Below, the hissing seemed to multiply. They were in the house. Scott got his ass into the bedroom and closed the door with a grimace. He lay on the brown carpet and looked to the right. A bathroom lit by a skylight. He crawled in there. Gasping, he lugged his damaged ankle inside and closed the door as quietly as possible.

They can smell, his mind told him. They can smell you.

He glanced around the bathroom and finally snaked his way toward the gleaming white tub in the back, next to the toilet. He hauled himself up, flipped his legs over, and sat down in the body-length bathtub. Breathing hard from pain and exertion, he faced the closed door. Thumping came from below, and he wasn’t sure exactly where they were, but they were under him. He aimed the shotgun at the door, then thought better of it and reversed it, tucking the barrel against his neck and wedging the shoulder stock between his legs. If they came through, he would have a second, maybe two, before––

More noise beyond the door. Scott’s senses zeroed in on the dark wood, and he wished, prayed, bargained that nothing would come up the stairs. He placed the barrel of the gun underneath his chin. Defcon 1, he thought blackly, and took care placing his thumb on the trigger guard. The clumping below seemed closer, and he wondered just how many were down there. He had no chance, none at all. The undead flooded a place once they caught the smell of meat.

A crash and a loud moan. More scuffling. Another crash, perhaps a window.

Scott’s thumb drifted towards the trigger until the edge of his fingernail was all that kept him in this world. He squeezed his eyes closed, not wanting to see what might burst through the door. He willed the creatures below to leave. He fought down an urge to moan in terror as his mind played dark movies in his brain, delighting in pointing out how the next few seconds could possibly go down.

A loud rumble came from below, and he opened his eyes. It sounded like…

His mouth parted in horrified realization. The smell. They smelled Teddy’s and Lea’s bodies in the basement and one––or more––had fallen down the steps. The sounds of more bodies thumping their way into the basement reached him, and he eased his thumb off the trigger. He had a few more moments of life, thanks to his companions below. He had never thought of Teddy and Lea as friends, having only met them on the road, but they were protecting him, diverting the zombies. He pictured the scene in the basement, the decomposing bodies hung like meat slabs in a freezer, and a throng of undead stumbling upon them. He shook his head, not wanting to think anymore. He didn’t want to think about that first bite, didn’t want to see where the undead would start eating, the abdominal cavity or the pooled guts on the floor. Or even the faces, his traitorous mind suddenly added, thinking of lips and noses.

And above all, he didn’t want to hear the sounds. He clenched his eyes and jaw shut as he turned and pressed his forehead against the cool metal of the shotgun’s barrel.

*

They had left him alone.

The day stretched on. He sat with his sprained ankle balanced on the rim of the tub and tried to make himself as comfortable as possible. After the first hour, he shifted to relive the subtle aches in his body, but he dared not get out, dared not even breathe, for fear of attracting the attention of the guests below. The shotgun stayed in the tub with him, ready to blow his head off if necessary.

Somewhere in the third hour, he had to move. He placed the shotgun across the seat of the toilet and, grabbing the tub’s edges, pulled himself up, his triceps burning from the effort. Easing his body out of the tub quietly proved to be difficult with his gunshot wound and bad ankle, but he managed. He grasped the stock of the shotgun and took it off the can. It dragged loudly against the porcelain, and he bared his teeth and froze, listening and picturing the zombies below stopping in mid-chew, their decaying features coated in Teddy’s and Lea’s blood, to gaze up at the ceiling.

Nothing happened, however, and he eventually got the gun onto the floor beside him. There was a mat underneath him, and he got it out, rolled it up, and positioned it behind his head. His attention strayed to the door every so often. He sometimes froze and simply listened, hoping he would hear nothing that would give him nightmares later.

The sun drooped and fell, the skylight marking its descent and eventually draping the bathroom in darkness. The temperature dropped, and he shivered despite wearing a thick coat. In the swelling gloom, against the gleam of black marble tiling and creamy porcelain, Scott waited for that dreaded thump against the door. The undead could smell, but could they follow a scent like a dog? Was their sense that strong?

Sometime during the night, the sound of a struggle below jarred Scott from a semi-doze. The coldness of the room made him shiver again. He listened, blinking away sleep. More noise, muffled by the door and carpet, but growing stronger. Getting closer.

It faded, however, and Scott let out his breath as he sensed whatever it was heading into the kitchen. Maybe looking for a drink, his mind joked morbidly. Nothing like a beer to wash down a burger, his mind went on, or a greasy slab of pizza. Even a chicken leg. His eyes suddenly teared up at the images his mind was throwing at him. He would not scream out, though he suddenly felt the very real and very strong urge to do so. He hitched a sob, a muted thing, and sniffed wetly. Then, he steeled himself and took another settling breath. He felt the throb of his wounds and the exhaustion of his body. He wanted to sleep, but knowing they were still below him, he couldn’t relax. In the end, he moved to position himself on his belly, taking his rolled mat with him as a pillow, and faced the door. He stopped once, sounds from below making him pause until he thought it was safe to continue. When he got himself around and on his belly, he laid the shotgun at his side. He placed his head against the mat-pillow and hoped he wouldn’t snore if he fell asleep.

During that long torturous night, where squeaks of wood and soft bumps caused him to tense and stare at the door, he eventually drifted off.

And slept.

*

A loud crash woke him, and his fingers scrambled on the black marble tiling before finally locating the shotgun. He heard soft shuffling below, and still on his belly, he placed an ear to the tile and listened. Things moved, bumping into walls. Sometimes the makers of the noise paused, as if sensing something, before moving on.

At the quietest time in the day, in the afternoon, Scott eyed the toilet. He sat up and slowly edged his way to the flush box. He was thirsty, and wondered if there might have been anything in the container. His ankle still bothered him, but he managed to wedge himself into the space between the toilet and the tub and lift the cover. He forced himself up and peeked in.

Dry as a bone.

All of that effort for nothing. Disappointed, he replaced the cover and lay back down. He thought of starving, or dying of thirst. He wouldn’t allow it, however, not while he still had the one shell left. He would risk going to Hell rather than suffer through a slow death from thirst. God would understand.

The day wore on, and he tried to sleep, cat naps that weren’t restful, but more like something in the gray between being awake and death itself. He periodically heard movement below, but it didn’t bother him as much as before.

He opened his eyes and thought that the day had moved on, just from the shadow from the skylight. His stomach rumbled. He got onto the toilet and voided, grateful that the owners of the house had left an almost full roll of toilet paper. He couldn’t flush, and it smelled, but there was nothing he could do about it. Mentally shrugging, he lay back down and waited.

For what, he didn’t know.

*

All the next day, Scott lived in perpetual dread of the undead discovering him. The previous night had been terrible, as he couldn’t completely rest. Every time he was about to fall asleep, a noise from downstairs would hook him back to consciousness, and he would spend the next hour listening, trying to pinpoint where the sound had come from. He didn’t feel the need to pee anymore, and that made him suspect something was wrong. The smell from the toilet didn’t help his situation either, and he wondered how long it would take for his shit to dry up and become odourless. He had no idea about such things. Back in the real world, he had been a baker, and the toilets flushed. If he had known he would later be trapped in an upstairs bathroom with his own shit while the dead walked below and feasted on the last two people he knew in the world… well, he sure as Christ would have watched extra episodes of the Discovery Channel to brush up on the subject.

Sometime in the afternoon, he believed that a long time of quiet had passed. The idea came to him to try to make a run for it. Bleary-eyed, he sat up and tried standing on his ankle. It crackled with pain as he increased the weight on it. At the same time, something moved below and seemed to be coming up the stairs. The noise culminated in a loud crashing, and then silence. The commotion was more than enough to freak him out, and he put a hand on his shotgun, ready to exit the world with one squeeze of the trigger. The noise retreated to another area of the house, and Scott eased off the trigger. His mind teased him with the image of being on a wide piece of wood siding, floating somewhere in the South Pacific, with sharks circling relentlessly, just waiting for an ankle to slip and dip into the warm water. And he knew then, he just knew, he was going to die.

His eyes teared up, and he buried his face into his winter coat to weep… for fear of the dead hearing him.

*

Scott heard a zombie on the steps.

He had woken up to a steady clumping on the steps, a slow, irregular beat, as if the thing had downed a bottle of booze and really had to concentrate on where to place the next step. Scott counted off four steps before he heard a more sinister noise, like someone leaning against the wall in a coat and dragging its zipper along the surface. And the low whining buzz drew closer. He got into a sitting position, placed the barrel of the weapon underneath his chin, and squeezed his eyes closed. The noise came closer, and something nudged the surface of the bathroom door, testing it. Scott inhaled deeply, knowing it would be the last breath he would take on God’s sunny earth. His thumb found the trigger, and his nail hooked on the guard, just a fraction of metal separating him and the unknown.

A heavy blow came to the door, forcing Scott to open his eyes. Another crash, and he saw the door bulge inward just a fraction. Another strike, spiking his fear to new heights.

Scott moaned. He felt the hard rim of the open barrel pressing into the softness under his chin. He swallowed. Another slam against the door was followed by that sobering hiss he knew so well, but fuck if he couldn’t pull the trigger. How much strength did a person have to have to do that one little simple movement? One quick squeeze and he would be off, and that would be that. He eyed the turning door handle, a curved lever and not the traditional knob, and Scott knew he hadn’t locked it. The lever turned down, then snapped back up, as if the thing on the other side had lost its grip. That was Scott’s chance, and he swore he would pull the trigger now, and yet goddammit, he couldn’t, even as the door handle went down and opened with a click loud enough for him to defecate himself if he had a full load in the pipes. The door swung open, and Scott moaned again and shook his head as a zombie that had to be four hundred pounds shambled into the doorway and fixed him with empty eye sockets filled with balls of worms.

The thing hissed, and Scott heard himself whimper of all things, but he could not bring himself to pull the trigger. He let out his breath in a burst of snot and tears and, red-eyed, stared at the fat dead man taking that one uncertain step toward him, followed by another. It crossed the black tile in slow shuffles that left grease stains on the clean surface. The smell from the thing made him gag, a putrid stench of meat that had been in the sun for far too long. A fleshy gray hand came up, and Scott saw that there was a hole the size of a golf ball in the palm, and the bones were coated black. That one hand reached for him. The face of the undead had half of its cheek chewed away to expose a row of teeth, making it appear to be smirking at him.

Something in Scott locked in place at that grinning corpse, before a greater sense took over, and he tilted the shotgun forward and blew the zombie’s head from its shoulders. The blast flung its reeking bulk backward to land with a splash on the floor.

Scott got to his feet. He had very little time. Moving around the headless corpse, he hopped out of the bathroom, leaning hard against the walls and taking the shotgun with him even though the thing was empty. He held onto the railing as he hopped heavily down the stairs. Sounds of hissing came from the basement, but he ignored them. He rounded the corner, found the front entryway, and slammed off balance against the door. His back and ankle cried out in pain, and Scott grabbed for the knob, yanking the door open with a grunt. Sunlight blazed in. He hopped down the steps on momentum alone before collapsing on the yellow lawn. His shotgun flew from his hand. Hisses cut the air behind him, closer than he thought possible.

Then, he heard the engine. There on the road, a van drove down the street toward him, while the hissing grew louder.

Scott gasped and raised his hand.

9

That’s no fucking gimp! The thought ripped through Gus’s mind, and he turned the wheel right at the figure lying on the yellow grass. He lined up the wheels of the beast at the last instant so that the vehicle went over the person and crashed into the three undead cocksuckers at the guy’s heels. The grill guard knocked them back ten feet, sending them to land in broken heaps.

Flipping his visor down, Gus swung open his door and jumped out. He ran over to the three deadheads just getting to their knees and caved in their skulls with his bat. He turned around and saw that the street was clear. It wouldn’t stay that way for long. He flipped the visor back up and went around to the side of the van. Dropping to his hands and knees, he peered under it and locked eyes with a very frightened-looking young man.

“You okay?” Gus asked.

“Yeah.” The guy smiled.

“C’mere.” Gus offered his hand, and the man took it. Gus pulled him out from under the van. “Get up and get in the van.”

The guy on the ground rolled onto his back and winced. “My ankle’s fucked up.”

Gus bent over and, grasping the guy’s arm, heaved the hurt man to his feet. Together, they struggled around the front of the van. Gus got the door open and pushed his soon-to-be passenger inside.

“My gun’s over there.” The man pointed. Gus turned and spotted a shotgun, a twelve gauge, just like his own. He scooped up the weapon and hurried back to the van. As expected, zombies emerged from between houses and shambled toward them. Gus didn’t give them another moment’s thought. He had gotten what he came for. He climbed aboard, tossed the extra shotgun in the back, buckled in, and shoved the beast into drive . The van smashed into three approaching corpses as it barrelled away from the house and into the street. He paused only for the moment it took to change gears, then they sped off toward the main drag.

“Buckled in?” Gus asked, leaning over the steering wheel.

A snick, then, “Yeah.”

“What’s your name?”

“Scott.”

“I’m Gus.” He glanced over once, then twice. The dude was staring at him. “What’re you looking at?”

The other man squinted in discomfort for a moment. “Nothing.”

Gus frowned before turning his attention back to the road.

The van turned onto the main street and began the drive home. Gus eased off the gas a little and glanced over at Scott—bulky and tall, thinning blond hair with a shitload of stubble, maybe a week’s worth. The guy had a fat face, which puzzled Gus.

“What’s up with the foot?”

“Fell down some stairs.”

“In that house?”

“Yeah.”

“Anyone with you?”

“Yeah.” Scott’s face became set then, and Gus didn’t have to ask any other questions on the matter.

“Where we going?” Scott asked after a bit.

“Back to my place.” Gus looked out the side window. “You can’t do much like you are. You’re lucky. I thought you were one of them.”

“Yeah.”

Hearing the weariness in the man’s voice, Gus looked over at and saw Scott press his head against the headrest. Scott’s eyes opened and closed slowly, as if his system was being hit by a heavy sedative.

“You relax,” Gus said over the growl of the engine. “It’s a twenty minute drive back to the house. Okay?”

Scott’s head had already slumped forward by the time Gus had finished speaking. Gus didn’t mind. The man was buckled in. Just as long as he didn’t snore.

“Don’t worry,” Gus added, and focused on the road.

*

Scott woke up in a bed, lying on his stomach with his cheek mashed into a pillow. He tried to roll over, but he felt pain when he pulled to his left. He realized then that he was stripped to the waist and bandaged. He lay underneath a thick comforter. He eyed the room, and from what he could see, the place was nice. A glass of water sat on a night table. He sat up, wincing at the tug in his ankle. He pulled back the blanket and gazed down to see that his ankle was heavily bandaged. Not bad, he thought, and inspected the cloth wraps looped around his chest. He took a deep breath, and it hurt, but considering where he was, he could bear it.

“Hey!” He reached for the glass of water and drank it all.

The door opened, and Gus walked in. Light gleamed off his bald head. “What?”

Scott eyed Gus uncertainly. “Where are we?”

“At my house. Interested in knowing how long you slept?”

“How long?”

“Two days. I got your boots off and bandaged up your foot there, and your bullet holes. I disinfected them with some peroxide. Best I could do with what I got.”

Scott placed the glass back on the table. “Thanks. Where’d the water come from?”

“Got a well.”

“A well?”

“Yeah, a fuckin’ well.” Gus frowned. “Why’s that a shock?”

“How do you…?” Scott shrugged.

“Get the water up?”

“Yeah.”

“Got an electric pump, too.” Gus leaned against the door frame. “I’m pretty much self-contained here.”

“Jesus, I’ll say.”

“It ain’t perfect, by any means. Solar panels on the roof take in energy and save it in a battery or some such bunk. I don’t understand it really, and I expect the whole damn works of it will die on me this coming winter. But it’s working now, and it operates the pump that draws up water from the well. Gotta cistern on the mountainside, too. Collects rainwater, or so I think.”

“Oh.” Scott arched his eyebrows in surprise.

“Yeah, but if you need to use the can, you use that bucket.” Gus indicated a five gallon plastic bucket near the bed, a roll of toilet paper beside it. “You fill that, give a holler, and I’ll empty it. We don’t use the toilets in the house; that’s rule one. There’s an outhouse out front. But I figure by the time you can use that, you’ll be ready to leave anyway.”

Scott nodded. He supposed he would.

“Regardless, you’re here now. If you need anything, give a shout. I got books, but I’m not moving the TV up here.”

“You have a TV?”

“Bet your ass I have a TV. Only one of a few things you can do up here. Flat-screen bastard as wide as your ass. Home entertainment system, too.”

“Jesus Christ.”

“Oh, yeah,” Gus said. “Got a full digital library of just about anything you want to see. Sports, old TV sitcoms, horror movies, comedies, action, you name it. Even got a bunch of foreign flicks down there.”

“How many people are here?” Scott asked.

Gus picked something off his black sweatshirt. “Just you and me.”

“That’s it?”

“Yep. Only you out there?” Gus asked.

“Just me now,” Scott said and rubbed at his growing beard.

“Hmm.” Gus looked down at the floor for a moment. “Were you the guy who shot my van?”

“Huh?”

Gus looked at him. “Were you the guy who shot my van?”

Scott thought about it. “Were you driving around that same area a couple of days ago?”

“Yep. I was. House picking.”

“Then I probably shot at you.”

Gus nodded. “You got my attention.”

Scott grimaced. “Thought you were someone else, man.”

“Oh, yeah? Who?”

“Didn’t see his face. He called himself Tenner. He… he killed the two people with me.”

“He killed two people?”

“Yeah.”

“Why?”

“Don’t know. I was at the back door when it happened. All I heard was them talking, and then I got punched in the back. I came to in a pool of my own blood, man. I had this war pick-hammer thingy I took from a museum slung over my back. The guy shot me, and the bullet went off the metal bar of the thing.”

“Lucky for you.”

“Yeah. The two folks I was with, he got them into the basement. Taped them up with duct tape and cut them. Sick fuck…”

“And he left you?”

“I figure he thought I was dead. When I woke up… the house was empty. And I heard your van out there. I spent two nights in that house’s upstairs bathroom with zombies stomping around downstairs. No water. Nothing. Then one of them caught a whiff of me or finally decided to check out the upstairs, and that was that. The game was on. I… I was this close to getting it.” He held up his hand with two fingers pinched almost together. “I even kept the one shell in my gun to blow off my own head.”

Gus listened with a pensive expression.

“But when the thing came into the bathroom…” Scott shook his head. “I couldn’t pull the trigger. I couldn’t. That bastard was maybe two or three steps away from me when I shot him. After that, I got the hell out of there. I knew there were others. If you hadn’t come by… well, anyway, thanks, man.”

The silence grew, and Gus finally broke it by straightening up and leaving his spot in the doorway. Scott remained in bed, the images swirling through his head of just how close he had come to dying, to being eaten by something dead but still running around. He collapsed back on the mattress and watched his hands shake until he made fists. He hadn’t had any nightmares, but he figured they would be coming, and they’d be dingers when they did.

Gus returned with two bottles. Pursing his lips, he walked over and held out both of them. One was a bottle of Crown Royal whiskey, the other, Captain Morgan dark rum.

Scott looked up at his host in puzzlement.

“Take one,” Gus offered.

“What?”

“You drink, don’t you?”

“Well, yeah, a little…”

“Then, take one. It’ll help. Sure as hell can’t hurt.”

Hands still shaking, Scott hesitantly took the whiskey.

“Good choice,” Gus said, and removed the cap from the bottle of rum. He gestured for Scott to do the same.

Gus waited until the man had the whiskey opened, then he dipped his head in a somber fashion and held out the bottle. “Cheers.”

Blinking, Scott clinked the whiskey bottle off the rum one. “Cheers.” He watched as Gus took a heavy sip from his bottle, drinking it straight down. He regarded his own bottle, saw the contents tremble somewhat, and took a drink.

Scott cringed and bared his teeth at the fire going down his throat. “God… damn.” He coughed. “That’s some hard shit.”

“You’ll get used to it,” Gus said. “That’s one of the other things to do around here besides watch TV.”

“Is it?” Scott sputtered, still recovering from the initial shot.

“Oh, fuck yeah. If I get really bored, I do two of these together.”

Scott chuckled. “Well, thanks.” He held out the bottle.

“What are you, dry or something?” Gus frowned. “That’s yours. This is mine. Think of it as medicine for the nerves.” With that, Gus took another blast from the rum.

“Jesus, you really like this shit, don’t you?”

“Yep.”

Scott took another shot, and felt the burn race to his gut.

From the doorway, Gus nodded with approval. “Feel hungry?”

“Yeah.”

“You keep on sipping that, and I’ll cook something up.”

“You can cook?”

“Well, heat something up in the kitchen. For you, I got a can of Irish stew.”

“Holy shit, that sounds great!”

“Yeah, well, relax then, and I’ll get started on that.” Gus turned and left.

Scott studied his surroundings. A wooden chest of drawers sat at the foot of the queen-sized bed, and two night tables were on either side. The place was dusty; he could see the motes floating in the air as they crossed in front of the only window, which was mostly boarded up except for perhaps half a foot at the very top. The sky seemed overcast, but Scott’s mood was improving. Scratching at his chin, he took another drink of whisky and grimaced.

Gus was right after all. He got used to it.

10

Later that day, Gus gave two sweaters to Scott and helped the injured man to his feet. Scott draped his arm around Gus’s shoulders, and they made slow, but steady time toward the outside. The hard-looking newcomer was a head taller than Gus, and much heavier as well, and they stopped once in the living room to take a breather.

“We can do this tomorrow,” Scott said.

“What? Nah, what else you have to do?”

Scott shrugged. “That’s true.”

“Just a few minutes outside. Get some fresh air into ya.”

“Thanks, man.”

“You said that already.”

“I mean, thanks for this. Helping me outside.”

Having nothing to say to that, Gus merely grunted. “Gonna have ta see if we can get you some crutches or something. You’re too damn heavy to lug around all the time.”

He helped the bigger man onto the deck and past the pool, to the pair of lawn chairs facing the valley full of city.

“Watch out for the glass,” Scott said.

“What? Oh, yeah. Meant to clean that up. Here.” Gus lowered him onto one of the chairs and stepped back to lean against the railing.

“Whoa,” Scott said, taking in the sight.

“Somethin’, ain’t it?”

“It is.”

“Hold on.” Gus walked into the kitchen. There was still a good three hours left to the day, and he figured he would clean up that mess of glass. He grabbed a broom and dust pan, and the two bottles of alcohol, and went back to the deck. He placed the booze on the table between the chairs and dusted the broken glass over the edge of the deck. He should’ve done that long before he had a guest. What would the man think?

“Break a bottle out here?” Scott asked.

“Huh? Yeah,” Gus said, giving the broom a toss in the direction of the house. With a huff, he landed on the other chair and picked up his bottle of rum. “Cleaning’s done for the day.” He took a slug from his bottle. “What do you think?” he asked, gesturing toward Annapolis.

“Great view.”

“It is great. Best damn house I ever had.”

“Was it yours from before?”

Gus shook his head. “Shit, no. I couldn’t afford a place like this. I couldn’t afford one of the closets in a place like this. No, I found this place maybe five or six days after everything went tits up. Someone had money to do this place, but it wasn’t me. I just got lucky.”

“Where do you think the owners went?” Scott asked and finally took a sip of his bottle.

“Don’t know. Not really important now, is it?”

“I just want to know if you killed them or not.”

The statement stopped Gus in his mental tracks, and he thought about what he would say next. After all, from Scott’s viewpoint, especially after surviving a very close shave, Gus might be just another crazy fattening him up for the kill.

“I didn’t kill anyone not already dead,” Gus responded. “I ain’t got no problem puttin’ a bullet or a shell into the head of one of those fuckers down there. A living person, though, is a whole ’nother ball of wax. I ain’t killed anyone for this. God as my witness. Okay? Besides, what kinda sick fuck would I be to bandage you up, feed you, and get you drunk before killin’ you?”

Scott smiled. “Pretty sick.”

“Pretty fuckin’ sick. Damn right.”

They clicked bottles and drank. The sun hung above, pausing before skidding down the arc of the sky.

“What did you do before the fall?” Scott asked.

Gus snorted and rubbed his head. He should’ve brought a toque out with him. “I was a house painter.”

That revelation put a smile on Scott’s face. “No way.”

“Yeah. A house painter. Hard to believe?”

“Figure you to be Special Forces or something. Joint Task Force Five or some shit.”

Gus scoffed. “Just ’cause I ran over a few deadheads?”

“And saved my ass.”

“Yeah, well, no, I’m just a house painter. Back in the day, I swore when I died I’d want to be buried in latex.”

“Why latex?”

“Jesus, you ask a lot of questions.”

“Sorry, man.” Scott’s head tilted to one side. “I’m nosy. Sorry.”

“S’okay. Not used to it, that’s all. Sorry if I sound, y’know, curt, sometimes.” Gus shrugged and made his shoulders crack. “Yeah, latex. ’Cause it’s so easy to use. That’s why.”

“I was a baker. In a donut place.”

“Really?”

“Yeah.” Scott nodded. “I used to work in Saint John. Small outlet. Had the night shift.”

“How was that job?”

“Shitty. Well… it wasn’t so bad. Got to bring home the leftovers after my shift. The ones I wanted, anyway.”

“All those doughnuts and muffins.” Gus shook his head. “Man, that sounds good.”

“That’s what everyone thinks. It is good until you get sick of it. I did everything except the doughnuts. Cookies, pies. All good. I was good at it, too. A decent job. Lonely, though, at times. Night shift and all. Yeah.”

“All gone now,” Gus said and pursed his lips.

“Yeah. All gone.”

Gus gazed out over the cityscape and felt November’s light breath chill his face.

“You ever find out how it happened?” Scott asked.

“The zombies?”

“Yeah.”

Gus took another drink. “No. Don’t know if anyone knows. You?”

“No.”

“TV said it was a virus before everything went off air. Something mashed together with Ebola or Sars or Avian flu or something like that. Never for certain. Some folks said it was a leak of some biochemical weapon. Some sorta weaponized agent. I don’t know. You’re asking the guy on the lowest rung here.”

“Same here.”

“The worst were the religious fucks. Jesus, they were fucking dancing in the streets they were so goddamn happy that, finally, the world was ending on the day they said it would. Or the month, I guess.”

“You see that old fucker on TV? The old rich one that wanted to seal himself in the bunker?”

“With the fifty pieces of ass?” Gus chuckled. “Fuck me. The old bastard must of thought it was his lucky day. Going to do his job to repopulate the earth.”

“The women went down into the bunker with him.”

“Yeah, well, he was rich and crazy, and evidently hornier than everyone on the eastern seaboard put together.”

Scott smiled. “Think they’ll make it?”

“Don’t know,” Gus admitted. “TV went off the air around that time.”

“Oh yeah, that’s right. Forgot.”

“I like to think the old codger got his rocks off at least once or twice before something took the door off his holy bunker. ‘Repopulate the earth for the Lord!’” Gus shook his head. “My ass. Y’know the sad thing about that, besides the women going down there with him, were the followers who donated money to that pious bastard over the years, just so he could build shit like that bunker and call it the church of whatever the hell that was.”

“I forgot that one, too.”

“Same guy was on TV years earlier calling for forgiveness because he lost a couple of million at the horse races,” Gus said, lifting his bottle for emphasis.

“Never heard of that one.”

“Oh yeah, he did that. That’s what he did. Bet the farm, lost it all, and went on national TV asking the congregation to help him out. And the sad thing, the piss poor sad thing, is they helped him out. And he went ahead so many years later, built an ultra-modern ‘church,’ which just happened to be set into the side of a mountain, all self-contained and only big enough and with supplies enough for fifty of the hottest worshippers, all no older than thirty, I heard, who submitted applications and photos online, complete with health records. Joke’s on him, though. A man’s sperm starts to degenerate as he gets older, increasing the risk of mental problems with the youngsters.”

Gus took another shot of booze, and pointed at the horizon. “Holy bunker, my ass. And that’s only a fragment of the shit. Y’know, I did hear a conspiracy theory that it wasn’t an airborne virus at all. It was some sorta chemical reaction that turned people after eating their favorite preserved snacks. MSG and MC-nine some shit-or-other, combined with some other additive that made people crave more. I heard they were coming out with the obesity laws just before it all went down. All a farce, I think.”

“Why’s that?”

“The continent’s food supply is controlled by all of what, six or seven mega-corporations? That export all over the world? And if they don’t export, they sure as shit got, what do you call ‘em… affiliates? Subsidiaries? Over there to sell their enhanced products for years. They’ve been polluting the grub for God knows how long with their ultra-preservatives filled with ingredients a Yale graduate would have a hard time pronouncing. Personally, I think it was already in the food supply and just needed time to go off.”

“Scary shit, man.”

“Yeah, scary shit.” Gus took another drink and looked toward the city. “Scary shit.”

“I always thought the military would push them back,” Scott said. “We heard there was a division fighting in Quebec, but nothing ever got into New Brunswick. I think some folks went down to the States, but were never heard from again. There’s just nothing. Not even a radio signal. Like being in a void.”

“Sometimes,” Gus began, “I sit out here and drink and hear things. Screams. Gunshots. But only, uh… sporadic. Then, nothing. The wind takes it away, or the situation was taken care of. But you’re pretty much the first person I’ve seen and talked to for a very long time. Maybe two years now.”

“Hard to believe you survived this long up here.”

“Not too hard. Defensively, I’m pretty much set, I think. I got a trench I want to dig out front there, in front of the outer wall. And a few more things I’ll dig. Pits and such.”

“You ever watch zombie flicks?” Scott asked, looking at him with eyes that were sly slits.

“Yeah. All the time now. Why?”

“You have to count on those things getting up here.”

Gus took a shot of rum. “I know. I do. That’s why I’m doing the outer defenses. Try to make it as secure as possible.”

“Ever get any up this far?”

“Not often. And always in singles. Never a pack. I don’t know what drives them up here, but yeah, sometimes I get them. One morning, I woke up to the sound of one wailing away at the outer wall. I took care of him quick, but I was shaking for the rest of the day. Figured it came up through the woods, bypassing the road gate altogether. Another time, I opened the road gate, and one was right there, looking like it had run a marathon. Scared the shit outta me. I put it down and dragged it off to the other side, and that was that. They come around every now and again. They seem to keep to the towns and cities, though.”

Scott nodded.

“You have a family?” Gus asked.

“Had one. A wife and a little girl. They’re gone now. Dead. Parents passed on long ago. My sister’s dead. You?”

“Girlfriend got the bug or was bit. I saw her in a mob coming down a street. Cop shot her in the head just before the crowd overran the street blockades. Got two brothers out west, but I don’t know what happened to them. Probably never will.”

“This talk’s getting depressing.”

“So it is.”

“The guy I used to hang around with, he used to ask, why did they have to turn into things that ate people?”

“Good question.”

“Yeah.”

They drank until the evening turned red, until their senses became screwed, and the conversation got weird.

“Y’know something,” Gus slurred, holding onto his bottle of Captain Morgan by the neck. “I’ve been up here for practically two fuckin’ years. Two fuckin’ years. Nobody to talk to. This’s been good for me. Really good. Thanks for droppin’ by.” He broke into a giggle then, which Scott joined.

“You talk a lot,” Scott said.

“Do I?”

“Yeah, I mean…” Scott shook his head. “Movies I watched always has the guy all grim and silent and moody like. You haven’t shut up since we met.”

They both chuckled.

“Sorry, man.”

“No, no, it’s okay. I guess I’d be… Nah, I wouldn’t. I’d be the quiet one. Hell, I am the quiet one. When I was with the others, I was, anyway.”

“Hmm. Well, you’re here now.”

“Don’t know how long I can stay, though,” Scott said, still nursing his whiskey.

“Huh? Why? You just got here.”

“Yeah, but…”

“But what? C’mon now, I saved your ass down there.”

“Yeah, I know, and I appreciate everything, but…”

Gus looked over at his drinking partner and gestured what?

“That fucker is still out there.”

“Who? Oh, okay, I get it.”

“Yeah,” Scott said quietly and took a sip of whiskey. He shivered, and Gus didn’t know if it was from the booze or the dropping temperature.

“I’m gonna find him. Before he hurts anyone else. And make him pay.”

“Make him pay,” Gus repeated. “You sound like Charles Bronson.”

“Who?”

“Action star from the seventies. Starred in a flick called Death Wish.”

“Never heard of it.”

“I hadn’t either, but whoever owned this place from… from before had a whole library of movies on digital.”

“Yeah? That’s cool, man. So why are we out here gettin’ smashed when we could be in there watchin’ movies? It’s startin’ to freeze out here.”

Gus suppressed a rising lump of gas in his throat. “It’s peaceful out here, man. Look.” He swept his arm toward the darkening city.

“It’s peaceful cuz everyone’s fuckin’ frozen to something. Even the dead are fuckin’ frozen to something. Shit, if I were a dead-head right now, I’d be sayin’, ‘Christ, it’s fuckin’ cold out here.’”

Gus laughed.

“It’s cold out here,” Scott directed at Gus with a smile.

“You’re sayin’ it’s cold?”

“I think I can use my toes as piano keys.”

“Oh. That’s not kosher. All right. Gimme that.” Gus held out his hand for the bottle of whiskey.

Scott hesitated. “I’m kinda attached to this brand now.”

“I can see that, but gimme anyway.”

“What are you gonna do?”

“Don’t worry. I won’t lose it.”

“You won’t, eh?”

“You talk a lot for a freezin’ guy. A quiet freezin’ guy.”

Scott shrugged and handed over the Crown Royal bottle, which Gus took and immediately threw over the railing.

“Whoops,” Gus said as straight-faced as he could under the circumstances. “Got some bad news for ya.”

“You lost my bottle?”

“Yeah.” Gus shrugged. “Slipped outta my hands. Sorry.”

“I see. I see you managed to hold on to the rum there.”

Gus regarded his bottle for moment, startled, and baseball-pitched that one over the railing.

“Lost that one too, eh?” Scott asked sardonically.

“Yep.”

“I’d call that a drinking problem.”

“Don’t worry about it.” Gus helped the man up. Scott slung an arm around his shoulders. “I got lots in the house.”

“How much you got?” Scott asked.

“Gobs ’n’ gobs.”

“Not sure if that’s a good thing.”

“If it isn’t, I don’t wanna know the bad.”

“What if you run out?”

“Just go get more.”

“More? Where?”

Gus stopped and wheeled around, taking a hopping Scott with him. He pointed to Annapolis. “Down there. Don’t worry about it. When you get all mended up, I’ll show you if you want.”

“Not so keen on that idea.”

“The booze helps.”

They continued their banter all the way back into the house. Gus helped the wounded man get down the steps to the den below. He deposited him in the recliner and went to get more booze. He brought back two new bottles of Crown Royal and Captain Morgan. He then queued up a movie from the terabyte unit to watch on the wide-screen TV.

Death Wish.

11

Scott woke up with a black blanket thrown over him and his half-empty bottle of Crown Royal in his lap. He smacked his lips and grimaced, feeling the gummy residue from a night of heavy drinking. His bladder urged him to take immediate action. The den was dark, lit only by a shaft of light from the stairs behind him, and he sniffed dry, cold air. He’d passed out in the recliner, which he thought wasn’t a bad thing since the chair kept his foot somewhat elevated. He remembered reading somewhere that keeping a twisted ankle elevated was a good thing. He arched his back in a stretch and looked around the dark room. Death Wish. There was something about a rape in the story, but he couldn’t recall exactly. They had watched that movie and then Death Wish 2. Gus had even suggested watching the 2025 remakes of them, but Scott didn’t need to see them. Instead, they’d opted on, of all things, some travel documentaries called Rick Steves’ Europe. For the rest of the evening, they had watched images of a Europe they would never see and didn’t even have any idea if it still existed. They marvelled at old world destinations of Venice, which had been completely given in to the sea in 2022, and Sicily, drawing sounds of wonder from two very drunk men.

Scott didn’t know exactly when he’d passed out, only that he did, and that he woke up in the recliner in a dark room, facing a dark TV screen.

“Gus?” He looked around. No Gus. “Hey, Gus!”

Then, he spotted a plastic water jug on the floor next to the recliner. He leaned over the armrest and picked up the jug, which had a note stuck on it. The jug was full of water, and he downed a third of it before stopping to gasp for air. The ink on the note had smeared, and the paragraph left there was unreadable except for “or so,” at the very end, along with Gus’s signature.

“Or so,” Scott said to himself, and again felt the need to pee. Gus hadn’t thought of that, he realized, and he would have to climb the steps to get to his room’s bucket. Taking the jug with him, Scott got out of the recliner, left the booze in the chair, and hopped over to the stairs. He paused there, composing himself for the more difficult part, and began hopping up each step. He almost lost his balance twice, and by the time he reached the main level, his left leg burned with exertion, while his chest ached. Each hop made him feel as if he were on the edge of pissing himself, and the sound of water sloshing around in the jug didn’t help. He went through the house, leaning heavily on walls until he made it back to his room and the bucket. If he had any reservations about using it, they went out in a sigh and a hissing splash of urine. He finished up, tapped and zipped, and lay down on the bed. He took another deep drink of water before capping the jug and placing it beside the bed.

He fell asleep immediately.

The sound of someone moving through the house woke him up again, and he pulled himself up to a sitting position.

“Gus?”

The clatter got closer until Gus’s leather-covered frame filled the doorway. He carried two wooden crutches with him, which he tossed onto the bed.

“There you go,” he said and turned to leave.

“Wait!” Scott blurted.

Gus paused in the doorway.

“You got these for me? I mean, thanks, man! Where’d you get them?”

For a moment, he didn’t think Gus was going to answer. The man appeared to space out before shaking his head. “Hospital.”

“You have any trouble?”

Another spaced-out look. “Yeah,” Gus finally muttered.

The expression on his face silenced any further questioning from Scott, and he listened to the receding footsteps and banging of a door. Scott looked at the crutches and picked them up off the bed. They were about an inch shorter than what he needed, so he took a moment to adjust them. He tested them out, fitting the sponge padding into his armpits, and got moving.

These are great, he thought, although he was still a little uncomfortable around the back and rib area where he had been shot. But he wouldn’t be restricted to the bed anymore, and his mobility had just improved. He swung himself out into the hall and crutched down to the living room. No Gus. He spotted the sliding door to the deck out front. Getting to the window, Scott looked out and saw Gus sitting in a lawn chair, facing the city. Gus raised a bottle to his lips and took a drink of what Scott knew to be rum. Man likes to drink, he thought, and considered going out to join him, but he didn’t. Something stopped him.

Hospital was what Gus had said, with an exhaustion that sounded both mental as well as physical.

Scott watched him for a bit. A solitary figure set against a drop of gray and black under the cold glare of November, singed around the edges by late fall.

In the end, Scott turned away, leaving the man to his internal sorting of things. He didn’t know the guy, and a few good deeds didn’t mean anything. He stood on the crutches, his body somewhat scrunched up, bad leg lifted off the floor and bum ankle wrapped in thick bandages. Scott made his way back to his room and lay down on the bed. He thought of his old life, baking on the nightshift and sleeping half the day away while the world lived on. It had been a lonely existence, but he had gotten used to it. He’d gotten used to the new world, too, and felt it more in tune with wild animals in nature, where every day was a fight for survival. Although he had to admit getting blasted by whiskey was probably a little bit better. And the house certainly was.

Scott studied the high wood beams of the ceiling and relaxed further. How often had he been able to relax out there with Teddy and Lea? Even when it wasn’t his shift, he’d slept with one eye open. With the wall beyond and the location of the house, he felt safe, and that was important. He knew he had been living on something of a wire in the last two years or so. It was bad when people were turning into dead things in the beginning, and there was simply no explanation given. It had affected him more than he let on, as every person he met could potentially be a carrier for the disease, or whatever it was that turned folks.

Civilization had begun breaking down in late 2026 like some great beast harpooned from multiple directions and bleeding profusely. Scott barricaded himself in his apartment for weeks, having already stockpiled a good supply of preserved food. He lasted maybe three weeks in his place before something found out he was up there on the fifth floor and came to investigate. Those were the beginning of the running times for him, where he lived like a rat, scurrying from place to place, eventually making it to a cabin in the hills, away from it all.

He’d stayed there as long as he could, foraging from nearby communities, doing that for long time until he met up with Teddy, and then Lea. Strength in numbers, Teddy had said. But Scott thought there was strength in being alone, too.

The set-up Gus had was good. The best Scott had come across. He only wondered if, being alone in all that time, Gus still had all of his marbles or was suffering from some form of cabin fever. Scott hoped for the full marbles. He didn’t want to think about Gus being nuts, but he would be on guard, just in case. There was strength in numbers, and he had to admit if Gus hadn’t come along when he did, his fate would have been decided. He would’ve been one of those poor bastards walking around rotting in the summer and freezing in the winter.

Scott closed his eyes. He suddenly wanted a shot of whiskey, but he’d left the bottle downstairs. Weariness seeped into his frame. It was something, to truly relax, to truly let down your guard and not think about what was outside.

If only for a short time.

*

A loud banging woke Scott up. He tensed, listening in wide-eyed fright.

“You fucker! You lousy, cheap-assed cocksucker! Fuck. Fuck! Jesus!”

Scott looked around for a weapon, but saw nothing except his crutches.

“Goddammit!” came the voice.

It became quiet then, and Scott heard the muted grumblings of someone that sounded like Gus, but he wasn’t certain, then the clanging of metal.

Footsteps approached. Louder, coming down the hallway. Scott tensed. They slowed as they got closer to the open doorway before finally stopping.

A bald head came around the door, and that simple silent appearance scared the living shit out of Scott.

Gus shook his head. “Sorry, man. Guess you heard all that, huh?”

“What’re you doing out there?” Scott demanded.

“Aw, cooking up some grub there. Beans and wieners. I’m pretty much shitfaced from earlier. Rule one. Don’t cook while shitfaced. You might knock the whole damn works off the stove and onto the floor. Anyway, sorry for wakin’ you up. I heard you snorin’.”

“I snore?”

Gus’s bearded face looked somber. “You sound like a fucked-up chainsaw.” He smiled and rubbed his bald head. “You hungry?”

“For beans and wieners?”

“Well, I’ll eat those. I scraped them up off the floor. Can’t throw that shit out, man. It’s all food, right? But I got another can of it if you want some.”

“Yeah, please.”

“All right. That smell botherin’ you?”

“Huh?”

“That.” Gus pointed at the bucket. “The piss bucket. You want me to empty that?”

Scott just noticed the pungent odor. “Maybe later.”

“If I had sawdust, that would take the smell away, but I don’t. Sorry.”

“Hey, don’t apologize. I’m just glad I have a bucket here.” A grin came out with his words, and Scott didn’t want to think about the alternative.

Gus stifled a belch and raised a hand. “You’re a guest. No problem. I’ll get them beans and wieners on for ya.” He disappeared from the doorway as abruptly as he had appeared.

Scott lay back down and waited for about twenty minutes before deciding to get up. It was getting dark outside. He grabbed his crutches and swung his way into the hallway. As he came into the kitchen, he saw Gus pouring the beans and wieners into a white plastic bowl, right beside its twin.

“There ya are,” Gus said and swayed a bit. Scott noted the bottle of Captain Morgan rum, almost empty on the island counter. “You know what’s worse than knocking shit onto the floor?”

“No, what?”

“Cleaning it up. I got plenty of paper towels, but it wasn’t––oh, s’cuse me––absorbing the shit. I was spreadin’ it out like pizza sauce. Finally… finally changed tactics and scooped what I could into the bowl. That one’s yours, by the by.”

Scott leaned over the island table, took up a spoon and starting eating, blowing on each scoop before devouring it. “Tastes good,” he managed to get out.

“I’ll get you something to drink.” Gus went to the fridge and poured a glass of water.

“Thanks,” Scott said with his mouth full. He nodded at the bottle. “A little early, ain’t it?”

Gus looked at the rum and smiled tightly. “Any time’s good these days.” With that, he ate his food in silence until it was gone.

For Scott, it was the first can of B&W he’d had since it all began, and while a little stale, they tasted just fine. God bless whatever chemicals preserved them.

The sun drooped lower, and the shadows grew in the house. Gus cleaned up the dinner dishes and placed them to one side.

“You wash those?” Scott asked.

“Sometimes. Only for special company. Usually use paper if I have them or just straight from the can. I’m not picky. Let’s go into the living room here.”

Gus grabbed his bottle and moved out of the kitchen and into the living room. He plopped down onto the sofa and gestured for Scott to take the recliner.

“Want another bottle?” Gus asked.

“I’m fine. Too hung over from last night.”

“You get over it. I did. Do. Sometimes.” Gus cackled, baring faded white teeth. He patted his flat belly and took another shot of rum. “I was never a drinker. Came into it. Can you blame me?”

Scott eased into the recliner and sighed. He shook his head.

“That’s what I figured,” Gus said. “Hardly touched the stuff. Now, it’s bottled comfort. You read at all?”

“A little.”

“We got books here, too. Mostly horror fiction, but the owner seemed to like a bit of everything. Some point in time, I’d like to get to the city library. There’s another one at the university, but that’s a scary place to visit now, like any place that had a high population. Ah, well. Some good reads here all the same. Ever read any King?”

“Who?”

“Stephen King?”

“No, not really.”

“I think all of his books are here. You’ll see, anyway. I never asked you before, where you from? Saint John?”

“Yeah. Saint John.”

“Like it there?”

“Back in the day, yeah, it was fine. Not now, though.”

Gus drank some of his rum. He studied the bottle. “I’ll have to get another one of these soon. Anytime you want anything, just let me know. I’ve got lots down below. I gotta get you a Speed Stick as well. And a toothbrush.”

“You have those?”

“Got lots. Raided a drugstore a while back and took what I could from the shelves. That included a shitload of deodorant, shampoo, toothpaste, dental floss, you name it. Stored it all over the house.”

“Jesus, you’re a packrat.”

“I prefer the word survivor,” Gus said with satisfaction, staring in the direction of the dead fireplace.

Scott thought about something for a while, and decided to ask his question. “Why are you doing this for me?”

“Huh?”

“All of this? Why you doing it all?”

“You worried about something?”

“Maybe.”

Gus smiled. “Then don’t. I don’t have any secret plans.”

“All right, then, why again?” Scott had to know. He had seen too many things on the road, people reduced to base savagery before, during, and after the collapse.

Gus took his time answering, taking a long drink. “I’ve been up here a long time. Got to a point where I felt like talking to myself at times, like Will Smith in I am Legend, there.”

“That a movie?”

“Yeah, old bad movie––it’s in the library below––but, anyway, as sad as it sounds, man, you’re someone to talk to. I haven’t talked to anyone besides the walls, the TV, myself, and the dead outside.”

Scott nodded. Two years in relative seclusion. Cabin fever of a different kind. “I hear ya.”

That brightened Gus. “Good. You ready for that drink now?”

12

A week later, Scott felt better about staying at the house. His sense of being fortunate grew with his contact with Gus. The man was a peculiar one. He drank constantly, smiles as he would refer to them, but he had plenty remaining downstairs. Gus had taken him down to one of the storerooms to see what exactly he had, and the revelation nearly blew him away.

“Where the hell’d you get all of this?” he asked, gazing at the shelves and boxes of stored goods, bathroom supplies, household cleaners, and alcohol.

Gus shrugged. “Around.”

Gus later told him that he squirreled away everything he found in shops and stores, even after the looting. And he occasionally found small convenience stores that had been missed. Gas was the easiest, as Scott already knew. All one had to do was check the derelicts on the roads and drill a hole into the tanks. Gus figured he had close to ten extra gas containers in the garage, all full. And there were the mountain bikes, as well, that he used in a pinch. Gus informed him that he took what he could from the houses in Annapolis. House picking. Some contained vast stores of supplies, while others didn’t, but he tried to be systematic in his search.

“Winter’s comin’ up, though,” Gus said. “And once that comes, getting down into the city will get that much harder, if not dangerous.”

Scott didn’t question the mountain man.

During the days, he would use the crutches to get around the house. His gunshot wound healed slowly, and he had to be careful moving or he could cause it to bleed again, but staying in the house for hours on end was difficult to do when he knew from Gus that there were a good three acres of land cordoned off by the stone wall. Three acres of relative undead-free freedom. So, he explored the grounds on his crutches. He saw how the solar panels that gave them electricity were situated on the south side of the house to maximize efficiency. He found the wind generator high on the mountainside that didn’t move at all as Gus wasn’t sure if it would attract attention. Gus had even taken him to the shed behind the garage and shown him the batteries for the solar panels, twenty units the size and shape of car batteries arranged neatly on the floor and a shelf, connected to a panel and generator of unknown purpose.

“All I know is that the sun shines, and I have power,” Gus said, and that was good enough for Scott. He didn’t ask too many questions if he could help it. He didn’t want to bother the man that would carry out his bucket of excrement to the outhouse for dumping and sanitizing.

In the second week, Gus took inventory and made a list of things he needed. On the following Monday, he suited up and left Scott alone in the house while he drove down to Annapolis to see what could be found. While he was gone, Scott amused himself with reading one of the many paperbacks in the house.

The feeling of comfort hadn’t left Scott, and he luxuriated in it while he had the chance. Gus made it back to the house before nightfall and went straight to the deck with bottle in hand, where he stayed well after the sun went down. Scott didn’t approach him during that time for fear of disturbing some private ritual he was unaware of. He found him in a better mood the next day, and when he asked about it, Gus told him it was the job, and the dangers that went with it.

In the fourth week, seeing Gus after another run into Annapolis, Scott discerned a distinct pattern. Gus would drive into the city and be gone for most of the day. He’d return just before sundown and go off to some part of the house, usually outside, and drink heavily from his basement supply. He’d pass out, regain consciousness the next day, and spend the day moving about as though shot through the guts, something Scott thought funny when he heard the groans and curses. Gus would be fully recovered on the day after, and he would then unload whatever he had scavenged from the suburbs, as well as inspect the van’s condition. Then, he’d take a day of rest before heading back down to the city again for more house picking.

In the middle of the fifth week, Scott removed his bandage and tentatively took his first step in the living room without the support of crutches. His ankle was sore, but thankfully, the sprain wasn’t as bad it could have been. He knew there were three different kinds of sprains, ranging from mild to severe, and he supposed he was lucky enough not to have a severe one.

“How’s it feel?” Gus asked.

“Still hurts.” Scott took another a step. “Stiff. I’ll have to bandage it again.”

“But you’re up and around, so that’s good.”

“I am.” He beamed. He looked at his bare foot and wiggled the toes. “Might bandage it again anyway, while I’m moving around.”

“Think you can drive with that thing?”

He met Gus’s eyes. “I think so. What’s up?”

“Depends.” Gus sat on the sofa and regarded him. “How long you figure on staying here?”

“Good question.” He’d thought about that as well. Some nights, he’d woken up from the nightmare of finding Teddy and Lea in the basement, but they weren’t dead. Tenner was there, chewing their flesh off, and Scott was slipping on the steps just at the worst time. Sometimes, he woke up feeling Tenner’s bloody breath on his face. “I’ve thought about it.”

“Same here, and I’ve got a deal for you.”

“Let’s hear it.”

Gus nodded. “You can stay here for the winter, if you like. If you want to go, we’ll get you set up for that, too. But the snow will be here by the end of December, and it’ll be down for three to four months. That’s a long time. You can stay here, but if you do, I’d like you to come along and ride shotgun with me. Until you feel strong enough on your feet to do more. Work with me in the house picking, and you’re more than welcome to stay. How’s that sound?”

It sounded fine. “And I can leave whenever?”

“If you really want to, man, I’m not stopping you. You drink too damn much.”

Scott frowned and smiled at the same time. “I do not.”

“You’re like a fucking fish. An alcoholic fish, I might add.”

“I am…?” He saw the amused glint in Gus’s eye. “I get you. You’re an evil bastard, you know that?”

Gus looked at his feet, his thick mossy beard covering his expression, but Scott suspected the man was smiling. “You got a deal,” Scott finally said. “I’ll stick around. For a while.”

“Fair enough, then.”

“Fair enough.”

They cleaned and oiled their shotguns in silence. Gus got up at one point and placed a box of red shells in the middle of the dining room table, and they loaded each weapon with five shots apiece. Gus brought in a leather jacket for Scott, but he didn’t have a neck protector or another pair of leather pants.

“I used to be a hundred pounds overweight,” Gus disclosed when he brought out the jacket. “This should be okay for you. Wear your sweaters underneath tomorrow to bulk yourself up. We’ll have to keep an eye out for anything that’s your size. Sports equipment has lots of padding.”

“What about the fire department?”

“What about it?”

“They have thick coats there. Might be worth a look.”

“Just might. Well, never thought of that before. Shit. Good idea. If we pass it,” Gus added.

“Fair enough.”

“Get a good night’s sleep, ’cause I guarantee you’ll be drinking to forget in the evening when we get back.”

“If we get back.”

“No, when we get back. At least, I’m coming back. You can decide if you’re sticking around down there or not. No negative thinking in this dojo. Got it?”

Scott nodded reluctantly, but didn’t feel very certain.

“Listen,” Gus aimed at him. “I’m serious. Positive thinking on this. Take no risks. No stupid chances, and we’ll be back in no time tomorrow. Most of the runners are gone by now, or the night chills them so they can’t break for us. All that leaves is the rest of whatever’s left of Annapolis’s population to deal with, and they move mighty slow.”

“How big is, or was, the population here?”

“I don’t know. Don’t matter. See?”

Scott sensed an untruth there, but he didn’t want to press the matter. “How many shells do we have?”

“Figure a thousand or so. I grabbed whatever boxes I could from the gun and rod shop. Plus backup. A lot of that shit got taken right away.”

Scott rubbed his thickening beard. “Any smaller guns?”

“You mean like pistols?”

“Yeah.”

“Nah. I wish. That’d be cool.” Gus grinned.

“It would. Did you ever get to the cop station to check?”

“I did, but all the good stuff was taken. Place was balder than a waxed snatch.”

“So this is all we got.”

“And the bats,” Gus informed him, stretching his neck. “Don’t forget the bats. The shotguns are great, but a good bat… well, that’s magic. Does wonders. Just make sure you got your helmet visor down. Don’t need to accidently swallow a piece of scalp.”

Scott made a face. “That’s gross, man.”

“It’s a gross world.”

*

Gus took Scott into the garage and formally introduced him to the beast. He pointed out the reversed gear labelling, where Drive was really Reverse and vice versa. He showed him the racks on the ceiling for the guns, the storage bins, and the spare mountain bike hanging on the wall.

“There’s only one, though,” Scott pointed out.

“You’re only here for a short time though, right?” Gus asked, smirking under his beard. “Besides, only room for the one, with the bins and everything. Can only take so much on safari.”

“What do I do if the van breaks down?”

“Can you run?”

“Smartass.”

“Speed walk?”

“Smartass.”

Gus clapped him on the shoulder and walked away, enjoying the fact that Scott was starting to loosen up around him.

“But really…” Scott said.

*

They turned in shortly after prepping the van. Gus thought Scott looked a little nervous, but he didn’t let it bother him. He’d only be driving the first time out anyway, and Gus had made it clear his role would be that of driving. He wouldn’t go into the street, wouldn’t go into any houses, and essentially wouldn’t step out of the vehicle. He’d have Gus’s back once he was inside. If Gus fired the shotgun while in the house, he’d come check on him. If Scott laid on the beast’s horn, that was the sign for Gus to get the hell out of Dodge. Simple plans made by simple men in difficult times. They retired to their respective rooms around ten, and Gus left two full bottles of Jack Daniels on the table.

To celebrate their joyous return.

13

The beast rumbled toward town the next morning, the sun making the night’s frost twinkle on the highway. They drove on the familiar road that Gus always followed into Annapolis. They were suited up and ready for the day. Gus had on all of his equipment: knee and elbow pads, neck brace, chest protector under the jacket, and helmet. He made note to see if he could find any extra pads for Scott, thinking it might be easier to pick some up at Home Hardware or Walmart. That kind of padding might not have been looted. Gus had extras back at the house, but didn’t see a need for the driver to wear them just yet.

“See anything strange out there?” Gus asked.

Scott glanced over at him, looking uncertain. “Huh?”

“Notice anything?” Gus asked again, his words muffled only slightly from the motorcycle helmet. Gus knew the man was concentrating hard on driving, but he didn’t want the guy to have a goddamn aneurysm over it.

“I’m driving here,” Scott grated.

“I can see that, but do you see anything out there?”

Scott squinted at the road ahead as if he were memorizing every inch, and finally shook his head. They passed the semi that had been driven through a roadside billboard. The cars were starting to thicken on the road.

Scott’s lack of perception disappointed Gus. “Slow down and get ready to stop.”

“Stop?”

“Yeah, we need to fill up those three gas containers back there.”

“Where?”

“I’ll tell you. Just slow down.”

The beast slowed.

“Okay, right here,” Gus said.

Scott halted the van in the middle of the highway among cars coated in frost. The sun made everything sparkle in grandiose fashion.

“I’ll do this,” Gus said as he moved to the back of the van. He got out an aluminum bat and scabbard which he threw over his shoulder, a red gas container, large plastic bowl, and a handheld rechargeable drill. He also grabbed a stretched-out coat hanger, a funnel, and a fistful of rags. “You see if you can pick up on anything interesting about those cars.”

Scott frowned. “But I––”

Gus closed the door on his words. The morning freshness smacked him in his face, and he took a moment to just breathe. He smelled the exhaust and walked away from the van with a frown. His boots scuffed on the asphalt and his bare fingers, the only part of him uncovered, felt the biting chill on the air. November would soon be over, and he was only a little done. With Scott, however, it would be much easier to house pick and loot in general.

Loot, loot! his mind yelled, making him smile. He walked by three cars with their sides dented, knowing that Scott’s eyes watched him and had his back. It was rare for gimps to be in or between the cars, and it wasn’t the first time he had taken gasoline, but with that second set of eyes on him, he felt safer.

He stopped at an old hybrid Toyota that seemed to be still intact and untouched. He glanced inside the car to ensure it was indeed empty. Then, he opened the door and checked for keys. Some cars had them, as the beast had had her keys left in the ignition, much to Gus’s relief. No keys, but it was just as well. He didn’t want a sedan. He preferred SUVs or pickup trucks. He did, however, want the gas if there was any left in the tank.

Looking around out of habit, he reached down and popped the lever opening the tank’s cover. A second later, he stuffed the long rag down into the tank with the help of the coat hanger, then withdrew it, soaked.

He took off the scabbard and got under the car. He put the bowls in place and made a small hole with the drill. Gasoline pissed down into the bowl. Gus filled one bowl, and while the other filled, he emptied the first into the container with the funnel. Gas splashed into the bottom and for a moment, Gus thought of peeing in a cup for any number of urinary tests. Glancing back at the beast, he waved and gestured for Scott to pull closer.

A moment later, the van huffed to his side.

The sedan held only enough to fill the container less than a quarter full. Before moving on to the next car, a pickup, Gus took the bat and bashed in the side of the car’s driver’s door, denting it just enough to mark it. He looked back to Scott, who shook his head.

That’s right, Gus said to himself. Gotta mark the cars somehow.

The sun shining overhead, Gus moved to the next vehicle––a Dodge Ram––and repeated the process, using the dry end of the rag. The pickup wasn’t in bad shape, but the keys were missing, and damn if he knew how to hotwire one of the 2025 models. He would ask Scott once he had the chance. He got the container up to half full with the gas from the pickup before denting the driver’s side, and lugging the can to the next car, a Lexus.

Scott and the beast followed.

Gus filled the first container after the tenth car, another sedan, before carrying it back to the van. Five of the vehicles were electric models, and those he left untouched. Opening the rear door of the van, he hefted the gas inside and stowed it away.

“So you dent all the car doors?” Scott asked.

“Yep.”

“The ones on the other side aren’t checked.”

“I’ll do them next time. Don’t you worry.”

“A lot of fuel out there,” Scott commented, looking out his driver’s window.

“Yeah, but it’ll be all gone sooner or later. Either we’ll get it or someone else. See that black SUV up ahead there?”

“Yeah.”

“Hope that one has its keys. Hey, you know how to hotwire a car?”

“No, sorry,” Scott answered with a shake of his head.

“S’okay. No trouble. Need more rags.”

Thirty-one cars, SUVs, and pickups later, Gus loaded the last of the containers on board and stowed them away. He closed the rear door with a slam and got into his seat.

“Not bad, usually have contact with a few gimps after bangin’ in the doors,” Gus commented.

“Maybe it’s gettin’ too cold?”

“It’s gettin’ there.”

“You call ’em gimps, eh?”

“Yeah. What do you call ’em?”

“Dead fuckers.”

That made Gus chuckle. “They are that.”

“Lea used to call them deadheads.”

“That sounds familiar.”

“I think it was an old band or something or other, I dunno.”

“Deadheads,” Gus tried the word. Liked it. “Dead fuckers has a ring, too.”

“I think so. Hey, do I have to wear this helmet?”

“Don’t have to, I guess. You’re in the van. But it’d be pretty shitty luck all around if you take that off and later down the line a single deadhead comes through the windshield and chomps your ear off.”

“They’d have to get though the beard.” Scott smiled.

“Your fuckin’ beard ain’t growin’ out of your ear, man.”

Scott’s smile dissolved into a frown.

“I’m just shittin’ ya, okay? Don’t take it personal,” Gus assured him.

“No problem,” Scott said, and after a moment added, “shithead.”

Gus grinned.

Carefully putting the van in gear, Scott eased back onto the road.

“Too bad about those SUVs back there,” Scott said, keeping his eyes on the road and the van at a steady forty.

“Happens. I haven’t checked all of these cars, and I’m sure someone will have left their keys or have a spare set hidden inside. Just finding them is the thing. Couldn’t do it alone, but with you, all sorts of things are possible.”

Scott rubbed at his eye. “Into town, then?”

“Take us in, Scotty.”

Gus noted that the reference was lost on his companion. Probably before his time.

The beast turned into the sun, and the rays made them both squint until they lowered their visors. On either side, the houses began to thicken. In the distance, dark towers loomed like hives in the morning light.

“Y’know something?” Gus said.

“What?”

“This place, way back when it was only a bunch of towns and most of the farmland hadn’t been bought up, you’d get the smell of fertilizer coming from the farms. That sweet stink of pig shit, or whatever the hell the farmers used on the soil, would waft down through the entire fucking length of the valley and cause most everyone to gag. Stink. Christ, you’d think Ottawa itself dropped its drawers and shat on someone’s front lawn.”

“You smell that now?” Scott’s brow scrunched.

Gus shook his head. “Nah, I… I just miss it.”

Scott nodded and glanced at the dashboard clock. “It’s nine.”

“Is it?”

“Yeah.”

“Worried about the time?”

Scott’s head tilted a little. “A bit.”

“Don’t, then. We’ll be outta here before mid-afternoon. Gives us plenty of time to get back before nightfall.”

“That’s about five-thirty now,” Scott observed, sounding worried.

“A little later, I didn’t adjust the clock back from daylight saving.”

“Why?”

“Only me. I know when it’s going to get dark. Daylight saving’s only for the shop owners. And you can see where they are,” Gus finished with mild sarcasm.

They passed empty sidewalks and deserted houses with smashed windows. The front lawns, tall and yellow, were bent over like canes and glistened with melted frost. Trees stood bare and harsh, their bases hidden in the dead wet leaves. Old cable lines sagged from houses to the poles.

“There.” Scott pointed.

“What? You see something?”

“In the driveway. A Dee.”

“Dee?”

“Dee for dead. Dead fucker.”

“Drive on, then. I’ve picked these houses.”

“Roger that,” Scott said.

“We’re going to a new subdivision. That place where I ran over you is picked clean,” Gus told him.

“Yeah, you did run over me, didn’t you?” Scott tugged on his beard.

“In the best possible way, I figure. Anyway, time to get to a new area. I think there’s a fire department around there, too. Might just be able to find some of that stuff you were talking about.”

“Sounds good.”

“If anything,” Gus continued, “we can grab it and save it for another time. I got spares of most things back at the house. Problem is going to be finding places to stash it all.”

“Worry about that when it happens.”

“Yeah.”

They drove along a two-lane strip which Gus knew ran the length of the valley. More deserted vehicles crowded the road and even the sidewalks, forcing them to slow down, but the driving was clear going in some places. Rotting debris lay everywhere, black and soggy. Gus looked out his side window, gazing up at the high elms and watching the sun through their bare, upraised limbs. More battered and deserted houses lined both sides of the street. A school with the charred bodies of two school buses on the parking lot passed his field of vision.

“You ever miss the old days?” Gus asked over the growl of the engine.

“You have to ask?”

Gus took his time before answering. “No. I guess not.”

The road turned into small dips and rises, just steep enough to feel it in the stomach. Just ahead, on the left, stood what Gus knew to be the fire station, behind a series of posts whose signs had been ripped down. The two-story concrete building had a pair of dented red bay doors. A third smaller door for the offices and dormitory was located to the left of them. A pickup had crashed into one corner of the building, wrecking its front. Gus wondered what the hell had been on the driver’s mind to jump the curb on that side and lose control. Despite the crash, the station looked very much intact. Like most other places in the city, the unchecked grass rose up to almost thigh level.

Scott looked at Gus. “Drive right to the door?”

“Yeah, but back ’er up.”

Nodding, Scott did just that. He rolled down his window and stuck his head out. The beast did a ninety degree turn and stopped perhaps a meter away from the office door. The engine died with a flick of Scott’s wrist.

In the stillness, Gus took a breath and stared ahead. Scott glanced over at him and waited.

“Okay,” Gus finally said. “You wait here, and I’ll be back shortly.”

He got up from his seat, holstered his bat across his back, and took the loaded shotgun down from the rack. He stuffed the pockets of his leather jacket full of red shells. Once ready, he went to the rear of the van.

“Be careful, man,” Scott called.

Gus paused at the rear. It had been a very long time since anyone had told him to be careful. It was nice to hear. He opened the rear door, and jumped to the pavement. He closed the door and looked through the windows of the fire station door. Office area. Counters. Lots of debris and dark. Several of the windows on the far side had been curtained. Gus didn’t like that. He brought up his shotgun and held it with one hand while turning the knob.

The door opened, and a zombie filled the crack as smoothly as a target popping up on a firing range, jolting Gus from his head all the way to his ankles. The thing moaned as it pawed at Gus’s visor, and then its chest exploded, and it flew backward. Before he could control himself, Gus stepped into the office, pumped another shell into the shotgun’s chamber, and destroyed the creature’s head. A second monster rose from behind a red counter, still wearing the filthy remains of a white uniform. Gus blew its head off with one shot. Two more undead shuffled from the hallway, lifting their arms and pointing, as if accusing him of living. He took his time with those. Checking the corners to make sure nothing else was in the area, he took aim at the corpses and fired twice, dropping both gimps in their tracks, the ejector of his weapon spitting out the spent red plastic casings.

Scowling, Gus rapidly reloaded, looking about for any further trouble. His breathing was loud in his ears. Once he pushed the fourth shell into his shotgun, he chambered a round and brought it to shoulder level. Realizing he was trembling slightly, he eased back outside and saw Scott sticking his head out of the driver’s window.

“You okay?” Scott asked, perhaps louder than he should have.

Gus raised his hand in reply and went back in.

He had a choice of going left or right. He chose left and gingerly opened the door to the dark apparatus bays where two gleaming red fire trucks waited. Gus slipped carefully into the bay, noting the open lockers at the far end. He moved up and down one truck and then the other, searching for gimps. Stooping and checking underneath the machines, he returned to the lockers and the coats hanging from metal hooks. Gus reached out and touched one of the black Nomex coats, feeling the grainy texture of the material. A yellow horizontal stripe covered the front and back of the coat, with additional yellow rings around the sleeves. He picked up what looked to be ninja masks, marvelled at them for a moment, and dropped them back on a bench. Stepping back, he counted twenty lockers, complete with boots, coats, and pants, as well as multiple gear racks containing rolled-up hoses and other equipment. There was no way he could take all of what he wanted, and he still hadn’t checked out the rest of the station. He declared the bay clear in his mind, looking around and not seeing the fire pole or hole in the ceiling he thought might exist. Times had changed for the station, he figured.

Gus walked back to the office area and proceeded past the counter and desks, ignoring the smell of the corpses on the floor. He went down a hall draped with paper notifications and moved into a common area, complete with large table and chairs. Opposite the table lay a worn brown sofa set, complete with plush chairs. A map of Annapolis hung on the wall, major routes and roads all highlighted and clearly marked. For a moment, he didn’t understand why the trucks were still in the bay along with the equipment, but then he realized why. In the final days, people were turning into gimps so fast, the fighters simply couldn’t respond to all of the calls and gave up.

Adjusting the shotgun stock against his shoulder, Gus moved into a sleeping quarters area where two small rooms contained a single cot each. He then found a kitchen and refrigerator. He opened the fridge and winced at the prunish, green-black sludge that was once some manner of vegetable. A milk carton and four cans of cola remained on the upper shelf, but nothing else edible. He left it all and moved out of the kitchen. Readying himself for something wholly unpleasant, he went into the women’s and men’s washrooms, but found them all empty. Another closed door revealed the supply closet, and Gus smiled at an untouched tower of individually wrapped toilet paper. Anal gold, he thought.

Shotgun forward, he went up a set of stairs.

Squeak.

He stopped on the second step, the noise making him cringe as if he’d been goosed. He looked up and saw that the staircase turned to the left. Panel wood covered the walls, making it dark, and numerous historic pictures of the station hung along its length, showing happier times in both Kodak color and ancient-looking black and white.

Nothing appeared on the stairs.

Gus took another step.

Squark.

Squueee.

Jesus Christ, Gus swore mentally. It sounded like mice farting. Nothing moved from above, however, and sensing it was okay, he climbed the steps faster. The wood squealed as he went up, pissing him off enough that he hoped there was something at the top to shoot.

No such luck, however, as he entered a cozy living area stuffed with more historical items. Old bronze fire extinguishers hung from the walls, as did old firemen hats, gloves, and posters. Signs of various colors with street names and a poster of the movie Backdraft hung over a beaten sofa. The place had a comfortable clubhouse feel to it, and Gus could imagine the men and women serving in the station retiring up there for a moment to unwind and shoot the shit. Some old paperbacks filled a small two-shelf bookcase, but Gus left them there, seeing the name Jackie Collins on the top cover.

As far as he could tell, the place was clear.

They would have to work fast.

14

It was too goddamn quiet outside.

The sound of his own impatient breathing was driving Scott nuts. Not only did he expect to see a mob of deadheads rounding the corner, he found himself looking out his open window to check if anything was creeping up on him. Like that fucker Tenner. Scott shook his head and wished he’d paid more attention to what was happening behind him in the house when he had been shot. Never again would he be taken in such a way, he swore, never fucking again. His fingers did an irregular drum roll on the steering wheel, and he checked his window again. It was the shooting, he knew, that had him going. Gus blowing the hell out of the dead inside had shaken up his nerves, and he was struggling with bringing them back down. He reached up and adjusted his motorcycle helmet, a black one with lightning bolts streaking down both sides. He looked both ways on the street, the asphalt shining in the sun, and didn’t see anything approaching. Sunlight came into the van at an angle, making him squint. He took another deep breath and willed himself to calm down, but what the fuck was taking the man so long? Did it take fifteen minutes to clear a building? Was he in trouble? He ached to sound the horn on the beast, just for the grounding comfort it would bring him. Where the hell was Gus? Should he go in? No, he told himself, that wasn’t the plan. That wasn’t the plan.

Then he saw them.

Stark and morbid in the glare of the day, the dead staggered up the road from the left, shuffling along as if each step might shatter a leg. Their clothes were black, stained, and filthy. He could clearly see their dark flesh, and soon would see their unseeing eyes. One of them wore once-dorky summer shorts and a T-shirt, oblivious to the change in the weather. Another looked to be a barefoot young woman in a mini-skirt, her long gray legs covered with black sores. Children stumbled into the picture, and Scott winced as if shot once more. He hated the children the worst. Hated putting them down. They creeped the hell out of him. He counted eight corpses, perhaps fifty meters away and closing. Scott had his shotgun hung in a rack nearby. He looked out his side window and almost knocked foreheads with Gus as he appeared.

“Jesus Christ!” Scott burst out.

“Sorry, man,” Gus replied, his shotgun lowered. “You got me, too.”

“Oh, Jesus Christ. I think I shit myself. Jesus Christ. I just shit myself. I know I did.”

“Calm down.”

In reply, Scott jabbed a flat hand out of his window in the direction of the gathering dead. Gus flipped up his visor. The putrid smell of rotting flesh crept in, and Scott actually gagged.

“Keep it down!” Gus whispered harshly. “Don’t you puke.”

“I ain’t gonna puke, but Christ, the smell.” Scott placed his helmet-covered forehead against the steering wheel and took deep breaths.

“We can’t stay here now,” Gus said. “Start it up.”

Nodding weakly, Scott turned the key as Gus hurried around the front of the van. The dead shifted toward them, a shambling tide of wrecked flesh. At least forty were in sight, and Scott choked as he rolled up his window.

Gus jumped into the van, throwing his bat and scabbard into one of the open bins before going back and securing the rear door. He returned to his seat and fastened his belt, electing to keep a hold of his shotgun.

The beast growled as a shot of gas went through its system.

“Where the fuck do they come from?” Scott asked.

“I think they just walk and walk and walk,” Gus said, watching as the road filled. “Get us out of here. Go right. We can find another subdivision.”

The undead tide closed in as the van pulled away from the fire station with a lurch. Scott took his foot off the gas, cursing himself for stomping on the metal. Beside him, Gus pointed the shotgun toward the roof, as his free hand came forward and rested against the dash.

“Don’t drive us into the curb!” Gus yelled.

Scott yanked the wheel, sending the van into a fishtail. He got the machine under control and raced away from the crowd of zombies. “How many people lived in Annapolis?”

“More than we have shells. More than we can kill with our bats.”

“What kinda answer is that? Two hundred thousand? Three?”

Gus shook his head. “Only a hundred thousand. Feel better?”

Scott shook his head.

“We’ll come back later, when the area’s died down. Drive straight here. I’ll tell you when to turn.”

“We headin’ back to the house?”

Gus shook his head. “No, too early. A waste of time to go back now. Like I said, we’ll find another place. Turn down here.”

Scott did so.

“Hey,” Gus said, grimacing. “I think you did shit yourself.”

Scott looked over, blinking, before turning his attention to his crotch. “Aww shit.”

“You can’t do anything about it now.”

“I gotta clean myself up.”

“Wait ’til I clear a house.”

“I can feel it, awww, man!”

Gus rolled down a window. “Christ, what’d you eat anyway?”

Scott felt himself blushing.

“Scott’s a dirty boy.” Gus said in a teasing voice.

Scott broke out laughing. Gus erupted into a belly chuckle, too, which quickly escalated into tears of laughter. Scott roared, actually slowing and stopping the beast. His helmet met the upper curve of the steering wheel.

“Oh, God,” Scott panted between high peals of laughter. “I can feel it squishin’ between my ass cheeks! Like I’m sittin’ in rotten Jell-O.”

That crack took Gus away on a fresh gust of laughter, doubling him over in his seat.

The hooting eventually died away to head-shaking chuckles.

“Man,” Gus said hoarsely. “I… I haven’t laughed like that in fuckin’ three years at least.”

“Me either.” Turning his attention to the street, Scott noted that they were on a main shopping drag. “Okay, get serious now,” Gus said.

That only brought another bubble of giggles from Scott.

“We gotta get out of here. They’re probably hearing us right now.”

“Sure as fuck can smell us,” Scott threw out.

“Drive straight. I’ll tell you where to go. Nothing here. S’all been picked over.”

“All of it?”

“All of it.”

Under control, Scott eased the beast back up to speed.

*

They continued on past the shopping district and took a series of turns until the larger buildings fell away to a series of houses. Gus directed Scott to take another left, and the beast turned into a new subdivision built on the side of a hill in the neighborhood once known as Kentville, before the towns had amalgamated.

At Gus’s instruction, Scott brought the van to a stop and backed into the driveway of a two-story white house. A small front lawn sprouted an uncontrolled frizz of tall yellow grass, half-hiding several faded lawn gnomes. Gus hopped out of the rear of the van, armed as always, and moved to the front door. He saw the hiding gnomes, their chipped faces bright and merry. Happy little fuckers, aren’t ya? he thought as he moved over a concrete walkway that the elements had split in places. He stopped at the door and tried the knob. Locked. He stepped back, inspecting the windows and seeing none broken. Gus didn’t like breaking into houses, on the very slim chance there were people living in there. He hadn’t encountered anyone in his picking process, figuring he’d allowed enough time to pass that folks had either run for the hills, died, or become one with the gimps. He didn’t want to smash out the side window next to the door to unlock it, as he might want to lock it later. Still, he relented, he had shitty-assed Scott stewing in his own beef stroganoff, and he certainly didn’t want to think about how that felt.

He broke the glass with one pop of his shotgun butt, the crinkling sound making him cringe. He reached over the jagged ends, and felt around inside for the lock. A moment later, he opened the door, revealing dark wood flooring and a welcoming area that branched off to the left and right. A musty smell permeated throughout, which told him that none of the windows in the place had been opened in a long time. A staircase to the right went up to a landing with an open door, and then went left. Bright wallpaper covered the walls, and one look around informed him that the owners had money. Shotgun at the ready, he moved quickly through the downstairs, then proceeded up. The three bedrooms had been left neat and clean, as if the people had thought to return at a later date. Gus found a large flat-screen TV in the master bedroom and went into the adjoining bathroom that had a window facing the street. Oak cabinets and walk-in closets were half-full of clothes. Old-people clothes, Gus thought, while the other bedrooms were filled with other items: desks, school textbooks, paperbacks, laptops, and other things that didn’t attract his attention while in house-checking mode. It was a house where the people had children who had grown up and moved away.

Gus left the upstairs and cautiously took the wooden steps down to the basement. A long row of paperbacks lined the wall and a pile of hockey sticks and equipment were piled up in a corner. Gus tried the light switch, knowing it wouldn’t work. He stared into the dark below and rapped his hand against the wall, once, twice, before easing back and waiting with shotgun poised.

Nothing came.

As it was much too dark down there for him to explore, he decided that the house was pretty much clear, and went out to get Scott. At least Scott could clean himself up and maybe even find some clothes that fit.

Exiting the house, Gus saw that the street was still clear, and that made him happy. He didn’t like to rush when picking.

“C’mon in,” Gus told Scott. “It’s cleared.”

“No trouble?”

Gus shook his head.

“Took long enough,” Scott grated. “Almost thought you were purposely taking your time in there.”

“And let you wallow in your own shit?” Gus shook his head. “Don’t know you well enough for that. C’mon in. The van’ll be fine. Clean yourself up. There are clothes inside. You might be lucky.”

As it turned out, Scott wasn’t fortunate enough to find anything his size, but he did locate a pair of black pants with a leather belt and some long johns. He found plenty of old towels, too, and even a four-liter bottle of water, which he took to the washroom to clean himself.

Gus moved into the kitchen and went through the cupboards. He didn’t find much. He took the sealed bottles of condiments, pepper, salt, even cinnamon, and popped them into his duffel bag. He also tossed in some paper towels and eight rolls of toilet paper. He found a bottle of vinegar and more household cleaning products under the sink. When Scott appeared holding a plastic-bagged pair of jeans in his fist, he helped carry stuff out to the van.

“What about the furniture?” Scott asked as he brought out a pile of well-kept paperbacks.

“Leave it. The furniture at the house is fine.”

“There’s an exercise machine in that room off the laundry room.”

“You really want to exercise?”

“What about the old DVDs?”

“Already checked. Got them on digital on one of the terabytes.”

“Hey, they got a bunch of board games here.”

“Which ones?”

They took what they wanted and left with one bin full of mostly non-edible goods. Sitting again behind the wheel, Scott positioned the van in the driveway of the next house.

Gus entered and searched. He remerged minutes later with more toilet tissue, some clothes that looked as though they might fit Scott, and some cans of sausage. There was a CD collection of 70s rock music, which Gus carried back to the van and stowed as if he’d located a holy relic. He found some towels and two bottles of Glenfiddich scotch along with three bottles of Bailey’s Irish Cream in a closet. Gus tucked them in the bin, wrapped and covered with the plush towels. He next came out with hockey sticks and a set of hard plastic balls. After stowing those, he leaped into the rear of the van and gave the okay to drive to the next house.

They continued along the street, picking the houses clean, until Gus noticed Scott’s increasing nervousness about the dropping sun and decided to give the signal to get out of there. The time was a little after four according to the clock in the dashboard when Gus finished storing his shotgun and plopped down in the passenger seat. The welcoming heat of the interior made him sigh.

“You know something?” Gus asked as Scott drove the van back onto the main road.

“What?”

“I got into nine houses today.”

“That a record?”

“Given the time, no, but it was good knowing you were out here watching things.” Gus nodded. “Gave me a sense of security.”

“Despite me shittin’ myself?”

“Ah, don’t worry about that. I shit my own self once, trying to get away from a fucked-up nurse.”

“What?” Scott’s helmet turned in his direction.

“Yeah.”

“What happened?”

“Ah, I’ll tell you about it another time. But I did come close to buyin’ the farm. Lucky to be alive.”

“A nurse?”

“Yeah.”

“Shit. You shoot her?”

“What? No, I didn’t shoot her. Shooting the dead’s one thing, but I couldn’t shoot the living. Drive on, there, Chico,” Gus said, relaxing for the first time. He felt good with Scott around. “Take us home.”

15

Gus initiated Scott to the welcome-back-alive shot he customarily took once inside the garage, and when the burns of the shots got down, they unloaded the van. Afterward, they retired to their rooms and rejoined in the kitchen a few minutes later, both changed into sweat pants and sweaters.

“You find it warm in here?” Scott asked, walking to the island in the middle of the kitchen.

Gus pointed to the living room. “You can’t see it from here, but just inside the wall, there’s a solar panel for heating. Heats most of the place. This area gets toasty now, but it’ll be fine in the winter.”

“This place is amazing.”

“It is.” Gus nodded, rubbing his hand on his black fisherman’s sweater. He turned to the cupboards and took down two cans of Chunky soup. “Chicken okay?”

“That’s fine, man.”

“Go get us some booze.”

Scott limped as he walked to the dining table and picked up the two waiting bottles of Jack Daniels on the table. He brought them back to the island and held one out to Gus. They opened the bottles and clicked the necks together.

“Other than the incident at the fire station, a job well done today,” Gus announced.

“Yeah, it was.” Scott grinned, and both of them took a burning shot.

After he finished grimacing, Scott coughed. “Gotta wash my jeans, though.”

“They still in the bag?”

“Yeah.”

“I’ll get you some water tomorrow to do the job. A scrub bucket, too.”

“What about the washer and dryer in the mud room?”

“That works, but takes power. Gotta be conservative.”

“Right.”

Gus took another shot from the bottle of Jack and started preparing supper. He emptied the contents of the two cans into two different pots and heated them on the stove.

“Didn’t want to use the same pot?” Scott asked, holding his bottle by the neck.

“Well, y’see,” Gus said as he stirred both with different spoons. “I kinda half believe that one story about the infection coming from the food supply. I never worried about it when it was myself. Man’s gotta eat. Now there’s two of us. If it is in the food––and I don’t think it is––and one of us eats it, at least the other will have a chance.”

He could tell from the sudden sour expression on Scott’s face that he might have said too much. “Don’t worry about it,” he added, trying to reassure the man. “Just eat and drink.”

After finishing their supper, they left the pots, bowls, and spoons in the sink and went down into the den. Gus turned on a single shaded lamp, but kept some candles nearby in case it started to flicker. He then plopped down on the sofa, while Scott took the recliner.

“Here’s shit in your eye.” Gus smirked and downed a shot.

“Just hope I don’t have nightmares tonight.”

Gus held up his bottle. “This should help. Can’t hurt.”

Scott studied the label of his own bottle. “Medicine.”

“Better than Buckley’s Mixture.”

“Ew. I remember that shit. Tasted horrible.”

“It did,” Gus agreed. “But it worked.”

“Didn’t the president of the company say that in the commercials?”

“He did. Smart man.” Gus took another shot of the whiskey. “This stuff’s going down too easy these days. We’ll have to get to the liquor shop and pick more up.”

“There’s still some there?”

“Oh, yeah. A whole warehouse full. I don’t understand it myself. No one went there at all for supplies.”

“Booze isn’t high on a person’s list, I guess.”

“Guess so. Hey, you notice anything down there today?”

“No. What?” Scott stretched out in the recliner, filling its frame and gingerly lifting his healed foot.

“How’s the foot?”

“Getting there. Still sore. So what about today?”

Gus took a moment before answering, as he didn’t really know what to make of it all. “I don’t know how accurate this is, but… we were into nine houses today. You asked if that was a record. It’s not, but I didn’t find any corpses in any of those houses. And there weren’t any dead walking around that subdivision.”

Scott’s brow scrunched and his eyes flicked to Gus’.

“Next time we head down there, just keep that in mind. I might be wrong. Probably am wrong, but I have a feeling that the gimps are thinning out.”

“You think so?”

“Maybe.” Gus shrugged and stroked his beard. “They’re like storm systems, y’know? Sometimes they’re thicker in areas than others. Like where I ran over you. That area was thick with ’em.”

“Were you shooting them?”

“I was. Yeah. Maybe that’s it… But there’s something else.”

“Spit it out.”

“That same area where I found you, well, I shot up a few of them. Left them in the streets to rot. But when I went back, they were gone.”

Scott’s face became drawn and pensive in the shaded light.

“Not a fuckin’ trace of anything. And I looked. I mean, I left them out in the streets, and they don’t decompose that fast. They were completely gone. Like the might have got up and walked away.”

“Oh, shit.”

“Yeah.”

“So you think we can’t shoot them anymore?”

“I don’t know what to think. All I know is that I shot some deadheads, and they weren’t there a few days later.”

“Christ,” Scott said quietly.

“All will be revealed in the days ahead, I figure.”

“All will be revealed,” Scott repeated, nodding. “Jesus, though, that’s a creepy thought.”

Gus shook his head. “Let’s not worry about that, then. Let’s just focus on the rest of the month and gettin’ things done before the snow comes.”

“And it’s coming.”

“Yeah. It’s comin’. But we’ll be okay. We’ll be ready.”

“What’s on the schedule for tomorrow?”

“You should be worried about what happens tonight.” Gus held up his bottle. “I wanna see yours half empty.”

Scott winced. “We’re goin’ back into the city?”

“If we get up in time. And depends on how hung over you are.”

“You don’t get hangovers?”

As an answer, Gus chugged about a quarter of the bottle. He lowered it with a gasp. “I do, but I’m learnin’ to not give a shit. Now then, I saw you lug in a game of Scrabble. I’m here to tell you, there ain’t nothin’ more amusin’ than tryin’ to spell big words when you’re fuckin’ sloshed.”

16

Fall had almost spent the days of November, and the trees of the valley shrugged off the remainder of their foliage, letting it fall to the ground. Tall, wild grass completed turning yellow, and frost glazed it in the mornings. The air became crisp, fresh, and seemingly free of the smell of decaying flesh. One of the nicer things about winter in the new world.

The van backed up to the fire station in a growl of exhaust. The streets were clear of zombies, and Scott let Gus know that it had been two days since they were last in Annapolis. The drinking had been bad, quite bad for Scott, Gus knew, as the man informed him the day after their drunken Scrabble marathon. Gus also knew there was no sense in worrying about winter when one was hung over, so he declared they’d take some time off and rest up. Annapolis wasn’t going anywhere. They had spent it playing both Scrabble and Monopoly, drinking lightly, but still drinking, and watching old episodes of Breaking Bad. The recovery days were over, however, and Gus had gotten up that morning feeling as though there was a mission in his bones.

Scott remained in the driver’s seat with his lightning bolt helmet on, keeping an eye on the street, while Gus readied his shotgun and made his way to the rear. Flipping down his visor, he unlocked the doors and threw them open. The heels of his boots hit the pavement, and he hurried for the open door of the office. Gus stopped at the threshold and peered inside the area. Shadows clung to the walls like spiders webs. Sometimes, the dead wandered back into a previously cleared building, so he entered with caution.

And gagged. The smell of the putrefying dead halted him in his tracks, and Gus realized that the cold had probably dampened the smell. If it were summer, he’d have been puking in the doorway from the stench. Holding his breath in intervals, he continued and quickly established the fire station was empty. He went back to the van and got Scott to enter the station’s bay with him.

“Find two of everything that fits you,” Gus said.

“We got room at the house for all of this?”

“We’ll make room if we have to. Just get two of everything.”

They took off their jackets and tried on the black-and-yellow striped coats until finding their sizes. They took four of the ninja masks, as well as two sets of fire-retardant Nomex pants, gloves, and steel-toed boots, which reminded Gus of old science fiction movies. They loaded up three fire extinguishers and two crowbars, as well as a pair of first-aid kits. They left what they didn’t need or understand how to use and were back at the van within twenty minutes.

“Stuff’s heavy,” Scott muttered as he loaded.

“Damn right it’s heavy. And think of the shit we ain’t takin’. They carry around a lot of gear.”

He paused at the rear doors and looked back at the station.

“What’s up?” Scott asked.

“Forgot something. Start up the beast.”

Dumping his shotgun in the back, Gus drew his aluminum bat from the scabbard and returned to the station’s common area. He faced the map that outlined all of the streets of Annapolis behind a thin sheen of glass. Whoever had hung the thing had nailed its wooden frame in place. Gus tsked and took a samurai pose before smashing the glass with two quick swings of his bat.

A few nails weren’t going to stop vandals if they really wanted it.

After a few moments of wrestling it loose, Gus rolled up the map and retreated to the van with it. He stopped once and peered in at the great fire machines filling the apparatus bay, and wished he could drive one of them away. It wasn’t practical, however, and gave them one last lingering look before leaving.

They rumbled away in the van, seeking to continue their house picking from the other day.

“You know, we should be checking garages, too,” Scott said. “There might be another van or something in one of them.”

“A brother to the beast? Existing in this town?” Gus’s helmet cocked to one side. “Is such a thing possible?”

“One never–– Oh… shit…”

Gus saw what had made Scott cuss and leaned forward in his seat.

Just ahead, filling the entire breadth of the road, stood a wall of corpses. Bodies of all sizes and heights shambled along on bare feet and broken ankles. Some crawled like filthy fat carpets. Gray-faced children missing limbs wore summer clothing. Undead that appeared almost skeletal, with bare heads bearing the brunt of the sun’s glare, turned in the direction of the slowing van. As the cold sun beat down upon the mob that spanned from one row of houses to the other, Scott slowed the van and stopped a good thirty meters from the line. The dead on the outer edge of the horde wavered and turned like a dark audience of headbangers left thrashing for far too long.

Then, five of the corpses rushed the van.

“Runners,” Gus yelled. “Back up!”

Scott shifted into reverse.

One of the runners stumbled and fell face down onto the cold asphalt, a sneaker flying into the air. The runner behind it tripped over the flailing arm of the fallen dead and likewise crashed.

The other three charged.

“Scott…” Gus put his hand on his seatbelt. If he had to, he would get his shotgun.

The beast swung around in a wild ninety-degree turn. Scott fumbled with the gears, got a lower one that made the engine groan.

Ten meters.

The three runners came on, their arms held straight out as if looking for hugs. Gus could see their gray-black features, the empty holes of their eye sockets. One didn’t have a jawbone, and its upper incisors hung down like nails worn to nubs.

Scott pushed the gear into Reverse and turned back the way they had come. A startling barrage of flesh beat upon the rear of the van, pounding out a mad bongo tune. Scott pressed down on the accelerator, and the beast shot forward, quickly getting up to forty.

“Do a fishtail!” Gus said.

“What?”

“Do it!”

Bending low over the steering wheel, Scott jerked it left, then right. His shoulder slammed against his door, and his helmet bounced off the glass. The connection startled him, but he maintained control of the vehicle.

Gus rolled down his window and stuck out his head, looking behind them. A moment later, he pulled back in and put up the window. “You just lost one unwanted hitchhiker.”

“Yeah?”

“Bastard was hangin’ on to something back there. It happens sometimes.” Gus pointed to the upcoming intersection. “Take a right here. We might be able to drive around them.”

Scott looked to Gus, the worry clear around his eyes as his helmet covered the rest. “We’re not goin’ into that subdivision, are we?”

“Through that tide?” Gus shook his head. “We go around it and find another place. Another street. There’s plenty. But shit, that pack back there blows my theory out of the water. I thought––hoped––they were thinning out.”

“Ain’t nothin’ thin about that goddamn convention.”

Gus rubbed a gloved hand over his helmet and adjusted it. “Turn here. I know this city. I know where we are.”

Following Gus’s directions, Scott drove the van to another part of the city. They crossed what was once the tidal flats lined with dikes, and proceeded into the neighborhood of Port Williams. They didn’t see any more dead, and avoided the main roads. The beast finally slowed and stopped on a side street lined with huge naked elms, behind which hundred-year-old houses squatted and waited to be visited. Some of the dwellings were newer and had plastic siding stuck to their ribs, while the older models were in bad need of a paint job. Scott backed the van into the driveway of the first house and killed the engine.

Gus looked out of his window and saw the state of decay the place was in. The front lawn had grown up into a yellow jungle while the white house looked as if it had been blasted by sand. Bare gray wood, ancient-looking under the sun, peeked out under the rotting white coat. Chips and long ragged strips hung off the soffit and fascia like droopy, cured flesh. The place needed a complete scraping and a solid coat of primer, followed by at least two coats of paint. It would have been a huge contract to paint such a house, Gus knew, back in the old days. That put a smile on his face. The old days were only a few years ago.

“We’ll do the whole street if there’s time,” Gus said and got up, moving into the back.

“Is this a three-story house?” Scott asked.

“Looks like two, but they probably have an attic. Wouldn’t want to be up there in the summer. Or the winter for that matter.” Gus slung his bat scabbard over his back, then took down the shotgun. He grabbed a fistful of shells and filled both of his pockets.

“Looks like a gas station down the street there.”

“Dry,” Gus said, slapping down his visor. “I was there about a year ago. Long looted, but I’m wondering about the houses.”

Taking the shotgun to the back of the van, Gus opened the door and jumped out. He closed the door softly behind him and walked down a short crushed-gravel driveway. The door to the house was on the left, but Gus pointed the shotgun toward the garden in the back, just past another elm with a lonely swing hanging from one of its lower limbs. The cold wind broke on his leather and helmet, but something about the white reeds wilted in the garden drew his attention. Checking the corner of the house, Gus warily moved forward, edging past the swing. The garden appeared like something washed up on a shore somewhere. Dead stalks formed a white weave over the earth, but Gus spotted a few wasted bulbs still attached. Looking around, he knelt and picked up one of the bulbs for closer study.

Garlic. He squished it between his fingers. Someone grew their own garlic behind the house and probably a little something more, but Gus wasn’t an expert on produce. The valley was a farming hub right up until the end, and those who had the property to do so had possessed little gardens behind their houses. Gus got to his feet and tossed the dead plant back into its bed. He turned around and looked up at the house. A wind rose up and buffeted him, and the high windows seemed like dead eyes gazing off toward the Bay of Fundy. Gus didn’t like the chill that passed through him, and wasn’t certain if it was the wind or his own fear.

“Fuckin’ gimps.” He trekked to the door. He turned the old-fashioned brass knob of the wood and glass door and found it locked. The keyhole was another throwback to older times, but Gus wasn’t interested in remembering them. He ran his bare fingers over glass with edges freckled with paint, and peered in. A short hallway led to another closed door, as well as a staircase on the right. Not seeing any other way, Gus put his plastic-padded elbow through the glass with a tinkle and reached in. He felt wood against the door. Grunting, Gus put his helmeted head through the broken window and saw a piece of two-by-four nailed both into the floor and the door, creating a brace.

Frowning, Gus used the butt of his shotgun to clear the glass fragments from the window. He returned to the van, his thoughts dark and his craw boiling for some unknown reason. He knocked on the rear door before opening it. “It’s me,” he said, climbing into the back.

Scott looked back. “Problem?”

“Someone placed a brace against the front door on the inside,” Gus said, pulling out one of the crowbars.

“Someone might be still in there.”

Gus grunted and got back out of the van. That might be the case, he thought as he closed the doors, but then he remembered the untended garden in the back, and his mood soured even more.

He carefully climbed in through the window and landed off balance. He righted himself and noted the shotgun’s short barrel pointed at his foot. Gus felt more bad juju. He got those feelings at times and had learned to pay attention to the foreshadowing. It wasn’t only fear building through him, though. It was irritation. If he got filled enough with it, he knew the shit would turn into anger.

His mouth becoming a tight line, Gus channelled that irritation into applying the crowbar and ripping out the brace. He turned the knob and let the door swing inward with an almost embarrassed squeal. Yeah, that’s right, fucker. I chopped down your mother, too.

Moving toward a closed door, Gus leaned over the stair railing and glanced upward to the second floor. Eggshell paint covered the hallway, and the heavy stale air and something else filled his senses, like old smoke from rotten lungs. He turned the knob on the door and found it also locked. Placing his shotgun down, he tore into the door with the crowbar, inserting one end into the crack and wrenching it back. As if he had pulled back the lips on a dead dog, the wood around the bolt snarled and splintered. Gus pried the door open, destroying the old lock, and swung open the door.

That familiar smell assaulted his senses, making him wish he had an air filter of some sort. Or that ninja mask he had gotten from the fire station. The stench backed his head up on his shoulders, and he dropped the crowbar in favor of the shotgun. Taking a breath, he steadied himself, while the fresh air from the door circulated inside. The entry area still stank to low hell.

All right, Gus thought, placing the butt of the weapon to his shoulder. Where are you?

Edging into what he assumed to be a lower apartment, he turned and faced a faded kitchen. Light oozed from boarded-up windows. Then, he heard it.

Squeaking. A gum-aching sound repeating again and again to a slow, but persistent beat.

His fingers flexed on the trigger guard and the pump of his weapon. He slid up his visor and took a step into the kitchen, walking on stained linoleum. Blood, he figured. The smell of dead flesh almost overpowered him, but he pressed on. Ignoring the counter on his right and the small table on his left, both covered in tarnished kitchen utensils, he faced the room ahead, a living room, one wall filled with a brown sofa covered in patches of piss-stained newspaper. The room appeared gloomy and cloaked in shadows, as the large picture window had been boarded up from the outside, allowing only narrow slivers of daylight to enter. He took two more steps; a toaster’s side reflected his swelling reflection.

Squeaaak… Squeaaak. Like an old swing swaying from log rafters. Squeaaak. Squeaaak.

Thump.

Gus froze in his tracks and looked at the ceiling. A spider’s web of cracks spread across its painted surface, as if something had thrown itself at the floor above in an effort to break through.

Squeaaaak. Squeaaa…

Irritation got the fuck out of Dodge, replaced with incoming fright. Gus blinked, divided between the nerve-grating noise ahead, and the––

Thump.

Accompanied by the sound of a short drag of something heavy across the floor above.

Squeeeeee.

Gus looked back to the eerie living room, the greater part of it shielded from his vision. He haltingly took another step forward.

Thump. From above, right over his head.

He took another step forward, his mind screaming at him to get the fuck out of the apartment. Get the fuck out. He wasn’t being stupid; he was well over the border of squirrel shit crazy for inching to his left, expanding his field of vision until he saw the tip of a black boot come into sight, the toe moving back and forth.

Squeak… squueeeee.

Thump, and that raspy dead weight drag of something unwilling, moving over Gus’s head, and back the way he had come… in the direction of the stairs. Fright quickened his breath, and he glanced back at the moving black boot. He moved another step forward, fingers flexing on the trigger guard. Squeeak. The boot rose up to a white pants cuff, splashed with black.

Thump thump thump. Gus whirled at the noise, pointing the barrel at the ceiling and waiting to see if the way he had come would fill with the dead. The grim light softening the threshold and open doorway was momentarily fluttered by darkness. Something was coming. Something was coming for him.

Squeak.

Gus knew he was cut off. He looked ahead and back, wondering where the first corpse would appear. He angled further to his left. He saw the boot place itself, very precisely, onto the floor. There was no other leg. The pants cuff rose to a knee and a gray hand came into view, its last two fingers missing and meaty stumps bare and white. The remaining fingers flexed like a spider’s legs. Gus heard something come around the hallway behind him, dragging itself along the wall. A groan of wood perked his attention, and he moved further in to see dark splashes over a white-shirted torso. The black flesh of one side of a face came into view, the lips eroded over black gums housing the dull gleam of gold. The robin’s egg of a single eye turned in Gus’s direction and, as he watched in mounting terror, the thing in the rocking chair pushed itself up and stood on one leg, the empty pant leg rolling off the seat like a bloated ribbon of dead skin. Breath hissed from a chest that did not move, and that gold-toothed mouth actually clicked open.

It released its hands from the armrests of the rocker and collapsed to the stained carpet with a clatter. The noise distracted Gus from the two runners bursting into the apartment behind him. He heard the patter of their shoeless feet and turned in time to see jaws opening and black orbs rolling in their eye sockets. Gus fired and punched a toaster-sized hole in the first zombie, throwing it back against the kitchen sink. The second undead crashed into him and bit into his visor. The putrid smell of the decomposing flesh swamped Gus and almost made him swoon. His shotgun pinned against his chest, he angled it under the zombie’s working jaw and exploded the top of the dead fucker’s head, flowering the ceiling in a nasty soup of decayed gore and brain matter. Particles freckled Gus’s visor, and the touch of it sent a Shit through his mind. The blast knocked him backward, and he careened off the doorframe, landing flat on his back––the aluminum bat nearly breaking his spine––halfway in the living room. The wind flew from his lungs. Gus wheezed, desperately clawing oxygen back into his body while the black hand of the one-legged gentleman with the gold-toothed grin reached for him with two missing fingers. The hand closed in on Gus’s visor and gave him the rare treat of seeing how the splintered stumps bled dry over time. Shards of dead skin hung from the bitten-off bones, and just beyond, the white-eyed fucker’s teeth clicked open another degree.

Gus felt as if he were in a vacuum, sucking in air moving in the other direction and not filling his begging lungs, but possibly drawing in the mess splashed on his visor and the horror of that made him roll away from the hand. He felt fingers graze his shoulders, pointed things like old spikes, and he swung an arm, hitting something, but not knowing what. His ears exploded with the THUMP, THUMP, THUMP from somewhere above. He looked up from where he lay on his stomach and saw that his fist had taken the gold-toothed jaw off the old bastard’s face, but still it crawled toward him.

Air finally went back into Gus’s aching lungs. He coughed, felt his eyes water, and pistoned his boot heel out and into the face of the zombie slinking toward him. Then, fingers gripped his helmet and hooked the thing up over his eyes, blinding him.

A train whistle of a howl blasted his ears, and Gus ripped the helmet from his head. A corpse with a huge hole in its stomach attacked, wasted guts jiggling like old rubber from the edges of its wound. Gus flailed out with both arms and knocked the thing away to land on top of the old man. Coughing as though he’d just infected himself with a super strain of influenza, Gus found his boomstick on the threshold of the doorway. He snatched it up as more shadows appeared in the kitchen, a woman chained to a chair, dragging it toward him with an expression of dead glee on her frightening features. Gus whirled and roared as he pumped the shotgun and blew off the heads of the two creatures at his feet with one shell. A ridge of gold teeth jumped onto the carpet. He pumped another shell into the chamber, the ejector of his shotgun spitting out an empty red piece of plastic. In one fluid movement, where the mind and body act as a single instrument, he brought up the barrel and unleashed a blast square into the ghoulish white smile of the dead woman behind him, disintegrating her skull from the chin up.

He fell back against the doorway, breathing hard and suddenly buckling over and throwing up. He heaved twice more, retching as if his eyes would fucking explode onto the carpet before him. Shotgun blasts rocked his world then, sounding days away and yet right in his eardrums. He wanted to get clean. He wanted dearly to scrub his face and any other body part that had come into contact with the dead things. He didn’t know if he’d swallowed anything or not. His eyes filled with water, and he didn’t know if it was from the force of his voiding or if something had entered them. His hands shook as if holding on to train tracks while a locomotive thundered down upon him. He wept. He heaved again and blew snot out of his nose, knowing the complete experience that had just occurred in a fish bowl of seconds had broken his mind and yanked on his nerves. A shadow rushed him, and he tried to raise his shotgun, but his fingers felt boneless. He blinked and saw only a black thing bearing down on him.

And then blackness swallowed him.

17

Tenner had come across the man in a small nameless town on the road to Halifax. He had pulled over to inspect another service station, an Esso, when he heard a clatter from the roof and a human voice yell out to him. Pleasantries were exchanged, and Tenner informed the man that he was on his way to Halifax, and by all means, he was more than welcome to join him.

Five minutes later, the guy–– in his fifties, bald-headed, and with a huge overbite––ran from the station, dressed in faded denims and a dark winter coat that puffed him up. The old guy practically cried at seeing another human being. The man couldn’t believe Tenner drove a hybrid SUV, and overall damn near pissed himself with joy.

His name was Lou, he informed Tenner with a broad smile missing two front teeth. He was a mechanic.

The fact that he was a mechanic saved his ass for a day. Tenner had him inspect the Pathfinder and give it the thumbs up, and even let him cook dinner in the back of the service station. Old Lou was sampling the soup he had cooked when Tenner grabbed him in a chokehold from behind and squeezed all consciousness from him. Old Lou had woken up bound and gagged. Tenner had been more than happy to have a new toy, even if it would only be for a little while.

Tenner stood on the roof of the service station and gazed through telescopic sights down at the rusty drum filled with rocks to keep it in place. Rough rope bound old Lou to the drum, looping around his bare upper chest. Cement blocks lashed to his legs kept them stretched out before him, and in old Lou’s weakened condition, he was helpless––the poor bastard had been on the cusp of starvation and eating roots when Tenner found him. Tenner zeroed in on Lou’s hands, inspecting the spikes he had driven through the backs of each, nailing him to the drum. The wounds still dribbled blood.

That was just great, Tenner thought. More sauce for the goose. Or geese. Or whatever the fuck might happen along. He wasn’t picky. He simply wanted something to shoot.

Old Lou’s pain-wracked wails came from where he sat square in the middle of the highway, three-quarters of a kilometer away from the service station. The distance had been a bastard to figure on because Tenner just wasn’t certain of the range of his weapon. He hefted the rifle to his shoulder again and moved its bipod-mounted barrel onto the ledge of the roof. Tenner peeked through the scope once more, smirking as he looked over old Lou’s screaming form.

Nothing thus far.

Tenner sighed, folded his arms, and dropped his head onto them. Minutes later, old Lou stopped screaming. Tenner checked and saw that the highway remained empty. A few houses were far up one end, but if there were any undead around, old Lou’s blood would certainly bring them around. He glanced down at the ten magazines of twenty shots apiece and smiled contentedly. He had to thank dear old Dad again. A rush of wind grazed his back, chilling him despite the thick black winter coat he wore with a fur-lined hood. His ponytail pulled a little when he moved his head. Tenner studied his gloves for a moment, thinking about the stitches in the material, when Lou screamed again.

Tenner pulled the bipod and rifle back and squinted through the scope. A zombie moved up the highway, walking as if it wore a bloated colostomy bag. Tenner got into position and placed the targeting lines of the scope right on the approaching zombie’s right arm. He scrunched his brow in concentration. Old Lou’s pleading for help––only just heard to begin with––was periodically drowned out by the wind. Wind… he’d have to figure that into the shot and adjust accordingly.

Tenner sighted the zombie. The wind was blowing past him so it shouldn’t affect the shot. His finger left the guard and touched the trigger.

Squeezed.

The creature’s face blossomed violently, and the thing dropped to the pavement. Grinning, Tenner swerved the rifle back on old Lou and saw that the man wasn’t in the best of shape––even though he’d just been saved. That struck Tenner as odd. He then saw the cause for old Lou’s distress. Zombies. Perhaps a hundred, maybe even two, moving out from houses and from the forest, coming down the road.

“Shit,” Tenner swore with irritation. He had about two hundred rounds with him, but he wondered if that would be enough. “Gonna be close, Lou, old buddy. Gonna be close.”

Tenner was more than happy to give it a go. He loved old video games. Loved old shooters where the player stared down the barrel of a rifle to blast away at whole armies of animated fiends. His scenario was just a tad more realistic, a drop more visceral, and far too much fun. He had to shoot straight and accurately, else he’d lose old Lou to the advancing mob. That wouldn’t be kosher. Lou was important in Tenner’s new world. He possessed a valuable skill set. Losing him wouldn’t be a good thing, which gave even more excitement to the upcoming game. Tenner set the stock of the Bushmaster rifle to his shoulder, telling himself he’d have to be perfect.

The writhing, moaning wall approached old Lou’s position, or at least Tenner expected they would be moaning. Stinking, as well, but he had no worries of that where he was situated. He eyed the mass as they closed the distance, the scope powerful enough to spot bodies and individuals, but not quite features. There was always the option of allowing them closer, but Tenner thought not, and drew a bead on the first corpse.

*

Drumming his legs and cursing the day he had met that conniving bastard, Lou sat with his legs immobilized to the cinderblocks and his hands nailed to the drum behind him. His hands ached dearly, and he knew the chances were exceptionally high that if he got out his predicament, he’d probably have to hack both of them off to save himself from infection. He listened to the wind blowing and felt its cutting breath on his cheeks, freezing him. He’d never been colder. He couldn’t see what was behind him, but he slowly became aware of a creeping tide rising above the horizon of asphalt. He knew what they were, and he struggled again against his bonds. He pulled hard enough on his hands that he passed out from the pain.

The sounds of gunshots revived him. The mob of lurching dead people marched on. Lou’s senses cleared, and he shook his head. Focusing on the approaching wall of corpses, he estimated they were about a hundred and twenty meters out, a little more than a football field, and still much too close for Lou. Fear dried out his mouth and throat, and his legs kicked weakly.

At that moment, a zombie’s head exploded, and he heard the distant crack of the rifle. The dead collapsed and disappeared in the creeping tide.

Another zombie stumbled and fell, and Lou heard another far off report. He looked left and right, spotting only an empty field of tall yellow grass and a curtain of stark trees. The shots came from over the field, from the direction of the service station.

What the hell was happening? Lou thought as he watched the steady march of the dead eating up the distance with every step.

*

With the wind blowing past his hood, Tenner quickly emptied the first twenty-round magazine into the ranks of the unliving. Some he missed. Some he nailed dead on, exploding their skulls with a soundless poof. Others he missed, but hit something else instead as they were packed so tightly together––a shoulder here, a neck there. It didn’t really matter to Tenner. When the first mag finished, he ejected it and quickly inserted the next full one. He primed the weapon, took sight, and noted that the mass was about ninety meters away. He shot the head of a fellow in blue coveralls, and perfectly exploded the brainpan of what looked to be a priest. He fired and hit what could’ve been a pro basketball player, blowing the head clean from its neck.

Grinning, he took five to ten seconds in between shots to line up the next one. He focused on the dead leading the pack, closest to old Lou, who was either praising him or cursing him to low Hell. The second mag went dry, and Tenner reached for the third. The zombies kept pressing ahead, despite the thirty or so he’d put down. Gritting his teeth, Tenner made seventeen more kills, his rate of fire unconsciously speeding up, chipping away at the lead dead people like a hammer against rotten marble. He burned through the fourth and fifth clips, dropping another thirty or so at the eighty-meter mark. The pack seemed to be thinning out. He sniffed as he loaded up the sixth mag and noted old Lou hollering something lost in the wind. Whatever. Tenner couldn’t be distracted, and he ignored the growing ache in his shoulder from the Bushmaster’s repeated kicking. He wondered if he would have a misfire or experience some other malfunction as he took another head from the shoulders of a Mountie, the head spraying apart in spectacular fashion.

Seventy meters. Tenner took a breath and loaded the eighth magazine much slower. He pinched the ridge of bone between his eyes and snorted. Taking sight on the crowd, about three dozen unliving walkers left, he squeezed off a round and missed entirely. His second shot spun his target about like a ballerina before it fell. His shoulder ached like hell, and he massaged it, allowing the remaining bunch to close within fifty meters.

Tenner took aim and put down ten more dead before the spent mag popped out. He loaded in the ninth with a curse, realizing the game wasn’t so much fun anymore. He would carry on, however; he owed that much to old Lou.

Crack. An undead little girl flopped over.

Crack. A man with a jean jacket hanging off his left arm staggered back. Tenner sighted again and blew out the back of his head.

Crack. A woman wearing no pants dropped to her knees and fell over.

And on and on. Until he emptied the ninth. Tenner ejected the mag and simply dropped his head to his arms. The wind blew over him, but his coat kept him warm. There were seven or eight of the undead left. Closing in on old Lou. Tenner believed they were about thirty meters out. Lou’s screams sounded very far away. He had to give it to the zombies. They were relentless. Fearless. Even as others were dropping dead around them, they marched on without any concern for their personal safety. Of course, Tenner knew they would. Over time, he had made a gruesome study of the things. He was fairly certain they went by smell, perhaps sound if they had ears or their hearing canals were unblocked. And even sight. He sort of doubted the last one, as he’d seen too many of them with a milky film glazing their pupils. The thing that amazed him the most was their single-minded focus on feeding, and utter fearlessness of finally dying. He wondered if they were really dead at times, wondered if they were somehow distantly aware of their condition and welcomed final death. He didn’t know. Maybe he would one day.

Sighing, Tenner loaded his rifle again, wondering how hot the barrel was. He charged his weapon and fixed his eye to the scope.

Eight zombies left.

He sighted a woman wearing a uniform. Tenner shot her though the temple, shearing off the entire frontal part of her cranium and hooking her off her feet.

He heard the tinkle of the spent shell being ejected and looked to see a pile of brass next to him. Jesus.

Twenty meters. Tenner shot a man in a dress suit, ripping his head clean off his shoulders. He shifted quickly and popped the top off of a skull with a reflexive jerk of his trigger. Tenner shook his arm to loosen it up, wondering what had happened there. Old Lou, he figured, was probably scared shitless. Tenner knew he would be if their positions were reversed.

Crack. A bearded man spun around and almost gracefully dropped to the pavement.

Ten meters.

Crack, crack. Two more put down, their heads exploding like tough fruit gone bad.

Five meters. Two left.

Tenner sighted on the shambling form of a little old lady in a flowery dress. A larger male hung at her heels. The scope shifted, and he saw old Lou, white-faced and howling like a broken fire alarm. For an older guy, he shook and screamed and shuddered against the drum, primal instinct taking over now, and Tenner remembered a time when he was a boy and found a rabbit with two broken legs on the side of the highway. A car had smashed it while it was crossing and left it to die. That rabbit, however, had life enough in it to bawl like a child, terrified so much it actually tried to escape on its broken legs when it saw Tenner approaching.

Tenner had never heard anything so pure, and yet so heartbreaking, since.

He imagined Lou sounded something like that rabbit.

Through the scope, Tenner watched. His finger tensed on the trigger for a second, as the granny zombie closed the last few feet and gripped Lou’s face with its decayed hands. Old Lou’s eyes looked ready to just about pop out of his skull. The granny bent over, just as the second zombie stepped up behind her. She bared her barren gums, worn down to raw bone, and started to gnaw through old Lou’s scalp.

The larger zombie started in on Lou’s shoulder, biting into the meat with enough gusto to remind Tenner of eating a jelly donut. The male still had some teeth. He sighed and watched for a bit more, listening to Lou’s screams peter out. Tenner lost the game in the end. He figured old Lou had defecated himself right in the last few seconds.

And Tenner hated the smell of shit more than he needed a mechanic.

18

Scott wanted to shoot the dead thing reaching for Gus, but he didn’t. Instead, he rushed into the room and kicked the thing square in the bare back. His boot crunched through the gray-black flesh, and for a single insane moment, he stood there with a zombie on the end of his leg. The gruesome thing reared up and tried to turn. Unable to free himself, Scott stumbled backward, and the deadhead fell with him. Panting, Scott scrambled to his feet as the Dee seemed to understand that it was facing the floor. It looked up, and Scott blasted the skull, dropping the corpse in the kitchen.

“Gus!” He stepped over the carcasses to get to his companion, who was shrivelled up in the doorway with his hands to his face. “Gus!”

Scott pulled the hands down, and Gus stared at him blankly. Black and gray matter speckled Gus’s face as if he had stood behind a screen door when the shithouse exploded.

“Swallowed some,” Gus whispered, his eyes frightened. “I… swallowed some.”

“Oh, Jesus.” Scott heard moaning from above. “Oh, Jesus,” he repeated. He had killed two of the things on the staircase on the way in, but the house was turning out to be a goddamn nest. He pulled Gus to his feet and leaned him against the doorframe. Scott searched the area, yanking open two drawers in the kitchen before finding a red-and-white checked table cloth. He grabbed it and went back to Gus.

“Close your eyes and mouth!”

Gus blinked at him.

“CLOSE YOUR FUCKIN’ EYES AND MOUTH!”

Gus obeyed, and Scott tried to spit onto the end of the table cloth, but no spit would come. Muttering, he frantically dry-wiped Gus’s face, cleaning it as best as he could while the moaning grew louder. He looked over his shoulder. The daylight spilling into the room from the hallway darkened.

Snarling, Scott left the cloth in Gus’s hands and reloaded his shotgun, shoving four shells into the breach. He brought the weapon to his shoulder and waited. Three Dees wandered into the doorway. Scott shot them all and reloaded. He heard a single voice of one corpse closing the distance to the doorway, rustling as it dragged itself forward. Its shadow grew against the wall. Just before entering, it paused, creeping Scott out. Could the thing be thinking?

“Hey!” Scott yelled, and the dead thing, its head a hideous flesh-patched skull with its eyes eaten out, practically wrapped its huge bulbous form around the corner. A walking blob of a corpse, perhaps three hundred kilograms of reeking, rotting flesh, rubbed its rolls of fat against the narrow entryway as it came in. The sight and smell made Scott gag. The thing paused then, seemingly hearing him, then shuffled forward, its mouth hanging open.

Scott blew off its head. The headless corpse crumpled in the doorway, and he realized with dawning horror that the immense bulk of the thing blocked their escape.

“Well, Jesus Christ.” He rushed to the fat man’s form and leaned over to see how much room remained to crawl over the dead. The idea suddenly revolted him as he looked at the black sores covering the gruesome flesh. “Fuck that.” Scott backed up.

More hissing and moaning came from outside.

“Oh, Jesus,” Scott swore again, and went to a boarded window in the kitchen. He peeked out through the cracks and spied figures lurching past the van toward the open door of the house. “Oh, Jesus.” He looked back at Gus and then rushed into the living room. There was a picture window boarded up on the outside. The glass on the inside could potentially be dangerous enough. Then, Scott saw the old rocking chair. His features twisting into a scowl, he took two steps, uprooted it from the carpeted floor, and flung it into the glass. The picture window shattered with a clap and large shards tinkled to the floor. Scott stomped on the rocking chair, snapping off an armrest. He raked the length of wood around the edges of the frame, clearing it as best as he could in the time he thought he had. Realizing he was moaning, he fought down his fear and sized up the wood. Narrow planks stretched over a large window.

“I swallowed some,” he heard Gus mutter again and again. “I swallowed some, I swallowed some, I know I swallowed some…”

Scott returned and pulled him to his feet. He saw with growing horror that there were fragments of flesh in Gus’s beard. “Oh, fuck.” Had Gus ever been that pale before? How long did it take to change if someone ingested a piece of the dead? Oh, fuck! What if he was changing right fucking now? Oh, Jesus fucking Christ.

His breath coming hard, Scott listened to the growing sounds of visitors outside, some banging against the side of the house as they approached the doorway. He could hear shuffling in the hallway again. Taking a deep breath, Scott righted Gus and shoved his shotgun into his arms. “Hold this!”

Scott took five steps back from the window and bared teeth.

Then, he charged.

He was a big man, standing at six five. In his younger days, he had been a hockey player. A forward, and legend had it that if Scott Harris was coming down the ice, the last place on God’s frozen earth you wanted to be was in front of him. The last two years had taken away a lot of his fat and bulk, and even some of his muscle, but he was still a big man. Perhaps all of a hundred and twenty kilograms.

That weight crashed through the planks covering the picture window like a wrecking ball with a full desperate head of steam behind it. Scott fell to his knees on the other side and rolled over to stare at a zombie who was probably the neighbor, a tall, lanky individual with a rotten straw moustache. Scott kicked the thing’s legs out from under it and jumped up as it fell to the ground. Roaring, Scott stomped on its head, hearing the chalky, vase-breaking clatter of shattering skull. Scott looked around and spied several dead fuckers walking in the street, drawn to the commotion.

He went back in through the jagged hole he’d made and saw that Gus had dropped his shotgun. Suddenly furious, Scott picked up the weapon, spun Gus around to face the wall, and jammed the weapon into his bat scabbard, barrel first.

“We’re going!” Scott shouted.

“My helmet.” Gus pointed. Scott bent over and picked the thing up. He held it out, grew impatient, and stuffed the protective device over Gus’s head, wrenching it into position hard.

“Come on!” He dragged a torpid Gus toward the hole and pushed him through it. A zombie closed in on Gus, but Scott cracked the wooden stock of his shotgun across its dead features, knocking it to the ground. He fired a shell into its head, the ejector flinging away the spent cartridge.

Knowing that he had only seconds before the gathering mob zeroed in on him, he manhandled the smaller man toward the van. Scott opened the passenger door and got Gus into the seat.

“Buckle up!” he shouted and spun around the front. He ran into a little dead girl, no higher than his waist, with long hair that seemed glued to her pasty white scalp. Part of her jaw was missing, but she still had teeth. Scott bowled her over and left her in the dust. He reached the driver’s side and saw that the dozen or so deadheads going into the house were turning their direction. He lunged into the driver’s seat and started the beast. The machine cranked into gear and lurched forward, crushing the back and head of the rising little girl. The van pushed through five more of the gathering dead, probably not killing them, but knocking them away and breaking bones.

Scott turned the wheel and drove back the way they had come, leaving the pack behind them. He took the next right and drove fast down the streets. Houses flashed by. Scott turned left, looking for the street that would take them back to the main highway and the house. An intersection came up, and he went right, knowing that was the direction of out of town.

“Gus, where are we?” he asked, daring a look in the other man’s direction. Gus bounced in his seat, staring ahead and unresponsive. Scott saw that he hadn’t buckled up, and that the shotgun was pointed downward in the scabbard, into the seat. He didn’t know if he should worry or not, but if he hit something hard enough… visions of Gus blowing his own ass off filled his head.

“Gus!”

Gus leaned back in his seat as if trying to avoid something, his eyes fixed ahead.

Scott looked back at the road.

Well, shit.

A wall of zombies scores deep curtained off the street. Scott jammed on the brakes in time, but the beast’s nose still bashed the foremost ranks of the wall of deadheads. One reached up and clawed at the windshield. Others pawed at the side windows. More closed in on the sides, rattling the walls of the beast.

Grunting, Scott slapped the van into reverse and got its metallic ass away. The beast flew backward, the zombie wall falling away, and Scott realized in fright he didn’t know where he was driving in reverse as he had no mirrors.

“Oh, Jesus!” He slowed to do a ninety-degree turn. The ass of the beast smashed into something unseen and grated a metal squeal when Scott put the van back into drive. Something scraped the underside of the rear as he pulled ahead and swerved to the left. A side road loomed, and he took it, hoping beyond hope that he was right and the road led to the highway.

He slowed to forty and forced his breathing to calm. He drove down a long throat of a road, noting how the houses were the townhouse kind, built together in narrow plots with very little space between them.

Then his heart sank, and his jaw dropped.

The side street he had driven onto emerged into a fishbowl swath of pavement, hedged in by large houses built close together, with fenced-off backyards and deserted cars in some of the driveways.

A cul-de-sac.

“Sweet fucking monkey!” Scott jerked the wheel to the right, feeling the van ride the curve of the turn and circle back to the road leading out. He drove back the way he had come, revving the engine in his growing panic.

“Oh, fuck me…” he trailed off.

Just ahead, the concert crowd of undead shifted and oozed into the street like a massive carnivorous amoeba, sensing the entrapment of its prey. Scott slowed and stopped, glanced left and right. There was no way to drive the beast through the narrow walkways between the houses. In some cases, huge dead elms blocked any exit for the beast, unless he dragged Gus out and made a run for it. One look at Gus’ dead man’s stare killed that notion. The beast couldn’t penetrate the thing bearing down on them. They would plough into the first few ranks and stall against the press of dead bodies, perhaps even spin out on the corpses underneath while the remainder bashed and thrashed against the metal hull, until they broke through the windows or even rolled it over. It all ended badly for him and Gus.

The mass slid toward the beast.

Shaking his head, Scott did a ninety degree turn up over a small front lawn and turned back to the cul de sac. The van stopped in the middle of the pear-shaped dead end, and Scott focused on one two-story house. He saw the garage, the doors, the flimsy-looking windows. He looked around at all of the houses, seeing most were two-story, indefensible death traps. He had no other choice. No other choice at all.

“Fuck.” Scott head-butted the steering wheel with his lightning bolt helmet.

Then he reversed the van and backed it up in front of the front doorway of the house opposite the mouth of the cul-de-sac. He got up, went to the back, and locked the rear door. Gathering up four boxes of shells from where Gus had stowed them under the seats, he unzipped his coat and plopped them all inside, tucking the front of his jacket down the front of his jeans.

When he got out of the van, the advancing dead were spilling toward the mouth of the cul-de-sac. Scott raced around the front, shotgun in hand, and dragged Gus, still clutching at the tablecloth, out of his seat. With anxious glances over his shoulder, he dragged Gus to the front door and tried turning the knob. Locked, of fucking course, Scott seethed. He drove the butt of the shotgun through a pane of glass set into the door, then reached in and unlocked it. Grunting, Scott threw open the door and shoved Gus inside. He looked over his shoulder again and saw the mass of walking corpses coming into the far end of the cul-de-sac, beginning to fill up the bowl.

Hunting, his mind whispered.

He slammed the door and locked it. Scott looked about for a chair. He ran down a short hallway and entered the kitchen, swearing to the Lord above that if he walked into another nest like the last one, he’d shoot Gus first and then himself. He grabbed a wooden chair, carried it back to the front door, and shoved-wedged it under the knob. It didn’t feel secure enough.

High ground. Grabbing Gus by the shoulder and directing him forward, he pushed the man up a staircase to the second floor. They turned down a narrow hallway, and Scott found what he had hoped.

A trapdoor for an attic.

Frantically, Scott looked around. There was a linen closet nearby, and he opened it. Right inside was a long pole that ended with a hook. He grabbed and used it on the metal eye hanging from the ceiling. Scott pulled the door down to expose a folding stairway. He unfolded the stairs, the springs protesting loudly.

“Up!” Scott whispered and pushed Gus up the stairs. The wooden joints groaned at the weight, but held.

Scott thought he heard something down below.

Gus stopped halfway up the stairs, and Scott jabbed him in the ass with the pole, propelling him forward. On impulse, Scott glanced back into the linen closet and saw it stuffed with towels and blankets. Not thinking about why, he grabbed armfuls and threw them up into the attic.

Below, glass shattered.

Something crashed against the outside door. Wood squealed.

“Holy shit.” Scott climbed the steps to the attic. Darkness surrounded him, pierced only by light from a metal vent in a nearby wall. The attic had flooring in the main area, but bare black loaves of insulation lay beyond. Gus lay on a thick plank with his hands still holding the tablecloth to his chest.

Placing the shotguns to one side along with the ammunition, Scott got flat on his stomach. He stretched his arm over the edge and hooked the stairs. Grunting, he slowly folded the lower section into the middle part.

More glass shattering below. He wasn’t certain if the moaning was coming from Gus or the advancing fiends.

Grimacing, Scott hauled the stairway up into the attic, the springs squealing softly. Laying down the pole, Scott carefully moved over to Gus and covered him with blankets. He snatched the tablecloth away and gave him a clean towel for his face and beard.

“Shhhh,” Scott warned and looked around in the dark. There were boxes and suitcases stored in the attic, as well as books. He dropped to his hands and knees, and listened at the ceiling door.

Sounds of banging, followed by crunching of glass. Thudding. Wood squealing. Another crash of glass. Moaning. Moaning that, even as Scott listened, seemed to swell as voice after voice joined in, until a dreary river of sound filled the lower levels of the house. Sounds of crashing and wood being shoved aside punctuated the growing cacophony.

Well, fuuuuck, Scott’s mind stated in awe and became silent.

Then, the noise began to rise.

Coming up the steps, Scott thought.

Behind him, Gus whimpered softly.

Scott crawled over to where Gus lay. The man’s face was almost dead white in the dark, his black beard a mound of fresh ash. Gus squeezed his eyes shut as the fingers on one hand did a crab-like river dance on the flooring. Scott grabbed the twitching digits and covered them with the tablecloth.

“Listen to me,” Scott rasped, putting his mouth close to Gus’s ear. “Listen. They’re coming up the stairs. They’ll be here any second. You have to be quiet. Can you do that? You have to be still. Hold it together, okay? Okay?”

Eyes still closed, Gus nodded once.

Scott looked around the attic space and found an open box full of blankets. He quickly spread two dark ones over Gus before the moaning and hissing below became louder. The smell of the zombies’ approach reached his nose and made him screw up his face. Scott crouched down and lay on his belly, placing an ear to the edge of the trapdoor. Through the wood, he heard the river of corpses. They thudded into the walls and wailed a graveyard’s chorus. They passed under where Scott lay listening for any sign of being detected. Behind him, Gus remained quiet. For all he knew, Gus could be transforming into one of the dead. If that happened, Scott made the decision to finish him first and, if necessary, try and take his own life if escape proved to be impossible.

Scott didn’t want to end it in an attic.

The wailing continued, filling the whole upstairs. It sounded like a goddamn convention, and he struggled to control the impulse to do something. Something crashed, the sound muted by the attic flooring, then more glass broke. The stomp and shuffle of the unliving surged through the upstairs, until it seemed walking corpses filled the entirety of the upper floor.

Clenched fists near his face, Scott listened to the bodies moving around under him. His own heart threatened to beat its way out of its cage, and still they shambled along below. He glanced back at Gus and saw only a dark lump in the scant light.

We wait now, Scott told himself. There wasn’t much else to do. They were stuck in the attic until one of two things happened: Gus turned or the masses discovered them.

Closing his eyes, Scott forced himself to wait.

19

Four hours later, the light in the attic shrank away, leaving them in darkness. The deadheads still moved around underneath them, incessantly crying out and bumping into things. Just when Scott believed there was nothing left for them to break, something else would give with a clatter. Wood squealed. Glass cracked. And the dead did not retreat. Their smell permeated the wood and gassed the attic, making him regret every breath.

At the five hour mark, Scott discovered he had to urinate. He moved back to the boxes, creeping along the flooring like a mouse fearing nearby predators, and slowly went through the exposed boxes stored in the attic. He needed to find some sort of receptacle, ideally a bottle with a stopper or lid of some sort. He found skates, winter clothes, boxes that contained old board games, more books, and what felt to be an old flat-screen television or computer monitor. He felt around the insides of another box and cringed when metal softly rattled against metal. He froze in place, waiting for a reaction from below, fully expecting the door to be yanked down to reveal a hallway full of rotting faces.

Nothing happened, and Scott realized the scuffle of moving bodies must have masked the noise. After a minute, he continued feeling around inside the box, ever so carefully, and realized it was full of pans. Scott backed away from the box as if it were a land mine. His bladder began to bother him, threatening consequences if he didn’t find something soon. Gus remained still and as silent as stone, and Scott was careful not to bother him. He soon found two large suitcases made of hard plastic, and it took him long minutes to turn them both on their sides and unlatch them, his hands covering the latches to muffle the sound, while his bladder began to really complain, sending uncomfortable pangs through his midsection. Inside the suitcases were soft clothes, sweaters and shirts by the feel, even balled-up socks.

His bladder demanded release, and Scott considered a suitcase. They both had seals of sorts inside, and the clothes would absorb the urine. As long as the lid remained shut, there shouldn’t be any smell, or at least very little. Unzipping the front of his jeans, he positioned himself across and inside the suitcase as if he were about to spoon-fuck it, and let go. His bladder heaved in relief and emptied into the suitcase and onto the clothes without a hiss. Jesus Christ, Scott thought, one of the most under-appreciated feelings in the world had to be a satisfying piss. He finished a minute later and rolled away from the suitcase, closing it as quietly as possible.

Feeling much better, Scott carefully crawled over to Gus, feeling the edge of the trapdoor and realizing if he had backed up, he would have been on it. The place had its share of pitfalls, and Scott committed where things were to memory. He reached out a hand and felt the mound of his companion.

“Gus,” he whispered.

“Yeah?”

“How you feel?”

“Need a piss.”

“No, but, y’know, otherwise.”

“Feel fine. Nerves just got a little rattled, is all.”

“No shame in that, man.”

“I…” Gus’s voice faltered in the dark. “I think I’m okay. I don’t think I swallowed anything. I don’t think. Or I puked it out. It’s been a while.”

Scott considered. It had been a long time. “You might be right.”

“I think, but… be prepared to shoot my ass if you need to.”

That brought a smile to Scott’s face. “Already was.”

“Thanks.”

“You’re welcome.”

“Now, like I was saying, I need to piss.”

“You’re going to have to crawl a bit. Follow me and be quiet. You know what’s below?”

“I know.” Gus’s voice trembled, but held.

“There’s a suitcase over there. You can take a leak in that. There’s clothes in it. I used one just now. It should absorb everything.”

“Okay.”

Scott led him out from beneath his blankets to what he decided would be Gus’s suitcase. With painstaking care, he lifted the thing up and slid it across his legs.

“Take this and put it on your side. Take your time with it.” Gus took it, and Scott heard him move it slowly around, a soft dragging sound that put Scott’s teeth to the grind. He winced at the sound of a latch popping, and for another long minute, the two of them froze. Gus started moving again after a while, and Scott heard him sigh in relief.

Minutes later, he heard the soft scuffling of Gus retreating back under his blankets. It made Scott wonder how loud he had been. With the night coming on, the temperature in the attic dropped. Scott located what he believed was a sleeping bag. Confirming that it was, he laid it out and got inside.

“You know…” Gus began. “Those were once people down there, who now want… to eat us.”

“You feelin’ better?” Scott whispered.

“I think,” Gus answered, then allowed the silence to be filled with the sounds of the moving dead. After a minute, he said, “Thanks again, man.”

“You’re welcome.”

“We’ll have to sleep in shifts,” Gus said. “Just in case one of us starts snoring.”

That was a good idea. Scott was glad Gus was back. “Sounds good. Go ahead. Don’t think I could sleep anyway with them below.”

Gus didn’t answer. Moments later, Scott could hear his breathing, steady and strangely comforting, while the dead underneath them continued to stir, like things caught and bobbing in a moonless tide.

Every now and again, something bumped a wall just to help keep Scott awake.

*

When sunlight crept back into the attic the next day, Scott woke up to a loud thud that came from directly underneath the trapdoor. He opened his eyes and stared in the direction of the door, waiting for it to be pulled down and the dead to swarm upward. Another loud clunking happened, but the door remained closed.

“Maybe,” Gus whispered, “they’re stacking furniture.”

Though he was glad Gus was still able to make comments and that he didn’t have to kill him, his remark didn’t make Scott feel any better. He remembered being a kid and having a distinct fear of the attic. That was the place where ghosts hung out. It was also, ironically, the same place where Santa stuffed his Christmas presents. He no longer had a fear of attics, but he found it funny that the terrors resided in the part of the house usually reserved for the people, while he and Gus were stuck where the ghosts belonged.

“Gotta take a piss,” Scott said, and grabbed his suitcase. He opened it to the faint smell of uric acid and did his business as quickly as possible. Finishing up, he closed the suitcase and inhaled the air. “Can you smell that?”

“Yeah,” Gus answered in a low voice. “But it’s not, like, strong or anything.”

“Not much to do about it up here.”

“Nope. That’s what I figured when I took a dump.”

“You what?”

“Every morning I squeeze pipe. This one was no different.”

Scott sniffed. “Oh, fuck. I can smell it.”

“Just a little, though, right?”

Scott thought about it. “Yeah.”

“All right, then. We got some time.”

“Wonder what time it is?”

“Morning,” Gus said. “That’s all you need to know.”

They became silent then, listening to the rustling below.

“Can’t believe you took a shit in the suitcase,” Scott muttered.

“Wiped my ass with a T-shirt, I think. Don’t let it bother you. You’ll have to take a squat sooner or later.”

“Not me. I get constipated when I’m scared.”

“Really?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, then…” Gus words sounded as if they were framed in a smile. “The things you find out about a person.”

Scott positioned himself facing Gus across the way. “Back is stiff from last night.”

“Plenty of beds downstairs.”

“Fuck off.”

In the morning light coming in through the vent, Scott saw Gus’s beard smirk. “There you go. Wondering if you had it in you or not. By the time this is all over, you’ll be calling me names, too.”

Scott grinned back. “You got any breakfast over there?”

“Hold on, now, and let me run down to the kitchen.”

“Make it fast.”

“Ah, wait. I put a loaf in the suitcase here. Fresh this morning.”

Laying his head on the flooring, Scott sighed. Below, the moaning continued. “S’all I need to think about now. Dead people underneath me and your shit in a suitcase.”

“I understand a person can eat their own chocolate at least once.”

“Yeah? Why only once, I wonder?”

“Tastes like shit, I imagine.”

“How long do you think we’ll be up here?” Scott asked, wanting to get away from the subject.

“Until they go.”

Scott had no reply to that. When they could go was the million dollar question. They could still be below next week. That didn’t set well on his mind, starving in an attic. I’m starving. He thought about the expression and realized that he had come close to that several times since the collapse of civilization, but he, Teddy, and Lea had always found something before it got too bad.

“Relax,” Gus said. “It’ll work itself out one way or the other.”

“You’re pretty calm about this. Yesterday, you were a mess.”

“Yeah, well, yesterday was… the first time I thought I died.”

Scott kept silent. He didn’t think Gus was completely out of danger yet.

“For a while there, when you were sleeping,” Gus went on, “I paid attention to every twinge I felt. I swear my mind was inventing it as it went along, but I don’t think I was ever so aware of my own body as I was last night. I’m in the clear, I’ll have you know. But… fuck. I was worried to say the least.”

“You freaked out.”

“I freaked out,” Gus agreed quietly. “And the thing was, I wondered if I would be aware of going over to the other side. If I would be really dead when I turned, or still be alive and somehow know––or not know––what I’d become. And if I did, whether or not I could stop myself from attacking you.”

Jesus. Scott’s mind cringed.

“But I’m okay,” Gus continued. “We do have the problem below, though.”

“Yeah.”

“So, Chico, the one thing––the only thing—we can do is sit on our duffs and hope that the morning tide takes them out of here and away. And if not, maybe the afternoon tide will. Or the night.”

“Maybe they’ll take the van and just go,” Scott whispered.

“Maybe. You got the keys?”

“I do.”

“Well, scratch that off the pissability.”

“Did you just say pissability?”

“Did.”

Scott grunted with a smile and rolled quietly onto his back to stare up at the shadowy beams of the ceiling. He exhaled and saw his breath. Listening to the sounds of the dead, he tried to think of anything but the idea of food.

And if the dead starved.

*

They waited until the afternoon, still hearing the unliving thump into walls and furniture below. The smell no longer made them wrinkle their noses, but it was still foul. Scott took the time to carefully root around in the semi-light, and found several Tupperware dishes. Two he handed to Gus, while he kept one for himself for any emergency voiding. They both suspected that to open either suitcase would kill them. They whispered in low tones, making jokes at times, and it made Scott glad that the episode with Gus yesterday appeared to be only a one-time ordeal. They talked about what they would eat when they escaped from the attic. They then went on to talk about what they would drink. They napped when the urge took them and felt increasingly sure that as long as they stayed quiet, they were safe.

Time dragged on into evening, when the light started to retract from the attic, like a wary gunslinger with both guns drawn. Scott watched it go, all to the irregular beat of dead people searching the house for meat they instinctively knew existed, but couldn’t locate. The unliving proved their fearlessness and resolve time and time again, but they were displaying another trait every bit as lethal.

Patience.

Or dumb fuck stupidity, Gus pointed out as if he didn’t want to give the corpses any flattering characteristic at all.

They each filled a Tupperware dish and sealed it, noting that they weren’t urinating regularly.

“This,” Gus informed him, “is where it might get bad. We can probably last without food for a while, and I’m talking a couple of weeks, but the dehydration won’t let us.”

“How do you know?”

“Watched a lot of Discovery Channel.”

“Oh.”

“We could drink our own urine if it came down to it.”

“What is it with you and this fascination with consuming your own waste?”

A thoughtful silence answered Scott, before he heard an almost embarrassed, “Just sayin’ is all.”

The sound of something falling silenced both men then, and kept them quiet until sleep took Scott away.

Scott dreamed. He dreamed about baking on the midnight shift. Every morning, after he had completed the day’s supply of baked goods, he would ready the day-old cookies and muffins for the garbage. It wasn’t something he enjoyed doing, and when he first took the job, he carried home as much as he could eat. That practice didn’t last long, as he soon grew tired of bringing the food home. His co-workers, mostly university part-timers, were of the same mind. The food was great for the first couple of months, but then the novelty wore off, and no one wanted to touch it thereafter, or until a new worker arrived.

He bagged food to be thrown out and left it in a stout shed out back. Sometimes, the shed would be opened, and the bagged food would be taken and eaten by the homeless. Scott had no problem with that. It was food. They were hungry. No questions asked.

But the manager found out and placed a padlock on the shed.

Scott dreamed in that slipstream of dream cinema, where he was both the viewer and the actor, lugging out a bag of day-old muffins––still fine to eat, but not up to the fresh standards of the company. Scott opened the back door and stepped out, the shed’s front door to his immediate left.

Then, they showed up.

Except in his dream, the homeless had died years ago, their flesh the color of decomposing meat, and their sightless eyes fixing on him. They voiced their need, backing Scott up. He turned to the door only to realize that it had closed on him, and there was no knob on the outside.

The dead closed in, barring any escape. Their clothes reeked from the grave. Fingers, missing and ground to the dirty bones, reached for him, reached for the garbage he held. One finger, its bony tine hooked and sharp, sloughed out in nightmare fashion from the dark and pawed at the plastic bag, cutting it open with barely any contact. The contents spilled forth and splashed the concrete step and Scott’s work sneakers.

He screamed.

The bag wasn’t full of day-old baked goods any longer.

It contained something with more sustenance.

The dead clawed and feasted upon the meaty chunks, chewing on every piece in nauseating detail. Both the scene and smell rooted Scott in place, but there wasn’t anywhere to run, anyway.

And the dead were famished.

Stale, one of the corpses rasped at Scott. Staaaale, it complained with a throat full of scum dredged from the bottom of a sea bed and the things that lived and writhed in it still. Scott wanted to run, but the nightmare wouldn’t let him. He knew he was going to scream, he knew he was going to scream loud, and that was the horror of it because he knew he was in a dream, and to scream in the attic would mean they would hear below.

As the first of many clawed hands reached for him and hooked into his skin, tearing and stretching lengths of meat that bled in runny gouts, dreamtime Scott opened his mouth and shrieked…

Scott woke up. He inhaled, catching a full whiff of the dead’s lingering stench. His mouth possessed an earthy taste. The last image he had from his nightmare was bony fingers reaching into his mouth and trying to fasten onto his tongue. It was still night, and his stomach felt empty.

Stale. That voice echoed in his brain, like something sinking into the depths of a dark lake.

He didn’t know what time it was, but he relieved Gus from his watch.

20

They believed the house began emptying sometime on the third day. The sounds and smell began to lessen.

By night, the interior of the house was silent.

They stayed in the attic anyway, just to be safe. Just to give the tide of the dead time enough to completely clear out and, if they were lucky, maybe even leave the cul-de-sac entirely. Cul-de-sac. There was a joke there, somewhere, but they were in no mood to figure out exactly what it might be.

On the morning of the fourth day, Gus woke up and felt no need to pee whatsoever. The day before, he had urinated once, and at that time, he experienced a burning sensation that wasn’t at all pleasant. By the evening, he was pissless. And he wasn’t even scared. He rolled over and listened to the house below, straining and hearing nothing. He listened for a long time, until Scott woke up.

“Hear… anything?” Scott whispered weakly.

“Nah.”

“What… d’you think?”

They suffered from thirst, headaches, and fits of restlessness to weariness. Four fucking days they had been stranded in the near dark, hiding out in fright at first, which bled away into monotonous boredom. In the end, the boredom was their greatest threat, as any momentary lapse in maintaining quiet would have alerted the dead still in the house. It only took one mistake, and their fears of dying from a lack of water or food would be forgotten in the surge of corpses trying to access the attic.

Gus had had enough of attics.

“Get ready,” he said.

“Are… we goin’?” The thirst they both felt raked their throats, and Gus believed that even his tongue was swelling, if such a thing were possible.

“Yeah,” Gus answered in his own parched voice. He swallowed and felt the sinker of his Adam’s apple clink thickly in his throat. “I’m gonna have one huge fuckin’ Mai Tai when I get outta here.”

Taking a breath, Gus slipped his fingers around his shotgun. He reloaded the weapon, hearing the soft clicks and snaps coming from Scott’s side of the attic. They each took an equal share of shells, stuffing a box inside their tucked-in shirts and the remaining shells into their pockets.

“Not gonna… miss this place,” Scott muttered, putting on his lightning bolt helmet.

“Nope,” Gus agreed, doing the same with his helmet. “Ready, Chico?”

“Why do you call me Chico? You don’t hear me calling you anything except your name.”

“Oh, sorry.” Gus got to a sitting position, feeling the aches in his limbs from sitting and lying down for so long. He felt the drag from the lack of food and water.

“You got the keys?” Gus asked.

Scott patted his jeans pocket.

“All right, then…”

Using his feet, Gus pushed down on the door and lowered the steps. When the stairs were extended, he slowly stretched out his legs and, holding onto the door frame, flipped the lower sections down. Springs yawned at the extension. Setting the stairs firmly against the floor, Gus gripped his shotgun, and adjusted the bat on his back.

“Let’s go,” he whispered.

They descended into the upstairs level and, for a moment, marvelled at the destruction to the house. The recent press of bodies against the walls had left them cracked and bowled in. Dark smears of bodily fluids ran in wavy lines the length of the hallway. The reek of the dead hung throughout the house like a popped blood blister. It would have made their eyes water if they had the moisture to spare. The only thing missing from the party, Gus thought, were strands of toilet paper hanging from the ceiling. The rooms he glanced into were empty, in shambles, soiled, and battered by the recent invasion of the dead.

Gus heard a thud behind him and whirled to spot Scott leaning against the wall.

“You okay?” Gus approached the man.

“Yeah, just…” Scott’s eyes squeezed shut and opened a moment later. “Just dizzy is all.”

“Can you move?”

“Yeah. Yeah, I’m behind you.”

Nodding and hoping Scott was indeed behind him, Gus turned and covered the last of the hallway, peeking around corners to bedrooms and bathrooms to see if any corpses remained. He reached the stairs and placed his back against the wall, his own dizziness suddenly making things swirl. Taking a breath and hating the taste of the air, Gus angled his shotgun to cover the living room. Descending the steps quietly, they faced another wreck of overturned furniture, grotesque markings on the walls like thick streamers, and smashed glass from the destroyed picture window.

Gus edged into the room and peeked around the corner. Empty. He looked toward the driveway. There the beast waited, seemingly untouched. The cul-de-sac appeared deserted.

“All clear,” Gus whispered. “Move it.”

Gus opened the front door and sped to the van with Scott following. They got into the vehicle, checked the interior, stowed their weapons, and buckled themselves in. Scott placed the keys in the ignition and turned it. The engine coughed and started faithfully, and Gus exhaled his relief.

“Would’ve shit right here if it didn’t turn over,” Scott said.

“I would’ve shit out a tumbleweed,” Gus added.

Scott accidently placed the van in reverse before stomping on the brake and getting the right gear.

“Take ‘er easy,” Gus whispered

“Watch the road,” Scott said. “I got lost the last time. That’s how we got here.”

“I gotcha.”

The van rumbled across the asphalt, the daylight hidden behind a thick carpet of clouds. The streets were deserted, and for that, the two men were thankful. Scott drove slowly, and they caught only glimpses of dead, until Gus directed Scott to the main road. Once, Scott had to pull over as a wave of dizziness assaulted him, but only once. Moving a steady speed of thirty, the two weary men reached their mountain home by early afternoon. They barely possessed the strength to move the gates and close them, and by the time they finally parked the van in the garage, both were exhausted.

“Home again, home again, jiggity jig,” Gus said once they were safely inside.

Not bothering to unload the van, they moved into the house, dropping gear as they went, until they got to the kitchen. They sipped water pumped from the well, replenishing their fluids, and Gus got around to heating up a can of Chunky soup. He stopped cooking when it was just lukewarm, and slopped half of it into a bowl for Scott. Standing around the island in the kitchen, they devoured the food, and opened up another can.

“You’re not drinking?” Scott asked him at one point.

“Too thirsty to drink.” Gus grinned. “Don’t you worry. When I’m ready, I got a bottle of Canadian Club with my name on it.”

“You’d probably puke it up if you drank it, anyway,” Scott smirked, eyeing the man over his second bowl of soup.

Gus nodded and got back to eating. “Once this is done, I’m going to take a bath.”

“Thought we couldn’t do that.”

“Today’s an exception. You got one, too, if you want it.”

“Sounds good to me.”

Gus spooned another mouthful and paused. His hand shook hard enough that he dropped the spoon.

“You okay?”

Gus studied his fingers for a moment, making a fist and shaking it loose. “Better than ever.”

“Glad to hear it.”

Having eaten and drunk enough water to rehydrate, Gus later went up to the master bedroom and his bath. He made it hot, but not so hot to be unbearable as he usually did. He filled the tub and grabbed a bottle of nearby shampoo and body wash. Steam rose and covered the black-and-white checked tiling. He stripped and slipped into the deep-set old-fashioned tub, submerging himself to his woolly chin. He thumped his head against the side of the tub and relaxed. He held up his hand, watched it shake for a moment, and let it drop back into the water. Shaking or not, he was thankful to be able to see it without an urge to bite it off.

He soaped his head, his beard, and eventually his body, feeling the taut cords of muscle that were previously covered by about a hundred and fifty pounds of fat. He felt the scars around his lower abdomen, from back when he had met crazy Alice in a hospital so long ago. He had sported a beer belly then. It was ironic that the layers of fat there had actually saved him from being disembowelled when, for years, his doctors had told him to lose the gut. He couldn’t remember much about what had happened at the hospital––shock had wiped that particular slate of his mind clean––but he remember what had happened just days ago, and how he thought that he had swallowed a piece of the undead. The pure fright of knowing what might have happened, what could have happened, made Gus shudder for a moment.

Then, it all came out.

Not wanting Scott to hear him, Gus plunked his head against the metal of the tub and wept as quietly as possible.

The next day, they decided to take it easy and replenish their strength. Neither of the men wanted to return to Annapolis so soon after escaping it, so they stayed on the mountain, safe behind their wall. They ate breakfast and went out to the van to look over what they had taken from the city.

“Map,” Gus said. “This goes inside. We can hang it somewhere. Look at this.” He unrolled the map and held it up for Scott to see.

“That’s a good one.”

“Everything is on this. Places I didn’t even think of looking.” Gus let one end drop as he scratched at his beard. “This is a prize.”

“Didn’t you have two crowbars?”

“Lost the other at the house.” Gus frowned. Thinking of the old dead guy in the rocker with the gold teeth made him shake his head. It chilled him still.

“Look at this, though.” He held up the ninja hoods. He tossed one to Scott and pulled on his own, struggling to tuck in his chin whiskers. Once done, he turned to Scott with the hood and mask in place. “Huh? How’s that? Great, eh?”

Scott was wearing his, too. “Jesus, this is great. It’s warm.”

“And I bet it’s fireproof, too.”

“Or fire retardant.”

“What’s the difference?”

“One can burn if it’s exposed to open flame long enough. The other can’t.”

“Oh.” Gus pulled off the mask and rubbed his bald head. “That’s going on when we head back down. This, however…”

He pulled out the fireman jacket and pants and put them both on. “Heavier than the leather.”

Scott tried on his. “Yeah. Warmer, though. Especially with a sweater on underneath. Thicker, too.”

“Won’t need the heat on in the van with these things on.”

“Nothing going to bite through these things.”

“Heavier armor,” Gus remarked, checking himself out. “But it’ll slow us down.”

“A trade-off.”

“Yeah.”

“Hey, Gus, how much ammunition do you have here?”

He thought about it. “Left? About, maybe, somewhere between a thousand and two thousand rounds. Remind me to get a few boxes to put in the beast.”

“All for twelve gauge?”

“Yeah. I got most of them in the storeroom of a gun shop a long time ago. Someone took a lot of the other stuff, but the place was well stocked. The places in the malls were cleaned out. And I found some in basements, sheds, yada, yada.”

They went through the rest of the goods, stashing one of the first-aid kits and a fire extinguisher in the beast, as well as the remaining crowbar. The rest of the gear they placed in the lockers.

After unloading the van, eating, then cleaning their shotguns, they bundled up in sweaters and doubled up in track pants before retiring to the deck. They lounged outside, drinking only water, which lasted until mid-afternoon when Gus broke out two bottles of Canadian Club whiskey. They toasted their fortune of being alive, drank, and respectfully regarded the quiet cityscape stretched out in the distance. They talked and relaxed in the lawn chairs.

“What time is it?” Scott asked at one point.

“Hmm?”

“What time is it?”

“Why? You have to be somewhere? I don’t know. I don’t wear a watch.”

“Just like to know what time it is.”

“Look.” Gus pointed to the city with his bottle. “Time was left behind in the old world. Nothing around here is concerned with the time of day anymore. You think this mountain cares about time? Any animal? That is if they even exist ’cause I ain’t seen any. There is nothing down there that is nine to five anymore. Nothing. There’s just you and me and…” Gus belched. “You and me and… and this.”

“This?”

“This moment.”

“Thought you said there was no time anymore.”

“There isn’t.”

“Well, if there’s no time, how can you directly reference one moment in it?”

“Huh?”

“You,” Scott pointed at him, “just went on about how time doesn’t matter, but then you said that this moment—which is a part of present time–– does matter.”

Gus made a face. “I said that?”

“You did. Just now. I heard it.”

“I’m full of shit,” Gus slurred.

Scott broke out laughing.

“I think it’s December tomorrow,” Gus added.

“You think the mountains care if it’s December? The animals? God knows I haven’t seen any,” Scott said with a sly gleam in his eye.

“Fuck off.” Gus smiled and took another drink. “Tomorrow we go back down there. We gotta stay on course. Winter is here, man, and we aren’t ready yet. I’d like to find more food. If there’s any left.”

Scott nodded. “Think there’s any down there?”

“I do, but how much is the question. There’re two of us now. We’ll be okay,” Gus said, studying his bottle. “We’ll be okay.”

When dark came, they went back into the house and drew the curtains over the windows. They ate beans and wieners from cans and continued drinking straight whiskey. They got out the Scrabble board, but abandoned it when Gus pointed out he was “too shit-faced to spell anything.”

They loaded up a copy of John Carpenter’s The Thing, then rounded out the night watching old Benny Hill comedy shows.

Somewhere before midnight, both passed out.

And were spared dreams.

21

Gus woke up and thought he was still in the attic. He flailed on the sofa where he’d fallen asleep, looked over, and thought for the briefest of time that the snoring figure in the recliner was the gold-toothed deadhead. He rubbed his eyes, then his hairless scalp, and took a deep breath. He needed to piss and get a drink of water, in that order. He looked toward the TV and saw that it had been turned off. Scott must’ve done that at some point. He had turned off the lights as well and draped Gus in a blanket before settling back in the recliner and covering up himself. He watched the blond man sleep, mouth open, displaying a slight overbite. Light snores emanated from him.

Gus went to his chamber bucket and relived himself, covering it when done. Then, he headed to the kitchen. He filled two pitchers with water, staring out at the clear pre-dawn sky. He drank half of one pitcher before going back downstairs and placing the second pitcher on the coffee table for Scott, hoping he’d see the thing before coming upstairs.

Coughing lightly, Gus went back up and stepped outside. The biting December air cut around the corner of the house, grazing his face and making him shiver. He listened to the morning. The evening star, or at least he thought it was the evening star, shone right next to the bare face of the full moon. Gus stood for a moment and simply studied it.

Then, he heard the engines.

The noise hooked him by the jaw, a roar of motorcycles speeding away, their mufflers gone. The raucous sound ripped through the morning quiet and made him look in the direction of the dark city, the moon causing some of the rooftops to look like dull slabs of silver. The sound faded in the distance, and Gus willed it to happen again so that he could get a better sense of where it was. It had been at least a year since he’d heard another engine. One as loud as the one he had just heard went against all he practiced when he went into Annapolis. Almost as if it wanted to be heard…

Nothing. The wind smothered any other sound and left him cold. After lingering for a few more moments, he retreated back inside to the warmth of the house.

Going through the pantry, Gus decided on instant oatmeal with dried apples and cinnamon for breakfast. He boiled the water and sat at the kitchen island, listening to the growing huff of the kettle and thinking about the motorcycles. He was certain they were motorcycles with the mufflers gone, raising hell on some car-littered street no less, but just before the crack of dawn? The question hung in his head. What could they have been doing?

Or had they just arrived in Annapolis?

That thought had merit.

He ate his breakfast while mulling over who was in the city. The idea that there were others around had never left him, but rather got pushed to the back of his mind in his day-to-day foraging. Scott was the only person he had met who wanted to be found, it seemed to him. Others kept to themselves for whatever reasons. Or… His next thought made him pause with his spoon in his mouth. Maybe he was the one avoiding contact. He’d always thought it was better to be alone, but Scott saving his ass had gotten him to think otherwise. Civilization had to rebound at some point, and people, not the dead, would eventually band together to do it.

“Morning,” Scott muttered as he came around the corner, looking like a huge, fluffy bear just emerging from his cave. “Thanks for the water.”

Gus nodded.

Scott pointed to the second bowl. “This for me?”

Gus nodded again. “Just add water from the kettle.”

Scott did so and settled down for his first bite of the day. “This tastes so good,” he muttered between bites.

Gus let him finish before informing him of the noise. “Heard it this morning.”

“Who could it be?” Scott asked.

“Don’t know,” Gus admitted. “But once you finish, let’s go take a look.”

*

With the sun partially obscured by thick clouds, they drove the beast down into the city. They passed intersections and even the turn-off leading to old Port Williams, but didn’t see any sign of motorcycles or any other moving vehicles. Zombies, moving slower with December’s chill, spotted the roads like dark sores and looked up at the sound of the approaching van. These dead posed no threat and were soon left behind. They continued into the downtown section of what was once known as Kentville, the office buildings blocking the sun even further and making the streets feel like unearthed tunnels of a tomb best kept sealed.

There, Gus spotted the brother to the beast.

“Stop and back up,” he said and pointed a thick glove. Both men had clothed themselves in the firemen outfits recovered from the station. The ninja masks were tight, but warm, and they made their motorcycle helmets fit even more snugly, although Gus found himself shouting more often to be heard.

“What? Oh.” Scott slowed the beast and stopped before an alleyway between a vandalized outboard motor shop and a gutted supermarket. Far back from view and partially hidden by a rust-coated dumpster gleamed a red SUV, a tinted windshield eyed them while the grill bared metallic teeth.

“Oh my,” Scott said.

“Been down this way, but never spotted that before.”

“It’s far enough back from the street that you’d have to be looking straight down there to see it.”

“I’ll check it out,” Gus said.

“You sure?”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

Scott didn’t add anything else. Gus supposed he didn’t have to. “I’m fine. Wouldn’t have come here today if I didn’t think I was.”

“I’ll back in.”

“Not all the way, just enough to see what’s coming down the street.”

“Fine.”

Gus got up and slung his scabbarded bat across his back. He took down his shotgun and clomped to the rear of the van, feeling the weight of the fireman boots. Steel-toed nastiness, he thought. Scott backed the beast in blindly, opening his door to gauge where he was at times.

“Don’t be long,” Scott shouted when he finished parking.

Slapping down his visor, Gus threw open the rear door and jumped out. He closed it behind him and walked down the length of the alley, noting the fire escapes on each building and the metalwork’s rust. He approached the SUV, looking like a firefighter that had forgotten his proper helmet. He felt his breath on his face, hotter than before because of the ninja mask, and for an instant, a stab of fear stopped him in his tracks. Jesus. He was out of the van. Gus felt a cold sweat break out over his face. His breath quickened. He blinked, and the visor-tinted form of the old fuck with the gold teeth hunched over him, the zombie’s jaw clicking open.

Grunting, Gus pressed against the side of the alley and gripped his shotgun. He opened and closed his eyes. The old dude disappeared. The alley was just an alley. He took a deep steadying breath and calmed himself, fighting the impulse to rip the tight helmet from his head.

I’m fine. I’m fucking better than fine. Another breath and he continued forward, hoping to God that episodes like the one he’d just experienced were only a passing thing––some residual by-product of freaking out, and not regular.

He just didn’t need it.

Easing around the dumpster, Gus moved to the passenger side of the vehicle and, holding his shotgun one-handed, yanked open the door.

And grimaced.

He could smell the body, but thankfully the corpse behind the wheel wasn’t the re-animated kind. A man—Gus could tell by the light rugby shirt and jeans—sat behind the wheel as if listening to a tune on the stereo. The bare flesh was decomposed black, but because of the SUV’s seals, no insects had found the chunk of meat.

“Shit,” Gus whispered, studying the face and the shrivelled eyeballs. An empty blue plastic prescription bottle rested on the floor. Gus leaned in, smelled a faint whiff of long-dried fecal matter, and picked up the bottle. Seconal: 100 mgs was typed on the label in bold-faced lettering. It meant nothing to Gus, other than the ripe bastard behind the wheel had taken enough of it to end himself. He studied the man’s dead face, the slumped position of the body, and shook his head. Smarter than you look, Gus thought. Braver, too.

Gus closed the passenger side and moved around the SUV. He opened the driver’s door, and pulled the body out from behind the wheel. Dried up as it was, the body was easy to drop unceremoniously into the dumpster, making Gus glad that he had taken the precaution of wearing all the new gear, right down to the new gloves with whole fingers.

The key fob dangled from the dash, and two keys jingled against it. The third key was in the ignition. The SUV was a hybrid, a Dodge Durango. He studied the plush black leather interior and decided the dead guy must’ve been rich. The dash gleamed with information controls. Checking out the interior in the rear, Gus saw that there were a few containers in the back. He would check those out later, but at the moment, it was enough to know that the thing was free of corpses.

He got behind the wheel, put his shotgun in the passenger seat, closed the door, and turned the key. The engine turned over smoothly.

Well, well, Christmas comes early. Gus smiled behind his mask. It was the first bit of good news, other than him not changing into a zombie, he’d had in a while. The dash lights glowed, and he saw that it had half a tank of gas. Cool. Finding the right buttons, he dimmed the lights and put the vehicle into drive. Depressing the accelerator, he moved forward slowly, pebbles snapping underneath the tire treads. Gus drove it to the rear of the beast and jumped out.

“Look what we got,” Gus said as Scott stuck his helmeted head out the driver’s side of the beast.

“Running, too,” Scott said in approval.

“Yep.”

“Drive it back now or…?”

“Let’s hit a few houses first.”

“Port Williams?” Scott asked. Gus thought the man might be smiling.

“Fuck that,” Gus muttered as he turned back to the Durango. “I’ll drive in front. You keep up.”

They stopped and searched five houses without much luck. Gus scavenged a few cans of mixed vegetables, meat balls, packets of noodles, and mixes for lemonade. It wasn’t enough to fill the bottom of one bin in the van, but it was food, and it allowed them to live a little longer.

The two vehicles inched up a street that looked to loop back out toward the bay and stopped in front of a sixth house. Three zombies appeared from across the street, lumbering with unsteady steps and opening their mouths as if shouting. Scott pointed to them as he backed the van into the driveway. Already out of the SUV, Gus moved to deal with them, feeling his heart starting to race.

Three deadheads, spaced apart, just stepped onto the asphalt. Gus sized the three of them up and propped his shotgun against the rear bumper of the SUV. He smoothly extracted the aluminum bat and practice swung it like a sword. He reached up and adjusted his helmet just a bit and watched the zombies come to him. They were a family of three, an older man dressed in the remains of beige casual pants and a sweater, his wife whose long blond hair had sections torn from her black scalp, and their teenage son who was the size of a football player, in jeans and a T-shirt that was probably once tight on him, but hung loosely off his large frame, and the dull gleam of a splintered collar bone jutted from his dead flesh. Their faces were intact and hissing.

Instead of being afraid, Gus felt a surge of annoyance. When the father figure got close, he cracked the bat off its head and crumpled one side of the dead man’s skull. The impact spun the corpse around to fall to the pavement.

“That’s one, you fucks,” Gus hissed and slipped into a swordsman’s stance with his bat, raising the weapon high above his head. The oversized teenager came on, large arms stretched out as if wanting a hug. Gus caved in the sinus cavity with one bash of the bat. A second bash squashed in the thing’s decayed forehead and dropped it to its knees. Gus then spun and rocked the head from the side with one loud crack, putting the dead thing down.

Taking a breath, Gus confronted the mom. She hissed, exposing a mouth full of stained smoker’s teeth.

“So sick of you. So goddamn sick of being scared of you.”

He butted the tip of the bat into the creature’s chest. The mother staggered back, hissed again, and crept forward.

“I’m through being afraid of you,” Gus said quietly. He pushed the zombie back at bat’s length. “Now, I’m just pissed. With you…” He tapped her again, “…with this whole situation.”

He snapped the bat up and swung it as it trying to smack a fastball. The creature’s knee exploded. The thing lurched over and fell to the ground, rapping its face on the pavement. Not even acknowledging the hit, the zombie crawled toward him, its hiss unchanged, but he noticed that several front teeth had been broken.

“No more goddamn sense than flies on a pile of shit.”

He smashed one of its arms. The zombie dragged it along, moving the upper portion while the section below the break, just at the elbow, twisted slowly backward as it crawled forward.

Gus broke the shoulder. He stepped over the creature, avoiding the slow moving left arm, and shattered the shoulder and hip of that side. The zombie still inchwormed its way toward him, pushing its head into the rough grain of the asphalt with each thrust. The mother hissed again, biting at air, as it checked where Gus stood before slinking in his direction. Gus stepped over the crippled dead thing and then stepped over it again. He gnawed on his lower lip in distaste. In a horde, they were terrifying, but like this, he felt only contempt.

Worse, he felt pity.

He trapped the mother in place, placing one heavy boot against its skull. It mewled and squirmed under his foot like a huge pissed-off nightcrawler, while he lined up the top of the skull with his bat. It would be just like that summer game with the mallets, except he didn’t have any little wire arches to knock the head through. He tapped the skull once, then twice, before breaking it open with one swing and crushing it with two follow-ups.

The mother lay still. Gus stepped back and inspected his bat, then wiped the tissue matter on the red shirt of the mother. He sighed, feeling conflicted. He looked around and met the eyes of Scott staring hard at him, his hands on the wheel of the beast. He recognized the expression of concern even though Scott’s mouth and the edges of his face were covered by the helmet. Without a word, for there really wasn’t anything to say, Gus eased his bat back into his scabbard and retrieved his shotgun. He proceeded up the driveway of the house, passing by the open window of the van.

“You okay?” Scott asked.

“No… but I will be.”

Then he was breaking in the door of the house. Gus dove into the doorway, not even bothering to check the corners before he went in.

22

After getting back to the mountain and stashing away the few things they had found in town, they went into the kitchen, speaking very little, and ate. After supper, they went down into the den with their bottles of Canadian Club and drank. Sitting in the recliner, Scott swallowed the first shot and grimaced, then studied Gus on the sofa.

“You want to talk about it?”

They had only turned on one light, near the stairs, and the shadows made Gus’s beard and face all the darker. “About the zombies?”

“Yeah.”

“Figured you’d get around to it sometime.”

Scott eased himself back into the recliner and rubbed his ankle.

“How’s that doing?” Gus asked.

Scott shrugged and ran a hand over his thickening beard. “Getting there. Not as sore now.”

“You’ll be able to play soccer soon.”

“Hockey, you mean.”

“That, too.”

“So how about it, then?” Scott fixed him with a pensive look. “You okay?”

Gus leaned back into the softness of the sofa and didn’t say anything for a while. The wind rose outside, and the timbers creaked.

“I think I hit my limit,” Gus said quietly. “For the last two years, I’ve been scared of those things, living up here, away from the city and everything. But when I thought I was about to turn into one and didn’t… that did something to me. I ain’t never been scared of much in my life, and I think I’m tired of being scared of these things. They’re nothing. The only thing they got goin’ for them is they don’t stop comin’ at you. Ever. That one deadhead I bashed up today? The woman one?”

“Yeah?”

“I fuckin’ immobilized her ass, Scott. Crushed her. And all she did was just squirm and try to gnaw her way through my boots. There was no pain there. No fear, but I used to think there has to be a bit of thinkin’ going on up here for that.” Gus tapped his bald head for emphasis and took a heavy shot of whiskey.

“There ain’t nothin’ goin’ on up there. Not a goddamn thing. They really are as mindless as… as fuckin’ rocks. As shitcakes. And I, I ain’t afraid of that. I broke down, or at least I thought I broke down. I didn’t. Not completely anyway. I think all the fear’s gone from me now. Like… therapy.”

“Therapy?”

“Yeah, like you know how some folks are scared of spiders? And their shrinks force them to confront the spiders? Let small ones walk on their arm, then work their way up to big ones, right? Until you have like wharf spiders or tarantulas there. Big, mean, scary fuckers that would shock a person dickless.”

“What if it’s a woman?” Scott smirked.

“Pay attention here. You asked if I’m all right, and you’re bein’ a smart ass.”

“Sorry, man. Go on.”

“Yeah, well, anyway, my point is, being exposed to the spiders gets a person over their fear of them after a while. When I thought I had swallowed a piece of them, I thought… man, everything was goin’ through my mind. But in the end, I thought that was it. I was done. Dead. I freaked out––and you can only freak out for so long––and I remember being okay with it. Just waitin’ for the change. Then, the change didn’t happen, and I realized I was worked up over nothin’. Scared over nothin’. Swallowin’ that piece of corpse, or at least thinkin’ I did, was my big fuckin’ spider on my arm. I’m not scared of them anymore, Scott. If anything…” Gus thought about it for a while, his dark eyes looking grim in the scant light.

“If anything, I hate them. For puttin’ me through hell for the last few years. For forcin’ me to pen myself up here. I hate the things now.”

“That could be dangerous,” Scott offered.

Gus nodded. “I agree. Just as dangerous as being terrified of them. And I’ll have to be just as careful of that. But I’m through being scared of those dead fuckers. I’m through. Christ above. I’m having visions of goin’ on a fuckin’ safari for the packs of them.”

“Not sure that’s wise.”

Gus regarded him. “I know it’s not. I’m not stupid, man. I’m not. So don’t worry, I’m not gonna start doing stupid shit like risking my life or anything. Even though I was up here, here is the best place to be. With the heat and water and electricity. Here is the best place to be. No doubt. But I’m not scared of them anymore. Not those brain-dead fuckers. Not ever again.”

Scott listened and remained silent. After a long considering moment, he nodded and took a long drink of his whiskey.

Gus sat and stewed on his emotions a little longer. He felt he spoke the truth, and it felt good to do that. He wouldn’t do anything crazy, either; he promised himself that. But he also promised to kill them all. Pick them off where and when he could. He figured he had one hobby in this new world, and that was getting drunk. Gus took another drink of whiskey and considered adding a new one.

*

Two mornings later, under an increasingly overcast sky, they suited up, gassed up the beast, and headed for the city. Scott drove while Gus rode in the passenger side with his bat in gloved hands. It neared the end of the first week in December. Snow would be coming any day, and any day might be the last for access to Annapolis. They had to get what they could before winter dug in. Gus figured they had enough food, water, and booze, but he wanted to be sure––especially on the booze.

They passed the landmarks on the road they had come to expect and appreciate in some lost old days nostalgia: billboard with semi driven through it, motorcycle on its side with a gutted seat. Wrecked cars became a blur of colors splashed against a canvas of asphalt and steel.

Up ahead, two figures wandered into the road. They turned at the sound of the van. The way they staggered, it was easy to identify them as long dead.

“Wait,” Gus said quietly.

“What?”

“Stop alongside those two.”

Scott looked at him, his brow crunched up in a question. “Huh? Why?”

“I got an idea,” Gus said.

Scott did as he was told, though his expression said he didn’t understand why.

“Hold on for a minute.” Gus got out of the van, taking his bat with him. He walked right up to the first undead, who had already detected him, and clubbed the head so hard that a pulpy jawbone flew from its mouth. Gus crushed in its skull with an overhead strike, driving the dead thing to its knees before watching it fall over.

Rolling his shoulders, Gus stepped up to the second zombie and bashed in one side of its head. Then the other side. When it dropped to the pavement, he clubbed it a third time.

A fourth and final time just to make a point. He no longer feared the once-thought-of-as predators. And he’d had enough of them. He went on to crush the joints of their knees, elbows, and shoulders.

He cleaned off his bat on one’s shirt. Studying both of them for any sign of movement, Gus stood in the highway for a few moments more before returning to the van. He got in and slammed the door.

“What the fuck was that?” Scott asked, looking at him.

“What?”

“That!”

“Experiment.”

“An experiment in what?”

“Remember I said I thought these things were thinning out? And how when I killed them, they up and disappeared from sight?”

Scott hesitated before answering, “Yeah.”

“We take this road every day. There’s another marker. Let’s see if they’re still there when we come back this way.”

“We could just wait.”

“I don’t think we got the time to waste to do that. Winter’s coming.”

“Winter. Yeah,” Scott agreed.

“Those things are dead and as fucked up as I can make them with a bat. If they’re dead, truly dead, they’ll be here when we get back. If they’re gone, we’ll go to phase two.”

“What’s phase two?”

“Kill more and wait to see what happens.”

Scott gazed out onto the road. “Drive on, then?”

That sounded good to Gus. “Yeah.”

They drove past familiar sections of the city, old garbage hugging the sides of the road like a rotten fur lining. Gus directed Scott back to the street that had previously been cut off by the massive herd of dead.

“Keep going,” Gus instructed, looking at each house as the van went by it.

“How do you know, anyway?”

“I leave the doors open on the houses when I can.”

The van crept up the street until Gus lifted a gloved hand into the air. Scott stopped the vehicle and turned it, backing it into a driveway that had tall grass on both sides, buckled over with frost.

“Back in a flash,” Gus said and picked up his shotgun and bat. He jumped out from the rear and closed the door behind him, leaving Scott to watch the street and drum nervous fingers off the steering wheel.

Gus went up the stone steps to the front door. The house was a two-level affair with red plastic siding and a black roof. An older house, charming, but Gus wondered what was inside the place. He tried the door and found it unlocked. Taking a deep breath, he turned the brass knob and swung open the door.

Gus stood there for a moment, staring into the shadowy interior. Musty air reached him, but it didn’t bother him. He tapped the barrel of the shotgun on the frame and waited, wondering if any deadhead would answer. Elongated thoughts of what had happened in the Port William’s home stretched and snapped through his mind in disjointed black and white. Some bits were graphically recalled, while other pieces were missing. Shock, he supposed.

With a shake, he realized he’d been standing in the doorway for several minutes.

Feeling a grimace on his face, Gus went in.

He cleared the main floor and the upstairs. There wasn’t a basement, so that made life easier. In the living room, he found a dusty collection of National Geographic magazines, the cover of the top one showing a mosquito poised with a gossamer proboscis on a bed of flesh. Gus made note to take the magazines later as he enjoyed looking at the pictures. A collection of at least two or three hundred Blu-ray discs were arranged in an almost ceiling-high shelving unit, but Gus left those. Most of the titles he had back at the house on his terabyte, except for several Japanese animated cartoons that looked borderline triple X. A gas fireplace dominated the room, along with the usual living room furniture. He found two plastic ten-liter bottles of water, along with several cans of food, including instant noodles and the oatmeal he’d grown fond of having for breakfast.

Making note of those items, he came to a locked door with an old-fashioned keyhole. Gus knocked on it, listened, and stepped back. He kicked the door with several heavy connections of his new boots, and when the door finally burst inward, he took a moment to compose himself, feeling the sweat running underneath his gear. Bringing up his shotgun, he eased around the corner, into a home office area. A desk with one of the newer nano-desktop computers faced him, along with a printer and two small speakers. Bookshelves lined one wall, filled with names like George Eliot and Elizabeth Gaskell, including some books on self-improvement, world history, and an ample collection of military fiction. On a small table was a dust-covered model of a group of intrepid fantasy adventurers heading down into a dungeon area where a sleeping green dragon lay. Gus bent over it, admiring the detail of the miniatures pieces, from the weapons and armor possessed by the fighters, to the wizard wielding a magical staff.

Smiling, Gus straightened and looked at the wall behind the door. A glass cabinet filled it and inside, on display, was an arsenal.

His mouth dropped open. Well, he knew why the door had been locked. He didn’t wonder why the weapons were there and not with the owner; he only hoped they worked.

Guns and ammunition, arranged on hooks against a red felt background, lay ready for the taking. He had no idea what manner of firearms they were. A closed cabinet below the glass gave Gus hope that more ammunition was stored inside. The cabinet was locked, so Gus smashed out the glass.

A pair of sleek black pistols hung at the top, facing each other, each sporting sound suppressors. Ruger was stamped into their grips, while SR-9 lay across its short barrel length. Two foot-long Bowie knives with their blades crossed hung beneath the pistols, just above a small pedestal with a miniature ceramic skull, black-eyed and grinning. A tin-colored derringer lay on the bottom of the cabinet, as if tossed in as an afterthought.

But the item that took Gus’ breath away, the thing that made him place his shotgun on the desk, was the weapon placed straight up alongside the others. Gus took it out of the cabinet and looked it over, his mouth hanging open in awe. He had no idea of the reputation of the gun, but the sheer spectacle of it spoke military grade.

The word Benelli was stamped in the gun metal, just above the trigger, right next to “Made in Italy.” It looked like a shotgun, but with a pistol grip and a skeletal shoulder stock. Gus marvelled at the sleekness of the boomstick. Combat shotgun, that much he knew, with what looked to be a removable stock. He looked down the sights and got another surprise. It carried a mounted scope, which made Gus shake his head. It could not have come at a better time. God above, he wanted to go hunting for gimps with this beast.

“Sorry, Betsy,” Gus muttered, glancing at the shotgun on the table. “Think I just divorced you.” He looked down through the scope again. “Fuck me gently.”

Not wanting to release the shotgun, he reluctantly placed it on the desk and went back to the cabinet. The lower cabinet doors were locked, so he kicked his way through with his steel-toed boots. Clearing away the flimsy wooden fragments, Gus mouthed the word yes. Ammunition. Seven twenty-shell boxes of regular shot and seven five-shell boxes of what was marked on the box as sabot slugs.

Sabots. The name sounded familiar, but he couldn’t place it. He felt as if he’d just found a thunderbolt. He opened a box of the copper solid sabots and took one out. An impressed whistle left him as he studied the green plastic shell casing and the inner copper top.

“Wow.” He knew they were special rounds, but didn’t know exactly how special. He looked over the boxes for anything to give a description to what he’d found, an owner’s manual perhaps, but there was nothing else. He did find ten loaded magazines for the Rugers, in addition to a heavy tackle box filled with what looked be another two hundred or so loose nine millimeter rounds––little brass shells with red tips.

“Christmas came early,” Gus muttered. He pulled out the ammo, checked the magazine loads, and found gun cleaning kits for both the pistols and the Benelli. Behind the boxes of shells were two brown leather bandoliers, which Gus looped over his head and under his arms, making an X on his chest. He rooted around for more goodies and felt genuine disappointment when he found nothing else useful.

Knowing he shouldn’t complain, he took what he could carry out to the van.

“Find anything?” Scott called when he opened the rear doors of the van.

“Yeah,” Gus replied. “A fuckin’armory.”

“What?”

“You heard me. A fuckin’ armory.”

“Like what?”

“Like this.”

Gus held out the combat shotgun, which pulled Scott out of the driver’s seat so he could see the weapon closer.

“Ho-ly shit,” Scott exclaimed softly, taking the weapon.

“Eh?” Gus nodded emphatic agreement. “Mine, though. I call dibs on it.”

“Aw, man.”

“I got you something, though, if you want ’em.”

“What?”

“Hand me the duffel bag, and I’ll bring it all out in one trip.”

“Man!” Scott admired the shotgun. “Where the hell did the guy get this thing anyway? Something smells illegal here.”

“Private collection probably. I once knew a guy from Truro who said his father had an old AK-47 in a seventeen-gun collection. And what do you mean illegal? If we’re gonna be finding guns, the illegal ones are the ones I want.”

Scott had nothing to say to that. He was too interested in staring down the scope of the Benelli. He aimed up the street and made gunshot noises.

“I’ll be back,” Gus said, and returned to the house.

23

They cleared seven houses, pulling in a bin full of canned peaches and pineapple, as well as fruit cocktails. Gus found some boxes of beer, but he left those for the several additional bottles of gin and vodka. Fourteen rolls of toilet paper were found and taken. Loading up what they found at the seventh house, Gus got aboard and glanced up at the overcast sky. He felt exceptionally good about what they had scavenged, and then realized where they were.

“Hey, guess where we are.”

“Where?”

“Near the liquor corporation.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah, oh. Why don’t we head on over there?”

Scott looked out at the overcast sky. “I wonder what time it is.”

“There you go about the time again. Where do you have to be? Hmm? Where?” Gus looked over at Scott, watching him shrug. “You don’t have anyone waitin’ for you except me, and I’m right here.”

“You’re the big baby who wants to be back on the hill before dark.”

“Hey, now,” Gus said, feeling mildly defensive. “That’s just plain good thinking. You want to get caught down here if anything goes wrong again?”

“That’s what I’m sayin’. It’s cloudy out, and I don’t know if it’s one o’ clock or four.”

“It’d be darker if it was four.”

“So you want to go over there?”

“Yeah.”

“You’re an alcoholic, you know that?” Scott said pointedly.

“You’re not?”

Scott shook his head. “Where to, Budweiser?”

“Hey, if you’re going to give me a nickname, make it Jack. Or even better, Uncle Jack.”

“What kind of name is that?”

Gus shrugged. “Popular in the movies.”

“What movies?”

“Movies, man, movies.”

“Yeah, bad movies.”

Gus shook his head. “I think I like you better when you’re drinkin’. Head on down this street and take a left. One quick stop. Load up on some Mr. Daniels.”

“Whatever, man, I just drive here.”

“Use the name.”

“I’m not usin’ that shitty nickname. So drop it.”

The helmet hid Gus’ smile.

Ten minutes later, with the sky becoming increasingly sullen looking, the beast rolled into the parking lot of the liquor corporation. The building was built low, single story, and reminded Gus of an aboveground, red brick bunker. With so much cash generated for the crown-owned store, one would think they could splurge a little on the building’s design. Cars dotted the wide lot, some with their doors opened and others with smashed windshields. The van did a ninety-degree turn in reverse, and backed right up to the two main doors.

“Don’t take long,” Scott said.

“I won’t.” Gus brought up the Ruger SR-9 pistol with its suppressor.

“You’re not takin’ the shotgun?” Scott asked.

“Got this right here,” Gus said, thumbing the safety on the gun. “Thing’s got like a ton of bullets in the clip.”

“Mag.”

“Huh?”

“It’s not called a clip; it’s called a magazine. A mag.”

“How do you know?”

Scott shrugged. “I hear things.”

“What’s the difference?” Gus wanted to know.

“The difference is those things are mags that use a spring to feed bullets into the gun, while with a clip you can see the bullets. Like they’re stuck to this piece of metal, all exposed like. And don’t call that a silencer, either.”

“You mean this? What is it, then?”

“Called a sound suppressor,” Scott said and turned back to keep watch.

Gus regarded the length of black metal at the tip of his gun, and then Scott. “Knowledgeable fucker, ain’tcha?”

Scott shrugged. “Get a move on. Time’s wastin’.”

But Gus stood in the rear of the van, sizing up the sidearm and thinking about the new terminology he’d learned. He finally got a move on and slipped out the back, feeling a chill in the air, even through his gear. He looked inside the shop, seeing how dark it was. Taking a step into the entryway, Gus stopped and stomped his feet before slapping the doorframe with his free hand. He waited.

No reaction.

Feeling a little disappointed, Gus crossed the threshold and went inside. The gloom was periodically speared by sparse light from windows. Gus thought about going back to get a flashlight, but decided against it. If there were any gimps inside, they would’ve heard him slapping the wall. He kept the pistol pointed at the floor, dearly wanting something to appear so he could shoot it. Pushing his way through a turnstile, he walked by a series of cash checkouts and proceeded past shelves that still had a few bottles on them. He grabbed a shopping cart and wheeled it down the aisle, carefully checking the remaining bottles on the shelves. He knew he’d taken most of the Jack Daniels and Captain Morgan off the shelf, so that meant a trip to the storage room, and for that, he’d need a flashlight.

Gus filled up the cart with boxes of Bacardi amber and white rum before returning to the van.

“Holy shit,” Scott said as Gus loaded the booze into the beast. “That’s a lot of liquor.”

“They got wine in there, too. You want any?”

“Nah, I don’t know anything about wine.”

“I feel the same way. But I do like the sweet stuff.” Gus reached to the side of one bin and pulled out a rechargeable flashlight. “Everything clear?”

“Thus far.”

“Be right back, then,” Gus announced and returned to the dark cave of the liquor corporation.

“Hey, get me some cider if they have it,” Scott called after him.

Gus stopped at the mouth of the store and raised his hand, but then he tensed.

A scream from beyond the lot. A woman’s scream.

Scott stuck his head out his window and looked back at Gus. They froze, waiting for more.

“Whaddya want to do?” Scott asked.

“Follow me.” Gus bolted around the van. He jogged across the lot with pistol in hand and visor up, moving in and around the derelict vehicles. Upon reaching the edge of the pavement, he listened once more. Behind him, the van crept up to his position.

Looking left and right, Gus couldn’t see or hear anything. In front of him, there was a ditch filled with rotting debris. Beyond that was the broad side of a Chinese restaurant, along with an alleyway and fencing fringed with crumpled yellow grass. The fencing was part of a nearby subdivision.

“Well, shit.” Gus headed down the embankment. He sprinted through the back alley behind the Chinese restaurant, hearing his boots click on the pavement as he ran.

“Let me go!” came from ahead, prompting him to run faster. He held the pistol out with his finger on the guard. He ran past one long side alley filled with dumpsters, then another, until he heard a clanging noise. That made him worried. If he could hear the noise through his helmet, so could they.

Slowing at a corner of a white building which had a half-hanging sign reading, “––son’s Electronics,” Gus took a breath and peeked around it.

There, between two dumpsters and only visible from the chest up, was a tall man, dressed in a winter coat and wearing a red toque. He held a woman by the throat, her dirty blond hair splayed out over her shoulders, topped off with a white toque. Raising the Ruger, Gus eased around the corner. With the sound suppressor, he had no qualms about shooting.

“Let me––” The woman’s words mushed into a breathless growl, and Gus saw the man bring a knife to her throat.

“Whattaya think you could do? Hmm? Whattaya think you could do? I gotcha now, and I think you need to be punished. Whattaya say to that? Hmm? You just be good to me, okay?” the knife wielder said, gazing at the woman as she grunted and squirmed in his grasp. “You just be good this one time. Don’t make another peep, and I’ll––”

“Hey.”

The knifeman whipped around and stared at Gus, blinking in astonishment. Pale-faced with thick lips and a shitload of dirty stubble, he switched back and forth from Gus to the woman, whose eyes flicked white trying to see the owner of the new voice.

Gus aimed his gun at the knifeman. “Let her go.”

“D’fuck you come from?” the knifeman demanded, flashing a mouth full of yellow teeth.

“I said…” Gus held the pistol in a shooter’s stance he’d seen in the movies. “Let her go.”

“I’ll cut her.” The guy brought his knife, which looked to be nothing more than a kitchen blade, up to the right side of the woman’s face. “You shoot me, and I’ll slice her open.”

“You cut her,” Gus said slowly. “And I’ll fuck you up twice.”

“Uhhh, uhhh,” Knifeman half-wailed, half-grunted. “I’ll cut her!”

Gus didn’t bother answering. He kept the gun steady. Steady was the key. He took two steps toward the couple, aiming for Knifeman’s head.

“You stay back!” the man shouted. It became obvious to Gus that Knifeman hadn’t expected any trouble beyond deadheads, which was idiotic. No, Gus decided, he was dealing with a fucking moron caught in the act of probably getting around to a rape. That thought made him scowl.

“Stay back, fucker! Stay back! I mean it!” Knifeman bawled, his eyes wide with fright.

In response, Gus took another step, closing the gap to about three meters. He felt oddly distant, staring down the barrel of the Ruger. He’d wondered if he had the guts to shoot a person. He’d had plenty of practice on dead folks, and as terrifying as they were, there was a guiltless freedom in shooting them. They were dead, for Christ’s sake, and putting them down and thus returning them to the grave could even be considered a good thing. Even if they were living and infected, Gus believed there was a place for mercy killing the doomed. Putting down a living person, however, even one as possibly deserving as the piece of moronic shit standing before him, was something altogether different. He wasn’t certain he could do it.

Then, it occurred to Gus that fuckchops didn’t know his thoughts. With dramatic flair, he squeezed one eye closed, as if aiming.

That, apparently, was enough for Knifeman.

“You fucker!” He released the woman in a near hysterical huff. “You fucker, you fucker, you fucker!”

Knifeman jerked himself out from between the dumpsters and bounced off the opposite wall. Intent on giving Gus as difficult a target as possible, he zigzagged in one direction, then the other, abruptly changing paths again and again, ricocheting off the close confines while scrambling out the front of the alley. Gus felt both impressed and relieved. He didn’t have to kill a living person, and he got to see a man-shaped super springy ball in action.

“You fucker!” Knifeman bawled one more time as he disappeared around a corner.

Gus ran to the end of the alley, sparing only a glance at the woman, who was holding her throat. Looking around the corner, he saw Knifeman in full retreat, still screaming, “You fucker!” at the top of his lungs. Gus shook his head. The way he’d been brought up, he learned that the meek were supposed to inherit the earth, not the fucked-in-the-head. Knifeman bounded across the street and vanished up another alleyway.

Gus turned to face the woman. She stood between the dumpsters, regarding him with a red face while massaging her cheeks. Her teeth weren’t as white as what they might have been, but Gus was close enough to see that she still had most of them. Fancy that. He hadn’t seen a woman in damn near two years, he figured. A dirty white coat kept her warm, and she wore a pair of black jeans and brown hiking boots. Then, something else struck him that wasn’t so funny. Back at the house, he had an extensive movie collection, which he had had plenty of time to watch. One of the flicks he enjoyed was one of the remakes for Tarzan, starring a simply stunning woman by the name of Bo Derek.

The woman looked like her, except slimmer. A little more grit…

“You gonna fuckin’ take your shot now?” she grated, taking in deep breaths.

“Huh?” was all a startled Gus could get out.

“You heard me, fuckwad fireman.” She pulled a gun out of her pocket and pointed it at him. The barrel of the weapon seemed big enough to launch a torpedo.

“Hey, now.” Gus lifted his own gun skyward in a gesture of peace. “I just saved your ass.”

“Yeah, saved it for yourself, I bet.” She crept to the edge of the dumpster while keeping the gun on him. Positioned as she was, the corner of the trash unit gave her exceptional cover. “I should shoot you right now.” She sniffed and rubbed one cheek.

“Wait. Listen. I don’t wanna hurt you.”

“Yeah, right.”

That took Gus back. “Look––”

“Shut up!” She caught herself, and quickly regained composure. “Listen.”

Gus obeyed. His mouth opened slightly behind his helmet. Moaning, coming from the street.

“Hey.” Scott, poised with his shotgun, entered the alley behind her. Gus breathed a sigh of relief then, but the woman just glanced over her shoulder and didn’t drop the gun.

“You shoot me, and I’ll drop him. I swear to Christ.”

“You drop him. I drop you,” Scott informed her with a coldness that struck Gus as downright hard.

She looked from one man to the other. The moaning got louder and, for whatever weird reason, Gus thought he heard a distant “You fucker!” rolling over the concrete.

Trembling, she dropped her handheld rocket launcher.

“All right.” Gus moved past her toward Scott. “This way.”

“What?” Bo asked.

“They’re coming.”

Bo looked to the alley mouth. “Oh, sunny Jesus.”

“Come on!” Gus shouted, following a retreating Scott.

She finally ran, and the three of them beat their way back to the beast, waiting atop the parking lot rise. Overhead, the clouds seemed to darken even more.

“You go around to the back,” Gus shouted at her. He climbed into the passenger side as Scott clicked his seatbelt into place.

“We takin’ her with us?”

“Can’t leave her here.”

“Why not?”

Gus stared at him incredulously. “I didn’t leave you.” Not waiting for a comeback, Gus made his way to the back of the van. He unlocked and opened the door, and there she stood, red-barrel bazooka dangling in her hand.

“Where’re you goin’?” she asked.

Gus blinked at her. “You’re fuckin’ jokin’ now, right? You want to be left behind or what? You hear what’s out there?”

She looked back at the main road, confusion clouding her features.

“Get your ass in here,” Gus commanded.

Appearing not to like it at all, she climbed into the van, shooing away his offer of assistance. Gus let her be and went back to the front.

“Holy shit,” she said.

Gus looked back at her while he fastened his seatbelt. Scott started the van and put it into reverse.

“You guys been shoppin’, eh?” She stared at the goods in the back. “Where’d you get all this?”

“Liquor corporation,” Gus said. “Now hold on to something.”

“To what? You got nothin’ back––”

The sudden lurch of the van cut her off and sent her squatting on the floor. She gripped the bins for support.

“Home then?” Scott asked.

“Yep.” Gus turned to the woman. “Anyplace we can drop you off?”

“No,” she said after a few moments.

“You okay to come back with us?”

“Where?”

“Out of town.”

“You better not rape me.”

Gus looked at the ceiling, thought of a reply, but shook his head. Scott steered the van onto the main road, keeping clear of the dozen or so dead staggering into the daylight.

“Go that way.” Gus pointed to the left, realizing he still had a hand on his pistol. Then, a bolt of horrible realization struck him. The woman was in the back.

With the weapons.

He looked back at her then, between the seats, and watched her study the goods they had taken from the houses. She glanced up at the shotguns, including the Benelli, but then looked back in the bins.

“You’ve got cans of fruit cocktail back here,” she said.

“Yeah, got them today.”

Her lips parted as she continued staring. “You’ve got lots.”

Gus didn’t say anything.

“Can I have some?” she asked.

That one simple question affected Gus more than he cared to let on. “Uh, it’ll be messy to open that in the van. Can you wait until we’re back?”

She thought about it. “How long will that be?”

“What’s your name?” Gus asked so he could dispense with the Bo Derek imagery going through his head.

“Huh?”

“Your name?”

“Roxanne,” she said, sitting cross-legged on the floor.

“I’m Gus. This is Scott.”

“Hello,” Scott said, keeping his eyes on the road.

“Okay. So anyway, it’ll take about thirty minutes or so, depending on traffic.”

That space between her eyebrows crinkled up. “Traffic? What traffic?”

“The dead kind.”

“Oh.”

“Who was that guy back there?” Gus asked.

“I thought he was a friend, right up to then, anyway. We––” she fumed for a moment. “We were coming in from New Brunswick. Making our way to Halifax. He’s just a guy I paired up with. Strength in numbers, right?”

“He have a motorcycle?”

“Yeah. A loud one. Stupid prick. I kept tellin’ him about it, but he doesn’t know how to fix it.”

Gus exchanged looks with Scott. “We heard him the other day.”

“Yeah, well. He can go on and get killed now for all I care. I’ve taken care of myself before.”

Gus supposed she just could. She struck him as being full of fight. “Roxanne?”

“Yeah?”

“What kind of gun is that?”

“Flare gun.”

“Flare gun.” Gus had thought it was a wicked blast laser or some other kind of mass effect weapon. Shaking his head in sad amusement, he looked back at the road.

“Scared you, did it?” Roxanne asked, a smile in her question.

“Damn right it did,” Gus muttered.

He settled back into his seat and looked at the street rushing by, the skeletal trees reaching for Heaven.

24

The beast rumbled out of the city with smoke spilling from its exhaust. They linked up with the main highway and began the long, but comforting drive home. Roxanne remained quiet, and the two men left her alone.

When they came to the place where Gus had put down the two corpses, Scott slowed and leaned over the steering wheel. “See that?”

Gus saw. “Yep.” The bodies lay where they had left them.

“What is it?” Roxanne asked.

“Nothin’,” Gus answered. “Just an experiment.”

Scott drove by, leaving the unmoving dead behind.

It was almost dark by the time they got back. They slowed to the gate on the road, the camouflage looking dead and thin. Gus got out and pulled open the latticed gate. He waved them through. The van stopped just inside, and Gus put the gate back in place, opened the door, and jumped aboard.

“You guys live up here?” Roxanne asked.

“Yeah,” Gus answered. “We do. Doin’ pretty good, too, except for the days we have to head into the city.”

Roxanne nodded and removed her white toque. She shook out her hair and Gus looked away before making the mistake of staring. That was all she needed right now, he figured, after what she’d been through.

“You have to head down there often?” she asked.

Gus nodded, watching the dirt road ahead as the van travelled over the winding slope. Scott kept the headlights off as they approached the wall. “Snow will be down soon, though. Won’t be able to get down there at all. That’s why we were in your part of the woods today. Pickin’ up supplies.”

Beyond the tall stone wall, the dark peaks of the house rose up. The van came to a stop.

“Home again, home again, jiggity jig,” Gus said, and got out. He went to the gate, a shadow among shadows, and opened it for the van. Scott drove through, heading toward the open garage. Gus closed and reinforced the gate, wondering how he had gotten all the shitty jobs. Once done bracing the gate, he half-jogged back to the garage.

Inside, he cranked down the door. Scott had backed the van in and opened the rear doors. He was eyeing Roxanne as he stripped off his firefighter gear. Gus joined them and started disrobing. Roxanne turned around so she wasn’t looking at them.

“Don’t worry. We wear clothes underneath,” Gus told her.

“I’m not worried,” she said. “So, how long have you guys been up here?”

“About two years for me,” Gus answered.

“Couple of months here.” Scott tossed his Nomex coat, pants, and fire boots off to one side of an open locker.

“We might stink a little, but it’s a small price to pay for being safe,” Gus said. “You want, you can get that can of fruit cocktail now.”

That got her attention, but she remained cool as she climbed back into the van and got out three cans of fruit.

“Can I have the peaches, too?”

“Sure,” Gus said, hoping his little smile was hidden by his beard. He turned to Scott. “I’ll take her into the kitchen.”

Scott nodded indifferently.

Gus walked into the house, and Roxanne followed like a deer wary of stepping into the sights of a hunter’s rifle.

“My God,” she said, glancing left and right at the kitchen area and the living room. “This is paradise.”

Gus faced her from behind the island in the kitchen, spreading his hands on the black marble counter surface. He watched her size up the furniture and then the kitchen. A smile spread across her face, and her eyes lit up. She shrugged off her coat, and Gus couldn’t help but take in her slim figure and the swell of her breasts covered by a black sweater.

“See anything you like?” Roxanne asked with a scowl.

Blinking and suddenly embarrassed, Gus diverted his gaze to the countertop and then the cupboards. “Ah, sorry. Uh… you can bring those cans over here. The fruit… I mean.” He winced and shook his head, feeling the blood rise to his cheeks.

Roxanne came to the island and sat at one of the stools. Keeping an eye on Gus, she laid out the three cans.

“You got a can opener for these things?”

Nodding, Gus got her a plastic bowl and a spoon. “If you can wait, I’ll put on some soup for you.”

“Soup?”

“Soup,” Scott said as he emerged from the hallway. He walked around Roxanne and sat down at the end of the island, placing both elbows on the counter and his chin in his hands.

“You forgetting something?” he asked Gus.

“Huh? What?”

Scott squinted at him, but Gus still didn’t catch on. “Back home drinks?”

“Oh.” Gus went to the kitchen table and got the two bottles of Canadian Club they’d been working on. He gave Scott his and returned to the other side of the island.

“We have this thing we do when we get back. In one piece.”

“You drink?” Roxanne asked.

“I drink,” Scott said. “He gets smashed.”

Gus frowned at Scott and shrugged at Roxanne.

“So where’s mine then? Or don’t I get one?”

“You got fruit cocktail,” Scott pointed out.

“Course you can,” Gus quickly spoke. He looked around. “Uh, you want a glass?”

“You got those, too?”

“Yeah,” Gus managed, getting a plastic one from a cupboard. “We’ve got pretty much everything here.”

“Is that why it’s warm in here?”

“Solar power,” Gus said and poured her a shot from his bottle.

“My God. It’s too cloudy for that, isn’t it?”

“Sun’s still up there. Okay, then. Cheers.” Gus held up his bottle. Scott held up his, but Roxanne didn’t share in the toast.

“And you’re welcome,” Scott said as he took a shot.

“What for? For bringin’ me here?” Roxanne said with a hint of petulance in her voice.

“Yeah. That, and for savin’ your ass,” Scott reminded her.

Gus watched the exchange between the two and felt a little tongue-tied. He took a sip from his bottle and placed it on the island’s surface. The burn of the whiskey still in his mouth and throat, he realized darkly that he felt something else as well, something he hadn’t felt for a very long time, but recognized it as clear as daylight. Insecurity. Around her.

Well, shit.

“You were about to shoot my ass, if I remember it correctly,” Roxanne said to Scott.

“Oh, I would’ve shot it. Guaranteed.” Scott nodded, keeping his eyes downcast. “But you were smart about it. Right, Gus?”

“Um…” Gus cleared his throat. “That’s right. You did the smart thing there.”

“Thanks. Both of you,” she added, with another glance at Scott.

Each time she looked at Scott, something in Gus willed her to look his way instead.

“If you like,” Gus plunged on, “you can stay here.”

Scott’s eyes flicked up at Gus before he turned back to regard Roxanne.

“I just got here,” Roxanne said. “Let me think about it.”

Scott snorted a chuckle. He rubbed his blond beard and shooed his hand in a gesture telling them to ignore his little outburst.

Gus had to smile himself. “Sure. Go right ahead. When you want to leave, just say the word. We’ll drop you off wherever you want to go.”

“I thought you were going to make some soup.”

“Hungry myself,” Scott threw in.

Gus got a large pot and opened up three cans of it filled with preserved vegetables and chunks of chicken. He emptied all three into the pot and fired up a burner.

“Dig in with the fruit,” Gus said. “This’ll take a few minutes.”

She opened one of the fruit cocktails. “Oh, God. This is so good.”

Gus watched her from the stove. He glanced over at Scott, who shook his head at him while hiding a little smile with his hand. Gus inquired with a look, but Scott responded by turning away.

Roxanne finished her food and wiped her mouth with her hand. “Oh, God, that was delicious. I haven’t eaten anything like that for years. Even before everything went to hell. You don’t know how hard it is to find anything out west. Most food was taken by the army or police or gangs.”

“We’ve got plenty of food here,” Gus informed her.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah, we’re pretty self-sufficient.” Gus went on to explain about the well and electricity, as well as the food and drink in the basement. He finished cooking the soup and portioned it out in bowls that Scott got from the cupboard. They ate then, and the silence filled with the sounds of supper. Roxanne bolted hers down and eyed the pot on the stove.

“More?” Gus asked.

“Yes, if you can spare it.”

Gus poured the last bit into her bowl.

“You have any bread or crackers?”

“Ah, no, sorry. We’re well off, but we don’t have everything.”

“So you were just talkin’ out of your ass a few minutes ago.” Roxanne crossed her arms.

“Ah,” Gus began, looking at Scott.

Scott didn’t appear too pleased with Roxanne. “I think you should be a little more thankful for what we—more exactly, Gus––did for you today.”

“How thankful I gotta be?” Roxanne fired at him.

“What the hell is this? Gus, I do believe you’ve let a bitch into the house.”

“Fuck you,” Roxanne shot back.

“No, fuck you,” Scott said, squaring her with an incredulous expression.

“Hey, relax,” Gus asked them both and, to his surprise, got it. “Look, Roxanne. We’re goin’ to do a little drinkin’ here, me and Scott. I think you should just maybe relax. I got some extra clothes that’ll fit you, and you can take a hot bath, okay?”

Roxanne’s jaw dropped. “A hot bath?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, shit, you want that blowjob now or later?”

Gus blinked, not knowing quite how to react.

“That was a joke. And I don’t remember offering it to you.” She directed the last at Scott.

The blond man shook his head in wonder.

“Well, boys, I’m going to finish my lovely soup here, and when I do, maybe one of you can direct me to that bath? And a razor, too, if you can spare it. I haven’t had either for a while.”

“A razor?” Gus asked in confusion.

Roxanne cocked an eyebrow. “You want to know what I’m goin’ to shave?”

25

After supper, Gus took it upon himself to show Roxanne the bathroom and what would be her bedroom, next to Scott’s. He tuned on the water, letting it run, and took her some clean sweatpants, a T-shirt, a sweater, and a disposable razor.

“Shampoo and soap are in there.” He pointed to a cabinet as the flowing hot water steamed up the room.

“My God.” She sighed.

“We’ll be downstairs.” Gus turned to leave.

“Hey,” Roxanne said. “Thank you. For everything. There’s nothing like this out there anymore. Nothing that we could find, and we were looking. I mean, solar panels? Not everyone can afford them and, really, who has the room?”

Gus nodded. He left her and walked downstairs to the den. Like always, they left only one light on, keeping the room in perpetual shadow.

Scott was in the recliner, his bottle of whiskey in his lap. “She in the tub?”

“Just about.” Gus sat on the sofa.

“Why aren’t you with her?” Scott gave him an evil smile.

“Huh?”

Scott shook his head. “Oh, man. If I can see it, you can sure as shit know she can.”

“See what?” Gus asked in a defensive tone.

“You, around her. She’s only been here what? An hour? And you’re already smitten.” He emphasized the last word with a horrified expression.

“You got an issue with that?”

“Gus, you listenin’ to yourself?”

“Hey, I asked you a question.”

Scott regarded him. “All right. Listen. You listenin’? I’ll say this once, and that’s it. You’re welcome to her. I ain’t interested.”

Gus stared at him. “Why? You’re not gay, are you?”

“What?” Scott rolled his eyes. “No, I’m not gay, you twat.” He shook his head and took another shot of whiskey. “I’m not interested in her because I was married once. Remember?” He scratched at the space between his eyes. “Before all of this. Wife and daughter. They got infected and died.”

“Sorry, man.”

“Look, I didn’t say this before. Hell, I didn’t even tell Teddy or Lea. I… I had to kill them both.”

That struck Gus like a hammer, leaving him dazed and speechless.

“I put them down. I killed my own daughter. She was… she was only two. She bit her mom’s finger off. And while I made up my mind what to do with her, my wife changed on me. I don’t even remember how I did it. All I remember is leavin’ the apartment with a bloody rolling pin.”

“Jesus Christ,” Gus whispered.

Scott shrugged. “I’m lucky that way. Not rememberin’, I mean. But sometimes I think I remember––nightmares. They don’t come as often now, though.” He sighed and ran a thumb over the surface of his bottle. “So, yeah, I’m not interested.”

“I’m sorry, man.”

“It’s okay. I wouldn’t have told you if it wasn’t for the bitch upstairs. And listenin’ to you going all bubbly over her.”

Gus winced. “I went all bubbly?”

“Man…” Scott shook his head again. “I wanted to signal timeout there at one point when you went on and on about the house. That’s what I mean by listenin’ to yourself. I do want to say thanks, though. For includin’ me in ownership of the house. And other stuff. You’ve truly saved me.”

“As far as I’m concerned, you live here.”

“Yeah. That’s what I mean. Thanks, Gus.”

Scott held up his bottle, and Gus leaned over and clinked his against it. They drank and let the whiskey burn it all away.

“She’s a peach, though, ain’t she?” Gus said.

“She’s got a dirty mouth.”

“I like it all the same.”

“You would.” They both chuckled. Scott cleared his throat. “Just don’t be so goddamn eager, okay? If something happens, and you have to be ready, though nothin’ might, but if something happens, just stay cool, all right? Be cool.”

Gus nodded and, for a brief moment, thought of Tammy. “Thanks for the advice.”

“All I can offer right now. So what are we doing tonight? Same ol’?”

“You know it. Maybe a movie, too.”

“What one?”

“Been eyein’ that old one there by John Carpenter.”

“Escape from New York?” Scott’s brow went up a notch.

“The Thing.”

“Oh, good choice. I can watch that again.”

“I’ll load it up.”

“I noticed Scarface in there, too.” Scott said. “Ol’ Al Pacino, eh?”

“Sounds good, amigo,” Gus answered with a rough Spanish accent. “But first, The Theeeng.”

Springing up from the sofa, Gus powered up the big screen television and, with the remote control, selected a movie in the 1050 terabyte digital library. He found the folder and brought up the cover display for the old 1982 movie.

“Great cover,” Scott said.

“Great movie.”

The opening credits came on, heartbeat music started, and the two men were suddenly in the Antarctic, watching the plight of an American research station as it came into contact with an alien once frozen in the deep ice.

One hour and change into the movie, Roxanne came down dressed in the clothes Gus had given her. “I haven’t seen a movie in years,” she said, and skipped in front of Gus. He moved his legs from where he was stretched out on the sofa, watching her as she passed. She sat at the other end of the couch, eyes glued to the screen.

“What is this?” she asked.

“The Thing,” Gus informed her.

“Oooh, sounds scary.”

“This is a classic.”

“I think I saw the remake as a kid.”

“That what happen to you?” Scott threw in.

“Hey… don’t start over there, unless you want a couple of letters thrown your way.”

“Letters?”

“Yeah, F and U. You fugly ucker.”

Scott went back to watching the movie.

“Yeah, that's what I thought,” Roxanne said, but she was smiling.

*

Breakfast the next morning was oatmeal sweetened with white sugar. As he felt it was his kitchen, Gus took it upon himself to fix the morning meal. He lined up three bowls and filled them. He boiled more water and prepared coffee. Afterward, he settled down at the island and began to eat.

Scott emerged wearing his bum clothes and sat down. “Morning.”

“Morning.”

Gus had the light on over the stove, bathing the area in a soft glow. They both had half of their breakfasts gone when Roxanne appeared like a ghost, dishevelled and sour-faced. “What’s this?”

“Oatmeal,” Gus said. “Morning.”

“Morning,” she said, still partially asleep, it seemed. “Morning,” she directed at Scott.

“Morning,” he muttered back, not looking up.

“Oatmeal?” she asked.

“Yeah,” Gus said. “That okay?”

“I used to hate oatmeal. Funny how a little bit of starving solves that.” She sat down and yawned before digging in.

Gus caught a whiff of her morning breath and made a mental note to get her a toothbrush and mouthwash from the storeroom.

“Oh, my God, coffee even. This is so hard to come by,” Roxanne said, as she sweetened it. She slurped, and her shoulders slumped. “Mmmm.”

After breakfast, they piled the dishes into the sink and gathered around the kitchen island.

“I don’t know what to say. Thank you for that,” Roxanne said.

“Roxanne,” Gus began. “We’ve gotta unload the van, all right? You want to help, that’s fine. Later on, we’re gonna head out again. Just a short run. See if we can’t pick up some more supplies for the winter.”

“Didn’t drink enough last night?” Roxanne asked.

“That wasn’t drinkin’,” Gus said straight-faced. “That was us relaxin’.”

“Oh. Well, where are you goin’?”

“We’ll see later if we have time. Days are gettin’ shorter now. I’ll show you around a bit, too. You’re welcome to move around the house, but stay outta my room please.”

“Mine, too,” Scott added.

“So that means you won’t be comin’ into mine?” Roxanne asked Gus.

“Of course.”

“Hmm. Fine.”

“All right, then,” Gus said, drumming his hands on the countertop. “Let’s get dressed and get to work.”

Minutes later, they met up back in the garage, dressed and ready to move things from the van to the house. Gus and Scott moved the alcohol carefully, treating it like a wounded child. They divided up the firearms and ammunition, with Gus claiming the Benelli shotgun as his own.

“Do I get a gun?” Roxanne asked.

“You don’t,” Gus said. “You just got here.”

“Well, I need a gun,” she stressed.

“You got a flare gun, don’t you?” Scott asked.

“Yeah, but––”

“That’s enough for you. For now, anyway.”

“Next one we find can be yours if you’re workin’ with us,” Gus added.

“I’m workin’ with you, okay? Give me something to do,” Roxanne pleaded.

Gus said, “Okay, grab some of the food and follow me below. Scott, leave one of those gun cleaning kits in the van.”

Taking some of the canned food, Gus led her to the basement storeroom.

“Oh, my God,” Roxanne said as she took in the sight. “You’ve got a shop down here.”

“Well, two little ones anyway.”

“My God, I see shampoo, soap, toilet paper.”

“Yeah.” Gus took what she had in her arms and placed it on one of many shelves. “Here,” he said as he plucked out a toothbrush, still in its original wrapping, and gave it to her with a tube of toothpaste. He handed her a pack of dental floss as well.

“You tryin’ to say something?” Roxanne said as she took the items.

“Yeah, without comin’ out and sayin’ it,” Gus said, smiling. “But I will if you really want me to.”

“I can take it.”

“I think you can. But I think I’ll let this one go. Those are yours. Enjoy.”

“Floss,” Roxanne said as she studied the packaging. “Shit.”

“You couldn’t find any floss out there?”

“Everything’s been picked over, man. You don’t know. That’s why we came east to the smaller cities. Better chance of finding anything. I mean, there are people out there now that will literally kill for floss.”

“Well, what you see here is mostly good. Sometimes I’ll find something in a house that’s exploded from gases or bacteria or some shit. I don’t know how it happens, truthfully. Or bugs got in through the packaging. I once heard that for all the food out there, a small percentage has like bug eggs in it. Which sometimes hatch. Best test is, if it’s still sealed, it’s a good chance it’s still good, but if you open it, look and smell before digging in.”

“Good to know.”

“Yeah. I got my hands on some freeze-dried stuff before. Well, once in a blue moon. That stuff’s always fresh. I consider it like Christmas turkey.”

Roxanne stood sizing up the many goods in the room. “I can’t believe you have all of this.”

“Yeah, well, with three people here, we’ll go through it pretty fast. That’s why we should head out today and see if we can get more. House picking, I call it. Winter’s comin’ on.”

“You’re scared of winter?”

“I’m scared of being isolated up here and not being able to drive anywhere so, yeah, I’m scared of winter. Don’t want to run the chance of gettin’ stuck in the valley when the snow’s on the ground.”

“But I thought the snow and cold slows them down.”

Gus regarded her. “Doesn’t stop them, though.”

*

They ate an early lunch of crackers, canned chicken, and cheese, while doing a slow cleaning of their shotguns and Ruger pistols. The pistols took longer than any of them expected, as none of them had ever cleaned one before. It took an hour before they figured out how to get them apart, clean them, and put them back together. The smell of gun oil clung to the air. They talked as they worked, and learned that Roxanne was from Ontario and had struck east with the man called Edgar. The knifeman. He had been fine up until a few days ago, and Roxanne believed he had simply lost it.

Around early afternoon, they suited up. They didn’t have any firefighter gear for Roxanne, so she simply wore her white winter coat and toque. After loading up the van and their weapons, they headed out, opening and closing the gates as they came to them.

Gus looked back at Roxanne for a moment.

“What?” she asked, the lip of her toque pulled down almost to her brow.

“What can you do?” Gus asked.

“Huh?”

Gus waited.

“I can drive,” Roxanne said. “And I can shoot a gun.”

“A flare gun,” Gus said.

“Well, yeah. I only have three shots left, though.”

“Anything else?”

Roxanne grimaced. “Not really.”

“What did you do back in the real world?”

“I was a manager for a fried chicken takeout.”

“Really? Good job?”

“Not really,” Roxanne said. “I put on something like forty pounds, I think. And all on my ass.”

Gus chuckled. “We’ll find something for you to do. We all can do something.”

They became quiet then, mindful that they were beyond the safety of the house and wall. The van cut its way through the landmarks on the highway until they came to the place where they had left two of the dead on the highway.

“You see what I see?” Scott asked as he slowed to a stop.

“Yeah,” Gus said, looking ahead and then around.

“What?” Roxanne asked.

“That experiment I mentioned yesterday?”

“Yeah.”

“It ain’t there anymore.”

“Huh?” Roxanne got to her feet to peer out the windshield. “Tell me again.”

“Shit.” Gus ignored her and opened his door to exit the van. He glanced around at the road, taking in the wrecked cars, as well as the motorcycle behind them and the billboard with the semi driven through it. He felt a pang of wary excitement in his gut. It was the place, sure as hell it was, but no zombies. He looked back into the van at Scott and Roxanne and shrugged. He studied the area and located some faint stains where the dead had fallen, but couldn’t find anything to suggest that they had gone off. He reached for his bat and realized it was back in the truck.

“Give me my bat,” Gus said, opening the passenger door.

Roxanne handed it to him. “Here you go.”

“Anything up?” Scott asked.

“Don’t know. Keep a lookout.”

“Will do,” Scott replied.

Gus closed the door and walked to the side of the road. He got down on his knees and peered under a few of the wrecks. Nothing. He stood and walked over to the guardrail. He had looked forward to smashing a deadhead, but the side of the road and the area leading up to some sparse trees were empty. The sun crept out from behind a cloud and lit the area. He looked up and down the highway, but didn’t spot anything. He finally turned and headed back to the van.

“Anything?” Scott asked.

“Not a goddamn thing,” Gus grumped. “Damn funny.”

“What do you think?”

Gus looked at him. “I think we have a problem. Something just occurred to me, and I don’t like the sound of it.”

“All right. What? You don’t like the sound of what?” Roxanne asked.

“I first noticed that bodies were disappearing down in the city. That was the first place. Now it’s here they’re disappearing. And I smashed the joints of those last bastards…”

“So?” Roxanne prodded.

“So something’s dragging them away. Or something is eating them.”

They became quiet, listening to the idle chug of the engine.

“What could feed on the dead?” Roxanne asked.

“Dogs,” Gus said. “Maybe raccoons? Bears? I dunno, but I’d say dogs. They’d be strong enough to carry off a body. Wild ones would eat anything, I imagine.”

“Dogs,” Scott said.

“That might be a problem.” Gus said.

“Why?” Roxanne asked.

“Well, I know how the disease affects people, but I don’t know how it’ll affect animals. And if it’s all the same to you, I don’t want to meet up with an infected bear or dog.”

“A lot of the animals died in the first year, I figure,” Scott said quietly. “But there’s bound to be a few that adapted. That survived.”

“Until they got infected,” Gus added. “Well, shit.”

Silence ruled once again as they contemplated what might lurk out there beyond zombies.

“Well,” Gus finally said. “No use worrying about it now. Dead is dead until I see it walking.”

26

Their first stop was the liquor corporation. They filled up one bin of the van with cases of Bacardi rum, various bottles of whiskey, alcoholic cider, and moscato wine. The loading went quickly with Roxanne helping Gus with lugging the cases from the gloom of the storeroom to the van. Next, they decided to look for a new street to house pick.

“Why not the malls around here?” Roxanne asked.

“Been picked over already. Nothin’ in there. When the fall happened, that was the place that was the most looted, and dangerous. The dead zoned in on it like it was a magnet. Most of the big shoppin’ centers are like that. I stay away from them. Nah, at this point in the game, the big stores are done. Too dangerous. I stick with the houses now. Most don’t have anything because the people that lived there took what they could, but some are treasure troves. Like the shotgun and pistols we found the other day.”

“Could be more out there just like that,” Scott added.

“Oh, I guarantee it,” Gus agreed. “We just gotta keep lookin’.”

“To what end?” Roxanne asked. “I mean, sooner or later, probably sooner, this is going to be all looked over right? Everything that could be found will be. What’re you gonna do then?”

Good question.

Gus looked back at her. “Move?”

“Where? It’s the same out west, if not worse. It’s the Dark Ages all over again out west. I mean, I came from it.”

Gus looked at Scott. “Like your Tenner.”

Scott didn’t reply, but his face became pensive.

“Who’s Tenner?” Roxanne asked.

“A killer,” Gus said. “Anyway. Good point on what happens next. I’m thinking on it.”

“Think faster,” Roxanne said.

“Well, right now…” Gus looked up at the cloudy sky. “I think we can get in a few more houses. You guys up for it?”

“We have time,” Scott said.

“Oh, guaranteed you’re keepin’ track of the time,” Gus said, shaking his head. “No worries there. Nerd.”

*

The sun descended behind the hills as they returned to the mountain and backed the van into the garage. They had done well for the six houses they managed to search—more toilet paper, stationery supplies, history books on the world wars, and sealed condiments. Roxanne had also made the suggestion of taking blankets found in linen closets for the upcoming winter, which filled the rear of the van and gave her something to sit on for the ride back to the house. Scott and Roxanne unloaded everything that same evening while Gus prepared canned beef ravioli for supper. They had their welcome home shots of whiskey and settled in for a night of Scrabble.

That night, Scott lay in his bed, staring at the ceiling. He heard Roxanne go to the washroom and return to her room minutes later. She was a little rough around the edges, but she wasn’t a bad person. She also played a mean game of Scrabble. Of course, he and Gus had been pleasantly buzzed at the time.

Then, Tenner crept back into his mind. Tenner was still out there.

Tenner was unfinished business.

It disturbed Scott how easily Tenner had gunned him down and executed Teddy and Lea. It disturbed him that the man still lived and was probably killing whoever crossed his path for whatever reason. The pleasure? The thrill? Or just because people were there?

Scott exhaled.

Then, he heard a soft knock on the door.

Roxanne opened the door and stepped into his room. He could tell it was her from the shadowy outline. Her hair fell over her shoulders as she eased herself inside, keeping a hand on the knob. Even more interesting, she wore only a T-shirt that halted just at her upper thighs.

“Scott?” she asked quietly.

“Yeah?”

“You up?”

“Mmhmm. What do you want?”

“Gus is asleep, so I thought…” Her shape leaned up against the wall, and Scott was aware of her T-shirt slipping upward. “I thought you might like… to talk.”

Well, shit.

Scott took a moment to collect his thoughts. He realized he was on extremely delicate ground. “Uh, no, I’m fine, Roxanne. I was about to drift off when you came in.”

“Really?” she said softly. She lifted one leg, running her toes against the instep of the other, before placing it behind her as if stretching. She thrust her chest out, and he saw that she wasn’t wearing a bra.

For a moment he didn’t say anything, then, “Yeah, really. Good night.”

She didn’t leave right away. Scott closed his eyes and then opened one just a crack. She remained in place, and for a moment, he felt a bolt of awkwardness surge through him. Oh, sweet Jesus, he thought. What if she strips down in here?

He didn’t need that. He closed his eyes again. Then, he heard the door click closed. He cracked open an eye and relief flooded through him. Roxanne was gone.

Exhaling, he shook his head. He didn’t need that. He hoped it wouldn’t make things awkward. He was, in his mind, still married.

And then there was Gus.

He wouldn’t mention the episode to Gus. He couldn’t.

He wasn’t certain, however, what Roxanne would do.

*

Over his bowl of instant rolled oats sweetened with sugar, Gus watched Scott emerge from the hallway, yawning and scratching at his belly.

“Morning, sunshine.” Gus smiled with a spoon in his mouth. “How you doin’?”

“Good,” Scott said. “How you doin’?”

Gus winked at him. “Pretty good.”

“This mine?” Scott pointed at the bowl on his end of the island.

“Yeah.”

“Clear weather out there today.”

“Hmm,” Scott grunted.

“Hey.” Gus lowered his voice. “Guess what happened?”

“What?”

At that moment, Roxanne came around the corner, dressed in white socks, sweat pants, and a sweater. She nodded coolly at Scott, before running her hand across Gus’s hand and planting a kiss on his cheek. Without a word, she went to her chair and picked up a spoon.

“Wow,” Scott said sardonically, and resumed eating.

“Yeah.” Gus squinted at Roxanne. “Well, someone got lonely last night.”

Roxanne gave him a half-scolding look, then started eating.

Scott inspected his coffee mug, then got up to pour more. “Well, that’s great.”

“I thought you’d say that.” Gus beamed.

“I hate to ruin your morning, though,” Scott said, sitting back down at his breakfast.

“Why? What’s up?” Gus asked.

Across from him, Roxanne looked up with concern on her face.

“I’ve been thinking. It’s time for me to get movin’ on,” Scott said.

“What?” Gus dropped his spoon.

“Yeah.”

“Why?”

“Something’s been botherin’ me,” Scott said, softly stabbing his rolled oats with a spoon. “Tenner’s still out there.”

“What?”

“Yeah. I’m not one to forget things. I mean…” He met Gus’s gaze. “The prick shot me and gutted down two people I knew.”

“What?” Roxanne said, shocked.

“Yeah,” Scott took a spoonful of rolled oats and tasted it. “Well, the way I see it, I’m the only one that knows of him. Sorta. Knows what he sounds like anyway.”

“You’re kiddin’.” Gus stopped eating and stared at him. “You’re serious. You’re goin’ after this guy?”

“Yeah,” Scott answered, taking another bite.

“Will you stop eatin’ for a second? I mean, he could be anywhere out there. Anywhere, Scott. And fuckin’ winter’s comin’ on, for fuck’s sake.”

“I know.”

“And you’re still goin’?”

Scott didn’t answer right away. “Yeah.”

Gus sat and stared at him as he continued eating.

“You’ll be okay,” Scott said, glancing furtively in Roxanne’s direction.

“That’s not what I’m sayin’, man.”

“What, then?” Scott asked.

“You saved my ass out there,” Gus said quietly.

“You saved mine first. We’re even. Well, there is one more thing.”

“What?”

Scott pursed his lips as if in pain. “Can I take the SUV?”

The request stunned Gus. He couldn’t believe this was happening. Last night, when Roxanne came knocking at his door out of the blue, he’d thought he might have been dreaming. For the first time in two years, he felt as if he didn’t need a shot of whiskey in the morning. Then, Scott had dropped his bomb.

“You’re really doing this?”

Scott looked him in the eyes and nodded. “Never said I’d be stayin’ here forever.”

Silence bloomed around the island.

“No,” Gus said finally. “I guess you didn’t. Sure, you can take the SUV. We can get another from the city.”

“Thanks.”

“You’ll need food, too. Supplies. I’ll… I’ll outfit you.”

Scott nodded.

“So, when are you headin’ out?”

“This morning, I guess. Daylight and all.”

“Yeah. Smart.”

Gus got up from the table, his appetite suddenly gone. “I’ll start things then.” Feeling dazed, he moved away from the island.

27

“All loaded up,” Gus informed Scott, with his arm on the open rear door of the Durango. The back was filled with bottled water, cases of canned food, a first-aid kit, his share of the Ruger ammunition, shells for his shotgun, one of the bandoliers, a bowie knife, clothes, a few books, and anything else he might need while on the road. Two filled gas containers were tucked in tightly with the supplies. A dozen rolls of toilet paper were even pushed in there. Everything and anything that Scott had found while he was with Gus was freely given. Gus had thought that Scott might reconsider, but the blond man never said a word on the subject. He merely loaded things aboard the SUV in grim fashion like a hunter about to go on safari, only asking Gus if it was “Okay for this?” or “Fine to have that?”

Gus didn’t refuse him.

Roxanne watched from the doorway leading into the house, her face drawn and pensive- looking, her arms folded across her chest.

Scott faced Gus and nodded. “Thanks for everything.”

“You’re really going to head out there?” Gus asked.

Scott nodded. “He’s out there. And he’s worse than the deadheads. He’s hunting whoever’s left.”

Gus nodded. “You… you got a place to come back to, you know that, right? Anytime.”

“I hear you,” Scott said and smiled. He looked at Roxanne. “Take care of this one. And yourself.”

She nodded, still brooding.

Scott held out his hand.

Frowning, Gus took it and pumped it twice.

“Time to get goin’,” Scott said.

“Yeah.”

“Get the garage door for me?”

“Yeah.”

Sighing, Gus opened the door, cranking the lever with both hands. He heard the SUV’s door slam behind him and turned to see Scott wearing his lightning bolt helmet, visor up, sitting behind the wheel. He gave a thumbs-up.

Shaking his head, Gus walked down to the wall and removed the timbers bracing the gate. As he worked, he heard the SUV growl toward him, closing, and finally idling. He opened the gate and stood back, looking once from the wilderness beyond at the man behind the wheel. Standing in the open garage bay was the white figure of Roxanne, watching with her arms still folded.

Fighting down the sadness he felt, he walked over to Scott’s open window.

“You can get the gate below. It’s a long walk back for me.”

Scott nodded.

“Well, this is it then. Happy huntin’ out there. And watch your ass.”

“You, too.”

Gus smiled. “We’ll be fine.”

“Yeah. Have a good winter.”

“You think you’ll be back this way?” Gus asked.

Scott looked him in the eye. “Don’t know.”

“Yeah.”

Giving one last nod, Scott put the Durango into drive and eased through the gate. Gus watched the vehicle pull away, the brake lights flaring red and smoky in the tail exhaust. The SUV rose and fell in the ruts of the mountain road before sinking out of sight. Gus leaned against the gate wall, listening to the hybrid’s motor work until the sound lessened.

Gone. Just like that.

Feeling his throat tighten, Gus stayed until he composed himself. Minutes later, he turned and made his way to the garage. Roxanne hugged him, and Gus stood and breathed in her scent.

After a moment, he hugged her back.

“What do you want to do today?” she asked.

“Nothin’.”

*

They ate lunch a little later, washed up, and retired to the den, where they cuddled up on the sofa and watched old Disney animated movies. With a bottle of Captain Morgan, they stayed below ground where it was warm and comfortable. After the first movie, Roxanne stole Gus’s attention by removing her sweater, then her T-shirt and her black pants. Next, she helped him out of his clothes. He removed her bra and panties, and somewhere along the line, they started kissing. Then came the fondling. Finally, the fucking.

They exhausted themselves in their lovemaking, surprising even Gus. Roxanne had been even more demanding and physical, much more than the first night together, and once they were done, Gus collapsed on the sofa, and she covered him with her naked body.

They watched another movie, drank and ate a late supper. Very little was said between them, except the little words of new-found lovers. More rum. They had another bout of sex after moving up into the master bedroom, where Gus showed her the rubber trophy from a previous episode of house picking. The sight of the dildo made Roxanne peal laughter, and in the soft bell-like quality of the sound, Gus forgot that a friend had departed the mountain that day.

Sometime later—Scott would have known the time exactly —they feel asleep while the night deepened, the temperature dropped, and winter’s breath made the house creak.

*

In the morning, Gus slipped away from Roxanne’s form and got out of bed. He stood above her for a moment, taking in her bare breasts, the light brown nipples sunken in sleep, and her curves beneath the comforter. She whined softly, seeming to feel the chill on her exposed skin, and Gus covered her up to her chin, basking in the design of her face and how her hair splashed against her pillow. With effort, he turned away from his lover. He dressed in fresh sweatpants and a sweater, warm socks, and left the room.

Descending the stairs, Gus looked toward the black-curtained windows and noted the sunlight glowing around the edges. He went over to one and peeked outside, and his mouth dropped open at the sight. Moments later, dressed warmly in a black parka, he opened the sliding door and headed outside.

A thin layer of snow covered the ground, the deck, and the deck furniture facing Annapolis. The morning sun set the snow sparkling, almost blinding. Gus squinted and wondered if he had any sunglasses stashed somewhere. He stared out at the city and wondered if Scott might be there still. Doubting it as soon as he thought it, Gus inhaled the cold air and tasted its freshness. The gimps would be cold, if not frozen. He had noticed last winter how their activity seemed to lessen during the cold months, only to resurge in the spring with the warmer temperatures.

Exhaling, he watched his breath dissipate in the morning brightness. With a shrug, he headed back to the house, wondering if apples and cinnamon rolled oats would be an acceptable breakfast for Roxanne. He went into the kitchen, poured water from the tap, and told himself to keep an eye on the solar panels. He hadn’t had to clean them of snow in previous winters, as they generally melted the snow when the sun came out, but there was always a first time. And with the light snow, he wondered how treacherous it would be to get into town. He would have to go into Annapolis later. They didn’t have much time left before the heavy snows came.

He’d eaten half of his oatmeal before Roxanne appeared, looking sleepy.

“Mornin’,” he said.

“Mmm.” She sat down at her place. “You have coffee?”

“Yep.” He got her cup.

“Thanks.”

“Snow fell last night,” he said.

“Really?”

“Yep.”

“So what does that mean?”

“We’ve got to get down to the city. Do some last minute house picking. Won’t be long before we get snowed in up here.”

“Snowed in?”

“Yeah.”

“You mean trapped?” She looked worried.

“Mmm, more like sealed off,” Gus said. “We’ll be fine, though. Haven’t had any deadheads up here in the winter time. Too cold for them, I guess. Too much trouble sloggin’ through the snow.”

“How will we make it?”

“Oh, we’re fine. We got the panels. And the batteries store enough power to get us through snowstorms. The only thing I’m worried about is if we get a real blizzard and the panels get covered up. Even then, we just clean them off.”

“Hmm.”

“You’re worried about something?”

She fidgeted on the stool. “Maybe you should show me where these batteries are.”

Gus grinned. “Maybe. Definitely for sexual favors.”

“I’m serious here. If anything happens to you, I’m fucked.”

That made him frown. “No, it’s pretty self-sufficient. I’m not even sure how the thing works. That’s a con, especially if something does happen to the system, but nothing has yet. So don’t worry. And nothin’s gonna happen to me.”

“Mm,” Roxanne said in sullen fashion, looking lovely as she did so.

“I’m goin’ to get ready for the day. The sooner we get started the better. You up for drivin’ the beast?”

She nodded while eating a spoonful of rolled oats.

“Excelente,” Gus said in his bad Spanish accent.

After a quick run to the outhouse, he was out in the garage, suiting up in his firefighter’s pants and jacket. The boots were the last items to go on. He inspected his old shotgun and the new Benelli and figured he didn’t have to clean either. Eying the rest of the equipment in the locker and packing it away, he wondered for a moment about the roof of the house, and felt a momentary pull to the outside. Gus placed the two shotguns on the floor of the van and went through the house and out onto the deck.

Outside, the sun remained cold yet bright. Roxanne had dressed in her white coat and toque, and stood at the railing, facing the city.

“Hey,” Gus said. “You see anything wrong with the roof?”

Roxanne turned around, and for a moment, Gus didn’t think she was going to answer. She finally looked up at the roof and squinted. “No, but I don’t know what I’m looking for.”

Gus turned about and walked in reverse while looking up. Something was wrong. He felt it. Studying the length of the timberframe, he shook his head. “Well, looks fine to me too.”

“Something wrong?” she asked.

He turned and noticed that she wasn’t wearing gloves. “We’ll have to see if we can get you some gloves today.”

“You’re still set on headin’ down there?”

“Didn’t get dressed up for nothin’,” he informed her brightly.

“You should show me the batteries first.”

He shook his head, smiling at her little scowl. “I think later. After that sexual favor.”

Roxanne’s face went from drawn to having a little smile at the edges of her mouth, like a sun peeking out from behind a storm cloud.

“Oh, Gus.” She slowly unzipped the front of her coat.

“Mm,” Gus said, approving.

Roxanne opened her coat to reveal a tight-fitting sweatshirt.

It was one of his, Gus realized. “Gonna haveta get you some women’s clothes, too.”

“I can’t wear yours?” She arched her back, making the sweatshirt tighter across her chest.

“Well, I can see your points. Point, I mean.”

With a giggle, she laced her fingers around the back of his head and pulled him close for a kiss. She tasted of toothpaste, and Gus momentarily lost track of everything else.

She broke away after a while, her blue eyes twinkling. “Here’s that favor then.”

“Oh.”

She gently lowered his head to her breasts. Gus complied. He kissed one through the cotton, then moved to kiss the other. He felt her hands tighten around his neck, and before he could back up, he saw her knee coming toward his face.

28

Gus flew backward and landed hard on the deck. His world went black. Somewhere in the soupy black of his off-line consciousness, he heard elongated words directed at him, but the meaning was lost. He heard a far-off explosion, or at least what felt like an explosion, and wondered what was running down his throat. Something was running down his throat. He was aware of swallowing gobs of it, feeling the reflexive click of swallowing. A hard lump, or lumps, got caught in there, and he coughed. Another swallow and another rock went down. Pain. Pain was inside his skull and gouging his darkness like thunderbolts. He grimaced and felt the embers of a distant fire closing in like a tide of white noise.

He opened an eye and thought for a moment he was falling into the sky. Realization crept in that he was on the deck. The white noise rushed back. He blinked. His nose and mouth exploded with torrential agony, lighting up his returning consciousness like a soundless alarm klaxon. Feeling as if concrete blocks chained his arm, he reached up and felt his face.

And gasped.

He struggled to sit up. He got to his elbows and gazed down at his bare hand covered in blood. His face sizzled as if a hot grill had smashed into it. Blinking again, he became aware of Roxanne standing on the deck beside him, fiddling with something in her hands. As he watched, she lifted the item to the heavens.

Flare gun.

The gun went off with a loud cough, and a second sun cut the sky with a smoky line.

Jesus Christ. What was she doing?

“Roxanne…” Gus got to one knee.

She jerked as if caught doing something criminal, and her face quickly morphed from startled surprise to one of violence. She ran at him and kicked at his face. Gus got a hand up in time to have her foot smash into it, flipping him onto his back. She stomped on his stomach, and the wind left his guts. A kick to the side of his face flipped him over onto his side. He felt the follow up boot to the ribs.

“Sexual favor, huh?” she snarled. “Here’s your goddamn sexual favor. How d’ya like being boot-fucked? Huh?”

She kicked him in the ribs again. He sensed her drawing back for another shot, and he protected his crotch, knowing it was all over if she got him there. Her foot crunched on his hip bone. She punched him in the face, and he felt his senses tilt once more. More punches to the face. Claws. She was clawing him.

“Rox––”

He heard her scream and felt thumbnails graze his eyebrows. A split second later, they found his eyes. His lids closed in reflex, and he twisted away from her fury, hiding his face as another bolt of agony crackled through his skull. His shoulders were grasped, and he felt himself bent backward, straightened out on the snow.

What he thought was her elbow slammed into his face, bouncing his head off the deck.

Another elbow and he felt bone crack.

A third impact…

But he was floating, and the force of the connection felt muted, as if something had splashed down beside where he drifted in a dark tide of unconsciousness.

Then total blackness.

*

Breathing heavily, Roxanne looked down at the pulped mess that had been Gus’s face. The bastard brought out the worse in her. Why couldn’t he have just shown her the batteries? It would’ve been easier. Once Jonathan got there, he’d take Gus into a back room and work him over––no, he’d torture him––cutting off parts until Gus screamed what he wanted to know. That wasn’t Roxanne’s way. She liked a softer touch, but she could be hard if she had to be. It was all a fluke meeting up with Gus and Scott, anyway, a wonderful fluke for her, even though Edgar actually had been trying to rape her. The fucker. He’d be with Jonathan and the gang, and they were all down there somewhere, starving and freezing.

Roxanne remembered her dues. The gang had protected her in her travels from Ontario. Jonathan had taken a liking to her, which was fortunate as he was the leader. He’d saved her ass and treated her good. As good as Gus had.

It was just that she’d met Jonathan first.

And she remembered her dues.

She dropped Gus’ bloodied head to the deck with a thud. He was tough, she’d give him that, but she knew how to fight. She knew how to defend herself. Gazing down at the way Gus’s\ nose was squashed to the right and how his front teeth were missing, she figured she’d subdued him enough. If he’d shown her the batteries and explained them a little more, she could’ve just shot him outright. She had planned to divide and conquer, but Scott up and left. Half of her thought he might return. What was the stupid prick thinking? To leave a goddamn oasis like this to go off and hunt for some lunatic? Insane. They had power, for Christ’s sake! Running hot water! She’d even told them what it was like out west.

She had let him go, happy not to have to fuck him.

The thought made her seethe. Denying her. Who the fuck did he think he was anyway? Insane.

But not as insane as Jonathan.

Or more correctly, insane with gratitude that his bitch had found such a perfect nest for the winter. It would be a tight fit, but that wouldn’t be an issue. Some of them could bunk up together. Jonathan shared his bed with her, and even Tiff when the mood struck him.

She backed away from Gus’s body, noting the blood bubbles swelling and bursting with each shallow breath. Bringing up her flare gun, she cracked the barrel and ejected the spent flare, tapping against her thigh. Then, she loaded the last flare and shut the gun with a snap. She had never thought she’d actually have to use the gun for its intended purpose. She looked toward the cityscape coated in snow. Last shot. She hoped the others would spot it. She wasn’t sure about firing it off during the day, but she didn’t want to wait until evening. She couldn’t bear the thought of the group being down there, hungry and freezing, another moment.

“Don’t.”

Roxanne turned around and saw sun flash off the metal of the derringer in Gus’ hand.

*

“Where,” she gasped, “where the fuck you get that?”

Gus’ eyes tweaked and twitched. Pain stitched his ribs with each intake of air. His face felt broken, and he knew he was in bad shape. He simply couldn’t believe Roxanne had kicked the shit out of him. Perhaps even kicked him to within a hair of losing his life. He didn’t know why she had done it, nor did he care.

“Drop it,” he gasped, feeling the pain of his wind sawing at the spaces left by his missing teeth. He only had his incisors left upstairs, and he winced when the cold air attacked the exposed nerves of the broken enamel, as the roots were still in his gums. Two of them anyway. He supposed he looked like an old school hockey player.

Roxanne didn’t drop it. Instead, she screamed.

Gus shot her at close range, the bullet blowing through her stomach. A soft girlish grunt passed her lips, and she flew back, crashing off the railing and crumpling to the snow-covered deck.

Growling, Gus sat up, keeping the derringer pointed at her. He had kept the little gun in his boot since the day he had found it, even envisioned himself shooting off a foot when he pulled his boots on if he ever forgot it was there. The little weapon had saved his life. He knew it. He also knew that he only had two shots for the thing, which made him wonder why the hell there was so much ammunition for the other guns, but nothing for his little lifesaver.

Moaning, he got to his knees. His limbs worked, and for that he was thankful. Keeping an eye on Roxanne where she lay on her belly, he saw the hand holding the flare gun move. He heard a little bubble burst of pain come from her mouth. She pouted her ass up into the air as if offering it and pushed herself to her hands and knees.

“Don’t move,” Gus ordered.

Roxanne moved. She raised the flare gun to her chin. Another gasp of breath and a long thread of blood dropped from her lips. Blood tap-tap-tapped the deck, dripping from where she’d been shot.

With a rasp, she shoved the flare gun upward, as if cocking it against her ear.

Gus emptied the other shell into her, puncturing her right lung and dropping her to the deck. The flaregun fired. Light shot out over the edge of the deck, snaking an angry path toward the city and soon spiralling out of sight.

He dropped the derringer and crawled toward her, enduring terrible pain from his beating. He fastened his hand onto his Roxanne, and turned her over, grimacing.

Her eyes were open, and they fastened on him. Blood smeared her not-quite-dead features. “Why?” he sobbed into her face, his blood dripping onto her chin.

Blue eyes, perhaps as sharp as sapphires, twinkled at him.

“They’re… coming,” she choked out.

And died.

29

The words frightened him into action.

“Who?” he demanded, grabbing her shoulders and shaking her. “Who?”

He paused to get a grip on his emotions, and the last soft expulsion of air left her lungs, grazing his features.

Gus lowered her to the deck and left her staring at the sun. He shuffled backward, snarling in pain, and skidded against the railing.

They’re coming.

He looked toward the city, searching the snow-glazed rooftops for an answer. The sun beamed down, lying to him that all was right with the world.

And then, he heard the distant roar of a motorcycle without a muffler, soft yet alarmingly gruff. Gus’s breath caught in his blood-coated throat.

They’re coming.

Then, nothing.

Snorting, Gus started crawling on his hands and knees toward the house, a growing urgency in his shuffling movements. Blood dripped from his mashed face, and he realized that when he breathed through his nose, a whistling noise perked his ears. He paused to touch it and felt how it was squished to the side. Mewling in agony, he stopped and squeezed his eyes shut. He placed his fingers against his crushed nose, feeling the bone pebbles shift. A laser of pain blossomed over his face, and he yelped, but he didn’t let go.

Instead, he took a breath through his mouth, feeling the bright rub of air making contact with his broken teeth, and snapped his nose back into position. He swooned. His eyes watered. His sinus cavity filled with fluid, and he spat blood and snot out onto the snow, grimacing. He got unsteadily to his feet. His face probably wouldn’t be as pretty anymore, but after Roxanne, he couldn’t give a flying squirrel fuck about the opposite sex.

They’re coming.

Grunting in anger, he staggered to the sliding door and opened it. Jesus Christ. Had it only been minutes ago that he was preparing to head into the city? The thought made him cringe. Images of Roxanne on top of him, her shadowy face contorted in ecstasy, her hips rocking and her bare breasts quivering, played out soundlessly in his mind, shifting to her smiling face as she laced her fingers behind his head. Then, he remembered the abrupt tightening of her fingers on his throat, and the pulling of his face down to meet her knee coming up with jackhammer force.

How did things go to shit?

And Jesus Christ, he had killed someone. He killed someone dead. Even worse, he had killed Roxanne. But he had to kill her, he had no other choice. But his soul was guaranteed to be heading to Hell. The thought of her stopped him in his tracks, and he looked back at where she lay in the snow. Again, his thoughts spun. He had been on the verge of loving that woman. He probably did love her.

Dead and gone.

By his hand.

He staggered into the living room, tracking snow behind him. He bared his teeth, knowing he must look like a monster. He pushed the images of Roxanne from his mind and tried to rise above the pain reports coming in from seemingly everywhere in his body. She’d fucked him over good. Real good. But he was still breathing, wasn’t he? Yes, he was. He was still breathing and still in the game. Goddammit. He was still in the game.

And the game was coming for him.

The end game.

How long did he have?

Gus crashed off the wall twice before getting to the garage. The beast. He almost cried as he saw his reflection in the black surface of its hide. He whimpered and backed up, noticing his locker and his leather jacket, torn, but still serviceable. Gus ran his hands over the firefighter gear and made a face. No.

He had come into this world with motorcycle leather.

He had survived in this world with his unholy boomstick and samurai bat.

And if God gave a shit above, he’d die in it with his weapons on him.

The bottle of Captain Morgan dark rum stood on the top shelf of the locker, the foppish prick grinning at him as if he had a telephone pole jammed up his ass. Gus grabbed him, opened the bottle, and took three gulps before the burn of the rum smothered some of the pain. He stripped off his boots and his firefighter gear, throwing it everywhere. Leather pants went over his jeans, along with a hockey vest of protective padding for his chest. Hissing at the burn in his guts and the pain of his teeth, he pulled on his worn leather jacket. A thick neck brace clamped around his throat. Shin guards, hard plastic knee and elbow pads went on next, and Gus huffed when he slapped them into place. He pulled on black leather gloves, fingerless, and slung on his scabbard and bat. He paused for another three gulps of Captain Morgan cure-all medicine. Snarling, Gus loaded the shotgun. When he finished, he hefted the Benelli.

He looked back at the locker and saw the boxes marked “sabot shells.”

The fuck they were anyway?

He didn’t care. He stuffed seven of the green shells into the breach of the Benelli. He placed the gun in the back of the van and wrapped the bandolier about his waist. Then he thought better of it and threw it over his shoulder, crossing the strap of his bat scabbard. He loaded the remaining sabots into the pockets of the bandolier. When he ran out, he loaded his pockets with regular red shells. More rum was channelled down his throat. He noted that the pain of his mouth, nose, and ribs wasn’t so bad anymore, and that alone made him chug another shot.

With a groan, Gus reached in and pulled out the silenced Ruger. He checked the load in the magazine. He gathered the five remaining mags, as Scott had taken the others. Scott. Gus shook his head. He could have used the blond bastard, but he felt good knowing that his friend had gotten the fuck out of Dodge.

After today, Gus didn’t think there would be much of Dodge left.

He didn’t have anywhere to put the pistol, so he stuffed it inside his hockey vest. It didn’t feel comfortable there, but he was glad to have it.

Spitting a gob-sizzle of blood onto the floor, Gus sized up the locker for any other weapons. He hauled out the Bowie knife and stuffed its foot-long steel down his left boot. He took his pistol and shoved it down the other boot. That felt better. He felt better. He growled and had another two swallows of rum.

Spitting again, he turned back to the Benelli. Picking it up by the collapsible skeleton stock, he placed the butt against his shoulder. He cocked his head to gaze through its mounted scope. Yes, he thought. He felt fine.

He grimaced, baring teeth that were no longer there. Al Pacino’s voice spoke in his head, spewing out quotes from the movie Scarface.

You fuck with me, you fuckin’ with the best.

Say hello to my little friend.

Captain Morgan grinned at him.

And this time, Gus grinned back.

30

He heard the roar of the motorcycle in the distance like an approaching storm front. The loud, deboning sound cut through the quiet of the kitchen and made Gus open his eyes. He sniffed and grimaced when he did, still feeling pain, even though he was pleasantly drunk. He looked at the empty bottle of Jack Daniels on the kitchen island and, next to it, the drained bottle of Captain Morgan. The foppish captain still smiled.

“You both better…” Gus breathed, feeling the hiss on his broken teeth. It would be something he’d have to get used to. “Get out of here… Not going to be pretty.”

The Captain didn’t move.

Neither did Uncle Jack.

“Stay, then.” He scowled, then added, “Y’fuckers.”

He touched the bandages wrapped around his nose. It wasn’t the best dressing he had ever done. Then he thought, what the fuck? It was the first field dressing he’d ever done. Roxanne had dropped a goddamn refrigerator on his face. He had inspected the damage in a mirror, and a sense of awe had washed over him. Black swollen eyes, swollen split lips, a two-inch cut in his forehead opened to the bone, the missing teeth—which had gotten a semi-drunken chuckle as it made him look like a stoned vampire—and bruised cheeks. His cheeks worried him the most, flaring pain when he wrapped his face with bandages. The cuts weren’t so bad, as he’d filled them with Vaseline to control the bleeding.

Yep, he thought, Roxanne had certainly done a number on him. But she had missed his arms and legs.

Gus sighed, almost expecting to see Scott sitting in his spot at the island, chewing and mulling. He even expected to see Roxanne. God above, he even missed her, and a biting, scorching burn where his heart had once been flared up like a dying flame being blown on.

The sound of the motorcycle got closer.

Gus reached down and picked up his motorcycle helmet. He pulled it onto his head, crying out at the rude contact against his nose. He stood and walked over to the kitchen window. Keeping his visor up, he looked out of the slot over the kitchen sinks––filled with breakfast dishes––and studied the wall and gate. The roar of the motorcycle got louder, and Gus wanted to shoot the fucker just on the principal of being an annoying cocksucker. There was no need for that, he thought, swaying slightly. No need of it.

Shit like that would get a man shot.

Or eaten.

The last thought made Gus giggle, and that brought a dull ache to seemingly everywhere. It was just a damn good idea all-around to get juiced up before this fight. He hoped it was over before he sobered up because that was going to be a bitch.

He listened. The growing racket from the nearing engines diminished within seconds. Gus picked up the Benelli and cycled a round into the chamber, noting that he didn’t have to pump it like a regular shotgun. Different system. He then wondered how they would deal with the gate, if they would try and ram their way through or pull it off the hinges. Sniffing and swallowing snot, he opened the kitchen window, and stuck the barrel of the shotgun out over the top plank. He had to lean over the sink a little, but at that point, leaning a little was nothing.

Gus realized he’d never test-fired the weapon. He had his other shotgun on the table and the Ruger in his boot, just for back up.

“Don’t you misfire on me, baby,” he whispered. The pistol grip of the shotgun already earned it brownie points in Gus’s book. It was a great hold. He flipped off the safety switch, or what he thought was the safety switch, and took aim with the scope. The gate swelled in his vision.

“C’mon, you cocksuckers,” Gus whispered, his words making his broken teeth ache. “Daddy’s home. And he’s fuckin’ pissed.”

Waiting for a moment and not hearing anything, he opened his other eye––which was a wonder in itself––and saw heads popping up along the top of the wall.

“Scouts, boys,” he directed at the Captain and Uncle Jack. “What should I do?”

The bottles spoke.

“Fuckin’ A,” Gus replied. “And here I thought all you were good for was drinkin’.”

“Roxy?” someone yelled from beyond the wall. “Roxy, you in there?”

Roxy? Stupid way to say her name.

“Roxy?” the voice shouted again. It became quiet then, the sun still bright in the sky. “If there’s anyone in there listening, you let her go, and I’ll kill you fast. I promise.”

Promises, Gus thought.

“All I want is the woman.”

Gus supposed that was all he wanted, too. Once upon a time.

“We’re comin’ to get you, babe,” the voice hollered.

“Then come and get it,” Gus whispered.

They came.

From the kitchen, he hadn’t heard it, but Gus figured they must have parked something right next to the gate. Three men dressed in shabby clothes hoisted themselves all at the same time, swinging their legs up and over and dropping below. They all had long-barrel shotguns. They quickly started pulling away the timbers.

If Gus had been in a more stable frame of mind, he might have come up with a better plan than the one he had. His plan essentially had him firing at bodies as they came into full view. He targeted the first one through the mounted scope.

“Picked the wrong house, cocksucker,” Gus muttered, his voice sounding as if his sinus cavity was brimming.

He squeezed the trigger three times, and hell erupted from the Benelli, hitting the first man and crunching him against the wall in a bloody print. Gus lowered the gun and stared at it as if it were a thing possessed. Semi-automatic. Green shell casings spat from the ejector littered the floor.

The two other men whirled and brought up their guns. Shots tore into the house.

Gus took aim at a second man and shot him through the chest, flipping him up and over a beam. The recoil was difficult to control in his drunken state, but Gus had never felt calmer. He looked through the scope at the third man, who collapsed to the frozen ground and shouted something. Gus lined up his head and blew it apart in spectacular fragmented fashion.

He shifted from the window, took more green shells from his bandolier, and shoved seven of them into the breech. When he looked up, more men were climbing over the wall.

Gus aimed and squeezed the trigger, the booze no longer a hindrance, but still grounding his nerves. He fired at the men and hit three, shredding them as they topped the wall. Two bodies fell on his side, hitting the beams as they dropped to the ground. The third fell back and dropped out of sight.

More bodies swarmed over. Men fired, and shots crashed into the wood. Gus fired again, snapping off a flurry of shots and hitting nothing.

Then, he whirled away from the window and reloaded.

“You fucker!” a voice shrieked from beyond. “You fucker! I’ll fry you up and fuckin’ eat you like the dead! Just like the goddamn dead!”

“There’s only one shooter!”

“One shooter!”

“Fuck him up!”

Gus finished loading and stepped back to the window. Relax, he told himself. Take your time.

More figures flopped over the wall. They hit the ground running, moving right and left. Some carried guns, but most carried bats or knives. Some wore hockey helmets with cages; others had motorcycle helmets. Three men lay on the ground and fired as fast as they could load their guns, providing cover fire. Wood chips flew around the window.

The bottles on the island spoke.

“I hear ya,” Gus snarled. He sighted the first shooter and fired, taking off the top of the man’s head in an explosion of red cauliflower. Gus shifted to his next target, clearly seeing the fright on the man’s features through his scope.

“Missin’ some teeth,” Gus observed. He blew away the face.

“Lookin’ a little like strawberry jam out there,” Gus said to the bottles.

Captain Morgan answered.

“Huh? Oh,” Gus slurred, seeing what the Captain referred to. Two parties had split, rushing his flanks. They’d be trying to get into the house. “I hear ya,” Gus said, stooping over and feeling the increased pressure in his sinus cavity. He moved from the window, reloading the Benelli. He regarded the sliding doors leading out onto the deck, as well as the windows around the house. Heavy wood comprised the front door and the rear one was boarded. He locked both of them. Then, he heard the breaking of wood and glass coming from Scott’s bedroom.

“Oh, no, you––” Gus ran toward the bedroom and flipped around the doorframe. Two figures were coming through the ruined window, one holding an axe. The other held a shotgun and snapped off a shot, splintering the upper frame with a crunch. Gus roared and fired, emptying the Benelli in a maelstrom of sabot shot that flung the two invaders backward as if they’d been hit by a freight train.

He pulled green shells from his bandolier and reloaded. He looked about furtively.

More windows breaking.

“You fuckers.”

Shadows passed in front of Scott’s window, right across from where Gus stood in the hall. He rushed into the room, and when a hockey-helmeted head popped up, he unleashed three shells, blasting the man backward.

Wood cracking. Being forced. Gus moved back into the hallway and looked at the main door. It held. He eased ten feet forward, toward the open area. He checked the sliding doors, still covered in dark curtains. The dining room window remained boarded up on the outside.

He saw the extra shotgun and Captain Morgan and Uncle Jack on the island. The Captain had his hip cocked and a smirky grin in place.

“Likin’ the…?”

Shotgun blasts came from the opposite hall, from the direction of the garage and the second door. Gus retreated and waited. No further shots. There wasn’t any way for them to get in from below or above, unless one of them was a fucking squirrel. Or a gopher.

The sliding door blew inward with a crash, sending fragments of wooden planks and glass across the hardwood floor. Two heads peeked in from around the jagged edges. Gus placed the butt of the Benelli against his shoulder and flexed his grip.

“C’mon, you fuckers!” he shouted. “Come meet my little friend.”

One flipped around the corner, raising a long-barrel shotgun. Gus emptied the Benelli into exposed arms that got chewed up and spun the rest of the gunman into view. The last two shots slammed the would-be attacker to the ground. Gus retreated back into the hallway and reloaded, noting he had a helluva lot less sabot shells. He kicked the spent green casings on the floor away from him and realized he should not have done that.

“All right,” he heard a voice call out. “On my count, rush him!”

That perked up Gus’s ears.

“One.”

The counting struck Gus as being a pretty stupid move. Bad tactics even. But then again, they were just ordinary people. Unless they had something else planned.

“Two.”

Gus moved further back into the hall, hiding around a corner with his back to the main door to the house.

“Three.”

Frightening war cries stabbed the air, and a thundering of boots and shotgun blasts ripped through the interior of the house. They unleashed hell as they came, laying down suppressing fire.

Then, it was over.

Gus wheeled around the corner and surprised about a dozen of them standing in the living room. He fired into the thickest mass, blowing two of them off their feet. He shifted and shot another road warrior though the shoulder, spinning the man around like a broken top. Screams cut the air. Shots zinged back at him. Uncle Jack exploded and simply wasn’t there anymore. The wall and doorframe splintered and flew away in bursts of destruction. Gus blew the leg off one man, but missed with his last shot. He wheeled back into the front entryway, and two shots crashed into the wall at his back. He reloaded the remainder of his sabots, wondering where the hell they had all gone. Voices cried out.

Gus eased around the corner, looking into the kitchen. The shotgun was missing from the island. Uncle Jack was also gone, blasted into pieces.

Captain Morgan grinned at him, but the smile seemed forced, uncertain.

A man popped up from behind the island, raising Gus’s shotgun. Gus shot him through the chest, punching a ragged hole in the guy and flinging him back. Another three carrying axes and bats came around the island. Gus blew apart the ankle of one man, making him howl. A sabot ripped the guts out of the second man, spraying the furniture behind him in gore. The third attacker had second thoughts and lunged outside headfirst through the wreck of the sliding door.

But more charged him.

Gus squeezed the trigger, and nothing happened.

The men closed in with axes and clubs and faces eager to take off his head.

Retreating into the hall, Gus flung the shotgun behind him, stooped, and pulled out the Ruger.

The faces went slack.

From a kneeling position, Gus fired into the mass of bodies. Four of the attackers yelled out and shuddered and shook with the impact of the Ruger’s steady coughing. The others broke away. One man went around the island. Gus got up and ran into the kitchen. He shot the man twice through the chest just as the attacker tried to bring a shotgun––Gus’s shotgun––to bear.

“I’ll kill you!” a familiar voice screamed, and a huge man, football player size, charged him with a fire axe.

Despite having more than half a bottle of rum in his system, Gus turned and blasted the man in the chest. The impact stopped the screamer in his tracks. Pain screwed up his features behind a hockey helmet face cage. Gus shot him twice more before realizing the man still stood, so he switched targets and destroyed a knee.

That elicited a cry of pain, and the behemoth dropped to his good knee. Gus shot him through his shoulders and his navel. The shots bowled the big man over onto his back, into the living room. Gus looked back toward the kitchen.

There, still standing on the island, was Captain Morgan. His beaming features appearing much more confident.

“You fucker,” a voice hissed.

Gus turned and recognized the contorted face of Knifeman. But Knifeman now had an axe. Gus aimed the Ruger at him.

“Fucker,” the now-Axeman whispered at him through a mouth full of ugly teeth. “C’mon.” He hefted the axe. “Drop the pistol and fi—”

Gus shot him in the face, whipping the man’s head back and dropping him to the hardwood floor. After Axeman fell, the house seemed a lot quieter.

Except for the groaning football player.

Gus pulled out the spent magazine and filled the Ruger with one of the spare five. Gus sniffed again, noting it didn’t hurt as much, and went on the hunt. He stepped out of the house through the shattered sliding door and spotted two men in winter coats pressed against the wall. One held a bat. The other held knives in both hands. They pleaded when Gus stepped into full view.

Gus shot them both, tapping each in the head with final kill shots as he looked around the corner. He walked around the house, looking for targets. He found out one of the men he had killed through the bedroom window had been a woman. A brunette wearing a toque. A shotgun lay just out of reach of her fingers. He found four other women and wondered how the hell they had gotten caught up in such a pack of raiders.

Feeling the energy leave him, he wandered around the house, seeing where they had peppered the exterior with shot. They had chopped off the doorknob to force entry through the second doorway. He circled back around, coming from the direction of the mountain and the wind generator. None of the solar panels were damaged, thankfully. All in all, the damage was mostly structural, with the odd broken window. Not as bad as it could have been. He figured the house had been important to the attackers. Of course it would be. The place was a gold mine, especially with winter coming.

Gus came full circle to the sliding doors and eased himself back inside the house. There, sitting up against the railing and facing him, was the football player. He snarled when he saw Gus, and Gus kept his gun on him. The man breathed weakly, and blood smears marked the hardwood floor where he had pulled himself across it. The bodies of the rest of the pack were sprinkled around, unmoving and quiet.

“Fucker,” the big man said, and then coughed.

Gus stepped up to him and reached out. He removed the hockey helmet from the guy’s head and placed the barrel of the Ruger against his shaven skull, just above his eyes.

The football player followed the weapon until it made contact with his forehead, then he closed his eyes for a moment, and made no move.

The aches slowly crept back into Gus, and he stood with the pistol ready, watching his target’s pained expression. Gus thought about asking him who they were, and what Roxanne had been to them. He thought about asking if there were any more of them out there or in the city below.

In the end, he didn’t ask anything.

In the end, he shot the football player between the eyes, the blow-through spattering the steps.

Gus stood and listened for a bit, noting the rising of the wind coming through the house, and felt cold. He inspected himself and found that nothing had hit him. Not one goddamn thing. Superior firepower flashed faintly in his head, and he rapped the barrel of the Ruger on the side of his helmet. Thinking about his hand, he stuck one out in front of him and inspected it.

Surprisingly steady.

Gus walked through the main level of the house, upstairs and down, but didn’t find anyone else. The place was going to need paint and some screen doors. That thought made him smile. Tomorrow. He’d get at it tomorrow. He’d repair and seal the house once again before the temperature really took a dive. He shambled into the kitchen and opened a cabinet. Smiling grimly, he pulled out a new bottle of Uncle Jack and eased off his helmet. It still hurt. Sweat ran down his face and soaked his beard. He didn’t care. He opened the bottle and looked at it at arm’s length.

“I knew your brother,” he muttered, hearing how his missing teeth affected his speech, and took two scalding swallows.

When he opened his eyes and turned around, the Captain smiled at him.

“Saucy bastard.”

Noting that his ribs were killing him, he stepped over to the sofa and sat down heavily. He placed the Ruger in his lap and nursed the bottle of Jack Daniels. After another shot, Gus looked toward the sliding door and the sunshine blazing in. He knew that if he went there and looked out, Roxanne would be lying on the deck where he had left her, and a small part of him wished she was still alive.

Smacking his lips, Gus didn’t know if there were any raiders remaining in the house. He thought that, if there were any left alive, he’d just sit and drink and wait to see if they came to him.

If they had the balls.

There, in his living room, the mountain man took shallow breaths and drank at leisure, listening to the weary moan of the wind.

31

Two days later, the red SUV slowed to a stop on the highway, the tailgates blazing in the drifts swirling around its base, hiding the wheels and making the vehicle appear as if it were hovering. The sun was up there somewhere, out-muscled by a brooding low pressure system that coated everything in freezing white. The weather had come early, much earlier than Scott had expected, and he supposed that the best place to be, if anywhere, would be in a town somewhere. He regarded the long white lick of pavement curving away around a shadowy fence of trees. He’d decided to head down to Halifax. Something had nagged him about the smaller town of Windsor, something that had hooked his subconscious and wouldn’t let go. He checked it out, taking a couple of days to sufficiently explore it, but only found undead lumbering about as if trying to escape the cold. He suspected that Halifax might indeed be the place for a killer like Tenner, and thought he was wasting time with the smaller towns.

Looking out at the drifting snow drifting, Scott sighed, reflecting on the path he had chosen. An image of Gus popped into his mind. He wished the mountain man well, but didn’t think he’d ever see him again. His was no longer a life of scavenging off the old world, and he didn’t know how long Gus and Roxanne would be able to do it. He couldn’t. Even before the world went into the shitter, he had been restless. That was one thing that could be said for the present day. It gave freedom to do whatever one liked, whenever.

But what a cost.

A gust of snow blew against his window, rasping it with a moan. Scott checked his blind spot. Nothing. He was still the only one out in this frigid shit. Gus had been right about that. The winter slowed them down. It didn’t kill them, but the cold affected them enough that a person knew some deadhead wouldn’t be running up from nowhere to pounce. He looked at the lit-up dashboard and figured it was time to get on.

Halifax called.

And he was going to see what it wanted.

32

One Month Earlier

Tenner slowed the black SUV at the city limit marker for Halifax before finally stopping at a green sign welcoming visitors to the coastal metropolis. Beyond the signboard, the dilapidated husk of the city appeared as a great dark shadow under the cloud-filled sky. Houses with their windows smashed out lined the highway leading into the city. Cars of all models littered the highway like poisoned metallic corpses.

Tenner got out of the hybrid and pulled his winter coat closer around him. He gazed toward the flat mirror of the sea and watched seagulls coast across the sky. They were the only animals he’d seen in a while, and he took a moment to appreciate them.

After a few moments, he turned his attention to the Welcome to Halifax sign. He didn’t like the sign. It was behind the times. Tenner shook his head and proceeded to the back of his SUV. He popped the rear door and rummaged through his supplies. He stepped away from his ride, shaking the can of spray paint, and walked over to the sign. Tenner paused for a moment, chewing on the inside of his cheek, before spray painting the necessary adjustment. Once finished, he took a step back and inspected his work.

There, he thought. That’s more like it.

Welcome to Hellifax.

He smirked at his own wit. The new wording meant everything to him. The old town was about to meet the new mayor.

Thoughts whirling and expectations high, he got aboard his vehicle and drove deep into the gloomy halls of the downtown area.

Intent on raising hell.

Mountain Man (Book 2)
Safari

Edited by Lynn O’Dell (Red Adept Publishing)

Cover by M. Wayne Miller

Formatting by Polgarus Studio

Safari (Mountain Man Book Two)

Copyright © 2012 Keith C. Blackmore

This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the writer’s imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locales or organizations is entirely coincidental.

All rights are reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission from the author.

A special thank you to Ken Maidment, Dr. Nassim Missaghian, and Robert Richter.

Prologue

Jackman froze on top of the wall when Puller and Screech blew apart.

Only a moment earlier, the first three men had jumped the wall and dropped behind it. Shots exploded, and they started wailing from the other side of the barrier. Jackman, Puller, and Screech answered the calls for help. They had leaped off the hood of the pickup to breach the gate and wall, avoiding the nails, scrambling up and over when Puller and Screech practically exploded.

Something slammed into Jackman with the force of a truck and flung him back, where he crashed onto the frozen ground. He landed flat on his spine and gasped for air, knowing for the first time what it was like to have the wind knocked out of him. He gasped, straining to get his diaphragm working, but the air merely trickled into his chest while his brain screamed for more. His side sparkled with distant pain, but what was really funky, even better than the trips on mushrooms, was watching the fishbowl slow motion of the rest of the group rushing to get over the wall. From where he lay on the snow-covered ground, feeling the cold creep into his back, Jackman heard Jonathan rage at the men and women to get their asses over the barrier and rush the house. Roxy was in there, and even though Jackman knew Roxy was with Jonathan, he still would not have minded being the one to save that beautiful ass, possibly making her grateful.

Gunshots, like dreamy fireworks, perked his hearing. He struggled to a sitting position. Something was wrong. Something was slowing him down. He looked down at his body.

His lower right side seeped blood in the area where a kidney might be. His coat covered the wound, but the bullet had made a jagged hole in the material just before biting a chunk out of him. A big chunk.

Gasping, he tried to stand. He rolled over, finally getting air into his lungs and feeling nausea taking his guts into a rinse-cycle ride. After another gasp, he got to his knees, grimacing and swaying. More gunshots behind him. Screaming. Jonathan wouldn’t be too happy if Jackman didn’t get his ass into the fight, but his ass had been shot. How the hell could he fight when he was banged up? He pressed a gloved hand to his wound, and the contact took his breath away again. He swooned and saw black stars for an unknown amount of time. Getting a hand up via the tire of the nearby pickup, he stood and leaned heavily against the vehicle. He was all alone on this side. The sky blinded him. How had the sun become so bright?

And why was it so quiet all of a sudden?

A feeling of dread washed over him, and he felt the need to retreat, to beat his ass back to the city. If the others were still alive, they’d be hollering. But they weren’t. And damn if his side wasn’t really starting to sing. Blood ran down his leg and spattered the snow, frightening him with its bright thickness.

Taking deep breaths, Jackman considered the pickup he leaned against. He wouldn’t drive it, however, because it was Jonathan’s rig. All told, five cars and one motorcycle were parked along the wall. Three of the cars had their tires punctured by nail-studded planks set into the ground. Jonathan had stayed on the mountain road, bypassing the crude, but effective trap. Rup on his motorcycle and Cleaner in his Dodge pickup had hung off Jonathan’s ass all the way up to the wall, avoiding the damage as well. The pair of empty trucks were lined up before the gate as if expecting it to open.

With blood soaking through his glove enough to make it feel squishy, Jackman lurched to the second pickup. He opened the door and hauled his bleeding body in, taking great gulps of air to fight off the nausea. He thumped his forehead against the wheel and let out a muffled curse. He cringed when he inspected his wound again. It was bad. Really bad. But if he could drive away, all would be fine. He had no real proof that things would be fine, but he felt it. He turned the key and the engine started. The door remained open, but that didn’t worry Jackman. He pressed his wound again, not bothering to look at it. With great concentration, he put the truck into reverse. Blood ran down his side and covered the seat. He made the first of a two-point turn and heard the tires abruptly hiss and deflate as they rolled over more of the nails. Groaning, he shifted the truck into drive and eased the machine back down over the road. The door bounced, but didn’t close.

Not sure how he did it, he reached the bottom of the mountain. In a daze, he slowly drove through the gate they had found and smashed through earlier. He turned right and kept his speed constant. Jackman peeked up over the leather-bound steering wheel, his forehead tapping the wheel’s upper curve in a slow cadence. He took a breath, and the pain made him bare his teeth. Every movement seemed heavy, and he barely had the strength to turn the wheel. The truck moved on for meters, slowing as Jackman had to concentrate on pressing on the gas. Seconds later, he wasn’t sure if his foot was on the accelerator or not. His wound didn’t hurt so much anymore, but he felt cold. In fact, he was freezing. He reached out to close the door, missed, and tumbled from the cab of the truck. Sparkly white rushed up to meet him. He broke his nose on the cold pavement, a quick squish like an eggshell mashing on one side. A second later, the rear tire missed crushing his heel by a hair. Somewhere, a soft crunch of metal on metal reached his ears, and he wondered what it was.

Tired, Jackman thought. So tired. He lay on the road and took a breath, tasting the asphalt tar. Groaning, he rolled himself over onto his back and stared up at the sun.

The sunlight made him shut his eyes, and the darkness pulled away his consciousness. Images flooded his mind, of coming to Nova Scotia with the gang of self-styled road warriors, looking for sparsely populated areas and a safe place to live.

A sound, like the soft expulsion of air from a tire, came from somewhere near him. The noise didn’t rouse Jackman enough, however, to open his eyes. Blackness dragged him away again, and he relived times in the camp, sitting around open fires, talking and joking with the others.

Something nudged his boot.

Jackman opened his eyes and snarled against the light. Dark figures stood like shadows around him.

“Hey.” Jackman sighed, still feeling someone messing around with his boot. “Hey, help me out will ya?”

The shadows stood for several moments before one dropped to its knees. Jackman detected a smell, rancid and breathtaking. Who were those fucks, and what had they bathed in? That thought made him smile.

Fingers brushed his face, and the kneeling shadow lowered its head. A solid grip formed about his chin.

“Don’t need no mouth to mouth, man,” Jackman moaned. “So just—”

The shadow descending upon him opened its jaws. Gray skin flecked with black. Shards of teeth gleamed. More hands touched Jackman’s body. He felt his coat being ripped open, exposing his wound.

“Da fuck?” Jackman blubbered in a growing panic, wincing from the overwhelming stench of decaying flesh.

A mouth found his gunshot side and bit into it. He felt teeth and fingers claw into his wound, widening it, making the blood bubble up. The new pain shoved his senses back into his skull, and Jackman had a final, terrifying moment of clarity. Zombies were on him. A lot of zombies. He tried to move, but they were on his legs and on his arms, pinning him to the ground. They crowded in, blocking out the sunlight, covering him in rancid-smelling shadows. They jostled with each other for a piece. Jackman glimpsed ever-widening jaws as one of the creatures lowered its face to his. Filthy hair swung into his eyes. The zombie’s maw covered Jackman’s mouth, muffling his screams, before finally biting down on his tongue.

1

Gus could watch Roxanne for days, feeling her naked form pressed against him under the sheets, her hair splayed out behind her like a wild, overflowing river. He studied the smooth curves of her face and her long lashes as they fluttered in dream. Listening to her little breathless snores, Gus felt a twinge of happiness. He was one lucky bastard. He’d had to become the last man on Earth in order to find her, but she was worth the wait. He reached over and caressed her cheek. The space between her eyes momentarily wrinkled, and he smiled. He touched her again, and she moaned.

The moan became a scream.

Roxanne’s eyes flew open, and her hands pawed at his face. He wrenched away from her just as she threw back the blankets. Two bloody holes in her body drooled blood, soaking the sheets. He panicked and reached for Roxanne’s rapidly paling face. She snarled and bit on his forefinger—

With a violent shiver, Gus opened his eyes. Darkness filled the living room. He blinked, feeling the savage ache where Roxanne, the real one, had smashed him in the mouth, face, and body. The alcohol daze had deserted him, and the pain gnawed on his nerve endings like little fangs. He hitched a breath, regretting it instantly as the cold air once again pricked his broken teeth like needles. Lifting a hand to his face, he realized he still held a bottle of Jack Daniels.

“Uncle Jack,” he muttered, keeping his lips close together to keep the air out of his mouth. It was a lost cause because his nose was still clogged with a combination of blood, bone, and mucous. He moaned wearily and looked around the room. Bodies lay like dark and gruesome lumps of coal. The wind sang through the broken door, a lonely sound that rose and fell.

Roxanne. He felt a bolt of loss skewer him through his core. True, the bitch had tried to kill him, had succeeded in kicking the living shit out of him, and had brought the rest of the gang to his doorstep. It hadn’t been a fair fight. He had superior firepower with the Ruger pistol and the Benelli shotgun. They only had, at best, ordinary hunting shotguns. They’d had the numbers, though, for all the good it had them.

Gus had killed them all with no regrets.

The funny thing was that he had never thought he had it in him to kill another living human being. Killing the dead was scary, but they weren’t living people. They were unliving, and as frightening as they were, it still felt somewhat noble to put them down for the last time, as though he was releasing them from some unspoken hell of reanimation.

Sadly, he felt only a lingering guilt about putting down the living. He thought he should feel more—Thou shalt not kill—but the truth of it was that he didn’t. They’d tried to kill him first. Maybe that had something to do with it.

Or maybe he had just stopped caring after the fiasco with Roxanne.

A deluge of images filled his head, painful memories, all ending with her knee smashing into his face. If he had the choice, he would take the physical pain over the ache she’d left him with, a cocktail of loss and yearning with a generous dollop of betrayal. It wasn’t as bad as losing Tammy, but it was the most… recent.

Grunting, he got up off the sofa, hearing the slosh of Uncle Jack in his fist. Gus paused and studied the bodies scattered about the living room. They were still there. That was a good sign. He knew they were living, breathing people when he killed them, and they stayed where they were put down, so that was one variable to rule out from the ongoing puzzle of the disappearing dead. Only the undead seemed to vanish.

The living—once killed—did not.

Or at least, not yet.

Gus gently rubbed his forehead, very careful not to touch the bandages straightening his broken nose. He took a deep breath and grimaced upon expanding his rib cage. Sparkles of pain caused him to straighten, and he paused, a shaking hand to his chest. Broken ribs. Had to be. Just fucking great. Roxanne had been one helluva dancer. Too bad her stage had been his face and body.

In the darkness, he spied a glint of metal—the Ruger. He picked it up from the sofa and shambled into the kitchen. He retrieved a two-liter jug of water from the fridge. The chill of it on his broken teeth would kill him, but he would want it later.

He climbed the stairway to his bedroom. Once there, he placed the water near the bed, kicked off his boots, and without bothering to undress, crawled underneath the thick blankets. Like some great wounded bear about to hibernate, he closed his eyes and let the dark roll in.

The last thing he heard was the comforting creaks of the house settling.

*

Buried in blankets, Gus woke up in darkness the next morning, lips smacking in want of water. Pushing back the covers, he swung his legs off the bed and reached for the jug on the floor. With his eyes squinting at the daylight, he drank straight from the bottle, stopping when the pain of his teeth became too great.

He’d have to do something about them.

Plopping the jug back on the floor, he gingerly fingered the empty sockets in his mouth, drifting to the two places where only stubs of enamel remained and stung like live wires. He wondered if the nerves would eventually die, which brought on another question: Should he leave the roots in his head?

“You wouldn’t happen to know a dentist, would you?” Gus asked the bottle of Uncle Jack perched on the nearby nightstand. “No? Well… shit.”

Gus emptied his bladder in his room’s bucket, then wandered into the upstairs bathroom. He stopped in front of the mirror and beheld a reflection that showed a bruised and bloody fright of a man, complete with swollen, bloodshot eyes and nasty-looking cuts. He inspected his wounds, hissing at the amount of damage he’d sustained. He bared his teeth and thought he looked like an old style hockey player who had stopped one too many pucks with his face. He poked a finger at the raw edges of white enamel just barely visible below the gumline, and hissed.

“No dentist,” Gus said with a sigh. Those jagged nubs couldn’t possibly stay in his mouth. The pain would kill him each time he drank or ate something. And who knew how long it would take for the nerve endings to die, if ever. He was no dentist. In a moment of dark clarity, he figured on what had to be done and left the bathroom.

Minutes later, he returned and, on the white granite countertop, placed the half empty bottle of Uncle Jack, a full bottle of Captain Morgan dark rum, his Bowie knife, two pairs of pliers—one needle-nose and the other the regular stubby kind—a bottle of peroxide, and a threaded needle. He spread a dark towel next to his makeshift surgery kit.

Gus shook his head. He couldn’t believe what he was about to do. There weren’t any painkillers stronger than aspirin in the house, and he didn’t know what kind he should use if he went looking for some. That left the old-fashioned, plain stupid-assed way. Dry-mouthed, he took a pair of steadying shots from the whiskey bottle. He glared at his reflection, thinking of Tammy, Scott, and Roxanne. Another shot of booze and he focused on his terrible eyes, bloodshot and miserable-looking. He thought he heard Roxanne whispering from beyond the grave, her voice teasing him in the back of his head. After another shot of whiskey, the whispers seemed louder.

Gus didn’t want to think about Roxanne. Not ever again.

Three more swallows of whiskey went into his belly, and his senses began to swim. He picked up the Bowie knife and considered its formidable foot-long length. He sprinkled some peroxide along the tip of the blade, hoping it would do the job of disinfecting it. Heating the knife occurred to him, but in his current state, the notion vanished, and the peroxide seemed to be enough. The booze started to hit him, and he struggled with a drunkard’s senses to stay cognizant of what he was attempting. He would make the initial cuts and then shave back the gums just enough to get a grip on the enamel knobs with either the needle-nose pliers or the stubbies. He figured he’d try the stubby pair first. The surgery was going to hurt. It was going to hurt like unholy fuck, but he didn’t see how he could leave the roots of the broken teeth in his mouth to torture him with every breath.

The tip of the knife gleamed.

Gus wondered if he would pass out.

Hello, pain, my old friend. He drew back his lips, snarling at himself in the mirror. He gripped the gums he wanted to cut, found them slippery, and rubbed the corner of towel around them for a better hold. He panted and brought forth the Bowie. He inserted the blade and felt it prick his flesh. The angle had to be just right. If not, he could picture himself driving the tip of the blade through his upper lip. Once he angled it appropriately, a part of his mind, that disbelieving sober part that realized he was truly going to go through with it, screamed, No, no! Don’t! Dear Jesus, don’t!

He dug in.

2

When morning arrived, Gus found himself face down on the bed, his head resting on a towel soaked with blood seeping from his tortured mouth. During the night, when the ferocious aching had awakened him despite draining Uncle Jack and half of the rum, he’d swished water and spat it onto the floor. He’d eventually stopped spitting and simply downed the bloody water, cringing at the oddly metallic taste.

With a groan he sat up, swayed on the mattress until finally stabilizing, and hesitantly tongued the stitches in his tortured gums. Wrenching those two stubborn knobs of white from his head and stitching the holes up afterward had been the single most painful and time-slowing experience of his entire existence. He wondered if the booze had even helped any, remembering how his mouth had felt as if spiked rockets had detonated inside it. The blood had made things not only slippery, but difficult to see as his gums had oozed constantly. Sometime during the process, while he was huffing and practically squealing with pain, Gus was certain a piece of his sanity slipped. He’d started giggling at himself in the mirror, pausing at the sunspots of agony in his head and the wide, dark droplets of blood dappling the porcelain sink. The endorphins his laughter released were perhaps the brightest part of an otherwise very dark and long process.

In the end, he’d stayed conscious throughout the entire surgery, not wanting to ever do such a torturous procedure again and wanting very much to shake a dentist’s hand.

Gus got out of bed and used the bucket in the corner, not daring to brave the chill outside. His mouth ached like fingers being repeatedly slammed in a door, but once the bleeding stopped, that would be it. At least he hoped. He finished his business, picked up his boots, and plodded down the steps to the living room. Corpses still littered the floor, and a distinct smell lingered on the air. There was a lot of work to do after breakfast.

With dark thoughts, he wandered into the kitchen and fixed a bowl of cinnamon oatmeal with brown sugar. He warmed it up and consumed it with the utmost care, glad that he didn’t have to bite anything. There was going to be a lot of soft food in his future for the next little while. After breakfast, he wandered back into the living room and put on his boots. The morning light shone in from the ruined sliding door, and Gus paused on the threshold, gazing out over the snow-covered lawn and deck. Roxanne’s body lay out there, face up and seemingly staring at the sky.

Under the glare of the sun, Gus marched over to Roxanne’s body. Snow partially covered her face, sparing him from looking at it. He grabbed her ankles and pulled her to the edge of the deck. Without a word, he flipped the body over the railing. Roxanne fell forty feet to land with a muffled thud at the bottom of the mountain, her limbs splayed out at awkward angles and her blood staining winter’s first snowfall.

She was only the first. He went back to the sliding door and lugged one of the raiders onto the deck. He propped the man atop the railing, dumped him over the edge, and watched where he landed. The body half-landed on Roxanne, and it made Gus glad that an arm partly covered her face.

Staring down at them, Gus realized he was moaning. He straightened and frowned. He wasn’t moaning.

“What the Jesus…?” he trailed off and walked toward the house. Footprints circled the house and trailed away to the outer wall. He followed them and, with each step, heard the moaning even more clearly. Stopping at the corner of the house, he peeked around it, becoming increasingly aware of the horrible cacophony of sound from beyond the wall.

“What the fuck?” He ran through his living room and stopped in the kitchen to gaze out one of the windows. All was still clear within the wall, but the moaning droned on. Lurching back into the living room, he gathered the Benelli shotgun where he had discarded it the day of the attack and checked the magazine of his sound-suppressed Ruger. He went about the house, arming and armoring himself as quick as his aching body would allow. The Nomex coat and pants he had taken from the fire station went on over his frame. Elbow and knee pads were hauled into place. When he put on his helmet, he shivered in pain from the nudge against his nose.

He went out through the front door, the length of the stone wall filling his vision. The barrier lay ahead, ten feet high and surrounding the house from mountainside to cliff’s edge. Gus thanked God above for whoever had built the thing. He walked past the bodies he’d shot two days ago. The thin snow layer concealed the gore. Shotguns lay near the bodies, and Gus made a mental note to gather them up later—if he was able.

The gate shuddered, but the beams bracing it held firm. The sight and sound of the gate trembling stopped him dead in his tracks. He placed the skeletal buttstock of the Benelli against his shoulder, fingers flexing on the pistol grip. The moaning rose in volume, and he even heard something hissing.

How did they find me? He had no answer. He also had no way of looking up and over the wall. Thoughts of what to do zipped through his mind before the answer became obvious. With a huff, he turned and ran for the garage. Five minutes later, he parked the beast as close to the stone barrier as possible. With a thump, he jumped out of the rear and hauled the ladder from the back. He placed the ladder against the van and climbed with shotgun in hand. He had perhaps less than a foot of clearance between the side of the beast and the wall.

What lay beyond took his breath away.

“Holy shit,” he whispered.

Though he had to lean forward to discern what was piled against the gate, he had no problem seeing what occupied the grounds in front of the wall. He stood on the roof of the beast and beheld a solid, writhing mass of corpses pressed firmly against the stone. Cars and trucks were trapped in the tide of reanimated flesh. A dark pickup was parked closest against the gate. Deadheads in the rear of the mob mashed up behind the ones against the walls, while stragglers from the road stumbled forward, drawn to the pitiful howling. Many of the unliving somehow sensed him above the wall and raised their arms accusingly, their voices rising in urgency. Faces in the horde turned up, and mouths split open. Some immediately attacked the section of the wall below Gus.

“Well… shit,” he breathed. The scene resembled a huge mosh pit, but if he had to jump into it, he knew he’d be torn apart like so much greasy leftover chicken. He guesstimated at least two hundred, perhaps even as many as three hundred, were just outside his wall, laying siege to his home. The question reared up in his head again as to how so many found their way to his secluded house.

As he watched, the zombies crowded around the pickup parked in front of the gate and began squirming up onto the hood of the truck, as if they knew that was the best way to get to their meal. Some slipped and fell back, but the dead were so tightly packed that the more determined ones managed to get onto the hood and stay there. Others used the initial bodies as handholds and gripped legs to pull themselves to the top of the heap. Some of the dead were beaten back, but the rising swell of corpses did not relent. Three zombies eventually got to their feet and faced the gate. One wearing jeans and a t-shirt moved unsteadily forward and placed its feet onto the many shoulders wedged between the front of the pickup and the gate. The zombie fell forward, but his hands caught the brim of the gate and held on.

Gus brought up the Benelli, sighted the corpse through the scope, and fired. The shell punched the zombie through the midsection with enough force to fling it back onto the press of bodies, where it thrashed as if floating upon a stormy sea.

Others stepped up onto the hood of the pickup.

“Mother…fuck…” Gus took aim and promptly exploded the heads of two besiegers. Their bodies fell and were absorbed by the mass. Gus didn’t like that either. By attrition alone, a ramp of unmoving bodies would soon allow the others to breach the wall. And if he did nothing, they would eventually scale the top. A spike of dread made him straighten his back.

Setting his legs wide and picking the next target, he commenced firing at those on the hood of the truck. A woman with a ponytail had her face sheared away. A teenager in a collared shirt lurched over from a head shot. An overweight business type took two shells before his skull popped from his shoulders and his body slumped to the hood, oozing over one side and out of sight. Each shot bucked the shotgun against Gus’s shoulder. The jolt travelled down his side to his broken ribs and gave them a punishing grind, forcing him to take frequent, shallow breaths. The Benelli soon emptied, and he stepped back to shove more shells into the weapon. Eight rounds went into the shotgun, and Gus took a steadying breath to control his mounting fright. He blew the head off a priest and winged a teenager. A blast took the face off another businessman. Another round bent a woman’s head back over her shoulders as if she’d been kicked in the chin. The bodies continued to fall, and Gus believed some of the zombies closest to the wall were actually getting taller.

More of the dead wormed their way onto the hood of the truck. Gus shot the ones managing to hook their arms over the gate before they could hoist themselves up, but his earlier sense of dread swelled. His chest burned with pain, even though he struggled to ignore it. He pulled extra shells from his bandolier, jamming them into the weapon’s breech.

“Jesus Christ.” Gus unleashed another shit storm of lead upon the climbers. The Benelli brutally punched several off the truck, only to watch them be replaced by more. He was thankful there was only one truck against the wall, but the growing ache in his ribs informed him that he couldn’t maintain the pace forever. He dropped to a knee and reloaded the shotgun, noting that he would soon run out of shells.

Without warning, the world went dark, and the moans became distant echoes. A crash, and he saw only gray.

As if in a dream, something informed him that he’d just passed out and landed on his back. Cold sweat broke out on his forehead, and his stomach fluttered. His chest burned with pain, enough for him to set his jaw. A jolt of fright went through him. He was relieved a second later when he realized he still held onto the shotgun.

With a grunt, he pulled himself to a sitting position. At the walls. They were at the walls. They were waist high at the gate.

Snarling, he took aim once more, destroying the ones closest to climbing over the top. Each shot flung a zombie back from the wall. He glanced beyond the mass of dead things and wondered if more were approaching on the road leading up from the highway. Nothing but empty space lay beyond the army pawing at the walls, and for that, he was grimly thankful.

His fingers buzzed as if they’d fallen asleep, but he forced them into reloading his weapon. The sky darkened. The irregular pop-pop-pop of the Benelli perforated the air. Gimps moaned, limbs flailing above their heads and reminding him of a river teeming with drugged eels. Gus put down a highway linesman, a cook, and then a nurse, wondering where the hell she had come from. He killed an old codger bent over like a cane, taking off the top of his head like a detonated firecracker. An overweight woman dropped and slid down the hood, disappearing into the savagery of the corpses slamming their hands and arms against the gate and allowing some of them to get a little higher. A few could touch the top of the barrier and, if he let up for a moment, would be able to swing their legs over the top.

He ran out of shells.

“Fuck!” Gus dropped the Benelli to the van roof with a clatter. He pulled out the Ruger SR-9 and switched to his other knee, holding the pistol with both hands. Squinting down the sights, he started squeezing off rounds. The greater magazine capacity of the sidearm was just the thing needed to push the tide back, as he didn’t have to reload as often. The Ruger coughed and stopped the zombies from climbing up over the gate.

The initial rush and spark of hope that he might be able to defeat the army at his walls dissipated. The ones Gus killed sloughed to the bottom and continued to pile up. Worse still, dizziness wobbled the edges of his senses. Anger at the situation began to take hold, enabling him to fight back his giddiness. He fired and killed, controlling the urge to hurry his shots. He waited seconds between the kills on the truck’s hood and the ones crawling up to replace them. During that time, he altered his aim and fired into the mass, causing heads to snap back when the nine-millimeter shells entered them. The recoil of the Ruger was less than the Benelli, and Gus didn’t feel the pain as much when he fired. Shifting targets, he mowed down gimps further back from the wall.

He fired round after round into the mob, ignoring their stubborn drive to breach the wall. The Ruger’s magazine went dry. Gus popped it out and replaced it. That left four full ones; he hadn’t replenished all six magazines after the shootout with the pack looking for Roxanne. He hadn’t thought he’d be under attack so soon. And how the fuck did the zombies find him anyway? Did the firefight attract them? The smell of the recent bodies?

Gus continued firing, pacing himself and wondering if the sound suppressor could overheat from continuous use. He emptied the magazine and popped in another. Three remained.

He cursed whenever he missed a shot. The dead continued to pile up at the gates until the tallest ones could press their pelvises against the top. At those times, the lead zombie probably felt a rush of accomplishment just before its brain was splattered into daylight.

The magazine emptied with a click that Gus barely heard over the noise. He loaded in the second to last magazine and fired into the side of a young teenage boy’s head. Black fluid sputtered out the other side of the thing’s skull as it fell away from the ramp of unmoving flesh. The incline at the gate became broader. Four more pulled themselves up, climbing as if they realized they were very close to breaching the defenses. Controlling his breath, Gus aimed and grimly picked off the top four.

“You’re shit,” Gus told them. “You’re nothing but shit.”

He killed until he shoved the last remaining magazine into the weapon, then decided he would save that one. He needed to get back to the garage for more shells. He’d have to give up the wall to do it, but he had no choice. He shoved the pistol down his boot, picked up the Benelli by its warm fluted barrel, and climbed down from the van. He bared his teeth at each step and breath, feeling the grisly rattle of his ribs. Once at the bottom, he staggered a little ways and placed a hand to his chest before finally stopping and bending over to catch his breath. The moans of the dead swarmed his senses, making him glance up to see two corpses flipping over the top of the gate. As Gus watched in stricken horror, the first zombie, dressed in stained beige pants and a polo shirt, fell into the compound with a thud. The creature pushed itself up off the ground, gray arms flexing with sinister strength, and spotted Gus. With an eager hiss, the thing dragged itself toward him, and Gus saw that the dead fucker had shattered its ankle in the fall. It eventually stood up, gleefully intent on the living, and placed its flopping foot down, slowly puncturing the flesh and sinew at the joint with bone splinters. Off kilter, the thing limped forward. The foot hung off the splintered stump by strands of ligaments, dragged along like a sack of boneless flesh. Behind the gimp, the second intruder fell to the snow-covered ground.

“You bastards.” Gus dropped the shotgun and drew the Ruger.

The zombie with the broken ankle got a bullet between the eyes, the back of its head bursting violently. It dropped to the ground as if the earth had sucked it down. The second deadhead rose, hissing, and Gus put a shot into its right eye, spinning it off its feet.

Panting, Gus grabbed the shotgun with his free hand and jogged at his best speed to the garage. Once inside, he slapped up his visor and peered back the way he had come. Four more of the creatures hung off the gate, falling like shit out of a horse’s ass.

Leaving the garage door open, Gus went to his locker and pulled out a box of twelve-gauge shotgun shells. He reloaded the Benelli, shoving the shells into the weapon while swearing under his breath. The bandolier got filled and draped over his shoulder. The thought of getting his old twelve-gauge from the kitchen popped into his head, but he decided against it—too much to carry around. He yanked out a blue tackle box full of loose nine-millimeter shells. With his hands surprisingly steady, he pulled the spent magazines from his pockets and began to reload them. He spotted his bat in its sheath and smirked. If he tried swinging the thing, he’d only rip his ribs apart.

Behind him, the sounds from the dead grew louder. Closer. They were inside the wall. How many, he had no idea. He ignored them, concentrating on getting bullets into the magazine. Sometimes his fingers became contrary, and he dropped a red-tipped brass casing; sometimes he picked up the bullet wrong and had to switch it around before thumbing it down inside the magazine. The moaning seemed nearer. He thought he heard something scuffling along the frozen ground. He refilled the second magazine and jammed it into his pocket. Not bothering to look over his shoulder, he went to work on the third one.

He got it halfway full when he heard the hissing.

Gus spun around, bringing up his Ruger in a two-handed firing stance and zeroing in on a zombie about to cross the threshold of the garage. The dead thing had a huge swath of ashen skin ripped from the top of its jaw to its lower right eye, giving it a permanent smile. Pewp-Pewp. A jawbone boomeranged from its head, and the creature crumpled to the ground. Gus walked over, and when the dead thing raised its jawless head, he put another bullet into the back of its skull. He saw more Dees climbing over the wall, but he put them from his mind and returned to the magazines. Sounds of the undead reached his ears, somewhere behind him and in the distance. A muted crash made him grimace—a body falling over the gate and no doubt slamming into the others at the base. He finished loading and went to work on the last two magazines, feeling the seconds tick away. A nearby hiss made him jump. He dropped the magazine and whirled to find three undead shambling toward the garage.

Steady, he willed his nerves and racked the slide. Taking aim, he fired on the first deadhead and missed. He adjusted his aim and shot the thing through the forehead, taking it off its feet. Two slim female zombies closed the gap, moving with macabre sensuality, and almost entered the garage before having their heads blown apart three seconds apart from each other.

Gus got back to work, setting his jaw and moving as fast as his fingers would allow. When he finished filling the magazines, he stuffed the extra ones into his pockets. He zipped up his jacket and placed three boxes of twelve-gauge shells in the pockets. With no more time to lose, he went and stood on the threshold of the garage bay. He thought about the container of gas he had positioned on the slope at the far end of the wall, but getting to it would kill him. Even if he were able to reach it alive, he didn’t want to set the front on fire. The raider’s pickup on the other side would be useful. He wanted to save it.

Inside the gate, about two dozen of the living dead feasted on the dead men. Gus watched as the deadheads tore into the frozen bodies with a feral intensity that momentarily stunned him and made him shake his head. It appeared frozen meat wasn’t beyond the dead’s appetites. He wanted nothing better than to take a bat to the works of them.

Cautiously, he stepped away from the garage and closed the distance. Another corpse fell over the gate and into the compound. The deadheads inside paid no attention as they pulled on dark red patches of flesh stretched as far as the elasticity would allow. When Gus was close enough, he raised the Benelli and sighted the back of the head of one gore-splattered reveler. He fired, slamming the zombie forward. Dull white brain matter sprayed the other feasting friends, who didn’t even pause in their meal. The sight bewildered Gus for a moment. They seemed oblivious to his presence, thinking only of eating the dead men.

He’d make them regret that mistake.

Two minutes later, he’d executed them all.

Reloading the shotgun as he walked toward the van, he glanced at the top of the gate. Dark torsos and filthy hands missing fingers appeared. Gus knew he had four boxes or so of shells in the rear of the beast, but he would use what he had on him first.

A pear-shaped woman—probably once a mother—straddled the gate. Gus stopped, sighted her face through the scope, and blew her back over the wall.

Once at the van, he climbed up the ladder, huffing and straining, to the roof of the beast. With a heave of his shoulders and feeling the stab of his ribs, he regarded the pack. They milled at the barrier, limbs waving in drunken fashion. They gripped at the top of the wall only to be pulled back by one of their own kind. Three had fallen inside the gate and were struggling to regain their feet. The entire scene made him pause—so many, even though he figured he’d put down at least a hundred of the things. Fear had left him, and he felt only pain and weariness, having perhaps that in common with the latest round of attackers. His discomfort armored him against the dread he’d once felt at facing the undead.

“All right, you undead cocksuckers,” Gus bellowed.

A chorus of wails answered.

“Time to shut you up.”

He commenced firing.

3

The last bullet shattered the remaining deadhead’s skull with an almost dusty crack, just as the sky began to darken. Heavy clouds drifted in from the north and pelted everything with a light snow. Exhausted, Gus gazed at the mindless dead things sprawled over his property. Outside the gate lay a slope of unmoving zombies, arms sticking out and hands crooked with hooked fingers.

On the second trip back to the garage, after he had emptied all of his shotgun shells into the mob and used up all of his magazines for the Ruger, his hate for the things had slipped into a fatigued pity. He had been in no danger of being overrun toward the end, but he had only thought of the steady reloading and firing, and the constant shudder in his arms with each discharge. He had expected either firearm to stop working, or to jam, but neither did, and with growing prejudice, he put down everything hissing and moaning.

A breeze blew past, chilling him despite his heavy gear. He ached all over. The Ruger had less of a kick than the Benelli, but in his weakened condition, the only real threat near the end had been passing out once more and falling off the roof of the van. He figured he’d put a significant dent in his ammunition stores, but as large gauzy snowflakes fell around him, he felt the tired rush of victory. He also felt a stab of loathing over the amount of bodies he would have to remove from inside, and especially outside, the gate. Gus studied the pickup truck parked just beyond the wall. Fallen zombies, with their arms and legs sticking out like frayed wiring from a blasted fuse-box, were piled between its grill and the gate. More sprawled over the hood, kept there by the bodies heaped up on either side of the vehicle. He would back that one up and perhaps burn the mound of flesh where it lay. The thought of throwing the gates wide open and dousing the whole lot of them with gasoline appealed to him.

Oh, yes. He liked.

“That’s right, fuckers,” he shouted, hurting his ribs and breaking the graveyard silence. “That’s right.”

Nothing moved.

Gus descended the ladder and walked unhurriedly back to the garage, holding his ribs and wincing. Ignoring the unmoving zombies around the front of the bay, he entered the dark cave, made a beeline for his locker, and found the rum on the top shelf. He drained it in two heartbeats and cracked open his spare. The fiery goodness made him gasp and lower the bottle to study the label with newfound fondness. He’d have to bring more up from the basement.

Sniffing only slightly to spare himself the pain in his ribs and nose, he grabbed a gas container and, with both hands, lugged it back toward the bodies lying inside the wall. Halfway there, he stopped to rest, swearing a few inspired words at his gimpish invaders. After a moment, he continued to the spot where he intended to burn the whole goddamn bunch. Some of the dead were splayed out away from the main pile, and he grabbed the stragglers by pants, legs, and arms. Holding his breath so he wouldn’t have to smell the worst of them, he dragged the gimps into a low pile, one at a time, and doused the works with gasoline. Each movement made his ribs ache, reminding him of his recent asskicking at Roxanne’s hands. He didn’t have the energy to go over the wall to get at the rest outside or to retrieve the pickup. That would be something for another day.

He fished out a pack of matches while taking shallow breaths that still hurt.

“Y’bastards came here to die,” Gus said as the snowflakes thickened and turned his Nomex gear white. “Know that now. And I’m the one who put the whole goddamn mob of you down. On this mountain, I’m the man. I’m the king. Dead fucks.”

He hunkered down and shielded the match as he lit it. The flame hissed into existence, and he held the match for a moment, appreciating its pureness. Before it burned out, he dropped it onto the mound of bodies, and a sheet of flame flared up, high and crackling. The fire flashed over the unmoving figures with ravenous intent, and the stink of roasting flesh accosted him. He lifted a hand and almost touched his nose before he remembered it was busted. Making a face, Gus backed away from the growing blaze, but the flames mesmerized him. The wind fanned it from the north, and the snow thickened even more. He figured on winter coming in earnest for some time, but he had mixed feelings on its early arrival. He had no snow tires on the beast.

The fire burned, devouring skin and cloth alike and turning the bodies into blackened lumps that crackled and sizzled. The warmth felt good on his face, and that heavy weariness came back, causing his shoulders to slump. Gus felt exhausted from the day’s killing. The sky continued to darken, and snow pelted his face. He took a breath and felt the sting in his stitched gums and chest. Work. Still had a lot of work to do. It wouldn’t be soon. All he wanted was to eat something, get drunk, and sleep. Or at least just get drunk. He’d need to be good and shitfaced to take off his goddamn helmet.

The cold took a hold of him as he left the fire. Grunting with each step, he made way back inside the house, leaving the dead to burn.

*

Gus woke up in an even harder condition than the one he had gone to bed in. His upper jaw ached dearly, and he made a face upon prodding at his gums. The booze he’d consumed the night before had numbed the pain enough for him to wrench off his helmet and eventually get to sleep. His arm dropped away from his mouth, and he simply lay there, tangled in the blankets, still dressed in his Nomex pants. He eventually swung his legs out over the bed. At some point, he had gone to bed fully clothed, not giving a shit.

He took a shallow breath to test his ribs. Still hurt.

“Roxanne…” Gus rubbed his legs. Women would be the death of him. Probably faster than the alcohol, which was another cause for concern.

“Not now, brain.” He staggered to his feet. Realizing he still had his boots on, he clumped toward the piss bucket stationed in the corner. He assumed the position and let go, sighing in morning relief and wondering why he didn’t keep the bucket in the bathroom. With a lingering scratch at his balls, he wandered out into the hallway, breakfast occupying his mind. Nothing crunchy and nothing cold. Soup it would be. He needed to eat, needed to keep up his strength, so he could heal.

Gus smacked his lips. He also needed a drink.

Wincing with almost every movement, he boiled water and made coffee, ignoring the shaking of his hands. He opened a tin of vegetable soup with a contrary can opener and emptied the contents into a small pot. Once he got that going, he settled down with his cup of instant and put in two fingers of rye whiskey just for taste. He ignored the dead men splayed in various poses on the floor of his kitchen. The time for dealing with them and their smell would come after breakfast. He sat down at the island and slipped into a morning death stare. Minutes later, Gus managed to get down his food, snarling from the pain of his extracted roots and gasping at how good the soup tasted. Afterward, he wandered into the living room, picked up his Nomex coat, and struggled into it as he went out into the garage. At his locker, he grabbed the bottle of Captain Morgan he’d started the day before and gulped down two swallows of confidence.

Then, he got to work.

Dark clouds continued to cover the sky, flicking snow at Gus, as if daring him to say something or pick a fight. He dragged all the bodies from out of and around the house to a red wheelbarrow, which only held one body at a time. He stopped often, favoring his aching ribs, nose, face, and jaw. By afternoon, he had dropped a total of fifteen bodies over the railing and cliff, piling them on top of Roxanne and the others.

He held onto the last body for a moment, taking out his Bowie knife and slicing off a long strip of denim from the dead man’s leg. Gus eyed the pale white limb, feeling sour inside, before pushing the corpse over the railing. He lugged a gas container to the deck and dipped the length of cloth inside, soaking it with fuel. He poured the rest of the contents over the railing onto the lump of corpses forty feet below his deck.

He looked down and thought once more of Roxanne lying under the whole bloody bunch. Then, conscious of the time and his pain, he struck a match, lit up the length of denim, and let it drop to the mound below. A ribbon of flame came to life as it fell, writhing in the air like an exotic snake. The cloth landed on a belly of one of the raiders and the gas did the rest.

Gus watched until the smoke irritated his senses, then he turned away.

*

Gus positioned two ladders against the wall: one to take him up and one to take him down the other side. Climbing up took longer than he expected, and swinging his legs over the top made something twist in his torso which momentarily froze him on the wall. Once the sensation had passed, he climbed down the other side, stepping on the very last rung before letting go of the ladder. With a huff, he lifted the Benelli and turned about, feeling somewhat exposed while standing outside of the wall. He strained to listen, but heard only the white-line buzz of silence in his own ears. He paid attention to where he stepped, wary of the defenses he’d set long ago—the planks studded with nails. The nail-studded strips of wood had claimed three cars in front of the wall, puncturing their tires and no doubt surprising the hell out of the drivers. That thought brightened an otherwise gloomy Gus. Looking past the cars, he eyed the far-off treeline and the road that sloped down and out of sight.

All empty.

“Hey!” he called out, Benelli at the ready with his fingers flexing on the pistol grip. “Hey! Dead fuckers! Yeah! I’m fuckin’ here, man! I’m fuckin’ waitin’! Come on!”

Nothing stirred from the shadows. Nothing slinked from behind the cars.

Gus grunted and stalked to the mess of zombies piled against the gate and over the black pickup. Just behind the truck, a perfectly good motorcycle lay on its side, the noisy bastard that he’d heard cutting through the city. He pulled the thing upright and inspected the body. He knew nothing about bikes, but he recognized an electric starter. He patted the gas tank and, for a moment, just admired the crumpled curves of the machine. Bruised and dented, the outer shell reminded him of the beast. The name Kawasaki lay over the fuel tank in scratched chrome. The number 900 was stamped on another part of the lower engine. According to the speedometer, the thing could reach a hundred and eighty kilometers an hour. He depressed the starter button on the right handlebar, and the machine growled into life. He had the presence of mind to keep a grip on the clutch of the bike. He thumbed the button a second time, and the bike powered down.

Not bad.

A bike could be helpful in the summertime, but he’d have to take the time to learn how to ride it, which was something he wasn’t keen on. A cousin of his had broken his neck on one of the things, prompting Gus to swear never to ride one. No, he’d stick to four wheels if he could, and a bicycle if he couldn’t. He pushed the motorcycle to the side of the road, mindful of the nailed planks hidden in the snow. He couldn’t see a kick stand, so he laid the bike on its side again.

He regarded the truck and the dead around it. The snow covered everything in white fluff, filling open mouths, empty eye cavities, and the nooks and crannies among the tangle of limbs. Gus walked to the rear of the truck, noting suitcases were piled in the back. The Ford hybrid had a four-door extended cab. When he opened the driver’s side door, he saw that the keys hung from the ignition.

“That’s what I like to see.” He threw the Benelli into the passenger seat and got aboard. A foul smell lingered in the interior, and torn instant noodle wrappers littered the floor. The door to the glove compartment was missing, and a great set of fuzzy dice dangled from the rear-view mirror. He checked the rear-view mirror and blinked. All clear.

“All right then,” he muttered and started the truck. The dead shuddered and slid off the hood, their frozen limbs tipping upward as they fell, reminding Gus of dark jagged ice. He twisted around in the seat to see where he was going, and once he had enough space cleared between the log jam of zombies, he stopped and placed the truck in park.

He got out of the vehicle and studied the mound of dead and the ones littering the ground. Mulling it over, he finally decided to burn what he could of the pile at the gate. The ones around the wall didn’t concern him so much, but he needed to get rid of that ramp of flesh. With that intention, he climbed the ladder, perched atop the wall, and pulled the ladder up after him as he climbed down the other side. The effort made his ribs scream and left him bent over and wincing for seconds.

He scuffed through the area where he’d burned the corpses. The fire had eaten well, ravaging most of the bodies down to stark, soot-spotted bone. His ribs continued warning him with bell-like chimes of pain as he labored with the gate, taking down the wooden beams bracing it. He took several breaks—saying, “Goddamn it”—every time until he was able to open the gate. He doused the corpses on the other side with gasoline and readied a match. He sheltered the flame with his hand and dropped it on the bodies. A huff and the fire quickly spread, feeding on the dead with a focus as single-minded in purpose as the corpses had been when animated.

Gus straightened and watched the funeral pyre as it grew, lighting up that section of the wall and pushing back the encroaching gloom of the storm. Larger flakes of snow swirled, dancing on violent air currents. Shreds of black ash joined in above and around the growing blaze. He looked up at the darkened sky and wondered where the day had gone. He figured there was no way to close the gates, not with the fire going, so he would leave it to burn away as much as possible and close the gates in the morning.

If anything, dead or alive, found him during the night, he’d let his new best friends, Benelli and Ruger, do the talking.

*

Gus woke up to discover two inches of snow had fallen during the night, and the heavy cloud cover suggested more was on the way. He got up and sleepily checked his wounds. Everything still hurt. The holes in his gums had stopped bleeding and, while looking bruised, didn’t seem to have any signs of infection. He thanked God for that, but cringed at the face in the mirror, still battered and bruised in a harsh display of red, purple, and yellow. Long lines of blood-crusted scabs marked the trenches Roxanne had clawed in his face, and Gus wondered how the hell she hadn’t permanently blinded him. The woman could fight.

He rinsed his mouth with an antiseptic and went about the rest of his morning routine, feeling how cold the house had become from the broken door.

That, and the lack of human company.

After breakfast, he suited up. He studied the motorcycle helmet and thought of his nose. Missing that important piece of armor didn’t set well on his nerves, but he shuddered at the thought of trying to get the helmet over his nose again. He tried slipping on his ninja hood, but the pressure on his nose made his eyes water. Swearing, he elected to go without anything on his head. The wind chilled him as he wandered out to the gate, his bootprints marking the way in the snow. The fire had died during the night, and the mound of bodies still hadn’t burned completely. A light coating of snow covered the remains, and knobs of charred bone and bent knees rose above the mess. Gus arched his back, feeling the creak and crack there, and adjusted the Nomex coat. He had to do two things. He had to get building supplies—planks of wood and sheets of plastic in particular—and seal up the ruined sliding door in the living room. Then, he had to clear the gate and seal the wall. The scale of the assault wasn’t lost on him—he’d shot hundreds—but others could arrive at any time. The cold would slow them down, but wouldn’t stop them. The wall was the first and best defense in keeping them at bay, and he needed to secure it.

Periodically muttering to himself, he hauled out another gas container and doused the leftover dead. He lit the pile once more and howled at the height of the flames. Gus peered over the fire, through the gate, and saw the dark husk of the pickup. He didn’t want to chance driving down the mountain road with the beast. The beast was a summertime animal. The pickup was his best bet in winter.

He retreated to the garage and readied his weapons. The aluminum bat got slipped over his shoulder, but he hoped he wouldn’t have to use it. It would probably kill him to swing the thing.

After getting the ladders back in place, Gus went up and over the wall. His heavy, steel-toed boots squeaked over the snow as he made his way to the road leading up to the gate. He got to the pickup and remembered the suitcases in the back.

“Might as well…” He got back out and proceeded to haul them from the rear of the truck. Gus opened the stylish blue one first and quickly dismissed it as belonging to a woman and containing only clothes. The two black ones were filled with an assortment of men’s and women’s clothing. He didn’t see anything useful, so he left them in the snow, open and exposed to the elements.

Grunting, he got aboard the pickup and gave the dangling fuzzy dice a slap for luck. His bat and shotgun went into the passenger seat with a warning of ‘Be good.’ He turned the key, and the engine rumbled to life. The fuel gauge informed him that he had three quarters of a tank, plenty for what he wanted to do.

As he drove over the snowy road, huge flakes splattered against the windshield. Moments later, the lower gate came into view, and he frowned. Roxanne’s raider friends had smashed through it and left it ruined on warped hinges. That was another job that would have to wait. Shaking his head, he pulled onto the highway and turned in the direction of Annapolis.

A huge Dodge pickup sat in the middle of the road, snow covered and as dead as the corpses he’d only just burned.

“What’s…?” Gus slowed and stuck his head out the window. He pulled ahead of the dark truck and saw the driver, a man, splayed out on his back in the road. His torso had been gutted in a fashion that reminded Gus of someone perhaps eating a meat pot pie, face first and leaving only the crust about the edges. The man’s clothes had been shredded. Frost coated the jagged edges of the corpse’s abdominal cavity while a trail of guts snaked from the body, frozen to the asphalt, and congealed into a gruesome lump a few feet beyond. It almost seemed as if a zombie had scooped out a generous dollop of intestinal tract, left the other undead feeders, and dropped it for some unknown reason.

“Sucks to be you.” But he shifted the truck into park and studied the remains.

He had to make sure.

Reaching down and pulling the Ruger from his boot, he switched the safety off the weapon and racked the slide. The cold air gusted in as he opened the door and struggled from the vehicle. Lumbering like a deadhead himself, he reached the side of the devoured corpse and stared down at the ravaged face. Gus felt his stomach turn. They had clawed the eyes from the poor bastard’s head and chewed the flesh from his face, gnawed right to the bloody bone. Distaste smoldered within Gus’s core, and he aimed the pistol, straight-armed, at the forehead of the corpse.

“Hey,” he said.

No reaction.

“I said hey, you stupid rat fuck bastard.”

Still nothing.

Gus considered the man’s legs. The thigh and calf muscles had also been gnawed to the bone. The guy wouldn’t be rising even if it could. The undead hadn’t just feasted; they had eaten the man down to nothing.

The body at his feet moaned.

From its ruined throat came a hollow sound that startled Gus and caused him to step back. The head turned slowly, shaking as if about to detach itself from the few tendons fastening it in place. The eyeless sockets seemed to track him. The jaw opened, and Gus had the unfortunate pleasure of seeing a gaping hole where the tongue should have been. The corpse continued hissing, and Gus stood away from the new zombie, once again awed by the sinister life force that animated the dead even when nothing was left on the bones. The thought entered his mind that the newest zombie had somehow been responsible for the army of deadheads at his front door. At his feet, the zombie tried in vain to lift its head. Strands of a few remaining tendons enabled it to open its jaws a little more, as if it were attempting to scream.

Gus shot it through the forehead, the sound of the suppressed Ruger sounding strange on the snow-covered highway.

He’d lingered too long. There was work to do.

4

Gus circled the Home Hardware superstore in his new pickup, keeping at a steady thirty kilometers per hour and giving the few deserted cars left in the parking lot a wide berth. The sky remained overcast and sprinkled snowflakes as if seasoning a soup. Snow blanketed the ground and candy cane shaped streetlamps, giving the scene a Christmas-like feel. He rolled behind the shop and saw that the loading bay doors were all closed, which was a good sign. Sometimes gimps lucked out and got a door open, especially if it meant pushing a lever instead of a turning a knob.

He circled the store once more and studied the ground for signs of tracks. There weren’t any that he could see, but the sound of his tires creeping over the snow-covered lot plucked on his nerves.

“Shit.” He should have gotten half-drunk before venturing into town. That was a mistake he felt in his face and ribs. Painkillers. He needed painkillers as well as building supplies, but he didn’t know any of the stronger brands beyond the more generic ones, nor did he have any idea of dosage.

He brought the truck around to the front, then turned it so the rear faced the entrance of the Home Hardware. Once in position for a quick getaway if needed, Gus stared ahead for a minute and mentally readied himself. He reluctantly got out and felt the cold air brush across his devastated features. The bat went into the scabbard across his back, and a full bandolier of shotgun shells crossed it. The weight of the bat pulled uncomfortably against his ribs, but he kept it there. Wishing again for the pain dampening buzz of whiskey or rum or whatever, he checked the Bowie knife in his left boot and the Ruger pistol in his right. Satisfied, he hefted the shotgun and placed the butt against his shoulder, hoping to God he wouldn’t have to use it.

“All right. Let’s get shopping, Captain.” The name drew him up short for a moment. He didn’t have a bottle of Captain Morgan with him, but the idea that the foppish sailor accompanied him in spirit was comforting.

Gus marched toward the main entrance, flakes attaching themselves to his battered brow and eyelids. The snow crunched with each step, and he tried to look everywhere at once. He reached the dark maw of doors and noted that they were intact. He rattled one in its frame before realizing he was pulling when he should push. Placing his shoulder against the glass, he eased inside and scowled at the gloomy interior. Shafts of daylight periodically stabbed the darkness from skylights high above, but it was too far to illuminate anything deep inside the aisles. Gus paused, standing before a turnstile and chrome sensor used to deter shoplifters.

“What do you think? Hmm?” he asked the captain’s spirit and eyed the deep recesses of the hardware store. After a moment, he clanged the barrel of the Benelli against the metal sensor. The echo rang out in the store, and Gus shifted the skeleton butt against his shoulder, his fingers flexing on the grip.

He didn’t have to wait long.

From somewhere deep inside the store came a loud crash, as if a small mountain of cans had toppled. Gus turned to his left when he heard the rapid thudding of bare flesh against the floor, like a drummer warming up to really lay into the skins. Footsteps. The feet came closer, and he hunched over, shotgun ready.

The patter of bare feet sped up, closing in, coming from his right. The thing had altered its course. Gus shifted and looked over the scope of his shotgun. The clamor became louder, as if the person who had just entered the main aisle was gathering steam.

“Shit,” Gus whispered.

He heard the maniacal wheeze and moan of the runner before it burst into sight, and even though he had known it was coming, seeing the tall, lanky corpse with both of its arms chewed off at the shoulders startled him. The dead thing spotted him, and its eyes brightened with famished delight. It slammed into a cash register, buckling its upper body over the counter and knocking a rack over in its clumsy haste. It lifted its head up frantically, checking to see if its meal was still in sight, and when it sighted Gus again, the jaw dropped open in a jagged grin.

It turned the corner of the checkout counter, and Gus shot it in the face, the spent red shell-casing spitting out the side of the weapon. The blast flung the armless deadhead back, crumpling it over a packing station. Bare, filthy feet went up and shivered in the air for a brief moment, like something stretched out before snapping back into shape, then flopped down out of sight.

“Right on,” Gus said, not lowering the Benelli and feeling the lingering punch of the recoil. Then, he heard the rustling of debris, of things being pushed aside with no consideration of silence, coming from different directions, and knew he’d come upon a nest.

Backing through the doorway, Gus retreated to the pickup and tossed the shotgun into the rear. He drew his pistol, switched off the safety, racked the slide, and checked the surrounding area before finally settling his attention on whatever was about to spring from the hardware store doors. He had a killing field of perhaps ten feet. If there were more Dees than he had bullets, it would be a challenge to get into the truck and away before they swarmed him. He wasn’t as spry as he used to be.

Shadows slowly solidified into shambling husks of long-dead shoppers and red-shirted staff. They spotted him and charged, crashing against the glass door.

With a sigh of disdain, Gus remembered the door opened inward, yet the monsters were intent on pushing. Shaking his head, he cut the distance in half and put a bullet into the first zombie that stayed still long enough. A splintered hole appeared in the surface of the glass with a harsh tinkle at the same instant he squeezed the trigger. Faces smeared themselves against the pane, mindlessly tracking him as he moved. He shot the second one a moment later, then put down the remaining five, riddling the glass without regret.

Afterward, he kicked out the crinkled glass in one door and stepped inside. The smell of the decomposing bodies hit him like a mallet, fouling his mouth and his wreck of a nose. Snarling, he pulled the corpses back, clearing the way, and used a couple of them to prop open the door.

“Stay,” he warned the mound before turning around and heading back into the store. Once past the powerless shoplifter sensors, Gus readied his pistol two-handed and yelled, “Anyone else want some of this? Huh? Anyone? I’m right here, you sorry sons-a-bitches.”

He made an effort to keep his upper lip down over his gums, to shield them from the cold air. Hearing nothing, Gus shouted again, a nonsense bellow of noise that failed to attract any attention.

He stepped over to a rack near one of the checkout counters and picked up a handheld, rechargeable flashlight. He squeezed the handle, powering up the device, and after a few seconds, the bulb emitted a dull light. Holding the flashlight in his offhand and keeping the Ruger ready, he proceeded into the hardware store, stopping once to reach for a shopping cart and wonder if there might be any specials. The thought made him chuckle.

The light from the flashlight wobbled as Gus steered the cart down the main aisle. Listening to the gentle rattle of the cart, he soon found himself leaning over its push bar. Surprisingly, many of the shelves hadn’t been looted. He passed painting supplies and remembered a career long gone with some nostalgia, and actually stopped and considered the prices. Next, towels and facecloths appeared, along with a supply of miscellaneous kitchen goods. He spotted a shelf full of small tents and grabbed a box, dumping it in the cart. The noise made him pause for a moment, listening once again for any reaction.

He rattled past aisles cluttered with debris of all kinds—hockey sticks, cans of motor oil, plastic water bottles, coolers, even children’s preschool toys. Some sections had been gutted, especially the firearms and stores of ammunition. Gus had come there perhaps a year ago looking for weapons, only to find that everything had been taken. He pushed the cart to the building supply section and quickly found boxes of three-inch nails. A few of these went into the cart, as well as several boxes of short ones from another nearby bin. He wheeled up another aisle and came across a dark set of patio furniture, which made him think of the deck.

And then Roxanne.

He pushed her face from his thoughts and forged ahead, ignoring the sour smell of decayed sweat on the air. Cans and other fallen items on the floor clattered as the cart’s front wheels shoved through the debris. Weaving through the dark maze, he eventually located several large pallets of wood. Switching the safety on the pistol, he holstered it in his boot and inspected the planks. He figured each piece was about an inch thick and at least three inches wide. He took one piece from the pile and guessed it to be cut at least eight feet long. The pallet itself had wheels, but he wasn’t able to haul the raw building material anywhere. Fumbling with a plank, trying to make it fit in the cart, he piled up several pieces length-wise across the top, spanning the front and handle bar and wrapping an arm around the ends of the planks for stability. It took some effort to get moving, and he plodded down the aisles, the wood jutting from the front of the cart as if he were about to joust. He returned to the truck, unloaded the wood, and made the first of several trips back to the pickup. He didn’t know exactly how much he needed, so he decided to haul back as much as the truck could handle, just to be sure.

Once he finished storing his scavenged supplies in the pickup, Gus noticed the temperature had dropped. e He sriaghteeeeHe badly wanted to sniff, to clear his sinuses, but he knew the pain wasn’t worth it. Gus turned around, sensing something sneaking up on him, but the parking lot remained as snowy and stark as an Antarctic plain.

He looked up, taking in the huge yellow lettering of the store, and kept his eyes on it for a moment before slowly turning his attention to the distant tops of houses and buildings fencing in the lot. The idea of making one more search of the store hit him, as he wasn’t certain he had an electric saw back at the house. He had a handsaw, but there was no way he could take that kind of motion. It would rip him apart. He’d need an extension cord as well, the heavy outdoor kind. While thoughts on where exactly to find the needed items filled his head, he took the keys from the ignition.

Just to be safe.

On the final trip inside the store, he found the extension cord he wanted, and something he hadn’t thought of, even though it was that time of year.

Christmas lights.

His gums were aching by the time he returned to the truck. More snow was beginning to fall in lazy, fluffy chunks. Tossing his newfound items into the cab, Gus started the machine and drove home.

*

For the rest of the afternoon, Gus made repairs to the house. In the garage, he cut the number of planks needed per his measurements, carried them to the smashed sliding door, and nailed them into place, boarding up the hole to the best of his ability. He placed caulking around the edges and hoped that would keep some of the cold out. Once the door was sealed, he draped a section of tent canvas over the bare wood and nailed that into place as well. He had no insulation for the new wall, and he had no idea of where to look for it. He then went to work on the windows in Scott’s old room, wondering where the dude had gotten himself over the last little while and hoping he was okay.

While he worked, Gus sipped on Jack Daniels straight from the bottle. The alcohol helped the pain. He even brought out a bottle of Captain Morgan, the same bottle that had survived the gunfight. The foppish sailor on the label grinned from where Gus placed him in the snow, and he looked back at the captain every now and again. He swore the bottle was watching him as he worked.

“What do you think?” he finally asked once he hammered in the last nail.

Looks good, the captain replied.

Gus nodded. He knew the voice was inside his head, but damn if it wasn’t as clear as a bell. “Not much of a carpenter,” he added, eyeing the bottle.

You did good. Better than I would have.

That was probably true.

“How come you weren’t saying anything before?” Gus asked.

Because, lad, you weren’t listening right.

“Oh.” Somehow, that made sense to him.

He stopped when it became too dark, with the intention of finishing everything the next day. He had one more task to do before retiring and becoming comfortably shitfaced. Gathering up the captain, he took the bottle upstairs and pulled down the trapdoor in the ceiling; the folding steps were the same style as the ones he and Scott had used in another house not so long ago. He unfolded the steps, smelling dampness, and climbed up into the attic. A single skylight illuminated one section of the attic in silver, and Gus easily found what he wanted.

Within an hour, he had the tree covered in lights and decorated with Christmas bulbs of red, blue, green, and gold. He placed the tree directly in front of the sliding door to conceal the bare wood, and the addition brightened the room considerably.

“Whattaya think, eh?” Gus asked the captain.

The bottle lay on the sofa, facing the tree. The officer grinned.

“It’s nice, ain’t it? Now, wait for it…”

Gus stooped and picked up a cord from the floor. He flipped the switch, and the tree blazed warmly. He stepped back toward the sofa, getting out of Captain Morgan’s view, and simply stood and gawked at it in merry, shitfaced fashion.

“Nice,” Gus said with a satisfied smile.

The captain agreed.

Nodding, Gus took another sip of Jack Daniels. He had a case of Irish Cream in the basement and thought that he would go about drinking some of that for the rest of the evening. He’d probably be sick enough to wish he was a deadhead in the morning, but that was the morning—a long time away. The dead outside had been consumed enough by flames to allow him to close the gate for the night, and the glow from the festive lights lifted his spirits. He could probably spare some electricity and turn on the upstairs stereo as well and maybe play a CD of Christmas music if he could find one.

After changing into warmer, fresher clothes, he dug into a can of beef soup, chasing the meal with whiskey.

The captain had mysteriously appeared on the kitchen island to watch him eat.

Gus regarded the bottle and couldn’t remember moving it. Oddly enough, the captain’s appearance didn’t bother him, nor did the staring.

You okay? the captain finally asked.

Gus nodded. “I’m fine. I’m home. My goddamn gums hurt. My goddamn ribs hurt. And allow me to point out, just in case you haven’t noticed, that my goddamn face hurts, too. I’m gonna check the goddamn bucket tomorrow just to see if I shit out that goddamn lucky horseshoe of mine. If I do, I’m staying inside for the rest of the goddamn winter. If I don’t, well… I don’t know what I’ll do. But it’ll probably have something to do with the—” He suppressed a burp. “—the windows in the rooms here. Gotta board that up. Just consider us lucky that them bastards never shot the place up that bad. Could’ve been a lot worse, buddy. A lot worse,” he ended with another spoon-jab at the sailor.

You need to fix them doors.

“That’s right,” Gus agreed. “Good point. I’ll get on that tomorrow too. Definitely… maybe.”

He went on eating, studying the grinning features of the officer until the captain spoke again.

You need to finish the house, too. Pronto.

“Don’t be an asshole,” Gus warned. “I got other bottles with pictures on ‘em down below. Just my luck you had to be a dude. Why couldn’t you be like a chick in a bikini or somethin’? Topless even.”

You mean like Roxanne?

“Bein’ an asshole.” Gus shook his head. “Don’t mention her ever again. Okay?”

That time, the captain kept his thoughts to himself.

“Better,” Gus grumped. “After this, I’m gonna get me some of that Irish Cream from the basement. Yeah, that’s the shit. Get me some of that and get all comfortable on the sofa. Howzat sound? Good, eh? I know.”

He took half of a deep breath before his ribs warned him not to go all the way. “Christ, I’m a mess.” Leaving the empty bowl on the island, Gus took the captain by the neck and carried him into the living room, the multi-colored lights warming it better than solar power and doing much for his overall state-of-smashed mind.

“Nice,” Gus muttered. He put the captain down on a nearby sofa chair, facing the tree. He saw no need to deprive the old sailor of such a sight, despite the guy’s being a nagging prick at the supper table. The Irish Cream resurfaced in his mind, so he went downstairs, brought up two large bottles of the liqueur, and placed them on the coffee table in front of the sofa. Gus then sat down, exhaling wearily, and cracked open one of the bottles. He drank straight from the bottle, luxuriating in the creamy coffee taste of the drink, his eyes slipping shut in drunken appreciation.

“Nicer,” he said, noting that his hurts weren’t hurting so bad at all anymore. It had to be the booze. And the Christmas tree.

“And the company,” he said to the bottle in the sofa chair, and the captain grinned back. Gus’s attention rolled back to the tree and its hypnotizing glow.

Christmas, he thought in drunken wonder.

How the hell had he forgotten that?

He drank a toast to the memory of the season. Somewhere between the first and second bottle of Irish Cream, the Ghosts of Christmas Past appeared. The smell of a roasting turkey wafting in from the kitchen made him smile. More memories unlocked themselves from Gus’s mind, of parents and friends no longer with him, yet his smile did not fade, and as time went on, the more intoxicated he got. He toasted them all and drank to the New Year, hoping for all the best. A sense of wellness flowed through him, relaxing him more with each sip, and did not diminish.

When he finally passed out, he escaped to a dream where the captain played his fiddle. Clapping hands accompanied the old sailor’s tune while ethereal toes tapped on bare wood floors, accompanying Gus into the dark.

*

Gus woke up to a predawn, ash-coloured morning and wished for death. His head ached so badly that he thought a mini-zombie might have wormed into his ear during the night. He opened his mouth, which felt as if someone had filled it with wood glue. Tasting his own morning breath, he almost grossed himself out to the point of puking. He hoped his gums weren’t infected and that the smell was nothing more than an after-effect of not brushing… for how long? How long had it been since he had flossed? The answer to that grossed him out even more. He remembered Tammy once giving him a hard time about not flossing; she’d vowed never to kiss him again unless he started doing so on a regular basis. That threat had been enough to get him started on it, but after a while he stopped again. Then, he had to pay a visit to Doctor Hool. The young dentist delighted in displaying what he had hooked from between his gums, magnified to stomach-turning clarity under the light of a microscope. That sight had been enough to make Gus start flossing and using mouthwash every day.

Grimacing, he staggered upstairs to the bathroom and plopped down on the bucket. There was no way he was going to freeze his ass getting to the outhouse. Finishing his business, he made his way back downstairs and eventually slunk into the kitchen. The captain was on the island, smiling in sympathy.

“Fuck off,” Gus growled, but then stopped in his tracks. How the hell did the bottle get into the kitchen? He studied the bright sailor for a moment before looking back toward the living room, as if it might jar his memory of bringing and leaving the bottle on the island. He couldn’t recall doing any such thing, but scoffed at anything else.

“Anyone in here?” he yelled. “Hey! Anyone?”

He waited. If anyone was in the house, they would surely pounce soon, while his head felt like a cavity and his stomach rolled like a bad sea at night.

On the table, the captain beamed merrily at him.

“Whatever,” Gus said to the bottle and shuffled to the fridge to get a jug of water. He guzzled it down and felt it light up the stitches in his mouth. He took the jug with him as he moved into the downstairs bathroom. Once there, he grabbed a bottle of anti-septic mouthwash, and for the next minute, he soaked and gargled. Flossing came next, in and around his molars, and he took great care not to disturb his stitches.

Feeling like a lazy tide had a hold of him, Gus drifted back into the living room. The curtains were closed, but he could still feel a draft coming from the boarded-up section. He had to get a few little things done around the house, but first, he flopped down on his sofa. In a flash of memory, he saw the men who had attacked him lying dead on his floor, the smell of discharged weapons in the air.

One blink swiped the vision away, like a hand squeaking over a dirty windshield. Breakfast. He needed something in him before he got to work, but breakfast was out in the kitchen.

“Honey,” he called out to the captain. “Make me up some scrambled eggs, will ya?”

No answer.

His strength sapped, Gus rolled over and lay on his side. He smacked his lips and, as easy as that, slipped into sleep.

*

He woke up with a jolt, feeling hands around his ankles. He kicked his bare feet out and used the weight to swing himself into an upright position. The movement made his ribs sparkle, and he hissed, placing a hand to the afflicted area.

“Shit.” He took shallow breaths and looked around the living room. Melancholy light seeped around the curtains, and Gus took a moment to simply sit and have a morning moment in the afternoon. He reached for the water jug and drank a third of what remained.

Eventually, he decided to get something to eat. Things needed to be done, and they weren’t going to do themselves, unless whatever the hell had transported the captain into the kitchen decided to help him out a little further.

About twenty minutes later, a can of chicken soup was ready, along with a drink of rum and coke, mixed three parts booze and one part cola. He ate his soup from the pot, staring off against the captain. The naval officer didn’t seem too impressed with him this day for falling asleep when he should have been repairing and further fortifying his position, but Gus wouldn’t let himself feel any guilt over the wasted morning.

“I’ll get on it.”

The captain smirked. I’ve heard that before. Some deadheads could be out there right now, about to bang on the front door. You’d sure as hell move then. Wouldn’t you?

“Let ‘em come. I ain’t scared of ‘em anymore.”

The bright officer had nothing to say to that.

For the rest of the day, under a cloudy sky, Gus finished the repairs on the house. He couldn’t do anything with the door knobs the raiders had chopped off when they penetrated the interior, so he braced the doors with two-by-fours. He boarded up the holes in the doors with planks and filled the creases with caulking, hoping to keep out any drafts. Fixing the house, he thought of the countless Science Fiction stories he’d read as a kid and felt a twinge of nostalgia. He was repairing his ship after successfully repulsing an alien attack. There were losses and he hadn’t come away unharmed, but he was alive. That was a hell of a lot more than could be said for the ones lying at the base of…

He paused, standing in front of the main door and thinking about the mound of dead at the base of his mountain. His parents had taught him that he could do without religion as long as he stayed true to the ten basic rules the Lord had set down. The big one, the one he thought there was no going back from, was the “No killing” commandment. Killing the dead was easy. They were dead. It was a mercy to put them down, to release them from whatever hell they were experiencing.

Killing the living wasn’t so easy.

Yet, he’d done it.

And he’d done it well. He held up a hand and examined it, noting the slight quiver. The shaking wasn’t as bad, which was a small comfort, but on other days, his hands could be mistaken for divining rods, except they only became still when he drank.

Or killed, as he’d recently discovered.

Hell bound, his mind told him. You’re Hell bound, buster. Big time. What’s worse than killing those folks was the fact that you didn’t even repent. No guilt whatsoever.

“I have… guilt,” Gus muttered.

Oh no, you don’t. You say you do, but who are you talking to here? Hmm? I’m the only thing rattling around in here, and I can sure as shitfingers say there ain’t no guilt—nothing in here but us chickens. Don’t know what’s come over you, but you’ve gone different, Gus, ol’ son. You’ve gone bad. Sad thing is you crossed the line without even blinking.

“They tried to kill me first,” he said.

And that makes everything just cushy? Hmm? All square? Oh wait, you didn’t just take a life, did you? You killed a shitload of people. I mean, Charlie Bronson would’ve been fucking impressed with the way you handled that shotgun! And it was all self-defense. That, and the booze, right? Lucky you to have all those excuses.

“Yeah.”

You know what the good book says about killers.

“Yeah.”

You’re Hell bound, ol’ son. No denyin’ it.

“Guess not,” Gus said. His cheek throbbed.

Anything to say?

“Yeah, fuck off.”

To his relief, the inner voice shut up and left him alone. What was he supposed to do? Nothing? They had come to kill him—that was a certainty—but he killed them first. He supposed he was going to Hell, but he wasn’t a bad person. He had taken in Scott and Roxanne without asking for anything in return. How would that measure up against his slaying of real people? Wouldn’t that balance things?

It was something to think about, and Gus thought better about such things when he was drunk.

5

On the morning of New Year’s Eve, Gus inspected the snowy mountain road and decided to chance driving into town in the pickup. He’d cleaned his mouth out with the anti-septic, then inspected the stitches, the scabs on his face, and his fading yellow-black bruises. The last few days were nothing more than a drunken blur, smeared and spotted with sound bites. Yesterday, he’d tried not to drink, but by early afternoon, his mouth was so dry and the need for a shot of something became so bad that he drank just to quell it. He chose amber rum and gulped it down like fiery tea, the taste leaving him shivering, but much better. He didn’t even put any cola into it anymore, and that thought was enough to sober him up for all of an hour.

Then he’d really started to chug it.

As he suited up in the garage, he looked at the new bottle of Jack Daniels in his locker. He’d only just placed it there, but shaking his head, he pulled it out and opened it. He took two mouthfuls before screwing the cap back on and hefting the bottle. He still hurt in places, and the booze was the only painkiller he had. However, taking the bottle with him was only exacerbating another problem he was slowly becoming aware of. Don’t be stupid, his mind warned, but he dismissed it. The only stupid thing he’d done in the last month was taking in Scott and Roxanne. Alone was best. When Scott left, Gus had been disappointed and actually missed the time-obsessed man.

“Yeah, he was all right.” Christ almighty, he was talking to a rum bottle, and he knew that had to be cause for worry. Then, there was Roxanne. The bitch had not only tried to kill him, but also brought her gang to his house.

Just don’t be stupid. Again.

“Don’t you worry,” Gus said. “Don’t you worry one bit.”

He took the bottle with him.

*

Another overcast sky and Gus believed that it had been a very long time now without any sunlight. It was as if Scott had taken the sun with him. Gus got aboard the pickup and dropped the ninja mask on the passenger seat, along with the bat and Benelli shotgun. His mission was simple in concept, but fucked up in execution. Painkillers. He needed painkillers, something besides the booze, but he didn’t know what the really powerful ones were. Antibiotics would be helpful, too, but again, he simply didn’t possess the knowledge to dose himself.

But he knew where to go to find out—Acadia University.

Located in the Wolfville part of the city, the school had been known for its business college and well-respected Arts program. The university had also opened an extensive school of dentistry on the compact campus. He was sure he could find a textbook listing what he needed. If the internet had been still functional, he could easily go online and find the information, but it wasn’t, so he had to get old fashioned.

Gus peered through the open garage door at the frosty white that covered the land. It wasn’t snowing, but it could start anytime, and there were certainly a few blizzards in store for the area. He questioned heading down into Annapolis at all, when he could just as well hole up for the month and just let time do its healing thing to his body. That would be the sensible thing to do. Guaranteed. There was a reason why he avoided the Acadia area of the city. Zombies were usually tidal, but some seemed to linger in places they felt a connection to—some ungodly attraction to certain places where they once had a daily routine they steadfastly adhered to when they were alive. Gus wasn’t sure what to call it, a muscle memory perhaps? Perhaps a spark of yearning fed by some ghostly residue of life.

Or maybe it was just a good place to hunt.

Whatever it was, the few times he had driven through Wolfville and the main drag going by the university, he had always had to be on extra guard. Deadheads populated the place, and because the university didn’t really possess a lot of material, scavengers like himself weren’t attracted to the place. There wasn’t much to take from there to increase survival of the apocalypse. As a result, the dead, left unchecked, seemed much thicker there. Acadia once had a student population of several thousand, plus the staff.

Gus rubbed a hand across his forehead. He intended to stay away from the residences and the science halls. The university library was just off the main road, and he knew a person could enter it through the Beveridge Arts Center, or the BAC as the student body once referred to it. He even remembered a better way to get in, away from all of the main entrances, just across an open field that blazed green and white in the summertime and exploded with color in the fall. The lower floor was comprised of a wall of windows, and no doubt some or all would be smashed. With luck, he could drive right up to the lower level and crawl in through a window. The cold weather would slow the dead, and if he did come into contact with any gimps, he had five full magazines for the Ruger, in addition to the one currently in the pistol. He mentally thanked the Lord for helping him find the extra weapons. They had served him well thus far. Perhaps when he was healed up and functioning better, he would find another cache of firearms in Annapolis. Perhaps even something better. Anything was possible.

He stared at the wall. Was he really going to go to Acadia? In the condition he was in?

To answer his own question, he put the truck in gear and drove out to the main gate.

The truck bounced and caused him some discomfort as he rattled down over the white road. He turned onto the highway and soon came upon the corpse in the road. The meat pie. He slowed and divided his attention between the highway and the body that reminded him of a frost-glazed, empty dish.

Under a blanket of snow, the carcass lay still. That suited him fine. He stepped on the brake, and he let the truck idle for a moment, while he considered getting out, dusting the guy off, and checking on him up close. But that little voice in Gus’s head told him not to even think about it, to stay in the truck.

Gus heeded the voice and drove away. Thoughts lingered in his head, however, of doing another experiment to see what was happening to the dead. That mystery remained unsolved. He believed wild dogs were dragging them off and perhaps even feeding on them. What would that do to the dogs? Would it affect them somehow? Would they change into something other than dogs? Gus hoped to hell not, and knew that he would have to look into the matter in greater earnest sooner rather than later. He’d have to solve the mystery before it killed him.

The truck rumbled along the highway, past familiar landmarks and into the heart of the valley and Annapolis. The houses became more numerous, and he remembered a time when everything would have been covered in Christmas decorations. Snowmen, wooden reindeer, and waving Santas would have populated many a front lawn. In Gus’s mind, nothing made a cold night warmer than the festive glow of Christmas lights. He envisioned kids rolling huge snowballs for winter forts or snow people, saw neighbours hanging wreaths and greeting each other, asking them to drop by during the holidays for a mug of apple cider or something with a little more punch.

All gone.

Feeling the ache in his cheek, he made the necessary turns to get to Wolfville’s main street. He passed several antiquated bed and breakfasts and one or two larger hotels, the frames glazed in snow and appearing haunted. Roadside parks with frozen duck ponds and abandoned picnic tables and chairs came into view. The empty-looking houses, desolate storefronts with smashed out windows, and unkempt grounds could have been frozen by a nuclear winter. Christmas was over in the valley.

Something grabbed his attention… the lack of footprints in the snow.

That was a gift in itself.

Cold slowed them, Gus knew from previous winters. It slowed down the eaters of flesh to a point where the city merely appeared as a ghost town instead of a hunting ground. Gus made the mental note—once his ribs were healed, he’d go on a hunt. Winter was the time to kill the dead, to decimate their numbers and take back a little of what they had stolen. Even the ones inside houses were affected by the cold. The deadhead back at the hardware store was the first runner that wasn’t chilled by the drop in the temperature, and that was enough to set him wondering why. Perhaps the zombie had been only recently turned.

Regardless, Gus figured the ongoing decay of the bodies factored in as well. It was a crime they didn’t rot away into nothing, which would have made things much easier for the survivors. Instead, the dead seemed to rot to a point where they just shambled about, willing their bones into movement. Some were worse than others, but whatever the virus was that had killed and reanimated them, it would not allow them to crumble into dust.

Not until their brains were bashed in, anyhow.

He drove down the section of Main Street populated with savaged grocery and convenience stores, restaurants, and coffee shops. The once-vibrant avenue was as stark as a scorched rib cage. Glass windows were long since smashed out, and doors were either broken down or hung off hinges, just a touch away from dropping off their wrecked frames. A sign denoting a pharmacy caught his attention. The shattered front window allowed him to glimpse a looted interior, but he would still return and check it out.

An intersection loomed before him, with a dark church on the left and a service station on the right. The Beveridge Arts Center lay just beyond and stood like a four-story bunker. Made of red brick and steel, the center looked like a chunk of meat suffering from freezer burn. Gus drove past and spotted the building he’d come for, next to the BAC.

The library wasn’t as robust looking as the Arts Center, but its brick and mortar construction still looked stout. The building was partially hidden by tall, thick trunks of elms, whose frosted skeletal limbs stabbed at the sky and made everything look all the more eerie. He edged the vehicle ahead until he spotted the utility road that split the university grounds. The tree limbs connected overhead to form a snowy tunnel of sorts, and the road went right up to the concrete foundation of the library.

The sound of crisp snow squeaking under tires reached his ears as he drew up beside the building and slowed to a stop. He turned the truck around so that it was pointed in the direction of the main road if a quick exit was needed. Gus got out of the truck, hefted his shotgun, and studied the broken glass of the lower windows. Inside, dark cubicles where students once parked themselves during library hours appeared scarred by the elements, and darker rows of bookshelves, still intact and full of books, could be made out past those.

That surprised him for a moment, but why would people ramshackle a library during an apocalypse? Fuel for fires maybe? Gus couldn’t think of anything else. He put the bat in the sheath. God help him if he had to swing the thing. Even the shotgun seemed inappropriate, and he thought that the silencer—or sound suppressor, as Scott had once told him—would be better for a straightforward infiltration. Still, he brought the big gun along, drawing comfort from its weight and power.

Feeling the cold, he moved to a concrete loading area located near the corner of the building closest to the BAC. The snow under his boots squeaked with each step, cutting the silence and eventually grating on his nerves. The temperature had dropped further, and Gus noticed it most around his bare face and the way his sinuses seemed to seize up with every breath.

The white loading door leading into the library didn’t have a knob and apparently opened from the inside, which Gus thought was fucking stupid. He climbed onto the platform and placed his back to the wall. Taking a shallow breath, he leaned over to peer through a broken window. Jagged fangs of glass lined the frame. The gloves he wore were his summer ones, and he frowned at his bare fingers. With a huff, he laid down the Benelli and took out the bat. He raked the bat the length of the frame, sending glass fragments flying. Once finished, he tucked the bat away, picked up the shotgun, and carefully climbed through the opening.

It was just as cold inside as out. The library contained six floors, if he recalled correctly. It had been a while since he was contracted as extra help in painting the interior of the building, but he had worked there for close to two months. Gus regarded a wall of green metal drawers. A co-worker had once informed him that they contained very rare and valuable microfiche. Numerous booths with viewers filled the room as well, but he moved past them to go through the open door on the other side of the room. Creeping down the hall, he peered around a corner and saw the door with a single horizontal bar. He figured that exit led outside to the landing. In the other direction, the corridor darkened, with one distant wall made out of glass. Placing the butt of the Benelli against his shoulder, he slinked toward the glass wall. He turned right, following the direction of the hallway, and saw rows of empty computer terminals just beyond the glass partition. A moment later, he came upon a door with a sign designating the room as the student computer lab. Gus didn’t see anything of use inside, so he focused ahead on the deepening dark. The snow wasn’t squeaking underfoot anymore, but the gloom still played with his fears of things unseen and nubs of rotting teeth eager for meat.

Gus crept further down the hall until he came to a beige doorway. He cracked it open and saw shelves of books draped in near blackness. A whiff of aging paper accosted him. Turning his attention back to the hall, he proceeded to a stairwell that went down another level as well as up several. Leaning over the metal railing, Gus saw a rash of daylight from above. Pointing his shotgun ahead, he moved toward it.

He stopped at what he remembered to be the main floor. He edged out of the stairwell into a room with sparse lighting coming from the far wall of windows. Long bookshelves divided the level into aisles, while in some of the more open sections, broad tables with books still on their surfaces cluttered the floor. Chairs covered in cheap vinyl faced the wall of windows, giving students a beautiful view of the university grounds. Gus stopped and stared out the window for a moment, seeing his truck two stories below. Beyond that, snowy trees lined the main road. The scene looked like a frozen oil painting. He listened, but heard nothing. The place seemed deserted.

It would be easy to find out if it wasn’t. One yell was all it took to bring the dead out to investigate. However, he wasn’t ready for a full-blown hunt. Not yet. But soon.

Pulling back from the window, Gus skulked toward where he remembered seeing encyclopaedias. Whether he could find anything of use in those books, he didn’t know, but they were a good place to start. Moving past empty tables and chairs and feeling as if ghosts might inhabit the place, Gus entered the main entryway to the library and the front checkout desks. Offices were behind a long brown counter cut with slots for designated book drop sites. A dead elevator lay to his right, as well as another bank of computer terminals, but then he found the books he wanted.

He went looking for the volume with the letter ‘P’ on it. He pulled it from the shelf and took it to a nearby table. The paper smelled old, the scent hitting him in the face as he went through the pages.

Painkillers. Also known as analgesics. Gus smiled. Was it time for him to have some luck after all? He started reading the entry and soon found opiates, as well as an explanation for codeine. Codeine, Percocet, and Tramadol jumped out at him. Those names were enough for him. Gus regarded the heavy, cumbersome book. He tore out the page, the ripping noise cutting through the silence of the library loud enough to make him freeze. Tension-filled seconds passed while he waited to see if anything would appear, but nothing did. Not wanting to waste any more time, he stuffed the paper inside his coat and left the book open on the table.

Mission completed. He’d be lucky indeed if that drugstore he’d seen on the way in had any of what was on the page.

He moved past the front checkout counters and back into the main area.

He heard a squeak.

Gus brought up the Benelli and looked around, searching the spaces between the shelves.

Another squeak. Longer this time. Definitely movement.

And unquestionably behind him.

Gus turned around and looked at the doorway he’d just come through. The squeaking came from beyond, like a wheel that had grown cranky with rust.

When the cause of the noise came into view, Gus’s jaw dropped.

6

The guy had died in perhaps the strangest position. The zombie, dressed in a shirt and pants, had crawled into the lower part of a book cart. Its legs trailed behind, at least, the ribbons of its pants legs did, shredded and dragging like filthy streamers. It pulled itself along in the cart, no more than three inches off the floor, black fingers clawing into anything that would give enough purchase. The eyes of the deadhead were milky cataracts, and its lips drew back in a permanent grimace. The thing reminded Gus of an ancient sea turtle, flippers working to pull its weight forward.

The squeaking continued, shrill and grating, like an old man whistling through ill-fitting dentures. It rolled toward Gus, keeping its eyes on him as if to mesmerize him. Gus wondered for a moment how to dispatch the thing coming for him. He could see the opaque knobs of the corpse’s missing legs as they wobbled behind the cart. Poor bastard had to have been escaping something and crawled up into the lower shelf of the cart, then died there while something chewed off his legs. Or maybe it happened differently; Gus could think of a couple of ways things might’ve gone down for the man.

Gus placed his shotgun on a nearby table, drew the silenced Ruger, and took aim.

The dead fucker had closed the distance to where its black-tipped fingernails were only an inch from the toes of Gus’s boots.

He shot the thing through the top of the head, stopping it dead on its wheels. The spent cartridge bounced with a tinkle on the tiles. The thing’s arms flopped to the floor, and for a moment, Gus simply stood and studied the zombie. He’d seen so many of the dead come back to life that they all seemed mundane, but this zombie was something new. That it had managed to worm itself onto the cart made it different.

The sound of the shot hung on the air for just a second and he waited, listening. Nothing else approached, so he shoved the gun back down his boot and picked up the shotgun.

Then he heard it.

Moaning came from the direction of the stairwell, ghostly and ringing in the shaft like macabre dinner bells. Somewhere in the aisles, books crashed to the floor, startling him. He started for the stairwell, hunched over so that he could peer between the shelves. Shadows lurched over the uneven tops of books, making him wonder from which direction the corpses would emerge.

He rushed into the stairwell, all thoughts of stealth gone as the cries of the dead rang down from above. Leaning out over the railing and hazarding a peek upward, he glimpsed a collection of heads, shoulders, and torsos hanging over the railing. Zombies walked and stumbled down the stairs as if having one massive party. One hung precariously out over the railing and spotted Gus. Its hands came up, clutching, and its hiss of delighted discovery speared Gus’s heart. He bolted.

He took the steps two and three at a time, each impact making his knees sing out in pain. He reached the bottom of the well just as the zombie crashed to the floor and exploded on the concrete in front of him. Gus threw himself backwards and turned his head in pure reflex, but that vase-like shattering of a skull was hard to get out of his mind’s eye. He edged around the flopping form of the female corpse, squeamishly peeking at broken limbs in a widening pool of black.

Gus ran into the hall, hungry echoes tailing his boot heels.

The beige door he’d opened earlier thrummed with savage energy as he passed, shooting more adrenalin into his already overloaded system. The door stayed closed, but Gus increased his speed anyway. Beyond the glass wall of the computer lab, wraiths emerged from behind the dark lines of empty terminals, rising from their internet graves.

Gus turned into the home stretch.

He exploded through the outer door, letting it rebound hard on its hinges. He jumped down off the loading platform and raced to his truck. In seconds, he was behind the wheel. An instant later, the library shrank in his rearview mirror as he drove away. It disappeared when he made the turn onto the main road.

Lucky, he thought. So very lucky. And not a zombie on the road ahead.

Still too cold. Much too cold for the dead fucks.

Catching his breath, he focused on the next task on hand—checking out the drugstore. He hoped there weren’t any surprises waiting for him there. He doubted his nerves could take it.

A minute later, he parked in the middle of the street, right in front of the drugstore. Two quick swallows of Uncle Jack steadied his hands and rattled nerves. Studying the ravaged store front, Gus shook his head. It looked as if people had gutted this one, searching for goods. Still, luck was potentially on his side, so he got out, determined to take a look. The shop contained five aisles, all running perpendicular to the entrance. Gus walked along the front, checking each aisle. Most of the useful items had been taken from the shelves. He’d already been in the store about a year and a half ago, and hadn’t found much then either. Even the toothbrushes had been snatched. In the rear, a raised counter for prescription drugs lay partially obscured by darkness. The weaker drugs had been taken, but the stronger stuff—prescription-grade medications—might still be behind that counter. Debris covered the floor—torn paper, packaging, and various other half-crushed items. The smell of sour milk and something else he couldn’t quite place lingered on the air, despite the smashed window.

“Hey,” he called. “Any dead bastards in here?”

No answer.

He kicked at some garbage littering the floor and wished for a flashlight. Confident the place was indeed empty, he moved down an aisle, spotting shredded magazines, empty pop bottles, candy wrappers, and other items that made him think that whoever the hell had been through could’ve used more goddamn sense when shopping.

He found the waist-high gate to the prescription drug area and eased it open. The hinges squealed, making him pause. When no zombies popped out, he went behind the counter and let his breath out in a hiss.

“Can’t see shit.” He started sifting through the boxes and bottles still on the shelves. He brought several containers up to his eyes, reading what he could off the label in the scant light, and put them back. Most of them had words on them he could barely pronounce. The search stretched into the better part of an hour, the chill stiffening his fingers and face. The wind picked up, the sound of it as chilling as any dead thing at times, and blew across the front of the drugstore, sending up cauls of white and slowly coating the pickup. Gus stopped every once and a while to peer out toward the street, ensuring nothing else was in the store but him.

He finally came across ten small boxes of a drug called Tramacet. Taking them all, he went back to the pickup and inspected the little boxes, comparing the information to the page he’d taken from the library. Each Tramacet tablet contained thirty-seven milligrams of tramadol hydrochloride as well as three hundred and thirty-five milligrams of acetaminophen. He read the usual dosage amount and consulted the page. All of the drugs seemed to have some sort of derivative of the original, and a good feeling about what he had blossomed inside of him.

Gus threw the first boxes into the truck and went back to scrounge for more. He found a total of twenty-two and, after loading them, celebrated the discovery by taking three more mouthfuls of whiskey. He turned so that his back took the brunt of the wind and took in the empty Main Street of Wolfville. If he thought hard enough, he could envision the place before the fall, with students populating the sidewalks and a long pulse of cars moving on the road.

Then, he remembered he was close to his old apartment. Just behind the main drag lay Front Street, where he had rented a small two-bedroom apartment. He studied the afternoon sky and figured he had time for a little nostalgia. He drove to a side road and made the turn toward the bay. He made another turn and proceeded slowly until he stopped alongside his old apartment, which was on the bottom floor of a two-story house. The building didn’t look any better than when he had lived there. Sky-blue paint colored the house, and a satiny green lined the trim. The front door going into his place was wide open, only kept in place by a small dune of snow. He could see directly inside so didn’t feel a need to enter. Pleasant memories formed in his mind, of apartment parties raging out of hand and cheap, all-night poker matches where the pots never got any higher than ten dollars. He even remembered a time when he’d held Tammy’s head up by her ponytail while she puked into a garbage can outside of the apartment.

Gus’s attention centered on the nearby shed. The lock was busted. A snowmobile had been stowed there at one point in time, owned by Chris Russell, his landlord.

Putting the truck in gear, he inched the truck ahead and turned it around until its rear faced the shed doors. Gus got out with his shotgun, looking down the street for any zombies, and went to the shed. He widened the crack of the doors and peeked into the gloom.

The snow machine was still there.

Gus wasn’t much for snowmobiles, as he had never been able to afford to maintain one. But things were different. In fact, a machine like the one before him was just what he needed. It was a Yamaha, a large red monster built for racing. A high fiberglass windshield provided protection for the driver, and saddle bags hung from a heavily padded backrest that gave support for an extra passenger. A set of red handlebar muffs were fastened to the handlebars, to keep the driver’s hands warm while steering the machine. He stood there for a moment, simply admiring the vehicle for what it was. A moment later he spotted two planks that would allow him to drive the machine right up into the rear of the truck, so transporting it back to the house wouldn’t be a problem.

He liked the idea, but felt a moment’s disappointment when he couldn’t find the keys. Russell’s apartment was just above his own, and Gus remembered a key rack hanging just inside the doorway. Glancing around, he crossed the yard and climbed the steps to the second-story apartment. He hesitated at the closed door before trying the knob. The door opened with a tug and a frosty crack.

Stepping into the entry area and kitchen of Russell’s place, Gus saw that no one had been living there for a long time. Hanging on a peg beside the stove was a set of keys. It was almost too good to be true. A smile spread across his face as he took the keys. Something bad was going to happen. Had to. The morning was going too well. He left the apartment and closed the door behind. Returning to the snowmobile, he inserted the key and pushed the electric start button. He hoped the motor would start. Battery longevity in all machines had been greatly improved up over the years, engineered to start under the most extreme conditions or after years of inactivity. Fuel quality had also been improved upon, and gas was laced with a chemical additive that maintained octane levels for extraordinarily long periods. Still, despite advancements in engine and fuel technology, some engines refused to start.

Like a monster waking, it rumbled to life.

With cold fingers, he threw the shed doors the rest of the way open and got the planks in place to drive the machine up into the bed of the pickup. He mounted the snowmobile, squeezed the throttle, and eased it up the makeshift ramp. A near-perfect fit.

He got down from the back of the truck and stowed the planks beside the snowmobile. He took another glance inside the shed and spotted a gas container. He grabbed it and gave it a shake. Not much, but some gas sloshed, so he tossed it into the back of the truck with the snowmobile.

Gus took one last look around, didn’t see anything else he needed, and walked back into the street. Daylight seemed to have dimmed, and the snow was noticeably thicker. He regarded his old apartment one final time, saving the image in his mind, before getting aboard the pickup.

7

For the next few days, Gus stayed home, comfortably medicated. The Tramacet did the trick, staving off the greater portion of the pain while the booze kept him comfortably high. He was sure there was something wrong in taking the painkillers with the booze, so he spaced it out as much as he could, and only took the pills with water. The booze he drank straight, not even bothering with a mix anymore. What was the point? He drank because he enjoyed it, because it took the edge off, and a shitload of other reasons he couldn’t articulate. At some point in time, when his senses were swimming and his limbs felt like slabs of rubber, he realized he didn’t have to explain himself to anyone, so he drank even more.

Several mornings, he threw up in the bathroom bucket, heaving his guts out, waiting for the time when he would see blood in his vomit. Somehow, he finished the repairs on the house, kept an eye on the solar panels and batteries, and patrolled the grounds with the Benelli tucked in under one arm, as vigilant as he could be while half-drunk. The solar panels remained a mystery and a wonder, and he dreaded the day they ever stopped working. The snow continued to fall in great lazy clumps, and the days when it stopped, the clouds appeared as if they were merely gathering up wind for the next onslaught. Thus far, no more zombies had made it up the mountain and approached the wall, and the remaining dead scattered outside were buried in snow.

As time marched on, his face slowly healed. When he could stomach looking in a mirror, the progression was easy to see. The cuts healed into scars that lashed his features, as if he’d fallen sideways, face-down onto a hot grill. The once-brilliant purple explosions underneath his flesh had slowly receded and disappeared. His cheek still ached, but only as long as it took for him to down a couple of Tramacet tablets. His gums evaded infection, although there were a few mornings when he spat pus into the sink. The mouthwash helped clean it up, leaving him with the sense of having dodged one serious bullet. He wondered if the holes where the teeth had been would ever completely heal. Not that it mattered. His diet consisted of canned vegetables, stews, pasta, and dry noodles, and he cut any larger bits into smaller pieces. The stores in his basement were fine, and at the pace he was going, he figured he had enough food for a year, as long as it didn’t spoil in the cans. After that, the old problem came back. There wasn’t any fresh food anymore, and he still hadn’t figured out a way to grow his own. It was a problem he had to get on in the spring. There were old apple orchards and farms in other parts of the valley, and those places would be a good place to start looking for wild growing produce.

Other than drinking and watching old movies, reading continued to be his sole entertainment. He read steampunk and fantasy paperbacks from authors like Jason G. Anderson, Eric Zawadzki, Jason E. Thummel, and Katrina Anne Jack, even some zombie fiction from Brian J. Jarrett. He read until he passed out, and when he awoke, usually to the sound of winds battering the house, he’d shiver, have a mouthful of rye, and forage for something to eat. The movies he watched were from all genres, but he grew increasingly fonder of the old George Romero flicks. There was a style about them that he enjoyed. The newer zombie action movies were fine, and he continued making a study of them, vowing not to do the idiotic actions some of the characters did when faced with undead hordes.

One evening, with the day darkening like the door being slowly shut on a frozen wasteland, Gus walked out to the wall and climbed the one ladder he’d left out there. He gazed over the top, a lone sentry on the battlements, and wondered when the next attack would happen, and if he would be awake when it did. The mob that had breached the compound wall made him think about what to do if it happened again. They’d been a stern test of his defenses, and he wasn’t entirely happy with the results. The nail-studded boards were hidden underneath the snow, causing Gus to avoid walking anywhere off the beaten road. He couldn’t complete his trench like he wanted to, delaying that particular project until the spring when the ground thawed. Giving Scott enough ammunition to protect himself had halved his store of shotgun shells, and after the assault on his walls, his ammunition supply had become even lower. He couldn’t afford to blast away another couple of hundred deadheads. Explosives came into his head, although he didn’t know where to get them or how to handle them if he did. There was a national armory in Halifax, but in his daily semi-plastered state, he didn’t want to risk the drive. Chances were that anyone who did know how to handle explosives had probably already raided the storage facility. He thought of Scott again and wondered how the young man was faring. He’d been gone for three weeks, and Gus missed their banter. He then switched back to the state of his defenses and how to improve them.

Then, it came to him. Molotov cocktails. He’d already made a few, but the idea of making more appealed to him. The fire bombs would be just the thing, and they also gave him reason to drink more. He had plenty of empties around the house. The only thing he had to do was get the gas, plug the bottles with cloth, and stockpile them. The more he thought about it, the more he liked the idea of watching the dead walk until they were ashes.

The next day, he started producing firebombs. In the garage, he set up a funnel and gas container, made a line of empty whisky and rum bottles, and filled them in assembly line fashion, pausing only to take away full bottles and replace them with empty ones. After three dozen of them, he plopped down at a work bench and formed a secondary line. He sliced T-shirts into shreds with his Bowie knife and stuffed the strips into the bottle necks. The work made him feel quite pleasant, and occasionally, he would take a short break and reflect on his progress with a few straight shots from a bottle of vodka. Vodka was his choice of a morning drink, thinking it was time to put a dent in the stores of booze brands he hadn’t even touched yet, stashed away like an alcoholic squirrel.

At one point he got up to stretch and listen to the garage and the house, hearing nothing but the slow dissolve of time. He turned to the captain, the same empty rum bottle he’d kept with him about the house, and stared at the foppish sailor. Next to him were about a dozen other rum bottles, each with their own sailors on the front, all standing at attention, brimming with gasoline, and ready for action.

“You’re in charge of those assholes. Got it?”

The captain smiled.

“I mean it. If I ever have to throw them over the wall, you gotta be on them and make sure they burn. And I mean burn in fuckin’ spectacular fashion. Light up some undead asses.”

I’ll take care of it. You can depend on my boys. My marines.

“Good.” Gus nodded. “I knew I could. Sorry to be a hard ass all the time.”

Then for no reason, Gus got to giggling. How the hell could the captain keep such a grin on his face for so long? That had to hurt.

What about Roxanne and her gang?

The question killed his giggles and Gus had to think for a moment before answering. “Come springtime, when the snow goes away, I’ll see what’s what. If the bodies are still there, I’ll burn them again. If not, maybe I can wheel some dirt to the edge and dump it over. Cover them up. They not goin’ anywhere at the base of the cliff.”

How are you doing with, you know, Roxanne?

“Don’t go there, okay?” Gus slurred, feeling the vodka do its three-punch magic. “Bitch almost killed me. Her buddies fucked up my doors. And you saw what they did to Uncle Jack. You were next to him. Exploded his ass. Right there in the kitchen. I mean, Christ almighty, you try to be friendly and look what it brings you.”

The captain agreed. That made Gus feel better. Whatever he might have felt for Roxanne had rotted in him, turned bad, and was presently marinating in hate. Thinking on how she had deceived him, he wished he had shot her a third time. The memory left a bad taste in his mouth, and he reached for the vodka to wash it away.

“Nasty shit,” he hissed and regarded the bottle at arms’ length. He placed it back down and looked at the captain. The old sailor was the only friend he had in the world, and the memory of Uncle Jack being shot jarred something in him.

“Y’know,” Gus said, picking up the bottle and wiping off the label with his fingers. “I think it’s time to get you into some body armor. How ‘bout that? Hm? You’re as vulnerable as a baby’s bare ass.”

Suppose it wouldn’t hurt.

Gus was glad that the sailor approved. He got out a roll of duct tape and covered every inch of the bottle, with the exception of the decal of the smiling captain. He applied two thick layers and molded them to the contours of the glass. Once finished, he inspected his work, gave it a slap, and nodded at the officer.

The captain nodded back, pleased with the new protection.

*

Needing to replenish his gas supplies, Gus decided to head down to the highway to pop some tanks one morning in mid-January. He remembered the Western Oil storage facility on the other end of the city, but there wasn’t any way to channel the contents of the tanks. In the end, it was simply easier to get what he needed from the cars. He suited up, opting to leave his helmet behind again, and went about gathering the items he’d need. A minute later, he was at the gate. His ribs still bothered him, and although the regular doses of Tramacet—boosted by regular shots of rum, whiskey, and vodka—cut away a lot of the discomfort, he suspected he had to be careful when doing anything heavy. He got the first timber down with a grunt, placed a hand against his ribs, and took short shallow breaths. The pain sparkled dully, and even just turning made him ache.

“Fuck,” he grumbled and sized up the remaining four thick pieces of wood bracing the gate. “Fuck.”

Put your back into it! He heard the captain call out from the cab of the pickup.

Gus rolled his eyes. All he needed was a gay illustration on the front of an empty booze bottle telling him what to do. He backed up, then looked down briefly and realized the snow was up to his ankles. Grimacing, held his side and stepped back from the gate. His breath floated before him, and he imagined with his scars and missing teeth, he probably looked like a fright. Taking a breath and preparing himself for the pull, he got his hands around the next beam. He intended on doing a one-two count, but even the practice pull sucked the strength from him.

“Fuck again.” He decided then that he wouldn’t be going anywhere in his condition, not until his ribs healed.

“You got me,” he whispered and shook his head. Still holding his side, he turned around and looked at the house in all of its frosty glory. The sun seemed to have taken off, leaving clouds hanging miserably in the sky. Gus squinted at them. They were dark. Medieval dark.

The wind picked up, as cutting as jagged glass against his bare skin. He dismissed the gate with a wave of his hand and got back aboard the pickup. Even as he closed the door to the vehicle, flakes splatted against the windshield with a fury that made him pause. The captain, in the passenger seat beside a half-empty bottle of vodka, smirked.

Something’s coming.

“Yeah,” Gus agreed, sizing up the snow. “I think you’re right. Somethin’s comin’ down the pipe.”

He turned the truck around and parked it in the garage, next to the van. He’d already parked the snowmobile in front of the beast, making the garage seem fuller than usual. There would be no harvesting of gas that day and, by the looks of it, perhaps not for a while. Gus lowered the garage door. The wind snarled savagely against the windows, making the entire frame rattle.

“Jesus,” Gus muttered, peering out at the snow. He hoped the solar panel for heating the house would function. It had last winter, during the fiercest of storms. There was the fireplace in the living room, but he didn’t have any wood chopped for it. At worst, he’d have to throw extra blankets on the bed, get shitfaced, and crawl in under it all for the night to ride it out.

Get shitfaced. Get medicated. He had to admit the idea had a nice ring to it. Losing interest in the gathering tempest outside, Gus made his way deeper into the house.

Isolation, he knew, could fuck a person up. He just didn’t believe it could happen to him. But since the shoot-out—more precisely, after Scott and Roxanne were gone—he had felt as if his sanity was slowly coming apart, like a jigsaw puzzle, one crusty piece at a time. He wasn’t sure if it was the constant boozing, the drugs, the solitude, or even the lack of sunshine that had started to warp his reality. Maybe it was the conversations with the empty, duct-taped bottle of rum. That sure as hell couldn’t be helping his frame of mind.

But when the captain had started talking back, and Gus wasn’t sure it was himself doing the talking—a displaced part of his own subconscious fabricating and giving the bottle a personae—he knew, really knew, he might have a problem. He’d have to watch himself.

And the bottle.

*

January rolled out like a huge creaking snowball, the kind you would do to construct a fort of historical proportions. Snow fell on and off, the sky throwing down more than Gus ever thought possible. The winter before had been mild in comparison to the frozen hell being wrought outside the house. Twice, he went outside and cleared off the panels, and once even dared fate by climbing a ladder to the roof, thirty feet above ground, and cleared off the panels up there with wide, shaky swishes of an arm. Monstrous drifts filled the yard, as if ancient ice serpents had lain down inside the walls and wrapped themselves around the house. Gus realized he was using the word monstrous to describe a lot of things. Worse, the captain seemed to take a liking to the word as well. With a woolly toque on his head, he patrolled the estate with weapons ready, stopping and vigilantly watching the lay of the land beyond the wall. He monitored the rise of any monstrous snowdrifts that might take away the defensive advantage the outer barrier once had.

No gimps approached, making Gus feel both disappointed and relieved. He had to admit, some mornings just seemed to start better by blowing away a zombie.

Using ladders to get over the wall, he shoveled snow on the other side, taking frequent rests and refraining from overexerting himself. His ribs were healing. He could take slightly deeper breaths without feeling that stretch of paralyzing agony.

His nose had healed up, but remained somewhat off kilter. Not that it bothered him too much. The pain was gone, but he had something of a whistle, especially at night when he breathed through his nose. His unruly beard framed his toothless grin and grillwork scars like black and silver moss. The hair on the sides of his head was growing out, too, but he couldn’t be bothering with cutting it.

It gives you character, the captain told him.

“Fuck off,” Gus flatly informed the old sailor.

For the month of February, the Christmas tree stayed up and made merry. He didn’t want to take the thing down, and since he was the only guy around—no offense to the captain, he pointed out—he left the tree where it was, casting that part of the living room in a soft multi-colored glow just right for getting sloshed.

When he went outside, he kept the solar panels cleared, shoveling snow when he could. He continued to heal. His face and mouth no longer stung when he ate, and toward the end of the month, he found that he could take deep breaths and twist his upper body to the left and right without crumpling to his knees. He worked a little longer each day. He opened the gates and dug his way through the packed snow, creating a single corridor just wide enough to get the truck through. It took him three days to dig himself out, creating trenches in the snow.

And every so often, he would stand on his deck and take in the silent husk of the city.

One late evening, Gus bent over the kitchen island with the Benelli’s and Ruger’s guts exposed. After several attempts of trial and error and puzzling over the slide and takedown levers, he managed to take the pistol apart, brush it clean, apply a little lube, and reassemble the weapon. He squeezed the trigger in a dry fire test and was rewarded with a satisfying click. He worked the slide a couple of times more, squeezing the trigger until he was confident the gun was in working order. Then, he went to work on the Benelli.

You seem to really enjoy fingering those guns, the captain commented.

“Fuck off.”

The old sailor lapsed into silence.

When he finished his weapons and magazines, Gus left them on the island and wandered into his living room, carrying the captain by his neck. Beyond the window, the valley appeared as a black void framed in the dark material of the curtains. Gus left the curtains open most days, as if daring anything down in the city to do something about it. Nothing did. He suspected that the corpses down there were probably too frozen to do anything.

And he liked that.

“You know what day tomorrow is?” he asked the captain.

Don’t know. What?

Gus thought about the last few weeks, the building pressure he wasn’t sure was an acute case of cabin fever, along with all the other stuff he was feeling. Sure, he was having conversations with an empty, duct-taped booze bottle, but he was pretty much healed physically, healed enough to feel confident about doing something he badly wanted… no, needed to do.

“Start of fuckin’ hunting season,” he said.

The old sailor didn’t say anything for a moment. Then, Gus could have sworn the smile on the old officer stretched just a little wider.

The captain approved.

*

The next morning, Gus opened his locker and took three swallows of Canadian Club. Then, he suited up for safari.

He pulled on the Nomex pants and coat and slapped the hard plastic elbow pads and knee pads into place. He got into his neck brace and pulled on his ninja mask and motorcycle helmet without any pain. Viewing the world through the black visor relaxed him to no end. Nothing felt so very right at that moment than wearing his armor.

He tucked away his weapons and opened the garage door. A blast of frigid air filled the garage, and Gus basked in the pearly glare of the morning. The sun greeted him, finally showing its face after what seemed a very long time. The path he had cleared to the gate beckoned. Gus paused, thinking. He considered the beast and the truck parked next to it. The beast was out of the question. The truck with its four-wheel drive would be better suited.

However…

Gus studied the snowmobile and felt the smirk on his face spread.

*

The sheath for his bat had enough room for the Benelli, and he had placed four boxes of shells in one of the snowmobile’s saddlebags. A filled bandolier crossed the sheath’s strap, making an X on his chest. He even packed a lunch—a can of spaghetti with a bottle of water and a bottle of rum. Once all was in place, he got aboard the machine, inserted the key, and pushed the electric start. The machine grumbled to life, green and silver lighting up a speedometer and other instrument dials. Gus studied the illuminated panel and got a whiff of exhaust from the red creature. It smelled nice. Old fashioned somehow.

“You and me,” Gus spoke to it, “are gonna have a lot of fun.”

The snowmobile growled back.

“Fuckin’ A.” Gus squeezed the throttle.

The machine jumped from the garage, and he immediately had to brake. The controls were simple, but getting used to controlling the vehicle was another matter. Gus didn’t worry about it. After being holed up in his house for almost two months, he just wanted to get out there and do something other than watch movies, read, and shovel snow. The machine roared through the gates, jostling him in the seat even though the shocks absorbed most of the impact. Gus could tell Russell had paid top dollar for the rig. As the snowmobile rumbled over the buried road, he knew he had chosen correctly in taking the smaller vehicle. Snow smothered the mountain road and bordered the edges all the way down to the highway.

Gus slowed and turned onto the main road, looking around, awed at the extent of what the winter storms had done. Snow covered everything in a knobby white blanket that sparkled in the sun. He weaved in and around cars with only the upper parts of their roofs visible. Sahara-like dunes rose like finely sculpted waves about to crash. In places, he rode high before dropping into dangerous dips. The road was too bumpy for a smooth ride, and it would take a few runs to flatten everything. Or another snowfall to fill in the hollows.

It took him an hour to get into town. He felt the cold in his limbs. He also had a slight ache in his arms from steering and in his lower back from riding out the dunes. On the main street, storefronts and houses had been buried to the point that Gus felt he was driving down a ceramic half-pipe.

He continued until he came to one of the parking lots of the shopping mall in New Minas. Once there, he moved off the road and circled the area several times before coming to a stop on a bed of snow perhaps three feet deep. He stood up on the machine and gazed around, spotting the tops of several trucks and SUVs. The sun reflected off some of the roofs that weren’t covered.

Gus killed the engine and dismounted.

He pulled the aluminum bat from its sheath and flexed his fingers over it.

“I’m back, fuckers.” He waded through the snow and smashed out the windshield of a nearby truck. The sound echoed over the desolate expanse, but attracted no attention. He laid into it again, his knees level with the hood of the truck as he punished the body of the vehicle, making considerable noise.

After a minute he stopped, quietly admitting that he needed to get back into shape.

He took off his helmet and screamed, roaring obscenities every bit as cold as the air on his gloveless fingers, until he could shout no more.

“They’ve fuckin’ gone deaf,” Gus said. He climbed onto the roof of the pickup and looked about.

There.

Crawling from the entranceway of the mall, a single figure came his way. It struggled in the snow, fell over, got back to its feet, and continued.

Gus almost felt bad for the thing.

Four more followed it. Apparently, the front door to the building was either smashed out or somehow wedged open. They walked unsteadily across the parking lot, black on glittering white, totally out of place in the daylight. He could hear them as they got closer. They came at him with hissing glee.

Then, he could smell them. Foul, decomposing juices, ripe and half frozen, percolated throughout the dead flesh, emanating a putrid odor that only got stronger. Before the world went into hell’s handbasket, the smell reminded him of old, raw waste disposal sites, open and festering like rotting meat in the sun. Even in the frigid open air, the smell assaulted his nose and eyes, repulsing him to the point where he took one deep breath and held it.

Like long-lost relatives wanting a hug, they shambled toward Gus. Some of them kicked up snow with bare feet. He thought about the shotgun for a moment, but eventually settled on simply bashing in their faces.

The lead zombie got to within ten feet of him, moving much slower in the cold. It was a mall janitor wearing a white T-shirt under an orange vest. It looked like an ordinary dead person, except the thing’s eyes appeared to have been plucked from its head. Gus felt a pang of sympathy and revulsion as it got closer. How he’d ever been scared of the things for so long was beyond him.

Winding up, he bashed in the monster’s face. The clayish crack of its skull speared the air, and the deadhead fell over onto its back, shivering as if finally realizing how frightfully cold it was outside. Gus smashed it twice more before it stopped moving. Black blood spurted. He finished the job in time to meet the next one.

A teenage boy dressed in blue jeans and a brown wreck of a leather coat reached for him. Gus pivoted at the hips when he swung, taking off the zombie’s head and startling the hell out of himself. The body collapsed to the ground, and Gus smashed the nearby head. Crushing a head in snow, Gus discovered, was a lot harder than he would have thought. The rotten skull sank when hit, requiring a few strikes before he could finally finish the job.

“Two,” Gus counted, preparing for the next Dee coming within range. With a huff, he cracked the bat across a salesman’s jaw, driving it to the right and causing it to sag to its knees. An over-the-head strike killed it. Then came a restaurant server. It hissed, exposing a black cave of a mouth. The bat took the thing across the face and sent it stumbling to the left. He casually evaded the final zombie until he dispatched the server with another over-the-top swing.

With only one remaining, Gus faced the final corpse.

It had been a woman, dressed for the summer in short shorts and a tank top with the frilly edges of a soiled bra peeking out. The dark hair was stringy and black, as if washed in motor oil, while its sloughed midriff sported a puncture wound that looked big and ghastly enough to stick his hand into. The creature shuffled toward him, its features hanging and pitiful, dead marble eyes hinting at an agony endured with each step.

Gus changed targets at the last second and smashed out the creature’s knee.

The zombie felt over, bone punching through the decomposed skin. Its hissing face came up from the snow. Gus killed it with one heavy blow. Breathing hard, he pulled the bat out of the dead thing’s head and grimaced at the crater he’d made. Brains. He could see the off-white brains. Movement caught his attention, and he leaned over to look closer. Horror bloomed in him as he spied the little things that moved within the brain matter.

Worms.

That image straightened him up and made him look away. That was the last thing he needed to see, but he saw it nonetheless, and he knew he’d be drinking later to cleanse his memory and to ward off nightmares. Gus stepped to the snowmobile and threw open the saddle bag containing the booze. Rum. He needed rum. His hands shivered, and he hoped it was because of the cold. Just a swallow. He snapped up his visor and clawed at the saddlebag’s contents. He opened the bottle and took four mouthfuls, snarling at the last shot and realizing darkly he hadn’t meant to drink so much. But it tasted so good.

Standing on the bright expanse of the parking lot, Gus took a moment to gaze around, swirling his bottle and making the amber liquid within slosh. Five. He’d put down five undead. A good start, but he wanted more.

He started the snowmobile and drove deeper into Annapolis, hunting for the dead that had hunted him for the last two years. He scoured the streets filled with snow. Noise attracted the dead shits, so he burned through the avenues and side streets three or four times, hoping the roar of the machine would bring them into the open. He sped through the main drags, weaving in and around abandoned cars and trucks, the engine growling loud enough to wake… well, the dead. If he reached an area too choked with vehicles, he turned around and retraced his path, moving even faster, laughing out loud and feeling good for the first time in a long time.

Nothing came for him. Nothing attacked.

The sun approached its zenith overhead, and Gus grew impatient. An idea popped into his head, and he quickly altered course, heading back to the Home Hardware superstore where he had picked up the building supplies and the Christmas lights. After having driven for a couple of hours and getting a feel for the handling, Gus felt confident enough to whip the machine around in a doughnut, stopping only a dozen strides from the opening of the store.

Swearing loudly and hooting, he got off the machine and adjusted his gear. All set, he marched into the store with bat at the ready. He rooted around in the dark aisles, wishing he’d had the foresight to bring a flashlight until he finally located one with a working battery. It was a long watchman’s light coated in rubber, the kind that could also double as a club if needed. Gus thumbed it on and continued his search.

Noise. He wanted to be noisy.

He found what he wanted.

He wanted the dead fuckers to know that he wasn’t about to stand down without raising some hell. That he was through being scared. That he was going on the offensive.

He emerged from the store and sounded the air horn, delighting in its heavy blare.

“That’s right, cocksuckers. The fuckin’ Loveboat just pulled into port.”

He blasted the horn again, his cheeks aching from the size of the grin on his face.

“Wooo!” Gus threw his arms wide and howled. He felt like a gladiator, ready to take on all comers. “All aboard!”

He went to the snowmobile and rummaged through the saddle bag once more. Finding the rum, he steeled himself with whatever was left. He finished the bottle with a ferocious yell and dumped the empty back into the bag, intending on converting it into a firebomb. Seeing as he was in town, he figured he’d scoot on over to the pop-shop and get some more beverages. He wanted more rum—or anything else—to keep his own motor running.

Gus, the self-proclaimed Loveboat, left the store and cruised toward sunnier ports of call, goosing the air of Annapolis with deep prodding toots of the new found horn.

8

He hunted.

The snowmobile’s thunder echoed harshly through the city of Annapolis, announcing the hunt in grunge fashion. The air horn blasted the already stirred-up stillness, causing the dead not fully frozen to move mindlessly toward the bleating sound. Just as Gus wanted them to do.

Feeling better than he had in a long time, Gus zipped along roadways, avoiding the close confines of snow-choked alleys and narrow streets. Sometimes the dead wandered directly into his path, causing him to steer around them. He would park a short distance away, dismount, and lay into the corpses with aluminium fury. Gus had no problem dodging near-skeletal hands or slow-moving limbs, bobbing and weaving through several deadheads with half-drunken grace. It was more than easy to dispatch the things. His counterattack became a massacre the likes he hadn’t seen since the initial outbreak of zombieness or the siege at his walls. His mind warned him of the creatures’ one weapon—mass attack—but the weather was his ally. Whatever evil powered the dead’s icy bodies into motion had been crippled by two months of sub-zero temperatures. For the first time in a very long time, the living had the edge over the dead.

Gus killed more than two hundred of the shambling creatures that day. Actually, he had lost count, but he believed that over two hundred was a fair estimation. He retreated to his home in the waning hours and celebrated modestly that night. He didn’t want to be so hungover that he was immobilized the next day, which would allow the dead a brief respite. He didn’t want them to regroup in any way, if such a thing were possible. The thrill of the hunt excited him, and he looked forward to heading down into the city.

The next day, Gus rose before dawn, got ready, and timed it such that he entered the expanse of Annapolis just as the sun broke free of the mountains. He raced up and down the streets, the snowmobile grinding forward like a warhorse. When the dead appeared, he put them down with his bat, never once having to resort to using ammunition, which he wanted to spare if possible.

After a morning of killing, he steered the snow machine into a fast food takeout that had snow piled up to its smashed-out picture windows. He parked the machine on a huge drift that ran through one corner of the restaurant, making an effective bridge from one window to the other. Dismounting his ride with a moan, Gus examined the interior of the restaurant. The place looked like a bomb had denoted under its roof. Most of the tables with their attached seating were almost filled in with snow, the walls were dented, and pictures were smashed. The large plastic menu hanging over the counter had its face shattered, and loose wiring and the broken light bulbs underneath lay bare. The kitchen area was draped in gloom. Gus walked over and kicked the checkout machine, sending it spinning away with a rattle.

No reaction from within.

Gus went back to the snowmobile and threw open the saddlebag with his lunch. Grabbing a can opener, he sat on the machine and worked the lid off the tin. A moment later, he removed his helmet and dug into his spaghetti and meatballs. He ate in silence, peering out at the cityscape and watching for movement. Halfway through the can, something warned him to look over his shoulder. He spotted a shadow against the dark inside the kitchen area.

The shadow walked unsteadily into the light, followed by half a dozen more—workers in their uniforms and as solemn as monks. He forked another mouthful of spaghetti into his mouth. The seven figures dragged their feet into the serving area and filled the area behind the long counter. Pasty arms sought purchase to haul their bodies up over the counter. Black skin tags and sores clustered around their mouths. Gus stopped chewing. How the hell could anyone eat with the likes of that staring at them?

He placed his lunch to one side, pulled the silenced Ruger from his boot, racked the slide, and took aim at the first takeout employee. One shot through the forehead and the corpse dropped to the counter with a hard slap. Gus looked around, checking his flanks. Seeing all was clear, he sniffed, and took up the gun in two handed fashion. Pewp-pewp-pewp. The shots threw the deadheads back against a counter filled with to-go containers and coffee machines. One of the remaining zombies stood up and moaned loudly enough that Gus thought the thing was about to beat its chest. He shot out its eye, and the body fell behind the counter. The remaining two gimps fell just as fast, each taking a bullet to the forehead and collapsing behind the counter.

Gus waited for more, but none appeared. Placing the Ruger on the seat, he finished his lunch. Once done, he tossed the can at a nearby trash bin and got it in on the first try.

He started the snow machine. Not liking the service at the takeout in the least, he vowed to never eat at the place again.

*

By the end of the day, Gus had killed at least another two hundred undead things. He returned home in a whorl of exhaust and blowing snow and got pleasantly buzzed.

But something troubled him.

“Something’s not right.” He directed the comment at the captain, who sat at the other end of the sofa, tucked between Gus’s feet and a cushion. The Christmas tree glowed at the other end of the living room, and Gus alternated between looking at its hypnotizing pixie lights and the duct-taped captain.

What?

Gus didn’t care if he was slipping into deep bat shit crazy by conversing with an empty bottle. He needed the company.

“I’ve put down a good many undead critters in the last two days, and I haven’t seen the mob that pinned Scott and me in the attic that one time. That was an army of ‘em. You know the ones I’m talkin’ ‘bout. Nowhere to be found. There ain’t many places for ‘em to hide, and there was a lot of ‘em. Too many of ‘em. I don’t even think a stadium could shelter ‘em all, and they’re… brainless. I mean, they ain’t goin’ ‘Holy shit it’s cold out. Jesus, it’s cold! My fuckin’ arms are dropping off here. We better get the hell inside!’” He shook his head.

And your question is?

“Well, where the hell are they?”

Maybe they’re still back at the cul de sac. They’re tidal. Maybe they didn’t get a chance to move before the cold took a dip.

“Hmm. You’re smart. For a bottle. I’ll get on it tomorrow. I’ll be takin’ out some of your boys for this one.”

Be careful. It ain’t small bunches you’re heading after here. You’re going after the mother lode. Remember what happened the last time. In fact, I don’t think you should hunt for them at all. It’s an army of undead, after all.

“Yeah? Well, I’m an army of one.” Gus smiled sleepily at the bottle. “Goddamn right, I am.”

The captain let that one go.

*

The captain’s idea—Gus gave credit where it was due—was solid, or so Gus thought. Zombies were tidal. There were stragglers, some groups even large enough to be considered packs, but the really big packs, the mobs, the hordes, drifted from place to place like kelp caught in a current. If one of them caught scent of something and started walking, alerting the rest, the entire swarm would follow. And if they found something, they might linger in the area for a bit, before being pulled in another direction.

Thus, as the captain pointed out, if Gus really wanted to wage war on the bastards, if he really wanted to kick them in the collective rotting balls, he had to go to the last place he had encountered them and simply make noise in that general area. If they were still there, they would answer.

The dead feared nothing.

And that would be their destruction.

The next day, Gus packed the saddlebags with another tin of spaghetti, a can opener, and eight Molotov cocktails, ready to roar.

You taking the Benelli?

Gus stopped pulling on his Nomex pants and frowned at the old sailor watching from the workbench. “What do you think?”

The captain didn’t have anything to say to that.

“Honestly, man, times like these, I remember you’re just a bottle with a face on it. ‘You taking the Benelli?’ Fuck a monkey, I’m takin’ the Benelli. I’d take a fuckin’ elephant gun down there if I had one. Or a sniper gun. That’d be cool. Can you imagine that, eh? Snipin’ gimps a mile out? Wouldn’t mind tryin’ that. That might be the safest way of doin’ things. By the way, you ain’t comin’ on this one. You get to stay home here. Watch the fort.”

Why?

“No room for an empty bottle on this trip. Only got room for eight of your marines as it is. Your boys ready?”

They’re ready. You’re taking my finest.

The captain’s finest. Or so he said. Gus could have made room for the duct-taped officer, but space was limited on the snow machine, and there was no way he was going to endanger his only companion by lugging him along. But he wasn’t going to flatter the bottle by telling him that.

Watch yourself out there.

“What are you? My mother?” Gus huffed in exasperation as he pulled on his helmet and batted down the visor.

Just wishing you well is all. No need to be snarky about it.

Gus realized the captain was right. He gave it a thumbs-up as apology and adjusted the X of bat sheath strap and full bandolier across his chest.

Finished with his preparations, he mounted the snowmobile and started the machine, filling the garage with the smell of exhaust.

“Love that smell,” Gus said, savoring it for a moment.

Give em hell out there, the captain said in a serious tone.

Gus regarded the bottle one last time. “You got it.”

And he was off.

An hour later, he drove through the car-filled streets of the city, heading to the cul de sac where he and Scott had been trapped by the undead. He didn’t know if they were all of the remaining dead, and they probably, most certainly, weren’t, but if he killed as many as he could, it would go a long way in making Annapolis safe. Zombie free. If such a thing was possible.

Not remembering the exact location of the cul de sac, he took a few wrong turns before finally coming upon what he believed was the right one. The house where he and Scott had taken refuge was at the end, smashed windows leering like a broken smile. Snow snaked up and over the picture windowsill, flowing into the living room. Gus stopped the machine, gazing at the place where he had hidden for three days. Or had it been four? The aftershock still muddled his memory.

Gus studied the cul de sac area, his machine resting on perhaps feet of packed snow. He stood up, rooted around in a saddle bag, and brought the air horn to bear. The blast ripped through the morning quiet and made him smile. It was almost too much fun. He squeezed off another couple of blasts, then waited. There were plenty of residential areas where he knew the corpses still roamed. If he couldn’t summon the dead there, he would check the other places.

Gus switched off the engine. In the abrupt choke and death of the motor, he inhaled, feeling nary an ache from his ribs. He studied some of the other wealthy-looking houses. He cleared his throat and listened.

The creaking of his seat.

Wind. Rising and falling, like the breath of a sleeping animal.

White ghosts blew across the front of some houses, misting their colors.

A gray arm punched through the surface of the hard-packed snow, startling him. Gray fingers clutched at air, then dipped and scratched at the snow. Another limb joined it, devoid of any fingers at all, a fleshy spade stabbing into the air, flexing. The subtle sound of shifting snow, a soft grainy hiss that might have been the hitching escape of air from a puncture tire, captured Gus’s attention. Other hands and arms burst into view, some extending from the icy surface just past the elbow, others appearing as twitching digits as long and frightening as spiders’ legs.

The snow near the first arm shook, bulged, and broke. A gray-black head struggled to free itself of the drift. It turned, and black cavities where eyes had once been captivated Gus for a moment, rooting him to the spot. The snow around the skull shivered, and another head rose near it, like a curdled knob in a vat of milk. Its jaws opened, and Gus knew if he were close enough, he’d hear the joints creak.

More figures fought free of the snow, working their way to the surface until the scene resembled something from a horror movie where the deceased occupants of a cemetery decided to rise for foul reasons. The mob he’d been seeking had come back to the cul de sac. In fact, they had evidently fallen and frozen in place. With the presence of nearby meat serving as a tantalizing stimulus, the dreadful power that animated them in the first place surged within their decomposing cores, powering them to extract their bodies from the deep snow.

The first zombie, grinning malevolently at Gus, dug itself out enough so that its upper body was visible. What was worse, however, was that three more heads appeared around the fractured snow of the zombie, sifting through it like creamy quicksand.

Christ almighty, Gus thought, as a fresh sliver of fear rammed through his core. They’re lying on each other under the snow.

Right below him.

Gus stabbed at the starter button of the snowmobile. He pulled the machine hard to the right, spinning out a circle and sending snow flying in his wake, running over lumps he knew weren’t snow. More zombies appeared in his tracks, coated in particles of ice and writhing stupidly. Some reached for him. One broke through the surface directly in front of the machine, and Gus bounced in the seat as he rolled over it, the bladed treads raking the flesh from the dead thing’s face in an instant and crushing the weakened skull a split second later. Gus held on, keeping control of the snowmobile, and charged for the throat of the cul de sac. All around him, zombies rose, moving like automatons in need of grease.

Gus gunned the engine, blasting for the entrance to the cul de sac. Limbs reached and flailed at him, but were bashed aside by the fiberglass snout of the machine. Wasted fingers slapped the windshield before spinning away behind him. Decomposed faces flashed by, all seeming so glad, so very glad, he had taken the time to find them. More figures stood on the edges of his vision, but Gus plowed through the mob, thinking only of escape.

With a high-pitched roar, the snowmobile shot up and over a low rise, escaping the cul de sac and speeding toward less zombie-populated areas. The idea of stopping and flinging a few Molotovs back at the mob occurred to him, but Gus decided against it. The firebombs needed a hard surface to break against, and the snow wouldn’t do it. Thick elms zipped by in his peripheral vision as he focused on the intersection ahead. It would be better to retreat a bit and watch—

A rope snapped up before him, pulled taut and dripping snow. Gus clenched the brake in reflex. He couldn’t stop in time. The rope snapped against and over the windshield and took him across the upper chest, yanking him from the seat. He landed explosively on his ass and the weapons strapped across his back. His head whipped back, but the helmet and hockey vest underneath the Nomex coat absorbed much of the impact. It did nothing to alleviate the burn across his upper biceps.

He heard the snowmobile crash into something, while the sounds of running feet punching through the icy surface of the snow grew louder.

Voices.

Then, someone was on him. Weight pinned his shoulders.

“Whooowheee gotcha you fucker!” a wild face preened in mad delight. Hands gripped him by the shoulders. “Gotcha. Ain’t no one told you this is a quiet neighbourhood? Huh? You stun sumabitch! Been listenin’ to your ass buzz all over town for the last couple of—”

While the man prattled on, no doubt believing his prey effectively stunned by the rope, Gus lifted his left leg and extracted his Bowie knife. Just as the word “of” left his lips, Gus stabbed him with whatever power he could summon. He curled his arm and stuck the knife into his attacker’s lower back, through the man’s parka, deep enough to take the wind out of his rant. The rough face morphed from joy to agonized shock. The would-be trapper rolled off, wrenching the steel from Gus’s grasp.

Gus got to his knees. He looked to his left and saw another attacker—a big brute armed with a bat. The new guy balked—no doubt every bit as surprised as the first trapper.

“You fucker!” the brute snarled.

Gus yanked his Ruger from his other boot. The appearance of the weapon made the bat wielder turn to run. Gus readied the weapon and shot the guy in the back, knocking the man forward in the snow. Gus got to his feet, and a split second later, someone else crashed into him from behind, driving him face forward into the snow. The pistol flew from his grasp. He rolled over, and a fist hammered the forehead of his helmet. Furious grunts punctured the air. Two fists crunched into Gus’s midsection, the impact dulled by the Nomex coat and hockey vest. He punched back, grazing a forehead hard enough to give his attacker pause, then bucked, throwing the man off of him. Gus scrambled to his feet, while his latest attacker did the same.

The young man, no more than twenty if a day out of his teens, was broad across the shoulders and dressed in dirty winter outer clothing. A ragged white parka hung off his frame, and his hands were gloveless. A fringe of red hair stuck out from under a black toque, giving him a Special Forces kind of look. The guy hunched over, holding the right side of his brow while bright blood made a stark contrast against the backdrop of snow.

“You cut me, you fucker,” the boy whined. “I’ll kill you.”

In answer, Gus groped for and hauled out his bat.

The youth’s eyes went wide.

To one side, the man Gus had knifed moaned, his life’s blood spurting out in alarming jets and slashing the snow. “Git him, Wilbur.”

Wilbur? Gus almost burst out laughing. He stepped back, mindful of the man he’d shot, who still lay face down in the snow. He didn’t see any others.

“I’ll git ‘im!” Wilbur bared his teeth. “I’ll git ‘im.”

He stalked Gus, mindful of the bat, and having nothing except his size going for him. That, and being pissed off. Gus knew from experience that being pissed off counted for a lot. Wilbur appeared as if nothing short of breaking his neck would satisfy him.

“Gonna fuck you up ‘til Tuesday,” Wilbur seethed, hands flexing, ready to grab at an opening. Blood seeped down one side of his face like war paint.

Gus raised the bat over his head like a sword. Wilbur watched it go up.

“Git ‘immm…” The man in the snow moaned, fainter now.

“I’ll git ‘im!” Wilbur promised.

Cletus, Gus’s mind added and giggles rumbled his frame.

But then Wilbur looked to his right, back the way Gus had come. Though he knew better, Gus made the same mistake.

The dead.

The dead were coming. Some shambled, and some crawled, all partially frozen, yet willing their bodies onward, toward the combat, where hot meat battled. They rose up from the distant dip in the road, like a gray tsunami of swinging, twisting limbs where no one shape was distinct from the other. A hissing, moaning, starving mob.

A mob that only wanted to bite.

“Jesus,” Wilbur hissed.

“Wilburrrr…” the stabbed man wailed, the words swallowed by the wind.

While Wilbur’s attention was on the approaching mob of dead things, Gus stepped forward and clobbered him across the shoulder. Wilbur somehow sensed the attack at the last possible moment and got his head out of the way. Still, the bat clipped the guy’s shoulder, and Wilbur yelped in pain. The boy jerked back, and Gus swung again. Missed. Screaming and holding his shoulder, Wilbur stumbled backward, and Gus whipped his bat across the boy’s knee, shattering it.

Wilbur dropped into the snow, screaming as if his testicles had been shorn off with a sander. Like Gus gave a shit. He kicked him across the jaw and hovered over the broken form of the youngster. He heard moans and wasn’t exactly certain if they came from Wilbur, the prick he had stabbed, or the advancing deadheads. The Dees were closer, easily filling the breadth of the road. Faces shriveled by the cold spotted the living. Dark mouths opened. Limbs reached and hands pointed at him.

Gus stomped over to the stabbed victim and jerked back the man’s head. “Who are you?”

“Whuua…?” The man’s eyes looked glazed.

“Who are you?”

“Uhhhhh.”

Gus ripped his knife out of the man’s lower back. The man sighed when the weapon came out, as if all would be fine. Gus wiped the blade on the back of the guy’s coat, then sheathed it. He turned to look for his snowmobile. Dead. Wrapped around a telephone pole. Gus felt as if he’d lost a friend.

“Christ.” He stomped back to where he’d lost his gun. The snow had been disturbed and his heart sank. He checked on the dead man, then Wilbur, and the one he’d stabbed. All where they should be. Gus moved around, thrusting his bare hands into the snow, hoping beyond hope he’d find the Ruger. He prodded ahead, feeling, touching, swearing at the three hillbillies. His fingers became raw and red with the cold. Gus was sure God was chuckling, probably laughing his holy ass off and lighting up the cosmos in the process.

He glanced up, up to his shoulders in snow.

The creeping dead were perhaps fifty feet away, stumbling, swaying, and heading right for him, swallowing up the space between them. The whispery sounds of their frayed vocal chords made the hair on his neck stand on end as if he’d been zapped.

Dig! he commanded himself, and he dug, rooting around in the snow and feeling nothing. Then, something… “Shit!” He brought up a crumpled aluminum can. He plunged his hands back into the flattened drifts.

Behind him, he heard a more human moan. Wilbur was coming around.

Gus got up and stomped his way over to the kid waking up in the snow. He took his bat and bashed the boy’s other knee, cracking it twice and making the youngster squeal in pain. Twenty, Gus had guessed Wilbur’s age earlier. He scoffed at the number. Wilbur wasn’t eighteen yet and this time, Gus had the feeling he got it right. He immobilized the youngster’s ass and he went back to looking for his gun. Wilbur’s agonized cries sawing at the air.

Forty feet. The dead seemed to be closing the distance faster.

Gus made fists, willing heat back into his fingers. He scuffed along and felt his toe connect with something under the snow. He dove on the spot and frantically cleared away the white, uncovering the black grip of the Ruger. He snapped up the weapon and pointed the gun at Wilbur—Jesus Christ, the boy probably wasn’t more than sixteen. The kid looked over the wrecks of his knees and begged Gus to pull the trigger with red eyes and a face smeared in blood. He told Gus to just shoot his ass dead and not to leave him to that.

Ignoring the pleas, Gus ran to his dead snowmobile.

“No, no, Christ almighty, no,” the boy screeched. The kid knew that a bullet, a precious bullet, was far superior to the fate bearing down on him.

Gus shook his head in sadness and frustration over the mess of the snowmobile. He flipped open a saddle bag and took out the can opener, the tin of spaghetti, and the boxes of shells. He opened the other bag and grimaced at the mess of glass shards. The bottles had all broken except—he grabbed the neck of the whole one and extracted it. One of the captain’s marines had made it—covered in gasoline, but intact.

“No! No! Sweet Jesus! Noooo!”

Gus turned.

Wilbur had dragged himself perhaps ten feet away from where Gus had crippled him. It was twenty feet too short. The zombie at the front of the pack reached out and touched Wilbur, the contact making the boy shriek and thrash like an eight-year-old. Gray hands fastened around Wilbur’s coat, and he turned to fight them off, throwing his fists at the wall standing right over him as if he were having a temper tantrum. Zombies crawled on top of him, and one corpse, with a movement that was utterly slow motion, sank his rack of teeth through the denim covering the boy’s right knee.

Gus thought Wilbur was wailing before. He was sadly mistaken.

Like a stack of cans falling over the shrieking figure, the tide veered and slowly covered the boy. Some bit, some clawed, but all got a piece of him. The dead shifted, piling on one another, reaching, clawing, trying for just a taste, just a taste goddammit, was that so much to ask? The moaning was loud enough to drive Gus just a little more insane. The smell of the dead, like rotting meat in the deepest part of a freezer, hit him and made him wince.

He turned away. The tearing of cloth rose over the moaning, followed by a searing screech of the still-living. Wilbur’s voice was muffled by the bodies still piling onto him.

Gus shoved the four boxes of shotgun shells into the inner folds of his coat. He stuffed the spaghetti in there as well. The Benelli was still slung over his back. He looked for the air horn, but didn’t see it. One more search of the machine and he turned to leave after picking up his bat. That nerve-splitting squeal of Wilbur’s turned into a wet, dying gurgle.

Then nothing.

9

Gus bolted for a nearby house, well aware of the mob’s undead tide-line oozing toward him.

Well, a voice chuckled all shucks-like in his head, you wanted to find them. Didn’t you?

Gus ran up the front steps of the nearest house and tried the door. Locked. He turned and cleared the front porch in one leap, landing in snow up to his knees. He almost lost his bat, but managed to maintain his grip on it. The next house was twenty feet away on the other side of a tall green barrier of evergreens. He pushed through them, snow sprinkling down and boughs clawing at him, and staggered to the front steps of the second house. Another locked door. Rattled the knob a second time.

Sweet monkey fuck!

It wasn’t a sprint, it was a marathon. The dead could only move so fast, and he hadn’t seen any runners. Still, Gus couldn’t quite fight the urge to just jet from the scene as fast as humanly possible.

He didn’t have time to test every door. He charged across a front lawn with small trees that probably were some sort of exotic hedge and pounded up the front steps of the third house. He gripped the knob and tried it. Locked.

He looked at the front window and, making a split-second decision, heaved himself through it.

He landed in a living room, flopping over a low bookcase in a glittering shower of glass and a crackling of wood. He stumbled to his feet and looked outside. He couldn’t see the mob, but he could hear it. Whirling, he made his way to the kitchen area, through a short hallway, and into a den, where he spotted a sliding door leading out to the backyard. Gus scrabbled at the lock of the door, almost ripping his fingernails off in his frenzy. He yanked open the door and plunged outside.

His jaw dropped.

The backyards of the houses in that neighborhood had no fences, and Gus had stumbled directly into the path of the zombie tide. Where he had zagged, hoping to throw them off, the mob had kept going straight, heedless of the houses in their path and moving around them as if they were rocks in a river.

Horrified, Gus turned and ran, snow flicking up from his boots as he tore across the landscape. The voices of the dead sounded like a full congregation in mindless worship. He panted as he pounded through deep drifts. He reached the street and crossed it with a gasp, shoulders heaving. Behind him, an embankment of corpses followed.

Gus forced himself to slow down, reminding himself that even jogging was faster than the frozen pursuit of the dead. Cars and pickups dotted the road and driveways, buried in snow to the point that he could spend hours digging them out. He decelerated to a hurried walk, plowing through the snow, feeling the weight of it grinding him down, wearing him out. How far away was he from his house on the mountain? Fifty kilometers? Forty? A twenty-minute drive at eighty would translate into how long treading through deep snow? A day? Two days? He wouldn’t make it. It would take a day to clear the city at least, and then another day to walk down the highway to his place.

The road arced left, and when he looked over his shoulder, the houses blocked his view of his pursuers, which meant they could no longer see him, either. That was some small relief. The snow drifts were knee high, and even walking in the tracks of the snowmobile didn’t make things easier.

Hide, his mind screamed at him. You have to hide. An attic. Find an attic like before.

It was worth a shot. Out in the cold, he wouldn’t be able to keep up the pace. But how does one escape a wave?

Get above it, his mind came back at him.

Behind him, the mob seeped into view. The determined ones appeared first, like the first signs of rot around the edges of something good to eat. They pursued at a crawl. He glanced repeatedly over his shoulder as he crossed buried front lawns and popped around corners to hide his trail.

Another house loomed ahead, a two-story old-fashioned deal painted yellow. He ran up to the front door, which had a window set in it, divided into fashionable little squares. As with the previous houses, the door was locked.

He rammed his bat through a pane of the door glass. With a vicious swipe, he cleared away the fragments around the edges, then stuffed his arm inside, felt around, and located the knob. It had one of those locks where he had to press in on the knob to unlock it. He did so and put his shoulder to the door. The door held. Muttering, he punched out another section of glass and stuck his arm inside. There—a dead bolt. He hooked it with his fingers and opened the door with a relieved huff.

Plunging inside and slamming the door behind him, Gus locked it again. He closed the drapes over the front windows, then furtively peeked back out at the street. A hand unconsciously went to his ribs, and he took a deep breath. No problem there, and he thanked God for it.

He looked around the interior of the house. A stairway was set beside a hallway that probably went to the kitchen. The pinewood floor was bare and worn. A living room lay to the right and a small office area to the left. A desiccated corpse sat at the desk in the office, the almost silver face twisted in a rictus of pain, as if the man had suffered greatly. The house was cold, and Gus didn’t know if he was looking at a corpse or a corpse.

He raised his bat, watching the figure in the chair. Full head of dead hair, perhaps in his seventies. Gold ring on his finger.

Gus stepped forward, cranking the bat up and letting it fly.

One of the eyes creaked open.

The bat split the zombie’s skull with a pulpy crack. The impact toppled the deadhead, flipping him over in the chair, feet pointing ceiling-ward.

Breathing hard, Gus studied his kill. Satisfied that it was indeed dead, he went to the only window in the office and drew back the curtain. Outside, the pursuing dead filled the road. He dropped the curtain and stepped back. High ground. He had to get to high ground.

He moved toward the stairway, but something made him look in the direction of the kitchen. He wished he hadn’t.

Poised in shadow, a zombie stood. A slow, stuttering hiss issued from the figure, a sound that put Gus’s raw nerves on edge just a fragment more.

Taking a batter’s stance, he debated whether to wait for it to come to him or to charge it.

Three smaller shadows came into view then, just behind the larger one. Hisses broke the air like leaking gas pipes. Gus lowered his bat. The larger form took an unsteady step forward, leaning heavily against the wall. One of the arms came up and into the light, then a bare belly that resembled a deflated medicine ball. The smell of the four crept up on Gus, and his stomach recoiled from the reek.

He pulled out his Ruger.

The androgynous lead zombie took another step forward, the light revealing a mouth without any lips. Gus shot it twice, exploding its head in a dusky blossom. The children came after, porcelain features marred by grotesque splotches of black. Their eyes appeared as smoky marbles.

Gus fired about five rounds and dropped all of them. He listened, waiting for something else to appear, another family member, but heard nothing.

He went up the stairs. Quickly going through four bedrooms, one of which possessed an inviting bunk bed, Gus established that the upper floor was empty. He found a trapdoor in the ceiling, a rope dangling.

Below, something crashed into the front door.

The sound froze Gus for all of a second before he yanked down the trapdoor. A set of stairs came down with a metallic yawn, and Gus was momentarily impressed. It wasn’t the bare wood stairway of the house Scott and he hid out in for days while the dead roamed below; it was something else.

For one thing, there was light in the attic. Two, the stairs, which were painted, slid down rather than unfolded.

Another crash from below got him moving up the steps. In the attic, he was further surprised to discover that the door and steps could be retracted by a rope on a pulley system. Gus pulled on the rope.

More thumps came from below, like multiple forearms and elbows being rammed into the surface of the front door.

Gus saw that the light actually came from a skylight that he hadn’t been able to see from the yard. The window was cut into the ceiling and tinted. The slanted roof made him duck, but the attic had been transformed into a fifth bedroom. A comfortable-looking single bed, along with a matching night table, filled one end, while two bookcases and a low desk stood at the other. Walls with shelving hemmed in the lowest parts of the area, and in one section, Gus saw a small oven-sized hatch where perhaps the real attic was located. He thought he’d had enough of attics from the last time, but the room was actually… nice.

The thumping on the front door intensified and Gus went to the window. He looked down and spied most of the front lawn area, as well as the road beyond. The sight rooted him to the spot. A parade of undead, half-frozen, but swollen with an unholy zest for life, sifted down the street like the chips and shards of a glacial ice flow. The sight of so many ice-crusted zombies chilled Gus’s core, and watching the slow press of the mob severely tested his mental resolve to kill all of the things. He saw hundreds, and who knew how many were beyond his field of vision? As he watched, faces lifted skyward, their mouths dark holes, wailing in that eerie, yet pitiful way they had. They were so tightly packed, Gus thought of concert venues in the summertime. Limbs waved above the mass like crooked antennae scanning for any sign of life.

He heard more banging on the front door. A crash of glass made Gus perk his ears, and he cringed at the idea they might have gotten in already. He sized up the skylight and thought about breaking out the glass and going… where? He’d probably slip and slide off the roof, only to land right in the middle of the crowd below, like a singer throwing himself into a savage mosh pit. Turning his back on the glass, he focused on the raised trapdoor.

He’d played the waiting game before and never thought he’d have to do it again. Placing his weapons on the bed, he went to the attic door and opened it. He pulled out cardboard boxes filled with blankets, books, Tupperware receptacles, winter clothing, and trinkets. The trinkets he stuffed back into the nook space of the attic while he hauled the Tupperware and blankets out of their containers. The blankets were thick, red and white quilts made for the winter, just the thing to cozy up under. There were four of them and each one went onto the bed. The Tupperware would be for voiding, and Gus knew he’d be shitting at least once up there, perhaps even twice. He looked over the box containing the plastic containers and figured he had enough for six or seven liters. It hooked a memory.

“We could drink our own urine if it came down to it.”

“What is it with you and this fascination with consuming your own waste?”

Gus smiled, hoping that wherever Scott was, he wasn’t in a similar situation.

Then another thought hit him, sobering him instantly.

He’d just killed three men in cold blood. Two men and a kid, and the kid was the worst. He’d left Wilbur as a wrapped up snack, using him to get away. Three lives he had taken. The realization didn’t bother him as much as he thought it would.

They tried to kill me first.

But had they really? Sure, they’d knocked him off the snowmobile, but had they been trying to kill him?

Gus wrestled with that notion. No, they weren’t planning on killing him, but he was certain they would’ve warmed to the notion eventually.

You still killed three men, insisted the voice. Killed them easy.

Lying on the bed and keeping a hand on his Benelli, he eyed the trapdoor as the light outside faded. Gus figured it was going to be a long night.

10

The downstairs thumping stopped a few hours after nightfall, but another disturbing noise started… in Gus’s head. It had been a good seven or eight hours since his last drink, and he was parched. Parched. Aching for a sip of something with bite. The headache had only begun an hour before, but the steady pulse of pain in his frontal lobe and temples made him grimace. A sip. Just a fucking sip was all he needed. He lay in the bed and tossed and turned. He thought there might be something downstairs, maybe in the kitchen somewhere, and if he could hold off until morning, he could check it out. But, goddammit, he needed a drink, and he didn’t know if he could wait.

Restless, he got up and looked out the window. He could see nothing in the black, moonless night, but he sensed they were still there. The skylight had a latch and could be opened if he wanted, but that might somehow alert the dead.

So he crawled back into bed, still dressed, boots on, and lay on his back. Sleep came in stingy doses, and he always woke with the headache still working its drill into his flesh. Sometime during the night, he heard the patter of rain against the window and shook his head. Nova Scotian winter—winter one hour and summer the next. The rain grew stronger, and the wind picked up, a nasty soulless howl that knew Gus was hiding in the attic, moaning in zombie-speak, no doubt trying to communicate with the undead and inform them that the meat was just above their heads. Gus wiggled underneath his mound of blankets and quilts, trying to keep warm and find peace.

Hours later, light streamed through, and he opened his eyes, wishing for a drink. Anything to get the taste out of his mouth. He got up and stumbled to the window. Rain pelted the glass, and the house was still under siege. Gus sighed when he saw the zombies, all pressed together in wet misery, looking for food. He understood them at that moment, recognizing his own need for a shot of booze. With shaky hands, he rubbed his chin and tugged on his bush of a beard, eyes flicking to the trapdoor. The wind still blew outside, periodically pummelling the glass of the skylight, but he didn’t hear anything else below.

Could he risk it?

A sip.

Gus lowered the stairs as quietly as possible, cringing at a deep sounding groan the springs let loose. He paused before letting the steps slip to the floor. Above all, he had to be careful. He had to use stealth. He removed his boots, slipped down to the floor, and listened. Hearing nothing except the hiss of falling rain, he crept forward until he came to the staircase and inched his head out to peer below. All seemed intact.

He backed up and let his breath go. His stomach gurgled, and after a short search for the bathroom, Gus emptied both his bladder and bowels. The toilet seat felt cold enough to freeze his ass, and he wouldn’t be surprised to see flesh stuck there once he stood up. Half a roll of toilet paper lay on the dispenser next to the can, and for that, Gus was grateful. Having finished his business, he carefully descended the steps, then stayed below the window line of the front door, despite the closed curtains. The door remained shut, much to his surprise, although glass and fragments of wood coated the floor. Making a face at the mound of dead he’d shot the day before, he edged around the broken glass and crept into the living room, bathed in darkness. He peeked out at the world once more before padding off to the kitchen. The pantry shelves were full of supplies, and he found several cans of pork sausages, noodles, and other foods. On the top shelf were packets of juice mixes and other sugary flavours, while four liters of bottled water lined the bottom shelf. He didn’t find anything with booze in it, which ignited an irritable slew of soft curses. There wasn’t much he could do about that, so he took an hour to transfer the food and water to the attic. Afterward, he returned to the lower level and rooted around in the den for anything remotely alcoholic. He even searched both bathrooms for mouthwash, but found none.

Just his luck, he fumed.

Finding a bag of unopened chocolate chip cookies and not worrying in the least about expiration dates, he retreated to the attic again, but left the stairs down. It was easier to get to the bathroom, and since nothing had breached the house, he felt somewhat safe.

He spent the day on the bed, reading paperbacks, napping when he could, and munching on chocolate chip cookies that had to have been pumped full of preservatives to taste so good. Rain beat against the skylight, running down the glass in rivulets that warped the day.

The day had been a little warmer, but the temperature dropped again at night, while the rain also continued. The dead had milled about below for the entire day, and Gus believed they were even moving faster, as if warmth had somehow seeped into their limbs. Some moaned constantly, soft pitiful sounds that seemingly begged for a bullet, while others let loose much more dramatically. One in particular moaned loud enough for Gus to hear above the rest in the attic—and kept crying out, which prompted Gus to bury his head in a pillow.

Just after the daylight retreated from the room, Gus got up and looked outside, opening the skylight just a crack. Zombies still walked about aimlessly, dark lumps against the greater dark, but fewer in number. It appeared the mob had drifted on again for whatever reasons, and a feeling of good fortune swept through him. It was almost enough to help him forget about his trembling hands or his tormenting thirst that sugared water simply would not quench.

He went back to bed, but sleep didn’t come easily.

His very being wanted booze.

The next day, Gus looked out the window again and saw that the zombies had dispersed even more and the snow had melted somewhat. He studied the lay of the land while eating a tin of meatballs and gravy. On impulse, he opened the window so he could listen to the dripping of melting snow. Around early afternoon, the sun eased out from behind a cloud. Snow levels dropped more, and zombies moved even more freely.

By late afternoon, he had become aware of another problem. The stench of the deadheads below had risen to the attic. Gus pulled his boots back on, racked the slide of the Ruger, and jammed it inside one boot. Thus ready, he descended into the upper floor of the house. Plenty of blankets covered the beds, and he thought about taking some and dropping them on the newly deceased. A second thought stopped him—giving the house another look over for booze. That took precedence over the blankets and rotting smell. He crept down the steps to the front door and peeled back the corner of the curtain.

A zombie stood not ten feet from the front door.

Seeing the dead thing startled Gus, and he released the curtain. The material dropped back into place, and he cringed at the sudden movement. He raised his Ruger and took a breath.

Nothing. Had the thing even seen him?

Carefully avoiding the glass on the floor, he stepped in front of the curtains and placed the barrel of the weapon on the broken window sill. Leaning over, he tried spotting the gimp through the crack of cloth. He didn’t think he had much time. He inched the curtain up until he spied the monster through the barest of openings. If he didn’t know any better, he’d have said the thing was actually mulling over if what it had seen was worth investigating. The zombie was an apple-shaped male wearing a T-shirt and track pants that were soaked to his body in grotesque fashion. A mop of soaked black hair topped off the creature’s head.

Gus wouldn’t wait for the monster’s cry. One squeeze of the Ruger’s trigger and a bullet hole appeared just above the zombie’s left eyebrow. With a little jump and without a sound, the dead thing fell over backward to land in a soft squish of wet snow.

Gus let the curtain fall back into place and booted up the stairs, forgetting about all else, hearing battle klaxons sound in his head. He climbed the ladder to the attic and hauled it behind him, panting and waiting for the crush of bodies he knew would slam into the house at any time.

Only they didn’t.

Puzzled but wary, he peeked out of the skylight and peered down. The unmoving body of the fallen creature lay right where he had dropped it. Other dead things shambled closer and moved around the fallen corpse, but none moved to investigate or approach the house. He’d gotten away with it.

“Oh, Jesus, Mary, and Joseph,” Gus whispered and collapsed on the bed. That was the closest he’d come to shitting himself since going on the offensive.

Having had his fill of chance-taking, he remained in the attic for the rest of the day. With the steps raised and a quilt stretched over the trapdoor, the rising smell was somewhat suppressed. Boredom and the need for whiskey or rum or anything containing alcohol did a cruel double team on his senses. He couldn’t rest. His hands trembled badly at times, frightening him enough to make fists and clench them until he tired himself out. Cold sweat beaded on his forehead and in his armpits. Reading didn’t satisfy him anymore, so he burned time by looking out of the skylight at the street below. The one zombie lay still in the snow, an ugly angel that made him hope for a cold front. The snow continued to melt, and in places, pavement could be seen glistening darkly. Other corpses dragged themselves through the street, and at times, there seemed to be more than others, which kept him stationary for fear of simply not being able to see where the majority of the mob lurked.

He drank water and ventured down to piss in the upstairs bathroom, which was becoming quite rank from his recent visits. He wished he had a drink, wished he’d saved the scant bottle he’d brought on his hunting trip, wished he’d brought more. The notion of going to a liquor store entered his mind. It was only a thirty or forty minute walk away, but upon looking out the window again, he decided against it. Gus kept looking outside, contemplating his next move.

Evening became night, and Gus still stood at the skylight. The clouds had rolled away completely, and the moon rose over the mountains. He gazed below and saw that the streets had cleared of dead things. The only corpse down there was the one he’d shot earlier and deposited in a frame of white. The snow gleamed in the moonlight, and the houses with white paint shone. Gus thought again about the liquor store. He could make it. Every pore of his body was telling him he could make it. Make it easily and goddamn it, it was worth the risk. Gus rubbed his face. He peered up one end of the street and then down the other.

The street was empty. Even the constant dripping off the eaves had stopped.

Then, a noise came from street level.

He barely heard it, yet caught enough that it hooked his alcohol-deprived senses and opened his ears for more. Leaning toward the skylight, he strained to listen.

A rustling.

Gus scanned the road in front of the house, but saw only the ghostly gleam of melting snow and patches of black pavement. Wilting drifts still covered most things, and he would have no problem spotting a deadhead if one were in the street.

Then, he spotted something.

Tracing the lip of the curb was a small dark mound of… something. It slipped along the length of the road, pausing every few feet, before continuing. The thing crept along, brushing aside some uncovered debris and giving another barely heard bump to the picture.

More of the things came into view, moving soundlessly over the snow and easily visible in broad sweeping swards of moonlight. Gus swallowed, a dry click that sounded painfully loud in his ears. He realized what they were, even as more of the things filled the streets. A dark stream poured into the road, filling it in a lumpy, rustling river of darkness. The mass gradually thickened, moving beyond the rim of the curb and coming up onto the front lawn until the white was swallowed by the tide of teeming night. A growing sound reached his ears, more than the rustling he’d heard earlier, a long, continuous brushing noise that forced him to keep his eyes on the gathering mass below, even though he could scarcely believe it.

Rats.

The street was filled with rats.

Then, a rat found the body he’d shot earlier that day. It fluttered up over the neckline of the fallen zombie, moving in a herky-jerky way that suggested all wasn’t well with the creature, and disappeared for a moment. When it came back into view, it perched on the chest, near the chin. More followed the first, milling around the body as if conducting their own investigation, until the zombie was covered in a lumpy mattress of rat hair.

Gus heard the gnashing of rodent teeth and the gentle grind of tooth on bone from two and half floors up. A minute later, an arm raced feet away from the body. A leg went in the opposite direction. Both limbs were halted and swallowed up by more rats arriving on the scene, drawn to the smell of raw carrion. And they ate. The snow became black with rats, infested with the things.

Holy shit, some horrified part of his brain whispered. He couldn’t tear his eyes away from the rising flood of rodents moving with the sound of coarse hair rubbing incessantly against each other, as softly as a meadow full of crickets. Dogs. He’d originally thought dogs were taking away the zombies he and Scott put down. But the gloomy vermin of the earth had risen up from wherever they had hidden in the absence of humanity, and found that a veritable all-you-can-eat buffet waited for them on the surface. Dead flesh. They were feeding on dead flesh. Had perhaps been feeding on it for years.

The invisible grips of fear around Gus’s junk, heart, and mind squeezed harder.

What the hell did the virus—or poison or whatever it was that turned folks into starving undead things—do to rats?

Gus continued watching as the level of bodies swarmed, covering the street. The numbers seemed impossible, but hadn’t he seen hundreds of zombies in the street only a day ago? So why was it so difficult for him to fathom millions of silent flesh hunting rodents doing the same thing?

Millions.

The front lawns of the neighborhood slowly winked out of existence in the rising gush of rats. The cacophony rose until it sounded like the low powerful hum of a power station at midnight. The rats crawled over each other to get to the meat they no doubt smelled, becoming almost knee high and rising. Some were big, but others were huge, perhaps the size of puppies.

What frightened Gus most was the scratching he heard at the front door.

11

Blood pounding, Gus hauled back the blanket covering the trapdoor and dropped the steps. He descended and crept down the hall toward the stairs, before reaching the landing, where he stopped and stared.

The front door trembled in its frame while the sounds of scratching on the wood caused the hair on the back of his neck to rise. Except, it wasn’t scratching at all that he heard. It was chewing.

“Holy fuck,” Gus let out, his jaw dropping. “Holy sweet fuck almighty.”

He clapped his hands over his mouth to stop the scream. They’d hear him. The rats and the zombies. That thought stuck in his head. The zombies were probably long gone, maybe sensing the invasion of the rats like dogs with earthquakes. Dogs! Gus shook his head. It was vermin all the time, perhaps the only living thing besides the cockroaches that would survive a nuclear blast. Horrified, terrified, he gripped the bannister and took a few steps down toward the foyer.

In the dim moonlight, the door trembled with increasing violence. Gus shook his head in wonder. Why did they want inside? Then, he remembered the dead lying inside the house. All that decomposing meat, just lying there. He frantically considered heaving the bodies out the window.

Gus focused on the door—wood, perhaps some metal, but not enough to stop the new plague. He came halfway down the steps, feeling incredibly brave to face down his fears in doing so, but incredibly stupid for not getting the hell away.

A shard of wood buckled inward at the base of the door. Gus tensed, ready to bolt. The sliver bent and shivered, and he could see something dark poking through the breach. Teeth flashed, gnawing at the edge of the opening. Furious movement in the dark, more flashes of teeth.

Don’t be stupid, his mind told him.

The wood shuddered and finally popped. A dark protrusion poked through, shook, then retreated.

Gus couldn’t just stand there doing nothing. He hurried down the steps, crouched at the base, and pulled out his Bowie knife. When the rat’s head emerged again, he chopped it off like a knuckle of meat on a cutting board. Blackness spurted onto the floor, like a gob from a squished ketchup packet, marking his first kill of this new enemy. First blood was his.

The rats outside seemed to gnash at the wood with greater enthusiasm. More fragments bulged and split inward, the cracking of the wood dulled by the hum of the creatures on the other side. Multiple snoots speared through in various places, and Gus stabbed back. He heard squeaks of pain and blinked in raw wonder when another rat poked its head through the first hole. Gus stabbed it through the skull.

The door rattled in its frame as if possessed. The Bowie knife flashed and stabbed, but the crackling grew louder. More teeth pulled wood fragments backward, and not just at the base. Points in the wood halfway up the door started weakening. A rat squirmed through a new hole inches above the floor. Gus hacked the thing through the middle; the forward half dropped to the floor. The half-rat thrashed, oozing guts and blood. Gus froze, aghast, and flung himself backward when the rat came toward him, clawing its upper half along in hitching jerks.

He clambered to his feet and stomped on the thing, crushing it beneath his steel-toed boot. The rat didn’t move after that, and he felt a burst of relief. The rats were still only small rodents, and took little effort to kill. The problem was simply that there were just too many.

Another rat squeaked into the house. Gus stomped on it, squashing the lower half of the thing. A second boot crushed the remainder. Two more rats got through. He stomped on one and got the tail. The other bolted past him, heading to the hallway. Two more forced their way into the house, and Gus did a heavy dance, killing one with a stomp on its head, but missing the other. More cracking of wood. More squeaks. The rustling swelled, and something made the curtain flutter. He nudged the curtain aside for a peek.

Huge rats pawed at the bottom edge of the windowsill.

Gus drew back in revulsion. The window was five feet from the floor. The things had piled up on the backs of each other.

Splinters cascaded to the floor and the door bulged inward. Holes at the base widened. More rats scurried through and squealed in hungry delight. Gus jumped on them, holding his knife, but doing more damage with his boots. He stomped on two at once, feeling the twisting creatures underneath his soles. With more heavy stomping, he quickly turned the floor into a slippery mess of blood and innards. If he crushed anything but the heads, the rats moved on, answering the question of what feeding on the dead did to them. A long splintering of wood made Gus’s heart sink, and he turned to see a small torrent of rats gush inside, moving so close together they appeared like a solid stream.

Glass tinkled, some falling to the floor. Rats spilled inside like great greasy gobs of hair. He jumped back to the staircase, turned and kicked at them with one foot, crushing several into meaty lumps. The rats headed for the small office, and Gus watched the shadowy body of the old man zombie slowly disappear underneath a carpet of feeding rats and white tails.

Gus took three steps back up the stairs, keeping his eye on the front door. The lower part of the door finally gave way in a crackling snap, splitting right down the middle. Rats flooded the entryway, spewing across the floor. They found the corpses quickly and began feasting. The door cracked again as writhing darkness slowly widened the opening and more bodies wormed into the house.

Shaking his head in disbelief, he retreated a few more steps, placing distance between him and the fearsome tide. The door finally gave completely, and a sheet of rats surged into the house. The wood twisted inward, and when it was finally dislodged from the frame, it tumbled without a sound, landing on the hairy backs. It bobbed for a brief moment before the hungry river pouring into the house swallowed it.

Gus turned and bounded back to the trapdoor. Breathing frantically, he climbed the steps and hauled them up, leaving only a crack so he could see the dark hall and the landing.

“How the fuck do I deal with that?” he asked out loud.

No answer came, so Gus decided on his own. He grabbed his weapons, but then realized with horror that his boots would do more damage than the firearms or bat. The rats were too small for anything else. Then, he remembered the Molotov cocktail. He’d left it on the night table, along with a lighter. He grabbed the bottle. That was what he needed, but he needed lots of them.

Gus returned to the stairs and lowered them. He went almost to the bottom and paused for a moment, listening to the squeaking that had become almost a chorus of nail-on-chalkboard scratches. Nothing appeared in the shadows, so he crept to the landing and looked over the rail.

His breath caught in his throat. He suddenly knew what sailors must feel when ice or some other object pierced their vessel’s hull, allowing the mighty sea to gush in. Rats flooded the lower level, climbing over each other to get to the food. A few even reached the seventh and eight steps of the staircase. The sight of a dark, twisting, writhing mass filling the downstairs struck him speechless. And more were entering.

He flicked the lighter, and the flame flashed upward a good inch. He touched the flame to the cloth sticking out of the bottle. The wick lit up, and Gus watched it for a moment before hurling the Molotov cocktail at the wall next to the door below.

Glass exploded, and fire rained down on the mass of bodies. The flames caught the closest rats and stilled them within seconds. The fire clinging to the wall and around the stairway flashed up, illuminating the swarm and casting a ghoulish light on both them and the walls of the lower level. The mass of rats churned like a huge vat of black gruel.

He retreated back to the attic and located his motorcycle helmet and pads. He quickly suited up and checked his equipment, making sure he had all of his weapons on him. The Nomex was layered, the top coat draping over the pants, and Gus feared that rats might somehow get up under there. He hauled out the boxes of winter clothing he had found earlier and went through them, finding thick gloves and several scarfs. He looped the scarfs around his midsection and tied them off. With one last look around, he pulled on the helmet, leaving the visor up for the moment.

He ripped the blankets from the bed and, with his knife, shredded two of the thinner ones down the middle. Knotting the ends together, he made a rope. Last, he pulled on the gloves and took a deep breath.

It was time to get the hell out of Dodge.

Gus descended the stairs with the blanket-rope in hand. He veered away from the burning stairs, toward the back of the house, and ducked inside what he thought was the master bedroom, slamming the door behind him. Tall sturdy looking bedposts greeted him, and he tied the ends of his makeshift rope to one of them. The window behind the headboard would lead to the backyard. He got up on the bed and kicked out the window. Drawing his bat, he cleared the frame of jagged edges before throwing the blanket-rope out into the void. He stuck his head through the opening and peered down, seeing only black, which did nothing for his confidence.

Around the edges of the closed door, the fiery glow grew and flickered. He caught a whiff of smoke and forced his way out of the window. Holding on for dear life, he felt the tug and worrying stretch of the tied blankets. His boots clattered and scraped against the side of the house as he rappelled. In moments, his soles felt ground.

And felt it shift.

Gus looked down and bit back a scream. The rats had come around the house, surrounding it. He instinctively lifted his feet, but realized he had nowhere to go. He couldn’t climb back up the rope. Even if he could, he’d be stuck in a burning house.

Taking a breath and twisting on the rope, he lowered himself down, feeling the pressure of the small bodies against his boots, then his knees, until his soles touched down on the backs of thrashing rats. They clawed at his legs, clambering to get higher. Gus teetered for a moment, slamming a hand against the house for balance. A multitude of jaws fastened onto the Nomex and chewed. He felt them wiggling furiously against his inner thighs. The rats pressed against his feet and lower legs like foam, thick enough that he momentarily thought his limbs had been sheared. Swearing, he reached back with one hand, pulled the bat out of the scabbard, and thrust it down into the mass. Using the bat like a cane, he waded forward, slapping his visor down. The light from the fire inside the house flickered through the windows, emitting a glow. Each step was an experience in loathing and terror. Gus waded unsteadily, feeling as if he were in a blocked sewage system. The rats stayed with him, fastened into the Nomex by the sheer strength of their jaws. Gus started pawing at himself, swatting the creatures off. Something shifted underfoot, and he leaned heavily on the bat to maintain balance. Rats nipped at his gloved hands.

He fell.

A combination of deep snow and writhing bodies underfoot made him sprawl face forward, arms going out in front of him. Rat tails wormed across the visor as furry bodies struggled to get a bite of his helmet. He felt pinches along his hands from a rash of bites at the gloves. The visor stopped the jaws of a puppy-sized rat, and Gus lashed out in reflex, batting the thing away. Hundreds of mouths gnawed frantically on the material, and he felt them all, like forceps trying to get a grip of meat through a rubbery membrane. They wiggled against his neck. They squirmed over his arms and back. They swarmed his legs. His crotch…

Gus freaked.

With a yelp, he scrambled to his knees, using the bat for balance while swiping frantically at his person, knocking off the rats. He squished the lives from several of the creatures just by grabbing and making a fist, crushing their tiny bones. He struggled to his feet and ran, coming close to falling over twice more before he’d gone two feet. A minute later, he ran into the side of a storage shed, smashing against its metallic shell. Screaming, he rolled against it over and over as if lathering paint onto its surface, crushing the rats clinging to his back. He jigged on the spot, crushing more under his feet.

He looked back toward the house. He’d only managed to travel about twenty yards. Flames flounced and grew behind windows, lighting up the area and revealing the deep tide of the rats. Two lumpy currents flowed around the house, converging into one solid mass which scurried straight for him. Somehow, they knew he was fresh meat.

After rolling his body against the shed one more time, Gus broke away and put more distance between himself and the wave. Knee-high drifts of snow sucked at his feet as he plowed ahead, gasping for breath. He punched through a line of trees and emerged into the backyard of a dark split-level house. He pounded across the yard and bounded up the back steps of the deck, feeling his strength ebb away. He ran to the door and grasped the handle. Locked, of course. He looked back. The rats struggled across the snow, the edge of their mass blackening it in the moonlight. They might have the greater numbers, but he had the longer legs.

Gus raised the bat and slammed it into the window, shattering the glass. He reached in and found the lock. Not sparing another look at what was behind, he plunged inside and slammed the door. Chest heaving, he looked back out and saw the rats scurrying toward the house like a dark wave. But he was inside, and at least he could get a few moments rest.

Something slammed up against him, ramming him into the side of the doorframe and moaning in his ear. Gus squirmed around and came eye to visor with a huge deadhead, perhaps the tallest he’d ever come across. The gimp pressed him against the wall while gnawing on his helmet with almost feverish gusto. Gus saw the lower jaw squeak and grind against his visor. He shoved the thing back a few feet, but the arms of the corpse, long and wasted like bony vines, held onto his head. Gus swung the bat low, making contact with its knee and bursting it like a hard-boiled egg. The zombie teetered for a second before it crashed to the floor, hissing as if surprised to be actually off its feet.

Using the bat, Gus bashed the head open like a bad melon. He straightened only to see two more moaning forms shambling toward him in the meager light made even darker by the visor. Frustrated, he swung hard, pivoting at the hips for extra power, and took one head clear off the shoulders of one shadowy figure. With only one zombie left, Gus dispatched it with weary urgency, smashing the head in with two swings.

He trembled with exertion and struggled to push his visor up, needing air.

Seconds later, he heard scratching at the base of the door.

“Well, fuck me.”

Gus made his way hurriedly through the house until he came to the front door. He had no idea where he was anymore, only that he had to put space between him and the pursuing plague. He stumbled down a short set of foyer steps he hadn’t noticed in the dark. His arms felt like weighted lead, and his chest ached with each breath. Staying in the house was out of the question, what with the fresh zombie corpses there to draw the rats.

He looked out the window set in the front door. Attracted by the fire, the sounds, the smell, or just out for a midnight walk, zombies milled in the middle of the street. Gus put his bat away and got out the shotgun. He readied the weapon, unlocked the door, and stepped out into the night. The gimps in the street moaned and balked for a moment, as if startled to find the living amongst them. Gus fired, exploding the night with the shotgun’s violent beat. Boom, a head blew apart. Boom, a body flung backward. Boom, another spun about with the top of its skull gone. Boom, a face disintegrated. Boom, boom, boom, zombies fell and did not get back up.

Click.

The shotgun emptied just as he came face to face with a zombie that had snuck in from his right side. Not feeling particularly sporting, Gus whipped the weapon’s length up under the zombie’s chin, snapping its head back. He tripped it a second later, and stomped its face in with an eggshell crunch. Ducking and weaving the others, Gus fed shells from his bandolier into the Benelli.

He cut a path through the dozen or so that still stood, killing any that came too close. When the Benelli ran out of shells again, he climbed the front steps of another house, and reloaded as quickly and as calmly as he could in the face of five approaching dead.

Then it came to him. He didn’t need to get away from the rats. He just needed a diversion.

He only had four rounds loaded when he aimed and shot the first zombie reaching the steps. The force of the blast knocked the dead thing to the ground. Gus got two more shells into the weapon before the others got too close. He shot them at close range as well, taking his time and destroying their heads. With his back against the house, he pulled more shells from his bandolier and thumbed them into the shotgun. A red glow erupted above the roof of the house he’d just run through, adding color to the night. The fire was blazing.

Gus staggered to the front door. He tried the knob and found it unlocked. He threw open the door, slipped inside, and slammed the door behind him. One quick look out the window informed him that nothing was in pursuit. Yet. He studied the interior of the house and eventually spotted the stairway.

“Hey. Any dead fuckers in here?” He waited. Nothing came to greet him. “Hey! Dead fuckers!” He waited seconds longer before deciding the coast was clear and moving through the house. A few minutes later, he declared the place clean. Only then did he come full circle back to the front door and the staircase. Breathing hard, he climbed the stairs and moved into a hallway, searching for an attic, but saw no trapdoors.

“Fuck it.” He moved into one of the bedrooms facing the street. He peered through white curtains and saw the inferno burning one lot over. Open flames licked at the dark and smoke billowed. He watched the street and waited for the rats to appear.

Ten minutes later, they came.

Only a few showed at first, but then the ones and twos became a stream around the house across the way. The stream became two and grew into great black rivers that threatened to sweep everything away. The rats pooled into the road and swarmed over the zombies he’d shot, hiding the corpses from sight.

He thought about the house. There were no broken windows and more importantly, no freshly killed undead lying inside. If all went well, he should be fine. He took a step back from the window, just because it seemed safer to watch from the shadows. The moonlight gave him a clear view. The rats crawled over each other as they feasted. Tendrils of rodents looped away and outward as if in search of more food, only to be absorbed by even greater numbers arriving over the backs of others, the mass thickening and growing impossibly deeper. In places, limbs pointed up into the air as the feeders ripped and tore them apart. Hands pointed to the night sky for short moments before some famished undercurrent pulled it below the surface and out of sight once more. Gus watched in horrified amazement. What did Discovery Channel once say about piranha and the speed it took a school of a certain species to eat a cow to the bloody bone?

It couldn’t have been faster than the rats.

Once the flesh was consumed, the swarm elongated in all directions, even moving around the foundation of the house he hid inside. The dozen zombies in the road that he had put down were utterly gone. Even the bones had been eaten. Gus supposed that if the things were capable of chewing their way through wood, a few stubborn bones shouldn’t be too much of a problem, especially when he factored in the numbers of the rats. He backed away from the window and looked at the open doorway of the bedroom. Pulling off the helmet, he strained to listen for anything gnawing at the front door. It wasn’t deadheads that frightened him anymore. It was the sound of jaws grinding through wood.

After a few moments of silence, he relaxed a little.

He backed up, keeping his eyes on the floor as if he were on a ship instead of inside a house, wary of springing leaks. His legs bumped against the edge of a bed covered in pink blankets, and he realized he stood in a little girl’s room. Stuffed animals adorned the walls, some on shelves with what appeared to be shadowy kingdoms fashioned out of stone.

With a deep breath, he lowered himself onto the mattress and unslung his weapons. He examined his gloves for the first time, shocked to discover the outer layers were shredded. The scarf he had tied around his waist was likewise in ribbons and nearly useless. He removed his neck brace and shook his head at the little holes made in the outer cloth. Simply incredible. Gus stretched out on the bed.

He kept one hand on his shotgun, closed his eyes, and listened. His mind replayed the gruesome work of the night, especially the parts with the rats, his mystery revealed at last.

Sleep took a long time to find him.

12

Morning found him clutching a teddy bear to his chest. He cracked open his eyes and drew back a little, but when he recognized the thing for what it was, he sighed, and settled down to listen to the buzz of silence. The thought of how the thing had gotten into his arms crossed his mind, but he left it unanswered. Stuffed bears he could handle. And they were kind of cozy as well.

He sat up, placed the bear to one side, and stretched until he felt his back crack. Rubbing at his face, he moved to the window and looked outside. Tendrils of smoke rose lazily over the house across the way, and the sun had decided to make an appearance. It shone down on a street empty of rats and zombies. All gone, devoured right down to the last scrap. Gus shook his head in pure amazement, reflecting on the night of horror. The pavement was clear of everything, and Gus wondered if it was safe to go down there.

In the end, he went to the kitchen. There was nothing to eat in the cupboards. The wish for whisky or rum or something entered his mind, making him swallow dryly. He thought of the snow outside and melting it to drink, but he scratched that idea, remembering the rats scurrying over it.

He used the toilet, once again grateful for a roll of toilet paper in the bathroom, then went back to the girl’s bedroom. Gathering his weapons, outer gear, and placing the motorcycle helmet on his head, he left the house with bat in hand. The air was chilly, but nowhere near the freezing temperatures of the past months, and he was very much aware that winter usually held one final storm for March, like one last boot to the balls. Looking up and down the road, Gus stepped out into the middle and studied the surface. He saw nothing to mark the events of the night before, except the disappearance of the zombie corpses.

The question of where the hell the rats had gone came into his mind, and he answered it straight away. There, on the side of the curb, was a storm drain.

He cautiously moved toward the drain and hesitantly got down on his hands and knees. At the edges of the concrete, he spotted hair—rats’ hair, pulled from their bodies as they were cramming below, escaping the daylight.

“Jesus Christ,” Gus whispered, feeling a chill that had nothing to do with the weather.

They were right below him, beneath the city the whole time, surfacing when the sun went down and scampering back at sunrise. Never staying in the city after dark, he would never have seen them. But why hadn’t he and Scott seen any rats when they had been stranded in the attic? Gus thought about it. He had been out of his mind then, but even when his senses returned, he’d never really looked out of that one small window in the attic. And the rats moved. Perhaps they never took the zombies straight on, when they were clumped into a mob. Or perhaps they were tidal like the zombies and just hadn’t surfaced in that area. The more Gus thought on it, the more possibilities came up. Perhaps the things were getting bolder by the day, staying out longer?

How long before they finally began braving the sun?

That thought did nothing for Gus’s morale. Two-legged, man-sized deadheads he could handle. Rodents were something else entirely. How the hell was he supposed to deal with a swarm of undead rats?

“Christ,” he muttered and got to his feet.

He needed to get out of Annapolis. He needed to get back home.

With that thought, he started walking, staying in the center of the road. He had no fear of single corpses anymore or even small groups. He feared what lurked beneath. The sewer system ran for kilometers in all directions. Who knew how much space they had down there? And from what he’d witnessed from the night before, he dreaded to think there could actually be enough rats to fill the underground pipelines. That thought alone made his heart freeze and sink.

Home. He had to get home.

Cars, pick-ups, and SUVs dotted the road. Most were smashed into each other or into massive tree trunks. He checked the vehicles that were intact, searching for keys. The ones that did have keys had had their gas tanks drained, or the batteries were dead, or they were trapped between other vehicles. He needed a ride like he needed a drink. A drink! The very word set his tongue to tingling. Reaching an intersection, he realized where he was, and how far he was from the liquor corporation. He smelled the dampness on the air and noticed how the pavement had become dark from the melting snow.

Warmer weather meant more dead things thawing.

He checked vehicles as he marched toward the liquor store, hoping he’d find something capable of running. Two more cars contained keys, but the engines refused to turn over for reasons beyond him. He met six zombies and executed each of them with well-placed shots from the silenced Ruger. He left the bodies in the road with the mental message of “Lunch is on me.”

Around early afternoon, he reached the liquor corporation and practically ran into the dark cave of the entrance. Stopping just past the threshold, he took out his pistol and held it at his shoulder as if about to enter a duel. Shadows coated the interior, punctured in places by single white glares of light stabbing from small windows. As bad as he wanted a drink, Gus held himself in check. It was not the time to get sloppy.

“Anyone in here?” Seconds dragged before he decided all was well with the store. Moving down a dark aisle, Gus noticed that some of the shelves had been smashed. Becoming wary, he crept around the store, looking for signs of what might have caused the damage. No clues could be found, but when he opened the door to the storage area, he knew what the problem was.

Someone else had found the place.

Cases of gin, vodka, lesser quality whiskey—in his opinion, anyway—and other brands had gone missing. Boxes he knew he had left unopened were ripped wide, the flaps left hanging as if someone had been too impatient to use a knife. Gus quietly moved through the storeroom, checking things out and finally deciding the place was empty. Someone had been there, though; that much he was sure of. Someone just as thirsty as he was. The three men who had ambushed him in the street came to mind. They probably had a place somewhere in the city, perhaps even near the cul de sac. Gus thought of the young teenager he’d left to the undead and felt a stab of guilt. Did anyone deserve that? Even three bandits who were probably going to kill him? The thing that bothered him the most was that he hadn’t even stopped to think about killing two of the attackers. He had simply reacted, stabbing one and shooting the other in the back. He rubbed his face and pinched the bridge of his nose. It had been pretty damn easy to kill the three of them, even the kid he’d left to be eaten. Gus realized he hadn’t even been drunk at the time. They’d tried to take him down, and he had killed them, plain and simple.

No thunderbolt came out of the heavens to strike him dead. Gus didn’t like the moral grayness he felt himself passing through, or perhaps he was already through it. If anyone came at him with bad intentions, he’d kill them. The coldness of that vow was noted, but it didn’t change how he felt.

Gus found a bottle of vodka and opened it with a twist. He took a sip and savored the burn. Lord above, it tasted sweet. He took another shot and sighed, glancing around the dark room and listening to the buzz in his ears.

Times had just become a little more dangerous. He drank vodka until he felt pleasant again, and his black mood had lightened. If there were other folks about, he’d deal with them sooner or later, if the rats or deadheads didn’t catch up with them first.

Leaving the bottle he’d opened and stuffing two fresh ones into his coat, Gus stepped back out into the light. He’d pick through houses until he found something to eat, but the trouble was, he’d already been through this strip of the city. Deviating from the current path meant going into another residential area, and without any wheels with him, he felt oddly put off by the task. Home called, along with the protection it offered. Slapping his visor back down, Gus got to walking.

For the rest of the day, he walked perhaps twelve kilometers, killing about a dozen zombies and dodging groups too large for him to confront. He emptied one magazine and made a dent in a fresh one. None of the cars he came across would start, and some of them, he realized, had holes punched in the tanks for their fuel—done by his own hand. The idea that he’d be stranded in town without a vehicle had never occurred to him at that time, but it was certainly biting him in the ass.

He crossed over what was once the New Minas-Wolfville neighborhood border. With the sun sliding off the arc of the sky, he stopped for the night just off the main road, in a two-story house he remembered clearing out months ago. The door was still unlocked, and the windows intact. He went through it upstairs and down, minding the corners and wary of rats. The house remained uninhabited, and he locked and braced the doors and checked the windows. After that, he retired upstairs and stripped the blankets from three beds, heaping them onto a queen-sized delight that would be his sleeping quarters.

As night came on, Gus lay in bed and sipped on vodka. The alcohol filled his stomach and calmed him. A single window with red curtains faced east. Wallpaper, dark with pink roses, plastered the four walls and left him thinking old folks must have once lived there. In the gathering silence, he listened for the moans of the dead or, even worse, the rustling of untold millions of coarse-haired bodies rubbing against each other while searching for something, anything, to eat.

13

Sunlight crept across the floor, scaled the bed, and touched his face. Smacking his lips, he considered the bottle of vodka on the night table. He threw the blankets off and winced, weak from hunger and dehydration. He shrugged out of his Nomex coat and went to the bathroom. He peed a few drops, and that was that. The throbbing of a headache started around his eyes as he rumbled through the house, smelling its stale air. The living room had a dark set of furniture, worn but comfortable looking, placed around a white rug of thick, imitation fur. He stopped in front of the picture window and looked out while scratching his nuts. Nice day out there. Good day for walking. The ache around his eyes seemed to intensify, ruining an otherwise peaceful morning.

Despite the good weather, he discovered he was reluctant to leave the house. Perhaps it was the headache or the lack of water in his system, but he had to force himself to get moving. He suited up and stepped outside, taking in a great gulp of cold air and holding it, as if it might give some nourishment. Melting snow blanketed the area. He considered it and shrugged. Rats or no rats crawling over it, he needed something in him. One shrivelled drift appeared cleaner than the others, so he dropped to his knees, landing harder than he intended, and scooped up a handful. The drift lay in the shadow of a large elm whose scratchy bark calmed him for some reason. The touch of snow on his tongue made him close his eyes for a moment, just savoring the water seeping into his parched throat. He got to his feet and munched on a handful as he walked. He had a ways to go. Somehow he had to get through town, sneak by the hospital, the university, and about three residential areas. There was a golf course, as well, and he briefly thought about stopping in to play a few rounds.

With the sun out in force, the snow pulled back from the road. The snow water helped alleviate his thirst, but Gus felt his midsection starting to tighten again, needing something more. Thinking about all of the great goodies back at the last house didn’t help any. He scolded himself, heated curses that stung, saying he should have kept one house prepared in the city in the very case of what was happening. It had actually happened twice, but mulling it over, he thought the first time with Scott didn’t really count. They hadn’t had any choice in that case.

Mid-morning, Gus stopped on a half-buried sidewalk in the shade of some pine trees, very much aware of their woodsy scent. He also became aware of something else. He turned around.

“Well, shit.”

Not sixty feet behind him, and following like puppies, were three gimps. Two were dressed for the summer, in beige dockers, button-down shirts, and rags that Gus realized were supposed to be ties. The other one was dressed for camping in a light windbreaker, hat with ear flaps, dark denims, and hiking boots.

“You fucks.” Gus seethed, not wanting any part of the undead this morning and getting them anyway. That was what he hated about dead folks. They showed up whenever you least needed them, always looking to bite off your head.

Gus stood there, watching them stagger toward him at a gait that was probably the same speed as his own. They didn’t suffer, however, from vodka headaches or an empty gut. Well, he reconsidered the last bit. Maybe they did suffer from an empty gut. His head pounded, and he blamed the dead for that as well. It was too goddamn early in the morning for such thoughts, and the very thought of that made him even madder.

He didn’t have the energy to swing the bat. He dug the Ruger from his boot, worked the slide, and took aim. The pain around his eyes made concentrating more difficult.

His hand wavered a moment, then he lowered the gun. They were sixty feet out, and he wasn’t going to hit them at that range. A sharpshooter he wasn’t. He took a breath, parted his feet, and waited for them to close the distance.

“C’mon then,” he said, glancing around for others. “C’mon, you goddamn dead bastards. You walkin’ shit-stains. Come to Papa so he can blow your goddamn heads off. Jesus, you pricks are slow. Slow. And stink, too. Christ, I thought I smelled bad. You guys shower in shit or something?”

Forty feet away, their glazed eyes regarded him as if he were a tender morsel. Moans cut the air. Each step raked on pavement and grated on Gus’s nerves. One of them wore a sneaker that had its sole detached, and every step made it look like a set of great flapping lips with toes. The summer ones had bites which were easy to see. One wore a wound on the shoulder, right through the shirt that must have soaked up every drop of blood, and the other had a hole in the thigh, the cloth around the wound shredded to the knee. The camper didn’t have any obvious wounds, and Gus couldn’t tell if he’d been bitten or not. Perhaps it was something the old guy ate. Or breathed.

Thirty feet and Gus felt they were close enough. He brought the pistol up with both hands, squinted one eye shut, feeling the thump of blood in his temples, and fired. The pistol spat, snapping a forehead back and collapsing the zombie to the wet asphalt.

The other two came on.

“That’s right,” Gus said, taking aim again at the second summer one. “What’s there to fear? Just me and this—” He fired and exploded an eyeball of the second man. The zombie fell back hard, slapping pavement in a crunch that sounded painful, meshing with the tinkle of the spent casing. “Sound-suppressed Ruger. Nothing to break your balls over.”

The last zombie smacked his lips. The thing had no nose, just two holes delving deep into its sinus cavity, below eyes that were bulbous and staring.

“Didn’t like that, did ya? Huh? Well, too fuckin bad.”

He aimed at the forehead of the creature. Its hands came up, clenching eagerly. Gus fired.

Twang!

The metallic sizzle of a ricochet startled him for a second, and he stood there, gaping at the old hunter twenty feet away.

“The fuck?” Gus aimed again, licking his lips.

The sound of the silenced bullet pinging off the old geezer’s head woke Gus up, and he stood there, blinking at the zombie closing the distance. The hunter’s hat had fallen off on the second shot and flaps of dead scalp skin hung off a forehead that gleamed.

“Well, fuck me.”

The dead fucker had a steel plate in his head.

Ten feet away, the hunter’s arms came up. His blackened jaw opened, and dark grayish fluid spilled over his lips. Gus took aim and squeezed.

Nothing happened.

The zombie closed in. Gus pulled the trigger again, but the weapon wouldn’t fire. Something had jammed it. Or he’d run out of bullets. He jerked backward, attention divided between making the pistol work and the nearing gimp who appeared pretty sure of itself at the moment.

It lurched for Gus.

He let out a yelp and ran until he was well out of its reach, the hunter tracking him while flexing its jaw and teeth. That one charge was the dead’s last trick it seemed, and it eyed Gus’s retreating figure while conveying the message of “Son, I am so gonna take a bite outta your ass.”

“Oh, I hear you, you old bastard,” Gus said, composing himself and bending over as if about to pitch a baseball.

The hunter closed in.

Gus slapped his visor down and stuck the pistol down his boot. The deadhead’s shadow fell over him, black fingers curling into claws. The fingers grazed the Nomex covering his back, gripping the material in a bunch.

Gus straightened and stabbed the Bowie’s entire length up under the jawline of the undead, through its rotten brain. He twisted it with as much torque as he could get. The force of the jab straightened the zombie for a split second, then it dropped to Gus’s steel-toed boots without so much as a twitch.

“Weren’t expectin’ that, were ya, huh? Stupid unawares ass chewin’ fuck.”

He pulled out the blade, wiped it off on the back of the corpse, and sheathed it in his boot. Breathe, he told himself, and took a series of deep breaths to clear his head and just taste the air, having had quite enough excitement for the morning. The ache around his eyes didn’t seem so bad anymore.

Shaking his head, he turned and got back to walking.

“Just my goddamn luck to wake up and get the fuckin’ terminator.”

*

Mid-afternoon, his luck changed for the better. He found an open parking area filled with cars, paint gleaming in the sunlight and snowmelt sliding off the hoods. Gus crossed the street and surveyed the area, spotting five zombies lurching around the cars. The parking area was next to a rise of small cottages which he knew were sometimes rented out to students during the academic year. Blowing away any of the five zombies might attract more. Stealth was needed.

Slipping around several large elm trees, he stayed off the snow for fear of crunching noises. He crept along the road and approached the rear of the garage, keeping the corner of the building between him and the zombies. He didn’t want a full-out bat-swinging fight. He gripped the hilt of the Bowie knife and extracted it from his boot.

From what he could see, no other zombies were moving in the area. He placed his back to the garage wall as he snuck closer. Reaching the corner, he peered around it and located the zombies. Still only five.

Even as he looked, one of the heads hissed and turned in his direction.

Gus swore and jerked back out of sight. He’d forgotten about their ability to smell. Though he was covered in Nomex, obviously there was enough of a scent for something to hook their attention.

The sound of dragging footsteps approached. A moan. Closer. Gus placed his shoulder to the wall and waited with the Bowie. He’d have to make it quick. He didn’t want to use the Benelli.

The gimp moaned again and turned the corner as Gus flashed out his hand and grabbed the back of its rotten head. He pulled the zombie forward as the Bowie knife stabbed up under the chin, through skin, tissue, and finally brain. Gus caught the corpse before it fell to the ground and dragged it out of sight of the others. He deposited the body in a nearby ditch, shivering at having made contact with the dead thing.

That was one.

Getting back into position, Gus cleared his throat as loudly as possible. He kept on until he heard number two making its way toward him. The zombie’s shoulder popped into view, and Gus again stabbed up under the jaw, snapping the mouth shut and twisting the blade hard enough to scramble its brain. The gimp dropped as if stepping onto a trap door. Gus kept low as he pulled the carcass by its armpits over to the ditch, gasping at the stench of the rotting flesh.

He put down the third one in the same way, and his confidence was riding high by the time he killed the fourth victim, grabbing the zombie in a headlock and stabbing it through an eye. He didn’t bother dumping the last one into the ditch. Keeping low, Gus entered the garage. He lay flat on the floor and spotted the bare, decomposing feet of the remaining zombie, three cars over. On hands and knees, he crawled to the rear of the garage, past the cars. Rising to his feet, but still hunched over, he moved, stalking the final zombie.

The gimp stood beside the last car in the lot, and when Gus reached it, he tapped the fiberglass rear, attracting the thing inside the garage. He waited until he heard the rustling against the length of the car, and at the last possible moment, tripped the creature. The zombie clattered to the cement with a hiss. Gus sprang on its back, twisted its head completely around so he could see the face, and stabbed it through the face with the strength of both arms. The creature seized up with a snap of cartilage and bone before slumping.

Exhaling, Gus went to work on the cars.

He located a red Kia two-door compact with the keys in the ignition. On the third attempt, the motor turned over, and Gus saw that the car had a quarter of a tank of gas, more than enough to get him home. He pulled out of the garage and onto the main road.

Snow still covered the highway in places, and twice, going uphill, the tires spun, seeking traction. But in the end, it got him to the base of the mountain. The road leading to the house looked icy and lumpy, and he doubted the little car would get him up the slope. He parked the vehicle on the far shoulder, got out, patted the roof in thanks, and started hiking.

The sky had deepened into a dark blue by the time he got home. When he staggered through the open gates, he felt the urge to weep, but suppressed it. It wasn’t his fault things had gone into the shitter while he was in the city. It was the fault of the three he’d killed.

With trembling hands, he went to the front door.

14

For the next few days, he stayed close to home, recovering, eating, drinking, and doing little things to improve his defenses. He unjammed the Ruger and made more firebombs in the garage. One afternoon, he went out in the truck and harvested gasoline from the cars on the highway. All the while, the ghostly images of the three men he’d killed in the street haunted him. Especially the boy. That one bothered him. Just as he thought he’d forgotten the whole incident, that wall of hungry gimps came back and pounced on the youngster in agonizing slow motion, making Gus pause in his work and wince.

One evening, with his work done and feeling good about it, he relaxed on the deck and sipped amber rum with the captain in the other chair. Both faced the dark, moon-scarred surface of Annapolis. The last two days had been warm, and much of the snow had disappeared. Moisture laced the air and made it smell fresh. Spring approached, but instead of thinking of romance and open fields finally blooming, Gus leaned back in his chair and mulled dark thoughts of fucking up every last zombie within the city limits.

“A missile strike is what I need here, Captain,” he said to the duct-taped bottle.

The captain agreed.

“Fuckin’ A,” Gus growled and practically inhaled a quarter of the rum. “Fuckin’ A,” he muttered again. The bottle stayed nestled in his lap for easy access.

“Trouble is… I don’t have a fuckin’ missile. Wish I did, though. Something non-nuclear, but with enough pop to clear the surface down there. And then, and then something like the Americans’ daisy cutter. That’s the one that… that penetrates the…” He belched. “‘S’cuse me. Penetrates the ground. Get down in there and scour the drain system. That’d be best, but I don’t got anything like that.”

Gus stopped and mulled some more, fingers playing piano on the bottle in his lap. “I ain’t goin’ down there, either. Not the storm drains. Too damn tight. Never have a chance. Haveta be able to get them above ground to kill ‘em all, and then there’s just so… goddamn many of the little shits.”

Can’t be that many, the captain muttered.

“You didn’t see ‘em, man. You didn’t. If you did, well…” He trailed off, chortling and nodding emphatically that the captain would very much be impressed by the new foe. “I could leave here. And just go. Pack up the beast and fly.”

But that idea didn’t sit well with Gus and even as the words left him, he knew he wouldn’t do it. It was his problem—his responsibility—because there was no one else. He supposed he was expendable. After killing living people in cold blood, perhaps it would be an equalizer if he took care of the rats. Something like that couldn’t be allowed to go on feeding and multiplying in the valley. He had to do something. Maybe it would tip the scales back for him, bring him back on better ground spiritually.

Why do you care?

He didn’t know. Couldn’t answer, but it felt like a good thing to do, the right thing to do. If he left and drove west, the rats would just… what? Stay there? Follow him? He chuckled at that, shook his head, and took a sip of rum.

Kill ‘em all, he thought, but how to do it? The firebomb had worked. Trouble was, it destroyed the house. Firebombing the whole city wasn’t a good idea.

Why not? the captain asked.

Gus stared at the bottle. He suddenly didn’t feel so drunk anymore. There wasn’t anyone left alive in Annapolis. Who would he be hurting if he burned the whole city? Razed it to the ground.

The rats would stay underneath until it burned itself out.

Gus knew they’d do exactly that, unless he could toast them underground, fricassee the little furry shits right in the storm drains. But how could he do that? How could he torch them underground? He’d have to stuff something into the drains. He’d have to…

Holy shit.

The gas tanks. All of the gas tanks. The gas stations all had underground tanks. All of them were probably empty, but still dangerous. They all had fumes, and fumes were where all the magic happened. If he could explode each of those stations, that would certainly be… a start.

But he needed more gas.

Then, the mother lode struck him. At the west end of the city, in the Kentville area, the Western Oil storage facility had maintained eight huge fuel containers, each capable of containing half a million liters of ethanol and gas—potentially four million liters of burnable liquid and certainly explosive under the right conditions. Gus knew that the gas stations in the valley had been emptied, but how many people, in their panic, had actually thought about the Western Oil facility? He didn’t think there were too many. He hadn’t even thought of it much, as just popping gas tanks and draining them was more manageable. He knew they were there, but the pipelines were too big, too much trouble. But if he were only unleashing the fuel with no other intent other than to torch the city….

The dark face of the city gleamed evilly at him, knowing he was on to something. Gus leaned back and smiled at Annapolis. He exhaled, feeling the rum’s magic. It helped him think.

Fire. Purify the place with fire.

He rocked in the chair, not feeling the cold, and stared into the distance. He had the beginning of a plan in his head.

Firebomb Annapolis. Burn it all down.

That thought burned in his mind like a single bright candle.

He would do it. The final decision made him blink and almost brought him back to sobriety. The city made no sound, wary of the course of action he’d decided upon.

“Have to do it soon, ‘cause I have a theory. I think them little bastards hate the cold just as much as their two-legged cousins. Slows them down. Keeps them underground where it’s warmer. I’ve seen rats—live rats—scamper around old storage sheds and garbage sites, but these move like something’s wrong with them. Either the cold or the virus or whatever. Spring is comin’, though. Might come a time when they’ll be above ground all the time. The sun won’t keep ‘em down. Not for long. Certainly not forever. But one match at the right time and I could potentially nuke the whole fuckin’ bunch of ‘em.”

He thought more about it, feeling in his guts that it was the right thing to do.

“You’re not sayin’ much,” he said to the captain.

And the sailor didn’t respond.

*

The next morning, Gus woke up in miserable condition, nauseated and flooded with diarrhea. His bones and joints felt as if someone had thread wire through them during the night and was currently jacking him up by yanking on the ends. He spent the morning on the bucket in the bathroom, and later meditated on the outhouse throne. He swore he’d never drink again. It was the booze, his old love, leaving him stricken with the morning light. He’d had enough. He didn’t want to see another bottle. But by mid-afternoon, the thirst became so bad, he gave in without even a curse. He went back to sipping on Jack Daniels, needing just one bottle for comfort. It helped him control his shaking hands. His supply of that particular brand of whiskey was dwindling, and he hoped that maybe he’d find some in the city soon.

While it was still there.

He wrote the day off, drinking equal amounts of water with his whiskey, and stayed home. He took it easy and watched the snow melt. Once, he wandered outside to look at the city. He thought he heard the sound of children playing, but when he stopped and strained to hear, the kids became coy and didn’t make a peep. He stayed out there, though, shivering in the early spring air, listening anyway.

The day after that, he felt in better health. He got up just before dawn, got dressed, ate, checked his hands for shakes, and performed a once-over check of the truck he’d prepped the night before, transferring most of the equipment over from the beast. He covered himself in Nomex gear, tightening a leather belt around his mid-section. He located some hockey gloves and tossed them on the passenger seat of the truck. Those would be for heavy combat, he figured, and went back to the fingerless gloves he preferred when heading out to town. The Nomex gloves would stay behind. He cracked open a fresh bottle of amber rum and took a long, steady drink, lowering the bottle only once for a breath and an unseeing look at the wall. The half-empty bottle went back on the shelf.

The pickup made its way down the mountain side, feeling out every knob and rut in the road and rocking Gus to an irregular beat. When he got to the highway, he thought maybe winter would be over early this year. The pavement looked dark and wet under the dreary daylight, fringed in gobs of white. He slowed when he came to the body in the road. Curls of snow dressed the dead man, but he was still in place. The rats hadn’t taken him yet.

“You’re my marker,” Gus said grimly and motored on.

Halfway through the drive, the sun turned the dark sky orange with all the subtly of a lit match scorching paper. Watching the road with leery concentration, he unconsciously checked off the familiar sights of the junk left and plundered as he passed them—an old truck charred to the metallic bone, gutted trailer of a semi stabbing a billboard straight through the gullet, motorcycle on its side as if the rider had been clawed from the seat. Yellow foamy innards spilled on the pavement. All landmarks. All old acquaintances. Unmoving, unchanging.

Uncaring.

The full bottle of dark rum rolled and nudged his leg with every movement of the truck. Next to that, the captain rode in the passenger seat, in all his duct-taped glory, grinning and obviously happy to be riding shotgun. With the captain were three of his Molotov soldiers, his marines, loaded with gas and primed with a cloth wick. Gus had wrapped them in a blanket to keep them safe. He was glad the bottles were there. The bottles were on his side.

He stayed on the main roads upon entering the city. The sun rose above the mountains, turning on its bright charm. Houses thickened into residential areas. Lanes split into two. Hulks of abandoned shopping malls and super stores lay silent, snow still covering their parking lots. Looking down side roads, he glimpsed the occasional slouched figure, but he didn’t engage. He wanted to avoid confrontation until the very last moment. On the far side of what was once known as Kentville lay his objective. He was going to start at one end of the city and work his way back, burn his way back. He’d brought all the supplies he needed in the back of the truck, vowing never again to be caught in the city on bad terms. He had tinned food and bottled water, enough for a few days, and he’d thrown his mountain bike into the back. If he lost the truck, he wouldn’t be walking home.

He’d burn his way back.

Jesus Christ, he thought and suddenly felt the need for a very long drink. Was he actually going to do burn the city? He took in the streets and the trees and everything that was once good.

He took a deep clarifying breath.

Yes, he was. Goddamn right, he was.

Little furry fuckers had tried to eat him. He couldn’t have that. Word might get around. That notion made him giggle.

Twenty minutes later, he turned onto the forested street that led to the Western Oil storage facility. The place had been built outside the city limits for safety. But the concrete and steel rash that was the city had crept up on it, leaving only a thin veneer of forest around the area. To the east, an industrial park pinched off any expansion. Beyond the industrial park, a twenty-year-old subdivision snaked around the entire works. So much for safety. And Gus could not have been happier for it.

He slowed at the wire fence that enclosed the area, a mesh ten feet tall and topped off with barbed wire. A checkpoint lay just inside in the form of a red and white bar running the length of the road. A gatehouse stood to the left, and Gus couldn’t see anyone inside. The vertical tanks loomed perhaps forty feet high and at least that wide, gleaming like barrels of ivory in the morning sun.

Gus put the truck in park and got out, studying the treeline. He walked to the gate and eyed the steel padlock. When the world was still the world and folks weren’t eating each other like slabs of Japanese sashimi, there was an old show called Mythbusters on the Discovery Channel. The purpose of the show was to debunk questionable stunts and feats found in movies and TV shows. The one segment he remembered was where the guy shot off a padlock with a gun. He couldn’t remember the make of the gun or the type of padlock, but he did remember it not working, as it so often did in the movies.

Flipping down his visor, Gus took out the Benelli and flicked off the safety. He braced the skeleton stock against his shoulder and took aim through the scope. Checking to see how far back he stood from the gate, he sniffed and fired, blasting open the lock.

Mythbusters was full of shit, he thought as he unhooked the wrecked lock and tossed it into the nearby trees. With a metallic squeal, the gates swung inward with a push. Flipping his visor back up, Gus went to the gatehouse and studied the box and motor that would lift the blocking bar. Electrical. He pushed a black button, jabbing it impatiently with his thumb. Nothing happened. Placing the Benelli across his shoulder, he supposed he’d have to do it the hard way.

Bending low enough to step under the bar, Gus entered the storage facility. Wary of any lurking gimps, he approached the tanks, which were surrounded by a concrete dyke wall that came up to his waist. Equidistant from each other, the tanks were connected by a network of pipes and metal stairwells. An opening in the wall allowed Gus to move between the tanks, and a lattice of pipes and hoses threw snake shadows on the white ground. Western Oil didn’t have any tankers on site, and a quick look informed him that the small office built off to one side probably didn’t hold much of interest. Gus stepped up to the first one and, with the barrel of his shotgun, tapped its side. The connection echoed dully and told him nothing. He didn’t know if the thing was full or not.

He walked along the base until he came to an oversized red pipe with yellow markings. A large valve with a yellow handle stood on top. Another metal padlock and chain kept the lever in place. The mouth of pipe was large enough to stuff a grapefruit inside of it. He gripped the lever and pulled it to the right. The padlock and chain kept it from turning.

Gus took a deep breath and looked at the little office building. Painted in gray and black, with windows on all sides except in the rear, the structure appeared glum under the sun. A huge load of orange sand bags were stacked behind it, like a collection of heavy bean bags. A stack of fire hoses, coiled like great green serpents, lay to the side of a hydrant. He walked to the front door and peered through a window. Charts and notepads covered the back wall, along with a blond model, topless, showing off a little more than her tan lines.

Tapping the glass with his plastic elbow pad, he smashed it on the second try. In seconds, he was inside the office and rooting through the one desk. He found a set of keys, but a quick search informed him there wasn’t anything else of interest. With no power, the box with a bunch of switches and levers was useless, so he exited and returned to the first tank.

Fingers trembling, he found the correct key and removed the padlock and chain with a yank. Steel crinkled and rasped on steel, and he tossed the length to the ground. He wrapped his hand around the valve lever, and after a dramatic pause, he pulled it.

And couldn’t budge it.

Best use a crowbar, the captain called out from the truck.

“Don’t need no… crowbar,” Gus growled through clenched teeth.

I’m telling you. Use. A crowbar.

“Lay off… with the crowbar.”

The sailor didn’t comment again. Gus strained with the valve and failed to make it move. Panting for air, he inspected the metal for rust and scowled. Grunting, he returned to the truck and fished out the crowbar.

“Not one goddamn word,” he warned the captain.

The old sailor kept his thoughts to himself, but the smile gleamed.

Gus went back and applied the crowbar. After almost a minute of wrestling with the valve and lever, he opened up the lines. Greenish liquid squirted out, splashing onto the ground in gulps. Amazed, Gus pulled harder on the crowbar, fighting the crankiness in the valve. He moved it another notch, and more gas splashed onto the ground, pooling at his boots. He wondered why they left the entryway for the tankers open. Perhaps they had something like sandbags to seal the opening if there was a spill. In any case, Gus didn’t mind. He stood back and became mindful of where the gas pooled. It interested him for only a few more seconds before he went to the next tank and repeated the process. More gas splashed down, its smell pungent, sharp, and not at all bad. He believed the second one was filled with ethanol from the urine-like colour, but wasn’t sure. He knew there were plenty of octane-spiking additives that went into engine fuel, and there were probably more beneficial ones he wasn’t aware of, but none of that mattered as long as it all burned when he put a match to it.

He opened the remaining tanks, but only four had fuel in them. The valves spat fluid onto the concrete as if vomiting. Gus looked around for the storm drain, but couldn’t find one. The grated hole wasn’t anywhere inside the compound either, which puzzled him even more. Had he missed something?

Moving back to his truck, he studied the sides of the road. No storm drain. His stomach lurched. He knew things had been going too well. Holding the Benelli in one hand, he marched down the length of the road, eyeing the thawing forest on either side. At one point he stopped and regarded his pickup, about fifty feet away. Feeling exasperated for not checking on such an important part of his plan, he jogged back to the truck. Fuel oozed out along the concrete, moving away from the tanks and toward the gate where it would go… nowhere.

“Goddamnit.” Gus started the truck and made a three point turn, turning it around and driving slowly down the road.

What’s wrong? the captain asked.

Gus didn’t answer. He searched carefully, hoping to Christ he hadn’t just wasted all that fuel.

Then, he spotted it.

Stopping the pickup, he slapped the machine into reverse and backed up to the iron grate set into the curb. Only one opening, but it was all he needed. He jumped out of the truck and sized up the storm drain. He looked back toward the Western Oil facility and figured he was perhaps three or four hundred feet away from the nearest tank, away from all that glorious flammable goodness.

“Oh, man,” he muttered, reaching up and clasping his hands together over his helmet. “Oh, man. Oh, man.”

He glanced at the captain still sitting in the passenger seat. “Not sure it’s goin’ to get here.”

The captain swore a particularly surprising oath coming from a bottle.

“Yeah.” Gus watched the road, hoping to see a tide of gas heading his way. “Shit, what can I do?”

The captain had no advice on the matter. In the ensuing silence, Gus reached inside the pickup, unscrewed the top from the bottle of rum, and took that very long drink he needed. Standing in the middle of the street with a bottle in his hand, he shook his head and felt his anxiety rise.

“Shit.” He replaced the cap on the bottle. He got aboard the truck and turned it around, heading back to the tanks. Parking the truck outside the gate, he got out and found a huge pool of gas flowing almost to the gatehouse, but it was headed away from the road, following the barest of inclines.

Gus looked toward the office and saw the answer just lying there. The sandbags. He splashed through the widening pool and got to the stack of sandbags. If he could build a low wall and divert the flow to the road outside, the curbs would channel the gas to the storm drain. Filled with new purpose, he grabbed one large sack, perhaps weighing ten kilograms, and lugged it over to where the dike wall stopped. He dropped the back, pushed it firm against the wall, and watched as the gas lapped against it, flowed along its length, and around.

More sandbags.

He spent the next two hours building a low wall of sandbags which channelled the gas past the gatehouse and into the road. With the sandbags in place and stacked two layers high, the gas bled steadily into the street and followed the curb, heading towards the drain. Gus walked unsteadily on the long line of sandbags until he reached the gatehouse. Exhausted, he sat in the back of the truck, watching the gas flow by. He opened a can of beef stew, ate it with a spoon, and washed it down with equal sips of water and dark rum. The gas streamed by the truck tires, and Gus had an image of all four catching on fire. He didn’t get up to move the truck, however. The only thing moving his ass for the next little while would be deadheads, and he wouldn’t mind their company in the least.

An hour later, Gus started the truck. He drove slowly and stopped when he reached the drain on the right. Gas disappeared into its depths. On the left side of the road, the stream continued unabated. He drove on until he came to a second storm drain on that side, further down the road. He’d missed that one completely, but the gas trickled into it, too.

Gus drove a hundred feet before stopping and gazing back. The gas kept moving down the road and funneling into the storm drains. That sight filled Gus with a sense of hope and awe. He’d have to be very careful on that section of road right up until he finally dropped a match. He had no idea how long it would take for the fuel tanks to empty, or how long the flow of gas would take to reach the inner parts of town, and he wasn’t going to stick around to watch.

He had other things to do.

15

He pulled into a shopping mall parking lot spotted with deserted cars and melting snow. Backing up to a set of glass double doors, Gus killed the engine. He got out and breathed deeply of the moist cold air. Fresh air, he thought, couldn’t be beat. The zombies he’d put down a few days before were gone.

Gus looked for a handle on the doors and realized they were the automated kind. The main entrance had regular doors, but the set he stood in front of gave direct access into the E-Mart store. He had no intention of wandering in through the main doors and then walking the hundred meters or so through a dark shopping mall to get to E-Mart. But after lifting sandbags for a good chunk of the morning, he didn’t feel like smashing in the door with his bat, so he got back into the truck, slapped it into reverse, and slammed the rear through the doors with a resounding crash of glass and metal. A minute later, Gus stepped through the wrecked opening, with the Benelli loaded and ready. Fragments of debris dropped from above, tinkling as they landed on the floor.

“Anybody in here?” After a moment, he returned to the truck and got out a flashlight, sheathed the shotgun, and pulled out the Ruger. Crossing his wrists as he had seen cops and FBI agents do in movies so they could point the weapon in the same direction as the light beam, he stepped back into the mall store and flicked on the flashlight.

Moving quickly, Gus walked into the dark interior of the massive shopping store. He moved past checkout counters and empty display racks and headed down an aisle filled with gaming consoles locked behind glass display cases. He stopped at a junction and looked up to read the department signs—Household, followed by an arrow. Once he got his bearings, he stalked off in a straight line. He found the bedding section and took an armful of packaged cotton sheets. After a brief struggle to balance the sheets, gun, and flashlight, he retraced his steps.

When he emerged from the entrance, he tossed the three packages of sheets into the rear of the pickup. The image of the boy being consumed by a flood of corpses crossed his mind. He reached into the truck and found the bottle of rum. Taking a healthy shot, he stared at the parking lot. The booze made him forget about the boy.

He got aboard his truck and returned to the storm drains. Gus got out and inspected the steady stream of gas flowing underground. The sight of it, like a shallow summertime brook, made him smile. He climbed up into the back of the pickup and pulled out the Bowie knife. He cut open the first package and opened up the sheet. Yellow summer flowers in a swirly pattern covered the material. Gus sawed the knife downward and cut a narrow strip from one end of the sheet to the other. Tying the strips together, he made one long fuse which he rolled up like an extension cord. Once done with the first, he got to work on the other sheets and made ten long lengths.

Once the fuses were all cut and rolled, he got down from the truck and unceremoniously dropped them into the combined flow of gas and ethanol, saturating the material. He tossed the soaked wads of cotton into the back of the truck. He wasn’t sure if dipping the lengths in the mixture of flammable goodness was a good idea or not, but he was willing to chance it. What was the worst could happen? He’d be blown to hell and probably not even know it. When faced with that or being feasted upon by something that should rightfully be dead, the choice was pretty clear to him.

An hour later, the back of his truck was filled with the soaking masses of the cotton sheet fuses. Puddles of the fuel mixture seeped onto the metal floor. Gus got aboard the truck and drove away. He wanted to start blowing things up right then.

Driving back into town, Gus thought his nerves were becoming a little twitchy. The sky turned red as he stopped the truck perhaps fifty feet away from the first gas station. He pulled over on the opposite side of the road, with his truck pointed away from the station and ready for a fast escape. He got out, took a deep mind-clarifying breath, and readied the shotgun.

Was he really about to blow up a gas station? Eight stations, all chosen because of their locations. Once destroyed, the blasts would corral the rats to the center of the city, right where the drainage system converged.

There were other buildings nearby the first station. One was a windshield-repair place; another was a mom-and-pop take-out restaurant. A few houses stood beyond those. Bare trees leaned in between, as the valley was ever so blessed with the huge elms and a few stalks of spruce and pine. Gus thought they would all burn like afterburners once lit.

The streets were devoid of gimps. He walked across the pavement and reached the overhead canopy displaying, Frank’s Gas Stop and Service Station, in bold-faced red lettering. One of the doors to the garage bay stood open, and Gus momentarily stopped and pondered. He looked around and saw that the streets were still clear.

He went around to the left of the station and searched the ground. He didn’t find what he wanted there, so he headed for the other side. Passing in front of the open bay door, he saw something that immediately captured his attention.

A sledgehammer on a workbench.

For some reason he couldn’t explain, he wanted that sledgehammer. Images of bashing in the skulls of deadheads flashed through his mind, then the zombie faces morphed into the face of the boy. He shoved that image away and stepped warily into the shadowy bay. Several tools hung from the wall, but he wasn’t interested in any of those. He placed the Benelli on the bench and gripped the handle of the sledgehammer, grunting when he hefted the thing. Heavy and unwieldy, the reality of the tool dismissed any notion of actually using it in combat.

Still, it was going with him.

He hurried back to the truck, glancing up and down the streets for zombies. The sledgehammer went into the back, and he returned to his search, finding what he wanted only minutes later—the manhole cover to the underground tanks. With his crowbar, he wrestled the cover off and gazed down at a gaping hole big enough to plug with a two-liter pop bottle, used when tankers brought in their loads to refill the tanks. A telltale wisp of gasoline tantalized him. Staring down that black eye caused a shiver to shoot through him, and he balked, thinking of the ramifications of what he intended to do. Only for a few seconds, however.

He retrieved one of his dripping fuses from the back of his truck. Getting down on his knees, he found it was difficult to stuff the strip any distance down the opening, but another quick search of the garage produced a sixty centimeter dipstick made of wood, no wider than his thumb. He jammed the fuse into the hole, pushing it as far down as he could with the dipstick. Once that was done, he paused and waited for a few seconds. When he realized he was still alive, he stood and backed away from the hole, unravelling the fuse all the way back to the truck.

He had perhaps a sixty foot length of fuse which ended right at the pickup’s driver’s side. He dropped the sheet once its limit was reached and took a lighter from the truck. He lit the end of the fuse and watched the flame lick up the gas soaked cloth. It moved quickly, and Gus suddenly realized where he was standing. Cursing, he jumped into the pickup and started it. He looked over his shoulder and saw that the fuse had already burned halfway to the hole. Slamming his foot down on the accelerator, he peeled away.

He got four truck lengths down the street when the fuel container ignited and exploded. The crash of sound and flash of flame made him hunch down in the seat. He divided his attention between the road ahead and the image in his rear view mirror as he kept driving.

Reaching the hundred meter mark, Gus slowed to a stop and got half way out of the truck to look back.

“Whoa,” was all he could say, facing the burning station. Black smoke curled and flowered into the air, obscuring the road and everything around it.

Chunks of debris began peppering the road and houses, trailing wild streamers of smoke as if they were dying meteors. He heard glass shatter somewhere, a splintery smashing of wood, then a slab of smouldering pavement the size of his foot landed ten feet away from the rear of the pickup.

Gus remembered the remaining fuses, exposed and soaking fuel. He jumped inside the truck and got going, cringing and waiting for that one superheated rock or fiery piece of debris to end it all. In his mirrors, he saw chunks, both big and small, sizzling down from the heavens, while black smoke continued billowing from the station.

Another blast startled him, distracting him from the road, but he wouldn’t slow the truck. A glance in a mirror showed a fireball, partially obscured by a wall of smoke, rising into the air, before dissipating in glorious fashion.

Gus made a turn, and the scene left his mirrors. He kept his foot on the gas until the fear of being hit by something eased. He finally pulled over in a dark section of town and looked back in the direction of the explosion. Sounds of smaller blasts perforated the stillness like distant fire crackers, and the bank of black smoke hung in the air like something from hell, unleashed and hungry.

“Christ almighty.” Gus was just beginning to fully understand the destructive energy he’d set off. “Christ on a stick.”

He couldn’t imagine what the station looked like, but he knew from the periodical stabs of flame in the distance that other things had caught fire. A soft rumbling rolled over the rooftops, as if the earth itself had taken a sabot round in the ass and was none too pleased about it. He got out of the truck and stood beside it, gawking at the distant area, half-ready to get the hell further away if needed. The smoke continued to rise as whatever combustible material near the site ignited and burned. The sky became darker, and the sun was nowhere to be seen.

And in the fiery afterburn of the blaze, Gus smiled.

He reached for the bottle on the seat and drained it, hardly even reacting to the burn. Once empty, the bottle went back into the cab, next to the three firebombs. He’d fill that one up later. He wanted another drink. With the sky darkening, he knew he should head home, but the rush of the explosion combined with the booze already in his system made him feel powerful, invincible.

And the liquor shop wasn’t that far away.

Ten minutes later, he pulled the truck into the liquor store parking lot. He switched on the high beams as he stopped in front of the doors. Time passed, and impatience tapped on his nerves and brain. When he could wait no longer, Gus got out and picked up his flashlight. It would only be a quick stop. Just the wink of an eye.

He wandered in, the light from headlights illuminating everything. He wandered past the empty shelves until he got to an open case of white Bacardi rum. He pawed at the cardboard, making the bottles inside rustle and tinkle against each other. He pulled a forty ouncer out of the box. There was nothing quite like a full bottle of booze. Gus compared it to holding a tank shell. He unscrewed the cap and took a pull out of the bottle, snarling just a little when he lowered it. He wasn’t much into white rum, but he supposed he couldn’t be particular under the circumstances. Sniffing indifferently, he took out two more bottles, tucking one underneath his arm while holding the others by their necks.

With thoughts on a late supper and a bottle of Bacardi, and even more thoughts on the pyrotechnics of lighting up the remaining gas stations, he went back to the truck.

Waiting for him on the threshold stood a man.

Gus halted in his tracks.

He initially thought the figure was a zombie. Then he noticed that the newcomer held a bat in his right hand.

“Howdy,” Gus said, frowning and placing his bottles on the nearest checkout counter.

“Howdy.” The gravelly response froze him in his tracks.

Gus blinked, holding a hand up to his eyes.

“Where’d you get the truck?” the voice asked.

“Found it,” Gus answered after a moment.

“Where?”

He took his time answering, mulling over if he should say anything at all. “Won’t lie to you. That truck was parked on my property. Belonged to a man who tried to kill me.”

Silence. The shadow didn’t move. “That man have a name?”

“Didn’t get it.”

“I got it.”

“Yeah?”

The shadow paused, then with dramatic flair, lifted the bat to his shoulder as if he were about to walk away. “Jonathan.”

“Oh.” Gus shrugged. “Don’t know him.”

“If you saw him, you’d recognize him. Big man. Shaved head. Last time I saw him, he wore a hockey helmet.”

Gus shrugged again. “Lotta guys walkin’ around here like that.”

The newcomer’s head tilted to one side, as if the statement either amused the hell out of him or pissed him off. Gus couldn’t be sure which.

“Last I saw of him, he and about seventeen others got in their cars and trucks and went off to rescue a woman. His woman, to be precise.”

Roxanne.

Oh, Jesus Christ.

“Uh-huh.” Gus squinted, sizing up the figure and estimating him to be a little taller than himself, but shorter than Scott. Bulkier, too. “Good women are hard to find these days.”

“I don’t give a shit what happened to them.”

“I killed them.”

Shocked silence. “You did?” The man’s tone was doubtful.

“Yeah, I did. The whole works of them.” Gus shook his head. “They were trespassin’.”

“You… killed them all?”

“Yeah.”

“Didn’t talk things out?”

“Hard to talk things out when folks are shootin’ at you.”

“You killed them.”

“Yeah.” Gus nodded, looking to one side then the other, in case he had to dodge the bat.

“That’d make you a dangerous man.”

“Baddest I know.”

The shadow didn’t respond to that. After a moment, the shadow hissed, “Jonathan’s dead?”

“Uh-huh. Dumped off a cliff, too.”

“Shit,” the man said. “You did me a favor. Would’ve done it eventually. Jonathan was a prick right through. I was only bidding my time when I could take him on. Much appreciated.”

It was Gus’s turn to be surprised. “You’re happy he’s dead?”

“He is dead, right?”

Gus nodded. “Yeah. He is. Shot him through the head.”

“Shit. Good riddance then. Owe you one for that. ‘Cept there ain’t no gang left over on account you killed most of them. When did this happen?”

“Couple of months ago. Around Christmas.”

“Yeah, that’s when they all went missing. Went up the side of a mountain and never came back.”

Gus shrugged. “How was it you weren’t with them?”

“Fuck ‘im. I didn’t care for the man. Didn’t care that he turned our people into what they were. My boys and me were left waiting for him to get back. To mind the camp.”

“Your boys?”

“Yeah. My boys.”

“Where are they now?”

“Figure dead, too.”

“Oh.”

“Went out searching houses one day and never came back.”

Gus suddenly didn’t like where the conversation was heading. “Three men?”

Guarded hesitation. “Yeah.”

“One was a teenager? Big blocky kid?”

“Yeah.”

Gus tensed. “Was.”

“How’d you know?”

“Saw him get eaten,” Gus said.

“You saw him?”

“Did.”

“And you didn’t do anything to save him?”

“Hard to do when the boy was tryin’ to take my head off with a rope.”

The shadow straightened. “You’re the asshole on the ski-doo.”

That made Gus pause. “Was the asshole… got the truck now.”

More silence. “That boy… was my son.”

Well… shit. “Wilbur.” Gus sighed.

The shadow charged, screaming, bat raised.

Gus stepped back into the shadows, past the counter, and heard the hiss of the bat somewhere just behind him. Something shattered. The father roared in both fury and grief. Gus darted to the right, down a dark aisle. The father smashed the bat into something behind him, making one length of shelves shudder. Another roar, and the stomp of pursuit.

Gus whirled and bent to get out his pistol. A monstrous shade rose up before him, and as he pulled the pistol from the ankle holster, the bat cracked it from his hand, sending it spinning into the dark. The father jabbed with the bat, hitting Gus square in the chest. He fell backward and bounced off a metal shelf. Something swished by his head, and Gus lunged forward. He punched and connected with the guy’s mid-section, feeling the thick cloth of winter gear. He punched several times more, getting a solid four punch combination into the bigger man’s body and making him grunt. An elbow smashed into Gus’s helmet, spinning him around and disorienting him. He instinctively dove for the floor. He heard the swish of the bat where his head once was, rolled away, and got to his feet. The bat came down and cracked into the floor with a heavy sounding clunk.

Metallic. Man’s got an aluminum bat. Gus ran deeper into the shop, cloaking himself in shadow.

“He was only fourteen,” the father growled. “Hear me, fucker? You killed a boy!”

A big boy who squealed like something wild when the dead ate him, Gus thought, hating his mind for thinking it. He wanted to shout out that he didn’t really kill him, that he only knocked out his kneecaps. Then he realized those words would drive the old man into an even greater rage.

Gus cut through the store, moving as quietly as possible, straining to control lungs that wanted to gulp air. He circled around the back of the shelves, listening for the wheezing of the father’s breath. Gus shook his head. He’d had to kill Wilbur to make a diversion for the deadheads, so he’d have time to get away. If he hadn’t, he’d be just as dead and gone. Just as eaten.

Just like Wilbur.

The lights. The headlights of the truck. Gus headed back toward the entrance and made it to the truck. He yanked open the driver’s door, then stopped.

No.

He wasn’t going to leave the father behind, not after leaving his son. He didn’t think there was enough booze in the whole of Annapolis for him to forget that. He reached in and pulled out the Benelli. The shotgun was more than an equalizer.

He saw Wilbur Senior in the glare of the headlights. White-faced with eyes slitted. Older man, perhaps late forties, with a week’s unshaven stubble on his face.

“Got a gun, I see.” The man’s shoulders heaved, his bat held across his pelvis. He wore a blue and red padded jacket and a lumberjack cap. Blue jeans and bare hands.

“Always had it.”

“Then you better use it, y’fucker.”

Gus kept the Benelli pointed at the ground. “No.” He tossed the gun into the cab. Stepping away from the truck, he dragged his own bat from its sheath. He held it like a sword. “You know about the rats?”

“Yeah.”

“The rats got your boy, I figure. Got the others, too.”

“You fucking cocksucker.”

“Yeah, well, I’ll make it up to you.” Gus moved to his left.

Wilbur Senior mirrored the movement. “Yeah? How?”

“I’m still here, ain’t I?”

Wilbur Senior charged, swinging his bat at Gus’s head.

Gus jumped out of the arc of the swing and whipped his own bat at his foe’s head. Wilbur Senior ducked and swung again, connecting with Gus’s stomach and knocking him a step back. The man screamed, brought the bat up over his head, and brought it down onto Gus’s helmet, knocking it askew. The chin strap held it on.

Gus lashed out with his own bat, trying to drive the other man back, but Wilbur’s father charged in again, gouging the head of his bat into Gus’s mid-section. Gus bent over with a huff. A second later, the bat crashed across his back, collapsing him to the pavement.

Wilbur Senior stomped on Gus’s lower back, and Gus watched the man line up the bat with Gus’s head like a mallet about to nail a lawn ball. Gus tried to move, but the booted foot held him down. A split second later, he heard a murderous crack as the bat smashed into the side of his helmet, knocking his head to one side. Gus fought for breath. He saw stars and felt his consciousness leaving.

Another blow shattered Gus’s visor. A boot crushed his side, practically squashing his kidney. Another boot went into his ribs and flipped him over.

Over the lip of his helmet, Gus saw Wilbur Senior standing over him, expression hateful, bat poised at its apex to stab downward.

Gus realized he still had a grip on his own bat, and he plunged the head of it into the man’s balls.

Wilbur Senior staggered back with a throaty gasp, bat dropping as if suddenly too heavy for him. Gus achingly got to his feet. He watched the other man hunch over at the hips, spitting and holding his crotch.

Gus winced simply thinking of that pulsating, nauseating pain. It would be easy, easy to step over and break open the man’s head like an old ceramic piggy bank.

But he didn’t.

Gus righted his helmet and pulled away the broken pieces of his visor.

Wilbur Senior panted and bared his teeth. He glanced over at Gus, then dropped to one knee, cupping his balls.

Gus figured he’d nailed the guy in the nuts pretty damned good. He should just get in the truck. Or finish the man. One or the other, but he shouldn’t simply wait.

But he did just that.

A solid ten minutes later, Wilbur Senior asked, “Why?”

What could Gus say? “For your son. That’s why.”

“I’ll… kill you.”

Gus shrugged. “When you’re ready, get up, and we’ll find out.”

Wilbur Senior slowly got to his feet. He bent over and picked up his bat. Then, he faced Gus and pointed the bat at him as if it were a sword.

Gus did the same. “You ready, then?”

No sooner had the final syllable left his mouth when the big man sprang at him, whipping his bat back over his shoulder and swinging for the fences.

Gus stepped back and swung his own bat with murderous intent.

The faster bat connected.

Gus smashed the other man’s head with a meaty thud, snapping it over at an altogether wrong angle. Wilbur Senior’s bat left his fingers at the last possible second. It grazed Gus’s helmet with enough force to back his head up on his shoulders, cracking his spinal column like a fat whip.

Both dropped to the pavement.

Gus rolled over a moment later, groaned, and sat up. He turned his head to the left and right, testing his neck. Nothing seemed to be broken and his head was still on his shoulders, but the headache and stabbing pain in his neck didn’t feel right. Gus knew he probably should’ve just shot the bastard and been finished with it, but oh no, he had to make an even fight of it, in guilty memory of Wilbur. He gazed over at the other man, who lay on his back, face up and eyes open. A squashed ear oozed blood. Gus heard a long hissing breath erupt from the man’s chest. He couldn’t be alive. Could he? Not after that. The man’s eyes remained open, unblinking.

Cringing, Gus got to his feet. He felt he won the fight fairly, if he didn’t count the shot to the balls.

That was a move of desperation, the captain informed him from the truck’s interior. Perfectly acceptable. And you allowed your foe to recover, which was more than fair.

Gus didn’t feel that way. He staggered over to where the man lay and tried closing his eyes. Contrary to what he had seen in movies, the eyes didn’t close easily. He snapped his fingers over the man’s face. Gus reached down and brought up his Bowie knife. He put the tip of the blade under the man’s stubbly chin. One cut, and the episode with the family was over. One cut.

Gus adjusted the blade and stabbed the man up under the chin and into his brain. He twisted hard. Blood welled around the metal, bursting forth when he pulled it out. It drenched the front of the dead man’s coat in a blackness that gleamed in the headlights. Gus drew back, falling on his ass. He watched the man bleed for a few long seconds, still somewhat dazed by the crack to the head, despite the helmet.

Wilbur’s father had been strong. But he was dead, as dead as Gus could make him, and he wasn’t being left for the gimps.

Gus absentmindedly cleaned the knife off on the dead man’s denim-covered leg. Putting the blade back down his boot, he stood, stumbled for a moment, and reminded himself that the Ruger was still somewhere inside the liquor corporation.

Gus stooped and picked up his bat. He checked to make certain it was his and not Wilbur Senior’s, because that would be weird. In pain, he made his way around the truck to the driver’s side. He crawled inside and pulled the door closed. The headlights annoyed him, so he switched them off.

Then passed out.

16

Darkness moved, shifted, and seeped whispers that dragged him back to consciousness. He awoke feeling lightheaded and achy. He was distantly aware of something not right. Something bothered him, and it wasn’t the sudden glaring pain in his neck. He groaned and stayed still for a moment. He realized he was staring at the ceiling of the truck. He’d passed out, keeled over, and landed painfully over the automatic gear stick. Groaning again, he pulled himself up onto the seat. He wasn’t dead. Far from it. He looked out the window and saw that the night was moonless. The dark bunker of the liquor store lay in front of the truck like a massive brick and mortar tomb. He wondered if the fires were still burning. He gripped the steering wheel with one hand and leaned forward to look into the blackness beyond the hood of the truck.

Something moved.

Frowning, he started the engine and flicked on the headlights.

The abrupt blaze of light was still enough to surprise the rats and send the writhing mat of them scurrying in all directions. Gus screamed and thrashed in his seat. The headlights cleared the rodents down to the blood-soaked pavement, where Wilbur’s father lay in a half-devoured heap. Stark light bleached bare guts and bone. Gus screamed again. With the position of the body, Gus could see into the exposed ribcage…

And the dark things that rustled within.

Shrieking, Gus slapped the gearshift in reverse and stomped on the gas. The truck lurched in its one-eighty turn, crushing two lines in the coarse carpet of rats. He drew breath to scream yet again when he saw the scope of what the headlights illuminated.

An ocean of the black creatures spanned the empty parking lot, layer upon layer, searching, no doubt, for the bloody corpse of Wilbur’s father. Gus placed the truck into drive. A primal loathing threatened to overcome him, and he gripped the steering wheel an inch from having his knuckles explode from his flesh. The rats struck at the metal chassis, and as Gus drove forward, the truck bucked and jumped over the bodies underneath, fighting for traction and automatically shifting into four-wheel drive. The creatures tried to avoid the oncoming truck, but the wheels mashed droves of them flat before they could get out of the way. There was so goddamn many of them. Gus believed that if he stepped out of the truck at that very moment, he would be up to his knees in the squirming things.

The pickup plowed through the masses, as thick and viscous as lumpy oil. He yanked the steering wheel hard to the left, the headlights touching the edge of a road. Rats scurried away from the oncoming machine in that little hop-a-long way they had of moving. The truck burst out onto the street, and Gus gunned the accelerator, spinning the rear tires and sending a mashed spray of meat and bone up into his sight through the rear view mirror. The wheels finally caught pavement, and he shot forward, bumping up over a curb and into a smaller parking lot. He hauled on the steering wheel again, slowing to better take the turn as the vehicle wheeled about. The headlights flashed over the ground, revealing a swarm seemingly bubbling from the night. Gus felt his nerves freeze. Completing a full turn, he thumped violently back onto the main road and pressed on the accelerator once more, crushing a pathway until the ride smoothed out and the wheels were on pure pavement.

He sped for about a block, making sure the rats weren’t following, if such a thing were possible. Realizing he was on the road to home, he decided to go there. He didn’t like driving at night, but he sure as hell wasn’t going to stay anywhere in Annapolis, not with the skin-prickling image of rats crawling over each other in the blaze of headlights.

Dawn hadn’t broken by the time he reached the outer gate of home. The shock had left him, but the memory clung. Once inside the wall, he parked the truck, got out, and closed the gates, then shone a flashlight beam under the frame of the truck. Shredded pieces of fur and flesh hung from the chassis, enough to make him want to throw up. He’d leave the truck outside for the night, as there was no way he was parking it in the garage with the gas-soaked fuses in the back of it.

He entered his house, tired, aching from his fight with Wilbur’s old man, and mentally frayed from the sight of the rats. The climb to his bedroom drained his remaining strength, and he passed out on the bed, not even bothering to remove the Nomex.

*

Dawn found him twisted uncomfortably amongst the numerous blankets, as if he endured nightmare after nightmare during the remainder of the night. He wondered for a brief moment if his fight with Wilbur Senior and escaping the rats had been only a dream. He hoped to God it was, hoped that all was actually well with the world, and that Tammy was waiting for him when he opened his eyes. They could argue about who was going to make breakfast.

He peeked through slitted lids. No Tammy. No smell of bacon wafting through the apartment. He was in a stranger’s house that he had claimed as his own, waking up in a stranger’s bedroom, after killing the father of a boy whom he had murdered in cold blood.

He just kept right on crossing lines.

Shoving back the blankets and kicking his legs free, he rubbed his bare head and combed his fingers through the rug that was his beard. Water. The thought made him smack his lips. Preferably water mixed with some scotch. He wasn’t a scotch drinker, but the combo sounded better than coffee. Peeling off his Nomex coat, he went downstairs. In the living room, he paused and gazed out a window toward the city.

Coils of black smoke marred an otherwise sunny morning.

“Holy shit,” Gus muttered, blinking. “Thing’s still burning.”

After a rushed breakfast and morning dump, Gus suited up in full gear and walked out to where he had parked the truck. He checked the fuses, his weapons, the captain, and the Molotov cocktails. His Ruger was missing, and he remembered losing it in the liquor store. That brought a brain scratch at the notion of having to return there. He remembered the bottles of white Bacardi he’d left on one of the check-out counters as well. Then, the rats came to mind, along with the half-eaten lump that had once been a man, a man he had personally stabbed through the brain, even though the guy hadn’t been in danger of rising as a deadhead.

Kicking at the ground, he realized he’d have to return to the parking lot. A quick stop. He’d stop no more than a few minutes, just enough time to find the weapon. The gun was too important to leave. Once that was done, he’d blow up the remaining gas stations before setting off the big one.

Going back to the garage for gas for the truck, he wondered how he would save his own ass. Then, he wondered if his ass was even worth saving anymore.

*

Mid-morning, he pulled into the parking lot of the liquor store and let out his breath in a whistle. The crawling sea of rat flesh was gone. The parking lot lay bare, and amazingly, not even the rats he’d crushed under his truck remained. He stopped the truck in front of the main doors of the liquor corporation and slowly eased out from behind the wheel, wary of even putting his feet onto the pavement. The only thing left of the man he’d killed was the aluminum bat. Gus wondered if the damn things had even eaten the man’s clothes and shoes, but that was probably impossible. Things that couldn’t be consumed had probably been dragged off into the night or simply borne away by the sheer numbers, like something caught in a riptide. He avoided the bat, not needing a second one and thinking it bad luck to take it.

A gust of cold wind blew past him, reminding him he was relatively sober. That was something he fully intended to correct. He went to the doorway of the store and unsheathed his bat, swinging it ever so slightly at his hip. Wary of the dark interior, he saw the three bottles of white rum on the checkout counter and smiled. How could it be bad when it was the easiest thing to find?

“Anyone here?”

When no answer came, he wondered how much time there would be before the temperature started to rise and the dead were no longer half-frozen slabs of meat. He stepped around the counters to the area where the bat had knocked the Ruger from his grip, searching just beyond the rays of sunlight. He shone his flashlight across a white tiled floor marked with thousands of scratches and tufts of hair. Rats. They had come inside, no doubt looking for food. Just the thought of them crawling around sent a shiver through him, and he was suddenly thankful for the Nomex. He wore his old fingerless gloves, however, and shook his head in distaste at the notion of touching anything in there.

After mucking about in the shadows for a few long moments, he spotted the butt of his Ruger lying underneath a shelf. His knees cracked when he dropped down, and just as he was about to touch the grip of the weapon, he paused, envisioning undead rats running over it. Gingerly, he scooted the thing out from underneath the shelving unit with his covered wrist and studied the thing in the gloom. There didn’t seem to be anything wrong with it, and that thought almost made him smile. The five-second rule didn’t apply to firearms, he reckoned, nor germs or viruses that could reanimate the dead, but he didn’t want to be holding a gun that had had millions of undead rodents crawling over it either.

Gus returned to the truck. Taking the Bowie, he sliced a shred off one of the cotton sheet fuses and returned to pick the gun up off the floor with it. As he walked past the checkout, the three bottles of rum caught his attention as surely as a woman baring a shapely leg.

“Answer’s all around me.” Gus grabbed a bottle of one of the brands of whiskey he didn’t usually drink. The label on the forty-ouncer read Red Rye, complete with a blooming rose.

“Red… rye,” he said in a creaking voice, imitating the kid from The Shining. “Red… rye. Red… rye. Red rye. Redrye.”

He studied the label at arm’s length, not caring what it was called as long as the alcohol content was forty percent. Cracking open the bottle, he quickly washed his hands in the whiskey, then dribbled some on the gun and the bottles of rum. He wiped it all down with the rags smelling of gasoline and ethanol. Having hopefully sanitized everything, he carried it all out to the truck. After stashing the rum, he racked the slide of the Ruger and pointed it toward a far-off house. Wilbur’s father had knocked the gun away with a bat. It was all he needed to be in a situation and not know if the gun would misfire.

A tingling in his head stopped him, and from the shotgun seat, the captain piped up. Didn’t you just wipe the weapon down with a rag soaked in gas?

Gus supposed he had. He decided to just pull the trigger anyway and let God sort things out.

The sound of a suppressed shot punctured the stillness and the tinkle of a casing on the ground sounded as pure as a single piano key. He regarded the gun fondly before jamming it down his boot.

It would be noon shortly, and he had gas stations to explode.

*

Driving deep into the city, Gus avoided contact with any walking corpses and focused on the much more important task ahead. Engaging gimps would only delay the end of the city. So he drove by all the gaunt shadows standing in the road or on the sidewalks.

The second gas station was situated in front of a smaller shopping plaza in the lower end of Kentville. Whoever owned the place had built it on the main road, right in the middle of everything. Gus drove around twice to make certain he got the attention of any deadheads in the area.

He did.

About twenty of them emerged from various nooks, crannies, and doorways, stumbling along as if bullied by Satan himself. Some wore full suits, others the casual clothes of summer. Two were children, a boy and a girl, their ghoulish features made bright by the overhead sun. The little boy horrified Gus when he realized the child’s eyelids and a good chunk of scalp were missing, as if someone had gotten a hold of his head and simply clawed. As the little one stumbled and lurched across the parking lot, reaching for the circling truck, Gus could see the extent of the wound—gristle black on white bone, shining in the sun.

He didn’t get out of the truck to dispatch the zombies. Rather than shooting them, he simply drew them out into the middle of the parking lot and ran them down. He felt nothing as the tires crushed skulls and snapped bones.

After dispatching whatever dead things had lurched onto the open pavement, Gus turned his attention to the station. Ensuring he had an escape route, he found the manhole covering the tank. As before, he stuffed the damp fuses into the access pipe, using a straightened clothes hanger he had thought to bring, and returned to the side of the pickup. Hunkering down and feeling his knees crack, he ignited the ragged length of cloth. It caught fire with the barest of hisses, sending him scrambling back into the truck.

He’d traveled perhaps a hundred meters when the station went up. The muffled explosion jolted him behind the wheel as if he’d been goosed. A quick check showed the rear windshield remained intact. Gus slammed on his brakes, slid to a stop, and opened his door to lean out of the pickup. Behind him, thunderous black smoke punched the sky, rising, curling, and twisting on air currents.

It was all he could do not to just stay and stare. He felt righteous detonating the stations, as if he were administering a sweltering blast of concentrated chemo to the city’s cancer. Grabbing a bottle of rum, he got out of the truck. The bottle wasn’t the one he’d already opened, but he didn’t care. Twisting off the top, he guzzled a quarter of the contents, gasping when he lowered the bottle.

“Redrye,” he whispered.

Six to go.

*

The sun had just passed its zenith when he blew up the next station in a roar of flame and a trembling of earth. Bits and pieces of debris cascaded down like smoking meteors, bouncing off the asphalt as he thundered down the street to the next gas station. He’d lingered at the third until a handful of zombies had come out from some nearby houses, reminding him to get in his truck and focus on his task. Gus drove the length of a football field, then stopped to gaze back at the dark figures still pursuing him, walking along at their own speed.

A monstrous gout of flame blurred them away.

On the south side of the city, near the infamous cul de sac where Gus had almost cashed in his chips twice, stood a dilapidated gas station with a built-on convenience shop and diner. As he went about setting the fuse, he looked at the nearby houses and roads, searching for the mob of zombies he’d encountered twice. Not one deadhead showed itself, which made Gus more concerned than anything else. He would have liked catching the entire crowd in a blast of flame as payback.

He polished off another bottle of rum as he pulled away from the doomed station. Moments later, the earth shook, and flames shot skyward like demons escaping hell. Black clouds of smoke hid the damage, but Gus knew it had to be massive.

The fourth and fifth stations, really nothing more than gas bars, were more like carefully studied experiments as Gus drove only as far from them as he believed necessary after lighting the fuses. He parked the pickup close enough to witness the underground tanks of the fourth station explode spectacularly. He glimpsed the earth erupting from below, flinging up chunks of asphalt, dirt, rocks, and even tree roots to rain down half a kilometer away. The fifth station went up with just as much force. He felt the breath of the blast through his visorless helmet. The explosion was strong enough to make him fear again, and he steadied himself against the pickup, staring in mute awe at the uncoiling blooms of smoke blotting out the once blue sky. He even heard occasional explosions from parts of the city where the other stations had gone up earlier in the day. Apparently, the fires were spreading.

The increasing smoke veiled the sun, and Gus felt daylight creeping away from him. There were the remaining two stations he had to get to, and he felt a growing need to destroy them before he left the city that night. He didn’t understand exactly why, but he believed the element of surprise was gone. The dead knew what he was doing, and he sensed something was hunting him in an attempt to stop him from further destruction.

“Red fuckin’ rye!” Gus screamed in the crumbling aftermath of the third station’s explosion. He sped away from the bubbling black smoke and raging fire.

17

The second to last gas station was part of one of the smaller, independent hardware shops Gus had once visited long ago. Trying to compete with the larger chains that had invaded the valley, Rodmell’s One Stop had had its business slowly sucked away until only the older, loyal customers frequented the business. Al Rodmell had been an old codger with a reputation as something of a bigot, someone not to cross, as well as a solid mechanic. It had been a year and a half ago, give or take a month, since Gus had last visited the One Stop, which sold gas, ethanol, and hardware and serviced vehicles, including the larger transports trucks. Gus remembered old Allister preferred to work on the big vehicles as, in his words, “That’s where the money is.”

At that time, Gus had found old Al and two of his sons, still in their blue work coveralls, turned into gimps. The three men had been some of the first gimps Gus had to put down.

Across from the One Stop was an out-of-place duck pond and sitting park, nestled between two great forested hills covered in melting snow. He parked his pickup in front of the duck pond, a little closer to the station and its tanks than he had the others. He got out of the truck with his Benelli in hand. The roads and immediate area were empty of zombies, and he saw nothing but smoke in the sky, even faintly tasting it on the air.

He quickly located the small manhole cover that gave access to the underground tanks and pulled it off with a crowbar. Standing and catching his wind for a moment, Gus realized that he was next to a hardware store and that old man Rodmell just might have carried motorcycle helmets. He didn’t like walking around without a visor, as he remembered all too well the incident where he thought he’d swallowed some deadhead’s fleshy matter. A dark time that was, probably the darkest, and he sent a silent thanks to Scott for saving him.

Uncapping the pipe, Gus jabbed the end of the bed-sheet fuse inside and walked the other end back to the truck. When the fuse ran out with ten feet or so to spare to his pickup, Gus walked back to the station. On the side of the building that had two bay doors for the service and repair department, Gus eyed a number of tall green and gray cylinders. The cylinders lured him away from the hardware shop, pulling him off his intended path like iron to a magnet. Some of the containers had numbers and letters stamped on the sides, but Gus didn’t know what they meant. He did know what was in the cylinders. Studying the dozen fuel containers, he remembered a conversation with a buddy who worked in propane. The guy had told him that the gas was stored as a liquid in cylinders, and a person could pour it out onto the ground. He didn’t know how many liters were in a standard cylinder, but he did know that one liter equaled two hundred and seventy liters of vapor. Vapor was what he wanted, where all the magic was.

And there were a dozen of those cylinders lined up in front of him. A grim smile spread across his face. He’d found a much more potent firebomb than mere Molotov cocktails. He reached out and caressed a cylinder, fingers grazing the metal shell. Finding them was a good omen if ever there was one. He paused only a second longer before running back to his truck.

Backing the truck up to the cylinders took only a few seconds, but loading them into the bed proved much more difficult. Keeping the first container upright, he rolled it on its base to the lip of the tailgate before almost breaking his back lifting and finally pushing the thing into the bed. He climbed in behind it and moved the mountain bike and remaining fuses, taking care with the tip of the cylinder, which wore a protective metal cover over the valve that dispensed the gas.

It took him ten minutes to load one cylinder. Figuring he could only lay three more in the back of the pickup, he took the next half hour getting them packed. When all was done, he had four green torpedoes aboard the truck and felt ready for war.

“Hey!”

Gus froze as if he’d just been caught stealing. A good fifteen meters away, across the street and partially obscuring the duck pond, a beat-up, red, four-door sedan was parked. The driver of the car stood on the other side of it with only his shoulders and head showing. Not able to see his features, Gus didn’t know what to make of the man who suddenly waved at him.

“Hey!” the stranger repeated, arm pausing over his head as if wondering if all was well.

Gus jumped over the side of the truck and took cover, his heart racing.

Who’s that guy? the captain wanted to know.

“Fuck if I know,” Gus answered as he opened the door to the pickup and slid out the Benelli. “But I don’t want him around.”

He eased up over the edge of the truck and pointed the shotgun at the stranger. The newcomer became still at spotting the weapon, arms suddenly dropping to his sides.

Gus used the scope and targeted the man’s head. The guy was older, with short-cropped silver hair. Gus squeezed the trigger.

The old man ducked a split second before the gun went off. The window on the passenger side of the car shattered.

“Goddamn!” Gus stood up and unleashed the full might of the weapon upon the car. Seven shots punched the air, shattering the passenger door and the windshield, speckling the hood, the two doors, and both windows facing him.

The driver took the hint and jumped into his car while Gus stopped to reload. Five seconds later, the battered car screeched down the road.

Stuffing shells into the breach, Gus ran out from behind his truck, far enough to get a clear shot at the escaping car. When the last shell went into the Benelli, he braced the skeleton buttstock against his shoulder and targeted the rear of the car. Four more shots rang out. The back windshield of the sedan crumbled. The trunk flew up and fluttered. The vehicle swerved out of his line of fire and disappeared down a side road before he could take aim at the tires.

“Goddamn redneck.” Gus stared in the direction the car had gone, just in case the driver decided to come back. It would be a mistake if he did. Gus no longer needed booze to shoot a man, not if the fight was being brought to him.

He stood on the parking lot of the One Stop, waiting and watching, before finally realizing it was best to get moving. He had all the propane he could safely carry in the truck, and—

A moan came from behind him. Then, he smelled it.

Gus whirled to see the biggest zombie he’d ever encountered. The thing towered over him, naked from the waist up, with a chest clawed open to several gleaming ribs. Its face was swathed in reeds of congealed grease and hair, with widened jaws filled with nubs of black teeth. Glints of black coal eyes mesmerized him for the second it took the monster to close in. It swung a heavy arm and caught Gus across the helm, knocking him over and sending his shotgun flying. Gus rolled onto his back. The gimp bent down, reaching with fingers that had been worn into bony points. Gus lashed out with one foot, sweeping the legs of the creature that might have been a basketball player in its life. The thing crashed to the ground.

Gus scrambled to his feet and stomped on the zombie’s left knee, breaking it with a sick sound. A hand snaked out and gripped Gus’s right knee, as if wanting it to replace the one just lost. Gus brought his foot down on its face, destroying the nasal cavity of the beast. Another stomp and the zombie stopped moving.

Gus didn’t stop until he had crushed the head into a pulp.

He drew back from the unmoving mass and took a deep breath. The streets were empty, the car he’d shot at long gone. Smoke continued to thicken in the sky, and shrugging off his shock at the attack, he retrieved his shotgun and gave it a quick inspection. Before he did anything else, he plucked red shells from his bandolier and fed them into the Benelli. Thoughts of where the creature had come from, along with who had been driving the car, jammed his head. Who was that guy? That was all he needed. Another human pain in the ass. He didn’t need to be looking over his shoulder for living predators. The dead ones were bad enough.

None of it mattered in the end, he supposed. He might have missed the man in the car, but he had driven him off and put down one more dead thing. And the best part was, Gus was only getting started.

He went into the store’s hardware section. The place had been ravaged, but there was an amply stocked motorcyclist’s department, and within moments, he found a generic black motorcycle helmet. He pulled off his ruined one and tried on the new helmet, grunting at the snug fit.

“I’ll take it,” he announced, patting the new helmet. He didn’t have the time or the inclination to search any further in the store. Jogging back out to the truck, he checked the propane again before jumping aboard and driving out to where he’d left the fuse. Moments later, the fuse burned to its explosive conclusion while Gus raced away, heading toward the middle of town.

The blast still made him jump in the driver’s seat.

One station left, he told himself in the fiery afterglow. And then the grand finale.

18

The sun started slipping toward the mountains as Gus parked his pickup, pointed away from the final gas station. He got out and studied the building he’d come to destroy. Irving’s Gas Bar and Convenience, a red sign declared, and Gus remembered rooting through the place about two years ago. Located on the main drag of the city, just before the numerous shopping malls and superstores, the Gas Bar had been a first stop for several panicking individuals back when the zombies were taking over.

“Dark days,” Gus muttered, and the captain agreed. Gus looked at the sky filled with storm clouds of smoke. All because of him this time. A depressing thought, but ultimately destroying the stations and the city had to be done. War had casualties. Annapolis would be the casualty of his war.

His attention drifted back to the station. Time was growing short, and he had to light the place up relatively fast if he wanted to blow up the Western Oil facility, and he very much wanted to do that before escaping the blazing city. Standing at one end of the building was a large cylindrical propane tank, painted ocean blue and mounted on its side on concrete blocks. The tank probably held the same as two dozen of the smaller ones he had in his truck, perhaps more. He knew it would deliver a respectable secondary bang after the undergrounds tanks went up.

The expanse about the station appeared clear, but he couldn’t see very far back the way he had driven because of the smoke choking off the street. He put on his new helmet, grabbed a fuse, and made his way to the tanks. He knelt on the asphalt and wrenched back the cover protecting the pipe. After removing an inner lid, he stuffed the cloth fuse down the hole using the coat hanger.

Gonna burn, baby, burn big.

He unrolled the lump of cloth as he walked backward to the truck, looking around as he got closer to it. With the exception of the gimps he had run down and the basketball corpse, he hadn’t come across the mob that had almost killed him twice. Nor had he seen any rats, not that he expected to see any of them during the day.

The fuse ran out at sixty feet, just before he got to the truck. He dropped the end on the pavement and fished out his lighter. Stooping, he thought of bad horror movies, where anything that could go wrong would go wrong. He paused for a moment, catching the faint smell of gasoline on the fuse. He flicked the lighter, got a tall flame, and applied it to the end. The fuse ignited, and flames followed the fuse to the tanks. Gus went around his truck to the driver’s side, leaned in, and started the engine. He checked and saw that the ribbon of flame was halfway to the target, and debated whether he should waste time watching the place explode.

Scratching at his neck brace, he decided it was best to get going. He got aboard the truck and drove off, intending to take a side street around the shopping area and head for Western Oil on the other side of Kentville.

The station blew up, and the land shook in fury. Gus cringed behind the wheel, and stole glimpses in the rear view mirror. He couldn’t see the station itself, but fiery chunks of debris rained down on the street.

Another blast split the asphalt open like a flimsy book and enveloped the street behind him in a furious wash of flame. The earth spat black smoke into the air, and for seconds, Gus held onto the steering wheel for dear life. He slowed the truck, twisted around in the driver’s seat, and gawked at the scene from fifty meters away.

A manhole cover shot heavenward with an echoing clatter, and fire erupted from the opening. Gus whipped around in his seat just as another manhole cover exploded upward, a gout of flame spearing up from underneath it. Pong, Pong. Two more shot into the sky, the blasts approaching his position. Rocks pelted the windshield, cracking it in places. He sped up, hauling the pickup around a manhole erupting in front of it. Fear grabbed him and squeezed. Ahead, yet another manhole cover zinged up and away, blasted from the ground by a pillar of flame.

“Oh, shit,” Gus muttered. How long had the Western Oil tanks been emptying? Was it possible that the fuel had reached so far into the city?

Weaving through shrinking columns of flame and abandoned cars, he knew it was. The fumes had seeped far enough into the combined storm drain system to reach even where he was. All it had taken was one flaming piece of debris, probably falling and rolling into an open storm drain, to set off a monstrous chain reaction.

A car flew into the air as if God had kicked it, then slammed back down in the street. Gus turned the steering wheel hard one way, then the other, slipping between erupting fires and metallic husks of derelict vehicles. Ahead, more smoke, periodically pierced by lances of fire, filled the main drag and reduced visibility. He hunched over the steering wheel. Burning debris twirled in the air like birds ablaze. A piece of something plastered itself to the passenger side of the windshield, and Gus yelled in surprise. More explosions thundered. The heat rose in the truck as if he were driving over one monstrous skillet swamped with hot grease. Blazing figures appeared out of the escalating smoke, scaring him and then fascinating him when he realized they were deadheads, staggering along, heedless of the destruction consuming them.

He accelerated another fifty meters before stomping on the brakes. Ahead, storm drains roared like old-fashioned ovens, spewing blinding smoke into the air. Open flames licked the upper lips of the curbs. More blurry shadows appeared on the road, lumbering aimlessly, lit up as if someone had poured gasoline directly over their heads and struck a match. The smoke cleared for a moment, and Gus felt as if Annapolis itself had become hell. Pieces of deadheads lay scattered in the street, their clothing on fire. Legs, arms, and headless torsos lay everywhere, and he realized where the zombie mob had been. They had been right in front of his truck when the storm drain system filled with fumes exploded, blowing the unliving shit clean out of them.

A trench of pavement came into view, the edges blown up and out like terrible wound.

“Red Rye!” Gus shouted and stepped on the gas. The truck surged ahead, running over flaming carcasses and bursting through clumps of gimps, spinning them around while fiery particles flew from their bodies. He ran over dozens, enough to make his jaw clatter, as their bodies crumbled under his tires. The grill smashed dozens of zombies standing as if shell shocked. The roar of the truck’s engine filled his ears. What was once a child ran directly at his grill, its small form completely engulfed in fire. Gus wondered if the thing could even see before it was mowed down with a solid whump. A flaming head launched itself from the corpse’s torso and bounced up and over the hood, causing a jigsaw of cracks to appear across the windshield. Like a springy meteor, the head bounced up and out of Gus’s line of sight. More sizzling bodies crowded the truck, and Gus abruptly remembered what he carried in the rear.

Propane tanks!

Something inside him plummeted, and he had the vision of seeing his ass blown away in one great blistering explosion. An intersection loomed up out of the smoke and flame, marked by another smouldering hole no doubt once covered by iron. He veered to the right, crashing into more burning zombies and plastering them against the truck for seconds before they fell off. A head consumed in flame smashed into the passenger window, breaking the glass before rebounding away. Gus screamed, laughed, and drove on, while the captain grinned manically and yelled OHSHITSHITSHITSHIT. Another lump of fire came through the smashed passenger window and rebounded off the passenger seat, just missing the wicks of the captain’s Molotovs, before landing in the foot well. More corpses blocked the road, and Gus plowed through them all, heaving the truck’s speeding mass into the blazing forms like a two-ton maul.

The truck swung into a section of road that was clear of debris and cars. Gus took his foot off the gas only long enough to stretch out a leg and stomp on the fragment in the passenger foot well. Behind him, the smoke concealed the land in a thick soup, masking the still burning heaps that appeared like receding glows. He heard more explosions, but he had cleared the heart of it. He’d soon reach the highway that would eventually loop back to his home. He looked into the rear view mirror when he could, catching glimpses of the beast he had unleashed to purify the city.

Purify. Purify was the word of the day. The frantic thought blasted through his adrenaline-spiked mind. Scorched the whole damn lot, he did. Western Oil had probably detonated in the seconds it took for the ignited gas to retrace its destructive flow back to the source.

He gasped for air, as if he’d being holding on to it for the last few minutes. When the truck reached high ground, he pulled over and got out, gazing over the burning bowl of Annapolis. Pops sputtered in the air as unknown flammable containers detonated. He stood by his truck, slack-jawed and staring. Smoke ran through the streets and around buildings like a billowing gray flood, concealing much of the devastation. Fires smouldered like distant beacons, and for a moment, Gus wondered if the land itself would split apart.

He clutched a bottle of rum, but didn’t drink it. Taking in the burning buildings below, he believed he would wait until he got home.

19

The city burned.

Like a beast caught in a mighty black cauldron, it thrashed and spat and flickered light and sound. Gus stood on his deck and revelled in what he had created. The fires raged and turned the night sky a frightful orange. Dervishes of heat and wind danced over the rooftops, waving at him with arms of fire. Smoke covered all but the brightest of blazes in a murky, evil gauze.

With one hand on the railing and one on a bottle of Scotch, Gus swayed and stared, red-eyed and perhaps the drunkest he’d ever been. No, scratch that. He was shitfaced, and his elation at seeing the city burn was every bit as intense as the fires that feasted on Annapolis’s flesh and bones.

“Burn, you fuck!” Gus screamed at the city. He raved at the undead and cursed at the rats beneath the city, branding them a frightening cancer that he had scorched from the face of the valley. When he finished his first bottle of scotch, he hurled it into the blackness beyond the deck. He returned to the house and fetched two more. The captain lay on one of the lawn chairs, smiling his foppish grin and obviously just as delighted as Gus was at the ending. At the victory.

Gus watched Annapolis burn like some triumphant anarchist, alternating between sitting next to the captain and jumping up to lean dangerously over the railing. He had changed from his Nomex gear into his civilian clothes, just to enjoy the show in comfort. He didn’t feel the cold, and when the wind did blow, as faint as it was, it carried a sheet of warmth from the valley, like steam blown off something superheated.

He drank until he staggered and vomited over the railing. When he felt ready, he loaded his guts with more Scotch. The liquor spilled on his clothes, and in some cases, he would apply his lips to an arm or the front of his sweater and suck alcohol from the cotton. He drank to Scott, wherever the man might be. He drank to the scorched bones at the base of the cliff. He drank to the memory of Tammy. He drank to Roxanne, despite her being a traitorous bitch who had tried to kill him. With the captain watching him pleasantly and appearing just as smashed, Gus toasted the duct-taped bottle, glad that at least someone he knew was around to see it all through with him.

His senses swam, and reality detached itself from him like a sliced retina. His vision freakishly elongated everything before snapping it back into its original form. He plopped down in the lawn chair, felt the base of his head thump against the padding, and stared at the burning city. Drool hung off his lips and soaked into his beard. The night’s cold would chill him at some point, but Gus didn’t care as he downed another long pull of the bottle. Annapolis continued burning, the city he had grown up in, played in as a boy, and worked in as a man. Where he met Tammy, the woman who he thought was the love of his life, but who ultimately wasn’t. The city burned, removing the places he’d worked on with paint brush and roller, removing the places where he and his friends had drank and laughed on the weekends, destroying the house where he and Scott holed up for days while an army of corpses roamed the hallway below them. Fire consumed the place where he had met Roxanne for the first time, and damned if he didn’t even miss her—long for her. Fire devastated the homes of countless people who were already dead and gone, years gone, strangers all, yet the very thought of them made his throat constrict, his eyes water, and his sinus cavity fill. Gus’s shoulders heaved, his breath hitched, and he cried in the afterglow of the city. He sobbed until he tenderly—or at least as tenderly as a man in his current condition could do—placed the half-empty bottle of Scotch down on the seat beside the captain because he simply didn’t want to see another thing break. He wept and watched and sniffed until the emotional pressure was spent, leaving nothing but the long, hitching, body-wracking gasps that came after such an outpouring of grief.

Moaning while wiping his nose and his eyes, Gus eventually got control of himself. He reached, hands trembling, to pick up the bottle of Scotch again. He saluted the captain sitting next to him, and the little bastard saluted back.

He regarded the city. There was one last thing to do, he supposed, and that was to finish the Scotch. And then the next bottle. Then the bottle after that, and the one after that, and so on.

And if he was lucky, if he got it right, and if God was on his side, he would finally drink himself to death.

20

He awoke to dusky daylight and stared out at the smouldering gray carcass of a city obscured by smoke. He moaned and shook his head—a mistake, as his head felt as if someone had nailed hot spikes into it. He slowly sat up, cringing as he pulled himself forward, with his legs on either side of the chair, and placed his head in his hands.

“Goddamnit.”

The city was still there, rooftops barely seen through the thick clouds. Here and there, he spied the orange gleam of flames, still feasting on the bones of Annapolis. He looked over and met the steady, smiling gaze of the captain.

“Little fuckin’… pygmy.”

Shaking his head, he realized he didn’t see the last bottle of Scotch. Leaning over, he saw it on the floor, perhaps three swallows left in the bottle. He’d passed out before finishing it. Gus didn’t want any more. He was just glad he hadn’t broken the bottle.

He inspected himself and sighed in disgust. The crotch of his jeans was wet. He doubted he had spilled booze on his junk, so that left only one possibility, especially since he had no urgent need to take a leak.

“Well, shit.”

That was all he needed, waking up—fucking alive—to the world on fire, and realizing that his first attempt at suicide had failed miserably, and that he’d pissed himself in the process. “Goddamnit.” He got to his feet, feeling the almost crippling aches in his joints and lower extremities. His stomach lurched, and his senses spun wildly. He collapsed on the deck, cheek to the wood, and gulped air like a dying fish. He pulled himself to the edge of the deck, where his stomach finally rebelled. He started to vomit, but clamped his mouth shut, forcing it back. Trapped between an unflinching sphincter and a closed upper exit, his stomach hurled with even greater force and blasted a stinging gush of puke out his nose. Gus choked, opened his mouth, and vomitus heaved out that way as well, leaving him in a stream of color. Consciousness left him, came back, left him once more, and finally returned. His limbs shook spasmodically, and a weak “god… damn” got lost in the barest of breezes.

He squeezed his eyes shut, content to just lie there, and hoped that he could defy the odds and not shit himself as well.

Somewhere in the next couple of hours, he crawled to the door of the outhouse and pulled himself in, not even bothering to close the door behind him. He stayed there for an hour, collapsed against the wall and defecating at an angle, wondering if he could light a match and blow himself to hell that way.

He somehow made it back into the house and into the kitchen. Panting, sweating cold rivulets, he drank water from a jug. He shuffled into the living room, up the stairs, and into the bathroom. He stripped off his pants and underwear, and splashed water onto his privates, cleaning up as best as he could without taking a bath. He somehow got into fresh jeans and underwear. Not wanting to sleep on the mess that was his bed, he descended the steps again. With a whuff, he landed on the sofa as if it were a raised oasis in a desert of aches and pain. Lying there, face pressed into the cushions and one eye squeezed shut, Gus hoped that his innards settled enough at some point so that he might be able to have a comforting drink of rum.

With that thought, he passed out again.

He woke up halfway through the day, or at least he thought it was halfway, and listened to the sound of nothing. Outside, the world burned, framed in his windows, but he felt far removed from it. That thought made him smile feebly. It was warm in the house, and he sensed that spring was rushing in. The snow would be melting—very fast down in Annapolis.

In the evening, he rose and got a bottle of rum. The binge from the night before was over, and it was a new night to celebrate. Bottle in hand, he wandered out of the house, noting how the snow had retreated during the day. Patches of yellow grass lay bare in the fading daylight. He walked back to the deck and stood there for a while, watching the fires.

Gus shook his head, wondering if he’d done the right thing.

He sat down and drank. When he felt his body couldn’t take anymore, he gathered the captain from the nearby chair and brought him back inside.

*

Something tugged him back to consciousness. He opened his eyes and stared at the bare, rustic timbers of the roof overhead, gloomy in the dimming light of the living room. The victory party had lasted for what felt like days. At some point, Scotch got left behind, and he’d switched to the more palatable Jack Daniels. Gus remembered wandering through the house on a drunken expedition, staggering to the deck to gaze at the still-burning city, and then going back inside the house. He recalled managing to get down half a pot of macaroni and cheese, the only solid food he’d consumed in a while. How long exactly had the binge lasted? He had no idea.

Drink.

Lord above, he believed he’d drunk a lake in the last little while. He groaned, feeling how his guts felt both empty and tortured. His head rolled on his shoulders, and he stared at the dark material covering the sofa where he lay. He labored to get into a sitting position. The captain rested in the corner of the couch where his feet had been. Across the room, the curtains were open, revealing a dark stew of smoke. Still burning. Annapolis was apparently set for a slow cook. The best roasts were done at such a temperature. That thought made his face split with a hoarse chuckle.

Shaking his head, he looked to his right and met the black gaze of a rat perched atop the back of a chair. Right next to the still-standing Christmas tree.

Perhaps it was because he’d been so blasted in the last couple of days. Perhaps it was because his only companion had been a duct-taped bottle, but the appearance of the rat didn’t surprise him. Not for those first few seconds, anyway. The vermin sized him up in turn, its whiskers twitching in the scant light, nose in the air, hairless tail just barely glimpsed behind it.

Gus took a breath. He was looking at a rat in his house. Realization hit him like a cold spray of water. In his peripheral vision, something moved. He looked and caught the bobbing form of another rat scurrying from a corner to slip around the end of the sofa.

“Where the fuck did you come from?” He looked around for his boots. They lay against the far window, next to the boarded-up sliding door.

Eyeing the rat on the chair, Gus crossed the living room and pulled on a steel-toed boot. Picking up the second boot, Gus noticed something strange about the rodent’s side. Yanking on the boot and stamping his foot on the hardwood floor, Gus noticed something else that chilled him.

The rat didn’t run at the noise. It didn’t even so much as a flinch.

Gus moved toward the rodent, but stopped after three cautious steps, peering at it in mounting horror. The thing on the rat’s side was a wound, an open wound large enough that he could see its viscous innards. The dead thing tensed, no doubt sensing, or smelling, fresh meat nearby.

“Oh, Jesus,” Gus whispered, drawing back in horror.

The rat leaped off the chair and charged.

Gus stepped back, his shoulder crashing against the glass pane. He kicked the dead thing with all the strength he could muster. The steel-toed boot connected and sent the vermin flying. The zombie-rat smacked into the far wall and crumpled in a shadowy heap near the staircase.

A moment later, Gus spotted movement to his right. Another rat scooted across the floor, heading in the direction of the bedrooms. The second visitor appeared around the sofa’s upholstered corner, whiskers twitching. Yet another one ran out of the kitchen, its bulk as long as his foot, moving in a zigzagging pattern. The things made no noise. Not even a squeak.

Steeling himself, Gus walked to the sofa and stomped on the rat peeking around the corner. The body flattened underneath his heavy sole and left very little blood. The rat from the kitchen came close, and Gus stomped on that one as well, twisting his heel to ensure the thing was dead. He scanned the living room and spotted three more of the greasy intruders keeping close to the walls. He moved toward the hallway leading to the bedrooms, but several more wandered into the living room from the kitchen.

Gus danced on his attackers, flattening their small bodies under his boots and leaving pulpy stains on the wood. In threes and fours, more rats joined the fray, swollen things with their mouths open, coming from the hallway and the kitchen. They attacked his boots, actually trying to bite through the thick rubber. He kicked and crushed them as they came within reach, no longer afraid of the things, even though some of the rats’ bodies were the length of his hand.

He let out a battle scream as he did his plodding jig on the rats. They didn’t scamper off. If anything, they came faster, running at him in their odd, scurrying fashion, only to have their bodies squashed before even getting in a bite.

Gus paused and took a deep breath. More rats were coming into the living room, sweeping in like a black jet of foul water. A sick feeling of horror and revulsion made his stomach clench dangerously. The things moved so low to the floor, they crawled over the smears of the dead and dragged little oily rivulets behind them. They poured in from all sides, as if he stood in a shallow basin. He roared, keeping his elbows high as he kicked. He ground in his heels. The floor became covered in a black paste.

Killing by foot expended a lot of energy. He got tired faster than he thought he would. He walked toward the kitchen. The rats flowed toward him, speckling the floor at an alarming rate. Gus kept moving and, once he got to the island, hoisted his butt up to sit on it. Below his dangling boots, rats pooled against the base in a thin, writhing mass. Some placed their forepaws against the wood and craned their necks up at him. He shook his head in disbelief.

They were coming in from every direction, every opening. Running a hand over his head, Gus turned to look outside, but had forgotten that the windows in the kitchen were boarded up. A sound reached his ears, jerking his attention toward the bedroom hallway.

With a huff, he jumped down, squashing the unlife from several rats as he landed. He crossed the floor quickly, ignoring the rats unless they got directly in his path. By the door, he flicked on the kitchen light. The lights came on, but instead of fleeing, the rats seemed to thicken, unafraid.

Gus turned a corner, lighting up the house as he came across the power switches, and stopped in his tracks at the front entry.

The hole the rats spurted through in the base of the door was as large as the toes of his boot. Rats squeezed through and milled around the floor like a cesspool about to overflow. The sounds of claws and teeth scratching and gnawing came from beyond. The wooden door quivered at its base from a terrible grinding pressure being applied from outside.

Something crawling up his leg made Gus glance down. With a macabre energy, the rats at his ankles piled up and over each other to breach the upper lip of his boot. He jumped, shaking the creatures off and sending them tumbling. He mashed them into the floor, stomping on heads and bodies. With dawning horror, he saw that the rats whose lower bodies he crushed lived on and persisted in trying to reach him. As with their biped cousins, the head was the money shot.

The notion that he had to plug the hole came into his head. He needed to block the opening and then brace the lower portion of the door. Once that was done, he could go about the unsavory task of killing the rest of the rats in the house.

With a roar, he soccer-kicked a swath through the invaders around his ankles, bouncing several off the walls. Nearby was a waist-high shoe cabinet, and Gus pulled it from the wall. Grunting, he flipped it up and over, landing it upside down on the floor. He sat on the upended cabinet, crushing the rats beneath it. Using his legs, he pushed the cabinet against the door, satisfied that the weight of the thing would keep them out.

He whirled on the rats at his ankles and tore through them, heading for the garage. They chased him, charged him, and he kicked against their stream, dashing several against walls and flattening others beneath his soles. The second entrance through the mudroom came into view. He reached out and flicked on the overhead light.

The rats had chewed their way through there as well, except three holes were made at the base of the outside door instead of one. Wood chips and splinters flew as a steady pulse of rats squirmed through the opening. Gus looked around, but saw nothing to block the holes. He plodded over to the door leading to the garage and yanked it open. Sweat dropped from his forehead, and for the first time, he realized he was breathing hard.

Once inside the garage, he slammed the door on his pursuers and switched on the light. The garage door was intact and the place appeared empty, but Gus stopped in his tracks, clamping his airways shut for greater quiet. Something rustled against the lower part of the garage door, heavy enough to gently rattle it. Metal comprised the door itself, so Gus wasn’t worried about the rats chewing their way through.

Moving hastily past his parked van and pickup, he looked through the rectangular windows set in the garage door. Though darkness was descending upon the mountain, he could still see a black stream of rats flowing from the gate toward to the house. The scene reminded him of old nature shows depicting swarming ants, and that thought dried up any remaining spit in his mouth. The rats ran in an ever-widening sheet that reminded him of spilled blood. They rushed toward the house, where their numbers went beyond his angle of sight. He knew where they were—right at his goddamn doorstep, gnawing their way into his home.

He leaned heavily against the door. He thought he’d taken the fight to the rats. By exploding the tanks of fuel, he thought he’d fried the whole lot of them underneath the ground. He’d flooded the storm drains and scorched Annapolis above and below. He’d thought he killed every last one of them.

Somehow, however, they had survived. Worst, they came up the side of the mountain, seeking the one who had set their world on fire. Obviously wanting a bite.

The gate. The gate was the key. If he could seal the gate and stem the flow onto the grounds, he could mop up the rest. Thinking of how he could do exactly that, Gus turned and went to his locker. He wasn’t going anywhere without his armor. He wasn’t doing anything without his weapons.

The first thing he did, as so many times before, was reach for the bottle of whatever he’d had the foresight to stash up in his locker.

There was no bottle.

Downed it when I got in the other day and didn’t replace it.

Gus winced, but then shook it off and got to work. He had no time to lament over a lack of booze. He’d drink plenty after he kicked the undead asses of the latest army assaulting him. He hauled on the protective ninja mask and got into the pants and coat of the Nomex gear. After slapping the elbow and knee pads into place, he strapped on the neck brace, the one still damaged from the last encountered with the animated vermin. The motorcycle helmet went on last, as if it were the switch that changed him from Gus to Mean Fucker. He regarded the motorcycle leather he’d worn so often before, wanting to wear it, but knowing it wouldn’t last out there.

Then he gathered the tools he would need for war.

Behind him, the door to the house rattled in its frame.

He had two shotguns, but he opted for the Benelli. The bat went into the sheath across his back. The Ruger went down one boot, and the Bowie went down the other. He loaded up the shotgun and bandolier, slinging the belt over his head and shoulder, making an X across his chest. The leather belt went around his waist, tying off any attack if they got up underneath.

Gus stopped and was about to pull on a pair of thick workman’s gloves, thinking that he was forgetting something. Then he remembered the Molotovs.

He looked at his workbench and saw them standing there, almost three dozen remaining firebombs, all ready and willing to make big blazing impressions on any that dared assault the mountain.

“You boys ready to fuck some folks up?” Gus asked them.

Hooah, they growled.

Gus got out two lighters and stuffed one inside the elastic of his glove. Another thought brought him up short. The captain wasn’t with him. Holy shit. The captain was still out there on the sofa.

That fucking sailor had gone through hell and back with him. There was no way Gus was leaving his companion out there.

The door shook harder, and a small section at the base buckled inward. Gus searched the garage until he located an old ruck sack. He stuffed seven firebombs into the bag and slung it over his right shoulder.

The door shivered violently on its hinges. Parts of it buckled and splintered.

“Little bastards want in, boys,” Gus seethed to the remaining Molotovs on the bench. “What say we make ourselves known?”

Hooah!

Feeling as though he had enough spunk to fuck up a dozen undead hordes, Gus went to the door and threw it open.

21

Rats filled the small entryway and hall, turning the floor into a writhing surface that flowed around Gus up past his ankles. He shivered from feeling the press of twisting bodies against the rubber of his boots. He fired the Benelli, obliterating a chunk of the vermin and revealing the floor underneath for a second. Yelling at the invaders, Gus shot repeatedly, destroying huge shredded holes in the attacking carpet of tooth and claw. Red plastic casings flew from the ejector. He emptied the shotgun into the mass, then slammed the door, shoved his back against it, and started to reload. He thought better of what he was doing and went to his locker, where he still had a few boxes of shells remaining.

As he thumbed the third shell into the weapon, the door quivered.

“Nobody told you about me, eh?” Gus snarled as he shoved home the last shell. “I got a reputation around these parts.”

He pulled the door. With a battle cry, he unloaded the shotgun, wrecking terrible wounds in the tide. No sooner did he kill, however, then more rats rushed in, crawling over the devastated corpses of their brethren and immediately filling the small areas where he’d gotten glimpses of the floor.

Gus stomped, crushing twos and threes with each strike. Each time he lifted his leg, rats fell from his lower shin. The sound of their bodies rustling against each other chilled his blood, that low droning whisper telling him of the increasing volume of vermin in his house. So many! There were so goddamn many!

He lashed out at them, feeling several behind him now mounting an attack at his calves. He crushed bodies, skulls, and limbs. Rat tails spiked the mass and bobbed crazily, yellow and sick looking. The footing became treacherous as the pulped bodies of the undead rats began to pile up, becoming slippery lumps of mashed guts and flesh. His boot slipped at one point, and he stumbled against the wall. He straightened, surprised to feel a rat clamp onto the material covering the V of his bent knee. More snapped at the Nomex, struggling to climb up his lower legs. Gus violently brushed them off and crushed them underfoot. He grabbed a fistful of tails and whipped three of the creatures into the wall, their heads exploding. That one gesture threw him off balance, and he almost lost his grip on the Benelli. His back slapped up against a wall, and he had to steady himself before shuffling back into the garage, reluctantly abandoning the captain.

He tried to close the door, but rats jammed into the closing crevice. Gus dropped the shotgun and kicked at the rats, but the bodies were legion, and with every boot he gave them, more struggled into the shrinking gap. Crouching and pressing his shoulder into the door, he felt the wood shake from the weight of the onslaught, and darkly realized that he might have a problem.

He quickly extracted his Bowie knife from his left boot. He slashed downward, decapitating the heads of several, sawing his way through the rest, still pressing his bulk against the door to force it shut. The rats seem to have no fear of being cut or pinched in half by the closing door, and again a stab of alarm burst within Gus.

With a final shove, he sealed the door, nipping off several heads and snouts. Twitching whiskers lined the wooden seam. Shutting the door gave him no respite as the rats inside the garage still gnawed on the Nomex, gnashing at the protective material sheathing his legs and lower body. The ferocity of their attack momentarily stunned him.

But only for a second.

He did a maniacal jig, flattening the rodents as they crowded around his feet. His strength ebbing, he aimed his boot heel at the last remaining few and, one by one, crushed the unlife from their small bodies with angry grunts.

The door shook from the pressure beyond. Gus reloaded the Benelli, thinking about the outside gate, the house, and the rats that only a door’s thickness kept at bay. He held the shotgun at arm’s length and realized it was next to useless. His boots were doing much more damage, but he couldn’t kill the army like that without exhausting himself. Watching the door crumbling second by second, its base thrumming from the monstrous assault, Gus knew that all the doors in the house would suffer the same fate. That thought alone made his anger and hate resurface, swamping his doubt.

He went to the outer garage door, gripped the bottom, and hoisted it up. Rats crawled in as he looped underneath the gap and closed the door behind him, trapping some inside the garage. The rest came at him, but he kicked them away. In the diminishing sunlight, he jogged across the grounds, toward the wall. The rats coming under the gate flowed toward the house. A few stragglers broke away from the column and came after him, but he ignored them as he stood back and examined the holes in the gate. Gus threw himself at the ragged openings, crushing heads and bodies as they struggled to enter the compound.

“Little shits. Little fuckin’ shits!”

He flattened an untold number of rats, squishing them as they pulled themselves through the tunnels in the wood. Sweat ran down his face and his sides, but he kept killing. When he directed his attention at one section, rats clawed away the dead and forced their way through. The rats already inside the gate stopped marching toward the house and attacked him from behind, nipping at his heels and lower legs with feral abandon. The Nomex held, and he squashed even more until he looked up from killing and spied a ladder against the wall.

Gus bounded over the furry corpses and scampered up the ladder rungs, thinking to drop his load of Molotovs on the invaders on the other side of the wall. He reached the top of the wall and pressed his chest against it.

And gasped.

A tsunami had come up the side of the mountain. An unholy wave of fur and white stringy tail and tooth and claw surged around the husks of unmoving cars, pushing against the wall and gate. The rodent army reached at least as far back as the treeline, where shadow melted their hides into the darkness. The scope of the assault paralyzed Gus and made his mouth hang open. Millions, his mind whispered. Millions.

A crack of wood hooked his attention. The base of the gate bulged in places and Gus thought he saw a puppy-sized head spear through the wood in a burst of splinters—a rat’s head, a big rat’s head.

He fumbled at the ruck sack and pulled out a Molotov. He got out his lighter and lit the fuse. Taking aim, he slung at the mass below the wall where it exploded in a wave of flame, illuminating countless rats. He lit another and threw it, the firebomb erupting in a swirl of fire on the road, dead on target.

“Yeah,” Gus growled, regaining some of his lost confidence while lighting another. He tossed the third. The bottle shattered, and a puddle of fire enveloped a section of the creatures. The snap and crackle of burning flesh rose above the almost electrical hum coming from the army of rats. He threw the last four Molotovs at the dead in rapid succession, lighting up the night when the firebombs crashed into their targets.

The rats burned. Some of the smaller ones winked out of sight, smothered by the larger bodies of their brethren, while several stopped in their tracks and died in tiny blazes.

Others, however, forged ahead blindly until the gate stopped them.

Gus felt his stomach drop when several fiery corpses smacked into the gate’s wooden base and ignited others. In seconds, a fire rose and grew as a steady stream of burning flesh fed the conflagration.

“Oh, dear Jesus.”

He couldn’t believe his eyes, couldn’t believe that his bombardments just might be the key to bringing down his best defense.

And he had inadvertently caused it.

Feeling sick, Gus hurried down the ladder. He needed more firebombs from the garage. His only chance was to lob Molotovs upon them when they got inside the wall. Laboring through the rats already inside the compound, he returned to the house and, with a heave, opened the garage door just enough to get through, then closed it behind him. Once inside, he dispatched the rats that had followed him with his boots, and crushed the ones trapped inside from when he first opened the garage door.

He paused for a few moments to gather his strength, then made his way to the Molotovs and refilled his pack. Once ready, he went to the door leading into the house and placed his back to it. Sounds of the rats’ incessant gnawing made him set his jaw. The door wasn’t going to be there much longer. They would chew their way through it as they had with the outer gate. High ground, blared through his head, and he thought of the attic. The wood pressed against his shoulder vibrated with growing intensity. If he was going to get going, he had to do it right then.

He threw open the door.

Rats fell into the garage, almost knee high. For seconds, Gus could only stand and stare, mouth dropping open at the sight before him. Rats covered everything. They filled the mudroom, the hall, and the floor beyond. They crawled over each other and attacked his shins. The thought of actually pushing his way through that many rats almost made him retreat back into the garage, but that wasn’t where he wanted to go. He wanted to go up.

He kicked and stomped on rats as he struggled to close the door behind him. Closing the door seemed important, as it was one less place the rats had penetrated. Once he shut it, he turned around. Holding the Benelli in front of him, he waded forward, stepping with caution and placing a shoulder against the nearby wall. The weight of the rats sucked at his boots like quicksand. Twice, he almost fell, his feet slipping from under him and only saving himself by flinging his back against the wall. He got past the mudroom and into the hall, trudged a few more feet, and turned the corner into the living room. The rats covered the floor, and a grinning captain came into view, still on the sofa, as if everything was just jolly rosy.

Gus lunged for the stairs, fastening a hand on the railing and pulling himself from the thrashing floor. Rats, their jaws clamped onto loose folds of the Nomex, went with him. He slapped most away and rolled his lower back against the bannisters, scrubbing off any clingers. A quick glance to the side showed him the rodents had toppled the Christmas tree. That infuriated him, and he crushed any trying to scale the lower steps. Seconds later, he turned and fled up the stairs, vowing to return for the old sailor.

He reached the top and saw the dangling string of the attic stairway. He grabbed it and pulled. The door came down with a metallic yawn. He unfolded the steps and bolted up into the attic. He turned to pull the steps up behind him and froze.

Rats were slinking up the stairwell to the second floor. Beyond them and rising like a writhing, black surf were hundreds more of the undead vermin. He quickly brought up the folding stairs, then pulled the chain for the single light bulb. The skylight beckoned, the night beyond beginning to deepen. He threw open the latch and pried open the window. Stars shone through wisps of smoke from the city. The incline of the roof was perhaps forty degrees and coated with red-brown shingles. He twisted around and saw the peak of the roof six or seven feet away. He crawled through the window, then climbed until he reached the apex.

On the other side of the house, the snow had melted enough so that he couldn’t distinguish between what was rat and what wasn’t.

Then he heard the crack.

He looked toward the gate and saw the glow of the fire on the other side. He heard another snap and felt his stomach lurch. The rats, being undead, were no longer afraid of the open flames, and while a section burned, there were still enough holes in the base for the creatures to worm through.

With another deep crack, a section of timber buckled inward. A virtual deluge of indistinct blackness gushed inside the stone walls. More timbers surrendered to the jaws gnashing away at them; another gout of foulness erupted inside the compound. Flames flickered through the breach and burned at the edges as the second river of invaders merged with the first.

All flowing toward the house.

“You fuckers!” Gus straddled the rooftop, pulled off his rucksack, and opened it.

“Ready, boys?” he asked the captain’s marines.

Hooah.

He pulled out one of the bottles and his lighter. He lit the wick, and a high flame split the night. He heaved the firebomb toward the gate. Its flame fluttered as it fell about twelve feet in front of the wall. The ground erupted in a flash, throwing back the dark and revealing an area teeming with rats. The fire flickered and dimmed as the invaders ran over them, quickly dousing the fire with their bodies. Gus lit a second Molotov and heaved it. The bomb fell about ten feet short of the gate, but ignited more surface area, and more rats. Some of the creatures caught fire and streaked away from the impact zone, like bright rays from a dying sun.

“Fuckers!” Gus lit and flung the rest of the Molotovs, one by one. The fifth one actually made it within feet of the gate, and Gus almost wished it hadn’t for it only revealed the army rushing inside the wall. The sight paralyzed Gus for seconds until he shook free of it, lit the sixth firebomb, and sent it sailing through the night sky, the burning wick fluttering. That one landed short, too, but went up with a whoosh, setting vermin ablaze.

Too many, Gus thought dismally, too goddamn many. He threw the last bomb at the ground, knowing he would only kill a mere handful. Even as his last bomb went up, the second and third fires were suppressed by the sheer unflinching mass of the attacking rats. The seemingly unending torrent ripped through the growing holes in the wall, and he felt a fresh stab of fear. An ocean had come for him.

“Jesus.” Gus had about two dozen more Molotovs in the garage, if he could get to them, but not even that many would stop the unholy force that had come seeking his flesh. The futility of his situation hit hard.

How had they found him? They were fucking dead rats, for Christ’s sake!

Then, he remembered the poor dead bastard out on the highway.

“You’re my marker.”

He recalled the way the rats branched out in search of meat, how they had sniffed him out. They had smelled the meat on the highway, all those corpses he’d left as an experiment, drawing them closer to his home.

The bodies outside the wall… He’d left the bodies of the first wave of gimps to rot; the fire hadn’t destroyed all of them, then the snow had come. Later, the snow had melted enough for the stench of rotting meat to be carried to the noses of the hungry rats. And when they came, no doubt coaxed on by the burning city, they all came to feast, just like a Connect the Dots puzzle.

And he was the last point.

While he had been drinking and maintaining his shitfaced high, playing with suicide, the enemy walked right up to his front door and chewed their way into his castle.

22

As he sat and theorized about just how the undead plague below arrived at his house, one riveting thought stabbed through it all and demanded his attention.

What the hell was he going to do about them?

He heard wood whine in the direction of the gate, and knew another piece of it had been weakened by flame or torn asunder by the unimaginable numbers. Even if he got aboard the beast or the pickup and rolled over them, sooner or later the vehicles would probably only spin out, and he’d be stuck. Gus didn’t want to find out what would happen then.

He considered jumping off the roof, as it was only a forty-foot drop at the most. Even with his helmet off and diving head first, the cushion of all those bodies might break his fall enough for him to survive. Survive until they chewed through the Nomex, his mind added.

Then, he remembered the propane tanks in the pickup.

Four of them, all waiting for him.

One liter of propane equaled two hundred and seventy liters of vapor.

There was enough of a boom lying in his garage to make him smile. Surviving the blast didn’t enter his mind. Why should he, with the things he’d done? He’d killed people—living, breathing people—in cold blood. No, there was no point in surviving, and if he had to go, he much rather be blown up than scarfed down.

Swinging his leg back over, he slid halfway down the incline of the roof and hooked his arms into the open skylight. He wormed his way back into the attic and regarded the closed trapdoor.

“Hooah,” he muttered unconvincingly.

The door opened with that familiar yawn of springs, and Gus gazed at the landing. It was alive with rats moving in that jerky crawl of theirs. With a kick, he extended the stairs, then he grabbed the Benelli and descended. He jumped the last two steps and squashed several rats underfoot. Others converged on him. Shuffling through them, he got into position to see the main level.

Rats flooded the downstairs up to the second step. There was no way to reach the garage. He was cut off by a lake of vermin. Before his mind could argue, he slapped the visor down, readied the Benelli, and started firing as he went down the steps. Shredded bodies flew, bounced off the stairs by the shotgun’s semi-automatic scream. A huge rat, perhaps the size of a small dog and the biggest Gus had ever seen, rose above the horde like a monster surfacing from the deep. A stained snout turned in his direction, homing in and baring broken teeth. Formidable, scarred, and battle-ready, it seemed unhampered by its missing eye and lack of ears. Gus allowed it a whole five seconds of existence out of sheer awe before disintegrating its skull with one shot, spraying the rest of the pack in fleshy matter.

The gun clicked dry, and Gus mashed into the tide, the rats rising up above his ankles. He struggled against them, felt their maws bite down on the Nomex. His boot slipped off the back of several large rats, and he stumbled to his knees. The vermin rose to his chest in one frightening wave. Rats assaulted his head, banging off his visor. He brought the Benelli around, pushing off the writhing layers. They bit into his gloves and crawled up his thighs.

Using the Benelli as a crutch, Gus pushed himself to his feet. He stumbled again in the rising swell and crashed against a wall, one arm flayed out for balance. Rats scurried up and covered him, biting and clawing for purchase. He pawed them from his front and shoulders. He punched at the ones hanging off his hips. His hand grabbed one exceptionally large rat and smashed it snout-first into the wall. The garage door lay only ten feet ahead of him, and he pushed against the rush of bodies, heaving and straining, his legs burning from the exertion.

He fell a third time, face first, and a rush of dead animals enveloped him. A multitude of tiny feet scampered up his back while jaws fastened to his neck brace. Gus screamed and released the Benelli, lashing out with his fists. He pulled himself to his knees. Rats clung from the ruck sack by their jaws. It took several punches to dislodge the foul, twisting bodies, and he winced with each connection.

“Jesus Christ!” he roared. Only five feet away from the door, he stretched out with a gloved hand, slapping its wooden surface. Straining, he pulled the rest of his body through the ferocious tide. He gripped the doorknob, turned it, and lunged for the opening, balancing the trick of opening it enough for him to get through yet restricting as many of the rats as possible from following.

Vermin and man spilled into the garage, and Gus whirled, dug in both feet, and heaved the door closed with all he had left. Rats wormed through the shrinking gap until getting caught and crushed between the door and the jamb. Black blood oozed and spurted. He yanked out his Bowie and sawed at the more stubborn ones as he shouldered the door, covering the floor in gristly pieces.

With a click, the trembling door finally closed. The lower part bowed inward with a straining whine, already weakened by earlier gnawing. Panting, Gus rushed to his locker and tipped it toward the door. It landed with a metallic crash, and he shoved its weight up against the door, barricading it and buying a few minutes.

The several dozen rats that had slipped in when he opened the door attacked. He got to stomping, and a long, strength-depleting minute later, crushed the body and then head of the last one attempting to bite through the rubber covering his ankle.

Swallowing and wishing for a drink, Gus gazed upon the beast and the pickup. Wasting no time, he climbed into the back of the pickup and felt along the torpedo lengths of each of the four propane cylinders. He gripped the metal covers protecting the valves and removed them, one after the other, exposing knurled brass rings.

Gasping, he wrestled with the first propane cylinder and pushed it out of the truck. It landed on the concrete with a clatter. He upended the second one and let it strike and slide off the first, then did the same with the third. He opened the valve of the fourth cylinder and left it in the pickup. He didn’t know if the thing was hissing, as he couldn’t hear it over the racket at the inner door and the scratching outside of the garage.

He picked up the sledge hammer and hopped out of the truck bed. With one swing, he took the valve off the first tank with a frightening crack and rush of air. Discovering he was still alive, he knocked the valves off the other two before dropping the hammer. He moved some milk crates underneath each cylinder, allowing the liquefied gas to spurt onto the floor in an ever widening pool. He stood back, smelling the fumes as a cloud of milky vapor filled the garage. There was still time left, and he locked on to the remaining Molotovs on the work bench. He still had his lighter. He looked back into the pickup and saw the last length of fuse.

At the door, the barest of shavings, like drill bits on the verge of punching through, appeared in its surface just above the locker.

The idea popped into his head, and he laughed out loud. A laugh of a person knowing the end was very, very near, and that he was going to make the monsters outside of his door regret marching up the side of his mountain to make war on him. He only wished he had a drink of something to see things through.

The garage door splintered in places. White slivers of wood hung from points where teeth gnashed through.

“Red Rye!” He grabbed two of the assembled Molotovs. He cracked the necks across the bench and shook the fuses away. Glass fell tinkling to the floor.

He held the bottles over his head and doused himself with gasoline.

23

He emptied four of the Molotovs over the fire retardant Nomex before feeling for the lighter tucked inside his glove. He wouldn’t light up in the house, remembering the promise he’d made Tammy so long ago when he was given a cheap three-dollar cigar from a friend at work.

He twisted the ruck sack around to his front and packed eight of the Molotovs. The others he smashed on the floor. He got the fuse out of the truck—sixty feet of goodness, enough to get to the house and the yard. He tied one end of the fuse to the nearest propane cyclinder’s broken valve, stepping into a pool of the gas and catching a sweet whiff. He tethered the other end to his left forearm, suddenly wishing he still had the Benelli. The door to the house trembled as if a thousand tiny fists pounded upon it. Trailing the fuse from his arm, he went to the door and studied it. Every second he waited, the fumes from the spilled propane filled the garage a little more.

A mixture of fear and anger thrummed in his chest and limbs, and he channeled that new reserve of energy into pulling the locker away from the door. The door bulged; wood fibers crackled and snapped. Whole heads appeared.

Taking a deep breath, Gus opened the door.

Rats fell forward, writhing around his knees and boots. They filled the hallway, an unbelievable thigh-high black carpet of unliving, thrashing sewage. Rats flowed up from the stairway leading to the basement. Gus didn’t think about it; he only went forward. It was thirty feet to the windows in the living room, but with the waves of rats, that might as well be miles. The undead, some as large as kittens, embraced him with tooth and claw as he pushed forward into their angry surf. They swarmed his legs, crotch, and lower belly. His balls felt slowly mashed, causing an aching nausea to creep into his guts. He shoved against them, shuffling his feet forward into the mass.

They latched on to his arms, and he swung and crushed them against the walls. He felt some of them climb his back and bite onto his neck brace. Gus violently slapped them off, but more snapped on to his arms and hands. One rat scampered up his arm against a wall and slammed into the side of his helmet. Gus reached up and crushed its head in a fist, then slung it away.

Press forward. It felt as if he were pushing against wet concrete.

This isn’t working.

He got out his lighter only by waving his arms around over his head to avoid the maws snapping at him. He reached into the rucksack, pulled out a Molotov, and lit the fuse, intending to throw it.

He spotted the captain’s duct-taped ass on the distant sofa, far and away from his intended path. A layer of hairy backs was almost level with the cushion.

They’re inside the perimeter! the captain roared.

“Wait!” Gus shouted and swung at his attackers. “I’ll get you—”

You’ll do no such thing! the old sailor returned, and for the first time, Gus saw a look of concern on the foppish officer’s face. Light the bastards up!

Then, the rats swarmed the captain’s armored form, and he was gone in a flurry of hair and rotting flesh.

Seeing his last friend disappear sent Gus over the edge. He lashed out at the rats with all the power left in his limbs, mashing several into the floor and walls.

“You little—”

The gasoline on his upper body ignited, and he transformed into a living torch. In frightened reflex, he smashed the Molotov against the nearby wall, and sent a wave of fire arcing over it like a bright orange stroke from a painter’s brush that ended in a mire of vermin. The flames scorched the rats, turning them into fiery lumps that popped and sizzled. A sheet of fire rose up in front of his visor, and seeing unchecked fire that close unnerved Gus and switched off all cohesive thought except for stupid, stupid, stupid.

Gus threw himself forward. Adrenalin spiked through him. Instead of shuffling along the floor, he dragged his feet up, using the bodies beneath him as squirming steps. He muscled his way through the shifting sea of rats, gaining five feet almost immediately. Rats still clawed onto his back, biting, scratching, digging. The flames scorched them. He reached the corner of the hallway, latched his hands onto it, and pulled himself around it. The fire burned though the thin straps of the ruck sack, and Gus felt them drag to his stomach.

Then, the rest of the Molotovs went up.

Gus felt the bottles break. He felt the heat of the fireball pressing into stomach. His entire body erupted in sweat as if he were melting. Dark fire coated his visor, licking it voraciously, causing blossoms of surreal patterns to explode and expand before his eyes. He screamed and scrambled forward. Another sheet of flame engulfed his head. The temperature rose, cooking him in his own gear. He got his feet under him and pushed into the living room. The fire gnawed through the gloves, licking his hands and making him squeal. A wall of glass loomed in front of him, and he threw himself toward it.

In mid-air, he heard a whump behind him and saw a reflection of himself and the living room in the dark surface of the window.

A gush of fire erupted from the hall, howling at its infernal birth and setting the sea of hair and tails ablaze. The very air became flame. Charcoaled lumps flew, consumed in the firestorm as it consumed everything in its path.

Including Gus.

He crashed through the window just as the explosion blew out most of the windows and engulfed the house in a bright fist of orange. He ran blindly, blazing from head to toe, transformed into a shrieking, feral thing, smoking as if dipped into the sun itself. Mindless and insane with agony, he sprinted toward the cliff’s edge, not knowing anything except the painthepainohChristthePAIN! His visor cracked and dissolved. Flames licked at his flesh, lighting up his facial hair, dissolving the gloves on his hands.

He didn’t know where he was going. In his self-immolating state, he didn’t care.

Gus screamed one last time as his feet unexpectedly left the ground.

And if anyone were standing below the cliff, looking up, they would have seen a spectacular flash of orange throwing back the dark…

And a howling figure streaking across the star-filled night sky, limbs flailing, like an angry comet crashing to earth.

24

Consciousness came back to him when, really, Gus was happier in the dark. Wincing and feeling a tightness about his face, he tried to push himself up. Agony lanced up both of his arms, causing his eyes to open wide. Moaning, he rolled over and felt something hard at his back. Both of his arms refused to do anything other than shriek and be slabs of meat. He inspected himself through the melted wreck of his visor. The strap of his bat sheath was still there, and he recognized the weight on his back. He lay on the ground, in a shrinking snow drift. The Nomex was scorched to raw fibers. He did an agonized stomach curl and got to a sitting position. Semi-melted slabs of rubber covered his feet. The Bowie knife remained in one boot, but he didn’t see the Ruger. Above him, pungent evergreen boughs, snapped in places from where they broke his fall, obscured the sun. Smoke filled the sky, but he could see the cliff’s edge where he had fallen. He even saw the deck of his house.

He was below the cliff, just back from the base. Somewhere to the right would be a charred pile of bodies. He still couldn’t move his arms.

Broken, he realized. Both fuckin’ arms.

He struggled to his feet, thankful his legs still worked, but his poor feet tortured him with the squish and pain of broken blisters.

And perhaps worst of all, he badly wanted a drink. Grimacing and grunting in agony, he couldn’t see the house. Not sure if he wanted to see the house or if he won the battle, but there were no rats around him, and it was daylight. That was a good sign.

The first step he took on his blistered feet brought a yelp from him. The next one elicited a stifled cry of pain. He squeezed into the forest, the boughs whipping him, lashing his broken arms, and several times he almost blacked out from the pain. The agony triggered dry heaves that drove him to his knees. He wept, mashing his forehead on the cold, wet forest floor. Then, he struggled back to his feet. Firmed up. Pushed on. Pain. The pain was everywhere. He collapsed several times, but got back up and pressed on, whimpering and wishing for death.

He walked until it was night, then plopped down against a tree and tried to sleep. The pain was too great, however, and fended away any real rest. The air was full of smoke, cloying and cough-inducing. The temperature dropped, and he felt every descending degree with violent shivers that rattled his arms and tortured him further. He thought of the captain and wept for his friend who had no doubt been consumed in the blaze. He thought of his shotguns, destroyed as well. But the thing that truly got him weeping in pain and grief and self-pity, the thing that almost pushed him to the absolute fringe of sanity…

Was the thought of his house.

The place he had found so long ago, that had sheltered and protected him against foes, both human and zombie alike, had undoubtedly been razed to the ground. All of the food, the books, the movies, the comfort of hot and cold running water, the furniture, the power, and of course, the stores of precious booze. All gone.

It was a long time until morning, and Gus sat in the near-freezing wilderness and wished for the end.

*

At dawn, he lurched to his feet and staggered through the brush. His feet continued punishing him, and he felt as if he were walking on trapped bubbles of water that sizzled and oozed underneath his flesh when he placed weight on them. Hunger wracked him. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d eaten. The question begged him why that was, and he answered it with a dry “because I was tryin’ to kill myself at the time. Remember?”

His stomach didn’t care about that.

And Gus wanted a drink. Just a sip. That would glue everything back together. Just one little sip.

In places where there was still snow, he dropped to his knees and awkwardly ate mouthfuls of what looked clean. From time to time he looked back, but the trees stopped him from seeing any great distance. He plodded on; his face stung and itched. Twice, he needed to urinate, and both times, he had to go in his pants, moaning when he let go. The feel and burn of urine soaking his genitals tortured him further.

Night came again, and he sat down against a tree, wishing for death. Every movement hurt. His stomach felt as if it were gnawing at his ribs. Snow helped relieve his thirst to some degree, but not entirely. In moments where his body allowed him a moment to think, he thought of how far he’d come, and how easy he had it at times. Nothing compared to this.

Somewhere in the night, amid the freezing cold, something unhinged in his mind. Gus dozed, waking occasionally when he moved in his sleep and set off fire alarms of agony in his broken arms.

In the morning, it took him a long time to get to his feet. He trudged through the forest, feeling like a zombie himself. Perhaps the virus had finally gotten to him and he was crossing over. Maybe one of the rats had bitten him before he got away. He sure as hell felt like eating someone. Anyone.

Then, he saw the rooftops. Most of Gus’s consciousness had retreated deep inside his head to escape his punished state, but on some level, he recognized what the structures were. Gus limped into the backyard of a white house with a dark, satin green roof. Hard snow covered half of the yellow grass like a tablecloth pulled back. He plodded around the patch because if he stepped in any more snow and fell, he knew he would not get up again. He walked around to the front of the house, where a long driveway led to the street.

He believed he had walked a very long way, perhaps all of ten kilometers, through forest right up into the edge of Annapolis.

What were a few more feet?

With a short yelp, he pushed away from the house, heading to the wet pavement just at the end of the driveway. The driveway was long, with snow pulling back on either side of it and revealing more yellow grass. A line of young trees lay to the left, while the front lawn was an inverted image of the backyard. He focused on placing one throbbing, squishy foot ahead of the other. He didn’t care anymore. He was too tired to care. He just wanted…

Falling.

Hitting pavement and bouncing all too hard.

Gus lay on his back, blinking slowly, taking in the gray sky. He heard noise to his right and turned his head. A roadblock was set up in the middle of the street. Police in riot gear and black body armor stood with their backs to him, and he could hear them shouting. From beyond the wooden beams of the barricade, a wave of bodies approached. The police commenced firing, unleashing hell and raining spent red cartridges on the pavement. They fired round after round, the reports of their guns sounding like dreamy firecrackers submerged in a fishbowl. The deadheads reached the line and smashed through it. The zombies swarmed the police, forcing them to the ground and devouring them, only visible for seconds before other gimps pushed by.

Tammy appeared—Tammy with her black eyes and pallid face, wearing only jeans and a T-shirt. She saw him, and her arms came up. Gus panted in exhausted fear. She came right at him, through the throngs of other dead things fighting with the cops. Heads exploded, but not Tammy’s. She bent over him, her long dark hair fluttering around his head. Her mouth, covered in black-headed skin tags, opened, and maggots spilled out, falling from teeth eroded into moist shards. Closer she came, until their noses were almost touching, and she hissed and he screamed back….

“Well, Jesus,” a man’s voice declared.

Gus finally, mercifully, passed out.

25

They took care of him.

They entered the room when he was awake and didn’t ask any questions. The big man looked strangely familiar, and the woman seemed to be the guy’s wife. Two children, probably their kids, peeked in at him from the doorway. Gus didn’t talk; he wasn’t in the right frame of health to talk.

But he was getting better.

His dreams were sometimes turned over by short movies of reality. The couple kept him drugged. That much was obvious, even to him. An IV was hooked into his arm. They had straightened his arms a while ago, an experience that had yanked him beneath consciousness once more. When he had awakened, his arms were straight and white. No, the casts were white. At the end of the bed, poking up from red and white blankets that didn’t itch and looked and felt wonderful, were his bare feet. They looked like pink slabs of meat that had been dropped from a very high place.

The people spoke to him, but their words came too fast for him to understand, and their voices were loud enough to make his head pound—like fog horns, only sped up. More drugs, marooning him somewhere on a median of dark awareness and vibrant oblivion. Colors exploded, then went black. Exploded again. Then black. No pain at all.

The captain even appeared at one point, all puffed up in his bright livery, grinning as if he’d been laid multiple times in the last forty-eight hours.

“You made it,” Gus rasped, feeling so very glad to see the old sailor, and a little ashamed for having left him on the sofa back in the house.

“I did,” the captain replied, beaming at him. “You’re doing well, I see.”

“Better. Look. I’m sorry about leaving you back at the—”

The captain tsked and tweaked one end of his moustache. “Don’t mind that. It all worked out, didn’t it?”

“Yeah.”

“You did the right thing.” The captain bent forward ever so slightly. “I saw everything. And as God above as my witness… you kicked ass back at the ranch. Blew the ranch to hell in fact, but pay no mind to that. None at all. You’re in a better place now.”

“I am?” Gus whispered.

“You surely are,” the captain assured him and inspected the room, nodding. The old sailor became quiet for a moment, content to just wear his smile and watch Gus recover. “Don’t worry about a thing, my chap. I’ve taken care of everything.”

“You have?” Weaker now, but fighting to stay.

“I have,” the foppish officer said confidently. “The very least I could do… for a friend.”

Gus tried to say something, but he flew backward, and the captain disappeared. He didn’t feel troubled by the old sailor’s departure. In fact, he felt pretty good.

The more time he spent there, in that bed, in that place, the more comfortable he felt.

And his sleep was the best of the last two years.

*

“You awake?”

“…Mmmuuh?”

“I asked if you were awake.”

Drawn out sigh. “Yeah.”

“How do you feel?”

“Stoned.”

A deep chuckle. Pure and nice to hear. “That’s good. Good to hear. We’re going to keep you that way for a while, okay? Just so you know.”

“In… bad shape… am I?”

Silence. “Just between you and me?”

“Yeah.”

“You were fucked up.”

Gus chuckled.

“But you’re in good hands now. Maggie’s a general practitioner and an ER vet. She knows how to patch people together.”

“I… needed… patchin’?”

“Buddy, you needed superglue and the hand of God.”

That didn’t sound so good.

“You remember anything?”

Gus shook his head. “Thirsty.”

“Oh, just a sec. Here.”

Water. As it hit his lips, he felt it restore life into him. The lip of the glass disappeared once the water stopped flowing. “Thank… you.”

“You’re welcome. Found you on the road on the other side of Wolfville. Shit. Thought you were dead. Damn lucky if you ask me. Maggie peeled all that shit off you, set your arms, rehydrated you, treated your burns and your feet. Hell, you looked like a piece of steak flipped off someone’s barbeque and rolled around in shit. I mean, shit, I’ve seen corpses that looked more alive than you.”

“Nice.” Weariness tugged at him.

A pause. “No offense. You’re with us now. When you’re ready, in better shape, we’ll talk again. See about things.”

“Talk,” Gus exhaled.

And slept.

*

The sun had just started slipping into evening. Gus sat on an old kitchen chair and looked north, toward mountains that appeared hunched over at the top, like old men huddling. The valley stretched far and away from his chair in the clearing, and clumps of green trees speckled the edges of yellow fields. He absently clicked the casts on his forearms, a habit he’d gotten into to take away the sometimes maddening urge to scratch at the healing skin inside them. The casts would be coming off soon, according to Maggie. She’d done as good a job with him as he could ever have expected or hoped for, with the supplies the group had, and for that, Gus owed them a lot. There wasn’t anything she could do about the burns to his face and hands, but Gus could live with that. The scars gave him character.

He shook his head at a mosquito buzzing near his ear. The sky was starting to turn pink. He heard a car engine and turned his head to see Adam’s beat-up, red, four-door sedan. Seeing him returning from his road trip—the same silver-haired Adam Gus had taken several shots at in Annapolis—made him feel relieved. Whenever any of them left the farm area, Gus felt he should go as well, but he was always held back by his healing wounds. That would change soon, and he’d go along on those trips when asked. Adam was a good man with a sense of humor. Not all of the twenty-two people living on the farm shared that trait. They knew Gus was the one responsible for the destruction of Annapolis. They also knew why, and while they allowed him to stay while he healed, the jury was still out on whether or not they would let him stay once he was on his feet again. Adam and Maggie knew there was strength in numbers and were sold on the idea. Gus figured that was a start, even though he was divided on the matter himself. The things he’d done in Annapolis had left an invisible brand on his conscience, and he wasn’t certain he deserved any of the goodwill they had shown him. Ever since Maggie had taken him off the drugs and he got his senses back, he wondered if he ever would.

They’d done so much for him in the last few months.

For nothing.

The old sedan bumped and jumped through the sea of wheat, and he watched it slow to a stop. Two children jumped out and ran toward him. The car continued toward the little community that was emerging here, nestled amongst a wheat field, a corn field, and an apple orchard. Gus had always wondered and worried about what he would do when his stores of food ran out and whether he could grow his own. The group had already addressed that very problem. For the last two years, they had been at the southwestern tip of the valley, far and away from Gus’s mountain, and at the end of a dirt road not easily seen from the highway.

In the world that remained, Gus figured the area was pretty much paradise. Pretty much. That thought stayed with him for a moment, as fresh as the valley air he breathed.

As they got closer, the children called his name, telling him to come to supper.

Gus turned in their direction, smiling faintly as he was conscious of his missing teeth, and held out his once-scorched hand. Steady as a rock. The longing for a drink, just a sip, didn’t bother him anymore. Maybe the people had helped that, but he believed being in an area where there was no alcohol probably helped. Having two broken arms probably had something to do with it as well.

He stood up from the lookout chair where someone kept watch for straggling deadheads most of the day and night. Taking one last look around at the goodness surrounding him, he adjusted the aluminum bat slung across his back. The weapon hung in a new leather sheath Adam had made. Yet another gift he didn’t think he deserved. Gus stretched until his back cracked and walked toward the yelling, giggling children bearing down on him, making paths in the field.

The two came to either side of him and took his hands. Their happy faces ignited his smile.

The sun in their eyes, Gus and the children made their way through a meadow that shined and swayed ever so gently and wondered aloud at what might be for supper.

Mountain Man (Book 3)
Hellifax

Hellifax

(Mountain Man Book Three)

By Keith C. Blackmore

Copyright 2012 Keith C. Blackmore

Edited by Sean Fox (Red Adept Publishing)

Formatting by Polgarus Studio

Cover by Athanasios of Covers For Hire
www.mad-gods.com/CoverHIRE

This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the writer’s imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locales or organizations is entirely coincidental.

All rights are reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission from the author.

A special thank you to Eric Burke, Brad Burry, Mark E. Crouse, Ewart King, Ken Maidment, Rod Redden, Robert Richter, Miguel Tonnies, and Alexis Winning.

Prologue

They came from the west.

Three great cargo vans crossed the Ontario-Quebec border, threading the wide Trans Canada Highway as if driven by drunkards and blazing through the summer heat shimmers over the road.

Men with bad intentions filled the vehicles loaded with guns and supplies for a lengthy journey. Body armor and sports padding covered their frames in a patchwork that didn’t always fit properly, bulking them up and widening their shoulders. Some wore helmets with face cages, while others had only visors spray-painted black on the outside, hiding their features. The men were well-built and strong, battered and scarred. Tattoos covered exposed flesh in red and black ink: dragons and chains, sickles and skulls, executioners and axes. Fearsome images etched across entire arms, spreading over shoulders and up the sides of faces like some horrible disease. Most of the men did not shave or cut their hair, in honor of the conquering Norsemen who had prowled the Atlantic centuries ago. They looked hard and possessed the stares of instigators and shit disturbers. All were born killers, once unaware of their true potential, which had been unleashed after the fall of civilization. They joked and guffawed amongst themselves, shoving shoulders and slapping backs like hungry bears taking fleshy swipes out of each other’s hides. Sometimes, when they stopped for the night, the jokes would go too far, and fights would start. When that happened, the others would pull back and form a ring, allowing whoever was at odds to go at each other’s throats with all the enthusiasm of rabid Dobermans, pissed beyond pissed. Two men had already been killed in such a way, practically sliced into bleeding ribbons. No doubt one or two more would go the same way before they returned to the west.

“Boys will be boys” was a favorite saying of Fist. He was perhaps the biggest, the strongest, and hands down the most psychotic of them all, and he regarded all of his companions as nothing more than meat that talked back––easily managed with a yank and a cut, if need be. That they took orders from him made no difference, and he knew more than one of them slept at night with knives in their hands, as he himself did, just in case. He didn’t trust those walking husks of carrion feeders, and when he slept, it was usually in the van or in an apartment that could be locked. He didn’t worry about them stealing the vans. Fear kept his minions in check, and he made it painfully clear that if any of them decided to run off with one of the vehicles, he’d find them. No matter how long it took, he’d sniff them out like a bloodhound on a mission from the Devil, even if the trail took him across boiling oceans and hateful volcanoes. He’d find them.

And skull-fuck the offenders with his Bowie knife.

Fear was power, and he’d learned that from the best. Fear kept them wary of opportunities. None of them feared the dead that walked the earth. The dead were easy to fight, easy to kill. The dead were nothing more than dried-up shit under the boots of empire makers. Fist was the first of many to come east. The east was the last great frontier in the new world. The last unknown. Fist had been sent east to see… and to report.

And thus far, he’d seen utter shit.

The east was weak.

Unorganized.

Ill-prepared for the chains of agony that would follow Fist’s initial expedition.

The land was much the same as the rest of the world. The dead ruled it. The remaining pockets of humanity had shrivelled up like old men’s scrotums after a dip in arctic waters. Fallout from nuclear reactors melting down after the power grid failed had ruined much of the earth. The same fallout withered survivors near the installations with the irradiated kiss of death. Fist and his crew avoided those places and the greater cities. They headed east to look not only for safe havens, but pure, uncontaminated sustenance.

There was no Canada anymore. There were no States. There certainly was no North, Central, or South America. There was only land and warlords cutting out the new order from the bones of the old, stamping their sign on conquered territory, basking in anarchy, and lapping up lakes of blood.

There were only predators… and meat.

The three vans screamed over the crumbling grey of the highway, barreling down the strip like spray-painted missiles. The early fall sun glared at the travellers through the windshields. Fist sat in the passenger side of the first battle van, his dark eyes hooded and lazy. The long drives sometimes made him sleepy, and he resisted with a sharp shake of his head or a widening of his eyes. The asphalt stitch that was the Trans-Canada Highway shoved the forest back on both sides, splitting it wide. The tree line’s red, brown, and gold held no beauty for him or his self-named Norsemen, and more than one of the warriors entertained thoughts of stopping and starting a fire.

Just for fun.

At first, Fist hadn’t really wanted to go east. But he was chosen, and he wasn’t ready to challenge the man who had given the order. Fist had gone along with it, keeping his true feelings to himself. Sending him east was probably just a way of getting rid of him, removing him from the power structure in favor of someone less intimidating, easier to control. Eventually, in the back of his mind, he realized the expedition just might give him the edge needed to take power over the Norsemen. It might provide him with useful weapons, perhaps even children to be raised as future raiders.

And over time, the more he thought about it, the more Fist’s mind had changed about the journey.

The driver of one of the other vans honked a horn. The sound hooked Fist from his sleepy drifting, and he shook his head to clear it. He blinked his soot-blackened eyes and paused for a moment, hearing the horn once more.

“What is it?” he rumbled at the driver, leaning forward in his seat, his bass voice as sonorous and silky as a fine burning scotch. Some of the men believed Fist might only possess one lung or that he had suffered from some extreme upbringing where he had screamed incessantly. They were half right. After the Fall, when the wild things rose up, there was plenty to scream about, and every time Fist did, it shaved away a little more of his already frayed vocal chords until only bedrock remained.

“Don’t know,” Pell answered. He was a beast of a rig pig, once hailing from Red Deer. “My side window’s gone, too.”

Fist filled his lungs and sighed long and deep. “Pull over.”

Pell decreased speed immediately. He wore no helmet while driving, and Fist wasn’t above slamming his driver’s head into the steering column.

Flexing his fingers, Fist studied the knuckles rippling underneath his skin as the seatbelt kept him in place. The van slowed to a stop. Releasing the belt, the Norseman leader took a breath and heaved himself out of the van. Doors opened all round as the rest of the pack jumped to the highway, stretching their legs and arms with guttural glee.

Heels clicking on the road, Fist sauntered past his dogs and glanced toward the trees once more. Something lay beyond the thin fence of autumn color. A golf course, perhaps?

Steam issued from the opened hood of one of their vans, and two bulky Norsemen stood to one side when their leader arrived.

“What is it?” Fist asked in Norse speak, which all of the clan strived to learn. The harsh-sounding syllables came out as the exposed motor tossed grey puffs into the air.

“Carburetor,” Herman reported, his sooty features screwed up in distaste. He was the mechanic of the group.

“Then, fix it,” Fist ordered, the words coming out as Gur ee agh grum.

“And try not to fuck it up any worse.” That came from Murphy, a tall, almost skeletal jackal of a man. He grinned behind a face cage, yellow teeth set below grimy eyes and an anvil of a nose.

“Fuck off,” Herman lipped back.

Murphy’s darkened eyes went wide before a snarl twisted his mouth. He nodded, licked his lips, and shoved the mechanic. Herman shoved back.

Then they were swinging at each other amid undulating whoops and hollers.

Fist stood back and watched the two men punch and slam each other around for all of ten seconds. It wasn’t a particularly entertaining fight as they both wore armor, but it was something to wake him up from the monotony of the long drive.

Murphy suddenly upended Herman and dumped him on his back. Murphy pounced, pinning the other man’s arms to the road. A knife flashed up, the steel dull in the daylight.

A thought shot through Fist’s mind. Herman is the only mechanic we have on this trip.

Just as Murphy stabbed downward, Fist stepped forward and batted a hand across the man’s face, knocking him flat.

“Aren’t too many mechs around,” the Norseman leader growled. He pointed at both men on the ground. “Don’t fuck around anymore, else I kick the shit outta both.”

Fist focused entirely on Murphy. “Might not stop on you. You aren’t a mech.”

“Takin’ that shit stain’s side?” Murphy asked, sticking out his chin.

“Murph,” Fist warned in a voice low enough to shake spines. “Shut up.”

And like that, Murphy backed off like a dog snapped hard across the muzzle.

Fist directed his attention back to Herman, who climbed to his feet and got to work. The leader lingered for a moment, turning his hips in the direction of the golf course and scratching thoughtfully at his ribs. He’d never played, but he had beaten the brains out of several undead golfers with their own clubs almost a year ago. The memory made him smirk in an unpleasant way. He only wished he could’ve done the same thing back when the world was still the world.

Hands on his hips, Fist meandered back to the lead van. Men quieted as he passed, not daring to look him in the eye, only to resume talking once he was out of arm’s reach. Beyond the vehicle, the TCH stretched out for perhaps another kilometer before being eclipsed by a hill. Fist struck a fearsome pose in his roughshod armor made from tire treads. He glared at the road and wished for something to kill. The urge was hard to control, and sometimes it just took him.

Movement caught his attention.

Not far away, on the other side of the highway, was a subdivision of houses with their backs to the road. Fist held his breath for a moment, staring at a series of fences that had crumpled over time. Things were moving over there.

“Shut the fuck up!” Fist barked without turning around, silencing the rest of the men.

There was no wind, and the sounds that reached them came from the line of houses. There, through a thin mesh of trees sad with dying leaves, he heard the unmistakable sound of moaning.

A second later, Fist zeroed in on a clump of figures laying siege to a two-story house. Fleshy slaps against the panel wood punctuated the crisp afternoon calm. A mob of undead ringed the walls, attempting to get inside. That only meant one thing.

There was someone alive inside.

“Cray!” Fist’s voice boomed like arctic ice cracking. “Get ten lined up.”

The man protected by a suit of riot gear starting shouting orders.

“Pell, you keep the others in line here. Protect the vans,” Fist ordered his driver and went to the rear of his vehicle. He slapped at his armor and snapped his fingers until a hockey helmet with a face cage was handed to him. He strapped it on and snapped down the cage. Next came his maul, a frightening length of hickory with a hammer and blade head, chipped, scarred, and heavy. Fist took it with one hand from the Norseman inside the van, hefted it as if it weighed one pound instead of ten, and walked away while others mobbed the rear, searching for their own weapons. They possessed firearms of the brutish, short-range kind—sawed-off shotguns. They wore the weapons swinging in crude leather holsters on their thighs or slung over their backs.

Fist sniffed and wiggled a finger underneath his chinstrap, as the damn thing was a touch too snug. Placing the head of the maul down, he reached to his hip holster, pulled out his own sawed-off shotgun, and checked the load. He didn’t want to fire the weapon unless absolutely necessary, as ammunition was limited. Besides, all one truly needed when fighting zombies was a line of men strong enough to hold formation and to keep on swinging once the reaping started. Across the highway, the undead clambered against the house, clawing at it as if exhausted, beating their limbs against windows which held, and wailing for whoever was inside to just open up so all the nasty business of feeding could be taken care of.

Weak, Fist thought.

The others gathered on either side of him, a wrecking line of brute force. Clubs, baseball bats, and axes rasped against the pavement. Tugging and checking of armor plates, padding, and leather bindings went on for a few seconds more. Fist allowed it, waiting for the mass of dead to smell them. He had to hand it to them; they could smell anything from a very long distance, and on a day like this, he was a little surprised they hadn’t turned his way yet.

But then, they were quite stupid.

Not bothering to ask if his men were ready, Fist raked his maul across the asphalt and shouted, the sound frightening in the afternoon air. He did that twice more. Then he took a breath, sniffed, and tongued at an area in his mouth.

Some of the undead turned around and saw them, while others kept pawing at the house.

Fist marched forward, and his boys followed. Some of the men eyed their flanks, mindful of zombies coming at their sides, but the highway remained empty. More dead peeled away from the house, catching either scent or sound, and lurched toward the approaching meal. The fences stopped them, but then a section swung open and bodies flowed through. Fist gathered his maul two-handed, drawing a bead on the first walking corpse he would put down. He couldn’t count how many were turning away from the house, and it didn’t really matter. It wasn’t an army, and it would take at least that to stop the Norsemen.

Fist stopped them at the edge of the pavement. The terrain favored them there, and he liked having solid ground underfoot. The line of undead stumbled down over an embankment and gathered like spilled dolls at the bottom. Almost comically, they tripped and fell over each other as they struggled to their feet.

“More this way,” one of the Norsemen called. Fist and the others saw a thick group of walking carcasses, perhaps thirty or more, emerging from the backyard of another house and forcing their way through a veil of trees and clawing branches. They were nowhere near as close as the ones coming from the house.

Fist turned his attention to the first group. They had pulled themselves apart, stood up, and closed.

None of the living said a word. They stood with their leader and watched with readied weapons.

The tide of dead things was no more than ten feet away.

A power lineman in his yellow and red reflective vest grimaced as he walked unsteadily toward Fist. Its open mouth was a dark hole, pitted in the center of a bush of grey beard. Its thigh had been opened up to the bone. The creature beheld Fist in wide-eyed delight, and it took the Norseman a moment to realize that its lids had been chewed away.

Fist took its head off with one swing. His attack signaled for hell, and the ten other Norsemen swung and stabbed at the wall of undead. Zombies had their skulls staved in or removed from their shoulders. Some heads, rotten to the center, simply exploded in a shower of particles. An axe split a face to the neck while another drove a zombie to its knees. An accountant type had her arm removed at the shoulder and got kicked back into the advancing throng. Fist swung his maul in a steady rhythm, his great arms flexing as he bashed in faces and skulls, driving corpses to the ground with each powerful swing. The dead stumbled over the low wall of bodies forming at the line of men, then had their own bodies added to the barrier. The moaning grew, then broke into single voices.

Then nothing.

In less than two minutes, Fist and his men had chewed through a hundred of the dead things, give or take a dozen.

“More here,” someone shouted. Fist shoved some of his men out of the way, not caring in the least what they thought about it. He took up a new position and waited for the zombies to arrive. His arms felt good, like after a hard, but not exhausting workout, and he was nowhere near out of breath. Around him, his boys formed a new line and faced the next group of attacking dead.

Behind his face cage, Fist took a deep breath, readying a lungful of air. After killing so many of the zombies over what seemed like years, he was desensitized to the horrors of the reanimated flesh.

An old woman dressed in a bathrobe sprinkled with embroidered daisies stumbled toward him. A black, visceral shawl of torn scalp hung over one side of her face.

Fist stared at the thing’s destroyed features, at the terrible faces crowded around it, bobbing and weaving in that slow, stop-go motion that marked them as undead. There were sometimes runners as well, but none in this pack. At the least the runners made things interesting.

The shambling dead were nothing to the Norsemen.

With a grunt, Fist swung the maul when the granny was within reach.

The slaughter was over in less than a minute, and the corpses lay in a ragged mound that stopped at the wall of living men. Sounds of heavy breathing met Fist’s ears. He shrugged, causing his shoulders to crick, while shaking out his burning arms. None of his boys had been taken down by the mob, which was both good and bad. There was strength in numbers, but he knew he’d probably end up cutting a few of their throats, anyway.

The dead were piled up on top of one another, creating a squishy embankment that Fist and the others climbed over. They grunted and cursed in disgust, and one even stumbled and landed facedown amongst the bodies. Once clear of the unmoving flesh, Fist held his maul by the neck and led the others straight to the house. The gate in the fence hung open, and pieces of cloth caught and torn from the zombies hung from its top. Fist carefully edged through the opening, listening and focusing on the back door and steps. Painted green with white siding, the house might’ve been a picture for life in the suburbs. A pool, the above-ground kind with flimsy walls, lay flattened in one corner of the backyard. A small garden ringed with white-painted beach rocks and filled with bare soil lay just to the left of the pool.

Fist walked up to the backdoor, listened for a moment, and then rapped on the unbroken glass. He placed his maul against the siding.

“Hello?” he said in a strained tone, as if unaccustomed to such pleasantries. Another rap of knuckles. “Anyone home?”

In the dark of the kitchen, in an open doorway, a man came into sight. He looked haggard and old and held a double-barreled shotgun—what the boys referred to as a “fat ass.”

“Who’re you?” he demanded, appearing close to losing control. A woman peeked out from behind him. Both looked somewhere between frightened and hopeful.

“We took care of the dead,” Fist said through the glass and smiled.

“What?” The man’s expression lightened and became even more hopeful.

“The zombies. We killed them.”

“You did? That’s wonderful!”

“What did they do, Rick?” the woman asked, appearing just as frayed as Rick.

“They… they killed those bastards!”

Fist straightened on the lower step. Even then, his forehead was level with the upper frame of the door.

“They killed those things! Jesus H. Christ, that’s the best news I’ve heard all day! All week!” He broke into French then, which Fist didn’t understand in the least.

Rick came to the window, beaming, and propped his weapon against a counter.

Fist waited until the old man threw back the locks and pulled away the wooden braces reinforcing the door.

It opened with a yank, and Rick leaned out, smiling from ear to ear. He offered his hand. Fist took it and allowed his hand to be pumped as if he were an old-fashioned water well.

“There’s a few of you,” Rick said suddenly, his smile dimming at the fearsome collection of men standing outside his door, eerily quiet.

While the warriors captivated Rick’s attention, Fist held out his free hand. Cray placed a cleaver in it. Fist hacked at Rick’s wrist and took it half off. Rick’s mouth puckered into shock. He tried jerking his hand away as if he’d been scalded with hot water, but Fist held on, the wound yawning and spilling blood. He swung the cleaver at Rick’s head and sheared away a healthy flap of scalp in another burst of blood. The woman screamed. Fist forced his way through the door, slamming a bleeding Rick against the wall and letting him crumple to the floor. The older man stared at his fountaining wrist in both shock and awe. The Norsemen forced their way inside and pounced on the wounded homeowner.

“Non! Non!” the woman squealed, but she didn’t have strength in her legs to run. Fist caught her by the throat and dug his fingers into her windpipe, turning her pleas into rusty squeaks. He rolled her into his embrace. She bucked and clawed at his face cage, then his shoulders. Fist bear-hugged her, feeling several ribs pop like bubble wrap. Her screams transformed into breathless grunts. With the fight gone from his victim, he tossed her over the kitchen island to let his men finish her.

Process her.

The warriors crowded in, holding the couple down only as long as was necessary––mere seconds, really. More cleavers and meat knives came into view. Clothes were torn open. White flesh was cut, sawed, and chopped. The smell of blood became thick.

Heavenly.

Fist stood on the threshold of the living room and stuck his head in, breathing stale air. No doubt the room had been boarded up for a lengthy period. Some stairs were at the edge of the room, and he’d check the second floor in a moment. He didn’t feel rushed. Two full-grown people were more than enough fresh meat for his men for a day. If any children were upstairs, they wouldn’t get far.

Sustenance. Pure and filling.

The Norsemen would eat anything they came across. Anything that couldn’t be consumed right away would be taken: leftover packaged food, wild crops, animals, and people. People, in Fist’s opinion, were the easiest to hunt because most of them, if they weren’t already insane, were gutless, fearful, and initially, stupidly hailed Fist and his minions as if they were saviors.

Just as this pair had done.

The truth became painfully obvious, especially when the meat hooks came out and the cleavers fell and pleas of mercy were met with the cruel laughter of jackals.

Fist paused, half-tuned out to the quartering going on in the kitchen. If fortune smiled upon them, there might be a few more survivors in the neighboring area. It went like that sometimes. It was enough of a probability that they would hunker down here for the night and do a search in the morning, maybe even set up camp for a few days and see what the hunting was like in town.

He sized up the many cupboards in the kitchen, wondering if they might find some condiments.

There was nothing like a bit of garlic salt to go along with a roast.

Tenner

1

The SUV wormed deeper into the core of the melancholy city, avoiding the prowling dead where necessary. In the last hour, Tenner had seen more zombies walking about than he had in all of Nova Scotia combined. Thick and porous, crowds of dead seeped into the streets like a mindless, flesh-eating ooze. They didn’t have any sense of the cold or the stormy elements about to descend upon them. They weren’t concerned with taking shelter. All they were focused on was the next bite. Tenner wondered if they could actually relish the taste of still quivering, warm meat. He wondered a lot about that at times. It had to be good, somehow, for the Philistines to want it so badly. Tenner wasn’t a cannibal, but he could see himself partaking, especially if it came to the point where food was a concern.

The black vehicle snaked through a lesser throng of walking corpses, bumping some out of the way and knocking others down. The vehicle would go over them with a whump. Some waved at Tenner as he passed, perhaps angry, maybe drawing the attention of the zombies ahead. Even though he was thankful for the virus or whatever it was that had brought the dead to life and established anarchy as the new order, he didn’t have time for the corpses. He considered himself above all the remaining human race. Perhaps even the only “one.” Not the creator, of course. He’d never have fucked up so badly, although he wished he’d been around for input when ideas were being tossed around. But destroyer… Yes, he was a destroyer—the destroyer. Before everything had changed, he’d tried willing bankers and CEOs to appear, but he’d had to settle for people of little consequence, the ones who wouldn’t be missed too badly.

However, that had all changed. Now he was free to kill off every last living soul. But not the dead. The dead were utterly beneath him, a nuisance to be wary of, but Tenner had no doubt they would soon be long gone. Whatever had reanimated them and preserved their flesh had its limitations. It slowed decomposition, but by no means did it stop the process. It merely delayed the inevitable.

Ahead, a zombie pulled itself along, chest flat on the asphalt, crossing the white lines of a crosswalk. Ropes of entrails snaked out behind the thing like dull, sun-scorched ribbons, and Tenner saw how the soles of the thing’s feet had been ground down to where they could no longer support its weight. The protruding bones reminded him of the bare wires of a shredded umbrella. Even as the zombie dragged itself onward, its chest rasping against the dull cheese grater of the pavement, Tenner glimpsed the gleam of a shattered ribcage, the jagged ends of worn bones clicking from the dead thing’s forward motion, like old cards in bicycle spokes. This particular corpse had even rubbed away the flesh on its knees and upper thighs, and Tenner wondered how long before the muscle remaining on its bony arms would continue to function.

Then the SUV rolled over the creature. Tenner steered the vehicle so the right tire would crush the skull. The crunch of bone pulsed through the steering column and stretched a smirk over his features.

They were beneath him. The dead only caught the ill-prepared ones. The cattle.

Tenner was so much more.

The street he followed ran toward the bay, where he glimpsed war ships on their sides. Even the military had fallen to the dead. He didn’t expect to find many, if any, survivors in the city. There were simply too many walking corpses. Some of them even wore the remnants of body armor and helmets, marking them as former soldiers. Tenner hunched over his steering wheel and looked up. The damage was only superficial on the outskirts of the city, mostly from fire, but craters from artillery shells and other explosives appeared deeper into the city. The houses in this area weren’t burnt to the ground, but flattened, as if a hammer the size of a train had repeatedly smashed them. Debris blocked the narrower side streets in places, while in others, telephone poles had been blown off their bases, and they prevented both Tenner and the Philistines from passing.

Only big guns could have wrought such destruction.

The warships had to have opened fire on all sections of the city.

Tenner marvelled at the destruction. Some of the taller buildings had huge bites taken out of them, and bare girders like loose teeth dangled and moaned in the breeze. Half-flattened houses and trees that had been felled from artillery fire lined the streets. Cars and trucks were torn in half, ravaged by flame and flipped onto their roofs. He spotted one zombie writhing underneath a minivan. God only knew how long it had been there. Tenner shook his head. There had been a death party in Halifax at some point in time, and he wasn’t too troubled by missing it.

He found a road that wasn’t so damaged or filled with zombies and drove down it. The hope of finding any sort of munitions, supplies, or survivors in this particular mess was waning. Ahead, the water of the bay beckoned, black and cold looking, and he drove toward it. The streets opened, and Tenner was mildly puzzled to see the crowd of zombies thinning. He turned the wheel and drove on, approaching twin towers that seemingly rose up from the sea, perched at the very edge of concrete covered land.

Then he spotted a row of military-made iron barricades, silent and cold. A pedway lay behind them, and a second wall of metro buses came into view just beneath the elevated walkway, tipped over on their sides, the gaps between them plugged with sandbags. He pulled closer to the barricade, noting how hundreds, perhaps thousands of the Philistines lay stretched out before the wall, put down for the last time. Limbs, heads, and ripped torsos lay strewn over a horrific expanse. Razor wire sprung up in places like broken springs. Tenner braked and parked in front of a corridor leading through the wire, right up to the buses and pedway. The long, fluted snouts of machine guns pointed at the sky and the field of shredded corpses, likewise dead to the world.

Tenner got out and hauled on his winter coat. Once that was done, his hands went to his holstered guns and he tensed for a moment, waiting to bolt back into his ride if things got too dicey. Nothing moved, however, and he walked through the wire and the fields of decaying flesh, wrinkling his nose at the smell. He paused and kicked at one body, feeling the frozen husk rip as it came away from the pavement. The wind caused some loose clothing still clinging to the dead to flutter, the only movement and sound in the immediate area.

Curious, Tenner thought.

He homed in on a ladder that went up one of the buses. He walked under the pedway and saw a gap between the underside of the construction and the tops of the overturned buses. The Army had put the buses behind and as tight to the pedway as they could manage, while still leaving a gap for soldiers to climb through. Tenner took a hold of the ladder and climbed. He stood on metal sheets on top of the bus and studied the nearest machine gun emplacement. He jumped up to the pedway and walked over to the weapon, only to discover it bone dry. Metal ammunition boxes were nearby, emptied completely. The soldiers had fired every shell they had.

Into that.

Looking down upon the scene, Tenner was impressed with the level of destruction inflicted upon the dead. The wall he stood upon gave him a great vantage point to take in the scope of the fortifications the Army had built. He scanned the area behind the defenses, seeing it mostly bare of dead things. That in itself was a puzzle. Something caught his attention then; no dead lurked beyond the wall of buses and rusted, military fabricated metal barricades. Tenner wondered for a moment just how far the defenses went.

And if there was anyone alive.

It didn’t matter much if there wasn’t anyone alive. The place had possibilities. Countless possibilities, and Tenner saw them all, considered each. He saw a place that might attract whoever was left in the city, searching for sanctuary. He saw a place that might attract anyone coming into the city, seeking out supplies.

Eventually, they would find this place. They would find him.

That thought made his face split into a creepy smile. Tenner envisioned a new game to play, one of deception instead of outright murder.

He quickly walked along the red carpeted pedway to a distant door, which lead to the first of the two towers. There was no time to waste.

He had work to do… and potential guests to prepare for.

Then, just ahead of him, the steel and glass door abruptly opened.

A man pointed a shotgun in his face.

2

Bowman had been around.

He’d traveled through Cape Breton, and had wandered as far as Yarmouth, walking the highways, but keeping within the treeline. Since the world went tits up, he found it was better to keep moving, check in on relatives—all gone—and friends—all gone as well—before making his way back to the capitol. He’d thought there would be a control center of some kind, a main base to take in survivors.

By electing to find friends and relatives, he had probably saved himself from what had gone down in Halifax. One of his favorite sayings was “shit the bed,” and as far as he could tell, someone had unloaded a massive dump in the city. In all of his adult years, he had been something of a recluse, an oddity. Never had his driver’s license and had lived off the beaten track in a small bungalow outside of rural Truro. Never owned a smartphone—he was dismayed and disgusted by how the devices turned intelligent people into dumbasses. At fifty-one, his wife had died of cancer two years prior to the outbreak, and he was eternally thankful that his precious Becky never saw their undead neighbors come up the long driveway one morning in August, lumbering through an early morning haze like hungry phantoms unearthed from a mass grave.

He’d stayed at his home as long as he could, fending off zombies until his ammunition ran out. His father had left him a small monetary inheritance as well as an impressive illegal weapons cache, the foremost being a vintage Kalashnikov assault rifle, more commonly known as an AK-47. There had been a polished Desert Eagle in the collection as well, but only two magazines for the hand cannon, and honestly, Bowman didn’t like firing the monster, as it numbed his arm after every shot. The rifle was the most useful because his dad had stored hundreds, perhaps thousands of rounds for the weapon. In fact, when the shit had truly hit the fan, and Joe and Francis Pardy, along with twenty or so strangers, decided to shamble over to see if Bowman was ready to be a spread and snack, the Kalashnikov was the beast that he took from the cabinet. Damn thing was a marvel of design, and it had rattled against his shoulder when he started firing at the corpses pounding on his door as if it had come right off the assembly line instead of being seventy years old. He wasn’t even sure if the ammunition would be any good, but it was. He supposed his father might’ve had a hand in that. No point in keeping a monster like that around if you didn’t have anything to feed it.

All the rounds were stored in the basement. Bowman never thought he’d use it all. Never in a hundred years.

Well, he’d used it all mighty fast. He even ran out of bullets for the Desert Eagle and his Winchester .30-30, both of which he tossed because finding spare ammunition for the weapons would be next to impossible. In his travels, he’d used a mountain bike hitched up to a two-wheeled storage cart to carry his gear. When the tires had blown out, he carried what he could.

In Antigonish, he’d come across a twelve gauge shotgun three days after leaving the Kalashnikov in a ditch. Ammunition seemed to be plentiful, but Bowman had learned his lesson with the assault rifle—conservation.

And he’d practiced that during his search for family and friends throughout the province. There were other survivors. Good people. Scared, but good. At one point in time, he’d been part of a band of about thirty survivors.

All gone now. Ravaged by the hunting dead.

Leaving him with only Halifax.

And the tall bastard he had just stopped from entering what Bowman considered to be his fortress.

“You scared me, man!” the taller newcomer burst out, holding his hands above his head.

“Back up,” Bowman said. It wasn’t like him to be forceful, but he could see the guns on the guy’s hips. Better safe than dead.

The man, who looked like a biker dressed for winter, blinked and didn’t move.

Bowman didn’t like that. “Got shit in your ears or something? I said back up.”

This time the stranger did as he was told, but there was a glimpse, a quick flicker around the eyes that Bowman almost missed, that indicated he didn’t like being caught so flatfooted. The tall biker with the black eyes sized him up, noting Bowman’s blue-black body armor—what he taken from a dead soldier in a nearby store. But what really had the lad’s attention was the shotgun, its mouth not five inches from his face.

“Stop right there,” Bowman said.

“Right here?”

“You trying to be smart or something?”

“Just asking is all.”

“Shut the fuck up,” Bowman said quietly.

The other man complied. Bowman had the drop on him and tried to look mean enough to pull the trigger. He’d grown a rusty-looking beard that had reached the base of his throat during his time on the road, and he wore a black toque decorated with skulls. One shot from this range would shred the newcomer’s parka and chest, and no doubt blow him through one of the pedway’s windows.

“Any more of you?” Bowman demanded.

“No.”

“What are you doing here?”

“Looking for supplies,” the other said, concerned.

“Supplies?” Bowman chuckled and quieted. He took a quick peek at the streets below. “Figured as much.”

“You got anything to eat?” he asked, black eyes suddenly hopeful.

“I’ll ask the fuckin’ questions. You got that?”

“Got it.”

Bowman exhaled. “Anyone else with you?” he repeated.

“No.”

“You sure?”

“Yeah.”

“Where’d you get those guns?” He dipped his chin at the other’s waist.

“Father’s collection.”

“Hm. We got one thing in common.”

“Huh? Why? That shotgun your dad’s?”

Bowman let that one go unanswered. “Just you, eh?”

The other man appeared flustered. “You keep askin’ me that. Take a look around, man. There ain’t no one else around here but me. I could ask you the same thing.”

That furrowed Bowman’s hairy face. “Yeah… you could.”

“Well?”

“Well what?”

“You going to shoot me or let me in?”

“Haven’t decided yet,” Bowman admitted. “Been… been a while since I’ve talked to anyone.”

“I can see why.”

Smart ass, Bowman thought. He gnawed on the inside of his cheek, his whiskers going one way and then the other, mulling things over.

“Take them guns out,” he eventually said. “One at a time. Two fingers. Slow. You put them on the ground and kick them toward me. I got a twitchy finger, so you be careful doing that, else the neighbors get a wake-up call and dinner bell all in one.”

The newcomer did as ordered, kicking one Glock toward Bowman, then the other. Neither man so much as blinked, nor did the shotgun waver. Bowman kicked the guns behind him.

“Now then,” he asked. “What’s in that truck of yours?”

“Some supplies. Food. Water. A rifle.”

“And you got in here all by yourself?”

“Yessir.”

That’s better, Bowman thought, and he relaxed his posture just a bit. “I ain’t no sir, so you can cut that shit out.”

“That armor you’re wear––”

“Not mine,” Bowman interrupted. “Pulled it off a soldier in here a day ago. Plenty around, but this one was the only one that fit. Lucky me I found it inside, down in the lobby. I wouldn’t worry about that. What I’d be worried about is what happens next. Like the elephant that caught the mouse by the tail and said, ‘Now that I got you, what the hell am I going to do with you?’”

The other man shrugged. It was a good question.

“Shit,” Bowman muttered. “Back up a bit.”

The newcomer backed up three steps.

Attention divided, Red Beard stooped and picked up the guns, stuffing each down a boot. If he was going to be jumped, now would be the time.

But the man made no move to stop him.

“What’s your name?”

“Tenner.”

“I’m Bowman.”

Tenner nodded, uncomfortable with the shotgun introductions.

“Can’t be too careful around here these days,” Bowman went on. “With dead folks about.”

“Lots of that going around.”

“That’s right. The way I figure it, being introverted is probably the best way to be, know what I mean?”

“Yeah.”

A breeze rose up, chilling and mournful sounding, and the big bastard before him seemed to realize he was either going to die here or not. It had been a long time since he’d had company. That part he didn’t lie about. A long time on the march, looking for places to hole up for a while. Looking for others, until he gave up. He suddenly realized someone had found him and he was hesitating, and he wasn’t sure why. Bowman sighed. It was probably from being on his own for so long.

“Get in here,” Bowman said, lowering the shotgun.

Tenner took a deep breath. “Oh man, you ain’t gonna rape me, are you?”

“Huh?”

“Please don’t. I mean, fuckin’ shoot me if you have to.”

“The fuck’s wrong with you? I ain’t no poof,” Bowman protested.

“Just what a rapist would say. To, you know, lure me in.”

“The fuck he would,” Bowman exclaimed. “Get your ass in here before something gets wind of you.”

“You ain’t gonna rape me?”

“The fuck? No, but I’ll sure as hell stomp your ass if you don’t get inside now.” With that, Bowman backed up, kept the door opened, and glared.

Hesitating, Tenner made a wary entry. He was much taller than Bowman, well over six feet. The door closed behind both of them.

“This way,” Bowman growled. “But keep your distance, all right? Let’s get to know each other first.”

Tenner stopped in his tracks. “What do you mean by that?”

Bowman winced. “Grow up, will ya? At least I don’t have the gun in your face anymore. Christ, you’re jumpy. Thought I was jumpy. You’re fuckin’ tweaked.”

“Keeps me alive.”

“Yeah, well, I sure as Wild Bill’s shit stain got the jump on you.”

“You did,” Tenner said, puzzling over the odd expletive. “You did that.”

“Where you from?”

“Ontario.”

“Uh-huh. Things bad out there?”

“As bad as here,” Tenner stated. Bowman led him though a corridor of glass, metal railing, and beige carpet. “This is indicative of most cities, I imagine.”

“I only came into the city a few days ago,” Bowman informed him, stopping at a black door. “Had to be careful on the way in. Packs of zombies all over the place, but they move around, eh. Like tides. Plenty of things lying around the city, though. Just have to find them is all. Risk finding them. Plenty of zombies around, too, if that needs to be said.”

Bowman pushed the door open and went inside, mindful of where Tenner was behind him. An open walkway overlooked a main foyer with dark green fountains of people and animals, while sheets of iron could be seen barricading the outer windows at ground level, creating a fortress of sorts. They walked to a stairwell and went up a floor. This level had more empty corridors and offices with worn beige carpet and brown wood panelling. Paper debris and empty food wrappers gathered along the walls and corners, and a fresh breath of air whistled throughout. The area appeared more than a little secure.

“Jesus,” Tenner said softly. “Somebody have a banquet up here?”

“You smell that?” Bowman asked, ignoring the question.

The other man inhaled. “Yeah, I do. Is that… is that curry?”

Bowman had to smile at the longing in that question. “It is.”

“You have curry here?” His black eyes gleamed, ravenous.

“I found it here, amongst other things. MREs.”

“You found MREs?” Tenner was amazed.

Bowman’s smile widened. It was good to make another person feel some semblance of hope.

“Whole pile. Water, too, if you’re interested.”

“I’m interested.”

“I can tell. Come on this way.”

They finally entered the reception area of an office unit on the third floor, the interior dreary and cold. A desk had been upturned and a leather sofa rested against the right wall. A huge potted plant in the corner lay on its side, dirt spread across the carpet. Grey blankets covered the couch, folded neatly, a stark contrast to the remainder of the room.

“Have a seat there,” Bowman said, indicating an office chair with a high, leather back. Tenner sat down behind the desk. An open doorway behind him allowed some light into the room, but otherwise, the place was a void. If either man didn’t know any better, this place could have been located in someplace as desolate as the shores of the Arctic Circle or the South Pole.

The leather of the chair creaked softly as Tenner leaned back, his arms on the rests.

Bowman remained standing and, for a long time, contemplated his visitor.

“You know something,” he finally said, “I’ve been on my own now for a bit. Had some friends at the onset of all of this, but the last one got bit and died a year ago. Been living ’n scrounging all along the South Shore, making my way here. Haven’t seen too many others alive. Why do you figure that is?”

“Most have died,” Tenner pointed out.

“Course most have died, I’m no igit. The way I see it, whoever’s lived this long knows what they’re doing. You probably know what you’re doing, right? If you got all that shit aboard your rig out there.”

Tenner’s jaw slackened.

“Don’t worry, I’m not about to take anything,” Bowman went on, understanding the look. “But I’m getting on in years. Coming into the city was a mistake. Got this far and, well, made some good finds, but damned if I can’t get it all back out.”

“Uh… how did you get here?” Tenner asked, genuinely curious.

“Walked.”

“You walked.”

“Never drove a day in my life. Wasn’t going to start after the apocalypse. Was a time I could walk or run ten, twelve kilometers in a day. Not hard to do. However, be that as it may, I’m faced with a problem here.”

“Oh shit,” Tenner looked to his feet.

“Why ‘oh shit’?”

“You’re gonna shoot me.”

Bowman scrunched up his hairy face. “You seem awfully sure I’m about to do you harm. Didn’t you hear what I just said? Them parts about being on my own for a while, but there’s strength in numbers, right? Chances are, neither one of us is going to get out of the city before full winter hits. Not with all them dead people out there. What say you and I team up? Watch each other’s backs?”

Bowman sat on the couch, placing his shotgun across his knees.

“Well… sure, why not?” Tenner said slowly, uncertain. “Until we get out of the city, then. You might turn out to be an asshole.”

“Just might.” Bowman smirked. “You never know these days. We team up, and you can have half of whatever’s around.”

“What is around?” Tenner asked.

“Food and water.” Bowman paused. “Curry. Beef and chicken, from what I remember.” He smiled again at Tenner’s obvious dismay. The man was practically salivating. “Place was occupied by the military as far as I can see. Until they got overrun.”

“This was an Army base?”

“Temporary one, at least. From what I can see, they barricaded the streets with buses and these iron walls, set up machine gun nests, and cut loose. What you saw coming in ain’t got nothing on the mess on the other end.”

“The zombies got everyone?”

“Looks that way. I’ve been here in this place for two days now, scouting the area, and haven’t seen anything really. A few zombies wander through, but nothing like what hit this place before. You’ll see. It’s goddamn shocking is what it is. Especially on the other end. Dead piled up from one end of the street to the other, looking like…like…a great big fleshy U. Spooky, too.”

“And you managed to live this long.”

“Not the only one.” Bowman nodded slyly at Tenner.

“Did you check out the armories?”

Bowman blinked as if remembering something. “That’s right. There’s a national one around here.”

“You haven’t been there?”

“Not my town,” Bowman answered. “And you just got here.”

“We’ll have to check it out. They got weapons there. Ammo.”

“Might be something to do. I’m running low, actually. You seem to be doing all right.” Bowman reached down to his boot, pulled out one of Tenner’s sidearms, and studied it.

“Be careful with the triggers,” Tenner warned.

“Touchy, are they?”

“Very.”

“Hm.” Bowman inspected it for a bit before leaning forward and handing the weapon back to Tenner, butt first.

Tentatively, the tall man reached out and took it back. He smiled then, a shark’s smile, and for a moment Bowman thought he’d made a mistake.

But Tenner disarmed him with a shake of the weapon and a genuine sigh of relief. “My baby. It was my dad’s.”

He holstered the gun.

“Wait,” Bowman said after a few seconds. He stretched for the other in his boot, but Tenner waved him off.

“Keep it. That’s a Glock you have there. Extended magazine. Seventeen shots in it. Much more than that blunderbuss you got. If you check the sides, you’ll see a selector switch. It can go full automatic if you need it. I don’t recommend it since you can burn through a mag pretty quick.”

“Hm.” Bowman grunted and returned it to his boot. “I’ll keep that in mind. Thanks for that.”

“Don’t thank me,” Tenner said eagerly. “Just break out the curry.”

They talked into the evening, eating MREs that Bowman took from a supply room filled with boxes of the instant meals. Tenner explained his reasons for coming into the city as he dug into his curry chicken, eating noisily. He figured that with the two of them, they could take his truck and see what they could find at the armory. Bowman told him there wasn’t much in the way of weapons in the building, and whatever was outside had been ruined by the elements. Except for the food and water.

When the room darkened, Bowman rose and closed the doors to the office before taking out a pair of self-generating flashlights and illuminating the place with wide beams of white light. The wind outside chilled the corridors and periodically rattled the windows, and the two men wrapped themselves in grey blankets. Bowman and Tenner told tales of their survival in the new world. Bowman wasn’t surprised to hear Tenner’s own group had eventually been decimated by the dead. It was a sad, but common story in the new world.

“Where do we sleep?” Tenner eventually asked.

“You can take any of the other offices. Sleep with the curry for all I care,” Bowman said.

“No watches?”

“The barricades downstairs hold off the dead. And I haven’t come across one yet that could use a ladder. We’re okay. Just be mindful of flashing that light of yours around windows. The light might attract them.”

“Just like fishing.” Tenner smiled in the grey light.

“Yeah, like that,” Bowman said.

“Well, how about we check out the armory tomorrow?”

“Nothing better to do.”

Tenner paused, then stood up. He took in the office before resting his gaze on Bowman’s huddled form on the sofa.

“Ah,” the tall man began, “just want to say… thanks for feeding me and all. And thanks for not shooting me. Appreciated.”

Bowman held up a hand. “Not a problem. Glad you’re here.”

Tenner seemed to think about something, but the big man shrugged and pointed at the door before Bowman could ask what was on his mind.

“In the morning, then,” he said.

“In the morning,” Bowman agreed.

Nodding once more, Tenner left the office, and Bowman listened to him fumbling about in the corridor. The sound of his steps receded to a pause, then there was a shrill squeal of hinges, and a door closed.

Bowman could understand that. He slept with the doors closed and barricaded himself. He got up and did just that, taking out a long piece of two-by-four, which he braced against the door knob. Just a precaution.

Despite a couple of moments where Tenner had seemed to study Bowman with a strange look in his eye, Bowman was pretty sure he was okay. The looks he could attribute to him being on his own for a while. If life on the run didn’t change a person just a little, Bowman didn’t know what could. The man even gave him a fully loaded gun. That made Bowman feel better about Tenner.

It was good to have someone to talk to after such a long time.

*

They ate breakfast under a heavy great canopy of a cloud that, as Bowman put it, looked as if it was deciding on whether to shit snow or piss rain. Once they ate, Bowman took Tenner on a short tour of the building, first showing him where the stacked cardboard boxes of MREs and wooden pallets of bottled water—enough to feed a small army—had been stashed on the second and third floors.

“They used this place as a command center, I figure,” Bowman observed, standing outside one of the offices turned storage rooms. “There’s an office with a couple of desks pushed together with an old downtown map on it all marked up.”

“What’s upstairs?” Tenner asked.

“Not much,” Bowman replied. “Just a view of the city.”

“How many stories?”

“About twenty? Maybe twenty one? It’s a long hike. Too bad the elevator’s out.”

“Yeah, too bad,” Tenner trailed off, thinking.

“What?” Bowman asked.

“Just wondering when we should be getting on looking for an armory. Figure it’s about eight in the morning now. Let’s head on up to one of the upper levels and see if we can’t spot something to use as a reference point or a place to start looking.”

“Well, there are naval shipyards around here somewhere.”

“You know where?”

Bowman shook his head.

“Let’s head on upstairs, then. We need our guns?”

“Nah. Nothing up there. Take one of your pistols there if you really need it.”

“Already got it. Better to have it than yadda yadda.” They had both heard the line before. Tenner started walking toward one of the stairwells, and Bowman followed. They opened a door, and Tenner noted for the first time the sparse light from above.

“Wedged some of the doors open,” Bowman explained. “Not all. Not much light, but it’s something. Otherwise, it’d be too damn dark in there. Spooky.”

“Didn’t you tell me yesterday you walked all over Nova Scotia?” Tenner asked with a smile.

“Did.”

“That’s some spooky shit to me.”

“Never thought of it at the time. Too busy looking out for zombies,” Bowman said.

“I’ve been on the road myself,” Tenner said, pausing on the doorway’s threshold. “Some side roads and whatnot. Easy to bypass the Philistines. The dead, I mean. But every now and again I’d meet up with folks like yourself. People looking for help, hoping I was with the government or the military, y’know. Good people. I’d stay with them for a while when I found them, but none wanted to leave their property. They all figured it was best to stay indoors. Befuddled the hell outta me at the time, but now I understand they were terrified. Terrified of what might be coming up the road. Dead or living. There are crazies out there.”

“Crazies?”

“People gone insane. Or people who were insane before the Fall and are now just having the time of their lives. One guy lured me into his house, right? Had his girlfriend hide in a closet behind me and when I sat down, she came out and tried to take my head off with an axe. A fucking axe!”

“Christ. What did you do?”

“Did the only thing I could,” Tenner said with a shrug. “Defended myself. I got out of there, too, and had them shoot the rear windshield outta my pickup.”

Bowman blinked. “Your pickup?”

“Had it before the SUV,” Tenner explained. “Anyway, those two scared the shit out of me. Chased me down their country road until I got back to the highway and got away. Close one, and there were others. But there’s worse out there than just fucking bug-nut freaks. Much worse. Did you know that, of the whole population of the world—fifteen billion, right?—of that, I heard that experts once said that one percent were probably sociopaths. Folks who have no concept of good or bad and no inhibitions of any kind. Evil cocksuckers with no regard for those living around them, who wouldn’t blink if they jammed a knife into someone’s windpipe.”

“You’re freaking me out here,” Bowman said earnestly.

“I know, right?” An excited Tenner went on. “Just think. One percent. Why, that’s what, fifteen million of these psychos living amongst us with these basic… urges held in check just because they knew if they did anything, the law would find out and lock them away. Or worse. In theory, anyway. Something, eh?”

“It’s a hundred and fifty million.”

“Huh?”

“One percent of fifteen billion is a hundred and fifty million.”

“So it’s even more!”

“Yeah,” Bowman said, no longer smiling.

“And I can tell you, I met a few while on the road. That’s what I meant about traveling being scary. Now, the world as it is, this is… a fucking playground for people like that.”

Bowman looked uncomfortably pensive, and Tenner frowned.

“Sorry, man. You look upset. You meet anyone like that? Sorry if I dredged up anything unpleasant. Like a bad memory.”

“No,” Bowman scoffed. “No, I’m fine.”

“Well, let’s get moving. Unless you think you can’t keep up,” Tenner challenged.

Bowman snorted, glad for the change of topic. “Lead on. We’ll see who’s puffing hard around the tenth floor.”

They started climbing. Tenner took the lead, his black winter coat rendering him almost invisible in the stairwell. Bowman brought up the rear, glancing back every so often, more out of habit than caution.

As predicted, around the sixth floor, Tenner started breathing hard.

“Christ, this is harder than I thought.” The tall man stopped three stairs ahead of Bowman, hunched over and gazing upward into the concrete dark.

“You’ve been driving around in that rig of yours for too long,” Bowman said stoically, coming up and standing beside him.

“How many floors you say there were?”

“About twenty.”

“Jesus.”

They stood in the dark, the only sound Tenner gasping for breath.

“You know something,” Bowman said. “Even though they’re all gone, I expect… I expect someone to just appear out of the dark. And just at the same time, all the lights would come on. Maybe even a hum of electricity. Two years on, and I get like that sometimes.”

Tenner said nothing to that.

“You ever think that way?”

“No. Never.”

“You live in the now better than me, I guess,” Bowman said. “You ever miss things? The way they were?”

Probably it was because he was tired from climbing the stairs, or perhaps he didn’t hear the question right, or maybe he simply zoned out at that exact time. Bowman didn’t know. But he did know that Tenner’s answer was one that he didn’t expect.

“Not once,” the man replied with a chuckle.

“What?” Bowman asked, astonished.

His face partially concealed in shadow, Tenner met the other’s gaze, and Bowman saw that the man’s eyes gleamed like the tips of knives.

“Had too many unpaid parking tickets back then.” Tenner smiled.

The burst of relief Bowman felt was wonderful. A joke. All it was. The man just had a sense of humor.

“Let’s get moving,” Tenner said, changing the subject again. “I want to see this top floor.”

“Yeah. Well, it’s a great view,” Bowman confessed, still puzzling over his companion’s odd reply, despite the joke––which really only felt like a clump of dirt tossed over a potential fire. “On a sunny day, you could see for miles. Even got a gym up there.”

“Last thing I need is a gym,” Tenner said, still breathing hard. “Man. This might put a damper on my plans today.”

“Change your mind on going up?” Bowman asked.

Tenner nodded, his profile scowling in the gloom. “Yeah. That, and a few other things.”

The spinning elbow caught Bowman on the cheek, shattering it, and knocked him back into the wall. His head rebounded off the concrete with a meaty bounce. Tenner grabbed him by the shoulders, righted him, and cracked two more fists into his jaw and right eye. There wasn’t any need for those punches, as the first one had tilted Bowman’s senses enough.

He didn’t even feel it when Tenner’s last blow, a devastating uppercut, sent him rattling back down the steps.

Into oblivion.

3

A cold winter wind licked Bowman’s cheek, stirring him back to reality. His first thought was the wind wasn’t right. There wasn’t anywhere in the whole building to get such a breeze. He slowly came to. His head rang enough to make him grimace in agony, and he cracked opened his eyes.

Holy shit, he thought.

While he was unconscious, the treacherous bastard must have dragged him back down over the steps and taken him outside. Probably to his truck. Tenner had then transported him to a frosty street in some part of the city that Bowman didn’t recognize. He tried to shout, but Tenner had duct-taped his mouth shut. Bowman’s chest heaved. His panic flared. Mucus burst from his nostrils with each breath as his head whipped from side to side. He tried to move his arms, but they were outstretched and tied to a fallen utility pole in such a way that his lower body hung at a painful angle, as if he were exercising his obliques. His feet kicked air, dangling a good three feet from the pavement. Jesus! The sick bastard had removed his boots and socks. He could move his head enough to see that he was bound in place by extension cords and duct tape tied around his arms and upper torso. Through sheer strength, he curled his knees up into his chest, but he soon dropped them. He wasn’t going anywhere.

Holy Christ, Bowman thought, and became still despite the agony of hanging at such an angle.

He looked around. A transport truck had rammed into the utility pole’s base, bending the whole thing over the roof of a car. His feet were no more than three feet off the ground.

“Hey, you’re awake?” Tenner’s cheerful voice rang out. After a frantic search, Bowman spotted the man across the street in a narrow alleyway. He was leaning against the wall of a green house, almost as if he’d stepped outside for a quick smoke.

“Excellent,” Tenner said, looking quite pleased.

Bowman’s heart hammered in his ears. It seemed as if every one of his senses suddenly had their dials set at the highest level.

“Sorry, man,” Tenner went on, focusing on Bowman’s bulging, pleading eyes. “It wouldn’t have worked out, y’know? I work better alone. I don’t think you’d be interested in what I have going on, anyway.”

Bowman erupted in a fit of muffled curses and kicks. He strained against his bonds while Tenner stood and watched from the alley.

“Yeah,” Tenner drew out. “I taped and tied you down pretty good. Made sure of that. Got my gun back, too, by the way. Shit, I was worried there for a moment or two. Thought maybe you might have gotten the itch. All in here, after all.” He tapped one temple with a wistful expression on his face.

“Just wanted to say thanks for showing me around, eh. And not blowing my head off when you had the chance there. Appreciated. And thanks again for the food. Hard to come by these days, but you certainly did secure the mother lode. There’re guns out there, too, somewheres. I’ll find ’em.”

Tenner leaned out around the corner and peered, unconcerned, up one street and then the other.

“You’re probably wondering why I’m doing this,” he said.

Bowman’s suppressed scream spoke of rage and terror.

“Yeah, I know,” Tenner said sweetly. “Most people figure that. Funny thing is, they figure that part out only after I have them alone and trussed up. You didn’t suspect a thing, which tells me my acting’s getting better. No biggie, really. Easy to act freaked out these days. Anyways, you’re probably wondering why I strung you up instead of quietly putting a hammer to your skull in your sleep. Thought of it, by the way. Last night, maybe just after midnight, I was outside your door there and actually had thought of just coming on in and putting a quick knife in you. But I couldn’t, you see. Had to make sure the grub and water was all there.”

Another outpouring of emotion came from Bowman.

“Careful, man. You might rupture something. Or worse.”

Tenner leaned out and looked around again. Then his lighthearted expression slowly morphed into a blazing smile.

“Ah.” He pointed.

Bowman felt his balls rise up and his heart freeze at the same time.

A small mob of zombies, attracted to Tenner’s voice and his own thrashings.

“Oh, look!” Tenner nodded in the opposite direction. Another pack of zombies, mewling and closing in on him. Bowman gasped as if his lower parts had just been dunked into the North Atlantic.

“You know, as often as I’ve done this to people, it still amazes me how fucking fast they zero in on a free meal.”

Tenner retreated back into the alley, out of the undeads’ sight.

“Gotta pull back here, man. I got a place already scoped out to watch. I won’t leave you. Think of you as a buddy now, actually. But I am interested in just… how they eat you. I’m big into games, y’know, but today, I think I’m not going to bother playing. No, today, I’m… I’m just going to watch. Save some ammunition. But I tell you what. If you really want to, I mean, if you really feel the need, you can pray to me. Okay? When the time is right. Pray to me. And if I hear you, and if I feel merciful,” Tenner said in a lower, doubtful voice, “I might change my mind. Might come to your rescue. Not promising anything, though. Got that?”

Bowman thrashed against his bonds.

Having nothing more to say, Tenner slunk back into the alleyway. He leaned against a wall, grinned, and stared.

Perhaps two minutes later, they arrived.

The zombies came in from either side of Bowman like a tide of molasses. Their pitiful voices gouged the air and made him struggle against his bonds all the more. He couldn’t budge them. He kicked and swung his legs from side to side, hoping to work himself loose somehow, but Tenner had done him up good and proper.

Bowman looked across the street and met the maniacal eyes of his killer.

Mr. One Percent. Standing right over there.

He scolded himself. Swore. Should’ve been more careful, should’ve even shot him first instead of being so goddamn accommodating. But he couldn’t have known, and he wouldn’t have done anything to someone he’d just met. Not another survivor like himself. That just wasn’t him.

A mistake, he now knew. A terrible mistake.

That thought made him thrash once more, the pounding of his heart giving him all the energy he needed as the zombies, the zombies…

No more than twenty feet on either side.

Tenner had backed away into the shadows of the alley, eagerly waiting for the action to begin, for the feeding to begin. Oh, Christ, Bowman thought and writhed. Squirmed. The tape pulled painfully against his whiskers, but he kept struggling. He was about to be fucking eaten alive. His grunts and muffled whistles became drawn-out whines of hopeless terror. The undead had him. He’d had nightmares of this very instance, horrible sequences broken only when the teeth bit into his flesh.

There would be no waking from this one. Nothing at all.

Ten feet. Soldiers, police officers, office workers, and children comprised the creatures creeping up on him, no doubt wondering who had delivered them such a lively gift. They smelled horrible enough to almost make him vomit. The stench of putrid rot was so rank, Bowman was reminded of someone taking a shit in a basement—twice.

Bowman rammed his head against the pole, trying to knock himself unconscious, but he only managed to split the flesh covering his head. Blood streamed down his face. Sauce for the goose! His mind squealed. He glanced up and saw Tenner across the way, still watching, eternally jovial.

A zombie in a pair of workman’s overalls reached him first. A long arm slunk out, and meaty fingers like fat sausages touched Bowman’s denim covered knee.

That gentle contact sent him over the edge, and a fresh torrent of stifled screams burst from his lips. He booted the thing away with enough force to put it on its ass. His foot ached from the contact, and Bowman looked down, terror spiking.

Jesus Christ!

More zombies crowded around him. He kicked another walking corpse away, then broke his toes when he nailed yet another right under the jaw. He barely felt the pain. He pushed others back with his feet, keeping them at bay, but a few slunk in on his vulnerable side, the side not blocked by the car, and they laid their grey-blue hands upon his winter coat.

And ripped.

The seams gave away as more hands clenched material and pulled. One zombie wrapped its arms around one of his legs. Bowman struggled, trying to free himself even as he watched the thing attempting to sink an impossibly white set of teeth into his knee. The two groups of undead converged upon his dangling form, and the zombies in the rear pushed the ones at the front into him, bunching his legs up until he could no longer kick. He felt his knees pop under the increasing pressure of bodies and screamed into the duct tape. The corpses pressed up against his feet, his thighs, his pelvis. He heard more seams rip, felt the cold air on his exposed belly, distended from a few days of self-indulgent living.

Then he saw it.

The one about to take that first, terrible bite. A man in a white shirt splashed with black. A dead blonde stood next to him, along with a couple of child zombies. One great big hungry family. The zombies rippled against him like one great, voracious wave.

Bowman wailed behind his duct tape gag. He screeched for Tenner to do something. In that black second before excruciating pain, Bowman prayed, and the words came out as gibberish.

The family man bit into the flesh covering Bowman’s lower left ribs. The pain from a dull rack of teeth gnawing into his body made him buck and shriek like a muffled whistle. Others chomped down. Something enveloped a foot and bit off a toe, then the rest of his lower digits were nipped off one by one. He felt his jeans slough off. Mouths fastened onto his calves and lower thighs. A long red sheet of flesh stretched out right before his watering eyes, and Bowman yowled hideously. More fingers crawled over him, softly at first, then with increasing urgency. The dead mewed at him, sizing him up with their lifeless eyes, mouths wide and starving. Hands pawed at his belly.

And became claws.

Bowman felt the hands and teeth rip him wide open, felt an abrupt sinking sensation, a voiding.

Then pulling.

That sensation stayed with him for what seemed like a very long time before his perception went mercifully red.

Across the way, Tenner watched the farmers’ market crowd of Philistines feast on the lower half of Bowman. He saw the blood spurt. Saw the old man go into an electric frenzy. Some zombies, pushed onto the hood of the car by those behind them, got up and pulled themselves toward Bowman’s upper body. Two of them started in on his arm, working their way up to his shoulder and face.

Tenner stayed back, enraptured, checking over his shoulder at times to ensure nothing was creeping up on him.

Unfazed, he went on watching the feast to the gritty end, when bones were worked free of moist sockets.

There were other things to do, but he could let them wait.

It was his world, after all.

And right now, some curry would hit the spot.

Scott

4

Halifax called.

Scott was going to see what it wanted.

The Durango SUV cut sluggishly through the mounting, swirling winds that lashed the tinted windshield and the highway beyond in a snarl of white. The ferocity of the storm made him scowl, depressing the brake and slowing his speed further. His breath came out in a quiet hiss, drowned almost immediately by the gale pummelling the glass, and he held on tighter to the steering wheel. The gust fought for control over the SUV, and Scott thought it would only take a little more power to whisk it off the road. The wipers streaked back and forth fast enough to potentially grind the rubber away, or even inflict mortal wounds if they could be used as a weapon, and he had to force himself not to look at the damn things whipping across his vision. The clock showed 9:16 in the morning, but the way the snow was attacking the vehicle and darkening the sky, it could have been almost sundown. The sun and sky were up there somewhere, smothered by monstrous war clouds seemingly intent on burying Scott alive. He sighed again, wishing he had something to plug into the stereo: music, an audio book, anything to alleviate the boredom brought on by his fight against the storm. Any second he expected a frozen cow, blown out of its pasture by this titan of a blizzard, to crash against his vehicle.

Why the hell had he taken to the road this morning, anyway?

Scott thought about it, shifting in his leather seat enough to make it creak. Windsor. He just wanted to be away from Windsor. The town had lured him into stopping, but after a couple of days exploring its historic streets and fighting gimps, he’d come up with nothing. The houses he searched held a few meager supplies, which he ate, saving the stores piled in the back of the Durango, but there wasn’t anything to justify that initial feeling, that tractor pull, he’d had for the place. The only thing he did find was an aluminum bat tucked away behind the door of a bedroom that had, he suspected, belonged to a teenager. Could that have been the thing mysteriously dragging him to stop in the town? He had to admit, the bat was a useful weapon against deadheads. A little unwieldy, but nowhere near as bad as the war hammer he’d once had. It wasn’t as unbalanced as an axe, and it didn’t run the risk of catching in a gimp’s skull like a sword. If the ammunition Gus had so generously given him ran out and he didn’t find any to replace it, the bat would come in handy. It was the only thing Scott took away from Windsor, before climbing back in his vehicle and getting the H-E two sticks out of town. Anxious to get back to the hunt.

The hunt for Tenner.

That’s what got him on the road, in a blizzard lathering up the countryside in freezing white. His anxiousness was rewarded with diminished visibility, which forced him to slow down to a crawl on the one, barely seen lane of a suspected four, split by a continuous wedge of waist-high concrete. He drove down the 101 heading into Halifax, straining to see anything on either side of him. The closer he got to the city, the mightier the storm became.

Scott stopped the SUV, listening to the brakes shriek. He leaned forward onto the steering wheel, as if about to gnaw on his own knuckles. Jeeeeeesus. If snow were shit, then the Lord had downed a case of fibre supplement and was voiding in spectacular fashion. Beyond the frenetic one-two, one-two, one-two of the wipers, he could barely make out the road anymore. The Durango wore all-season tires, but the first hill he came to would probably halt the vehicle in its tracks, spinning its wheels in place, four-wheel drive or no. On impulse, he turned off the wipers. It only took seconds for thick chunks of snow to blot the windshield, draping the already dark interior in deeper gloom. Perhaps the snow was really volcanic ash from Krakatoa, and the end of the world had started this very day. That made him shake his head. Only a couple of days since he’d left Gus and already he was thinking of dire shit. Tsking, he reached behind his seat, groping at the floor. His hand wrapped around the neck of a bottle, and Scott brought up a forty ouncer of Jack Daniels Sour Mash whiskey. The black label greeted him, and he twisted off the stopper. A sniff cleared his thoughts and distracted him from the weather. Not normally one to drink, and especially never when driving, Scott took a sip of the whiskey and grimaced. It didn’t go down like water for him, unlike Gus, but he couldn’t deny that in a world like this, on a day about to be buried in snow, the whiskey had a grounding effect.

He took one more sip from the bottle before replacing the cap and tossing the whiskey into the passenger seat. The last sign he had spotted declared Halifax was only thirty kilometers away. Only thirty, but at current speed, he wasn’t going to get there anytime soon. A blast of wind slammed into the windshield, coating it with even more snow and darkening the interior to the point where the dashboard lights gleamed brightly. Well, he figured, he wasn’t doing anything by staying here. Time to get a move on. The clock read 9:47. The faster he could get into the city, the better chance he had of finding some place to wait out the storm.

He flicked on the wipers, and the first swish revealed a face coated in snow and ice. Torn cheek flesh, meaty enough to have slivers of frost formed on it, exposed a ferocious sneer of yellow and black teeth, all the way back to the last molars and the thing’s dirty alabaster hinge of a jaw. Inky sores and skin tags blotted the parts of its face not ripped away. Dead eyes peered into the interior of the SUV, the corpse’s horrid smirk unflinching.

The fright of suddenly seeing the thing subsided, and Scott let out his breath. The undead outside couldn’t see him. Certainly couldn’t smell him. But it was there because… Why? Was it just wandering through the blizzard, searching for something to feast on? Jesus Christ. What were the chances of running into Frosty the fucking Flesh Eater on the highway?

Then another, more gruesome chill flooded his person, penetrating even his ass, which had the benefit of having a heater built into the seat under it.

What if Frosty wasn’t alone?

The beat of the wipers matched the pounding in his chest. He put the machine into drive and edged past the dead thing in the road. The side mirror bumped the corpse and pushed it off-balance enough for it to fall. Just like that it was gone, and there was enough swirling around the SUV and in his mirrors to make the gimp disappear from sight. The truck pushed forward, reaching twenty kilometers an hour, but only a few seconds later, two more figures appeared in the road, hunched over and frozen-looking and wearing only summer clothing. Then three more—stood off on the shoulders of the highway, pitiful in the cold, but eyeing the moving truck with famished curiosity. Their blood-drained flesh repulsed Scott enough to speed up to thirty, and he kept his eyes open for others. Cars and trucks dotted the road, slowly being swallowed in white drifts, and the snow snaked around the remains like steam from fresh kills.

Why are there so many gimps around? Scott didn’t understand it, unless there was a small town on the outskirts of the city. Something he’d passed without noticing the sign. Some of the signs were nothing more than broken wooden posts, appearing like jagged ankles and shins in the snow. Or maybe there were simply so many of the things about, and that notion did nothing for his nerves. He kept easing the SUV forward, craning his neck to see anything resembling a sign, but finding nothing except a thickening of cars and trucks. The wind subsided for a moment and, off to the right and through the passenger window, he thought the forest fell away into a valley. He stopped and lowered the window to see. The blizzard howled once more and spat snow into the interior. After a few moments of seeing nothing through the bleached veil, the window went back up.

He rubbed his face, feeling the growing carpet of stubble on his chin and knowing he needed a shave. Maybe he’d let the beard grow and become Gus’s twin. The man would probably chuckle at that. The Durango’s GPS still functioned, and Scott saw that he had reached Sackville. The SUV climbed a hill, and he slowed down to allow greater traction. After levelling out, the road ahead disappeared in a sheet of flying white that whipped across the highway. Ghostly buildings, their shapes barely recognizable, stood behind tattered fences of trees and brush on either side. He couldn’t see anything that might provide shelter from the storm. Scott grimly drove on, pushing through wild streamers that screamed from the heights of rising drifts.

Another hour and the highways would be buried.

He suddenly wanted another shot of booze. Something to take the edge off.

More gimps, staring and partially bowed by the blizzard, came into view and vanished as the SUV squeezed by, not even moving on the vehicle.

But they were there.

Worse, they were there in numbers.

Scott remembered Saint John in his native New Brunswick, and how the city had become a teeming nest for the undead. Halifax was an even bigger city, due to an influx of shipyard construction contracts it had won some twenty-five years ago. The city had ballooned from a modest population of perhaps four hundred thousand to at least one and a half million. That number burned in Scott’s mind and furrowed his brow. One point five million people. At least eighty percent probably turned into roaming flesh feeders, which made an army of well over a million. Perhaps some had been destroyed by Army efforts or law enforcement agencies. Maybe a few had been put down by folks like Gus. But in the end, a population waited for him. For anyone wanting to visit the city.

Scott sighed. Finding Tenner in the concrete guts of Halifax wasn’t going to be easy, if he was even there. The only thing he had on his side was the weather and the freezing temperatures. The cold slowed the zombies down, and the elements certainly ravaged the pasty flesh and musculature covering their bones, but for some reason unknown, they never fully rotted away. At least, not after more than two years. Whatever was keeping the undead animated apparently kept them from decomposing, or at least slowed the process to a crawl. Somewhere, there were scientists in bunkers studying the deadheads, trying to better understand them… or so he liked to think.

Regardless, the season and everything that came with it were on his side. After that, he couldn’t think of anything else. He could spend months, years searching the city for Tenner, but a central hub was perhaps the best place to start a major hunt.

The need for a secure base came to his mind. Something that was easily defendable against the masses, like Gus had with his estate on the mountain. Perhaps even one of the high-rises in the city, once the lower doors had been sealed off. It merited more thought and investigation. He would need a place to stay while hunting––hell, he needed a place now to get out of the storm.

Shops, restaurants, and gas bars on either side of the road passed by in the hoary gloom, filing into sight and rolling behind as if on a massive conveyor belt. An unmistakable golden M against a background of red loomed up on a dented post, appearing like a giant fly swatter poised to smash something. A shopping plaza formed at the absolute edge of his vision, its storefronts frosted and hunkered down in the gathering snow like forgotten bunkers. Fangs of ice hung from power lines and swung in the wind. Some houses appeared on the right, cresting a small rise, which Scott spotted the turn-off for. He slowed for a moment, considering the road ahead and the GPS, still functioning two years after the collapse of everything. Closer, he told himself. Need to get closer.

Trouble was, getting closer might become a problem. Abandoned vehicles littered the highway in growing numbers, appearing out of the heart of the storm and forcing him to slow down and weave amongst them. Driving in a straight line became more difficult. Ice coated several burnt-out wrecks, crystalizing metallic bones that rose up like clasping fingers.

A bleached wall rose up out of the raging blizzard. Scott stopped the Durango and stared at the barrier for a moment before finally realizing what it was––an overturned transport truck, its top facing him. The crashed carrier had smashed through the concrete barrier dividing the lanes and barred all travellers from proceeding any further. Snow rasped the outer shell of the Durango, sounding cold to Scott and daring him to step outside.

Fuck that, he thought. Looking around, he put the Durango into reverse. The GPS display built into the dash disappeared, replaced by a white speckled image of what was behind the SUV. Scott scowled and almost swore. Snow covered the lens of the rear camera, which showed only a partial image. He placed his arm behind the passenger seat and twisted in his seat to look out the rear window, not liking having to back up the old-fashioned way. All he could see was a blank, tinted canvass bordered by lumps that were car wrecks.

“Five feet.” A calm female voice spiked the air, emanating from the speakers. It was the only voice he’d heard in days. “Four feet. Caution. Three feet. Caution. Two feet. Cau––”

Scott stopped.

He shifted into drive and turned around without having to engage the onboard sensors.

The wipers worked hard to clear the windshield, but he knew the blizzard was actually getting stronger. Some parts of the Maritimes experienced upward of one hundred and fifty kilometer winds, strong enough to rip a person off their feet or tear the tops off houses.

Snaking his way ahead, he turned off the road and drove through a gap of cars, heading south on the side of the blanketed roadway. The tires handled things beautifully, keeping him moving forward without getting stuck. The overturned transport came into view, then he was past it. More cars rose out of the white gloom, frozen in place, and he maneuvered around them, getting back onto the 101.

The clock said 10:12. That bothered Scott. The blowing snow, reduced visibility, and abandoned cars were all playing with him. He wanted nothing better than to get a little closer to the city before finding a place to hunker down and wait things out. Another gust of wind splashed his windshield, hard enough to startle him and sending a clear message to stop thinking shit. Best to get off the road now, while he possessed the control to do so.

Grimacing, Scott elected to do just that.

The Durango crawled through the storm, passing under overpasses that didn’t offer much shelter from the weather pelting the SUV’s metal hide. He soon realized that his opportunity to get out of the storm quickly had already passed, and he was committed to riding down the deep throat of highway. One of the overpasses had a sign that said Halifax, with an arrow pointing to the right. An almost ethereal exit materialized out of the storm, marking the way.

Beside it and swaying with the wind stood a skeletal figure, draped in rags that blew furiously about its person. Hair and cloth flapped around its head, masking its face, but Scott got close enough to see a frosty, lipless smile leering at him before it drifted past the passenger window and slipped out of view. He glanced over his shoulder, expecting the thing to reach out and smash the side of the vehicle, but it did not.

Then it was gone, swallowed up by the storm.

And he was on the exit for Halifax.

5

The Durango crept down the 102 and headed deeper into the storm. Scott thought he saw the tips of roofs to his left, through searing sheets of blowing snow, but there was no clear way to get the vehicle over galvanized steel guardrails, so he continued driving. The trees vanished at points and the snow ripped across the highway so fiercely that he simply stopped and gawked at the blizzard’s fury. Like a carwash, Scott thought, peering out at it. He lowered the window on his side and stuck his head out, squinting against the blast of air and sting of ice and not seeing any farther than five feet in front of him. There was no way to get his bearings.

Then he saw it on his left—a grey, waist-high wall separating the opposing lane from the one he was in. Keeping his window down, Scott eased the Durango over until he could have touched the wall if he stuck out his arm, creeping along it as if it were a safety rope guiding him forward. Cars and other motor vehicles still littered the highway, and these he drove by as best as he could, leaving the guidance of the wall when he had to. The outline of a large building rose up on the left, and he realized it was a hotel.

A hotel!

It was close, and certainly tempting, but it wouldn’t do. Large buildings like hotels could potentially hold a nest of deadheads, and cleaning it out would be long and dangerous. The smaller houses were his best bet.

He drove on.

By 11:34, a row of houses appeared on his right with their backs against the wind. A low wire fence was the only thing barring him from them, so he drove the Durango through it, cringing upon the contact and bouncing in his seat. The tires spun in the deepening snow, but he smashed through it. The Durango struggled as it pulled around cars half-buried in drifts. The GPS informed him that he was on School Avenue.

Hunched over the steering wheel, Scott slowly drove by houses, knowing full well that if the snow got too deep, he would spin his tires and become trapped. Worse, he was driving up an incline, and he knew he risked hearing the whine of tires losing traction. Even as he thought it, a red two-story house rose up out of the blizzard. With a gasp, Scott aimed the Durango at the closed garage attached to the house’s side. He pulled into the driveway, stopped, and popped open the driver’s door. Getting out, he put on his helmet with the lightning bolts decorating it. The wind whipped around him, spearing him through the layer of black and yellow Nomex and the extra layer of sweaters underneath. Bracing himself against the wind, he moved to the rear door of the SUV, opened it, and pulled out the aluminum bat. The sound-suppressed Ruger was already in his right boot, but he didn’t want to use that unless absolutely necessary. Ammunition for the weapon was limited. Hefting the bat with one hand, he struggled to close the Durango’s door with the other. Cold. It was so cold that his hands, protected by Nomex gloves, already began to feel chilled.

Pointing himself in the direction of the house, he strained forward into the strength of the wind. Snow rose to just below his knees the closer he got to the front door. The door was locked, but Scott put the bat through one corner of its window. A moment later, he unlocked the door, pushed it open, and shambled inside. Once out of the cold, he closed the door with a gasp.

Outside, the blizzard howled at his escape.

Scott lifted the visor and took a firmer grip on his bat. The front door led to a short hallway that opened up into a carpeted living room, while a stairway leading up to the second floor lay to his left. Pictures of tropical destinations and warm beaches speckled eggshell-white walls. Old, but comfortable furniture filled the living room, and one cozy-looking sofa tempted him to collapse onto it.

Scott hated the next part, but it was the fastest way to clear a house. He rapped the bat on the banister of the stairs, the sound of metal rattling on wood momentarily blotting out the raging blizzard outside.

“Hey,” he called out. “Anyone home? Anyone there? Hey?”

Snow rasped against the window and door, and a blast of wind blew in through the hole he’d smashed in the glass pane. He’d have to fix it later.

“I said hey! Anyone in here? Mind if I stay for a while? Huh?”

Nothing.

He slipped through the living room, bat at the ready, into the adjoining dining room area, where a tall glass cabinet displayed fine china. The kitchen was full, complete with a single square table tucked into one corner, which struck Scott as very homey. Another door led to the backyard, buried in snow. A short hall led to a small washroom and shower and another door that opened up to a respectable garage, filled with all manner of tools. Fixing the front door’s broken window pane once again entered his mind.

The wind made the house creak, as if it were trying to swallow it whole. Scott considered the upstairs. He closed the door to the garage and returned to the steps. There didn’t seem to be a basement, and that suited him fine. Resting one gloved hand on the railing, he climbed the stairs to the second level. The steps groaned under his weight, but Scott didn’t slow down until he reached the top.

“Hey. Not going to hurt anyone, okay?”

He didn’t know why that came out of him, but it just did. He looked into the red and white bedroom that had likely belonged to a teenage girl. Boy-band posters tacked to the wall and stuffed animals lay everywhere, the largest a brown teddy bear that sat just inside the doorway. Scott stroked the animal’s head once.

He left the bedroom and went into the main bathroom. The air, while not as frigid as it was outside, was still cold to breathe. He took his time inspecting the blue bathtub and shower, the matching tiles, and a countertop littered with curling irons, half-squished rolls of ancient toothpaste, and other toiletries. The sight of a toilet with a full roll of pink toilet paper fixed on a wall dispenser made him smile. He ignored the two mirrors, not wanting to see himself. Another door lay at the end of the bathroom, next to the toilet, and Scott opened it.

The master bedroom.

Whoever he was, he had placed a pillow over his wife’s head where she lay in bed, just before he had shot her. He’d covered the shredded foam stuffing, black matter, and bone fragments with a much too thin white towel. Scott guessed the husband had probably planted the pillow over his wife’s face so he didn’t have to look at her as he pulled the trigger.

Then the guy had gone to the foot of the bed and sat down in an easy chair that matched the blue bed blankets. He’d apparently tucked the end of a long-barreled shotgun under his chin and squeezed the trigger, taking the top of his head off like a spent firecracker—the cheap kind with ribbons in it. Unfortunately for Scott, whoever the dead man was hadn’t felt the need to cover himself with a towel, and a gruesome black pattern stained the wall above the corpse’s ruined head. Scott let his breath out in a hiss that was both sad and relieved. He stared at the body for a bit, noting the withered flesh of the hands and the melancholy grimace left by the shotgun’s blast.

“Sorry,” he let out and sighed again. He didn’t blame either one of the people in the room. Many times he felt like taking the very same flight out. Still might, but not until he finished what he set out to do.

“I hope you don’t mind,” he said, in a low, respectful voice. “Storm’s pretty bad out there. I’d like to stay here for a while.”

Neither corpse answered. The wind rocked the house once more, making its frame groan. He felt he should say a few words, but the need passed.

“Thank you,” was all he said, closing both doors to the master bedroom as gently as he could. He didn’t bother taking the weapon on the floor beside the dead man, feeling it wouldn’t be right. Scott had his weapons and felt he was intruding enough by staying in the dead couple’s well-kept home.

Deeming the house clear, he returned to the garage and rooted around until he found a hammer, nails, and a couple of wooden planks that he sawed short. He returned to the front door and nailed a thick blanket taken from a full linen closet over the broken glass. He nailed a few planks into place, reducing the wind coming into the house to an asthmatic wheeze. He pounded one last cut of thick wood into the floor, flush against the door and bracing it firmly.

Having done that, Scott went to the garage and opened its heavy outer door. Moments later, he squeezed the Durango inside and sealed the bay behind it. There were two oval windows in the outer door’s surface, frosted over, but Scott didn’t need to look outside. He’d already spent the morning staring at that white shit.

It was getting on into afternoon, and his stomach rumbled. Lunch lay in the back of the Durango and, feeling secure, he went and got it. Gus had given him a hodge-podge of canned and preserved food, all in three cardboard boxes. He opened up the one box he’d already started on and studied the gleaming grey tops. There was a little bit of everything in there, and while he’d been in Windsor, Scott found he liked reaching in and taking out a can without looking at the label.

This time, it was Irish stew. He sighed in relief. He knew there was soup in there as well, but he didn’t want any. He needed something with a little more sustenance. A feeling of weariness hit him, and he pinched the bridge of his nose as if that one gesture could fight off exhaustion. Sleep would be very good right now, he thought, but not until he refilled his stomach. He gathered up the can opener—just in case there wasn’t one inside—a four liter jug of water, a paperback copy of Jason E. Thummel’s The Spear of Destiny, and trudged back inside.

The second upstairs bedroom became his kitchen and dining room because it faced the road and the livid might of the storm. He sat at a desk opposite the bed and ate the stew, listening to his own chewing and the wind intensifying outside. Time drifted. The sound of the spoon scraping against the empty can brought him back, and he felt the lump of cold lunch in his stomach. Ice rasped against the window, and Scott blinked bleary-eyed at the world outside. Only the dead would be out in such a blizzard. There might have been a joke in there somewhere, but he was too tired to extract it. The bed beckoned.

But he didn’t want to relax just yet.

He made one last round of the house, checking the doors and windows on the ground level and weighing the idea of boarding them up. He decided to leave them for another time and climbed the stairway back to the bedroom. After placing his bat against the bed and the Ruger on the nightstand, he allowed himself the pleasure of taking off his boots and flexing his sock-covered toes. The Nomex coat followed, then the pants and the padded hockey vest. He kept his blue jeans and sweaters on. A nearby linen closet had a number of thick blankets, and they all went on top of the bed.

Crawling underneath the lot, Scott shifted about until he was comfortable on his back. He turned his head and saw the big brown teddy bear studying him with black crystal eyes.

“You’re on guard now,” he whispered, feeling the tension of the morning slip away. “Lemme know if anything… if anything goes on, ’kay?”

The bear didn’t answer.

“All right, be that way,” Scott muttered, closing his eyes.

And that was that.

6

The blizzard stayed overhead for two days, straining to take the roof off the house at times and beating the windows as if they were taut drum skins. It swallowed up the road outside in blustery huffs, buried the cars, and prevented Scott from seeing anything beyond the lane out front, worrying him that the end had finally come, a perfect storm heralding in a late Ice Age. Stranded as he was, he made the best of the time with what he had: finishing the paperback and starting Dark Passage by Griffin Hayes, playing Texas Hold ’Em with the teddy bear––who cheated, as far as he could tell––sleeping, and keeping guard at the upstairs window. At the end of the first day, he didn’t have any fear of the dead coming inside, because the winter storm continued to pummel everything outside. The house allowed him to lower his guard, and if he didn’t think about the two corpses in the master bedroom, things weren’t that bad.

For being trapped in a house in the middle of a killer blizzard, that was.

Every now and again, he’d sip on the Jack Daniels, appreciating the warmth and the fact that no more of the stuff would ever be made. He supposed that increased the value of every bottle Gus had given him.

During one shift at the window, a figure had staggered along the road outside. Black limbs could be seen through the milky veil, and Scott tracked it only as long as it stayed in sight. It was a dead fucker, he had no doubt of that. No human would simply walk along the road in such piss-poor weather, not while there were so many houses along the way in which to take shelter. It disappeared into the blowing snow after a few minutes, but Scott remained vigilant until nightfall.

The next morning, the sun appeared as a yellow ball burning through a sky of cotton. The storm had broken, yet fat snowflakes sashayed to the ground like feathers. Scott finished eating a can of cold tomato soup while guessing at which way the weather would go. He estimated the time to be around eight thirty in the morning. Then came the more difficult question. Should he venture out into the world? The only other option he had was staying at the house for the rest of the winter.

“No thanks,” he said to the bear. “It’d be too dangerous for you.”

Feeling the cold through the house, he suited up. He found a blue backpack in the garage and lengthened the shoulder straps to accommodate the bulk of the Nomex. He didn’t put it on just yet, however, as he wanted to see what it was like outside. He had the strap for the shotgun and could sling the weapon over his shoulder, but he wished he had something for the bat like Gus did. He’d have to keep an eye out for sporting goods shops that specialized in golf clubs. He elected to stuff the bat into the already full backpack, moving things around until it stuck straight up like some fat antennae. Then he closed the zippers as far as they could go, right to the bat’s grip.

That worked. He put on the backpack, then decided to take out the bat, figuring it better to have one weapon in hand. Once he put his helmet in place, he walked over to the garage door, bent over, and lifted with a grunt, opening it to knee-height.

A snow-packed wall stood in front the length of the door. Scott stepped back in awe. He should have expected it. Muttering about Nova Scotian winters, he stepped forward and pulled the door up to his waist, exerting a great deal of strength.

More snow. For a moment, Scott believed an avalanche had parked right over him. There was a wide-bladed snow shovel in the garage, but he didn’t want to have to dig his way out onto the front street. He lowered the garage door and went to the kitchen, where the door led into the backyard. The door opened with a blast of frigid air, and a waist-high drift stopped him in his tracks.

Shit. He reached out and pushed the snow away. Whorls of white whipped past his head, blown into the kitchen by a stiff wind. The snow wasn’t heavy, but it still took effort to clean enough of it away so that he could step out, his legs sinking in up to the knee.

Closing the door behind him with one hand, bat in the other, Scott stood on the deck and surveyed the buried backyard, which was tinted dark by his visor. A shed stood in the back, half buried, no doubt full of gardening supplies for a spring that seemed a long way off. He stepped awkwardly to the railing and poked his bat into the snow, testing for depth. The snow was deep, but he took a cautious step off the deck anyway.

Whomf. He sunk through the top layer and ended up submerged to his crotch. He stood there for a moment, flabbergasted at the memory of actually enjoying this shit when he was a kid. There were no fences in any of the nearby backyards that he could see, and any digging might attract attention, but there was no other way to get loose from the snow. Placing the bat to one side, Scott started digging like a dog to free his legs. Once that was done, he took the bat and retreated back into the house. A few minutes later, he re-emerged with the wide shovel, telling himself that if he was having trouble in the conditions, so were the undead.

He got to slinging snow.

An hour into it and he felt as if he were melting underneath the Nomex. He got clear of the one drift leaning against the back of the house, but the snow filling the backyard still remained almost knee-high. When he finally reached the door of the shed, he felt exhausted enough to crawl back into the house and sleep for a week.

Scott dug out the green door to the shed only to find it padlocked. He smashed the lock with the bat and swiped the ruined metal away. The door opened and, as expected, shovels, gardening tools, a lawnmower, and other landscaping equipment filled the small area. Fishing rods lined the ceiling, up and away in the low hanging rafters, and hand nets of various sizes hung like saggy spider webs.

“Couldn’t you’ve had… a goddamn snow blower?” Scott asked the shed.

He looked to the sky. He hated to think he had wasted most of the morning on getting to a shed with nothing useful in it. He returned his attention to the light and spotted garages in some of the other backyards, but huge, pearly dunes barred the way. Thoughts of what the road looked like after the snowstorm entered his head.

Shovel in hand, he struggled toward the next backyard.

By afternoon, he’d dug his way to three sheds and garages and found a pair of snow shoes. Unsure if the things actually worked, he spent the next ten minutes strapping them to his boots. Tentatively, he rose up on the tennis-racket-shaped footwear and took the first careful step in the backyard of a yellow bungalow. He walked in circles, stumbling several times and even falling over once, until he got the hang of walking in the shoes. One hour later, he returned to the house he’d made base in, left the snow shoes sticking upright in a snow drift near the door, and got something to eat from the truck. While he feasted on cold beans and wieners from a can, he wondered if there might be a snow machine in one of the garages or sheds. If he was fortunate, he might be able to find one. If he was really lucky, the thing would start. Scott didn’t want to think about heading deeper into the city with such a thick mess on the ground. It almost made sense to wait until spring.

When the rest of the dead would be up and walking around as well.

Sighing over the no-win situation, Scott finished his meal.

*

“What are you doing?” Kelly smiled at him, twisting around on the bed where she sat cross-legged. The television blared out a story on congested traffic on the highway, but he wasn’t paying any attention. He was more interested in tracing a finger along the waistband of Kelly’s plaid pajama bottoms, and the little wedge of white flesh between the parting fabrics as she leaned forward.

“Leave it alone!”

Scott lay stretched out on the bed next to her and didn’t say anything. He smiled instead and kept on reading his Kindle. Instead of stopping, his fingertips brushed her bare skin above the waistline of her pajamas. She had the sexiest back dimples. It was difficult to read at times like these, and just watching her toss her hair, a lovely shade of dirty beach blond, was a delight he still hadn’t revealed to her, not even after three years of marriage. She probably knew it anyway.

“If you don’t stop, we’re gonna fight.” She warned him with a cross look that was somewhat thrown off by her efforts to conceal a giggle.

“Can’t help it. You’re flashing me here.”

Kelly reached around and felt her exposed skin. “There isn’t even any butt crack showing,” she grated.

“Still flashing me.”

“It doesn’t count.”

“Does so count.”

“Jesus, it’s only my lower back! Get a hold of yourself.” She pushed his hand away.

Scott sing-song grunted affirmation, indicating it was an idea. Not a great one, however. Kelly returned to watching television, leaning forward once again, her faded T-shirt rising up her back like the rising curtain of a peepshow Scott wouldn’t mind seeing more of. A lot more. His fingers dabbled at her back again, daring, right on the line, eliciting a dramatic growl of exasperation from Kelly. She reached around and grabbed his fingers, lifted one butt cheek, and plopped it down on his entire hand, trapping it under warm, firm, cotton-covered flesh.

Scott considered the predicament for all of three seconds, before he started wiggling his fingers.

Kelly’s head slumped between her shoulders. “I’m warning you, man…”

It was adorable when she warned him.

But then from the hallway, Suzy bawled out, long and startling. The cry ended on the swell of another nerve-grating howl, barely separated by an intake of breath. Kelly immediately got up off his hand and the bed in a flash, her pale profile wrinkling with concern, and went for the door.

“Wait,” Scott heard himself saying, while another part of him wanted to grab her by the arms and stop her from leaving the room. Needed to stop her from leaving, because he knew what lay beyond their warm bedroom. He knew what their only child was becoming. Right then his consciousness floated above the scene, as if secretly jettisoned from the figure still on the bed.

Suzy cried out again, but her little baby voice was morphing into the moan of something else. Something hungry.

“Don’t go,” he called in a pleading voice, reaching for his wife, who was well out of range.

Kelly wasn’t even listening to him. The doorway became a dark portal then, where once there was light.

“Kelly––”

Again in that laid back voice while his inner thoughts wanted to shout stop!

“Don’t. Come out,” Scott heard himself saying, feeling the scene teeter and slip away, feeling the dream coming to an end, its reality being pinched away from him at the very center, like someone picking up a tissue. Kelly didn’t even pause, and he watched her with that sinking feeling of dread permeating his very heart, aware that he was leaving the bedroom in cinematic slow motion. Leaving, leaving…

“Don’t––”

The scream from beyond was right in his ears.

*

Scott opened his eyes and stared at the ceiling. The wind outside didn’t moan or claw at the window, but the room felt a little colder than it had. A little more empty. He lay in bed and simply missed the feel of his long dead wife, missed the scent of her, cherishing those last few moments when the world was just fine and all he worried about was making enough to pay their rent. The dreams were so real, and while one could usually tell if a dream was going well or poorly, his always seemed to change from bliss to total terror in a capsizing wink.

He rolled his head to one side and met the gaze of the teddy bear. With the same hand he had touched his wife with––still feeling her skin on his fingertips––he reached out and, hesitantly, caressed the animal’s soft head.

“This doesn’t make me gay,” he whispered, staring into the crystal brown eyes of the bear.

An hour later he was outside, decked out in full gear. He trudged forward through the snow, appreciating the snowshoes with each step and using another shovel he had found in a storage shed for balance. The sun hung low in the sky, brilliant and blinding, transforming the mounds of snow into fine, sparkling sculptures. Visor down, Scott travelled from backyard to backyard, stepping over fences the snow had blown up against. He broke into eight more sheds and garages without finding anything he needed.

He used snowdrifts as ramps over some of the fences, but that came to an abrupt end in one backyard, as the final, stained fence was much higher than the others, preventing him from seeing over it. That left the driveway, gorged with snow that resembled the long spine of some unknown frozen creature. He shuffled alongside the house in those long sweeping steps he’d learned to take while in snowshoes. Red siding covered the house, awash in a spray of frozen moisture that made him think of ships at sea. He walked into the road and saw, for the first time since taking refuge from the storm, that it was just off the main highway. Standing there, he turned in every direction searching for zombies, seeing none and hearing nothing. Shrugging, he made his way across the drifts in front of the next house, then made a beeline for the large shed out back.

Another padlock barred his way, and he snapped the silvery lock off with two cracks of the bat. The sound echoed eerily into nothing, and he waited for deadheads to appear.

None did.

Warily, he considered the structure before him. The windows appeared black, and he didn’t bother lifting his visor to look inside.

He dug out the door enough to open it, a little awkward to do with the snowshoes on, and turned the lever after mentally preparing himself for the worst.

The door opened to reveal a dark interior full of band saws and worktables. Mallets and sanders hung off the walls, and a low row of fragrant birch wood was stacked next to a wood-burning stove. Scott stood on the threshold of the shed, obviously a craftsman’s domain, and saw a worn-looking rocking chair perched high on one of the worktables, awaiting a final coat of paint or varnish that would never come.

Then he saw the rifle on the workbench, laid out underneath a window that allowed a slant of light into the room. He went to the bench and inspected the chestnut stock, not familiar with any weaponry other than his twelve gauge. The owner had mounted a large scope on the rifle, which reminded Scott of a telescope. A quick check of the nearby cabinets revealed three boxes of brass shells. He left it all, not wanting the extra weight and having more than enough shells for the shotgun.

He left the shed and closed the door. Once back on School Avenue, he started hiking, going past houses that didn’t have any storage sheds or garages. Most had only driveways, glutted with snow. The tops of cars peeked out from under huge drifts, which would take a good two hours to uncover. Scott blinked. The blizzard had dumped a frozen sky upon the city.

But no undead.

That was heartening, but he knew they were nearby. Either underneath the snow he walked upon or inside the houses. It wasn’t the first winter he’d lived through with corpses walking around, but there was every chance it could be his last.

The road’s incline was perhaps a lazy ten degrees, and Scott walked until he spied another garage behind a house. He took in his surroundings, seeing tiny white wisps swirl off the street, marking a subtle increase in the wind.

Adjusting the straps on his backpack, he headed inside.

The garage was made of red brick with a black main door. He cleared away the snow at the base until he found the handle and hoisted up the door. Cranky wheels squealed.

Empty.

Not even a pot to piss in.

With a snarl, Scott shoved the door downward and looked at the sky. The sun just passed its zenith, and he figured he had two choices.

Continue on foot.

Or hole up in the house until the snow melted.

He didn’t like either choice. In the end, he got walking. He’d packed enough food and water for a couple of days if he ate sparingly. Snowmelt would offset some intake of water. The thought of returning to Gus and Roxanne entered his mind, but he discarded it. That was a potential triangle he didn’t want to get involved in.

With snow shovel in hand and gear slung across his back, he mushed.

The sky remained bright as he plodded deeper into the city, following what was the 102 until he reached an overpass. He lumbered over to the crossing’s guardrail and gazed at the highway running underneath, north and south. Beyond, the land glistened under the midday sun. A forlorn breeze gave sound to the picture, and at that instant, a great feeling of loneliness swept through him. Even after two years, the desolation was still a chore to combat at times, even for a natural recluse like himself.

He continued on, making good time on the highway, until it split into two separate lanes marked by a white “No Engine Braking” sign. To his left lay a cluster of houses just past a metal tower holding up dead power cables. To his right and at the end of a curving road stood what appeared to be a hospital. The choice was easy. He stayed in the left lane and continued on, not wanting to venture anywhere near a hospital, apartment complex, or some other large building that could potentially be sheltering a large number of gimps.

Scott thought he was still on School Avenue. The land dipped and went by an open field on the left. No signs of life. More houses and power line towers on the left, a frozen collage of colours and cables. None of the houses appealed to him as a place to stop, and seeing as he still had an hour or two of daylight remaining, he decided to push on.

He stopped underneath a metalwork archway displaying the signs “WRONG WAY,” “TRURO SOUTH SHORE ANNAPOLIS VALLEY,” and “BAYER’S ROAD.” There was little cover, so he selected one house painted sky blue and approached it. It only had the one level and snow surrounded the property, but Scott didn’t care. He wanted to get out of the cold and eat something. The front door was easily accessible from the road, and he wasn’t surprised to discover it locked. He went around back, walking by a set of bicycle handlebars that came up to his ankles. The back door was wooden, paint flaking, and also locked. Scowling, he had no choice but to enter through a side window. He punched out the glass with the shovel, cringing at the noise. He waited for anything to come to the window, and when nothing did, he unslung his pack and plopped it inside.

The search of the house went quickly and the place was unoccupied, much to his relief. There was a playroom for a young child, and he was thankful it was empty. He didn’t want any part of putting down a kid deadhead. He closed the doors leading to the porch area he’d broken into and sat down at a kitchen table covered by a Christmas cloth. He removed his helmet and opened a can of ravioli from his backpack. He noticed a can of sweet corn in there as well, but he would save that for supper. Once again, the idea of turning around and heading back to the truck entered his mind, tempting him to leave his hopeless hunt and return to Gus’s mountain.

Instead, he finished his meal and left the empty can in the sink.

7

The next morning, he trudged up the middle of a four lane road, toward the rise of a small hill. From the position of the sun, Scott estimated it was around ten in the morning. Massive snowdrifts ran northwest, reminding him of documentaries where divers mapped untouched ocean floors. He looked back every now and again, just to see how far he’d come and to see if anything was stalking him. His spoon-shaped tracks ran away from him until eventually fading from sight. Halifax was a sprawling city, but from what he saw of the numerous elm trees laid bare by winter, he imagined it was an incredibly green place in the spring and summer. He and Kelly had talked about visiting Halifax several times, but the opportunity never presented itself.

Kelly. Fragments of his latest dream sunk into his mind like wood splinters. He tried focusing on just the good parts and forgetting about the bad. He swore he could still feel her skin on his fingertips. That sensation lifted his spirits in ways a man could only appreciate in very dark times.

In fact, he became so focused on his inner memories he didn’t realize the increasing lumps in his path. He stumbled on one, barely catching his balance and avoiding a fall by jabbing his shovel out in front of him. When he straightened up, he saw it and went cold inside.

An apartment building. Right next to the road. Four levels high, and God only knew how deep. Scott couldn’t see around the structure, but he felt the need to distance himself from it.

Then he noticed what he’d tripped over.

It was a half-buried man, on a part of the street not entirely covered in snow. A road worker with the yellow reflective X crossing his chest. Ice glued his pasty flesh to the asphalt underneath, and Scott had managed to crack the body when he stumbled over it. A grimace of pain contorted the thing’s features while snowflakes sprinkled its teeth and black gum lines. Numerous skin tags, as pointed as the tips of black pens, clustered about its mouth.

An eye cracked open in the gimp’s head.

Worse, the barest of hisses issued from the creature’s frozen jaw. Scott drew back.

The eye tracked him as far as it could. The head tried to move, but it was fixed to the pavement. An arm broke away from its body, waving stiffly in the air. The thing struggled to rise, groaning with the effort, but it stayed in place.

Scott realized he was standing in the middle of the road, countless other similar bumps dotting it.

An unnerving crack brought Scott’s attention back to the gimp, which was lifting its head from its icy pillow. A long shred of skin stayed attached to the frozen ground like a piece of nailed-down black canvas. The monster’s lips stretched before splitting, revealing a row of ebony teeth.

More moans cut the air around Scott as things awakened and crawled out from their white blankets. Arms slinked out of the snow. Fingers came forward slowly like the legs of spiders. Corpses pushed themselves upright, snow sloughing from their backs. One zombie sat up like a vampire rising from its coffin, its mouth clicking open in lockjaw fashion.

The zombie in front of Scott reached for him.

He whipped the shovel across the gimp’s head, shattering the wide plastic blade. Scott took a step back and held up the handle in shock. He recovered quickly and plunged the tip of the wooden shaft into the dead thing’s eye, feeling the ice hard resistance, but still spearing the zombie dead.

But others were near.

Scott reached back and gripped the shaft of the baseball bat. He scooted the weapon up and out of his backpack, immediately swinging at another gimp clambering toward him. He bashed the monster’s skull, breaking it open in a single clattering note and driving it to the pavement. Brain matter spurted across the snow like a grisly bowl of overturned cornflakes. Wasting no time, Scott bolted past the unmoving body and through the awakening crowd. Zombies struggled to get to their feet behind and around him. He ran, taking great lopping strides so that he wouldn’t trip in his snowshoes, holding the bat across his chest as he pumped up a small hill. The cries of the dead came from all sides, and from his peripheral vision, more dark shapes pulled themselves up through the snow, climbing to their feet. Zombies rose from the snow on the road ahead. Scott ran by them, not bothering to swing because they moved so very slow. The cold robbed them of their already limited mobility. He sprinted as fast as he was able until he reached the top of the hill.

And stopped to stare in disbelief at what lay beyond.

The very land was rising. Zombies as far as he could see oozed out from underneath the snow-covered streets, blotting out the white with black and grey. They stumbled stiff-legged into the sunlight from nearby houses. They pushed themselves free from tall drifts, getting up like long-lost mountaineers.

They all converged on him.

Scott’s breath hitched in his throat. A small army was mobilizing around him. He sprinted ahead—too fast––and clacked his snow shoes together. He stumbled to the asphalt, the bat held before him. Shadows fell across him as he clawed at his snowshoes, struggling with the straps, but freeing himself in the end. He kicked them away. Something pulled on his backpack. He got up just as a zombie met him face to visor. Scott jabbed the bat’s tip into the creature’s chest, knocking it backward. He broke another zombie’s knee in one swing, while another took the bat under the chin, straightening it out and knocking it off its bare feet.

Scott evaded three others seeking to entrap him, not wasting energy on dispatching them. He pushed through several more deadheads grasping at his limbs. Ahead on the right lay a wooden church with wide-arched windows. The thought of holing up in there didn’t appeal to him. He continued running, the snow above his ankles in places, leeching away a little more strength with each step. He spotted a gas bar and convenience store ahead, its white and red protective canopy set high above six sets of fuel pumps. Something else grabbed his attention as well.

Just past the pumps and below a huge blue sign that read MILK lay a wire cage filled with propane tanks—the grey, ten kilogram variety. Newfound strength surging into his limbs, Scott quickly outpaced the zombies behind him and ran through the mass between him and the gas bar. He wouldn’t have much time.

Reaching the propane tanks, a panting Scott saw the padlocks on the doors and groaned. Just inside stood a dozen of the barrel-shaped units, stacked on shelves in fours, all ready for a summer barbeque. Scowling, Scott lifted his bat and cracked it against the padlock, the ring echoing shrilly. The lock held, and he cursed at it.

The deadheads closed in. Scott didn’t look at them. He didn’t need the extra motivation.

With a frustrated grunt, he left the tanks and ran to the front door. It was unlocked, and he scrambled inside. He flipped the bolts on the door, locking himself in as shuffling zombies closed in on the shade of the canopy. Fear stabbed Scott through the heart. A veritable concert mass of cold stricken deadheads had gathered. Seeing the hunters thicken, he frantically glanced around.

Next to the door stood an open freezer, full of deflated and squished ice cream wrappers. The freezer had wheels, and Scott grimaced as he slid the long container over to reinforce the door. There wasn’t anything else, and he wasn’t certain if the glass would hold. Breathing hard, he searched up and down the shelving units. Most of the food and drinks were gone.

Zombies, made gloomier by the overhead canopy, crowded toward the window panes.

Inside, Scott located a long-neck barbeque lighter, still in its packaging. A clear vial was set into the grip, filled with jiggling butane. Snatching it up and ripping off the packaging, he looked for something to set alight and settled on a pack of men’s socks. There were plenty of magazines littering the floor, but little of anything else. Frantically, he scoured the place.

The closest gimp smashed an arm into the glass panels, making Scott look up. Hissing and moans reached him. The thing smeared its face across the window with a squeal. More zombies thumped limbs against the clear surface. Even more undead arrived on the scene, pressing into their companions from behind and squishing them against the panels. The barrier shuddered. Milky eyes tracked Scott. Tongues lagged. Teeth gleamed.

Scott backed up toward the storage room entrance and stopped.

There, underneath a shelving unit, he could just see the corner of something black. He pounced on it and brought up a container of charcoal lighter fluid.

There had to be an exit in back, but Scott needed a distraction. He needed cover to escape the gathering army. He needed a fire.

He quickly made a nest of the discarded magazines, socks, and any other refuse littering the floor, then doused it all with the lighter fluid. He looked around for anything to add to the clump, found a garbage can with trash, and dumped that into the pile. Scott thought of the storeroom, and he slammed through the swinging door into the back.

The area was dark and virtually empty, filled with nothing but ravaged cardboard boxes and a wooden pallet. He grabbed it all and lugged it back to the front of the store, to the growing pile of combustibles.

Hands thumped the glass. Scott looked up and gasped. He could no longer see the pumps outside. The zombies blocked everything. The door trembled in its frame from the swelling weight against it.

Scott scurried back to the storeroom and searched the shadows. Whoever had been here before him had taken everything.

But then he found them, all standing to attention behind the washroom door.

Four egg-shaped, one pound cylinders, containing propane gas. Scott hissed when he saw them. Then he grabbed them and rushed them to the pallet, heart hammering in his chest. Moving the four cylinders to the pile in seconds, he positioned everything around them and held up the lighter.

On the other side of the glass, the chorus of voices sounded eerily like “Nooooooo.”

Scott lit the pile. The fire danced through the cluttered material, merrily igniting the quickest to burn. He retreated from the small blaze, feeding it more trash, waiting for the wooden pallet to catch. Smoke filled the small interior of the convenience store, clouding the dark mass of bodies slammed tight against the window. The flames blazed when they touched the material doused in charcoal fluid, and bright ribbons licked the propane cylinders. More smoke billowed, and eventually the wooden pallet started glowing around the edges.

That was enough for Scott. Coughing, he turned and ran through the storage room.

The words Escape route flashed in his head. He slapped up his visor and stumbled through the aisles of empty shelving units until he found a heavy door leading outside, a push-down bar across its middle. He paused, catching his breath, not quite ready to venture back outside.

Limbs continued thumping against the glass at the front of the store, a perpetual pounding that tested the structure. The undead cried out, their voices chilling in the dark. Smoke oozed from underneath the door, eventually finding Scott and stinging his eyes. He wondered about staying inside for as long as it took to get the mob off his back. The fire was building inside, but for the moment he was safe.

An explosion rattled him and left him blinking at the door where orange light flickered around the edges. He knew that was the first of four propane bombs. Flames crackled, no longer the little thing he’d started minutes ago. It was all the encouragement he needed, and he turned and barged out the exit, slapping down his visor as he went.

The snow went up to his knees as he loped across an open lot. In the distance stood another church, but this one was made of brick and possessed much narrower windows than the wooden church, almost a throwback to medieval times. A low green mesh fence rose up before him and he vaulted over it, landing on his side. He climbed to his feet, picked up his bat, and looked back at the gas bar.

A wall of zombies slunk past the smoking conflagration the building was transforming into. Some of the dead spilling around the walls spotted him on the other side of the fence. They started pursuing in stiff-legged strides.

Scott turned and ran.

His chest was heaving when he reached the church. A pair of pointed, arched doors greeted him, and he threw one open. Ducking inside, he closed the door behind him. His visor made the interior gloomy, so he slapped it up and paused, trying to control his panting. The church was a wreck of shattered wood, hanging curtains, and black stains he was all too familiar with. He glanced at the main doors he came through and saw broken timbers on the floor, as if a great force from outside had smashed it in. Clumps of grey matter lay in between the debris, and he even spotted a single finger, wedding band still in place. A set of stairs were located at the far end, painted black. Scott walked quietly toward them, passing the archway that welcomed anyone into the main area for worship. He stopped and peered inside. A large ornate crucifix of Christ hung on the far wall, just past a pulpit, splayed against a backdrop of stained glass that was surprisingly intact. The figure presided over rows of pews. A low smell of rotting flesh, muted by the cold, accosted Scott, and he noted with dawning horror the aisle running up the middle of the church.

Bodies filled it.

One corpse in particular shocked him. A man lay on the carpeted wood, his thighs devoured right down to the bare, dull bone, while half of his upper torso appeared twisted around and gutted, as if the feeders had actually fought over him.

Scott held his bat at the ready, vacillating between drawing the Ruger or simply calling out, just to see if anything answered him. The rising fear in him made him quietly back away from the archway. Once out of sight, he went to the stairs and, treading lightly, started climbing.

When he reached the first landing, the stairway twisted around and up another flight. Black blood stained the wood, frozen like a gloomy berry glaze. Scott didn’t like the unease forming in his guts. Blood covered everything, as if one of the defenders had dragged himself up and away to escape his pursuers.

Like a long evening shadow, Scott emerged from the stairwell into a darker upstairs loft, the stillness swelling, the shape of a body slowly coming into view with each step.

It was a woman, just beyond the last step, lying face down on the floor in a thick coating of black.

Scott exhaled heavily when he saw exposed ribs—broken and pried open, laid out like an open-air all-you-can-eat trough. Deadheads had opened her up from the back, chewing into the musculature of her body, from the back of her scalp all the way down to her ravaged feet. He leaned against a nearby wall, swallowing hard and trying not to look at the body. A set of open doors beckoned to him, and he moved around the remains, resisting the urge to gaze upon it. He moved into a balcony area. From there, he could see some of the foremost pews below, and the dead wedged in between them. The sight made his knees weak. What the fuck am I doing here! The scene elongated before his eyes as a feeling of light-headedness overcame him. See! See! his mind shrieked, as he realized how bad his situation had become, and then his knees did give out. He sat down heavily on a nearby pew, the backpack and shotgun preventing him from leaning back, brooding at the hanging body of Christ in the distance.

Unaware of the noise he’d made.

He leaned forward, bumping his helmet against the wood of the next pew, gripping his bat so he wouldn’t lose it… and somehow he didn’t.

He sucked in breaths and clenched his eyes shut, thankful for the chance to recover his wind.

He only rested for a minute before he heard the soft rustle of something moving behind him.

Well… shit.

A scratching came from the open doorway, followed by the sound of something heavy being dragged. He knew it was the woman, though he wished it wasn’t. He should have risked the noise and bashed her head in when he first found her, just to be safe. Feeling spent from the adrenaline leaving his system, he quietly extracted the Ruger from his boot, before placing the bat across his lap. He racked the slide, wincing at the noise, and waited, listening to the shivering grind of fingernails digging into the wooden floor. The subtle popping of joints as the dark life force powering the wasted carcass hauled the creature toward him.

Scott looked down, waiting, hearing the soft slither of cloth and flesh draw closer.

A blue-grey hand slinked into sight. Broken nails hooked into a strip of wood and tensed as the corpse pulled itself closer. Scott wondered why he was waiting. The sight of the hand made him feel weak once more. It was soon quietly joined by a twin missing two fingers and a huge chunk of flesh from the edge of the palm. The top of its head seeped into view, its face twisting upward, the features hidden by its hair.

Dead flesh parted black strands of hair.

Lips split, and a ridge of teeth gleamed.

Scott didn’t want to gaze upon any more features. He shot the dead thing in the side of its head, dropping it with the dull thud of a bowling ball. The sound of the suppressor lingered briefly in the church.

He discovered he had all but stopped breathing.

And for a moment, nothing happened.

Then, from below, the sounds of awakening zombies reached him. Low moans rose up like phantoms escaping a witch’s cauldron. His spine went electric and he straightened up, peering over the edge of the last pew on the balcony level, into the pit below.

Scott winced.

Zombies, many zombies, rose up from between the pews, herky-jerky from the cold, but eager to locate the sound of whatever had disturbed them. A grisly collection of survivor types and Sunday-suited worshippers clawed their way to their swaying feet. Dead expressions and heads with broken necks gazed up and fastened onto Scott. Rising in the distant pulpit, a priest hauled himself into view, one arm lifting and praising the heavens for the living man in their midst. The father did not appear to have his other arm, but the one he did have stuck out like a tree limb and directed his congregation’s attention. Their gravelly voices rose up in unholy celebration.

Scott turned around to leave and gasped at another zombie not two strides away from him and closing, its arms wide as if wanting a hug. The dead thing’s face had been utterly chewed away, leaving only a partial skull blotted in dried blood and framed in shreds of skin. With a hiss, it launched itself at Scott, who threw up his arms and warded off the zombie. He twisted to one side and pushed the creature off balance. It fell between the pews across from him with a clatter, and Scott saw that the thing wore the uniform of a Halifax police officer.

He put a bullet into the deadhead’s skull when it presented itself a second time. Scott wanted to run, but the notion of searching the officer for weapons came into his head, making him hesitate for a moment before waving off the idea. He could see the holster hanging off the officer’s hip was empty. Gathering up his bat, Scott jammed the Ruger down his boot and retreated to the steps. He crashed down the two flights of stairs and hit the ground floor just as the congregation slunk into the main aisle, at least a hundred strong. As one, their faces turned to him.

Scott hesitated, unsure if he could get through them all. There were too many to shoot or take with the bat.

They drifted toward the stairs, pushed along by invisible currents.

With a gasp, Scott plunged into the zombies, charging through the entire mob. Hands grazed his face and arms, too frozen to close upon him. Horrid faces sped by, and he shoved them back until he burst through the doors into a sky mired by black clouds. Scott turned and saw thick, billowing clouds coiling and twisting upward from the direction of the gas bar, turning the sun into a stark, staring eye. Legions of undead walked the streets beneath the clouds, some visible, some obscured by the smoke.

They started for him.

The church zombies spilled outside, slipping on steps and landing in a tangle at the building’s base. Scott crossed the road and chugged through a snow-covered driveway, fear pushing him onward. Breathing hard and feeling the weight of the backpack and shotgun for the first time, he slogged past a light-green house. A shirtless man lurched against the glass of a window, smashing through it in an attempt to grab him. Scott jerked away in fright, leaving the dead man hanging over the lip of the broken glass. It reached up and made a swipe for him, but Scott backed out of reach. Even so, the thing wriggled free of the window, the jagged ends of the glass sawing through the abdominal wall of the corpse and spilling thick coils of innards, which sparkled in the sunlight. Gasping in horror, Scott crushed its head like a bad piñata and left it hanging from the sill. He continued running, hoping he’d soon forget that scene, knowing there would be nightmares.

Onward he steamed, still hearing the concert of voices behind him, needing to get out of sight.

He passed through the backyards of several houses. In one place, the snow reached his waist almost immediately, grinding him to a halt and sucking the strength from his body. Out of the corner of his eye, dead people, still inside their houses, lurched toward the windows. Dark things he didn’t need to see in greater detail. A moment later he heard them. Their pounding against wood and glass filled his ears. He pawed through the snow, using the bat as a third leg in places, until he reached the next street over. Stopping in the middle of the road to catch his wind, he saw that the lane ran to the left and ended in a T-intersection. He jogged up to it and peeked back the way he’d come.

Smoke far behind, dead things ambling through its veil.

Glass broke behind him. Across the street, a zombie rose up from a snowdrift, clumps falling from its shoulders. More shapes surged against the insides of houses. A corpse on the second story of a brown house punched its way through glass and half hung out the window, groaning in Scott’s direction.

Scott didn’t wait to see what would happen next. He plodded through another driveway and cut through yet another backyard. Cutting moans vibrated the very air and surrounded him. The sinking feeling of having made a very bad mistake entered him. Panic wasn’t far behind. He should never have come to Halifax. A clothesline appeared out of nowhere and almost garrotted him off his feet. He ran over a small swimming pool coated in snow. A tall fence loomed in front of him and, putting his head down, he smashed through it with a horrendous sound of breaking wood. Splintered fragments raked the Nomex. Scott ran past more houses. The land sloped upward, sapping more energy from him.

He turned a corner and stopped.

Before him stood a wall of reanimated corpses.

His breath hitching in his chest, Scott staggered back as the dead turned on him. He dropped his bat and shrugged off his backpack. He unzipped it, groped for the extra magazines, and kept them near his leg. Grimacing, he drew the Ruger from his boot and clasped it in both hands. Deadheads walked toward him, slowed by the cold. He struggled with his breathing and took aim. They were coming in on two sides. The ones before him would expose him to the masses he left behind.

He was getting fucking tired of running.

Scott fired into the mob, taking his time and putting down a gimp with each shot as they closed the distance. They were no more than twenty feet away, and even with his heart hammering in his chest, they weren’t hard to hit. The Ruger spat, the sound puncturing the frigid air, and something fell with each muted report. A teenage boy dressed in blue jeans. A bald man in a leather coat. A woman in a business suit. Skulls exploded. One shot missed and Scott adjusted, pulled the trigger, and the gun went dry. He ejected the magazine and slapped in a fresh one, racked it, and took aim at a zombie whose lower jaw dangled from its head like a swinging chin strap. Scott blew its brains out the back of its skull. He shot another through the eye. Three quick shots and three more corpses dropped to the ground. Two shots missed, causing him to bite his lower lip in frustration. Some zombies tripped over the fallen ones and crawled toward him. Scott looked to his left and found a creeper about to hook him by his hip. He twisted and fired point-blank into the creature’s devastated face, exploding it and dropping the zombie to the snow.

A second magazine clicked dry.

Scott beat down a hoarse scream. Grimly, he snatched up a fresh magazine and slapped it home, then worked the slide.

A zombie stood right over him. He shot it under the chin, sprinkling the snow and other gimps with black matter. Another came too close and he fired a round into its belly, blowing the thing back on its frozen ass hard enough that its bare feet flipped up into the air. Scott rose to his feet and increased his tempo. He put down corpse after corpse until the third magazine emptied. Mounds of bodies littered the street, but a dozen more remained standing. He dropped down, pawing at the remaining mags. He fumbled one and it went flying out of reach. Whimpering, he let it go and drew the fourth magazine, concentrating on getting it in correctly. He inserted it and racked the slide.

Scott stood as a zombie placed a hand on his shoulder. He beat the arm aside and fired into the thing’s face. It dropped to reveal another close behind. He killed that one as well, but the last few zombies were upon him. Hands pawed at him. Something gripped his helmet and grabbed his shoulders. The sounds of the hungry dead flooded his ears.

Scott freaked.

He fired the Ruger point-blank into faces and bodies, no longer caring about head shots. They crowded him, slamming into his body like a horrible wave of industrial sludge. They bit into his shoulders. They clawed into his midsection and chest. Scott lost the Ruger and grabbed the first head he saw. He violently twisted the skull. The crack splintered the harshness of the moans, but the zombie kept reaching for him––with open, hissing jaws and a broken neck. Scott jabbed and knocked it back, but it rebounded like a grinning punching bag. He kicked and twisted, wrenching free of frozen fingers attempting to keep a hold of him. He spotted the shaft of his bat and grabbed for it. Something hit his back with enough force to push him down, and he fell forward onto his hands and knees. Scott screamed and thrashed like an eel out of water, darting between legs. If he landed on the pavement and they flattened him out, he wouldn’t be able to get back up—didn’t have the strength to get back up—and they would heap on top of him like a ravenous defensive line.

Bent over, he scrambled through an opening in the forest of gimp limbs, feeling their hands slide off him. He stopped in a drift when he saw there weren’t any zombies ahead. Whirling around, he straightened up and assumed a batting stance. There were perhaps ten or so deadheads focused on him, and they stumbled toward him, working frozen limbs as if attempting to keep their balance on rough seas.

Baseball wasn’t his sport, but Scott would make an exception in this case.

He took the head clean off the first gimp within range, surprising even himself with the crack and snap of his victim’s skull spinning off its shoulders, a fleeting ribbon of gore trailing the rotten bauble as it spun through the air. The bat smashed in the heads of the second and third zombies. Scott shifted in the snow when he had to, hoping to God he wouldn’t hit a patch of ice. The fourth deadhead went down after two hard strikes to its forehead. Scott realized he was grunting with each swing and striking over the gimps’ outstretched arms. They made no attempt to defend themselves. He bludgeoned their skulls from all angles, horrified to see it took more than one hit to kill them. Not only had their joints stiffened, but their heads as well, becoming a thick, icy ball of matter that took a lot more power to crack.

Sapping away what little strength he had left.

He crushed the skull of the last gimp attacking him, leaving a grotesque saddle-shape in the smashed bone. Other zombies approached in the closing distance, from the roads and between the houses. He’d only just put down the first wave. Then he gawked at the carnage he’d wrought. A slew of dead gimps lay in the road, face down, face up, or on their sides. Black soup seeped onto the white covering the ground.

But beyond them, and on an almost mechanical march, came more.

Hundreds more.

He had to get moving.

Gun, his mind cried out, and he realized with a drop in his stomach he’d lost the Ruger. He frantically moved to the area where he thought he’d dropped it, pawing at the fallen corpses and turning them over. The smell of the dead made him gag. He didn’t have time for this. The snow was shin deep in places, more than enough to hide the weapon.

The dead stumbled toward him, uncaring of his plight, intent only on meat.

Scott picked up his backpack and struggled into the straps, eyeing the approaching mob while adjusting the shotgun until it hung off his back the way he wanted. Still no handgun, though.

The zombies were perhaps twenty meters away and closing, their numbers thickening, their icy features set on him. They wandered through driveways, around hedges, down the streets. Some tripped over the dead Scott had killed, but they slowly got to their feet. Others stepped around them, looking at the living man with their heads cocked curiously to one side.

Scott reached down and pulled on the shoulder of one dead gimp. He only had time for one more. Deadheads converged, moaning, while a few gnashed their jaws as if shivering in anticipation.

Scott rolled the corpse over and felt an explosion of relief.

There, grip facing up, was the Ruger.

He grabbed it and ran, gun in one hand and bat in the other. Only when he started moving did he feel the burning exhaustion in his limbs. He retreated back behind a row of houses, searching for a two-story with an attic. He needed to get out of their line of sight—and smell. He needed to get out of the open…

He needed to disappear.

Ducking under low-hanging clotheslines and avoiding lawn furniture, he sprinted past three houses before settling on a tall brown structure. He climbed the steps leading to a back porch and gasped.

There, shuffling toward the door, was the owner of the residence. Wearing only coveralls, and without eyes or lips, the elderly gentleman grinned hideously at his visitor as if he were welcoming a dear friend.

Scott fired two shots, puncturing the glass and killing the elderly gimp. He brought his elbow up, punched it through the damaged pane, and had the door open in seconds. Old linoleum coated the floor. Seeing the old codger crumpled just inside did nothing for him. It was only another dead thing.

Scott spun about and shut the door, then slid across two deadbolts. He withdrew from the porch area, seeing the festering tide of hundreds of zombies bleed into the backyard, making him wonder if it was possible for the things to actually track him in the snow. It wasn’t something to dwell on. Holding the gun out before him like a crucifix, he backed into the shadows of an old kitchen. A green stove, scratched as if a cat had gone insane on its metal hide, squatted in one corner, while a worn hardwood table dominated the room. He checked under the table as he moved deeper into the house, into a living room with the remains of two ravaged victims on the floor—another man and woman, perhaps husband and wife. One body looked almost chopped in half, a grisly V separating its right shoulder from the rest of the torso. The axe that had undoubtedly done the job lay just beyond the victim, in front of a set of stairs and the door to the street.

Scott crushed the skulls of both with the bat. He left the axe and huffed his way to the second floor. A short hallway, painted white and spattered with black, with five open doorways lay before him. There was no trapdoor in the ceiling, and for a moment, Scott felt an almost overwhelming sense of terror strike him. He went from bedroom to bedroom until he located the entry to the attic––a wide hole covered by a piece of plywood.

Scott didn’t have time to be picky.

He needed a chair to get up there.

Scurrying into one of the bedrooms, he grabbed an old-fashioned desk chair, the kind without any wheels, and returned to the main bedroom. He placed the chair directly under the attic hole and climbed. He pushed the cover to one side and peeked up into the gloom. Light from a vent dappled the place, but otherwise the space was dark and small, with bare timbers exposed. The shapes of boxes and suitcases were pressed into the dark recesses on either side, offering just a little space to hide.

Scott took it.

He shoved his backpack and weapons into the hole. A nearby closet held a few blankets, but Scott believed there were more somewhere in the house, and he heaved armfuls up into the dark attic.

A crash from below informed him he had no time to search.

Climbing onto the chair, he studied the room and saw that the bed was nowhere near the hole, but the chair would still remain once he was in the attic. He pulled himself up, burning through the last bits of energy he possessed, lay on his belly, and peered back into the room. The pounding far below became irregular, but insistent.

Scott took the bat and stretched his arm back down. He struck the back of the chair, bumping it along a little bit at a time as if it was a fine old day. Taking a breath, he swung the bat with one arm and knocked the chair over with a thump. The sound made him cringe, but he quickly retreated into the dark of the attic, replacing the cover and effectively sealing himself in.

Back in an attic. He swore to God if he lived long enough to find a place of his own, he’d make sure the top floor was prepped. As it was, boxes and suitcases choked this particular attic, and he took a few careful moments to arrange things. He located three sleeping bags and even two pillows, and one of those he placed flat in the middle of the floor, laying the other two on top. He heaped more blankets onto the pile. Scott placed his backpack nearby and got out the jug of water. He lay down his guns and the bat, pointing them at the hole, just in case he needed any of them. With a gasp, he pulled off his helmet and placed it to one side, feeling the sweat in his hair. He crawled into the nest of sleeping bags and blankets, still in his Nomex gear, and lay down with a deep sigh.

The sounds from below continued.

He waited, focusing on the covered hole to the attic. He snaked out a hand from under the blankets and rested it on the shotgun. His eyelids became heavy.

More thumping, far below.

Strangely enough, it didn’t bother Scott much anymore.

8

He woke up to the sound of something shuffling along in the bedroom underneath, heard the chair being pushed around, and expected any moment for the attic cover to pop up and a gimp to lunge through. Loud bangs of wood against wood and other sounds of the searching dead seeped through the ceiling. Scott’s hand, still on the shotgun, slunk away from the heavier weapon and stopped on the grip of the Ruger. He waited. More rumbling below. More moaning. Flesh thumped about as the dead navigated the entirety of the upstairs floor, searching for him. Perhaps they knew he was close by. He focused on the attic cover. The urge to creep forward and lift it—just a crack—so he could peek down on them became so strong that he began to think it was a good idea. What could it hurt? There was no way for them to reach him. He’d kicked the chair away from the hole, and no gimp had ever displayed any memory or knowledge of utilizing the comforts and tools of the old world. So where was the threat? The danger? He released the grip of the gun and bunched up his legs to shift himself forward. He could lift the cover with the tip of his Bowie and peek just for a second.

Then Gus’s voice spoke in his head, warding off the notion and wondering––in typical Gus fashion––where the fuck were his brains? Scott blinked and had to wonder that himself. He stretched out underneath the mound and closed his eyes, opening them only when he heard noise directly beneath his hiding spot. With the racket the deadheads were making below, he swore they must have been a crew of furniture movers in their old lives.

The light in the attic receded, and Scott sensed the temperature dropping as well.

He closed his eyes again and somehow drifted off to sleep.

The next morning seemed a long time coming. He had woken several times during the night to sounds of something crashing or moaning below. Scott lay in his nest and stared at the wooden beams of the ceiling. After long minutes, he crawled out of his makeshift bed and relieved himself in a nearby suitcase. While he peed, a great crash came from the direction of the stairs, making him lose his concentration. A deadhead had fallen down the steps.

Stupid bastards.

Zombies still lumbered about below, but the noises they made were muted, like waves lapping against the hull of a ship. The realization that they were leaving the upstairs lifted his spirits and he relaxed a little more, burrowing back into the pile of blankets and sleeping bags.

Telling himself to be patient, Scott tried hard not to think of the old world. He stared at the bare ribs of the roof and waited for the undead to leave.

The day dragged on. Sometimes he was awake, and sometimes he slept. When he did sleep, he made certain his head was under the covers, just to muffle any potential snores. He didn’t remember Kelly ever telling him he snored, or Gus that time they’d been trapped in an attic, but he saw no reason to risk it. He wormed out of his sleeping bag and blankets, opened up a can of spaghetti and meat balls, and feasted on them cold, eating a third in the morning, a third in the afternoon, and the rest just before the light left the attic. He drank his water in measured sips.

Waited.

Listened.

Thought.

*

He descended from the attic two days later, stiff, from lying on his back for so long, and thirsty, as his water ran out the previous night. The zombies had retreated from the house a day earlier, but he felt it wise to wait the extra day. The second floor was empty of zombies and he went to the bathroom, intent on sitting on the house throne. Filthy shreds of clothing and what appeared to be shrivelled strips of flesh covered the toilet, so he passed on sitting. There was no way Scott was plopping his ass down on that piece of porcelain, and he looked elsewhere to relieve himself.

The house was a shambles of broken furniture, walls smeared in grey-black grease, and that feeling of being soiled. The back and front doors hung open from where the deadheads had broken in, allowing light in. He kept to the shadows, peering at the zombies walking up and down the street in jerky motions. The slab of wood and broken glass that comprised the front porch door was crushed to one side, as if something huge had forced its way through. Some of the undead had even come through the picture window in the living room. The ones he’d put down appeared mangled and pulped, as if a herd of cattle had walked over them and did a little dance before moving on.

Warily, he retreated to the attic to retrieve his gear.

Descending once more to the first floor, he edged along the wall to the back porch. The backyard was empty, but the ground had been mashed with innumerable footprints. He had his water jug and wanted to fill it with snow before leaving. Snowmelt would have to do until he found something better. Across the yard, a white drift appeared untouched by the siege. It was only ten meters away, yet Scott felt as if he would be targeted the very instant he stepped outside. Laying his pack, bat, and shotgun in the porch area, he slapped his visor down and crept outside.

Sunlight glared down and he was thankful for the visor. He looked this way and that before trudging through a ridge of hard snow. Reaching the drift sculpted like the crest of a wave, he punched his hand through the outer ice. He started jamming fistfuls of snow into the jug, looking around the backyard every so often to ensure that the area was clear. Something compelled him to turn around toward the street. There, like slow-moving husks caught in a current, undead stopped in the road.

Scott froze. He fought down the urge to run back to the house and concentrated on filling the jug. None of the corpses looked in his direction. More snow crumbled and fell down the sides of the bottle, and he wormed his hand deeper inside the drift to get at the softer stuff.

In the street, the zombies started moving, drifting like sluggish black ice floes.

Scott had almost filled the bottle when he saw a gimp turning in his direction.

He dove to the right, cutting off the angle of sight with the corner of the house. Blood pumping in his ears, he kept low and treaded across the snow with crunching steps. Once he reached the back door, he edged along to the corner, crouched, and waited.

It didn’t take long for a shadow to lengthen across the white ground. The moaning and shuffling grew louder.

Scott reached down to one boot and pulled out his Bowie knife. The foot-long blade gleamed dully in the daylight, and he positioned himself for a quick killing stroke.

The shadow swelled on the ground.

Scott tightened his grip on the Bowie, its tip in front of his visor.

The zombie shuffled forward with the creaking of frozen cloth, its arms hanging limp at its sides, and Scott surged upward and stabbed the corpse under the jaw. The tip of the knife punched through the undead’s thin mat of hair. Scott twisted the blade, feeling the grainy resistance of frozen tissue and skull, and yanked the corpse around the corner. He lowered the body to the ground and placed a boot against the dead thing’s head. The blade came out with a rasp of steel on bone.

One down. Scott leaned against the house and waited for more.

None came.

Breathing quickly, his heart hammering, Scott stepped away from the corner and peeked around the corner.

The dead roamed the street, but none came his way.

Thanking Christ above for that little bit of luck, he crept back toward his water bottle, mindful of the gimps popping in and out of view in the other backyards. Filling the jug wasn’t pressing anymore, so he took it, stayed low, and returned to the house. Getting inside the open porch door was a huge relief. He found a blind spot and relaxed somewhat, out of sight of any deadheads unless they came through the doorway. The jug in his hand was practically full with snow, and Scott swore at himself—quietly—for taking the risk. He tightened the lid on the container and stuffed it into his backpack.

One thing done for the day. And one less zombie to deal with.

The dead roamed the streets. He flipped up his visor and pinched the bridge of his nose. With an army between him and the vehicle, getting back to the truck was a lost cause. The chances of him surviving Halifax were low, Scott had known that from the start, but now death seemed almost a certainty.

And he wasn’t even sure Tenner had come to the city.

The more he thought about it, the greater the doubt clouding his mind.

Sniffing, he drew the Ruger and took inventory of his ammunition. Two magazines remained. One of those bullets would be for him if it came to that, as starving in an attic or being torn apart by a mob didn’t appeal to him.

The lip of the broken window drew his attention, and he looked into the yard. Zombies groaned dismally outside and in the distance. Being a realist, which he believed was just a pleasant word pessimists called themselves, he started to think he had little chance of finding Tenner.

But he wasn’t going to stop looking.

Not until he had to use that final bullet on himself.

He thought of the flattened snow outside and the dead populating the streets. So many. So goddamn many.

Give up and go back, his doubt whispered to him.

No, Scott mentally replied. This one’s for Lea and Teddy… And anyone else left alive.

With that, he gathered up his gear, took a breath, and left the house.

Trying to look everywhere at once, he approached a neighbor’s home, walking on a parallel course with the street out front. When he saw his chance, he darted across the driveway, keeping low and baring his teeth as he ran. His boots punched through the gathered snow with an audible crunch, making him wince. Reaching the corner, he crouched and slipped along the wall to the back door. Even when he placed a foot down as softly as possible, the snow would hold for only a second before breaking.

The back door had already been forced open. Scott cautiously entered a kitchen with a rotten apple skin of a linoleum floor. The pipes had broken at some point, flooding everything and eventually seeping through the wood. Frozen blooms of mould dotted the wooden windowsill facing the backyard, and the smell of something decayed wrinkled his nose. He wasn’t going to stay long, and he didn’t want to engage any zombies that might be inside. Make like a ghost, he thought.

After a few moments, he took a steadying breath and crept back outside. Zombies paced the street, mumbling as if asleep. He sprinted across the driveway toward the next house, with a deck and patio furniture blanketed in white. Diving in between wide railings, he scrambled to his knees and came to a sliding glass door with the drapes closed. Just beyond a work shed, figures walked aimlessly in the sun, forcing him to stay low. Scott slunk along the length of the sliding window until he reached the end, expecting another driveway––another fifteen feet of exposure to the main road.

What he found momentarily stunned him.

There were no houses.

Charred timbers, like frayed fence posts, stood on foundations smothered in twinkling snowdrifts. Scott leaned against the wall hiding him from the road and gaped at the open space. There was no chance of covering such a distance with the zombies around. They’d be on him right away if he tried to go that way. The gap of three or four house lengths was just as lethal as a bottomless pit.

Scott backed up to the sliding glass doors and tried them. Locked. Making a face, he took his bat and positioned it where he thought the lock would be. He didn’t like doing this, but he didn’t want to return to the previous house either, and each second spent debating endangered him all the more. The head of the bat crunched through the glass on the first punch, shattering it in long shards. Pieces tinkled to the floor. He reached inside and fumbled with the lock before opening it and sliding the door open. Slipping inside, he locked the slider, drew the curtains, and hoped that nothing would come to investigate.

Then he heard the hissing.

He’d stepped into an open area that was a combination of kitchen, living room, and dining room. From the kitchen, a decomposed dad dragged himself toward the intruder using the wall for support. The thing’s right arm was missing. Rising up from behind a couch was the mother of the home, her blond hair a wild mop that did not cover her jawless mouth.

Then came the true horror show.

Pulling themselves along the floor like bloated snakes were two small boys, each perhaps ten years old. One of them had both legs gnawed off at the knees. Their mouths opened horribly in the dim light, like young birds waiting to feed.

The cold slowed the family, so Scott pulled the gun from his boot with time to spare. He shot the father through the forehead, dropping him before he even got around the black kitchen island. He put a bullet into the head of the mother next, flipping her over the back of the couch. The children were the worst. The children were always the worst.

But he shot them within seconds of each other.

Moments later, Scott discovered the front door wasn’t locked. Crouched low, he secured it, keeping his head below the curtainless window. A stairway with rose-pink paint led to three bedrooms and a bathroom. An ensuite lay off the master bedroom, and it was there Scott stopped and dropped his drawers upon his bowels’ insistence. Ordinarily he’d be somewhat constipated, but for some reason, things were flowing.

Once finished, he left the bathroom and set up in a boy’s bedroom. Scott jerked the curtains across on a window facing the street below, shading the little room in summer blue, and peeked out from one corner.

Deadheads. A thick parade of them.

His heart sank. Realizing he wasn’t going anywhere anytime soon, he decided to get comfortable. He plopped his gear down on a nearby desk and chair, and that alone made him feel tons lighter. The bed beckoned, but it was too early for that, and he didn’t want to have to camp out here with the damaged sliding doors below. It didn’t feel safe. So he stood at the window’s edge, the wall at his back, and peered out at the world at a narrow angle. Something, he supposed, he’d done for most of his life.

He watched the zombies file by, risen from their icy graves by his hand. If he hadn’t walked over the first few deadheads, perhaps they would have all stayed beneath that frozen carpet, swept by blustery gales that whistled at their strongest. The dead meandered through the street, staggering, searching, sometimes bumping into one another and falling on their asses. They would climb back to their feet with little gruesome grunts of protest, ignore each other, and stumble off in search of a bite. Opposing tides of zombies flowed in and out of sight, clotting at times, and Scott realized with dawning horror that there were more gimps out there than perhaps Annapolis and Saint John combined.

More than he had ammunition for.

Having nothing better to do, he continued watching the dead, wondering how he was going to continue on or even get out of Halifax alive. He remembered people-watching from when he was a baker, from behind the counter while on breaks, casually observing folks as they walked by the shop. All zombies now.

At some point Scott felt hungry, opened up a can of roast beef stew, and ate half. He left the rest on a nearby desk and covered it with a cloth. He pulled a chair away from the desk and placed it near the window so he could sit and look outside, studying the undead’s movements. There would be another snowstorm soon, he was certain of that. Perhaps the temperature and snow would bury them again, enabling him to move on.

On the other hand, perhaps the currents of undead would maroon him in this upstairs bedroom for days, weeks even, turning the refuge into a cell.

Clouds drifted overhead, herded along by a heatless sun, and Scott watched the gimps slog away, flattening the drifts. He reflected on how the zombies sensed the living, which had been a popular topic of discussion with Teddy and Lea. None of them were certain if the creatures’ eyes worked anymore. The gimps responded to movement, though, which suggested they used their eyes—at least the ones that still possessed them. The three of them had also established that the zombies got by on hearing or smell. The debate on whether or not the things were truly dead was never really settled. He remembered Lea had taken the position that in order to smell, they’d have to draw breath—voluntarily or involuntarily—which went against them being truly dead. The same went for the idea of seeing people move. Teddy had quietly countered that no one could live with the wounds some of the zombies sustained, running off a veritable horror list of undead creatures missing entire sections of their bodies. How could they be anything else than dead? They both agreed that perhaps the virus that transformed people into walking corpses might somehow commandeer the part of the brain controlling those senses and use them at will, much like a puppeteer, which had struck Scott as odd. He couldn’t see how any virus could manage such a thing. And how could anything survive with the wounds some of the zombies walked around with?

They had decided that hearing seemed more plausible than smell or sight, but even sound had to be converted into signals for the brain and then interpreted somehow in order for the zombie to react.

He remembered throwing his two cents on the fire by simply saying, “They’re undead,” as if that explained everything. Arguing about what had reanimated them, the science behind it all, wasn’t important. They were undead, and a blow to the brain killed them. Nothing else mattered.

Scott realized how short-sighted he had been. Fully understanding what attracted the zombies meant staying alive that much longer. Perhaps, depending on the corpse’s wounds, they used whatever senses they had remaining to get by. He didn’t know what a gimp did that had been robbed of its eyes, ears, and nose. Could he somehow fool the dead into thinking he was one of them? They did it on TV. Why not real life? Perhaps he could camouflage himself or imitate their movement, passing himself off as dead. The idea was worth exploring further, but how to do it?

Their clothes.

The notion made him straighten up and savour it. The clothes they wore stunk as much as their dead flesh. What would happen if he wore enough of it to mask his own scent? And if he did clothe himself in undead fashion, could he walk like them? To further strengthen the illusion?

With that simmering in his mind, Scott watched the zombies even more intently from behind the curtain. Some walked better than others, but even the best shambled as if they had downed a flask of booze. And they all made noise.

He rubbed his chin and growing beard and mulled over the problem. Hypothetically, it might work. If the zombies were getting by on the barest of brain impulses, emulating the smell, sound, and movement of one of their own just might save his ass. The only question was how to get what he needed.

Then he remembered the four dead people in the house.

The raw material was there and waiting.

Norsemen

9

Three cargo vans, black and bruised, cruised along Highway Two of the Trans-Canada Highway, slowing only when passing through the city of Edmundston. Long deserted cars, trucks, and transports littered the four lanes, and Pell navigated and led the others through the mire of leftover steel and rubber, at times leaving the asphalt entirely and driving on the shoulder to get around clumps of vehicles. The highway cleared once through the city, and it opened up into scenic views of hills and valleys dusted with light snow. The air was getting colder, and mornings gleamed with frosting as inviting as a cake.

To break the monotony, the drivers sometimes sped ahead to pass the leader, and even as Pell looked ahead at the countryside, one van overtook him and blasted away like a hot cannonball. Nightmarish men hung out the windows, screaming and shaking fists in excitement as they drove past. Pell looked at the boss man. An armored Fist sat and stared ahead, squinting at the daylight. He was like that most of the time while on the road. Sometimes silent, sometimes humming some indistinct tune to himself, barely heard above the engine. This was one of those times when the leader purred away. Pell thought it was a surprisingly melodious sound, broken only by Fist’s deep breaths, which would fuel the next few bars. Given his leader’s ferocious reputation, Pell was certain he was the only one who knew of this musical inclination. No one really knew much about Fist or what he had been before the Fall. Not that it mattered. One only needed to follow his commands.

In the back of the van dozed four killers, almost boneless in their seats, snoring and stinking up the interior with their rancid breath. Bare meat hooks hanging from overhead clicked off each other like gruesome chimes, adding to the rattling of the moving vehicle and Fist’s oddly comforting humming.

Pell concentrated on the road, staring at the backside of the van ahead and waiting for word from the big man to stop. Scavenging had been fair in Quebec. They’d even left behind a garage full of excess gas they drained from vehicles, to be used for the trip back west. Meat was constantly an issue, and while they managed to take down two people and cook them, hopes were high the pickings would be better further east. They had stores of cured and smoked meat, but that would only last so long.

From the passenger seat, Fist took another breath before turning it into a slow song Pell knew he’d heard before, but couldn’t place. That would bug the hell out of him for the rest of the day. The lines of the highway flashed by, ticks of distance and time, becoming brighter as the road pulsed into the graceful curve of an overpass, all channeled by guardrails.

Then their van hit ice.

The rig ahead of them suddenly swerved, crashed through a guardrail, and plunged into the valley between the opposing lanes. It flipped over, rolling onto its side, in a song of screaming engine revolutions and crumpling metal before disappearing below. Pell felt his own tires spin for a second, before momentum pushed his van past the crash site. The vehicle fishtailed and he turned into it, regaining control. His foot crushed the brake pedal as his heart gonged in his chest.

“Turn around!” Fist shouted, startling Pell more than the lead van doing a dog’s trick.

They returned to the overpass and parked, blocking the road. The men from the third van got out, their boot heels clicking on asphalt, and stared down at the dead transport.

The crashed van had nosedived into the pavement below. It had smashed itself at an angle upon impact, crashing into the median. Steam rose from the crumpled engine block; a pair of legs stuck out from the shade of the concrete, as if someone was trying to hide under a bed.

For a while Fist said nothing, studying the scene with a grim patience and listening to the weak groan of wheels until they came to a stop.

“They’re fucked,” someone said into the rising wind.

Fist straightened and studied the countryside. Houses lined both sides of the road running underneath the highway. The road beneath led into a large town of sorts. Pell looked about and felt his anxiety rise just a bit. This wasn’t the best of places to have an accident. But then, where was?

A hand slapped against the side window of the wrecked van. A face peered up at them, ghostly pale. Then another.

“Get down there and pull them out,” Fist rumbled at the rig pigs standing around him. “Salvage what you can. Food and water. Gas.”

Orders heard, the men jumped the guard rails and huffed down to the crash site. They swarmed the van and pried open the ruined rear doors with crowbars. Norsemen in tire armor and motorcycle helmets pulled their dazed companions out and heaped them on the ground. In a minute, five men were free. A sixth man, the driver, had been the guy trying to hide in the shade of the second overpass. He had flown through the windshield and skidded across two lanes and up a concrete incline. Most of his face had been cheese-grated away, but mercifully, a snapped neck had taken his life.

Pell was one of the men to flip the driver over.

“Dead,” he yelled back to Fist, standing tall on the road above. Their leader brooded above them as grey clouds sped overheard. He stood with both hands on his hips, gunslinger style, with his elbows jutting out. The huge man drew a flat hand across his throat, then down his middle, and finished with the motion of tossing something away. Waste not, want not, Pell thought, knowing it was a saying of Fist’s. He repeated the hand signs to three men nearby. The trio took out cleavers and knives and fell upon the dead man with gusto.

Meat was meat, regardless of where—or who—it came from.

Pell wandered to the front of the crashed van, studying the exposed underside of the vehicle as he went. Herman and a few others stood about the crumpled hood, which they had managed to pry back.

“Engine?” Pell asked in Norse speak.

“Dead,” Herman said in English, shaking his head.

“Can’t do anything?”

“To this?” Herman asked, sooty face incredulous. “It’s dead.”

Pell stepped away from the mechanic and looked up at the shadowy, cobra hood shape of their leader, who seemed to have taken a menacing interest in the conversation. He pointed at the van and drew a thumb across his throat.

Fist nodded once.

“Get the gas out of the tank, then,” Pell said to Herman. Pell didn’t mind being a mouthpiece, nor did he mind being something of a right hand to the boss, since he sat across from him when on the road. Such a privilege afforded him certain liberties, even when he stood low in the pecking order.

“Hey,” grunted a man wearing Viking horns. He pointed beyond the shade of the concrete. Zombies, featureless in the distance, appeared in ones and twos on the road. They staggered out from between houses. Some oozed from underneath cars like enormous worms. As the rising wind gave soundtrack to the scene, the dead mustered their forces and, with heavy steps, marched toward the wreck site.

Above, Fist turned and gazed on the small army.

Pell wasn’t afraid of the dead. None of the Norsemen were. The dead weren’t something to fear—in small bunches. Large numbers could be a problem.

“Get them into the vans,” Murphy shouted, making Pell swivel around. Whether they needed to be told or not, the men bearing the weight of the dazed Norsemen complied, walking with their companions up over the slope to the vehicles.

“Get the food and water!” Murphy shouted. His emaciated face was covered by a visor spray-painted black. The man was a jackal amongst dogs and quick to bite.

“You’re not in charge,” Herman yelled back, gathering up plastic jugs of water. Pell looked at Fist, but the leader had disappeared to the other side of the highway.

Murphy stopped in his tracks long enough that Pell thought he was going to fight the mechanic, this time with a zombie mob bearing down on them all. If he did, Pell decided to shoot the man himself, and his hand strayed to the sawed-off shotgun hanging off his thigh. But Murphy reconsidered, spun away, and grabbed an armful of packaged food from the rear of the van before huffing back up the slope.

Pell stepped to the back of the wreck and was given a milk crate filled almost to the brim with loose shotgun shells. He scrambled up to the highway and his waiting van.

When he reached the top, Fist was gone.

Quickly depositing the shells into the back of the van, he went to the guardrail and stared at the zombies moving toward them. Several dozen of the creatures spread over the street like an infection of black pox.

Pell blinked. Casually walking toward the undead with two unsheathed Bowie knives was the grim and armored shape of Fist. He had donned his hockey helmet, and he strutted toward the dead without any backup. He took his time, looking this way and that, as if wondering which would be the first to perish.

The corpses drifted toward him, leering and challenging him with rotting voices.

In reply, the Norse leader stabbed the first creature through the face. He knifed two more, taking them through the sides of their skulls. A pair of zombies feebly reached for him, and he kicked both away with a boot and a grunt, clearing a killing zone. He decapitated one and crushed the head of another he’d thrown to the ground with a boot heel. More of the dead wobbled forth, focusing toward the man as if he were a gate, and Fist put down zombie after zombie, ending their moans with curt crunches of metal and bone, or the heavy, clay-like clatter of a shattering skull.

Pell watched, awestruck, as Fist decimated the approaching crowd in a slow cadence of violence, showing the dead what little concern he had for them. Though none of the Norsemen feared the dead, no one would wade into a crowd of them alone and start swinging. They had long since learned the best way to combat the decomposing legions was as a closed unit. Other warriors stopped at the guard rail and shouted, pumping fists, and for a moment, Pell imagined Fist not even hearing them, but simply humming to himself.

“Finish loading the vans!” Pell shouted.

“Done,” someone called back.

Pell put his hands to his mouth and yelled, “We’re clear!”

A moment later, Fist started backing up, disengaging from the reaching arms of the dead. The zombies pursued him, but like many times before, they did not heed what was underfoot and stumbled over the wrecks of their truly dead companions. One topless, grey-blue man dressed in sweatpants rushed Fist. The Norse leader’s hands snapped out like thunderbolts, smashing into the dead thing’s head and whisking it off its feet. The remaining zombies stumbled and flowed over the body, hiding it from sight.

Fist walked away from his pursuers and contemptuously showed them his back. He glanced back every ten steps or so, just in case another runner appeared.

The cheering died as Fist hiked up the incline to the waiting vans. No one had truly expected him to die.

“Saddle up,” Fist bellowed as he reached the top, slapping a speechless Pell on the shoulder to get him moving. The driver didn’t think his leader had been in danger either, but he hadn’t seen anyone walk right into a crowd of the dead, alone, as Fist had just done.

Still moving, Fist walked up to Murphy, who stood his ground.

“Did I hear you giving orders, Murph?”

“You might have.”

Fist’s blackened face scowled behind his face cage. “Don’t get used to it.”

The other man blinked.

Warning delivered, Fist got aboard his van. Pell and several of the others had paused to watch the short exchange, and Pell thought for certain Murphy was about to be gutted. He’d seen Fist do it for less. Shaking his head, Pell and the others climbed into their rigs. Sitting in the passenger seat, the face-caged profile of Fist stared ahead at the open highway.

“Find an off ramp and take us down there,” the leader rumbled. “Time for a show.”

Pell settled in and pressed down on the gas pedal.

The vans rolled down an exit and went into an unnamed neighborhood, a collection of houses and small commercial buildings. Zombies tried to stop this invasion, blocking the road in small clumps, but the vans knocked them down and crept over their cold forms, their bones crackling underneath the tires. The rig pigs inside squealed in delight. Fist rolled down his window and repeatedly slapped the side of the door with a meaty hand. More walking corpses came into the street—attracted by the fleshy beat and the sound of engines—but not enough to stop the machines. They were crushed like the others, and once the convoy reached the end of the road, they turned about and drove back, flattening any remaining zombies. On the third pass, Fist released his Norsemen. Almost a dozen erupted from the side and rear doors, whooping and roaring and making quick work of anything moving. They decimated any zombies that came into view, striking them down with wild mirth. Heads were struck from bodies or cleaved in two. The men joked and became almost uncontrollable, but they ran to the vans when their rides started moving again, falling in and walking alongside the vehicles.

As the sun descended and the shadows lengthened upon a road littered with unmoving bodies, the Norsemen kicked in doors and smashed windows of businesses and houses. In twos and threes, they raided property after property. When they discovered something of use, they took it outside and dumped it on the curb. Once finished with their looting, they set fire to the houses. The homes of the day weren’t the ones of yesteryear. While up to building code standards, open concept was the most popular floor plan, and coincidentally the best for allowing a fire to breathe. With no small rooms in a dwelling to contain a fire, cheap prefab building materials, and an overabundance of glue, open flames quickly grew into truly monstrous things and gutted houses from the inside out.

By nightfall, the Norsemen had ignited whole streets, still screaming, singing, and merrily basking in the heat and smoke from the impressive blazes.

In the morning, the fires still burned.

But the vans had moved on.

Scott

10

None of the corpses’ clothes would fit Scott, not even if he took off his Nomex coat––which he had no intention of doing. It was hot and heavy, and running in it would probably give him a heart attack, but it was also the most protective gear he possessed.

Having crept downstairs to where he’d shot the family, Scott stood in their midst and quietly contemplated his next move, his thoughts broken by the cries of the undead outside, as dull and dreary as foghorns around a midnight bay. The father of the family had a smaller frame than Scott and he decided any clothing would have to be cut off. He pulled the Bowie knife out of his boot and held it up like a scalpel. He dropped to one knee and grimaced at the smell of dead flesh. Taking the clothes off the corpses was all well and good in theory, but the reality was going to be difficult to do without puking. Scott pulled the bottom edge of his firefighter’s ninja mask up over his nose. He took a hold of one pant leg and inserted the knife. He sawed the length of the leg, straightening the dead limb out as needed, until he got to the upper thigh.

“Holy shit,” Scott gasped and backed away, draping an arm across his face. The rancid cloth he peeled away from the dead man stunk to hell. The quivering of hairy fat rolls didn’t help, either. He had played with the idea of gutting the father, or at least bleeding him a little, and wiping the blood on the cloth strips, but after smelling as well as tasting the foulness, he just couldn’t bring himself to do it. The way the stench was making him nauseous, he wouldn’t need to act like a deadhead. He resumed cutting around the dead dad, leaving him shirtless in a pair of cut-off Dockers. The mother received the same treatment, and she reeked just as badly. The danger of swooning made him stop once more, just to retreat to the living room to get some fresh air. Scott went back to her side and sliced away the arms of her dark, stained shirt and slacks. He stripped the T-shirts off the boys, but left the rest.

With the sour rags in his hands, Scott went into the kitchen and started cutting. He knotted strands together and tied the rotten material around his forearms, legs, and backpack. The father’s shirt got turned into an uneven poncho. One boy’s T-shirt became a hood to stretch over his helmet, something he wasn’t looking forward to doing. If only he had some ointment to put under his nose, something to dilute the smell.

Inspecting himself when he was all done, Scott figured there was no better time than the present to go for a walk and test his theory. He gathered up his things, flipped down his visor, and pulled on the hood and poncho, praying to God above the fresh air outside would help him breathe.

Outside, the evening sky bled dusky red.

Scott opened the front door and eased himself outside, closing it behind him. He had his bat in one hand and the Ruger in the other, just in case. Standing on a set of short, worn steps, he hunched over and watched the zombies walk past, heedless of him. He hoped his nerves would hold out.

He shuffled down squealing steps, taking his time and making no rushed movements. Act dead flashed in his mind. A ragged crowd lay no more than fifteen feet ahead of him, and Scott scrunched a shoulder up to his ear and let loose with a moan of what he hoped was convincing zombie-talk. He dragged his feet as he moved toward the road. Steady, he told himself. Don’t rush anything.

No sooner did he think it than his toes hooked into something under the snow and he stumbled, falling to his padded knees. His hands flashed out to stop his fall as his mind screamed NO!

The ground rushed up and slammed into him, bunching one arm uncomfortably against his chest. His bat rattled away, but he held on to the gun. Grinding his jaw, he reflexively drew his hands to his head and rolled over onto his back.

Too fast. A zombie detected the movement and slunk toward him, wheezing as if it possessed cancerous lungs. Scott watched the thing loom over him, its mouth hanging open in a frozen rictus. He forced himself to stay still while his heart screamed. The zombie came close enough for Scott to see its bare feet and the shredded flesh from soles that had once frozen to something. The urge to raise the Ruger, to blow the thing’s head off, became unbearable, and Scott understood what it was like to play chicken for real, when the stakes were life or death.

The deadhead stepped on him, planting one of those tattered feet squarely on his stomach, squeezing the breath out of the man draped in corpses’ clothing as it swung its weight across him, momentarily blotting out the sun.

Then the crushing pressure was gone, and the zombie moved away.

Scott lay on his back, composing himself before getting to his feet, acting as zombie-ish as his rattled mind could manage. He staggered a step and slowly picked up his bat from the ground. Something bumped into him and moved away, but he didn’t react. Didn’t move. Gimps staggered toward him, getting close enough for him to almost gag on their stench and weep at their horribly ravaged features. A woman walked toward him on a collision course, a nurse, with a huge chunk of meat missing from her bare left bicep, enough to see a generous amount of yellowed bone. Scott didn’t even blink as the creature thudded into him. He let its momentum spin him in a lazy circle so that he faced the other way. The nurse sleepwalked by, and the sight of the mob choking the streets made him almost giddy in the knees. The feeling of a small dog being chummed and thrown into a tank with sharks came to mind, and Scott willed himself to stand and watch and act as if he was one of the dead instead of the living, even though his fear yammered at him to bolt for high hills.

Two more zombies shoulder-nudged him and pushed him aside like a block of ice bobbing in a river. Scott rolled with the hits, forcing himself to not react, keeping his shoulders slumped and his arms at his sides. The gimps left him alone.

It was working. The dark visor hid the near panicked smile he felt spread across his features.

It was working better than he had expected.

In a thunderclap moment of amazement, Scott saw that the zombies actually ignored him.

Turning around in the tide, he peered ahead at the masses made dark by his visor. Act dead, he told himself, and stepped forward carefully, picking a path through the walking slabs of cold, hungry meat. Some came at him headlong, bent on colliding with him, and when they hit, he spun like a ponderous top. Scott forced himself to remain a lump on two unsteady legs. The zombies milled about, but none raised a hand toward him. He paced himself, slackened his posture, and shuffled through the gimps and the deserted cars and walked.

He walked until the sun dropped out of sight and the sky purpled.

Brown paint covered the two-story house in flakes that fluttered in a breeze. There was no front lawn to speak of, just the bare concrete slab of a sidewalk glazed in dark ice. Three stone patio squares led to a front door of what appeared to be heavy oak—the kind of door a person would feel safe behind. Scott moved in the direction of the house, swaying as if he’d broken both hips and downed a pint of rye whiskey. He climbed the steps, feeling dead eyes on his back and ass, and latched onto the knob like it was life itself.

Taking a breath, he twisted it.

Lady Luck smiled on him once more. The door was unlocked.

He stood there for a moment, hunched over as if waiting for a bullet to the skull and ever so grateful to have made it this far. He pushed, and the door moved with slight, sticky resistance. It didn’t open all the way, and he had to nudge it with his shoulder, making it squeal loud enough to make him cringe. He shambled inside, banging his shoulders off the frame as he went in and closing the door with a foot. The house was dark and he lingered in the entry, sizing up its dark hallway.

He waited, standing there in the dark, taking short, curt breaths and smelling the foul air.

“Anyone home?” he asked.

An answering hiss came from the kitchen, as startling as a snake’s rattle. A sexless shadow, slouched and menacing, oozed into the dim doorway ahead with the grace of a slug.

Scott fired the Ruger twice before it collapsed with a fleshy clatter.

He waited, gazing both inside and out. A throaty rumble came from the end of the hallway, organic and decomposing. Then an unsteady clumping drew closer, as if the person wore heavy work boots and walked on bare floor. Adjusting his stance, Scott waited until a huge gimp came into view. The thing clacked its forehead against the top of the door frame, and Scott blinked. He couldn’t remember ever seeing a taller specimen since the fall of civilization. The undead had to have been a basketball player in its life, but now it grunted and groaned as its skull prevented it from going any further.

Not wanting to wait, Scott walked up to it, taking zombie steps, and blasted its brain from underneath its chin. The gimp crashed to the ground in a heap. Scott listened for more zombies before finally figuring the place only had the pair of corpses. Relaxing, he returned to the door and locked it, then walked through an almost totally dark family room until he found the stairway to the upstairs.

He walked normally as he explored the rooms in the dark, fumbling as he went along. Locating the master bedroom and finding it empty, he took off his zombie clothes and placed them outside of the door, which he closed. A window overlooked a backyard almost swallowed up by the encroaching night.

Scott lay down on the bed without undressing, and while the smell of zombie flesh clung to him, it no longer bothered him as much.

He dreamt of Kelly and Suzy, the smell of rot surrounding them.

11

The next day, under an overcast sky, Scott once more walked with the dead.

Before he took to the road that morning, he had sliced up the clothes on the giant gimp and the smaller one, a pair of corpses that oddly complemented each other somehow, and used their ‘fresh’ clothing as additional camouflage.

He continued down Bayer’s Road. The Ruger in his right hand, the bat in his left, he weaved in and out of derelict cars and trucks when he had to, body-checking deadheads when necessary. On multiple occasions he leaned into his shoulder a second before making contact with a gimp, usually hard enough to put them on their bony asses. The first check he delivered scared him quite badly, as he thought it would attract too much attention, but he soon realized the gimps weren’t vindictive. None of them sought him out after he laid them out.

In fact, he had to pace his body checks, as it was far too much fun.

There was no wind, only the constant, freezing gnaw of winter and the eye-watering stench of his disguise, despite being outside in fresh air. Gimps walked, crawled, and slunk about the ground, complaining incessantly, and not taking notice of the hidden meal making a steady, but crooked line deeper into Halifax. Behind his visor, Scott’s eyes darted this way and that, taking in each deadhead as it came close to him, deciding quickly on whether he should lay into a corpse or let it bounce off him. For an old hockey player, it wasn’t a difficult rhythm to get into.

He paused at an intersection of Bayer’s Road, Windsor, and Young Street and felt his stomach lurch. Empty lots the color of the purest cream waited for him, offering no shelter or refuge for several hundred meters. A huge apartment complex lay to his right, and gimps had spilled out onto the streets and populated the open expanse like drunken people enjoying a park.

Behind him, only the hordes he’d already passed through.

There was no retreat.

Steeling himself, Scott plunged forward.

One zombie slipped on ice and fell across his path. Scott resisted the impulse to walk around the body for fear of being detected, so he stepped over the dead thing without missing a beat. He kept on, focused on what lay ahead. More zombies congealed into a wall, blocking his way and forcing him to slow down. He hoped they would split apart. They didn’t, however, and his course took him into two of them. He put his weight into his shoulder and broke through the pair, dropping one to the pavement. The flesh covering one bare knee broke open like a rotten potato, and blackness spurted out.

Scott stumbled along until the next scene stopped him dead in his tracks. His visor saved him, concealing his jaw just before it dropped in horror.

A van had crashed into a power pole, buckling the length of wood so that it leaned across its roof. A man hung from the T, crucified, his arms kept in place by what looked to be rope. His lower body, starting right at his waist, was gone. Devoured. Whoever had hung the man had done it so the zombies could feast on his legs and waist. Once it was gone, the undead had then reached up as far as they could into the rib cage, pulling down whatever had not simply dropped, perhaps even a rib or two, until the torso collapsed like a sloughed off snakeskin.

Scott tried very hard not to look at the reanimated upper half, moaning pitifully for release.

He lurched forward.

The intersection curved and Bayer’s Road abruptly became Young Street. A red billboard blazed “Value and S,” but the rest of the sign was covered with frost. Businesses drifted by his line of sight, some displaying signs announcing services and lunch specials, while underneath, zombies roamed aimlessly. A large Super Store rose above a parking lot teeming with the dead. An office building on his right had most of its windows smashed out. The dead cried out with decomposing vocal chords, making Scott wish they’d shut up for a moment. A transport trailer on the left had mowed down a tree before crashing into a power pole. A skeletal driver hung out of the cab, devoured from the waist down, a seat belt keeping the remains in place.

Scott passed it all, feeling the frayed seams of his sanity being tested from all angles.

He kept composed, stayed dead-looking, and avoided attention. At times he paused and slouched against a nearby car or truck and closed his eyes. In those moments, he concentrated on what the world had been like before the dead walked. In his mind’s eye, it was a winter’s day in the city; living people were all around him, carrying on with their business, heeding the slow pulse of traffic lights.

But as real as he managed to make these memories, they were only fleeting, like a painkiller that wore away far too soon. Then he was back in this world.

A feeling came over him as he walked down Young Street, passing once popular food chain restaurants and automotive service stations. The urge to stop and look around came upon him. Could he chance it? He decided he would and eased to a stop. A few seconds later, he turned around as if he possessed shattered hips.

Zombies passed in front of his vision—grisly, disfigured forms of rot, walking without direction.

Scott kept his posture slumped and studied the mob. Something would not allow him to tear his eyes away.

Then he saw it. A gimp walking with a pronounced sway to its shoulders as if it had trouble making its legs work. Covered in black gore, it strode straight ahead, pushing its way through.

Curiosity laced with growing dread hooked Scott’s attention. The gimp was heading straight for him. He turned about and got walking, deviating slightly from his path and crossing the street at an angle. After lumbering ten meters or so, he slowed and glanced back as nonchalantly as any deadhead.

Fear gave his mind and heart a squeeze.

The same gimp continued to follow.

Fighting down his swelling panic, he turned and shambled off, slowly veering back on his original path. Gritting his teeth, he realized he was moving too fast and forced himself to slow down. After another fifteen meters, he looked over his shoulder once more. The zombie pursued him still. Worse, it mirrored his movements and cut the distance. Black gore covered the leathery face of the thing, frozen around empty eye sockets.

Well, shit! Doubt stabbed his mind. Had his disguise somehow failed him? Focusing on the road and the zombies ahead, Scott increased his speed just a little and hoped to God the next time he checked, his tail would be gone.

He limped over Robie Street by mid-morning, straining hard to remain in character, but a part of his mind, the evil part, excreted foul images of how things would go down. He saw the zombie behind him attracting the attention of other gimps, following him until he broke or they simply jumped him. Even now, he believed his follower was attracting the attention of others, and a long, strung-out herd was forming behind him.

A fallen sign welcoming people to the Lion’s Head Tavern lay on his right, and Scott felt the overwhelming need to get off the road and out of sight. He stopped once again, half-turned in the street, and almost shit himself a second time in as many months when he saw that the zombie had not only continued stalking him, but had gained even more ground to come within a dozen strides of him. The empty caves of its eye sockets locked onto him.

What’s going on? He couldn’t shake the deadhead.

A white metro bus came into view, and he walked along its body until he got close to the driver’s side mirror. Some other zombies slowed his pursuer, and it reached the rear of the bus as he moved past it. Scott kept his head fixed straight as he shifted his eyes and studied the sides of the street, wanting to find a place to lure his hunter. Somewhere secret so he could take care of business with one quick and quiet shot.

Skeletal hedges went by, and he spotted the huge sign of Oland Brewery on the side of one building up the street. The beer maker looked to have exploded from some massive unknown attack, leaving a devastated shell that spilled debris onto the street. To his right, another brown two-story house came into view, with limited windows and a front door that opened almost directly onto the sidewalk. The door was ajar, and Scott made a beeline for it. The zombies had ripped down the front fence, and Scott felt it rattle when he stepped on it. He nudged the door open with a shoulder and went inside.

The stairs to the second floor faced him, alongside a short hallway to a kitchen area. An open living room and dining area lay to the right. Even though the door was open, the smell of some unknown rotting material clung to the air. Once inside, Scott dispensed with his zombie gait and pulled himself halfway up the steps before turning around and waiting. He pointed the Ruger at the front door, wanting the zombie to be well inside so that once he shot it, the dead thing wouldn’t block the entry and he could seal the house. Scott intended to go through the place afterward and do a cleaning, but first…

The form of his hunter bobbed into sight through the small circular window set in the door’s surface. It drew closer, until a hand pushed it open. Scott straightened his arm and took aim where he expected the head to appear. The gimp shrugged past the door and its face came up in a snarl.

Scott started to squeeze.

“Oh, Jesus, wait!” a woman’s voice squawked.

Scott gasped and jerked the gun toward the ceiling. The fright of those three words sent electric waves of what almost happened through his core. He collapsed on the stairs and stared at the thing in dumbfounded fascination.

“Oh, shit,” the zombie said, before glancing behind her—at least, it sounded like a woman. She moved inside and closed the door. “I think they’re coming.”

The lips of the hideous face didn’t move.

“Huh?” Scott blurted, utterly confused by what he was seeing.

“Listen, you idiot, we don’t have the time. Just come on. We’ll find the back door. There has to be one. Just pray to God it isn’t blocked or anything is in our way.”

With that, the gimp––who had followed him for almost half a kilometer––rushed to the kitchen in a totally lifelike manner.

“Holy shit.” Scott got up and bounded over the steps, landing heavily in his excitement. He scrambled after the stranger. “Hey, wait!”

“Go fuck yourself!” she called back. “You were the one hauling ass up the goddamn street for the last fifteen minutes!”

“Huh?” Scott paused in the threshold to the kitchen. The zombie was pressed up against the back door, her hand on the knob.

“Listen.” She raised a hand, her lips still paralyzed. “You follow me from now on, got it?”

Scott could only nod.

The zombie turned back to the door and opened it. She peered out and eased through. Scott followed. Outside, in cloud-muted daylight, the talking gimp, still looking as if it had the living shit kicked out of it, but in possession of a female voice, reverted back to a gunshot stagger. The sudden change left Scott standing and staring in amazement for all of three seconds. A crashing from the front of the house got him moving, and he left the door swinging as he followed the woman.

Back in the street, Scott didn’t let her out of sight. He noticed two short handles sticking up from her back, which made her easy to distinguish from the surrounding gimps. She led him down the road toward Oland Brewery. Crashing wood echoed somewhere behind them. Zombies in the street paused and considered the direction of the sound, while Scott and his mysterious talking gimp slowly moved against the tide, forcing through it like wooden prows through Arctic ice. Two gimps jostled the woman, but she didn’t cry out; she simply absorbed the hits, staggering for effect. She righted herself, staying in character, and pressed on. Deadheads wobbled by and Scott stayed three strides behind her, keeping in her wake. They came upon a row of independently owned shops. Across from them, bulldozers and cranes rested on an open construction site never to be finished.

She shuffled toward one of the shops, taking her time and moving through the walking corpses without drawing attention. She stopped at the glass door of a furniture shop and pushed it open, disappearing inside. Scott followed and, once he was inside, he saw her stop in an aisle surrounded by dusty-looking sofas. She looked to her left.

Scott saw the three deadheads a second later, lurking in parts of the shop, oblivious to them both.

She turned toward him and, with those mangled lips that didn’t move, said, “Lock the door.”

Scott complied, finding bolts at the top and bottom. The furniture shop contained beds of all sizes and colors, kitchen table sets, ovens, living room sets, and even washers and dryers. Funny, he hadn’t really considered them as furniture in his previous life.

“Don’t use the shotgun.”

“How do you know about the shotgun?”

The dead face turned toward him. “You’re kidding, right? How do you think I picked up on you? The thing’s hanging off your back. The poncho doesn’t hide it well, just makes you look like a walking pitched tent from behind. And I saw you come out of that place this morning. You closed the door behind yourself.”

“Oh.”

“Oh,” the face mocked him in a husky voice. “Just don’t use the shotgun.”

As she said it, her hands went up behind her head. She extracted two nightsticks that were almost two feet long. Holding one in each hand, she moved down the aisle, approaching the zombies from their flank. Scott raised the Ruger. He followed her until he had a clear shot, then took aim.

She glanced back at him just as he pulled the trigger. A zombie’s head snapped back before dropping to the floor in front of a beige sofa set with matching recliner. Gore speckled the upholstery.

“I think that was the shop manager,” he reported.

“Don’t waste your ammo, man.”

The two remaining deadheads hissed, opening mouths ringed with black skin tags. They moved unsteadily through the gaps between furniture. The talking zombie with the nightsticks went to meet them. Scott shoved his Ruger into his right boot and lifted the bat. Lazy hisses came from the two zombies, but they did not move to attack.

Once she got close enough, the woman dropped the gimp façade. The nightsticks crashed over the first zombie’s skull with enough power to make Scott cringe and glance fearfully to the store’s front. She drove the gimp to its knees and laid the second nightstick upside its skull, breaking it open and staining another set of sofa chairs with brain matter. The second zombie turned at the noise, but had no time for anything else as she hit the thing, one-two-three-four, crumpling its brainpan. It collapsed in an aisle. She continued pummeling the dead thing, striking it long after it had stopped moving, increasing the power of her blows until Scott felt a chill slink up his back.

Eventually, with a mighty expulsion of breath, she straightened up and regarded him.

He stood with his bat in hand, feeling awkward and more than a little wary.

“There might be more. Let’s search the place, okay? And meet over there in a minute.” She pointed a nightstick toward an open window set into a wall, which was probably the administration office. She left him without waiting for an answer, stalking off in search of other undead prey. Scott watched her go in stunned amazement. With a jolt, he remembered his task, and he went about doing it.

The place was empty.

They met back at the office a few minutes later, entering from a side door that locked from the inside. The window gave a clear view of the storefront while shielding them from any zombies beyond. Light from the open window offered just enough to see. Two large chestnut desks filled the square room, facing each other, while a sizeable leather sofa with some duct tape bandaging an arm rest lined the north wall.

Scott plopped down on the sofa, pulling off his undead-scented poncho, hood, and removing his motorcycle helmet and ninja mask underneath. The air was cold against his sweating flesh, and he took a deep breath of stale air. The woman stood by one desk and placed her clubs on its surface.

Then her hands went to her scalp and she pulled off her face.

12

The mask came off with a slurp. She wore a hood underneath that covered her face, and that came off next. Eyeing him, she tousled her flattened hair as if trying to resuscitate it and took a deep breath. Blue eyes narrowed in his direction before she pulled off her own poncho and let it drop in a heap onto the floor. A black backpack came off next. She wore a dark snowmobile suit and plastic elbow and knee pads. She reached up to her neckline and unzipped her suit a startling four inches, revealing white skin underneath. Making a face, she kicked the pile of dead clothing out the door and motioned for him to do the same. When he had, she closed it and went back to the desk.

“Man,” she said without looking at him. “I hate wearing that. Stinks. What were you doing out there?”

“Huh?” Scott asked as he sat back down.

She locked eyes with him, not bothering to repeat herself.

“Ah, well.” Scott leaned back on the sofa. “I was looking for someone.”

“Yeah? Who?”

Scott didn’t want to tell her just yet. “A man. That’s all I want to say right now.”

She leaned against the desk and stared at him. Scott noted that the nightsticks were within easy grasp. She didn’t trust him, and he didn’t blame her.

“A man, eh? You’re looking for a dude.”

“Yeah.”

“He’s a friend of yours?”

Scott blinked. “You’re asking a lot of questions.”

“Guess I am,” she said, breaking eye contact for a moment and squinting through the window, checking on the storefront. “What’s your name?”

“Scott.”

“I’m Amy.”

He nodded. Neither offered to shake hands. She had a raspy voice, as if she had screamed herself hoarse at one time and never fully recovered.

“Spotted you first thing when you came out of the house this morning.” Amy sized him up. “Not too many zombies take the time to close a door behind them.”

Scott felt the color drain out of his face and Amy nodded, eyes widening again for emphasis. “Yeah, a little thing like that gave you away. Lucky for you, though, that Moe doesn’t have the capacity to catch on to those little things.”

“Moe?”

“Yeah, zombies.”

Scott forced a little smile. “Nice.”

“Nice?” The skin between Amy’s eyes and forehead wrinkled. “Moe’s nice, eh? I’ll keep that in mind. What do you call them?”

“Gimps. Deadheads. Dees. Dead fuckers.”

Amy snorted, momentarily cracking her otherwise fierce demeanor. “I like that one.”

“It’s popular.”

“Yeah? With who?”

Scott realized it was just him and Gus.

Amy filled in the sudden quiet. “I’m sure whoever’s still alive at this stage has a pet name for them. We call them Moes, on account they moan. And zombies, of course. Or just the dead. The boys might take to dead fuckers.”

Scott didn’t ask who “the boys” were. He felt it was best to just stay quiet.

“Where’re you from?” Amy asked.

“Saint John. New Brunswick.”

“Never been,” Amy said curtly. She considered the desk behind her and hoisted herself up. “You’re a long way from home.”

“Came over here with some people I knew.”

“Where are they?”

“Dead.”

Amy didn’t offer condolences, but rather kept on gauging him with her dusky blue eyes.

“You?” Scott asked.

“I’m from Halifax.” She stopped from saying any more, and Scott realized she was a careful woman. “You’re smarter than most.”

“I am?” That was a surprise. “Why?”

“You figured out Moe can’t tell us apart once we get all stinky.”

“Oh, that. That only happened yesterday.”

“Better late than never. Especially here.”

“I guess.”

“Well,” Amy announced, as if deciding something. “You wanna come along with me, then? Meet the gang?”

Scott wasn’t sure about that, and Amy picked up on it. “Don’t worry. We’re cool.”

“Oh, uh, well…”

“Need time to think about it?”

“It’d be nice,” Scott admitted.

“You have as long as it takes me to catch my breath and walk out of here.”

Wow. He struggled to think of something to say. “That mask you have…”

“Something, ain’t it? It’s an old Brian Mulroney Halloween mask. Found it in a costume shop’s bargain bin.”

“Who?”

“Brian––never mind. Obviously before your time. Before my time, really. The benefits of a Poly-Sci education at Dal.”

“Where you get the nightsticks?”

Amy’s brow creased. “Nightsticks? Oh, these. They ain’t nightsticks. They’re tonfas.”

“What?”

“Tonfas. Hardwood martial arts weapons. I don’t have a gun. Wish I did, though. Something like that silencer you have there.”

“Sound suppressor.”

“Huh?”

“The proper term is––” Scott shook his head. “Where’d you get them?”

“From my teacher.”

Scott truly didn’t know what to make of Amy. Her brisk manner of conversation and her unwavering stare made him feel uncomfortable.

“We ran out of bullets long ago. One of the reasons we came to Halifax was to look for guns and ammo. There was an armory in town, you know.”

“I didn’t know that.”

“Yeah, well, there was. One of our guys was there. Blown to hell, though. Too bad for us. You don’t see it much around here, but downtown had the shit kicked out of it.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean it had the shit kicked out of it. Halifax explosion two point oh. The Army set up defenses around the place, blocking off whole streets with steel barricades, razor wire, and sandbags. Even buses in some cases. I wasn’t around for it, but you’ll see. Houses have been levelled, man. Some buildings look like blocks of cheese. The ones still there, I mean. We have theories on what might have happened, but before they died, the Forces kicked ass.”

“They died?”

Amy nodded. “The ones that were lucky. A lot of them rose as the dead. Unfortunate for us. We ran into a few already.”

“Why’s it unfortunate for us?” Scott knew he wouldn’t like the answer.

“The soldiers wore body armor, and it didn’t come off if they were turned. It stayed on. Worse, their helmets stayed on. I doubt your little sidearm there could poke a hole in one of them. And a smack to the head with a tonfa does shit all.”

“So how do you kill them?”

In answer, Amy reached down and pulled up a tonfa. The hilt of the weapon had been sharpened into a spike. Once Scott had an eyeful of that, Amy dropped it to the desk and pulled a survival knife out of her boot. She held it up, twisting it this way and that, showing off the serrated edge.

Scott was at a loss for words. The thought of facing zombies in full body armor made him uneasy.

“Through the eye or under the chin. The weather makes it harder than usual. You really have to punch the tip in hard, and it feels gross. Like you’re plunging into a frozen watermelon or thick slush or something like that. All grainy.”

“The cold freezes them,” Scott added.

Amy nodded. “I guess you know all about it since you’ve lived for this long.”

Scott supposed he did, but his mind still lingered on the zombie soldiers.

“So,” Amy finally announced. “I’m ready. How about you?”

“You don’t mind me coming along?”

“Nah. I think you’re okay.”

That surprised Scott. “Yeah, how so?”

“You have at least two guns on you, and you didn’t try to use them on me.”

Scott blinked. All this time, she’d been waiting for him to draw on her.

“And you didn’t try to rape me,” she said.

Stunned yet again, he couldn’t look her in the eyes. “Oh… I guess that’s a, uh, good indicator.”

“Yep. Big man like you. Armed to the teeth. Little girl like me with a pair of sticks. I wouldn’t have had much of a chance if you really wanted to bend me over the desk here.”

“Uh,” Scott said. He didn’t feel comfortable with the sudden change in conversation. He scratched at his neck and remembered her destroying the gimp from earlier. “Well, I wasn’t––”

“Thinking about it? I saw that. I have this thing about people. Hasn’t failed me yet.”

“Oh.” Scott felt strangely, awkwardly, on the defensive. “Good… Glad we had this. This talk.”

“Me too.” She got up off the desk. “I’m getting ready to leave. You still have a choice, but once I walk out of here, I’m gone. Plain and simple.”

“Where are you headed again?” Scott asked, standing.

“Downtown. It’ll be a day-long trip, with all the snow and shit in the streets. And then there’s Moe, of course. But you have the clothes, so that’s fine. Gonna have to touch them up some time, though.”

“What do you mean?”

“They’re clean. You haven’t saturated them in blood and guts. It’s worked for you so far, but sooner or later, your own smell will come through. Once that happens, they’ll be on you like a football in slow motion.”

Scott wasn’t sure he got the simile.

“We have a base downtown. Like I said, a bunch of streets were cut off and fortified. It didn’t work for the soldiers, but it’s all we got for now. And we all walk around in dead guts if we go beyond the fort.”

Jesus Christ, Scott thought.

“Shall we, then?” Amy asked as she gestured to the door.

Feeling as if he could have worse options, Scott nodded.

13

“Wait a second,” Amy said and went to one of the zombies she’d put down. Her knife appeared in her hand and she cut through the corpse’s shirt, revealing the sallow belly. The knife flashed as she stabbed down, sinking it to the hilt. She sawed with some effort, making a slit in the fish-belly flesh, gasping at the end. The smell of rancid guts poisoned the air, and Scott held his breath, looking away for a moment.

“Here you go,” Amy said and splashed a fistful of decomposing innards on Scott’s poncho-covered chest.

“Oh Jesus,” Scott gasped and bent over, suddenly sick. His hands went to his knees.

“You okay?”

Scott shook his head.

“You’ll get used to it,” she said.

He dry-heaved instead, suddenly thankful that he’d skipped breakfast. He spat and grunted, the powerful smell of intestinal juice making his eyes water.

Then he felt a splash against his back.

“All right,” Amy declared. “You’re done. Now do me.”

“What?”

“Stand up, you big baby, and take this.”

Scott glanced up and winced. Amy stood right before him holding a fistful of what appeared to be wet eels, grey-black, like something scooped out of a sewage line.

“Oh Jesus.” Scott looked away and felt his stomach rumble in dangerous fashion.

“I was like that once,” Amy said. “You get over it.”

Scott wasn’t sure he’d ever get over it, and rubbing the deadhead’s intestinal tract over himself was something he had difficulty processing mentally and physically. Amy waited for him to compose himself, which he had trouble doing.

“Look, it’s the best way.”

“Guh…”

“You okay?”

Scott cracked an irritated eye at her, shook his head, and went back to fighting the upheaval in his stomach. After a few moments, he regained control and straightened up once more.

“You really are a wuss, aren’tcha?” Amy asked. Scott saw that she had smeared the innards over her front and lower back.

“Yeah,” Scott muttered quietly. She had him there.

“Let’s get going, then,” she said and pulled on her hood and mask. Scott did the same, thanking God that he didn’t have to smear any guts on his hood. As it was, he was still combatting some dizziness. He never thought smell could be so powerful, so debilitating.

“You ready?”

Scott nodded, not even wanting to open his mouth. He pulled on his own hood, making sure it covered his nose. Then his helmet went on, and finally the cloth hood.

“I need air,” he informed her.

But she was already walking for the store’s front door.

Scott lurched after her, feeling very not ready for what was coming, but not wanting to be left behind, either. He suspected Amy was quite capable of doing just that if she had to. She opened the door and left it swinging for him, and he followed her outside.

Into a river of zombies.

Scott watched Amy blend in almost seamlessly with the tide of undead thanks to the bulk of her disguise. Fighting down the impulse to catch up to her, he hunched over and waded in with slow, lengthy steps. The air cleared the stench clinging to his person and helped alleviate his queasiness, but the thought that he wore a gimp’s insides on him was almost enough to make him barf. Once again, he thanked Christ above he hadn’t eaten anything that morning. A deadhead hit his right shoulder, off-balance, and crumpled to the ground. Scott walked on, eyes fixed on Amy’s back, doing as she did and hoping he was every bit as convincing.

They meandered along in undead fashion, passing a number of quaint houses submerged in finely sculpted drifts. Some houses were burnt out husks that gleamed with frost, while other lots were empty except for snow. Scott believed that if he dug, he’d find blasted foundations. Whatever the Army had in their armory, they hadn’t hesitated to use it. Cars lay buried in driveways or parked on the sidewalks. Some dotted the road itself, no doubt once seeking to escape the city. The snow on the roads became more packed down as the dead trampled over it, pressing it until the main drags were relatively easy to walk.

They kept going until Scott noticed Amy deviating ever so subtly from her path. Then he saw why. Young Street narrowed to almost a single lane. Power poles crisscrossed the street, creating a logjam of wailing deadheads too brain dead to simply turn around and walk out of the trap.

Just over their heads, Scott thought he saw an ice bound harbour.

Amy turned to her left and walked up a long slope. More picturesque houses half destroyed. More Army destruction. Four houses in a row appeared to have been firebombed. Their blackened walls stood, but Scott didn’t think they would stay that way for long. Deadheads fell into step alongside him, but he focused on Amy just ahead and slowly out-paced his unliving companions.

They passed a white dune where three torsos jutted from the snow bank, their horrid features staring into space, their mouths frozen open. Scott wasn’t certain if they were deadheads or not, and they soon passed out of sight. He kicked at corpses at his feet, animated and groaning as they made do without legs and pulled themselves forward. Two corpses didn’t have limbs at all, and one tried to inchworm along the frozen asphalt with one arm that ended in a splintered wrist.

Amy marched on, ignoring the horrors and earning Scott’s growing amazement. How did she do it? How did she simply walk by such gruesome displays and not lose it? It urged him to control his own frayed nerves.

The street ended in a wire fence and she eventually stopped against it, swaying as if a wind pushed her. Zombies stood on both sides of her, staring at the same thing, and she blended in. Scott stopped just behind her and forced himself to ignore the others, feeling that if one brushed up against him, he just might scream. A nearby sign read “Needham Memorial Park.” Beyond the fence, hundreds of deadheads trudged aimlessly in a slow cadence through trampled down drifts. Some crested a hill, as if mulling their unlife, while others moped around its snow cap. Some bumped into a distant jungle gym. Scott spotted one that had somehow gotten tangled in the chains of a swing.

Well, shit, Scott thought, feeling a strong surge of unease bubble up, wanting to turn and run. His breathing picked up, and nervous energy was building up in his calves, causing them to ache. Some of the zombies on the other side of the fence were walking toward him, eyeing him evilly. Never had he seen so many undead. Not in Saint John, and not in Annapolis. He gaped at the horde enjoying the park, the words “so many, so many” pulsating in his skull. Control started slipping away. Zombies were closing in, sensing something off about him, something not quite dead. A hospital patient wearing light green pajamas dragged itself toward the fence, toward him. Surgical tubing and IV lines hung from its stomach and arms like horrible, bloodless veins. That one knew he was alive, Scott was suddenly sure of it. That one was coming right for him, and it would reach over the fence with a palsied hand and grip his poncho and rip it from his body. It would only take that one movement and one triumphant wail from the undead thing, and then all of them would pile on him like a sacked quarterback forced to the ground, where they would work their teeth into everything and pull until something gave in a burst of blood. All to his muffled shrieks.

Amy nudged him a little too hard, bumping him into the zombie next to him. She had turned around ever so casually, then began walking back the way they had come.

Struggling with the sense of imminent doom, Scott did the same, convinced that any second he would feel the groping hand of the hospital invalid on his shoulder. He couldn’t move fast enough from the gate, and the urge to check on where the zombie was swelled up in his brain like a murderous tumor ready to pop. His legs went to rubber. His skin became clammy and his breath quickened. His breathing! They could hear his breathing! He sounded like a train! The dead things along the fence were watching him with graveyard amusement, daring him to give up the act. Who was he fooling? Any second he’d be halted and bitten.

But that didn’t happen.

As he stumbled away from the fence and the vast mob in the park, nothing reached out to grab him. Nothing clamped rotting teeth onto his shoulder. Nothing tried to stop him.

Scott hoped that Amy would seek shelter in one of the houses soon. He’d had enough walking with the dead for one day. His mind redlined, and its needle quivered toward meltdown.

If they didn’t get out of sight soon, he knew he would freak in epic proportions.

If that happens, his mind stated clinically, we’ll both be well and truly fucked.

He opened his mouth and moaned, only half aware he was doing it. The zombie ahead of him stopped and turned around, and he saw it wasn’t Amy; it was some hideous caricature of a face, and more zombies were gathering around its shoulders like a dark wall, damming him in. The lead gimp came for him, its lips smeared at the corners like a drowned clown’s grin. Scott halted in his tracks and bent over for his gun, his fingers slipping on the textured metal grip. The zombie moved in a blur, startling him with its speed, and butted its chest against him. It raised its face and Scott saw the clearest blue eyes glaring at him, seemingly screaming at him to hold it together, to hold it in because if he lost it, they were both dead. They would be pulled apart in seconds. He tried to move away, but the thing grabbed him, and that almost made him shriek.

Then it was pulling away, taking him by the wrist and walking as if it had both knees blown out. Scott let himself be led, feeling an ocean of undead eyes watch with an unspoken query. They jostled him. Zombies crawled blindly at his feet and attempted to trip him. His vision became a wall of grey-blue faces, black skin tags, and parted, hungry mouths.

A house rose up before them. They inched their way toward the door, when Scott really wanted to sprint. Every muscle and fiber in his body wanted him to take off, but the zombie leading him dictated their pace. They crossed the magically elongating distance as if they were dragging granite blocks behind them, and that wait almost set him off.

Finally, after what felt like a year, they reached the front steps.

The zombie with the human eyes pulled him inside and nudged the door, allowing it to swing most of the way shut before finally pushing it closed with a click. Then the creature whirled on him and shoved him up against the wall. Scott grabbed the front of its clothing and snarled. The zombie clutched his wrist, twisted it somehow, and bent him over almost effortlessly. A surprised, breathless wheeze of pain broke from his lips. A foot crashed into the back of his knee, dropping him to the floor, and suddenly the deadhead before him was a head taller.

“Shut up, you bastard,” a husky whisper urged. “Shut up or I swear to God I’ll leave you here.”

Scott’s eyes clinched shut. Two years of holding it together and suddenly the wheels on his wagon didn’t just drop off, they flew. His hearing went offline, leaving only a flat buzz that hummed shrilly deep inside his skull. He panted and moaned the weak wail of a kid left on a dock, watching the family boat pull away with everyone on it except him. He set his jaw, held on to the gimp with the woman’s voice, and waited for the teeth. Images of his wife and child flashed through his mind to be replaced by this thing that smelled like rotting meat and shit. And Jesus! Oh, Jesus Christ! It finally had him! Finally had him at its mercy and any moment now…

Scott froze, paralyzed with fright, as if the mother of all black widows had just injected him with enough venom to blow off the top of his head.

He whimpered and waited for the teeth.

Instead, anaconda arms wrapped around his head in slow, murderous motions and drew him in and held on. Not crushing, but just… pressing against him, firmly. Warmly. The zombie held on to him like that until his breath subsided; until he realized that it wasn’t biting him; until he relaxed in its arms; until he remembered that the thing had a name and it was Amy. He listened as the off-the-air whine in his ears resumed picking up real sound, and the moans were behind the closed door, in the street.

Far away.

And after a while, tears welled up in his eyes and he hugged her back.

14

They stayed upstairs in the empty house for the rest of the day. Amy had led him to the master bedroom after stripping off his clothes, then heaped him onto a queen-size bed with a red satin comforter. She rolled the blanket around him like a bloody California roll, said something comforting, and left the room. Scott heard her moving things around and he wanted to help, but his limbs had gone boneless, and his voice didn’t seem to want to work. He closed his eyes instead and fell into an exhausted sleep where he dreamed fleetingly of the Mountain Man, on a sofa, nursing a bottle of Captain Morgan.

You fucked up, Gus informed him with a drunken smile. Booze didn’t lie.

Shame flooded Scott. He’d jeopardized not only his life, but hers as well. So much for his mental toughness.

Fucked up big time, Gus droned on.

Scott had nothing to say to that.

But I think it’ll be okay.

You think? Scott asked, suddenly hopeful.

Sure thing, Chico.

Scott sighed. My fucking name isn’t Chico.

That set the Mountain Man laughing. Scott joined in, feeling better. He felt a hand across his mouth and opened his eyes to see an intense, round face peering at him.

“Hi,” he said, but it came out as a mouse fart.

Amy frowned at the muffled squeal. “You back?” she asked.

Scott nodded.

“You aren’t going to freak out again?”

That made him take a deep breath through his nose. Amy removed her hand, her blue eyes dark and hard like sharp rocks. She backed off and returned to the wooden chair she’d been sitting in beside the bed. Dull squeaks pierced the air as she sat down. Scott heard her sigh.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered after a while.

Amy said nothing.

“I lost it out there. I… you didn’t have to save my ass like that, but you did. I owe you one. Bigtime.”

He heard a sigh from Amy’s dark form near the bed. “Don’t worry about it.”

But Scott did. He felt the terrible, gnawing shame of letting her down, and he didn’t even know her, but he knew he needed to redeem himself in her eyes.

“Hope you don’t mind, I ate some of that beef stew in your backpack,” Amy said.

Scott had to think about what exactly he had with him. Then he remembered. “What’s mine is yours, now.”

“Where’d you get that, anyway?”

“The stew?”

“Yeah.”

“From a friend.”

“He got any more?”

Scott smiled in the dark. “Yeah. Tons.”

Amy grunted and folded her hands on her lap.

Scott cleared his throat. “I thought you were a deadhead out there. Thought you were going to bite me. I don’t think I’ve ever seen so many gimps before, so close, clustered together like that. Crawling on the… on the ground. All around. I froze. Everything just got to me all at once. Something just snapped.”

He stopped then and thought about what else to say. In the end, he softly said, “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome,” she replied quietly. “Just don’t let it happen again.”

“I’ll try.”

Amy said nothing. Outside, the morbid chorus of the undying seemed distant and oh so cold. Scott listened to it for a while, feeling the contrast of the bed’s warmth. No matter what it was like outside, there was perhaps nothing so grounding as the comfort of a warm bed.

“We stay here for the night?” Scott asked her.

“I don’t think you’re in any condition to go anywhere. Do you?”

“No… What about your friends?”

“They aren’t going anywhere.” She seemed pretty certain about that.

“Really?”

“Yeah. That stew was really good,” she said.

“Did you eat it all?”

“No, only half. Hard to eat when Moe’s around.”

“I hear that.”

“Never touched it when the world was still the world. Called it dog food.” Amy sighed in the dark. “Never again.”

“Funny, eh?” Scott agreed. “That, and the little things you miss. Go easy on it, ’cause once it’s gone, you’ll miss it.”

“You know what I miss?”

“What?”

“Q-tips.”

Scott felt his forehead crease. “Q-tips?”

“Yeah. I used to love cleaning my ears. Still do, I mean, but it’s not like I can do it every day, anymore.”

“Why not?”

“Well, I can.” Amy backed up. “It’s just that, sooner or later, they’ll be all gone. And you know what?”

“Hm?”

“When the world was falling apart, I bet I went something like three months before I cleaned out my ears. Something, eh? And when I finally did, it was as gross as it sounds.”

“Does sound gross.”

“It was. Needed an ear pick.”

“Ew.”

The dead called out from outside, but Scott didn’t care. They were outside, and he was fine. “What’s the plan for tomorrow?”

Amy appeared to think. “First, we’ll see how you’re doing.”

“I’ll be fine.”

Silence. “Then we’ll see if we can make it down the street out there. Continue toward Barrington and make our way to the casino.”

“Casino? There’s a casino in Halifax?”

“There was. Once. Now it’s next to home plate.”

“Your boys are there?”

“Yep.”

“How many?”

“You’ll see.”

“They anything like you?”

“No,” Amy said quietly. “I’m special.”

Scott almost said, You certainly are, but he didn’t, realizing that it came close to actually flirting. Flirting with a stranger in a dark room while recovering from losing his mind, and with zombies outside in the cold, didn’t appeal to him. So he stopped right there.

“Get some sleep,” Amy said as if sensing his thoughts. “I’ll keep watch. When you can’t sleep anymore, it’ll be your shift. Fair enough?”

“Yes.”

“G’night, then.”

“You’ll be okay?” Scott asked and was immediately thankful for the dark. He felt his cheeks burn with embarrassment.

Amy didn’t answer right away, but she turned ever so slightly in his direction. “Course I’ll be okay,” she said without any trace of annoyance. “Told you, I’m special.”

Certainly are, Scott thought a second time. With that, he stopped talking.

And eventually tumbled into sleep.

*

In the morning, he woke up to find Amy already awake and moving. It didn’t surprise him. In the short time he’d known her, he recognized that there was very little Amy couldn’t do, and if there was something, she’d work around it somehow. A person had to respect that. Up until yesterday, Scott had thought he was the same way. The memory of losing his composure in front of her still burned in his craw and set him shaking.

“You okay?” she asked when she came in from the hallway.

“Yeah,” he answered, tossing off the bedcovers. “Yeah. Breakfast?”

“Sure. Whad’ya got?”

From his pack, he pulled out a can of cold ravioli in meat sauce, opened it, and offered it to her while she pulled up a chair.

“Thanks,” she said. She left the room and came back with a spoon from her pack. He sat at a nearby desk.

“Where’d you sleep last night?” he asked.

“Next room.”

“Ah.”

“They got nice beds in this place,” she commented.

“You got any water?”

“Yeah, in the bag,” she said, taking a bite and nodding. “Good. Actually had a case of this. The last can went about a week ago.”

“We’ll need to get more water soon,” Scott stated, studying the bedroom.

“Not going to be easy,” Amy said as she chewed. “But I know a place along the way. We actually have a bunch of bottled water at the base downtown. MREs as well.”

“Those the ready-to-eat meals?”

Amy nodded. “After stuff like this, a chicken MRE is like Christmas dinner.”

Scott bet it was. “You said you guys were looking for ammo here. One of the reasons you came to Halifax. What were the others?”

“Find other people. Strength in numbers and all that.”

“City’s a bad spot, though. I mean, by now most people are either out or long dead.”

“Leaving all this wonderful stuff,” Amy said. She pushed hair out of her eyes and studied the inside of the can, looking for the next chunk. “The city still offers a lot. It’s just getting it is all. When we realized we could disguise ourselves to blend in, it seemed the way to go. Get searching, get what we were looking for, and then get out. One trip.”

“People and ammo,” Scott stated, looking at the bedroom’s only window, hearing the dull, constant wail of the dead outside.

“And seeds.”

“What?”

“Seeds. Fruit and vegetables. Most of the farmland still has stuff growing in it, but it’s wild and weedy. And there’s Moe. We were looking for a Home Hardware depot with a gardener’s section, or anyplace else. I found one a few klicks away from where I spotted you and found a bunch of packets.”

“You know anything about that?”

“Got a degree in agriculture.”

“Thought you were a Poly-Sci grad.”

“And agriculture,” she stated, handing him the leftovers. “Thanks.”

Scott took the can and dug into the remaining half. Freaking out left a person with an appetite. “You’re welcome. Does it have to be a Home Hardware? I mean, I passed a Superstore on the way in.”

“I think I know the one. I was in it the morning just before I spotted you. Actually camped out on a sofa up in the manager’s office the night before. Nothing there, though.”

“You got everything you were looking for in one stop?”

“Pretty much. Onions, carrots, some broccoli. A few others. I got a few packets of each. More than enough to get us started. But if I spot any other groceries or the like, I’ll still check it out. Never know what you’ll find.”

“And the seeds are still good?”

“Oh, yeah. Most seeds are good for a few years, but the germination rates get lower as time goes on. I think we’ll be fine. Some won’t be any good at all, though. Like, say, parsnips.”

Scott didn’t really like parsnips anyway. “What happens when you’re all finished with everything?”

“We move out. Been here almost two weeks as it is, looking for stuff. The Forces left a bunch of canned goods and MREs back at the base. Lots of supplies, but we can’t stay here, obviously. Moe’s too strong.”

“Where are you headed after Halifax?”

“We have a safe place to start over.” Amy glanced at him, her bangs falling over her face. “You interested?”

Start over. The words glowed in his mind’s eye. Start over was oversimplified. “If it’s okay with you, I’d like to think about it first.”

Amy stood up. “When you’re finished eating, let’s get moving.”

Scott nodded and dug into the cold leftovers.

“Who you looking for?”

He stopped eating. “A guy who…”

“Who what?”

“Killed some friends of mine.”

Amy remained quiet for moment. “And you think he’s in Halifax.”

“Maybe. Decided this was as good a place to start, anyway.”

“There are bad ones out there. Worse out west, I’ve heard. Road warrior shit happening out there.”

“Yeah, well, I just want to take care of some business.”

“You know this guy’s name?”

“Tenner.”

Amy grunted. “What’s he look like?”

Scott swallowed some ravioli. “Don’t really know. I never saw him. I heard his voice just before he shot me in the back and left me for dead. Then he went to work on my two friends. He got into a basement and cut them up.”

“Jesus.”

“Yeah,” Scott said, finishing off his food, which had lost all taste. He left the empty can on the desk. “Well, I know his voice. If I hear it again, I’ll know.”

“Ready for the horror show?” Amy asked him after a moment.

“Yeah.” But he didn’t sound or know for certain. There was only one way to find out, and despite what had happened to him yesterday, Scott was always one for getting back into the saddle. Unless the saddle killed him first.

They finished up their morning routines in separate bathrooms, got dressed, and met in the living room. The bloody outerwear they gathered up and held at arms’ length like old skin shavings. They put on the gear in silence, each thinking of what was to come, and Scott also wondering if he truly was up for walking with the dead. Amy was probably wondering the same, but she said nothing.

“All set?” she asked, her Brian Mulroney mask hiding her identity almost too well.

“Yeah.”

“Don’t shut the door this time,” she warned as she gripped the knob.

Did she have to remind him of that? Scott felt like shit.

She opened the door to reveal a scene from a painting, white ruined with black. The cold air hit them in a gust and paralyzed them for a moment. The road teemed with undead, both walking and slinking along like worms coated in ice particles, moving in that half-frozen way that was so disturbing to watch.

Amy shuffled out the doorway and into the street. Scott followed, his anxiety rising, but not dangerously so. They headed down the slope and back the way they had come, then struck left, between two houses, bypassing the crunch of gimps at the nearing intersection. Scott was glad to see the backyards were small and the color of unspoiled porcelain. Amy moved through drifts, her feet punching through with little winded pops, and he did his best to keep up. He struggled through the snow, using the bat for balance and hoping the dead would not detect him. The thought embarrassed him. There weren’t any in sight behind the houses, yet he was still worried.

Amy ambled by three houses painted light green, pink, and white, then she took a right and walked down a driveway, moving slowly around a German-made Jetta buried up to its windows. Scott followed, cheating by placing his feet in the holes she’d already made. Amy paused in the road beyond, and Scott didn’t know if she was waiting for him or simply acting like a dead deer. He stopped beside her and looked ahead.

Halifax Harbour, plugged with ice floes that must have drifted in overnight. Nothing had ever looked colder. Amy started walking again, slower than before, and Scott realized why. They were headed down a hill glazed with snow. Ice slicked the pavement underneath the powder. There were grooves in the surface, and he realized they had been made by Moe trying to walk up over the hill, but slipping and sliding back down to the T-intersection at the base of the hill.

Scott’s breath caught in his throat.

The road looked like a protest march of epic, undead proportions.

And they were walking right for it.

Underneath his hood and visor, Scott bared his teeth at the nearing mob, wondering if Amy truly meant to walk amongst the throngs on the lower road, dreading the notion. The woman had ice in her veins. Moe shambled along to a song of pity and horror, and Scott felt a sudden urge for rum, whiskey, anything to take the edge off, anything to armor his insides. Beyond the parade was a factory of some sort, but reaching it seemed impossible.

To his relief, Amy veered to the right, keeping close to a wire fence. A large billboard sign rose up after that, announcing a SPRING SPECIAL on carpet cleanings. The red building behind it was a ruined blossom of brick, steel girders, broken glass, and splintered wood. A bus shelter came into view, the glass walls intact, holding seven or eight deadheads in place like a tight fishbowl. One had its face pressed up hard against the glass, smearing the fleshy pulp of one cheek until it gave away like a piece of dry, crumbly cake, coating the glass in black and exposing a decayed rack of molars. The cheek stuck for a split second before dropping.

Scott didn’t need to see any more of that.

Amy pushed past the things jammed into the bus shelter and zombie-walked up a furrow that might have had a sidewalk underneath. Scott walked in her slipstream, aware of the gimps milling about in the street to his left and feeling his armpits flood with sweat. He didn’t falter, however, didn’t break. That confidence galvanized him and made him feel back in control. He hoped his recent lapse was only a one-time thing.

Under an increasingly cloudy sky, they ambled past what Scott believed to be thousands of undead. Moe was everywhere on the street and sidewalk. It was the largest concentration of dead things he’d ever seen, bigger than what he had witnessed in Annapolis, and despair rose up into his gullet like an undigested lump. It had been a mistake to come into the city. Tenner had to have perished in such a hellish place. There was simply no place to run from them all.

The chalky glut of ice in the bay’s throat appeared pristine, but then dark shapes, like tombstones, bobbed into sight. Deadheads moved on the ice, perhaps trapped, perhaps coming from the other side. A green sign marked the street Scott and Amy travelled as Barrington. Another sign designated the vast dock area on the bay as the Halifax Shipyard, but the buildings were wrecked, flattened into splintery lumps by some unknown force. Amy moved on, following Barrington Street to the south. An embankment of ice and snow rose up on their right, and in the distance, suspended almost magically over the bay, stood an enormous red bridge spanning the two sides.

The sense of going somewhere filled Scott as he lurched after his guide, fighting down the urge to stop and simply take in the majesty of the still-standing structure. Half-destroyed buildings of unknown purpose stood atop the embankment on his right, and at first Scott thought they were hotels. A knot of zombies gathered underneath a white sign stating that the maximum speed was fifty. Scott thought there were at least two hundred gimps around the pole, spilling out into the street. There was a morbid joke in there he couldn’t pull the trigger on.

Amy sunk into them like a cell penetrating a permeable wall. The very sight of her going into the mass made his scrotum tighten. The woman was crazy. Either that, or she had the biggest pair of wrecking balls he’d ever seen. Even worse was that he was following her in. Taking a breath, Scott braced himself.

And then he was amongst them.

The smell of the things enveloped him, and he stretched out his neck so that he wouldn’t lose sight of her. Walled in as they were, with the bay on the left and the tall embankment on the right, Moe seemed to have stopped and gathered in the road as if waiting for one to rise and begin belting out demands from a soap box. The gimps pushed and crowded Scott like a tightly-packed herd of cattle. They banged into his front, sides, and back, and he had to stop and slowly twirl to get around them. Several times he went sideways, and those were the worst. They pressed against his back with an almost maddening pressure, and had he suffered from agoraphobia, it would have been enough to drive him over the brink. He lost sight of Amy. If it weren’t for the narrowness of the street, he might have gotten turned around and pushed away from her entirely. A railing kept him from falling over a ledge and into shipyard buildings just below the street. He pushed his way along the length of metal, ignoring the innumerable smiling faces confronting him.

Then the dead thinned out, and he broke through the crowd.

Relief surged through him when he saw Amy perhaps thirty meters up the street, stopped and waiting for him. A series of large, brown brick buildings stood behind her. Scott increased his speed ever so slightly and, minutes later, he drew up alongside her, even more relieved to see that it was indeed her and not some cruel trick.

Amy nodded approvingly—or at least he thought it was a nod, since she was still in zombie-mode—and started walking again.

They moved deeper into Halifax as the sun drifted past its apex. The landscape became even more of a warzone. Sections of the road actually had become glazed craters from massive explosions. Signs had been ripped from their posts. Cars and trucks were tipped onto their sides or crushed, as if by tanks. Some looked to have been blown apart in fiery glee. An Armed Forces G-Wagon, which Scott knew were militarized jeeps with machine gun mounts on the roof, lay buried in snow up to its grille. They moved past a green tank in the middle of the road, as dead as the patches of zombies crowding it, and Scott got his first look at the metal beast. Then he saw the soldier.

Amy walked by the thing as it stood at the heel of the armored vehicle, like a dog beside its master. It didn’t wear a helmet, but a full flak vest covered its torso and green military-issued jacket. The soldier gimp’s right arm had been chewed off just below the elbow, and the corpse used this to periodically beat upon the tank’s bulk, like a lost child trying to get the attention of an elder. Amy continued on and Scott followed, fighting down the urge to stop and stare at the undead soldier.

Time dragged on, and the cold chewed on his extremities. A chill reached his core despite his Nomex protection and the clothing underneath. They didn’t stop for lunch, and Scott began to admire the pace Amy set. The woman didn’t slow down. She was military stock through and through.

They passed under the bridge’s overpass and continued walking. Apartment buildings and houses came into view, blasted, burnt, and left for dead. A stone church rose up before them, just behind an apartment building in better shape than most. A garage door was opened three feet at the base of the building, and Amy veered toward it. Scott followed her in, bypassing the undead mobs.

She lowered herself to the snow and wormed her way underneath the door. Scott did the same and, once inside, she grabbed him by the wrist and led him along the door, the only light at their feet. The touch of her hand was far more comforting than he expected.

“There’s a stairway over here and an apartment on the first floor,” she whispered to him. “I cleared out the place a few days ago, but anything could be back in it. That’s where we’re going.”

“Tired?” Scott asked good-naturedly, knowing they had to have walked a good twenty kilometers in the dead- and snow-filled street.

“A little, but I also left two jugs of water in the fridge here.”

That information made Scott aware of his own parched throat. “Lead the way.”

15

They blockaded the apartment’s heavy door with a piece of two-by-four, then slid the pair of deadbolts on the upper and lower section of the frame. They took off their bloody clothes and tossed them into a bathtub, then closed the door to the washroom. They got out of their gear underneath and stretched. Scott figured it was nearing three in the afternoon, and Amy told him they wouldn’t make the base until tomorrow. It was safer to camp out at the apartment.

It wasn’t a bad place, in Scott’s opinion. A little lower end than what he would have expected, but he imagined the harbor view had once demanded a hefty price. Feeling peckish, they returned to the kitchen table to eat something. She got the two jugs of water from the fridge and placed one down on the table in front of him. Scott opened a can of beans and wieners, much to the disdain of Amy.

“What?” he asked.

“Beans and wieners?”

“Yeah? What?”

“They give me gas.”

“They give most people gas.”

“No, you don’t understand,” Amy said in a serious tone. “They give me gas. I’m warning you now, okay?”

Scott shrugged. “Don’t scare me. You act like women don’t get gas or something. I was married, you know. And you don’t have to eat it. Don’t you have anything with you?”

“Ate it all before I met you. Last half of an MRE. I was on my way back to base. I don’t eat much, actually.” Amy sat down across from him as he scooped out half of the can onto a glass plate. “How long were you married?”

Scott smiled faintly. “Not long enough. This mine?” He pointed at the jug.

“Yeah.”

“Thanks.” He took the four liter jug and cracked it open. He drank almost a fourth of it before placing it back on the table. “Oh, that’s good.”

“Save it, because that’s all there is.”

“This is fine.” Scott gasped. “Oh my.”

They finished their meal. Afterward, they retired to the living room and pulled the sofa across the floor so it faced the bay. Sounds of the undead moving in the street some twenty feet below reached them. Scott feared that if he stepped up to the glass and peered over the balcony’s edge, the deadheads would be there staring back up at him.

“Not a bad place,” he commented quietly, not venturing any closer to the window.

“The view makes it. I call dibs on the bedroom.”

“Okay.”

“And I don’t think there’s a need for shifts. We’re pretty safe in here. They can’t open the door in the stairwell, and someone cleared out this whole floor ages ago.”

“How many are you?”

Amy settled back into the couch. “Six total. There were seven, but one guy got himself killed. Man, I wish the water worked in this place.”

“Sorry. Did you know him?”

“As well as I know you.”

Scott hesitated and decided to change the subject. “I came from Annapolis before this. The guy I knew there had running water.”

“No way!”

“Yeah. I even got to take a bath.”

“Oh man, are you serious? I don’t want to sound gross, especially after telling you about the ear thing, but I can’t remember the last time I had a bath.”

“Hot water, too.”

“How?”

“The place he’s got has solar panels, so when the power grid failed and the lights went off, his stayed on.”

“Wow.” Amy shook her head, impressed. “And you left all that?”

“I did.”

“Hope you find your killer,” Amy said, making herself comfortable. She stretched out her legs, covered in denim, and placed two sock-covered feet against the glass.

“We need that coffee table.”

“I can get that.” Scott stood and lifted the piece of furniture around the sofa so that she could set her feet on it. Once in place, he stepped over her legs and sat down on the opposite end, catching a lingering whiff of blood.

“You’re useful,” Amy said, eyeing him.

“Yeah, that’s me,” Scott replied, scratching at his growing beard. It was really starting to itch.

They sat and quietly gazed out over Halifax Harbour, the sun lashing the sky in swathes of red and gold. There were warships a little farther up in the harbor, shadowy, cold, and dead-looking. Amy got up and left and Scott followed her with his eyes, settling on the frumpy ass of her jeans for the briefest of moments, as if he were touching a reddening stove burner. She came back ten minutes later. She carried a stack of thick quilts, half of which she gave to Scott. They got underneath the blankets at opposite ends of the sofa. It felt good to relax, to get away from the dead.

“You know,” Amy said softly, “if it weren’t for the fact that Moe was right below outside, I’d say this was any other winter day.”

“Well, let’s just pretend it is.”

“Good idea.”

They became quite for a moment.

“Where’s this place you guys are heading?” Scott finally asked. The warmth of the blankets and the softness of the sofa leeched the tension from him and made him weary.

“Big Tancook.”

“What’s that?”

“It’s an island off of Blandford. Small population. Easy to get rid of Moe.”

“An island,” Scott whispered. “How far off?”

“A few kilometers off the mainland.

“That’s a long boat ride.”

“Longer when you’re rowing, but we have that covered.”

“How so?” Scott looked at her.

Amy met his inquiring gaze with a steady one of her own, her blue eyes locking with his, and Scott thought for a split second that she wasn’t going to say anything. “We met up with a group from Antigonish who were on their way to Tancook. We got along and figured it was in both groups’ best interests to join up. Repopulate the earth, y’know?”

Repopulate the earth for the Lord! a voice cried out in Scott’s head, reminding him of the priest who had barricaded himself in an underground bunker with fifty women.

“There’re about twenty-five of us. Seven of us decided to head into Halifax since it was on the way, while the others went to Blandford to try and secure a boat or something to carry us all across. We thought about going to PEI, but decided against it.”

“Why?” Scott asked. “Better farming there.”

“Bigger population as well. We’d exhaust ourselves trying to clear Moe outta the place. One of the smaller islands was decided upon, but not too small. Big Tancook was it. Only about a hundred people living on it. Or lived on it, I should say. We just wanted to see if we could find enough seeds to give us a chance. And if there were any more people around. We really… weren’t expecting to find anyone.”

“An island.”

“Sounds good, eh?”

It did. “A few kilometers off the coast?”

“Yep. And Moe can’t swim. And he sure as hell can’t walk the bottom to the island. Currents will see to that. Fish’ll probably eat ’em, too. At least we can hope. Once we’re there and it’s cleared, we should be safe.”

“Should be? Do I detect a twinge of doubt?”

Amy scratched her brunette head with a pale hand, and her sleeve fell down a bit to reveal an even paler wrist. When she was done, she smoothed her hair into place. “Anything can happen. I’ve learned not to get my hopes up.”

“Would be something,” Scott finally said.

“What?”

“Seeing Moe swim.”

“That would be. Would be,” she said, pursing her lips. A strand of hair fell into her eyes, and she blew it away. Scott hesitated a second before looking back to the window and the darkening sky.

“Can you swim?” he asked.

“Yeah, a little freestyle. How about you?”

“Just doggie style.”

Amy paused and regarded him with a question on her face.

Scott’s eyes widened. “I mean dog style. Paddle. Dog paddle.” He felt his face turn hot. Both hands fluttered before him to get his meaning across. “Dog paddle. I can… I can do that. Swim. I didn’t mean anything else. Uh… sorry.”

But Amy only looked at him, face unreadable. Scott cleared his throat in the suddenly uncomfortable silence.

“You okay?” she asked pointedly. “Look like you’re about to choke.”

Scott nodded, but didn’t dare glance in her direction. He felt her shift on her end of the sofa.

Neither of them said another word until it was dark and time to sleep.

*

They rose the next morning from their separate sleeping quarters and met at the kitchen table. They ate the last of the food in Scott’s pack: a can of ravioli.

“Don’t worry, we’re almost back,” Amy told him when they finished the food. “We have plenty to eat in the box.”

Scott didn’t know what that was, but he trusted her. That thought stuck with him for a moment.

“You okay?” she asked him.

“Huh? Oh, yeah, I’m fine. Let’s get moving.”

Amy eyed him for a moment before moving to the tub where they had stored their outerwear, ponchos, and hoods. Scott followed. They got into their gear, then the bloody garments that kept them alive. Amy sniffed at her poncho and screwed up her face.

“What?” Scott asked.

“Not so pungent anymore.”

“Is that bad?”

Amy’s head see-sawed with uncertainty. “We should be okay for today, but we’ll need to soak these things again first chance we get. Just to be on the safe side.”

“Will they smell us?”

“I don’t know. We never gave them the chance before. Just be careful out there. And stay close.”

“Yeah,” Scott said, intending to do just that.

“One more thing. When you see me lift my arms, you do the same, okay? Nice and slow.”

“Why?”

“Because if you don’t, someone might blow your head off. They didn’t have any weapons when I left, but they might have found some since. Just put your arms up when I do.”

Being so close to safety only to be gunned down was an image Scott didn’t need.

Once fully ready, they slipped out the door and downstairs. Upon entering the garage, they heard the dismal cries cut the air outside, breaking the spell of all being well with the world. They went into zombie mode and exited the building the same way they had come in, crawling under the garage door. Getting to their feet, they started to walk along the street. Scott noted that it wasn’t as full of gimps as it had been a day earlier, but there were still enough spotting the hard-packed snow to keep him nervous. He suddenly wished Amy hadn’t told him of the potential lessening of their disguises. That didn’t do anything for his confidence.

Nor did the image of her ass in frumpy jeans, and he stashed that thought away, feeling suddenly guilty. Doggie style, he scolded himself. Where the hell had that come from?

He glanced up and saw a tower of jade and broken glass in the distance, seemingly at the head of the harbor. They walked toward it, following the road and leaving the deadheads behind. More apartment buildings stood high on their right, their windows smashed and blackened by fire. The road rose up in a gentle slope, and prominent signs displaying Scotiabank and the Delta came into view. The signs were punctured and wrecked, with holes large enough to drive a truck through, and Scott wondered what the hell had been used on the structures to devastate them so.

The road split to the left and right. On the right, it rose and ran on, while to the left, it sunk to a pedestrian walkway that loomed over the road. The glass panes were smashed out, and sandbags were stacked up like battlements. Scott’s jaw hung open. He saw machine guns up there, unmanned. Underneath, metal barriers with slots for weaponry crisscrossed the street; behind that, metro buses had been tipped over to further block the road, making one long, massive, and intimidating barrier. More sandbags were piled up to fill obvious gaps in the defensive wall. More G-Wagons with flat tires and half-open doors. Long spools of razor wire stuck up in places like the guts of a broken toy, mashed to the ground by unmoving bodies.

Scott’s jaw dropped.

Hundreds of gimps coated in snow lay in the road some fifty meters before the defenses. Automatic gunfire had ripped their bodies into shreds and exploded their heads, leaving skulls resembling half-broken crockery pots. Several bodies didn’t possess any heads at all, and Scott realized with dawning horror that the shards he began feeling underfoot weren’t ice. They were jagged fragments of bone. The machine guns had ripped Moe several new assholes, and then some.

Amy walked toward the barricades, slowly raising her arms.

From the pedway above the street, a figure rose above one of the rows of sandbags and waved her through.

Following a path through the swaths of death and razor wire, Amy kept her hands up and walked toward the buses.

Taking a breath, Scott raised his arms above his head and followed.

16

An aluminum ladder dropped down from the belly of the pedway, right in front of the overturned bus. Scott kept his arms over his head, watching as Amy dropped the zombie walk once under the pedway and started climbing. He reached the base of the ladder just as she slipped between the gap separating the pedway and the bus, disappearing in a flutter of legs.

Scott looked back. There were deadheads far behind, but none moving in his direction. He took hold of the ladder and crawled up, one hand more than full because of his bat.

“Watch yerself now, watch it,” a man’s gravelly voice informed him. Scott spotted him through the gap. He was black, with grey in his short-cut hair and beard. The man stood back and allowed Scott to get above the street on his own power. This new individual was short, dressed in a dark snowmobile suit like Amy, with a body as thick as a wall. Once Scott was up and standing on iron sheets that covered the metro buses windows, the shorter man got about pulling up the ladder. Scott made to help, but was waved away.

With the ladder on top of the bus, the brick of a man straightened and sized up Scott.

“Jesus, yer a big one. Jesus, Jesus. Yer gonna haveta feed this one, Amy,” he said, in a gruff voice that might have inhaled far too much cigarette smoke over the years. “Scott,” Amy introduced him in her own scratchy voice, “Donny Buckle.”

“Buckle,” he corrected and nodded at Scott. “This one seems to insist on callin’ me by me first name.”

“What’s wrong with that?” Amy asked him.

“Don’t like it. Never did. Shitty.”

Amy rolled her eyes. “Donny is not a shitty name. Is it a shitty name?” she asked Scott.

“Uh…”

“Not much of a talker,” Buckle said. “Where’d ye find him?”

Newfoundland. Scott finally placed the accent. Buckle was from Newfoundland. Or Cape Breton.

“Out yonder,” Amy said, taking the mask from her head and making a face of disgust. “He followed me home. Can we keep him?”

Buckle scowled at Scott. “He probably shits all over the place.”

Scott blinked at the short stocky man and noted there was a weird gleam in his eye. Newfoundlanders were, on the whole, a hard bunch. Drinkers. Quick to befriend and quick to fight.

“Look, Donny, where’s Vick?” Amy asked.

“Over yonder,” Buckle growled, tipping his head in the direction of the building the pedway was connected to. “Taking inventory, no doubt.”

“The others there?”

“I think,” Buckle stated. “Joe’s over on the other end, keepin’ watch. I’ll get him if it’s important.” Buckle pronounced the word impartant.

“Yeah. Please. I think we’ll need everyone about.”

“Right-o. Hey,” Buckle directed at Scott. “Don’t shit the bed while you’re here.”

Scott looked questioningly at Amy. Buckle turned and picked up a nasty-looking length of steel bar, with a wedge resembling a hammer’s claw on one end and another flat wedge and curved pick on the other. Scott had seen them before and knew it to be a firefighter’s Halligan tool. With this fearsome weapon, the Newfoundlander walked off to the end of the pedway toward a set of stairs leading to street level.

“You come with me,” Amy said, jumping up to the pedway. The glass that had once protected pedestrians from the elements had been mostly shattered. The sandbags were piled high enough on the walkway to conceal Scott from his chest down. Amy probably couldn’t be seen at all from street level. They walked past the machine gun emplacements, all of which were obviously ruined by the weather.

“Yeah, we already checked,” Amy said, glancing back at him. “But this place is still a good base with all the walls. And Purdy’s Wharf here still has a few offices intact. The Forces stockpiled supplies on the third floor and barricaded the base.”

Scott realized they were walking toward the building seemingly built of jade and broken glass, which he’d seen when walking along Barrington. The building stood tall against a backdrop of sea and ice.

“What is this place?” he asked.

“Downtown area business section. The historical part is right over there. Not much left there, though. Army shot the hell out of it. But Purdy’s managed to keep most of her windows. On this side, anyway.”

They stopped at a closed black door, which Amy pulled open. Inside, they followed another walkway, this one’s outer glass intact and with a metal railing leading up to a stairwell. Scott could look down to the first floor, and he saw ornate fountains that had run dry. The street-level windows were boarded up with heavy-looking sheets of iron. Amy held the door open as he walked through it.

“This place is big.”

“There’s another tower as well, but we found most of the stuff in this one, so we didn’t bother moving it.”

“How many floors?”

“Twenty or so, I think. But we don’t go up there.”

“Moe?”

“No Moe. We figured the Forces must have cleared them out. Just too damn far to go, anyway. You ever climb twenty flights of stairs in a cold building?”

“No.”

“Well, there you go. Here.” She reached the third floor landing and pulled the door open for him once again. “See how nice I am?”

Scott smiled faintly. Special and nice—a favorable combination.

Worn beige carpet and brown wood panelling covered the hallway. A current of fresh air flowed past Scott, and he wondered if perhaps a nearby window had been knocked out. Open doorways offered quick peeks to a number of reception areas, some of which had sofas draped in grey, military-issued blankets.

“Yeah, these are bedrooms,” Amy said, gesturing with a hand. “This place was the cat’s ass at one point in time. There’s a gym here, too.”

“A gym.”

“You work out?”

Scott wanted to say life was a workout these days, but he decided that would sound snarky, so he shook his head.

Voices floated from a corner office up ahead that Scott guessed faced the pedway.

“In here first,” Amy said and directed him into a room that had once been a cleaning station. Shelving units contained chemical cleaners as well as rolls of toilet paper. The toilet paper made Scott smile.

“What’s so funny?” Amy asked, pausing in taking off her bloody poncho.

“Toilet paper.”

He could see she didn’t understand, and he didn’t mention Gus. A minute later, they left their disguises behind and headed back down the corridor, toward the voices.

“Here we are,” Amy announced and went in through an open doorway.

“There’s my girl,” a deep voice boomed with affection. Scott entered just in time to see another black man wrap his arms around the considerably smaller Amy and hold her close. He was bulkier and taller than Buckle. An even six foot by Scott’s guess. He was perhaps the oldest as well, easily fifty. Maybe even fifty-five.

Amy broke away from the large man and indicated Scott. “Vick. Scott.”

Vick came forward with a smile, holding out a hand. Scott took it and noted that the man’s hands were as big as his own.

“Where did you find him?” Vick asked Amy, releasing his hand.

“Up on Bayer’s Road.”

“The hell you doing up there? That’s supposed to be off limits.”

Amy shrugged. “Found a bunch of seeds up there.”

“You did?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Well, that’s wonderful news!” Vick declared. “And good to meet you,” he directed at Scott. “Glad you made it. I’m Vick Tucker.”

Other people stepped inside the office, introduced themselves, and either nodded or shook Scott’s hand. Sam Koffer appeared like a wild child of sorts, with a mighty shock of dirty blond hair that Scott figured made Amy incredibly jealous. The man had a voice that suggested he could sing. Lance Shaffer was not quite as tall as Scott, and he appeared none too keen on the physical competition. He was another big man, with an athlete’s build easily detected even underneath the thick winter coat he wore. When he took Scott’s hand, he locked gazes and squeezed hard enough to deliver a message.

Don’t fuck with me.

Shaffer even released his hand dismissively, leaving Scott momentarily stunned.

Vick smiled, seeing the exchange. “Don’t worry about Lance. Everyone’s on his shit list from the get-go. He gave Sammy there a hard time for the first three weeks.”

“Still does,” Sam protested.

“But then he warms up to you,” Vick said.

“Don’t fucking count on it,” Shaffer warned and glared.

Vick frowned, but his hard features lit up again when he looked upon Amy. Scott knew right away that the man loved her. A pang of disappointment coursed through him then, as off-key as a guitar string snapping.

“Have a seat.” Vick pointed at an office chair while he and Amy plopped down on a leather sofa, quite close together. “Any trouble out there?” he asked her as Scott sat down and gazed about the office area.

Amy shook her head.

“Well, the news on the seeds is great. Now then, where you’d find Scott again?”

“Bayer’s Road. He was walking with the dead.”

Vick looked approvingly at Scott. “You were? Not many know how to do that, my boy. Fewer still have the guts to even try it. I’m crazier than a shithouse rat, and I’m none too happy when I have to do it.”

“Donny doesn’t seem to mind,” Amy pointed out.

“That’s because Buckle’s a different kind of crazy,” Vick stated to Scott. “There’s shithouse rat crazy… and then there’s chemically unstable.”

“He is special,” Amy agreed.

“Not as special as you, though,” Vick informed her with a wink. “Now then, Scott. You staying with us?”

Scott blinked and wasn’t exactly sure what to say.

Amy dove in. “He might. He has to find a guy first. Someone who killed some of his friends.”

Vick’s happy face became drawn. “Sorry to hear that. There’re savages out there these days. I’m ashamed to say some of the living have become worse than the dead.”

“I hear that,” Shaffer growled. “Fucking war zone to start, and crazies on top of that. Goddamn grim world.”

Scott noted that Shaffer tended to stress the hard consonants in a word.

“Yes, well,” Vick drew out, “we won’t be here much longer. I don’t see any need to hang on now that’s Amy’s back with the goods.”

Amy’s mouth arched into a smile.

“Get any broccoli?”

“I did.”

“Well, that’s just great,” Shaffer said. “At least we don’t haveta row to Norway and crack open the––whaddya call it? Doomsday Safe?”

“Doomsday Vault,” Amy corrected him.

“Yeah, that thing.”

“The what?” Scott asked.

“It’s a storage facility on one of Norway’s islands,” Amy informed him. “Has all of the earth’s ‘spare’ crop seeds packed away in it, in the event of a global disaster where most of the species is somehow wiped out. Or, in our case, where we want to borrow a few for our own survival.”

“Never heard of it,” Scott said.

“That’s okay. Most people don’t know about it. Or have forgotten.”

“Amy knew,” Vick added. “She’s our resident farmer.”

Scott noted Amy seemed uncomfortable with the title.

“So what do you bring to the group?” Shaffer asked him bluntly. “Any particular skillset, or are you just another mouth?”

The question left Scott blinking. “Huh?”

“What can you do?” Shaffer rephrased, none too pleased about it. “Son.”

“Lance, it’s a little––” Vick began.

But Shaffer dismissed him with a wave of his hand. “I’ll ask what I want to ask. Problem is you guys aren’t fucking asking enough. This guy could be a spy for all you know.”

“He’s not a spy,” Amy stated in a tired voice.

“How do you know? He got a goddamn special badge or something? I sure as fuck don’t see nothin’. No halo over his head. So how about it? Hm? What do you bring to the table?”

Scott shrugged. “Not much, really.”

The scowl on Shaffer’s face deepened.

“I was a baker.”

“A baker,” Shaffer purred, smirking at the others. “Well, fuck me gently. Nice to know we’ll have cookies and muffins around the campfire at night. Can you fight?”

“A little.”

“A little.” Shaffer stood directly before Scott and tilted his head, gazing up at him. “What’s that? Don’t tell me you’ve only killed Moe, cuz that’s easy. You got any training? Military? Self defense? Martial arts?”

Scott didn’t like this guy. “Played hockey for a bit.”

Shaffer visibly balked, not appreciating the joke in the least.

“Shaffer,” Vick said, getting the man’s attention. “Relax. You forget the other reason why we came here?”

“Your trouble is I remember all too goddamn well. You’ve heard the fuckin’ stories about out west. This guy could be a plant.”

Amy rubbed her face with a palm and looked out a window.

“He came in with Amy,” Vick carried on. “That’s good enough for me.”

“Me too,” Sam Koffer said.

“Nobody gives a good goddamn about what you think, meth head,” Shaffer snarled. “What’re you doing in the city?” he asked Scott pointedly.

“Looking for a guy. Killed some… some friends of mine.”

“Got a name for this killer?”

“Tenner.”

Shaffer blinked as if a hot blast of wind had smacked him between the eyes. Even Vick and Sam Koffer became silent for a moment. Amy regarded him with those blue eyes of hers and waited for what was coming.

“What?” Scott asked quietly, feeling the abrupt change in the air. He started twisting in the office chair, making the base squeak.

“Did you say Tenner?” Shaffer asked. Sam moved in on his flank, his own features screwed up, wanting things to be sorted out.

“Yeah.”

“Joe Tenner?” Vick asked.

“Don’t know his first name. Only Tenner.”

“What’s he look like?” Sam asked.

“How many fucking Tenners you think’s around?” Shaffer snapped at the smaller man. “Christ almighty.”

Sam recoiled as if slapped with an ice pick. “Just clarifying is all, man. Don’t blow your asshole out.”

Shaffer glowered as he reassessed Scott. “What’s he look like?”

“I don’t know,” Scott answered after a moment. “All I know is his voice. He shot me in the back and left me for dead. Best thing that happened, I figured. I saw what he did to my friends.”

“Yeah? What did he do?” Shaffer demanded, his glare intense and unwavering.

“Cut them up.”

“Tenner,” Shaffer hissed and looked at Sam, then Vick.

“Did you know about this?” Vick asked Amy.

“That he’s looking for Tenner? Yeah, I knew. Didn’t say anything, though. There’s always a chance.”

“Chance of what?” Scott asked.

But Shaffer overrode him. “Chance, my ass. There’s only one Tenner in the phonebook at this point in the game.”

“It might not be him,” Vick said quietly.

“You hope it’s not him,” Sam added.

“So you believe what this guy says?” Shaffer pointed at Scott. “Just wanders on in here and says he’s looking for a murderer?”

“I found Tickle,” Amy said quietly.

That admission silenced the men.

“What?” Vick asked.

“I found him. Up on Bayer’s Road.”

If the first bit of information had quieted the men, this new piece stunned them. Even the angry Shaffer straightened up and blinked in confusion, as dazed as if a horse had kicked him in the face.

“Tenner said not to go up there,” Sam said, piquing Scott’s interest even more. “Said Moe got Dan.”

“Moe didn’t get Dan.” Amy frowned and met Scott’s eyes. “Well, not in the way we thought. Scott saw him, too. I saw him see him. You remember the one I’m talking about?”

Scott’s innards chilled as if thrown and stuck to a block of ice. “The guy… the guy who was crucified?”

Amy nodded.

“The fuck you mean, crucified?” Shaffer wanted to know.

Amy didn’t flinch. “Tenner said he saw Dan get pulled down and killed by Moe. I’m telling you… we both saw Tickle tied to a power pole like a hunk of meat left to be cured. Moe didn’t take the time to hang him from the pole… someone living did that. Hung him just high enough so that Moe could reach his legs and lower abs.”

“Oh, Jesus Christ,” Vick whispered, pulling back from her.

“The rest of him turned,” Scott said quietly.

“This fucker could’ve done that,” Shaffer spat, jabbing a thumb at Scott.

“Think about it,” Amy countered. “Think about that day. The more I do, the more I think Tenner wanted Tickle to go with him. Dan called the shots then. He was the one giving out orders, and Tenner got Dan to go along with him into an area we already knew was infested with Moe. And this is Dan Tickle we’re talking about. He was a careful man. It’s… difficult to see him taking any unnecessary risks. And we only just met Tenner. Been with him a week. He said a lot of things that seemed right at the time, and really played upon Dan’s sense of not placing the rest of us in unnecessary risk, but now I’m thinking…”

Amy stopped for a moment, considering her words carefully. “I’m thinking he manipulated us in that short time. Saw right away that Dan was the leader. Played the rest of us off against each other. Tried to get us alone. Like he did with Dan.”

“You really think he killed Dan?” Shaffer asked.

“Course he did,” Amy stated. “After what Scott’s told us? No doubt.”

Sam cleared his throat. “Y’know, I thought––”

“Fuck what you thought,” Shaffer snipped, silencing the shorter man before staring at Vick. “You hearing this?”

“I’m hearing.”

“And?”

Vick inhaled sharply, as if the rush of air cleared his brain. “I think we wait. Buckle will be bringing him up here soon. Then we’ll do introductions again, I guess. Find out what’s what.”

Vick made this last statement while eyeing Scott.

“Wait,” Scott said softly. “Tenner’s here?”

They ignored him. “Buckle might be in danger,” Sam stated.

Shaffer turned on him. “Buckle? You fucking serious?”

Vick agreed with Shaffer. “Buckle can smell shit before it happens.”

“I think Sam might have a point,” Amy said. “Dan was good, too.”

“Fucker wants me to go off with him and look for another armory tomorrow.” Shaffer scoffed and shook his head.

“Might not be him,” Sam offered.

“Shut the fuck up, Sam,” Shaffer fired off quietly. “Just shut the fuck up.”

“But why would he do it?” Sam insisted. No one had an answer. Scott had an idea, but he didn’t want to say it just yet. Not with these people who thought they knew Tenner, who might have been in his company for a while, heedless of who the man was or what he was capable of. The excitement of the hunt drawing to a close rushed through him, and he fought to control it. Scott’s idea was simple. Tenner was insane. Worse, Tenner had a taste for killing. In a new world where the law was decided by the strongest, what was there to stop the man? Scott realized Tenner might have been killing people for a very long time. Working his way east.

Vick’s eyes were on Amy. “So, what do you think we should do?”

At that precise moment, men could be heard approaching the room.

“Depends on him,” Amy said simply, focusing on Scott sitting in his office chair. No sooner did the words rasp from her mouth when Buckle entered the room.

Behind him stood a tall man wearing a thick black winter coat with a hood fringed with fur.

A man with his hair tied off in a fox’s tail, which draped over one shoulder.

17

“What’s going on?” Buckle asked gruffly, taking in the sour faces in the room. He finally nodded at Scott. “Someone shit in an MRE?”

“Just talking to the new guy,” Vick said.

“New guy, huh?” the tall man said. He stepped around Buckle and held out his hand. The corners of his eyes crinkled up, and he bared his teeth in what he no doubt thought passed for a smile, making Scott freeze. “How you doing? Name’s Tenner.”

Name’s Tenner.

My name’s Tenner.

Don’t shoot me, okay? I have a gun, see? My name’s Tenner.

He heard the screams of Lea and Teddy in his head as Tenner took their lives, as if he were back in that terrible house of death and undead, floating in the black of unconsciousness.

Tenner remained beaming at him with that toothy expression meant to convey friendship, extending a hand. The silver in his bound hair gleamed like exposed wires. The smile dissipated from Tenner’s eyes and he frowned a little, noticing Scott wasn’t going for his hand like he should have, perhaps even sensing the swelling silence in the room. He offered his hand again as if completing a magic trick.

Scott stared into his black eyes. The eyes of a predator. “What was your name again?”

The corners of his grin wilted altogether. “Tenner. You gonna shake my hand or what?”

Scott got to his feet, eye-to-eye with Tenner, the killer of Lea and Teddy and God above only knew how many more. He had never really wondered what he would do once he caught up with the murderer. Perhaps he’d secretly known that the odds against actually finding Tenner were so incredibly high that he would just search and search until Moe finally caught him, or he ran out of supplies, or any other unforeseen thing caught and killed him. But he would never really catch him.

But here he was. Standing right in front of him. Smiling as if he shat gold and pissed silver.

Scott pursed his lips, anger welling inside him.

Life had a funny way of working things out.

He grabbed for his Ruger and caught his hand on the lip of his boot. His fingers scrabbled over the butt of the weapon. Tenner’s eyes went wide. A heavy boot came up, snapped out, and kicked Scott square in the chest, sending him flying over the office chair. As Scott tumbled over, Tenner lifted up the back of his coat and yanked free something tucked in the waistband of his jeans.

“Gun!” Buckle roared, knocking the weapon toward the ceiling and breaking the paralysis of the onlookers. Tenner snarled and belted a plastic padded elbow into Buckle’s nose, breaking it instantly. Blood spurted out of both nostrils as the Newfoundlander crashed against a nearby wall.

“Holy shit!” Sam yelled out, incredulous.

Vick jumped off the couch. “Tenner, wai––”

But Tenner didn’t wait. He opened fire instead, spraying the room. A loud burp of shells from the Glock 18 drove most of them to the floor. The blaze ripped into and exploded Sam Koffer’s head, blasting brain matter out the back of his skull and dousing the window behind him with pulp as dark and viscous as spilled pudding. Sam’s body crunched up against the window, abruptly faceless, and slid down, revealing the gruesome, spidery punches the bullets left in the pane.

Tenner paused to aim at Scott.

A chair flew at the gunman. It struck him across the body, spurting a killing chatter from the Glock that violently stitched a line across another pane of glass. Tenner fell back toward the open doorway. Vick rose up from the ground, and Amy darted to one side.

“Ease up goddammit, Joe!” Vick shouted, bringing up a length of pipe. Scott got himself free of the chair, lifting the Ruger.

Another gush of Glock fire tore into the room, driving everyone to the floor. Scott fired back. The Ruger coughed and at least six rounds sizzled through the doorway, two ripping out puffs of dusty debris from the frame after Tenner disappeared outside.

Scott lay still for a moment, keeping his gun trained on the doorway.

“Fucker jacked up me nose,” Buckle raged.

“Stay down!” Vick ordered, crouching near the door and holding a length of steel pipe like a katana.

“Like fuck!” Shaffer said, slamming into the other side of the doorframe. “The bastard killed Sammy!”

He brought up a bat and held it to his chest.

“He still out there?” Vick asked Shaffer.

“Can’t see him from this angle.”

Tentatively, Shaffer peeked around the corner. Next to Scott, Sammy’s right leg did a little reflexive jerk at the knee. Blood pooled around the body, as bright as paint.

“Bastard’s gone,” Shaffer announced.

That wasn’t good enough for Scott. He sprinted out the door, gun at the ready, and headed down the corridor. Cries of “Wait!” followed him, but he wasn’t listening. They were only just discovering what Tenner could do. Scott, however, fully understood what the killer was capable of.

He bolted to the opposite wall and hurried along it, his shoulder rasping against the drywall. Some of the doors he passed were open and Scott gave each a quick peek, but he thought Tenner was trying to escape. He’d exposed the murderer for what he was, and the man was trying to get away, like an uncovered spider.

Up ahead, the dead exit sign above the stairwell came into view. Scott ran for it and didn’t realize that the door was still open until it slammed into his helmet. He bounced off the frame. A hand came down over his wrist, sending his gun flying.

“The fuck are you, huh?” a savage voice hissed at him. Hands gripped Scott and pulled him into the stairwell before tossing him down a flight of steps. Scott landed hard on his back, sliding down the metal edges of the stairs and rattling toward the next landing.

His hand snapped out and held onto the railing a second before he stopped. He spun on his back, got to his knees, and looked––

Tenner’s foot landed squarely on his chest, knocking Scott against the wall and robbing him of his wind. Tenner closed in, snarling and punching, slamming fist after fist into Scott’s midsection. He cracked elbows across the motorcycle helmet, going for Scott’s eyes. Scott was jolted left and right with each connection, his head flopping. Then hands gripped the sides of his helmet.

“How’d you know?” Tenner seethed. “Tell me that before I––”

Scott punched him in the gut, buckling the man. That crazy fox tail came into view and Scott grabbed it, yanking it and the owner to one side and sending him crashing into the concrete wall. Scott threw his own mass into Tenner’s and squashed him into a corner. He punched the man’s back, his kidneys, and the back of his head, causing Tenner to bunch up. He kneed him with a furious energy. The killer shuddered in the trap before unexpectedly standing up, trying to shove Scott back. Scott wouldn’t allow it. He heaved him back once more. Both men tried to knee the other at the same time, knocking their padded joints off each other.

Tenner dropped down, threw his arms around Scott’s waist, and lifted him off his feet, propelling him forward to crash into the far wall. The air in Scott’s lungs left him in a rush. He gasped, throwing up his arms to defend himself, only half-aware of just how vulnerable he’d become.

Instead of taking advantage of the situation, Tenner snarled in frustration, turned, and bolted down the steps.

Then Scott heard the voices.

Faces crowded around him.

“Where’d he go?” someone asked.

Then Amy was there, pulling him to his feet. “Get him back to the office. Help me, Donny.”

“My gun,” Scott gasped and felt it pushed into his hand a moment later.

They brought him halfway up the steps before Scott’s senses returned. Amy and Buckle let him walk on his own power, and soon he was rushing back to the office with the others behind him.

“Tenner’s outside by now,” Scott said as he went through the door.

“And probably away,” Vick muttered behind him.

Cold air came into the office from the bullet holes in the windows. Sam Koffer’s corpse littered the floor, all bled out. Scott went by the body to an untouched window. He looked down into the street, just before the pedway and the wall of overturned buses. Nothing. He looked toward the historical section. The Ruger might make the shot if––

Tenner came into view, running away from the building and heading toward downtown. A rush of adrenaline took Scott, and he aimed with both hands. Tenner whirled about uncannily and sprayed the windows to Scott’s left with bullets, puncturing the glass in a connect-the-dots line and driving him to the floor.

“Fucking hand cannon he’s got there!” Shaffer said, staying low.

“Jesus, Jesus, Jesus,” Buckle growled from nearby, holding tissues bright with blood to his nose.

“Thought you were a cop once upon a time?” Shaffer threw at Buckle.

“Was––got the gun up and away, didn’t I?” Buckle replied testily. “Never really liked that one.”

“Me neither,” Shaffer said. “He still out there?”

Vick and Scott raised their heads above the windowsill and peeked outside. The street was empty.

“Gone,” Vick informed them. “Like a baby’s fart in a thunderstorm.”

“You should’ve grabbed him instead,” Shaffer hissed at Buckle.

“Fuck off.” Amy crouched over Sam’s corpse, a sad expression on her features. The leg slowed its jerky twitching. She stepped back from the growing pool of blood.

“Might be time to go,” Shaffer said to the rest. “I don’t know about you guys, but I sure as hell don’t want to be around when he decides to come back.”

“Seconded, Jesus, seconded,” Buckle said, a nasal tone to his words. One hand kept the bloody tissue pressed to his face, while his other hand hefted the Halligan tool.

“Third,” Shaffer said.

“Amy?” Vick asked her.

“Yeah. Let’s boot.”

“Scott?”

“Huh?”

“You coming with us?”

Scott stepped away from the window, mindful of where Sam lay, and regarded them all. Tenner was out there. He should be going after him. He studied the now-still body of Sam Koffer and wondered if he was responsible for his death. He probably was. In his rush to punish the murderer, he’d gotten Sam killed.

“For a bit. Just in case,” he muttered.

“Just in case of what?” Shaffer demanded, gripping his bat with both hands.

“He comes after you.”

That made them stop and stare.

“You think he will?” Amy asked.

“I don’t know. But I do know he’s crazy. You really think he killed off one of your guys?”

“After this?” Amy asked in shock.

“Yeah, me too,” Scott agreed. “And he was going to go somewhere with you tomorrow?”

Shaffer nodded, a distasteful expression on his rough features.

“Yeah,” Scott said, reading his thoughts. “I think you were next on the menu.”

“While you were looking for an armory. Or anything,” Amy added.

“Fucking pig-sucking bastard,” Shaffer seethed.

“Afterward, he’d probably make up another story,” Scott continued on. “Waited a few more days and who knows. Maybe one more. Or maybe something else.”

“You make it sound like he’s drawing out the fun,” Vick said, rubbing his chin.

“Yeah. Sounds like that, doesn’t it?”

“Let’s get to the van and boot,” Shaffer said. “Hell with him.”

“One thing,” Buckle said, gesturing in the direction Tenner had gone. “He was goin’ in the direction of the van.”

“Well, shit,” Shaffer said. “And hey, wait, where are you going like that?”

Over the heap of scarlet tissue held to his face, Buckle’s eyes widened in genuine surprise. “Wha?” he asked innocently enough.

“You’re fucking bleeding all over the place!” Shaffer roared.

“I’m all right.”

Shaffer looked to Vick for support, but before the older man could say anything, Shaffer went off again. “You’re not fucking all right, you moron! You’re gushing like a tied-off foreskin, for Christ’s sake. Why don’t you just go out there and ring a fucking dinner bell while you’re at it? It’ll take Moe off our backs, anyway.”

Buckle took the wad of sopping tissue from his face and inspected it thoughtfully. Bloody strands clung to his silver-streaked beard.

“I’ll slice up a blanket,” he finally said.

“A goddamn piece of blanket ain’t going to make it better. Vick, come on.”

“Buckle’ll be okay with the blanket,” Vick said, throwing his support into his friend’s corner. “Not like Moe’s right outside anyway.”

“Should’ve known better saying anything to you,” Shaffer fumed. Even as the words came out, Buckle went over to a grey blanket on the desk and drew a survival knife. In seconds, he’d cut out lengthy wads. He fitted a black hood over his face, growling when he pulled the mask down over his nose, and stuffed the wads of blanket underneath and around his nostrils. The mask bulged from the blanket, but seemed to do the trick.

“That doesn’t look good,” Vick said.

“Who gives a shit if it looks good or not?” Shaffer said, and pointed a finger at Buckle. “You just make sure that you keep it there.”

“Go fuck yourself.”

“What did you say to me?” Shaffer stepped toward Buckle, and for a moment Scott thought the two men would actually go at each other, as incredible as it seemed.

“Ease off,” Vick said, halting Shaffer in his tracks. “We got other things to do. You okay with the blanket, Buckle?”

“I’m okay.”

“Then, that’s it,” Vick concluded. “Let’s get a move on.”

They left the room, not bothering to cover themselves in any camouflage gear. Down through the stairwell they pounded, carrying their weapons and sprinting across the lower floor to the open door. Outside, the sky was the color of concrete. Their exertions armored them against the cold, and they rushed through a narrow street between two historic stone buildings.

And in doing so, they lost Tenner.

18

As Tenner took the steps three at a time down to the first floor, one glaring thought went off in his head like a klaxon. How?

Another thought shoved aside the first. Who was the stranger?

He didn’t recognize the man, and he’d certainly taken measures to ensure no one knew his true intentions or who he was. He ran through the historic section for a short distance, came to an intersection, and veered toward the water.

Who was he?

A friend of one of his victims? Possible, but he doubted it. Tenner made certain that he was well alone with all of his potential prey. Someone he’d left for dead, but had been mistaken? Another possibility, but unlikely. He checked all of his kills to ensure they were truly dead and, realistically, no one was in any shape to come searching for him once he’d finished playing with his toys.

So, who was he?

He didn’t have any idea. All he knew was his plan to leisurely kill the survivors—one at a time and in secret, savoring each death like a fine and incredibly rare bottle of wine—was finished. He turned another corner and made his way toward the main entrance of a hotel near Purdy’s Wharf. Like the office building, the hotel was surprisingly free of the destruction that had gutted the other buildings. Tenner suspected the place, whose name was ripped off the front, had been used as a barracks and command post due to the number of MRE caches and discarded packaging tossed into the numerous garbage receptacles outside the building. He quickly strode by a check-in counter dulled by dust and grime. Tenner stooped and felt underneath the counter for the self-generating flashlight he’d found and left there days earlier. He grabbed it and took a carpeted stairway down to the basement.

Before he’d met up with the six wanderers, he’d taken the time to search the surrounding premises for anything of interest besides the ruined automatic weapons. He had found several things that made him cock an eyebrow, but the one that had surprised him the most lay in the guts of this particular hotel.

He descended into the black soup at the bottom of the stairs. He held up his flashlight and thumbed the switch. Light blazed ahead of him. Wasting no time, he went past a laundry area stuffed with partially-filled bins of soiled bedding that would never be washed. Just beyond that was another room filled with metal piping, ventilation ductwork, boilers, and huge air-conditioning units. He ignored smaller storage areas along the dark corridor, half-expecting an undead fright at any moment. The light illuminated a heavy, grey-painted door at the end of the corridor, with “No Admittance” stamped across its surface in block letters. Any locked door begged Tenner to open it, no matter the cost. This one in particular had proven to be a stubborn son of a bitch, but in the end, he’d pried it open with a crowbar. The locks had been ruined in the process, but he didn’t give a damn about that.

Tenner pulled the door open with a squeal and left it that way. He was certain the others hadn’t discovered this place, nor had he revealed the location of the passageway to them. If they did catch his scent and followed, he’d be somewhat disappointed, but for reasons his pursuers wouldn’t understand. The light revealed another stone stairway, surrounded by carefully cut rock leading down into the depths of the earth.

Tenner knew Halifax had been a prized harbor for Allied shipping during the Second World War and had been heavily defended against the threat of Nazi incursions. What he hadn’t known until he’d started exploring the area was the addition of a tunnel system that ran from the downtown waterfront, now labeled the historic section of the city, to Citadel Hill, once known as Fort George.

He descended three flights of steps. The fitted stone wall ended before a wide entryway and a concrete corridor with exposed lengths of iron braces. The passage stretched off into darkness, toward Citadel Hill. The way was musty, the air stale, and as cold as a freezer. It had been good fortune to discover the secret tunnel, and he’d been even more fortunate when he found what waited at the end. The national armories of the city had all been ravaged and destroyed in a battle that had to have been truly epic, leaving Tenner at his journey’s end and feeling despondent.

But he discovered not all of the munitions had been used or rendered useless.

They had only been moved.

Tenner plunged through the underground depths, threading a tunnel wide enough to drive a jeep through if one could be found. Pipes ran along the otherwise bare walls of the tunnel, plunging into the concrete at points and re-emerging further down the line. Iron railway tracks, stamped into the concrete, slunk off into the dark void ahead, and he knew that three old rail carts lay draped in cobwebs perhaps a kilometer away, positioned at the bottom of the stairwell underneath the Citadel. Munitions had no doubt been transported back and forth along the passage at one point in time, and Tenner suspected that there were other underground tunnel systems and chambers besides this one. He couldn’t imagine what other secrets lay underneath Halifax, but he envisioned the complex to be huge. Once he took care of the people above, he planned to do some more exploring.

If there was anything else down here, he’d find it. But that was for another day.

The light zigzagged on the walls as he ran. He controlled his breathing so he wouldn’t exhaust himself. Tenner eventually slowed to a walk, placing one hand on a hip as he caught his breath. He tipped the flashlight up at the ceiling, not six inches above his head, seeing hairline cracks in the surface.

It was while he studied the cracks he heard it.

A subtle whisper of movement, coming from the darkness ahead, soft enough that if he were truly deep in thought, he would have missed it entirely. As it was, his senses snapped into alertness, and he used his free hand to pull out the Glock. Tenner crossed his wrists like he’d seen done in the movies, penetrating the dark with the flashlight while pointing the gun in the same direction. He held his breath.

And heard it again.

The sound made a crease appear in Tenner’s forehead. There weren’t any zombies down here––Moe as the rest of the survivors had referred to the dead. He’d made certain of that when he came through the first time. He supposed there was a possibility that a zombie had entered the main tunnel from a side passage he’d missed.

“I hear you,” Tenner said slyly, waiting for the answering moan. One advantage of Moe being mindless was that they became predictable. There was nothing devious about the undead. If they heard you, they would moan. It was simply an undefined motor reflex, not a warning or a call to others of similar decomposing ilk. Moe didn’t utilize any cunning hunting tactics, nor did they sit and wait for their prey. As feeders, they were as mindless as any single-celled organism. The only thing one had to be careful about with Moe was numbers, and when and where they appeared.

He hadn’t checked the load, but Tenner knew he had a few rounds remaining in the Glock, and he had two extra magazines in his coat. And of course there were all manner of goodies waiting for him back at the truck. He only had to get there.

But something was approaching from up ahead.

The sound increased. It grew from a whisper to an unending scratching that sounded as if it were close to the floor.

A crawler, no doubt. Many a zombie had had its legs chewed away or its feet worn down to raw ivory knobs by walking barefoot. The horror of walking the earth fascinated Tenner. The dead would walk until their shoes gave way, until the asphalt rubbed the padding off the soles of their feet, wearing them down to the bone, then shaving the bone away and causing Moe to walk on stubs of flesh, until even that wore away and they toppled over. Tenner had never seen the entire process. The virus that turned people into reanimated corpses also had the surprising side effect of toughening human flesh—which made him think they weren’t entirely dead—but he could envision the timeline sped up, seeing a turned person wearing away their shoes, then their feet, then even their shins. They’d fall over at some point and start crawling, then the ground would wear away the front of their clothes, their skin, the tissue underneath, until finally getting to the bone. At some point, the musculature would no longer be able to pull its mass along, so Moe would eventually be rendered immobile. Until…

The murmuring of movement drew closer, still hidden by darkness. Tenner did not proceed any farther. It was always best to let the creature come to you. The sound seemed to spread out along the width of the floor, like the satiny touch of a blanket being dragged along the ground.

Or branches.

Lots of branches.

Tenner tensed up, no longer certain what was coming toward him in the dark was Moe. He flexed his fingers on the grip of the gun. Something was getting closer, and it wasn’t a corpse. Nor was it a group of corpses, which held no fear for him.

This was something else.

The sound became louder, until it filled his ears and caused him to cringe in puzzlement. Tenner held his breath and let the sound slowly bloat in the tunnel, loud enough that he felt his scrotum go tight with unease. He took a step backward involuntarily, then stopped himself. There was nothing in the new world that he feared. Nothing.

The hissing of branches grew louder, and he could almost detect grainy crashes within the noise itself, like a radio channel spewing static. A smell hit him then, as putrid as any clustering of Moe.

The stench of dead flesh.

But what was it? He pointed the beam of light at the farthest possible point, thrusting back the black and illuminating only bare concrete, pipes, and iron railroad tracks. He swept the light from one side of the wall to the other, thinking he detected movement in the vault-like dark.

Seconds passed, and Tenner took a breath.

The sound grew, swelling in the blackness, until…

Rats entered the field of light in an ebony front that caused him to back up two steps in shock. He panned the wide beam back and forth to uncover a veritable flood of rodents moving along the concrete floor, no more than twenty feet from him, their claws causing the raspy cacophony that had so puzzled him. The tunnel channeled the tide of rats directly at him. They filled the width of the tunnel and beyond the reach of the flashlight. Tenner stopped for a moment and stared in stunned disbelief.

Rats! A wall of rats!

The creatures moved strangely, however. They didn’t move in that cautious, scampering flurry of legs normal rats used to find cover from predators.

Then it became obvious to him, as obvious as seeing the vermin––some with bodies longer than his hand. Exposed ribs and backbones gleamed in the flashlight’s glare. The foremost ranks of this new foe were a decaying mash of flesh and hair and bone on a scale Tenner had never contemplated. Like their human cousins, the virus powered their undead flesh along in a nasty, mouldy carpet of unending hunger, the ground wearing down their claws and no doubt fraying their underbellies––but Tenner couldn’t see that just yet. All he could see were these wretched creatures, no longer fearful, dragging themselves toward him en masse, on whatever limbs still worked, seeking only to fasten their rodent maws upon his flesh and chew.

Tenner backed up another step while panning the light right to left, surveying the sheer scope of the army seeping toward him with all the intensity of a burst vat of tar. He pointed his gun at the front ranks, knowing that a mere bullet would have little effect on the swarm.

Then something latched onto his boots from behind.

He shined the flashlight at his own feet and stared at the layer of rats teeming about his ankles, attacking him from behind. Rats gnawed on his boots, stretched themselves up past his ankles, whiskers oddly unmoving. Tenner did an awkward jig on the spot, dancing on the heads of several horrid attackers and crushing them underfoot. Some he only partially flattened, and he saw the creatures haul their squished flanks or shoulders off the concrete to pursue him, until a second and third layer of rats crawled over their injured brothers, seeming to swallow them. The sight of these half-crumpled creatures still moving unnerved him in a way he never thought possible. People didn’t bother him in the least, but rats and spiders had always had a creepy hold of his psyche.

Jerking his feet high above the swarm, he energetically tip-toed to one side. The options open to him were few. He could proceed ahead, or he could retreat.

Tenner plunged forward into the dark. He slipped in places as he stepped on several rats at once, but he didn’t fall. He drifted closer to the wall and took a second to stuff his Glock into a side pocket while switching his flashlight to his right hand. With his left hand placed against the wall for extra support, he forged ahead. The rank smell coming off the creatures filled his lungs with each breath and threatened to do more than just screw up his face. Everywhere. The rats covered the floor, and he pulled several along with him with every second step as they tried gnawing through his motorcycle boots. Their claws scrabbling on the concrete sounded like muted fingernails across a chalkboard, and Tenner knew anyone of lesser mental fortitude would have been driven to the brink of losing control from both the sight and sound of the dead things in the tunnel. Some scurried along the pipes he clung to, and he had to swat them from the metal. The light beam bobbed and weaved over the creatures’ backs, and Tenner believed for a moment that the furry tide was actually becoming thicker. He couldn’t see where the rats had gotten into the tunnel; he slogged through their depths, halfway up to his shins. Their voices hummed in his ears. A stumble almost brought him to his knees, forcing him to keep both feet on the floor, and he started sliding his feet forward as if cross-country skiing, bulldozing through the swarm sloshing heavily around his lower legs. He could feel the little jaws attempting to latch onto his boots, actually pinching the leather against his flesh. For a moment, the morbid thought of actually lying down in them, like a seething meadow, occurred to him.

The swarm would undoubtedly devour him right to the bone in less than a minute.

Pushing the image away, he pressed on, shoving aside rats. They ranged in size, some as big as his hand, others half the length of his forearm, but they all moved sluggishly. Glimpses of teeth and bone flashed in the light. Tenner tramped through it all, mindful that they were almost to his knees. The rats foamed about him. He swatted more rodents from the pipes. One leaped and landed on his shoulder, biting into his fox tail almost immediately. He crushed it against the wall. Twice he slowed and whipped the flashlight back the way he’d come, illuminating the knobby mass he’d only just waded through. It was as if the heavens had opened up and vermin had poured down. He didn’t intend to stop, for fear of giving the rats time to climb up his legs. Already the lower parts of his winter coat had had its foamy stuffing ripped away. Worse, the constant pushing against their bodies began to leech away his energy.

No sooner had he realized he was tiring when he misstepped, falling to his knees.

The rats flowed over his lower legs and nipped at the ends of his coat, his jeans, and the backs of his legs, no longer slow-moving. Tenner sprung to his feet, gripping a length of pipe to stabilize himself and keeping his unprotected hands above the mass of undead animals. Rats clung to the edges of his coat and dug into the black denim covering his thighs. He started moving, knocking the dead things away with his fists in a flurry of frantic energy. The flashlight beam weaved and bobbled like a warped lightshow, showing the swarm at his feet one moment and the arch of the ceiling overhead the next. He crushed several rats, knocking them from his person, their grotesque forms swallowed up by the rising, furry surge. Tenner cleaned himself off in a frenzy and ran, no longer content to wade patiently through the deluge of bodies. Twice more he stumbled against the current, and once almost fell, but he caught himself on a nearby pipe.

Seconds later the rats thinned out and fell behind. He ran a few more meters before stopping and examining himself for bites. He wore two pairs of jeans, and the furry little bastards had shredded the first layer of denim. Some tears went deep, exposing hairy white flesh, even though he’d only been exposed for a few seconds. The vermin’s destructive energy fascinated Tenner.

The scrabbling of claws made him look up and shine the light on the tunnel floor.

The volume grew. They had turned about and were coming after him.

This realization might have frozen anyone of a lesser mind, but not Tenner. He lingered, until the rats charged into the light’s beam, before turning and jogging deeper into the tunnel, leaving the bulk of the rats behind. They could not keep pace with their longer-legged prey, and eventually they became nothing more than a presence in the dark somewhere behind him.

Sometime later, a ragged-looking Tenner reached the set of circular steps leading to Citadel Hill, some ten-plus stories of secret brickwork that bore straight upward. He shone the light up, briefly illuminating the stairs and tall shaft overhead, and paused to listen.

Nothing.

A low rustling made him jerk the flashlight in the direction he’d come. The sound could have easily been mistaken for the shifting of pebbles or twigs over a hard surface, and he would have missed it if he hadn’t been listening. They were still coming after him. He craned his neck and regarded the flights of stairs that would take him up. He’d lose them above. There was a steel door at the very top, and not even undead rats could gnaw through stone and concrete. How long had this new threat been festering underneath the city? And how had the virus managed to jump from people to rats? Rats would feed on carrion if available, and just sniffing around an infected corpse was probably all it took. From there, one rat could infect whatever else was around and simply continue spreading the virus.

Tenner envisioned entire litters being infected, and those rats infecting whole populations in short time, only to infect rats outside of the city…

The thought was more than a little disconcerting.

He started climbing the stairs to the surface.

19

They moved down one of the waterfront historical streets, alternating between a jog and a brisk walk. Hard-packed snow covered the grey pavement; large icy lumps dotted the road like white cairns. Figures with their faces covered lay against building foundations like bleached, featureless mannequins. Cars were also present, but they were pushed to the side to allow a clear pathway through the street. The men didn’t seem too concerned about deadheads, yet Scott attempted to see everything at once. Buckle and Shaffer were the farthest ahead; Vick walked just ahead of him and Amy, who stayed close by his side. All of them had their weapons at the ready. He spotted a sign for a ferry crossing just as Amy spoke up.

“You looking for Moe?”

“Yeah.”

“Just keep an eye out for Tenner. Don’t worry about Moe. Well… worry a little, but Moe was mostly all cleaned out from this section.”

“Those guys?” Scott pointed at the fallen snowmen.

“Only part of it, but yeah.”

“They’re either soldiers or Moe. Dead, of course,” Vick said in his deep voice. Scott thought the man could have easily had a career in narrating books if the world still functioned. “This whole area was sealed off. Buses and anything they could make into a barricade and fortify.”

“So what happened?” Scott asked, frowning.

“Moe happened, o’ course,” Vick explained. “You’ll see soon enough.”

Through open spaces between buildings, Scott could see the water.

“We think they boxed themselves in down here with their back against the harbor.” Amy kept close to Scott, and every now and again her shoulder brushed against his arm. “And duked it out. That crowd we walked through to the tower?”

“Yeah?”

“Nothing compared to what’s up ahead.”

“What?”

“It was the city’s population against entrenched soldiers,” Vick picked up from ahead. “And at some point in time, our boys started using the heavy stuff.”

That explained the devastation in the area. To Scott’s right, buildings had been blasted and their guts had spilled into side streets, covering them with piles of snow-covered rubble and making their passage a chore. They passed a parking lot on the left that had taken a direct hit from an artillery shell. The pavement and shredded vehicles lay spread out like the ragged design of an immense winter blossom surrounding a deep crater. Statues ended at blasted knees. Bullet holes stitched lines in the nearby storefronts, and huge bites of destruction had been taken from building corners and walls.

The heavy stuff, Scott’s mind repeated. Yet they had all perished anyway.

“Where are we now?” he asked after practically speed-walking for a few more minutes.

“Water Street,” Amy informed him, and pointed to the far right, to another bus barricade lodged in between wrecked buildings. Beyond that and back a ways was what appeared to be a distant ski slope. “That’s Citadel Hill up there. Tenner said that was the worst of it.”

“The worst?”

“All open ground up there, if you can believe Tenner. He said when he was up there, the hillside was nothing but torn up bodies of Moe. That might’ve been the head of whatever fortifications they had here, as it’s the highest ground around. Army boys dug in, laid charges around the base of the hill, and when Moe came for them, they blew it all.”

“Jesus,” Scott said. The sliver of slope winked from sight as they marched past the corner of a building. They moved on, through more parking lots and defensive positions filled with corpses that lay stretched out like overgrown creepers. The open space appeared as a vanilla killing ground of monstrous proportions. If he had to make a guess, the Army had fired into an advancing crowd of Moe until they ran simply out of bullets and were overrun.

Jeeeesus, Scott mouthed in mute awe.

“Here’s where it got gruesome.” Vick looked back at him with a sly smile. “You can be thankful we’ve had snow to cover things up. But you can still see the shapes. And the size of it all.”

He was right.

Up ahead, Scott saw a wall of buses parked at the head of an intersection of three-, four-, and five-story apartment buildings. A wide slope ran up to the top of the buses, where sandbagged machine-gun nests were placed, and bodies hung over them like emptied sacks. Arms and legs stuck up through the layer of snow at irregular crooks and angles, leaving no doubt in Scott’s mind what comprised the ramp. Several white scaffolding planks went up the middle of it all, saving anyone from having to actually walk on the dead.

“Where’d you park?” Scott gasped.

“Over the wall there,” Amy told him. “We couldn’t get over the buses, so we found a place.”

“Awfully far to get back,” he observed.

“We’re okay,” Amy told him. Scott disagreed on that point, but he kept his mouth shut.

Buckle and Shaffer were already on top of the buses and disappearing on the other side. Shaffer glanced back at them with a face full of impatience. He motioned for them to hurry, and Vick increased his pace. Amy and Scott followed.

“Shaffer was our unelected leader before Tenner arrived,” Amy told him under her breath. “Nothing like having two alpha males jostling for position.”

That was something Scott didn’t miss, and he got the feeling that Amy didn’t care for it either. Underfoot, the scaffolding rattled as they stepped onto it and walked to the top of the buses.

Scott’s mouth hung open at what he saw on the other side.

If the open parking lots behind him were secondary defensive lines with wide killing fields, then the street ahead, now a choked chute of bodies, was a firing range from hell. The apartment buildings and shops that stretched out for perhaps fifty meters had their fronts ripped down by whatever explosive devices the Army had once commanded. Bodies, chunks of bodies, and lost limbs appeared imbedded into raw wood and concrete, which stretched down one side of the street and up the other. It struck Scott as a half-pipe of shredded frozen meat that started out beyond the buildings, but slowly built itself up like frosty coffee grounds, until it begin to rise in a second slope that breached the first wall of buses. Blasted corpses even decorated rooftops for as far as he could see. Huge menacing machine guns of unknown caliber, ruined by the weather, lined both levels of barricades. He stopped and gawked at the spectacle of carnage on either side of the bus, measuring which side was worse, and easily deciding on the front. Dead soldiers filled metal dumpsters. They had taken up positions inside the metal boxes, perhaps fifteen feet out from the buses to create the first battle line, with the machine gun fire overlapping and joining theirs from over the buses. With these two lines of fire, it seemed probable that the Army had lured or waited for the gimps to walk toward them en masse before they unleashed hell. The firing attracted more deadheads, and Moe kept on coming while the soldiers behind the line, eager at the prospect of using their weapons to their full destructive potential, ripped their targets new assholes. Scott wondered how many deadheads had been mowed down before magazines went dry, or how long the Army had waited until they started using the heavy guns, or if they broke and ran when Moe kept marching down this ungodly throat of death, taking losses that had no doubt eroded the soldiers’ resolve, until the first corpses scratched at the outer trash dumpsters, crawled over them, and feasted on what was inside.

And how long might it have lasted? A day? Two? Three, perhaps?

Doesn’t matter, Scott supposed. In the end, Moe had eaten them all.

The stench of frozen corpses and the magnitude of the fight threatened to make him gag.

“C’mon,” Amy said, saving Scott from the bottomless well of hopelessness he suddenly dangled over. He looked into her round, pale face and couldn’t bring himself to say a word. These were once people who walked, worked, and breathed, and now… Amy took him gently by the arm and guided him down the ramp on the other side. Scott gazed ahead, past the raw ruin that stretched out for a whole block and then some, and silently noted that if she wasn’t there, he might have lost it a second time.

Up ahead, Buckle, wearing a black mask and hood that transformed him into a short, stout ninja, had stopped and turned around. “You all right, b’y?” he asked pensively, saying the word as bye, the Newfoundland equivalent of boy or buddy. The sound of his voice was uncomfortably loud in the street, which was lined with icy chunks of unmoving meat.

“Just a little shaken up,” Amy answered for him, still holding onto his arm.

“S’aright,” Buckle said in a new, nasal whine. “Vick’s like that all the time. Ain’tcha, Vicky, me ol’ trout.”

Vick rolled his dark eyes. “Told you to stop calling me that.”

Buckle shrugged and looked away.

Vick took to inspecting the rooftops for reasons unknown to Scott. “Been looking at this mess for the last few days, and I’m still not used to it. All them people. What was once people.”

“You okay?” Amy asked Scott.

“Course he’s not okay,” Buckle observed. “He looks like he shat himself.”

“Hey, shut up,” Shaffer ordered, stressing the words as if he was all out of patience. “Before you burst something and starting bleeding all over the place.”

“I’ll make sure it’s you, then.”

“I said shut up, goddammit. I’ll put my boot up your ass if you don’t quiet down.”

This time, Buckle let it go.

Scott was grateful for the silence. He regained control of his emotions, but the scale of the shooting fest still left him awestruck. The ruined buildings scrolled as he followed Amy, past an apartment building on the left and a ravaged parking lot on the right. The lay of the land tilted, becoming a slope that faced the water. Scott thought that back in the day, this particular patch of real estate must have commanded top dollar. Some very wealthy people had been infected here.

Another parking lot came into view. Waiting amongst a scattering of vehicles topped off with white cones was a beige passenger van, its ass pointed toward them.

“You came here in that?” Scott asked Amy.

“Yeah. It’s Vick’s baby. We’re loading stuff onboard. There’s a lot of room in the back.”

“Y’know something?” Buckle turned and asked Vick.

“What’s that?”

“I don’t think Tenner came this way.”

“What?”

“I don’t see any new tracks.”

“Too hard to tell. Snow’s packed down,” Shaffer exclaimed. “We’ve been back and forth today and yesterday. He’s probably around here somewhere. Be on guard.”

Buckle rolled his eyes at Vick.

They stopped before the van without incident, and Scott and Amy studied the streets for deadheads. The coast seemed clear.

“Baby looks good,” Vick exclaimed as he opened the door and did a quick take of the inventory. “Everything’s still in the back. Looks fine.”

Buckle and Shaffer stood in front of the van as Vick climbed aboard, tossing his pipe onto the passenger seat. Behind the wheel, Vick frowned. The engine refused to start.

“Nothing.”

Buckle stepped forward and motioned for Vick to pop the hood.

“What are you waiting for, shithead?” Shaffer asked as Buckle struggled with the hood’s latch.

“Suck me.”

“Can’t open a hood? Jesus Christ, move.” Shaffer pushed Buckle away and reached underneath the hood. “Leave it to you to… ah, there it is. See what a real man can––”

Shaffer lifted the hood and the engine cavity exploded, enveloping him in a sheet of flame and tossing Buckle into the snow. Shaffer did not scream. The front of the van jumped. The hood ripped free of its hinges and smashed into the windshield, crumpling it inward. Shrapnel sliced and sizzled through the air. Vick tumbled out of the driver’s seat as smoke billowed from the vehicle. Amy pulled Scott back and into a crouch beside her. Buckle stood up and inspected the fallen Shaffer.

“How is he?” Vick called out.

Buckle straightened, partially obscured by the smoke billowing from the engine. “Dead,” he muttered.

“What was that?” Amy asked, still partially in shock.

“Booby-trapped,” Vick declared in his deep voice. They gathered around the smoldering wreck of the van. Buckle kicked snow on top of Shaffer’s blackened body. The skin crackled and popped when the ice particles struck it.

“Rigged,” Buckle said in his nasal twang. “Our mister Tenner. He had no intention of coming here. Had this rigged to blow. Smart prick. Knew eventually y’get around to poppin’ the hood.”

“An explosion like that?”

“Seen something like this when I was on the force. Old codger had barricaded himself in his house with a load of shotguns. Had grenades hooked up to his doors so that if you jerked them open, out came the pins.”

“Grenades, huh?” Vick asked, his gaze alternating between Shaffer’s cooked body and the still-smoking engine block.

“Grenades,” Buckle confirmed. “Don’t ask me how the old bastard got them. He put a round into his brain before we got to him.”

“Where the hell did Tenner find grenades?” Vick pondered.

“Tenner could’ve found anything and put it in there,” Amy said. “Remember, we found him here first.”

“Maybe he found some other toys, too,” Buckle added. “Maybe he’s been holding back.”

“And he knew we’d be driving out of here at some point in time,” Vick said. “Course by then, the game would be afoot, I suppose. With or without your appearance,” he directed at Scott.

“What now?” Buckle asked.

“We should get back to the tower,” Amy said. “Gear up right this time. Tenner’s out here somewhere, but we should be able to lose him.”

“The fucker might’ve heard this.” Buckle nodded at the van.

“I have an SUV,” Scott said.

They all turned to him.

“It runs,” Scott explained. “Drove it up here and left it in a garage on School Street. Got gas and food there. We could hike back there if we can’t find anything else.”

For a moment none of them said anything, and all they heard was the occasional snapping of fire.

“Up on School Street,” Amy said. “That’s a long hike. There’s a lot of Moe if we go back the same way you and I came.”

“We could go around,” Scott suggested.

“Take longer. No guarantee it’d be safer, either. Moe’s everywhere.”

“Tenner’s out there, too,” Vick said.

“Well, he might be.”

“What do you think?” Vick asked Amy and Buckle.

“Sure, why not?” Buckle immediately smirked. “Beats the hell outta this.”

“Amy?”

Amy stood there, a little bit shorter than Buckle beside her. She reached up and hooked a strand of hair that had fallen over her face and tucked it behind a very white ear. In that pose, that moment, Scott felt something switch on inside.

“Can’t leave a good vehicle behind. Not in wintertime. We could probably find something somewhere, but there’s always the chance it’d be an older make, or the battery would be dead. Might not start. Or it’s trapped in between a bunch of wrecks. Not to mention the risk if the thing is out in the open. The cars here on the lot, well, we already took the gas from them and put it in the van.”

“Can’t put it back?” Scott asked.

“We punched holes in the tanks.” Amy smiled weakly.

Buckle nodded. “Right. Let’s go with the sure thing.”

“Yeah,” Amy said. “Let’s go back to the tower, though, and suit up right. Get some of the MREs.”

Vick started throwing snow and ice onto the engine block, dousing the fire.

“What about him?” Scott asked, indicating the dead man.

Buckle answered that. He stooped and hooked Shaffer underneath the arms and lifted the corpse. Vick grabbed the legs. They carried him to a nearby car and, after a moment, got him inside and left him bunched up on the back seat. Buckle closed the door and, once done, he and Vick faced the others.

“An above-ground coffin for him,” Buckle said. “Didn’t care for the man, but can’t leave him for Moe. Now what?”

“We head back,” Amy told him.

“He didn’t touch the MREs in the van.” Vick pointed at the marked boxes in the back seat.

“Leave them there. He might have tampered with them.”

That thought quieted them.

“We pick up what we have at the tower and move out. I don’t want to stay there tonight,” Amy said in her raspy tone. “We can always come back later and get the rest. Like, much later. He could be hanging around, too. Awright? Then let’s go.”

Without waiting for them, she about-faced and started marching. Buckle rubbed at his beard and shrugged. “She’s your daughter,” he said.

Vick looked at Scott, his craggy face pouting. “She’s not my daughter.”

They started moving.

After a few seconds, Vick added quietly, “Not by blood, anyway.”

Norsemen

20

The land became whiter as snow flurries struck with greater frequency, and the air grew colder still. Winter was upon them, and Fist wanted to be in Halifax before the storms started kicking in. They made good time along Highway 2 until it became Highway 104. Towns appeared on the edges of the Trans-Canada Highway, and Fist allowed the Norsemen a few days hunting and scavenging in each. They bypassed Moncton entirely, not wanting to get tangled up in the city. Fist’s orders were to strike east to Halifax, scout the surrounding areas, and return to the west with his report. Fist thought it prudent to stay with the smaller towns because the dead weren’t as populous as they were in urban areas. They would not avoid Halifax, however. The nuclear plant there had been mothballed years ago, and the city was regarded as a gem of possibilities.

The sky stayed a morgue grey, and light snow fell. Being on the road for so long was beginning to grate on Fist’s nerves—and his ass. A sign materialized in the distance, drawing his weary attention.

“Sackville.” Fist tasted the word and liked it. “Litterae, Religio, Scientia,” he muttered, making Pell glance at him.

“Drive into town,” Fist commanded. “Let’s see what… Sackville has to offer.”

Nodding, Pell did as told, as he’d better. Fist believed the man to be loyal, at least as loyal as any of the dogs at his beck and call, but he kept watch and had no reservations at all about killing him if needed. Behind him, the other warriors rustled and chortled at the thought of getting out of the van. Fresh meat was getting scarce, and they would soon start cutting into their dwindling stores of smoked flesh. They all hoped the hunting would be better in Sackville.

As the snow continued to fall, Pell drove through the inner roads of Sackville, going deeper, passing large red brick buildings that appeared to be dormitories.

“What is this?” the driver hissed, staring out his window.

“University of Mount A,” Fist rumbled. “A for… Allison.”

“A university?”

“Yes.”

Once carefully sculpted grounds were now littered with abandoned cars, fallen trees, and power lines, as well as scattered debris, all coated with a thin sheet of snow. Victorian-styled houses lined the road on the opposite side of the residences, their windows smashed out. Grey figures, almost incorporeal, paused on crests of low hills and watched the vans go by. Fist stared back at them. Zombies. They were truly everywhere.

The road became increasingly rough.

“Stop here,” Fist ordered and opened his door. “Everyone out ’cept Pell. Get hunting.”

Pell braked in the middle of an intersection of what appeared to be a small downtown area. Signs for banks, ATMs, coffee places, and once-quaint shopping stores hung off of storefronts. The van’s side door slid open with a rattle and a half-dozen Norsemen eagerly got out, readying clubs, axes, and bats. Fist went to the back of the van and grabbed his maul. His hockey helmet went on last.

The second van pulled up behind them.

“What’s up?” Murphy asked, leaning back in the passenger seat. He seemed quite relaxed.

“Gonna do some hunting,” Fist answered him.

“Here?”

Fist slowly turned toward Murphy and glared. Murphy did not flinch.

“Only asking,” the man finally grumbled.

“Get your ass out of the fucking van,” Fist growled. “Before I stab it.”

Murphy slowly did as he was told, his expression saying he didn’t like the threat. Fist didn’t give a shit what he liked or didn’t. When one followed, one didn’t ask questions. Not in his pack of dogs.

Men leaped from the other transport and geared up for a hunt. Fist walked to the front of the two vans and waved an arm. The two vehicles, encircled by walking Norsemen, crept down the street.

“Anyone here?” Fist called. “Anyone? Hey?”

When he paused, another man called out. Snow continued to fall in lethargic bits of fluff, and the town took on a ghostly hue.

The shouting attracted the dead.

They crept toward the living, dragging their feet, and the living put them down with smiles. A string of dead bodies marked their passage into town, and the snow did its best to cover up the husks.

“We’re looking for gas,” Fist yelled, which was true, although they could have gotten it from any of the derelict vehicles lining the road. “And a place to stay. If anyone can help.”

“We’re hungry, too,” a man with Viking horns shouted, making those around him smile.

The Norsemen came to another intersection, and Fist directed them to veer to the right. A ravaged grocery store appeared out of the curtain of light snow, but they didn’t stop. More dead tried to eat them, but had their existence ended instead.

Two hours into the hunt, they looped back to their starting point and continued doing a slow circuit, until past two in the afternoon.

“This place is dead,” Fist heard Murphy declare behind him, impatience in his voice. The man was beginning to irritate him.

“Hey!” a woman’s voice shouted.

The vans stopped in a squeal of brakes.

Fist watched as four people emerged from the grocery store they had passed and dismissed as being empty. Silhouetted by the snow, she was perhaps in her thirties, plain-looking and hopeful. She carried a scoped rifle, aimed at the ground. Three men followed her, all dressed in heavy winter clothing. Fist noted the hunting shotguns and forced himself to smile.

“We were about to give up,” Fist burst out.

“So we heard,” the woman said, studying the others. A dash of uncertainly marred her features for all of a second, then she pushed on. “You’re a fierce looking bunch.”

“This?” Fist exclaimed good naturedly, looking over his armor. “Keeps us alive. Zombies can’t bite through it. And we try to save our ammo, so…” He hefted the maul.

“So I see,” the woman went on. “I’m Claire.”

“Fist,” Fist introduced himself.

“No first name?”

Another smile. Fist felt his cheek starting to ache. “That is my first name.”

“Strange. Where you guys from?”

“Out west.”

“We heard it was hell out there,” one of the men said, cradling a shotgun in his arms, not as welcoming as Claire.

Fist dropped the smile. “It is. Damn scary. Alberta’s the worst of it. Nuclear plants melted down when the power grid went. It’s a mess. We lost people trying to get out here. The dead aren’t the only worry, I can tell you.”

“How you get here?”

Always with the same questions, Fist thought in annoyance. “Sackville? Just saw the sign and decided to drive through. Looking for supplies, things to eat. This place looked promising, but we went by the shop. Didn’t look the greatest.”

“Nah, the store’s been picked clean almost five months now,” Claire said. “But we’re doing fine. It’s a day to day thing.”

“Tell me about it,” Fist said. The snow wasn’t letting up, but he thought he detected movement on the roof of the store. These were cautious people. “Pays off to be careful,” he said without thinking.

Claire didn’t say anything to that, and for a moment, an awkward silence stretched between them.

“Well,” she said, making the effort. “We don’t really know you, but wanted to take the chance, you know. See if you were all right.”

Fist nodded amicably. “Understandable. Understandable. So what do you want to do?”

“Well, you’re going to want to stay somewhere. There’s plenty of empty houses if you drive straight on and take a left at the intersection. There’s also a Rosie’s Hotel just outside of town, but that one is filled with stinks.”

“Stinks?”

“Stinks or stinkers. What we call the dead.”

“I see.” Fist smiled again, even though it was the stupidest thing he’d ever heard. Impatience swelled in him. He didn’t like conversing or smiling in large quantities. “And then what?”

“Well, let’s just play it by ear, if that’s okay with you?” Claire said, hope once again back in her voice.

“Sure, where are you staying?” Too fast. Fist chastised himself.

“We’ll be around,” Claire replied. “See ya.”

“Later,” Fist said and watched them back into the shop. He took a breath. There were six, possibly seven of them. Some very good eating—and at least one woman. Fist gnawed on his lip as they disappeared into the shop. Women were… prizes.

Snow continued to fall. It would be an easy thing to allow them a head start and track them down. They had done it many times before.

At least six, with the chance of more. Fist felt the stares of his dogs behind him. They waited for the word, but he slapped the passenger side of the van and started walking down the street. The houses they had mentioned sounded good to him, and if Claire were truly cautious, he suspected they would be watched. That was fine, too. The game was afoot.

Fist so enjoyed a good hunt.

*

Hunt they did.

Within a day, the Norsemen tracked down the house of Claire and her people. They had taken up refuge in a large house that had a ten-foot-high stone wall around the entire property. Fist and his boys attacked at night, quietly killing the men on watch and scaling the walls. Moments later, they were in the house.

After that, chaos.

There had been ten of them, including a boy and a young girl, which Fist executed outright. In the gunfight that ensued, Claire was gut shot and died slowly, quite the opposite of what Fist had planned. There were two other women, and he let his boys have them. By morning, all of them had been killed, gutted, and quartered, and the kitchen had been turned into a smoke house with chunks of fresh meat hanging from hooks.

They stayed at the house two more days, just in case they had missed anyone.

They hadn’t.

On the third day, the two vans did one final exploration of Sackville, searching for crumbs. They left in midafternoon, driving through town and onto the highway, only to pull off after travelling a short distance. The days were getting shorter, and Fist spied a roadside service station and truck stop, with the small Rosie’s Hotel nearby, just as Claire had said. Fist remembered her screams, her white skin dappled with dark blood, then tuned it all out.

Stopping in front of the main door of the hotel, he organized a party of seven, including Murphy. They tooled up and entered the hotel, Fist in the lead. As expected, the dead haunted the halls of the establishment, and the Norsemen cleared the first floor within minutes. The second was cleared in equally short order. Fist allowed a short, but terse smoke break in one of the rooms of the third floor, eyeing Murphy, before finally clearing the rest.

Once the bloody evictions were completed, Fist had the vans back up to the main doors of the hotel, noses out in case they needed to leave quickly. As the cold winter dark deepened, the Norsemen conducted searches of the hotel’s kitchen and storerooms. The propane lines for a set of stainless steel burners were still functional, and three men were charged with heating supper while the rest roamed the lower floors.

Later that evening, they all gathered and ate in the large and relatively untouched dining area. Bottles of gin, vodka, whiskey, and other spirits were liberated from the hotel’s untouched bar. Shadowy from flashlights and lamps, red carpet covered the entire floor and made Pell think of haunted places. As expected, the men sat and ate mostly with those they usually shared a van with. There was some movement between tables, but one group seemed to stay put. Pell looked at Fist and saw him take in the gathering of four in a corner. A castle of bottles was being assembled before the men.

Murphy sat and drank there.

Mealtimes were loud affairs, but the discovery of the booze made this one exceptionally loud as they ate and spoke with the enthusiasm and revelry of a true Viking hall. Murphy’s table seemed to laugh the longest and the hardest. Fist, nursing a bottle of port wine, found his attention coming back to them time and time again. They would hunker down and whisper before bursting into laughter, as if sharing in a conspiracy. Sitting at his leader’s table, Pell could smell trouble, despite being half cut on rye whiskey.

Nearby, Fist took a long gulp of wine. He’d gotten quieter, more attentive to what was happening across the room.

Murphy felt eyes on him and glanced over, meeting his leader’s gaze. He didn’t linger, but went right back to whispering to the men gathered about him.

Another eruption of scalding laughter.

Pell took a shot of rye and barely felt the burn. He watched Fist. The man had tensed up in his chair, and the two other men sitting nearby felt the heat coming from him. Fist was a pressure cooker warming up.

Then Murphy made his mistake. The jackal looked across the way and nodded at Fist, even hefted a bottle in his direction, before whispering once again to his boys. There was another short conference and a snickering from all three. Murphy leaned back in his chair, grinning as if exhausted from the last joke, and took a long pull from his drink.

Pell was only a little surprised when Fist got slowly to his feet and placed the bottle of port down carefully.

The nearby Norsemen quieted one by one as Fist removed his tire tread cuirass, fashioned from the image of a Roman legionnaire. Then he stripped off the leather jacket underneath and tossed it on an empty table nearby.

That got the attention of Murphy and his companions.

Working at something lodged in his teeth, Fist pulled off his tight T-shirt, revealing the progression of evil tattoos up the length of both arms, his neck, and the snarling green dragons on each pectoral muscle. Fist had been a large man before the Fall. Powerfully built, but with a sheen of fat. His current diet had allowed him to slim down to a chiseled form, and his midsection appeared as rows of corrugated iron.

Murphy leaned back in his chair. If he was worried, he didn’t show it.

With exaggerated nonchalance, Fist reached into his left boot and extracted a Bowie knife, a huge blade that could’ve been mistaken for a machete. Holding the weapon in his fist, blade pointed at the floor, the leader of the eastern foray stepped away from his table, moved to the middle of the room, and started overturning anything within reach. Three Norsemen sat at a table in the middle of the room, but deserted it seconds before Fist lifted it from the ground and threw it against a wall.

He cleared a ragged space in the middle of the floor.

“Murph,” Fist growled in his subterranean bass voice. “Get up.”

Instead of obeying, Murphy smiled at his companions, appearing at ease. He was the only one at his table who appeared relaxed. The others had tensed up.

“Why?” Murphy asked insolently.

Pell considered himself to be a brute, but he was fighting not to shit himself, and it wasn’t even him being called out.

“Stand the fuck up,” Fist exhaled mightily, his voice like released steam.

“Looks like you got something on your mind.” Murphy leered. “Imagine that.”

“I have.”

“Yeah?” Murphy countered as he got to his feet. The men at his table scrambled away before he flipped it and rolled it away, white dishes, bottles, and gnawed bones scattering across the carpeted floor.

“Well, I’ve been thinking, too. Been thinking you ain’t been doing your job good enough. Might be time for a change,” Murphy seethed, his face darkening in the shadows of the room. He didn’t remove his riot gear, but he did produce a long serrated blade, every bit as evil-looking as the eager gleam in his eyes.

Fist said nothing.

“Fuckin’ aye,” Murphy said, gathering up wind before switching to the harsh Norse speak. “Maybe I kill you now. Take lead of pack.”

He flipped his blade and caught it by the handle.

Fist glowered.

“Huh?” Murphy’s eyes widened with indignation. “You think you can take me?”

“Son,” Fist finally said in his deep, deep voice. “I’m gonna cut your balls off.”

The silence that fell over the room after that line gave Pell shivers. A man could’ve heard a corpse squeak-fart six feet under, it had gotten so quiet.

Murphy didn’t appreciate the threat or the stillness in the least. He roared and lunged forward.

Fist slapped Murphy’s rushed stab aside, leaving his attacker wide open. He grabbed his would-be usurper’s weapon arm and doubled it over, dropping and splitting the elbow joint over his knee. Murphy shrieked and dropped his weapon. He clawed at Fist’s face, but the Norse leader slapped the pommel of the Bowie square into his nose, stunning him.

Then Fist stabbed him, pulled the knife out, and bent the challenger over. A second man lunged at the leader then, swinging a bat.

Fist caught the weapon, the brazen slap of flesh on wood echoing in the room. Then he knifed his attacker through the eye, burying the steel in his head. The body dropped, and Fist had to stoop to rip his knife free.

The third man held up his hands and backed against a wall, his frame trembling. Fist spared him, but pounced on Murphy, who lay on the floor holding in his guts. Fist held him by the throat as he punched the Bowie through his flesh. The thrust came fast and hard enough to pierce the carpet and the wood beyond. There was a soft yurk from the impaled man, then Fist’s heavily muscled torso rippled as he swirled the blade in a sawing fashion. Murphy trembled briefly, all fight gone.

Fist kept on cutting.

He stood up a few moments later, Murphy’s bloody heart squishing in his hand, and glared at the men around him. No one dared move for fear of being next.

Fist walked up to the last one of Murphy’s group. “Open your hand,” he said.

Not knowing what to expect, the man did as he was told.

Fist slapped the raw heart into it. “Fry that up,” the leader hissed. “I’m not finished eating.”

The Norseman hesitated for only a moment, then fled the room with the organ. Fist remained and sized up the remaining pair of dogs.

“Anyone else think I’m not doing my job?”

Heads shook no.

Not satisfied with their answers, Fist gazed about the room, meeting even Pell’s eyes for a moment and unnerving him in an instant. His point made, the leader returned to the two men before him.

“Cut that up,” he ordered, indicating Murphy’s body.

They jumped to the task.

“Tomorrow,” Fist informed them all, “we hit Nova Scotia. By the end of the week… Halifax.”

Scott

21

They reached Purdy’s Wharf without incident and quickly ascended to the floor designated as base camp. The afternoon sun had gone behind some clouds, and the air inside the building seemed just as chilling as outside, perhaps even more so with Sam’s corpse decorating the meeting room. They gathered around the body, and Buckle took the initiative and covered him with the dead man’s coat.

Amy took charge over the men. “Gather up everything you got now. And grab everything you can carry in your packs.”

“We can’t take it all now, Amy,” Buckle protested.

“No, but maybe we can bring Scott’s rig back here and transfer it all into the back?” She glanced at them for approval, then at Scott. “Where did you say you parked?”

“School Street.”

“School Street? I don’t know that one.”

Scott thought about it. “Maybe I’m wrong, then.”

Vick and Buckle exchanged pensive looks.

“School Avenue?” Amy asked.

“Yeah, that’s the one.”

“You’re sure?”

“Yeah, pretty sure.”

“Our Amy knows the city like the back of your hand,” Vick joked. “I’ll be in my powder room. What’s the plan, by the way?”

Amy scratched her head. “We take the long way around. Might take a few days, but we’ll have food and water with us, so that’s okay. School Avenue is right on the 102.”

She paused for a moment, collecting her thoughts. “We came through a lot of Moe to get here. I say we go around them. We can trek up South Street to Oxford, then jump over to Connaught, and eventually get onto Bayer’s Road. If we meet Moe, we’ll sidestep him if we can.”

“And Tenner?” Vick asked.

“I’ll do him,” Buckle growled, then considered Scott. “That is, if you don’t mind.”

Scott didn’t reply right away. There wasn’t any other punishment to fit the crimes Tenner had done, other than feeding him to the gimps. He had thought about it earlier, but was he ready to kill another living person? He sighed. It was the wrong time to start questioning his resolve.

“Yeah,” he replied.

Buckle’s forehead mashed up. “A noncommittal answer if I ever heard one. Tell you what. If we meet up with the bastard, I’ll give you first dibs.”

“Feeling bloodthirsty?” Vick asked.

“You’re not?” Buckle retorted.

“No, I am,” Vick stated. “I liked Sammy and Tickle tons better than Shaffer, but… can’t believe they’re gone. That Tenner killed them. Still expect Shaffer to start screaming any time.”

“Get ready,” Amy ordered them all, “and we’ll meet back here.”

Buckle followed Vick out the door. Scott was about to fall into step behind them when Amy stopped him with a shake of her head.

“You stay with me,” she said.

“Why?”

“Those guys have their armor in the same room. I don’t think any of us should be separated right now.”

Made sense.

“You get to watch me dress,” Amy stated with a wry little smile, which both startled him… and made him smile back.

“Um… body armor?” Scott asked as Amy moved past him and into the corridor.

“Yeah. Some they pulled off dead soldiers in the streets. Took a little while to find something to fit over their winter gear, but they got some.”

“You too?”

“Yeah, well, I have some. Mostly joint protection. I’m too small for the other stuff.”

They went into her room––another office waiting area with a leather sofa draped in grey blankets, which resembled more of a neat nest than a reception area. She walked to the desk, slapping her elbow and knee pads as she went, ensuring they were in place. From a corner she picked up a small protective vest, white and heavily padded.

“Don’t like putting this thing on,” she said as she pulled it on. “Squishes my boobs.”

Scott didn’t comment and looked out the only window in the place. A view of Halifax Harbour lay beyond, shaded by the clouds.

“You knew about Tenner,” he finally said.

“Yeah. Well, I suspected.”

“You didn’t say anything earlier, when we first met.” Scott turned to face her.

Amy didn’t back down. “Didn’t know for certain, is all. Didn’t want to get your hopes up. Sorry if I did anything wrong.”

Scott reflected on it. Had she done anything wrong? No, he supposed. She really hadn’t. She was only making sure that he was sure.

“I thought there was something weird about him,” Amy stated. “Pretty much from the first day we met. I’m good at getting vibes from people, and he had a bad one. Not like you.”

“I have a good vibe?”

“Something like that. You never… well… you look me in the eyes when you talk. He wouldn’t. He’d… look at other things.”

“Like what?”

“My girly parts.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah. Oh. And he’d do it in a slimy way, too. I made it a point not to be alone with him. Even talked about it with Vick. He knew. But, well, that was all. I meant to confront him if he really got weird about it.”

“Why didn’t you?”

“We started scouting for things, and he was either gone when I was back or vice versa.”

Scott nodded and looked back to the harbor. If she noticed his sudden uncomfortable silence, she didn’t show it. Amy resumed fitting the vest over her snowsuit and, once secured, produced what looked to be a riot helmet with a clear visor.

“You won’t be able to wear your mask over that,” Scott observed.

“Tired of the mask anyway,” she said and pulled the dark hood over her head. The helmet went on next.

“Heavy padding,” Scott said, indicating the vest. “Where you get that?”

“Tae Kwon Do gear. Vick used to run a school.”

Scott felt his face go slack in surprise, and Amy saw it.

“Who do you think has made it this far? If people don’t have any special training or skills, they’re pretty lucky. That’s the way we see it, anyway.”

“I don’t have any special training.”

“Except hockey.”

Scott smiled sheepishly, remembering. “Minor hockey.”

“Oh.” Amy kept a straight face. “Even better. Well, you’re one of the lucky ones.” She grabbed her tonfas. “Which is to say, very lucky. We had a conversation on that very subject one night. We figure anyone who’s left alive and survived up to this point isn’t your average person. Some might be survivalists, some might have some training, or even ex-military.”

“Buckle that?”

Amy didn’t answer right away. “No, he’s a cop.”

“A cop?”

“Yeah, ex-RCMP.”

“Shit.”

“He was based in Newfoundland, but got transferred to Nova Scotia. Attended university down in the Valley, I think he said. Anyway, let’s get going.”

Scott followed her to another room where cardboard boxes were stacked almost chest high. MEAL, READY-TO-EAT were stamped on the sides, as well as the different kinds inside. Roast chicken, beef, spaghetti and meat balls, even meat loaf, and those were just the ones he spotted in a glance. Plastic four liter jugs of water were stored on shelving units nearby.

“Wow,” he said.

“Something, eh?” Amy said, opening her backpack and placing a jug of water inside. “We found about two months’ worth of food here. And water. Moving it all was the biggest obstacle. MREs last for years.”

Scott opened a box of roast beef and eyed several metallic, re-sealable baggy units.

“Get some water, too,” Amy told him as he started transferring the bags to his backpack.

The sound of boots made Scott turn around. Vick and Buckle stood just outside the doorway, waiting their turn at the food and water stores. Both wore black body armor over their snow suits, with high sturdy collars to protect their necks. Padding was strapped to their elbows and knees, and both wore the same type of battle helmet Amy wore, complete with matching black masks. Scott figured the armor to be Kevlar or whatever material soldiers wore in the field. The armor protected their limbs to a degree, Scott saw, but the thick snow suits would probably also save them from a bite long enough to put down the attacker.

“You guys all shop at the same place?” Scott asked.

“Looks that way, doesn’t it?” Vick answered. “Plenty to go around if you want an extra suit. Formally make you part of the group.”

Scott inspected their protection, then looked at his own Nomex coat and pants. “No, thanks. This is fine.”

“Good idea,” Buckle said with a deep nasal sound to his voice. “Your gear’s got overall better protection, I think. And it’s fireproof, if you feel the need to light yourself up anytime.”

“Why didn’t we check out the fire stations?” Vick asked Buckle.

“You wanted to play soldier,” Buckle reminded him.

“Finished,” Amy announced and made her way to them, getting her backpack on in place. “You’re sounding worse.”

“Me?” Buckle asked.

“Yeah, you.”

“Tenner broke me nose, ’member?” Buckle replied. “Got more blanket in there. The last one got saturated. Got it in both nostrils now.”

“Ew,” Amy stated.

“Yeah, fuckin’ ew.” Buckle scoffed in agreement.

“We’ll have to come back here,” Vick said, changing the subject.

“Yeah,” Amy agreed, her expression hidden behind the black mask. “Sometime.”

Buckle and Scott exchanged places. “Better not’ve hogged all the meat loaf,” the Newfoundlander warned him as he went past.

They finished loading what they could comfortably carry in food and water and left the room. Next they picked up their camouflage, Moe-stained ponchos that reeked, stinking up the room.

“Gonna have to reapply these,” Vick said as he threw his poncho over his head. A ripped T-shirt went on next, covering almost all of his face plate. Amy and Buckle did the same. A moment later, Amy motioned Scott to bend over while she placed a similar shirt over his motorcycle helmet.

“This was Sam’s. Yours now.”

Scott nodded.

“You got ammo for that shotgun of yours?” Vick asked him.

“Yeah, in my pockets.”

“That’s fine, just don’t use it unless you have to. That Glock is better if you have to.”

“Ruger,” Scott corrected him.

“Whatever. We don’t kill Moe unless we have to. Got it?”

“Got it.”

Vick seemed satisfied with that and turned to the others. “I’m ready. You guys?”

“Ready, me son,” Buckle said in his gruff-turned-nasal voice.

“Ready,” Amy echoed.

“Me, too,” Scott threw in.

Vick appraised them all for a moment, his dark eyes the only part visible through the masks he wore, and brought his length of steel pipe to his shoulder. Seconds passed and he still made no move to leave.

“You okay?” Amy asked him.

The man with the steel pipe hesitated. “Just figured… there would be more of us leaving this place, is all,” he finished with a half-shrug.

The silence that came after his words was almost solemn.

“All right, then,” Vick finally said, as if convincing himself that all would be well. “Let’s get it on.”

22

Having finally reached the top of the stairs, Tenner felt like shit. He was in good shape, but running that last distance, the adrenaline dump, and climbing a mountain of stairs had taken a lot out of him. Pausing at the closed metal door only long enough to ensure that nothing was coming after him, he turned and strode through a short stone passageway, toward an archway of brick, snow, and light. He emerged from the tunnel into a wide, wintry courtyard as large as a football field. Thick brick walls rose up to ramparts and slick-looking concrete platforms. Artillery emplacements ringed the heights, and Tenner had gone up there to see where Purdy’s Wharf was situated and to look out over Halifax Harbour, as well as the city behind the old fortress. Several buildings in the Citadel possessed shaggy white plumes of withered grass, bent over from the weight of snow and ice. Trucks, jeeps, and even four frosty-looking green tanks filled the open space before him, creating a ragged maze of metallic lumps. Bodies lay scattered throughout, some fresher than others—all soldiers and all dead. When Tenner came upon the fort, there were perhaps three dozen turned soldiers that sought to devour him. No Philistines these, as they wore full battle suits and proved to be a challenge even for Tenner. Most of the soldiers wore helmets that were resistant to his Glocks, so he killed them with his ceremonial knives––sinking the blades into brains by way of stabbing up under chins. The flesh was frozen, and gouging it with a length of steel felt strange to Tenner, as if he were stabbing stout slush, but they died all the same. It merely took a little more effort on his part.

Then he got to searching.

The Army had chosen well in positioning a sizeable force on Citadel Hill. The grounds around the fort were cleared and grassy, giving the defenders the best shot at any dead thing attempting to walk up the slopes. Though the grounds where draped in deep snow, crooked arms and torsos were still visible from the rampart heights, where snipers and machine guns had wreaked second-death upon the advancing legions of zombies on a mesmerizing scale. Whatever battles fought were all for naught, unfortunately, for the virus had finally penetrated the fort and wrecked deadly havoc from within. Tenner had no idea what the timeline might have been, from the time the Army barricaded itself in the fort to the time it finally fell, but he suspected it had been at least a year.

He didn’t really care.

All he cared about… were the toys.

He moved through the clutter of tanks and other military vehicles. The tanks he’d inspected first, but for reasons unknown, they would not start for him. The jeeps also would not start, and the mechanical riddles of their engines only made him scratch his head. The weapon systems were likewise a puzzle and, exposed to the elements for as long as they were, he left them alone. Sidearms and all manner of assault rifles lay on the frozen dirt, half-buried in white drifts; some even had detached hands, forearm bones gnawed clean, clutching grips. He left those. Empty casings filled with and partially obscured by snow were sprinkled just about everywhere underfoot—shiny leftovers from a final firefight. Some were his, but most were not. There were even some untouched box magazines left in the open, which Tenner left behind. Whatever was in the courtyard would stay in the courtyard.

Tenner arrived at an archway set into a stone building, where a smaller door was inset into a larger garage frame. He grasped the old-fashioned latch on the wooden door and opened it. He stepped just inside the threshold and smiled.

The room was a storage chamber of sorts. Three crates of carefully sealed and packaged AR-20s, the Canadian Forces assault rifle of choice, lay atop one another. He knew they were the upgraded version of the AR-15 tactical carbine. One crate’s weapons came with attached laser designator sighting systems, as well as fitted grenade launchers. Another crate contained rifles with scopes, without any further bells and whistles. For some reason, Tenner preferred the simpler designs. There were side arms and futuristic submachine guns of a manner beyond his understanding. One crate contained what he believed to be light machine guns from the folded-up bipods underneath their fluted barrels, ugly-looking snakes that could no doubt rip out whole chunks of flesh. Another crate held several small wooden boxes filled with black egg-sized grenades, dimpled for improved grip. Even better, there were crates filled with intact magazines––several thousand rounds if Tenner wasn’t mistaken.

The harbor-front armory had been wrecked. He hadn’t been lying about that to the others.

But it didn’t matter.

He’d found everything he’d wanted in the fort.

Just in time, too. The week he spent below the hill had almost depleted his stores of ammunition. Forays to the national armory, street searches, and fighting dead things had placed a strain on the supplies he’d brought with him in the SUV. That had been an adventure in itself. But he’d done it.

Even better, he’d done it only days before meeting up with his living, breathing toys, grown from the finest stock. He had intended to lead them on for as long as he could without raising suspicions. Take them out, one by one if possible, on patrols or searches for other survivors in the city. The very thought of looking for survivors had made him scoff secretly when they had suggested it. The city was a scorched battleground populated only by the reanimated dead, but whatever kept up their hopes. Even watching them eat the food untouched by the Army, supplies he considered rightfully his, had been quite difficult to do. There were enough MREs about to feed a single person for a year, perhaps even two if he was extremely conservative. Tenner had helped transfer boxes of supplies from Purdy’s Wharf to their van, but he’d mentally vowed none of it would leave the area. Though he was no mechanic, it didn’t take any skill to disconnect a few wires and hoses in the engine, then rig a grenade to the inside of the hood. He had even listened to Amy talk about going back to basics and the need to grow their own food, but the thought of working a farm had made him sick. However, Tenner believed keeping up morale was a good thing and a useful carrot to lead the mule with. So he continued listening to them, inwardly marvelling at his ability to act like a normal person, to actually blend in with them. Over time, he’d gotten to know them. Vick was the fatherly type and obviously thought the world of Amy. Buckle was the enforcer and, with his police training, was potentially a bigger threat than Vick, whom Tenner understood had taught martial arts for a living before the demise of civilization. Shaffer was the loudmouth cynic, probably a bully back in the day, the kind of asshole a person would despise having to work with day in and out. Sam and Tickle were merely dogs following their leaders. Tenner had, in fact, considered Sam to be his next plaything, before changing his mind and deciding on Shaffer. He’d thought of lashing the loudmouth to a telephone pole and allowing the dead to feed upon his lower extremities, the same as he’d done to Tickle. He’d also come up with another idea. There were craters out there. Perhaps binding Shaffer with duct tape and burying him in snow up to his neck would be fun. Of course he’d notify Moe that dinner was in the fridge and waiting.

Amy, on the other hand.

Amy was special. Even better, the female was still alive.

There weren’t many women left in the world, and certainly none as physically and intellectually appealing as Amy. He’d watched her at times, quietly sizing her up, measuring her strengths; he had to admit, he’d been impressed. He’d be even more impressed when he was strapping her arms and legs with duct tape, rendering her helpless, while he worked his magic with his knives. The possibility of impregnating her, creating a brood, had entered his mind. A superior species of man. A mutant, even. Tenner believed he was superior in every way to those around him. An alpha male’s alpha male. He eventually discarded the notion of creating more in his mould, however. Keeping a female alive and docile until she came to term would be a hassle he didn’t really have time for. There was also the risk of siring a daughter. Having a female would only force him to reset Amy in another attempt at a male offshoot. Even then the odds of success were only slim as, by that time, Amy would no doubt be in rougher condition than when he first impregnated her.

Still, he had to admit, having her around for even a short while would entertain him in ways the sport would not.

The sport—his game—had gone on quite well and would have no doubt continued going on well until the appearance of the mystery man. And who the fuck was he, anyway? Nothing came to him. The face drew a blank. But the new meat knew him. Knew of him.

Didn’t matter.

Whoever he was, he was only an extra piece of meat to slaughter.

Tenner pulled up the body armor he’d found in another part of the fort from yet another storage container with several suits of different sizes. He selected the biggest one that would fit over his winter coat and brought it back to the room with the weapons and ammunition. The black plates went on with an ease that suggested Tenner was born to wear such gear, shackling them around his thighs, lower legs, chest, and arms. Wearing his coat underneath was tight, but he didn’t mind. He strapped on twin thigh holsters for Glock 18s, then filled a backpack with extra magazines for the guns and the AR-20 he’d chosen. He was lucky to have found ample ammunition for the Glocks, as he had nearly run out. The assault rifle had a cache of extended magazines. The rounds were of a size unknown to him, but they looked incredibly large and lethal. He lashed a death vest to his chest: eight egg-sized grenades attached to the front of a vest of synthetic material, semi-protected by pouches of Velcro, that allowed him to use the explosives one at a time, or he could undo a wire cord and, with one yank, detonate them all at once. The vest also had several loops and pockets for extra magazines. A dark hood covered his mouth and nose. A combat helmet with tight-fitting goggles went over his head, giving him the appearance of a secretive Special Forces soldier. His bush of hair made the fit a little awkward, but it was his pride and joy, and so he put up with it.

Finally, his precious knives went into sheaths that hung off his belt at the base of his back, overlapping each over with hilts outward so that if he had to reach behind and grab them, they’d be in his hands in a flash.

There was a box of MREs nearby, and Tenner took four as well as a jug of water and made room for it all in his backpack. Once that was done, he stopped and looked around the room. He’d thought about taking two assault rifles, one as a backup, but carrying the pair would be too cumbersome. If he somehow lost one, he’d assess the situation and consider coming back for another. The light machine gun was also an option and he had to admit it was tempting, but there was no sport in that. He would’ve taken his hunting rifle, the Bushmaster, but he’d nearly depleted the ammunition. His AR-20 possessed a scope as well as three modes of fire—single shot, semi-automatic, and full electric rock n’ rolla.

The best his prey had were handguns. However, he did seem to remember a gun barrel slung over the shoulder of the mystery man—a shotgun probably, or a hunting rifle, and no doubt limited ammunition. There was also the mystery man’s handgun, but that didn’t bother Tenner. He thought about sniping the bastard from a distance, just blowing his head off in the middle of a street somewhere, which would lay to rest the man’s puzzling existence, as well as scare the living shit out of the remaining targets.

Then something occurred to him, an image that brought him up cold and abruptly speechless.

The rats.

What about them?

Replaying the chase in the tunnel left a disquieting image in his head. Was the appearance of the rats some sort of tragic foreshadowing for him? Or were they merely another lowly physical manifestation of the virus to be dealt with while he went about his true purpose? Where would they play out in the cosmic scheme of events? Was it safe to assume they couldn’t breach the fort? He didn’t have an answer to any of those questions.

Zombie rodents. He sighed mentally. What would be next? As Buckle so often said, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus.

Tenner hefted the backpack and strapped it on. He looped his assault rifle over a shoulder by its strap. He took one last look around the chamber and believed he had everything he needed for the hunt. After it was over—he figured a day at the earliest, four at the most––he’d come back and plan his next move. Perhaps he could actually convert the fort into something liveable. Or maybe he’d move back to one of the higher floors of Purdy’s Wharf and enjoy the view. Mexico could wait a few months. Hellifax had so much to offer, and with the newfound stores of supplies, it would be stupid of him to leave so soon—even with the knowledge of zombie rats in the city’s metal guts.

Hefting the AR-20 and placing the skeletal butt stock firmly against his shoulder, he turned and started walking toward the door, wondering where he should start hunting.

The words at the beginning popped into his head.

It was as good a place as any.

23

The four of them left Purdy’s Wharf and quickly made their way back toward the main wall. The snow squeaked underneath their boots, and the cold wormed itself into their limbs. Scott thought of how he’d wished he had been able to see Halifax under different conditions. Buckle was about a dozen steps ahead of him, seemingly staring straight ahead. Vick walked across from him on the right. The older man looked around, studying the stone corners and listening to the sound of their march, the only noise to be heard. Scott glanced at Amy to his right, who finished the wide box the four of them made.

They moved along without speaking, approaching the killing fields as Scott thought of them––that second line of machine gun nests spread out in front of the parking lots. Vick produced a pair of spiked knuckles that almost made Scott balk. The spikes looked to be at least a fearsome three inches long. Vick quietly fitted them on one hand and then the other, trapping his steel bar underneath an armpit as he did so.

“Scary, aren’t they?” Amy asked. She had noticed him gawking and stepped in close. “Most of the items from his shop weren’t the best thing for putting down Moe. But he took a liking to those.”

Hearing her, Vick turned and raised his fist in a grim salute. A tattered hood made from a T-shirt covered his battle helmet, but Scott guessed there was a ready smile hidden underneath it all.

“That where you got your sticks?” Scott asked her.

“They’re tonfas,” Amy corrected him. “And yes, that’s where I got them. And the chest protector. All sparring gear.”

“Havin’ a nice chat back there?” Buckle asked over his shoulder. “Why not a little louder, eh?”

“Sorry,” Amy said and lowered her voice. “He can be cranky sometimes.”

Vick looked over at Buckle and said, “You can be cranky at times.”

The Newfoundlander didn’t comment.

“Any more of that around?” Scott asked her in a much quieter tone.

“Tonfas?”

“And spiked knuckles.”

“You know how to punch?”

“Huh?”

“Throw a punch. You know how to throw one properly?”

Scott had never thought of it before. “No.”

“Then it’d be kind of a waste.”

“Thought they were for people who couldn’t throw a punch.”

“Oh, they are,” Amy said, stepping in closer until she was only an arm’s length away. “But on someone like Vick, they’re lethal.”

With spikes like that, anyone’s lethal, Scott thought darkly.

The bus and the ramp of corpses came into view. As they drew closer, Buckle slowed to a stop and surveyed something that caught his attention.

“What’s up?” Vick asked.

Buckle shook his head. “That one corpse there… I remember it ’cause it’s a soldier.”

“Yeah? So?”

“I was sure it had legs before.”

Vick and the others stopped and studied the dead body for a moment, perched on top of the rest and partially covered by a thin dusting of frost. The legs were gone at mid-thigh, leaving only ragged chunks of frozen meat.

“Looks… gnawed on,” Amy observed. “Not like the others.”

“Dogs, maybe?” Vick suggested.

“Haven’t seen a dog in a year. Sure as hell haven’t seen one around here,” Buckle said.

“What else could it be, then?” Amy asked.

“We got other things to worry about right now. Let’s keep on,” Vick said. “Get moving. Don’t like just standing here wasting daylight.”

They left the corpse, but Scott lingered. Something about the missing legs disturbed him. Eventually, he turned and saw Amy waiting for him. They walked through the half-pipe of wrecked and gun-blasted flesh, and Scott was once again amazed at how much damage the zombies had absorbed, yet they had still been able to advance to the inner defenses.

But the body with the chewed off legs continued to bother him.

It brought up another mystery, one unsolved, back in the valley. In Annapolis.

He stepped in close to Amy as they passed through the mess of frozen dead. “I need to talk to you about something.”

She half-turned. “Can it wait?”

He supposed it could. “Yeah.”

Then they were through it all. They didn’t stop at their demolished van, nor did they turn up what a sign declared as Morris Street. Scott kept quiet as they marched toward a T-intersection and what looked to be a huge building that had taken an explosive round right through the front. The rooftop was charred and blackened. Not a window in the place was intact.

A choice loomed up as the road came to an end—left or right. Another sign read TERMINAL ROAD.

Underneath his motorcycle helmet, half of Scott’s face hitched up in a sorry smile.

To his surprise, Vick and Buckle turned right and headed up Terminal Road. Scott and Amy followed at a comfortable distance.

Then he saw the dead, about forty or so. Stragglers compared to what he had seen before, but more than enough to be a problem.

The men stalked them as if they were a couple of gunslingers instead of virus survivors, not disguising their movements in the least. Their heads flicked right and left, studying the perpendicular street. Amy’s right hand fluttered in a come on gesture, and he followed. Together, they closed the gap between the pair of men.

“What are they doing?” Scott whispered.

“Picking a fight,” she murmured.

On cue, Buckle’s Halligan bar came up while Vick raised his length of steel pipe. There was a gap between the walking corpses, delivery men and hotel staff still in their decomposing uniforms. Some of the white clothing had turned black from wounds that no mortal could have survived. Huge chunks of flesh were torn of out some of the zombies, while others had been disemboweled and feasted upon until only a black cavity remained. Scott glimpsed backbones, shifting as the dead shambled about without direction.

Buckle and Vick went into dead mode, adopting limps and shuffling through the forty or so gimps filling the street. They waded into them as if crossing a deep river, heading toward an open parking lot across the road surrounded by three buildings. Scott and Amy entered the small mob just as the men reached the lot. Why were they heading into what looked to be a dead end?

Something bumped into him, and Scott rolled with the solid connection as if drunk. Another hard hit and he pulled away from it, alarm creeping in. A zombie had paused and seemed to be considering Amy’s form just ahead.

A hand came down on Scott’s arm.

The deadhead reached out with all the gentleness of a grandmother’s touch, and Scott had enough of an angle to see a woman, stick thin and wearing the remains of an exercise suit. Two huge, seemingly cracked cue balls filled her orbital cavities, and Scott saw she had no eyelids. Or cheek flesh, for that matter. Black skin tags festered around a mouth that badly needed to be wiped.

He brushed her aside, but a moan chased him. Other gimps turned. Something was wrong, he realized with surging fright. They weren’t buying the act. Moe knew there was something about him, and some primitive intelligence urged them to bump him, to touch him, to see if there was a reaction.

Ahead and well inside the parking lot, Vick and Buckle turned around and stood like a two-man wall. Amy pushed ahead, still walking like a corpse and trailing three curious souls. Something tugged on Scott’s poncho, and any moment he feared he’d hear the jogger behind him shriek “Meat!” and that would be that.

Vick dragged the tip of his steel pipe across a strip of bare asphalt, making a death rattle that startled Scott.

Suddenly, the hand on Scott’s poncho was gone. Moans and hisses cut the air from the zombies around him, alerting the rest of the pack. Zombies lurched toward the two men, who were no longer imitating the dead. Amy slowly held out an arm until her hand touched Scott’s padded midsection, making him slow all the more and keeping him out of the parking lot. His fingers clenched his bat. Scott wanted to ask what was happening when Vick’s steel pipe crashed down on a gimp’s skull, a second before Buckle whipped his Halligan bar across the face of another. The deadheads clattered to the ground, and the two men swung again. Buckle thrust with the claw of the firefighter’s tool, taking the tops off decomposed skulls like they were old aluminum cans.

But the one who truly made Scott stand and gawk in utter zombie fashion, the one who ripped a swath of destruction through the moldering ranks of Moe, was Vick.

Wielding the pipe as if it were a sword, Vick ducked and weaved, cranking his weapon and smashing faces, the sides of skulls, even taking a head completely off at the shoulders. Steel and armored arms batted aside limbs that reached for him. One Moe had its arm twisted up and torn from its socket a second before a spiked fist knocked it off its feet. Vick jabbed his pipe between legs, upending corpses and building a barrier between himself and the deadheads. He crunched three heads in the span of two or three seconds with all of the grace of a samurai, then he was killing more.

But Moe didn’t falter.

Moe advanced.

Vick suddenly went down, and a wide group of undead collapsed a second later as if the entire front ranks had tripped. Then the man’s armored form loomed up from the ground, somehow trapping limbs with his own and snapping them like kindling. The pipe started humming in the air loud enough that Scott heard it through his helmet. He understood then why Amy had kept him back.

It wasn’t for safety.

It was to watch.

The length of steel split air and decaying flesh. Zombies attempting to get over their brothers on the ground had their heads bashed in. Vick stomped on the skulls of anything moving at his feet and speared the cut end of the pipe through brainpans in startling crunches of bone that reminded Scott of cracking eggshells. The last corpse reaching for the martial artist had its arms pushed aside before being tripped. It fell to the ground, and Vick drove his boot through its face.

“Jesus,” Scott whispered in awe. “The man’s Bruce Lee.”

Amy tugged on his wrist, leading him out of the street and into a parking lot that had once been empty, but was now full of bodies—all gone in no more than a minute. Buckle crouched over one and scooped out black innards. Scott only gave him a second’s attention before switching back to Vick.

“What the hell was that?” he asked, remembering at the last moment to keep his voice low.

“That was Vick keeping the peace,” Amy informed him.

“Time to get covered up now,” Vick huffed in a strained voice. He gestured to where Buckle stood, his hands full of dark viscera.

“Come and get it ’fore I throw it out,” Buckle said. Amy stepped up, and Buckle wasted no time splashing her front and back.

“Go on,” Vick told Scott. “Get some on you. Moe won’t be picking up on you with a fresh coat.”

Scott did as he was told, catching an unholy whiff of raw guts and marvelling over how smell could stop a person in their tracks. Buckle retrieved more guts from another unmoving deadhead and, with one last flourish, slapped an oily gob on the side of Scott’s head. He felt the impact through his helmet. He hadn’t known the man for long, but he thought Buckle was taking his work a little too eagerly.

“You wanted the guts?” he asked.

“Uh-huh,” Buckle said. “Needed the fresh stuff. Although it’s really kinda chunky with the cold and all.”

Scott saw the plan. “You guys lured them back here, off the main road. Got them out of sight to butcher them.”

“That’s right,” Buckle said, motioning him to step aside so he could touch up Vick’s protective coating.

“Vick’s been teaching and doing martial arts for thirty years,” Amy informed him. “Third degree black belt Tae Kwon Do, Second Degree Kempo, a little Black Dragon Kung Fu, a touch of Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, and exotic weapons training.”

“How do you know all this?” Scott asked.

“He’s my teacher,” she said simply. “I got all the goods on him. I’ll tell you about him sometime. It’s interesting stuff. If you like MMA, that is. You should see him when he has a pair of Sai in his hands.”

“Your teacher?” Scott blurted, computing the rest.

“For twenty years.”

His voice didn’t work anymore. “How old are you, again?”

“Not supposed to ask a girl her age, nerd.”

Scott balked at that, but before he could say anything, he noted that Vick was ensuring that Buckle got zombie guts on his back.

“Stunnin’, eh?” Buckle asked Scott.

“Not the words I’d use. I didn’t even see you after… that.”

“Just as well. I’m not near as graceful as the man here. Deadly Vicky.”

Vick stopped for a moment, regarded the Newfoundlander, and shook his head before continuing to paint him, a little more aggressively this time.

“What was it you do again?” Scott asked Buckle.

“Shoot shit.”

“Oh.”

“When I have the equipment, that is.”

Vick slapped Buckle’s shoulder, letting him know all was done. They gathered up their weapons and stood in a loose square for a moment, very much aware of the stillness.

“Buckle comes from a long line of professional snipers. Ain’t that right?” Vick asked.

“Yeah,” Buckle said, indifferent. “How you feelin’?”

Vick shrugged. “Not bad. Still getting my wind back. Getting old’s shitty.”

“Vick’s not as young as he used to be,” Amy stated.

“Don’t have to be young to kick the shit out of Moe. Just got to be careful, is all.” Vick looked at Scott. “You hear me?”

“I do,” he answered. He remembered Amy’s words from not so long ago. Well, you’re one of the lucky ones. Which is to say, very lucky.

He didn’t realize just how lucky he’d been up to this point, especially to find these people, until now.

“All right, listen now,” Vick directed at him. “You’ve done this before with Amy. Ain’t no different today. Got that?”

“Got it,” Scott answered, suddenly bursting with respect for the older man.

“You stay in a box formation. Buckle and I will be in the front. We’ll head straight through the city, back to where you parked, and not one of those fuckers will know the difference. Just act dead. Or like you’ve just downed a case of Moosehead.”

Beer. Scott suddenly wished he had a bottle.

“You ready, smartass?” Vick asked Buckle.

“Born ready, me son.”

“How about you, hell-child?”

“Ready,” Amy said.

“All right, then,” Vick said with satisfaction. “The walk in the park is over. We’ve done this before, and we’re doing it today. Got a ride to catch, a city to leave behind, and an island resort waiting for us. And if I have my way, I intend on getting shitfaced on cocktails with little umbrellas in ’em. Let’s do this.”

With that, Vick marched back out into the street, and the rest of them followed.

24

Freshly coated with Moe’s slushy innards, the four of them reached a South Street sign. Old fashioned brick and mortar buildings stood on the right, somehow eluding the fire show the Army had laid down in an effort to subdue Moe. A white unblemished field of snow with a few lonely swings and slides lay across the way from the houses, the centerpiece an artsy aqua-green statue. Scott was taken by how the city might have once looked in the summer. If only.

Ice glazed the slope they marched up, slippery in places, causing them to stumble. Drifts had been visibly beaten down by gimps no longer in sight. A yellow Victorian-style three-story building came into view on the right, perhaps a hotel. A short stairway led to a wide porch, complete with green lawn chairs. The soft squeals of metal and wood joints gave them pause.

Scott blinked in surprise.

A gimp, dressed in a formal grey suit and sporting a resplendent red tie, sat on the porch in a lover’s swing. The thing rocked itself gently, facing the street, baring the leering, lipless smile of a ghoul that might have just fed. Black eyes, which Scott wasn’t entirely sure were there, stared off into space, ignoring them as they shuffled past. The creature remained rooted to the chair. Scott believed the dead man would soon stop rocking, get to its feet with all the elegance of someone clawing their way out of a grave, and bellow at them. Except it wouldn’t come out as words, it would only come out in that frightening hiss of frayed vocal chords.

But it didn’t.

The well-dressed zombie stayed in its summer swing, rocking itself while staring over their heads. The creaking of the rusty joints stayed with them as they passed in front of the porch, then gradually died away.

They continued walking, leaving the watcher in the swing and passing through an intersection. The grade of the road increased, and Scott thought for a moment of the hills back in New Brunswick and the thrill of sliding over them in the wintertime. The memory faded as quickly as it had popped into his mind. In ones and twos, deadheads wandered around discarded cars parked on sidewalks, heedless of the disguised living passing by. Keeping in formation, they crossed over Barrington Street and continued to plod up the incline. Scott felt a light trickle of sweat down his back and armpits, not entirely the result of walking. Gruesome displays of reanimated flesh caught his attention, and he struggled for a moment to keep his head pointed straight ahead. The dead came in all shapes and sizes, and he didn’t think he’d ever get used to them. Scott was ever so thankful for the visor and ragged T-shirt concealing his face.

He focused on the hill.

The burn seeped into his calves like hot poison trying to slow him down. The others marched on without any visible effort, and he strove to keep pace. Coming into Halifax had been easy, he realized. It was all practically flat or downhill, with only a few exceptions. Escaping the waterfront was something different. They passed houses, some still in livable condition, others suffering. Three houses in a row had gone up in a fire and lay covered in snow, the remains of structural beams sticking out of the main floor like charred spears.

Ahead, Buckle bumped into a zombie and knocked it to the ground. The thing fell flat on its back and, when Scott reached it, it flailed its withered arms and legs about as if puzzling over the best way to stand. More zombies filled the street, drifting into sight from driveways like sea mines pulled free of their rusty moorings. One gimp, a business man, walked toward Vick, its dead hips swaying as if it were working the hell out of an invisible hula hoop. It missed Vick by inches, and Scott noted Amy slowed her pace just enough to allow the zombie to walk in front of her. More zombies appeared on the crest of the hill, their vague, grey shapes slowly coalescing as they drew closer. Another gimp had half of his neck chewed into, right down to the segmented bone. Two grandmothers pulled themselves along the ground with feeble tugs, and one was near enough to Scott to graze his ankle with a spider’s touch. More horrors came into view, some hanging around the doorways of the houses lining both sides of the street, while others simply walked past.

They plodded to the top of the hill and continued walking. Amy slid toward him, closing the distance between them just as he saw the graveyard on the right through a fence of iron bars. The dead shuffled amongst snowcapped headstones and elaborate marble crosses. Hundreds of the things took halting steps, seemingly headed in no real direction. A barrier of cars and trucks lined the streets, cocooned by snow drifts not yet beaten down by the meandering dead. A row of brown brick apartment buildings stood on the opposite side of the street. Scott’s breath caught in his throat when a figure fell ten stories, rags fluttering savagely in the descent, to burst upon white concrete with the sound of a dried-up watermelon.

They walked by the gimp and saw it was a boy. It whimpered once like a lonely dog.

Scott felt his breathing increase. His anxiety swelled. Halifax started to close in about him. The gimps knew who he was. They knew. And they were making a beeline for him. He slowed in his tracks and grimaced against the rising panic in his lower legs and chest. Not again…

Something bumped him on his right.

Amy’s hand closed about his and squeezed. Her shoulder felt firm against him. Like a soothing rock, the contact brought him back. He closed his eyes a few times, only opening them to ensure Vick and Buckle were still ahead. Forcing slow breaths into lungs that wanted much, much more, he squeezed her hand back. A silent I’m okay.

Neither of them released the other.

Bonded, they crept along the street, walking as stiffly as anything just risen from the grave. Scott took a few moments to compose himself, closing his eyes and allowing Amy to guide him. A weight brushed against his side, but he ignored it. The smell of the dead seemed to penetrate his every pore until each breath was an invasion. But he kept walking and did not let go of Amy’s hand.

After a few moments he opened his eyes, defeating the panic attack for a second time and wondering why the hell they were happening to him now. After so long living with the dead, the day-to-day survival and risking his own life, why now? Then it hit him. It was as obvious as the bodies moving about him.

He was amongst them, trying to keep his life a secret from an army of predators—a goldfish swimming in a river full of piranha. He watched Vick and Buckle as they eased through the zombies. Some bumped into the two men, but they absorbed the impact or rolled with it. Neither stopped.

The memory of Amy’s voice came back to him. You’re one of the lucky ones.

Two years of being on the run from these things. Two years. Scott felt a touch of chagrin then, which burned away any lingering anxiety. He had stayed alive for two fucking years. That wasn’t luck.

That was skill.

With that realization, he mentally armored himself against any further panic attacks and let go of Amy’s hand.

To his surprise, she didn’t let go of his.

He didn’t dwell on it and closed his fingers upon hers. Around them, the zombies moved in the same direction.

That last thought stayed with him and sunk into his brain. The zombies were heading in the same direction. Scott slowed and eventually stopped, pulling Amy to a questioning halt. He turned into her, bumping her with his chest, and looked back the way they had come.

He felt his skin crawl when he saw the flow of gimps moving up the street, away from the waterfront. Even the zombies that were bleeding out into the main drag from side avenues weren’t heading toward the waterfront. They shambled in the same direction as the rest, almost as if some unseen barrier prevented them from turning toward the harbor.

They’re tidal, he’d heard Gus say, but this struck Scott as something else. This had to be something else. The street resembled a mass of bomb-blasted refugees fleeing their homes before the next wave of shells hit.

Amy tugged on his hand and this time he relented. They turned back into the stream and moved with it. Vick and Buckle were far ahead, but Scott stood tall and spotted the two men doing their best to blend in. He watched Moe from the corners of his eyes, wondering what was going on in those black brains. What was spurring them on to apparently mass evacuate an area? Did they possess a sense to detect impending disaster, like dogs seconds before earthquakes? Did that mean that, on some microscopic level, the creatures were still alive?

Scott prepared himself for the worst. One thing was certain—he dared not do anything to appear remotely alive amongst the horde.

To do so would get him and Amy ripped to pieces.

25

While four of the living retreated from the Halifax waterfront, Tenner marched down the white slope of Citadel Hill, making no bones about the fact that he was alive. Arrogant? Perhaps. Stupid? Hardly. Defiant was more like it. This was his world. Here, he was God. The corpses were beneath him, little more than dogs gone wild. He feared the undead no more than houseflies.

He trudged over the hill, seeing corpses lurking around car wrecks and abandoned vehicles. Upon reaching a low metal fence, he lifted one leg and then the other and dropped six feet to the snow-covered sidewalk. His head held high, Tenner reached Duke Street. The roof of the Halifax Metro Center had been devastated by artillery fire. Around him, the wearisome, all too familiar moans sounded in his wake.

If they truly wanted a taste of him, they’d have a fight on their hands.

He drew his Glocks, having already racked their slides. On his right, a woman staggered into daylight from an open door of the Metro Center’s parking lots. Beyond her, more shadows followed. The woman opened a mouth that looked stretched. She fixed onto him with eyes that had been gouged from her face and left crushed on her cheeks.

Tenner casually took aim and put a round into her forehead, snapping her head back and jerking her off her feet as if abruptly clotheslined. She landed with a clatter as he walked on, mindful of the side streets and any potential threats lurking there. He marched past the Scotia Square Mall, not bothering to go inside. Such places were ripe with Moe. Perhaps even more than that, he thought, remembering a tunnel swarming with ragged rats.

A zombie rose up from behind an SUV parked under a dead streetlight. Tenner blew its black brains out, splashing a wall as white as porcelain. Corpses slapped their limbs against the glass doors leading into the mall, trying to attract his attention for just a few more seconds. The crosswalk ahead of him was empty one moment, then a handful of zombies skittered into view, slipping on ice slicked pavement. A boy of perhaps fifteen got within an arm’s length of Tenner when the Glock cracked and sheared away a chunk of skull and scalp. He shot another gimp at close range, the front and back of its head exploding instantly.

The others he allowed to follow him—if they dared.

Above him loomed a pedway connecting two business buildings, their signs blasted away by gunfire. Two empty machine gun emplacements were up there, pointed at the sky. Tenner proceeded under the concrete connector. Something crashed into the streets behind him and he turned to see a soldier, encased in full combat gear, pushing itself up from the pavement. The dozen or so zombies following were almost upon the soldier. The armored corpse got to its knees, black viscera hanging from a hole that was once a mouth. Individual teeth gleamed like oily pearls.

As long as they were behind him, all was fine. If they got in his way, he’d ruin them with extreme prejudice.

He turned right at Hollis Street and aimed himself at Purdy’s Wharf like a laser. No zombies sought to stop him. He halted and glanced around. He remembered putting down a few Philistines on this street, but their unmoving husks were nowhere to be seen.

The soldier zombie dragged itself in pursuit, rattling something off the street. Tenner turned around and switched his firing modes on both guns. The sound would no doubt alert anyone around, but he didn’t care. He’d kill them as well.

He opened fire with the Glocks, and brains pollinated the air in violent puffs of inky white. He brought the twin hand cannons side by side, exploding heads like lines of cheap light bulbs overloaded with electricity, then spread them apart once more.

The soldier staggered back until it fell, and Tenner saw that the helmet protected its head. He stepped forward and jammed one barrel underneath the destroyed chin of the infantryman. When he pulled the trigger, the sound of the shell ricocheting off the inside of the helmet reminded him of the muffled clanging of pots and pans. The soldier dropped dead in the street, and Tenner waited for anything else to come at him.

Nothing did.

He listened and heard only the diminishing buzz of the Glocks. Once again dead bodies lay splayed out in the street, and something odd occurred to Tenner. Certainly there were a few zombies lingering in the zone the Army had established, but there were large bodies of roaming corpses just beyond Citadel Hill. Amy had even reported that sections of Barrington had been swamped with the reanimated dead. How many soldiers had been in the area? The numbers made him question the true population of Halifax at the time the virus broke out.

However many there had been, they had not returned to this area. They kept clear of the waterfront almost entirely. Was the reason for this aversion the devastation wrought by the Army fortified here? Possible, but that would mean the things were capable of thinking—not that that meant anything to him either way.

Then he considered the rats.

Could they have anything to do with the undead avoiding the area?

Or be responsible for the disappearing corpses?

The memory of stumbling in the tunnel and feeling their claws upon him made him contemplate the rats once more. Did they pose a bigger threat than what he was allowing for? He placed his back against the stone wall of a historical building and peered across the street at Purdy’s Wharf. Time was a-wasting.

The floor and room designated as the meeting area could be seen from the street, and Tenner had no trouble seeing the bullet holes he’d made earlier. He intended to do a lot worse. Checking the area once more, he holstered his side arms and got out the AR-20. He trained it on the window. He took a breath and bolted out from his position, racing across the open space while keeping an eye on the building’s face.

The front entryway to Purdy’s Wharf came into view and he went through, ran to the stairway, and chugged upward in relative darkness, keeping one shoulder against the wall for both guidance and support. The heavy armor slowed him noticeably.

Moments later, he entered the floor where the others had set up their base camp, half-expecting to meet Bowman once again. He dropped to a knee and pointed his rifle down the dark corridor, the gloom pierced by light from the windows inside the rooms. He couldn’t hear anyone, but his helmet and hood restricted his hearing somewhat. A draft made a notice on the wall flutter ever so slightly. Tenner watched the paper for a while before getting to his feet, proceeding with extreme caution.

He paused for a second at each open doorway before swinging inward barrel-first, ready to fire or grant mercy––for a little while, anyway. Tenner noticed he was sweating. Excitement coursed through his person, and he struggled to control his breathing. He remembered a time back in Windsor, Ontario, in an old house he had converted into a private little abattoir, where he’d deposit unconscious prostitutes after hiring them and finally chloroforming them. He wasn’t sure how the police found the house, or who had tipped them off, but the OPP were there in force on a Friday, busting both doors and charging in like human trains armed with submachine guns. Tenner had arrived perhaps twenty minutes later, on his mountain bike of all things, opting that day to leave behind the car he usually used. He watched the home invasion from behind the police lines. There hadn’t been any guests in the house at the time of the forceful entry, but Tenner knew there was probably plenty of evidence.

But what he’d wondered about, from an officer’s point of view, was the rush of invading a house, the adrenaline high from not knowing what might be lurking inside. He suspected it was probably almost as good as the release he got from tenderizing his victims with a sledgehammer.

Now he knew. Potential danger lurked behind every corner. He checked each room before proceeding to the next. A couple of times he thought he heard something and pulled back to the corridor to wait, only long enough to calm his warning tingles. He reached the main office where the others had slung their gore-soaked outerwear, then the rooms of each individual. Equipment was missing. Food was missing from the MRE storage area. By the time he got to the office where they’d held meetings, he knew his prey had vanished. Poor old Sam lay stiff and cooling on the floor, covered with his own coat.

Tenner crouched near the dead man’s head and pulled back the death shroud. He inspected his handiwork and smiled slowly. Ol’ Sam had got off easy. If he’d had the chance to do what he’d wanted to do to him…

“You hear me?” Tenner whispered, peering into the destroyed face. “You got off lucky. Damn lucky, Sam my son. You’ll see. When I send the others over. You’ll understand.”

“They’re wise to you, Joe,” Sam whispered, causing Tenner’s forehead to knot. It wasn’t often his victims spoke back to him, but it happened sometimes. Sam wasn’t a zombie, just a lingering shade drawn to the power of the Almighty, hoping to get a few last words in before traveling on to oblivion. Or so Tenner suspected.

“I know that.” Tenner pshawed. “Tell me something I don’t know.”

“They’re getting out of Halifax, Joe. They’re leaving the city to you. Want no part of it.”

“Really?”

“Figure you’ll die here. Chewed up like a dog’s toy.”

Tenner smirked. These dead fuckers got mouthy in the afterlife.

“You hear me, Joe? You might’ve got me, got me good, but you won’t do them. They’re too smart for you. Too quick. Too dangerous, now. You really think you could take on Vick bare knuckle? Amy, even?”

That wiped the smile off Tenner’s face. Without a word, he placed the mouth of the assault rifle to Sam’s face.

“Killing me a second time won’t––”

He squeezed the trigger and disintegrated Sam’s head. Sam didn’t speak after that, which suited Tenner just fine. He lingered a few seconds more, idly studying the mess on the floor. He got to his feet and looked at the window, examining the spidery dots ventilating the room. He remembered that shot. Took it on the run and still got it right. Didn’t get anyone else apparently, but that was fine by him. Tenner didn’t want to shoot them all.

Not if he could get his knives on them.

They’re getting out of Halifax, Sam had said. That meant by van. Tenner smiled. The van was beyond the wall. It felt right. They’d gone there first thing, no doubt.

“Take it easy, Sammy,” Tenner said and left the room. Minutes later he was walking briskly down Water Street. He kept the AR-20’s stock braced against his shoulder, ready to pull up and blast something if needed. When he reached the bus barricade and the ramp, he noticed the body with the missing legs. Could the rats have been responsible for that?

His boots clattered on the top of the bus and, for a moment, he considered the street of corpses ahead. There was an awful lot of meat in this area, an awful lot of meat that had been around for a while. Aboveground no less, which meant the rats were no doubt crawling to the surface to feed. Holding onto his rifle, Tenner suddenly had a very bad feeling about the place. Underground, left unchecked, with a readily accessible food supply, how could the virus not have jumped from the corpses to the rats?

“Well, well,” Tenner breathed as he completed a full three-sixty. “Might just be something worse than Philistines in town.”

With that, he chugged down the other side of the barricade and along the street, no longer wanting to be anywhere near such a large stockpile of frozen dinners.

Minutes later he arrived at the wreck of the van. The booby-trapped hood had gone off just the way he’d hoped. Brown boxes of clearly-marked MREs lay in the back, untouched, and that was fine by him. He’d get them later. Looking around, he spotted tracks leading to a car. There he found a charred Shaffer.

“Hello, Mr. Shaffer,” Tenner purred, gazing down at the burnt body scrunched up on the back seat. “Best not to lay around this neighborhood. Think we got a rat problem. No… I mean a rat problem. Hm? What’s that? Sure, stay here if you like. Not me, though. I got some business with your buddies.”

He paused for a moment, allowing Shaffer to speak. Unlike Sammy, Shaffer was exceptionally quiet. Perhaps he somehow knew about Sammy? The dead liked to blab.

“No friends of yours, eh?” That made Tenner smile. “I knew there was some friction between you and Buckle there, but I kinda got the impression you liked Amy, in your own way. And that ass? Oh my. Well! You’re dead now, so…” he shrugged dramatically, “what the hell, right? What’s that? Get them? Wow.”

Tenner chuckled. The dead were also out to fuck up the living.

“Spiteful bastard, ain’t ya? Just so you know, I do intend to get them. And I fully plan to send them your way, piece by piece. So you just relax. Stay comfortable. Tell you what––you watch my back and, when I get back this way, I’ll make it so the rats don’t get you.”

Shaffer started speaking again, but Tenner left him. Truth be known, he couldn’t stand the man’s guts, either.

Tenner took a few steps into the street and studied the ground. He chuckled. The jig would soon be up, he supposed, knowing what the remaining foursome might find if they stuck to the roads. He’d told them not to venture into that part of the city. It was for their own good––or so he’d said. It was all for him. They’d soon discover Bowman. Tenner wished he could see their faces when they did. No doubt they were making good time with those shit-rags they’d peeled off the dead and wore like suits. The very thought made him curl his lips in distaste. No one would catch him wearing such filth.

Tenner started walking and glanced at the skies. It would be dark soon.

And oh how he wanted to get his hands on the living.

26

Walking like he was death cooked over by an industrial-grade torch, Buckle didn’t feel so good. In fact, he felt like shit. His nose was broken, and what was worse, the gobs of blanket that he had stuffed into his nostrils had become saturated with blood again. He’d changed the wad when they’d returned for their gear at Purdy’s Wharf, but he feared the replacement had long since reached its capacity. Thinking on it further as he walked down a street filled with dead things out for a late afternoon stroll, he decided that his nose had to have stopped bleeding. Except he was tasting it when he breathed through his mouth. Moe smelled like cold shit, even with the mask on, but this mix of his own blood and decaying flesh was getting to him. He figured it must’ve started bleeding during the last fight, remembering something popping in his nose when he swung his pipe. He wanted to swap the wad of blanket around his nostrils for another strip he had in his pocket, but he certainly couldn’t do it here. The thought of even attempting something so stupid almost made him chuckle.

Then he saw the body in the street.

Well, shit. No doubt the others had seen the corpse. There wasn’t any way to miss it; it was right there. Tenner had been busy. The interesting thing was, they had come to Halifax to see if they could find a number of things in the city. Vick and Amy had thought it a good idea to risk it, and he liked listening to them far more than that shithead Shaffer. Buckle didn’t mind taking orders. He’d made a career of taking orders while he was with the RCMP in Clarenville, and he’d carried on with it willingly enough when he transferred over to Halifax. Besides, after living in Halifax for almost twenty years, Vick had become his oldest and best friend. What made things even easier was that Vick knew what was what.

But he had to admit, both Vick and Amy had messed up when they’d allowed Tenner to join the group. Twenty-five years on the force counted for something, and his age had only sharpened his bullshit detector. That was one thing that had stayed intact when the dead started pulling themselves up from the grave. Oh, yuh. That piece of equipment worked just fine, just like the twelve gauge dangling between his legs. When Tenner had heard he was a cop, Buckle had caught the sudden tensing around the man’s mouth, the subtle narrowing of his eyes, and the smallest of pauses followed by long-winded bullshit answers to the most innocuous questions. Buckle wondered if the others had noticed how Tenner would leave the room after just a few inquiries. Even when he’d gone to bring Tenner back to the main office there, just before Scott pulled the Ruger—he’d recognized the make right away, but had no idea where he’d gotten the silencer, unless it was a custom job—he had tried too hard to be cool.

No, sir. It had once been Buckle’s job to sniff out bullshit, and Tenner was a walking pile of it.

Trouble was, Buckle had made the mistake of underestimating the scope of Tenner’s crimes. He’d thought the man was a criminal in the old world, maybe with gangland connections or a jacker of sorts, even. He couldn’t have proved anything, but he’d decided he could keep an eye on the man.

But a goddamn killer?

Moe walking about wasn’t the only way the world was still fucked up.

And now this.

There was a dead man in the middle of the street. He wasn’t one of their group. In fact, if Buckle had to guess, he’d hazard Tenner’d been lying out of his ass when he’d spoken of not finding any other survivors in the city. There was at least one person left, and woe to him that the likes of Tenner had found him.

Vick didn’t slow down, and that was all right with Buckle. He’d seen worse. Once, as a first responder back on the island, he’d come across a poor bastard who had run into a moose on the highway in the dead of night. Moose crossings on the highways were always a danger, and the driver—a young guy in his twenties out of Gander—had driven his sedan right under the tall spindly legs of the animal, taking two of them clean off and plowing into its seven hundred kilogram wreaking ball of a body. The moose had crashed through the driver’s windshield and mashed the youngster’s face and head into a bloody pulp. The worst part was that the man’s face, flattened and blackened as it had been, could still be identified.

That had been the worst incident in Buckle’s twenty-five year career. Not even the people he’d shot had looked as bad as that dead man whose head had been squished by sixteen hundred pounds of freefalling meat.

But this one was bad.

A transport truck had rammed into the base of a power pole, bending the whole thing over another car. A corpse hung from the pole at an awkward angle, which was painful to look upon. Extension cords and duct tape kept the body in place. Moe had ravaged the poor bastard’s lower extremities, eating him right down to the grisly bones. There wasn’t even any flesh on his face. The footprints on the car hood suggested Moe had got up there to finish chowing down. The frost and snow on the remains informed Buckle the man had died a while ago. Tenner had done whatever to his victim, probably gagging him—or worse—then left him in the street. He and his fellow officers had learned never to ask for details. No good ever came of it. Right, ready, and served up for Moe. And Moe had partaken. Buckle had to consciously refrain from opening his mouth and cutting loose with what all cops eventually acquired––very morbid humor.

Buckle eyed the remains as they slipped into his peripheral vision, then finally slipped away behind him. He restrained himself from stopping in the street, amongst innumerable undead, and investigating the body just a smidgen longer. Even the thought brought a mental rebuke that he deserved. He hadn’t even been an investigator at the end of the world.

Just ahead, not ten feet away and closing, Moe was studying him.

In fact, Moe––a dude decked out in what looked to be a power linesman’s neon yellow work suit––was standing right in front of Buckle. Worse—never ask how worse—the thing regarded him as if it was out for a just loverly stroll along the graveyard and suddenly remembered something. Only it hadn’t just remembered something, it seemed to have recognized Buckle for what he was. This particular Moe had its scalp removed right down to its Cro-Magnon brow. One ear hung off the side of its head like a fleshy, albeit shrivelled, decoration. And its eyes, grey and blazing with bright recognition, were locked onto Buckle.

It knows! his mind shrieked, despite the T-shirt hanging over his riot visor. The blood. It smells the blood!

When the creature was five strides away, Buckle angled the Halligan bar, held in both hands, so he could spear the thing through the skull.

One of Moe’s hands came up, only it wasn’t a hand; it was a creamy knob of bone where a hand should have been attached to the wrist.

Buckle pulled back his Halligan. Perhaps if he stabbed the zombie under the chin and left it there, he might still be able to––

Phewp.

The Moe’s head exploded, and Buckle knew it had just caught a bullet. The zombie crumpled to the ground, and the march went on without him. Buckle resisted the urge to look behind him because, if he did, there was no doubt he’d see an arm still stretched out, holding onto a silenced Ruger.

Donny Buckle reminded himself to thank Scott the first chance he got.

*

The current of undead carried the four survivors past the graveyard, a parking lot full of snow-covered cars, the Canadian Cancer Society building, the IWK Health Centre, and several apartment buildings. As daylight diminished, they shuffled past Robie Street, and Scott thanked God when Vick began to alter his course, turning toward Buckle on his left. The Newfoundlander caught the movement and stopped in his tracks. Deadheads moved by in an ever present stream, but the four of them made their way to a two-story house on the left, situated not seven feet off the main drag. It was white with a short railed fence surrounding a deck right on the doorstep. Vick stepped to the front door and, very carefully, tried the knob. It opened with a click.

Vick stepped inside. Buckle placed his back against the frame, standing guard until Scott and Amy entered. Then he backed inside and closed the door, shutting out the trailing voices.

Once inside, they did not immediately relax. They crammed inside a short entryway filled with shoes and sneakers. Vick went further into the house, disappearing from sight. Amy pointed to a set of stairs, and Scott nodded. Bringing up the Ruger, he took the stairs two at a time as quietly as possible, pausing once when he heard the clatter of metal on bone coming from the kitchen. Scott reached the landing and rapped his fingers on the wall, then waited. Nothing. He quickly searched through an upstairs bathroom and three empty bedrooms. He came out of the master bedroom and saw Amy standing guard on the landing.

“Clear.”

Scott joined her and saw Buckle pulling the curtain across the window by the front door. Once that was done, he did the same to the living room curtains, covering up a picture window facing the street.

“All clear,” Vick stated below. Amy slouched and descended the stairs. Scott followed her. They both dropped onto a huge sofa, which squeaked under their weight. Buckle sat down in a nearby matching chair, while Vick simply collapsed and stretched out on the floor.

“Hey,” Buckle said, his mask turning in Scott’s direction. “Thank you for out there.”

“You’re welcome. What happened, anyway?”

“Figured it smelled the blood from my nose. Just zeroed in on me.”

“Saw that, too,” Amy added. “It was scary how it did that. Lucky there weren’t more. You better get that taken care of before we go back out there tomorrow.”

“I’ll do it right now,” Buckle said and got to it.

“Tomorrow?” Scott asked, looking at Amy.

“Tomorrow,” Vick said. “We’re not going anywhere at night. Here’s where we board up, rest up, and in the morning, ship out.”

“Did you see what was happening out there?” Scott asked, feeling his tension slip away. It felt good to be able to let his guard down, even if it was just for a little while.

“You mean Moe? Walking the other way?” Amy asked.

“Yeah.”

“Yeah,” Vick stressed. “What’s up with that? That was freaky. And I’d thought I’d gotten used to freaky––after seeing dead people eat people and all.”

“They were walking away from the waterfront,” Scott said. “Just walking.”

“Still are,” Buckle reported. He had hooked the curtain back a little and peeked out at the road. “Like there’s a town meeting somewhere.”

“Where’re they going?” Vick asked.

“I think the more important question is why?” Amy stated. “They’ve never done anything on a scale like this before, and I agree with Vick. It’s creepy. I mean, they’re usually drawn by noise and smell, but I didn’t hear anything.”

“Then there was that poor bastard in the street,” Vick said and looked at Buckle. “And that flesh-eating banana that almost took a run at you.”

Buckle grimaced and dabbed a fresh cloth about his nose.

The sofa was seductive and, with one weary effort, Scott pulled off his poncho and headgear and plopped it on the floor, wrinkling his face. Nasty business, he thought, and got even more comfortable.

“We’ll have to keep an eye on it,” Amy said. Her voice sounded distant to him. “Because I don’t like it in the least. If they’re moving away from the waterfront, there has to be a reason. That’s a lot of Moe out there. Lots of shit can happen in a crowd that size. If we’re unlucky, if something happens and we get separated, we need someplace to link up. I say we meet up at Scott’s house on School Avenue.”

“Agreed,” Vick said.

“Right on,” Buckle added.

“Scott?”

But Scott was asleep.

*

Amy studied the blond giant for a while before settling back into the sofa, the faintest of smiles on her round face, her blue eyes reflective. Vick smiled inwardly. He’d known that girl since her father had first brought her into his Tae Kwon Do academy when she was ten, and though he would never say it, he thought of her not only as his finest student, but the daughter he’d never had. He figured he knew her just as well as she knew herself, and certainly as well as her parents had, if not better. He knew the side of Amy that her mom and dad didn’t get to see—the competitive side. The work ethic. The intellect she’d certainly displayed with her university schooling. Vick knew firsthand how quick she was to pick up on things, how voracious her appetite to learn. She had learned her first forms in a week and earned her yellow belt in two months. Orange in another two, all culminating in a black belt at age twelve, and that was only because he’d intentionally slowed her progress. She’d come into a young man’s school that was barely making ends meet and stayed with him for years to learn all that an aging Vick Tucker had to teach. He knew that Amy didn’t get frustrated easily; she flowed with events as supple as water.

He also knew when Amy liked something.

And he could see, just by the barest of pauses that so many people would misinterpret as nothing at all, that Amy Jenner, Little Amy as he privately thought of her as, was starting to take a shine to the new guy, Scott. He wasn’t sure what he thought about that or how he felt. Scott hadn’t been around long enough for Vick to get a solid read on him, but he believed he was a good man. He’d taught enough students, kids and adults alike, to see the ugly side of human nature. He could tell the ones who learned martial arts for exercise, for relaxation, for self-defense, and to be able to kick the living shit out of their fellow citizens. Vick didn’t like those, and over his years of instruction in the various arts, he’d given walking papers to nine people—men and women who’d used too much power during practices and sparring sessions, who treated their classmates like dirt. They were the ones who would sometimes look to Vick to see if he’d caught an over vigorous body flip or repeated strikes that were much too hard. They knew Vick knew. He saw most of the garbage that went on in his school, and three strikes were enough to jettison the ones he didn’t like or who wouldn’t conform to his rules. Violators were warned twice, then told to leave on the third, always behind closed doors.

Vick had almost always detected the bad ones.

But he hadn’t gotten anything off Tenner. That one had fooled him completely.

For now, Vick eyed Amy from where he lay on the floor, a rug underneath him. He didn’t say anything to draw attention to her, because he knew while she didn’t get flustered, she could be easy to embarrass. Vick wasn’t one of those people who enjoyed embarrassing other folks, and he didn’t like people who did.

“Well, someone just nodded off,” Amy said.

“Mmmhm,” Vick said and propped himself up with a groan. “Looks like a good idea. Let him have the couch. There’re beds upstairs?”

Amy nodded.

“Unoccupied?” Many a suicide victim seemed to prefer taking the final plunge in their own beds. It was a disturbing trend that Vick had noticed in the last couple of years of scavenging houses for supplies. He pulled off his own innards-soaked camouflage and plopped them on the floor.

“Shit’s gonna stink up the place,” Buckle observed.

“The little old lady in the kitchen is gonna stink up the place,” Vick deadpanned.

Buckle grunted. “I’ll take care of it. I think I can put her outside. Believe it or not, the street’s clearing up.”

“What?” Vick asked, and both he and Amy went to opposite ends of the curtains and peeked outside.

Buckle spoke truth. Where once there had been a black rush of corpses, only a trickle seemed to be stumbling by, heading away from the downtown area.

“Gotta be a reason for it,” Amy said, letting the curtain fall back into place. She went to Scott and shook him lightly, urging him to straighten out on the couch. “Your neck will thank me for it later.”

Vick glanced back at her, then looked at the scene outside. As he did, Buckle caught his attention with a knowing look and a sly smile. Buckle saw Amy’s interest in Scott, too, and he’d only known her half as long. Vick went right back to looking outside and hoped Buckle would follow his lead. Unlike him, Buckle didn’t mind teasing people, Amy in particular.

“Y’gonna tuck us all in, darlin’?” Buckle inquired innocently.

“You can tuck yourself in,” Amy informed him and went upstairs. Buckle grinned and winked at Vick. Vick shook his head in silent warning.

“G’wan and turn in, me son,” Buckle told him. “I’ll take first watch.”

“Thanks, man.”

“No sweat. I’ll lug out the old lady corpse as well,” he said, pronouncing the word as carpse. “Put her on the front porch. No need to stink up the place.”

“Wake me up in a few hours.”

“Fair enough.”

Vick stretched and regarded the sleeping man on the couch. Was he fooling them as Tenner had done? He didn’t think so. God above, he hoped not.

Climbing the stairs was a chore for Vick, and his fifty-six years seemed to be getting heavier with each passing day. He was grateful for the mask he wore. The last fight in the parking lot had taken more out of him than he wanted to share with the others, and the thought of a prolonged confrontation with the dead didn’t make him happy.

That thought made him smile. The last two years had been one prolonged confrontation.

He met Amy at the top of the stairs. She carried a thick blanket in her arms.

“Nice of you,” Vick said, keeping his voice as neutral as possible.

“Plenty more where that came from. There’s a linen closet back there.”

“I’ll make do with the beds.”

“G’night then,” Amy said, moving around him, and descended the stairs.

Vick had the idea of lingering just long enough to see her cover Scott on the couch, but decided against it in the end. He saw no point in potentially ruining the path nature was taking.

He’d keep an eye on Scott all the same.

Amy was, after all, like a daughter to him.

27

The water ended in a line that was almost impossible to distinguish from the sky. The sun warmed the sand, which was surprisingly soft and bespoke the heat of the day. The smell of surf as it rolled in was pure and clean and heady.

Suzy was out in the water with her flutter wings on, standing up, splashing, grimacing, and laughing her butt off. Her long dark hair splayed out wetly on her back. Scott and Kelly watched from the beach, laid out on a blue towel sporting tropical fish.

“Look, Mommy!” Suzy cried, and tried to swim again.

“You watching her?” Scott asked.

“I’m watching her,” Kelly said and flashed him a smile. Sunglasses that were too big for her face and yet fit her perfectly hid her eyes. “She swims like you.”

“She does not.”

Kelly made little puppy paws in front of her chest, fluttering them energetically.

“She does not.” Scott laughed, feeling good. “Leave me alone or you’ll be paying for dinner.”

Kelly snorted and looked at their daughter swimming in the surf. The sun, huge and high overhead, had browned her back to an almost well-done tone. “You’re paying for dinner, buster. I didn’t bring my purse.”

“You don’t have any money?”

Kelly regarded him with a look of mock disdain. “I came out here to swim.”

“Can’t believe a woman goes anywhere without her purse. You don’t have any money on you? At all?”

“Look at me.” She grabbed her breasts, covered by one part of a modest two-piece bikini that she’d earlier claimed showed off too much. He’d disagreed. “Where am I going hide it? Here? Down here?”

“Strippers do it.”

“You better not be comparing me to strippers, mister. I’ll so pummel you, right here.”

“Some women would be flattered to be compared to strippers. You got the chops for it.”

“I got the chops for it?” Kelly looked back at Suzy, still kicking away in the water and crying out look at me, look at me! “Man, you are just digging that hole deeper.”

“What I meant is I’d never guess you were in your thirties.”

Kelly simmered. “Keep it up.” She rolled toward him on the beach towel, the curve of her breasts shifting, kept in check by some thin material. Scott could just make out her nipples. A tan line, only a millimeter thick, marked how much skin the sun had gotten.

Scott felt another smile building.

“Hey, I’m up here.”

Scott met her eyes. Over her shoulder, Suzy’s silhouette ran out of the water and down the beach. Water glistened in his daughter’s wake.

“Yes, ma’am?”

“Do I have to bring you back to the room and beat you?”

Scott’s expression shifted into something sardonic, and he made a show of thinking deeply on the offer. “You just said ‘beat’… right?”

Mommy, look at me! Look at me!

“Sicko. Get your mind out of the gutter.”

“Only if I can drop it into the cleavage.”

Squeals of delight rose over Kelly’s sun-browned shoulder, but Scott could only pay attention to his wife’s eyes, peeking softly at him over her large sunglasses.

“What am I going to do with you?” she asked.

“Don’t know. But if you keep giving me those kinds of lead-in lines…”

“You’ve got a dirty mouth,” Kelly informed him.

Scott clamped down hard on what he wanted to say, but his grin said it all.

“That’s it,” Kelly warned him. “You keep that in check. Now, about dinner…”

Suzy leaned over Kelly’s bare shoulder and bit savagely into her mother’s unprotected skin, ripping the flesh to white bone in a flash. Kelly shrieked. Scott shrieked. Blood spouted from her. Suzy grabbed her mother’s hair in a fist and, when she opened her mouth for another bite, the meat fell out. It wasn’t their Suzy anymore. It was a slimy thing with pasty white flesh, wrinkled from being in the water for too long. Skin tags as long as barnacles decorated the thing’s bloody maw. The flutter wings she still wore squeaked. Suzy didn’t even make a sound as she chomped into Kelly’s cheek and ripped…

He woke with a jolt, both legs kicking as if someone had staked him through the heart. The house was dark, but from the window where the sofa chair was stationed, a voice asked him, “You okay?”

“Yeah,” Scott lied and hoped Buckle wouldn’t ask any questions.

Instead the Newfoundlander went back to peeking out through the window.

“What time is it?” Scott asked.

“Dunno. Nighttime.”

Smartass. “I’ll take over for you,” Scott offered.

“That’s my shift your taking,” Vick said from the steps. In the house, he appeared as a shadow against shadows. Buckle stood up from the sofa chair and cracked his back.

“Y’can duke it out, now,” Buckle said. The ex-cop and Vick tapped fists as they passed on the stairs. Seconds later, Vick was at the window looking outside. Satisfied with what he saw, he placed his steel pipe against the wall and sat down heavily in the chair.

“Go on back to sleep,” Vick said.

“Can’t now,” Scott replied. “But that might change in a few minutes.”

“Not the company, I hope.”

“No, no, not at all. Once I get over waking up, I can usually fall back. Might be an hour, but I’ll get there.”

“Bad dream was it?” Vick said in the dark, his silhouette leaning toward the window.

Scott didn’t see any reason to lie. “Yeah.”

“Hm. You still get them?”

“Every now and again.”

“Of who?”

He sighed. “Wife and daughter.”

Vick didn’t ask where they were or anything else, and for that Scott was grateful.

“Had my share of bad dreams,” Vick said. “We all have. Hope you sleep easy soon.”

“Me too. Hey… you were something else in that parking lot today.”

“You liked that?”

“Sure did. Hell, could you teach me that stuff?”

Vick chuckled. “Sure. Free of charge, too.”

“Thanks. I mean it. Once we get out of here.”

“Deal.”

“Take you long to learn?”

“The arts?”

“Yeah. Them. Take long?”

Vick leaned toward the window and glanced out. Moonlight silvered a sliver of his features and sparkled off one eye. Seeing nothing of interest, he dropped the curtain.

“Quiet out there. Streets are empty. What was your question?”

“How long did it take you to learn?”

“I’m still learning,” Vick answered him. “That’s the… the spiritual answer, I guess. The answer you want is all my life. From when I was ten. Learned right here in the city, too.”

“Wow.”

“Yeah, wow,” Vick said, sounding pleased. “Course Halifax was changing back then. Still a beautiful city to live in. Safe, too, as long as you minded where you went. Like all places, there were some areas a person just didn’t go alone.”

“You made a career of it?”

“A career,” Vick purred, tasting the word. “Yeah, I guess I did. Had my own little hagwon down on Quinpool. That’s Korean for private school. Had a little side business selling exotic weapons. Did some of that online as well. I’ve done okay by it, I suppose.”

“What I saw in the lot there, man, you did just fine.”

Vick smiled. “What you didn’t see was how I was out of breath almost right away. My conditioning ain’t what it used to be. I like to think it’s the same, but it ain’t. A career. Hm. You know something? People around me accepted me for what I did, for what I taught them. But I dare say you’re the first to call it a career. I don’t have a teaching degree, yet I taught people––a lot of people now know how to defend themselves because of me.”

“Pretty noble.”

“Noble, eh?” Vick chuckled softly. “Some didn’t think so. Had one guy once tell me to my face that I was preaching violence to our city’s youth. That I was a violent person. I remember him plain as day. Old fella, in his early sixties. Big set of dentures on him that were much too white, y’know? Like they were over-bleached or something. Anyway, yeah, he stood right in front of me, my height he was, and waved his finger in my nose telling me how I was a bad person for teaching what I was teaching. Selling weapons and such. All legal, I says. Not in the eyes of decent folks, he says, wagging his fingers at me, as wild-eyed and aggressive as anyone I’ve ever met in a street fight. Those big teeth flashing, too. Told me I should be ashamed of myself and that I should close everything down. Ask God for forgiveness. Hm.”

Scott waited. “And?”

“Oh, well, that was that. He left me then. I think he even confronted my students and their parents once outside my hagwon and ranted at them for a while. That was a bad scene. Some of those moms and dads weren’t as understanding as I was. Anyway, I remember one day the same guy, white dentures and all, was being mugged in an alleyway near the school. I went down there and no sooner did the punk grab his watch—he’d already gotten the wallet––I was on him. Kicked him in the guts and laid him out cold. Knocked the wind out of him. I thought he was going to die, but he didn’t. I got the watch and the wallet from him and handed it back to… Rumstead, that was his name. Handed it back to him. You know what he said?”

Scott shook his head.

“He looked at me, then the kid on the street, and back to me again and goes ‘Did you have to kick him so hard? Why the hell you have to kick him so hard?’ And then went on about charges, about how the kid would be within his rights to sue me. Man, oh man.”

“Whoa. That’s one real asshole.”

“Yeah, well, I admired him in a way,” Vick confessed. “He stood up for what he believed in. Didn’t like the way he did it––loud as he was––but he had the balls to do it anyway. Especially to my face. I mean, for all he’d have known, I could’ve hurt him. Course I wouldn’t, you understand, but he didn’t know that. All he knew was that I taught kids and adults how to kick the shit out of others.”

“Why the pipe?”

“The pipe?”

Scott pointed at the weapon leaning against the wall.

“Oh, that. I had katanas and an assortment of weapons at the shop when Moe started walking around. First used a sword on them, too, but a sword’s not much good against an enemy that has no regard for its own safety. Also, if you chop deep enough into a head, there’s the risk that you’d get it stuck in there. Takes too much time to pry it loose. Axe is the same way. All the blades I had didn’t really do the job. I had one set of tonfas, but Amy took those. Better off. She’s faster than I ever was.”

Scott nodded, remembering the display.

“Simple bat like you have there isn’t bad, but it isn’t balanced properly. This,” Vick gestured to the pipe with a dark hand, “was in my basement. I added the leather for extra grip and, yeah. Works fine. Well balanced. If it were a foot or so longer, I could use it as a quarterstaff.”

“Works good,” Scott agreed. Then something came to him. “What did you think of those gimps out there today?”

Vick yawned. “Just Moe. Except they were headed in the same direction we were. I think it’s a bad omen, to tell the truth.”

“I agree. Never seen a group of them do something like that before. Before I came to Halifax, I lived with a man for a few months. A friend. We had something of a mystery going on down in the Valley.”

“Yeah? What?”

“The bodies were disappearing. I mean the bodies of Moe. We’d put a deadhead down, and the next time we came across that place, the body would be gone.”

“Strange. Dogs, maybe?”

“We thought about that, but we never heard anything. Never did find out what it was. I left to come up here.”

“Ah. Well, I figure… it’s something they don’t like. Really, we don’t know anything about them. Don’t have the means to study them. And the way I figure it, even something as brainless as a slug has the instinct to sense and avoid danger.”

Scott mulled that over for a moment. He wondered if Vick had just realized what he’d said. “You think something dangerous is coming?”

“Possible. Something elemental, maybe. Fire, perhaps. Bad storm.”

“Don’t think it’s a storm. When I drove up here, it was pretty bad. Moe was standing out in it, just freezing in place.”

“Hm. That’s right. Not a blizzard, then. But… something,” Vick said softly.

“Something,” Scott agreed.

“Hey, thanks, by the way.”

“Huh? What for?”

“Exposing Tenner for what he was.” Vick took a breath. “That prick would’ve gone right on murdering us if you weren’t around.”

“Oh, well, don’t mention it. Sorry for pulling the gun when I saw him. When I heard his voice, I knew it was him. The gun thing wasn’t cool.”

“You were going to kill him, eh?”

Scott looked at his hands in the dark. “Yeah. I think so.”

“You think so?”

“Pretty certain. I mean, yeah. He killed my friends. Who knows how many others he’s done?”

“Hm,” Vick said, and neither man said anything for a while. “Y’know, I’ve taught students techniques that will put an attacker down for the count: joint locks, chokeholds, ball shots. Done it for years. Never had to use it, really.”

“Think you could?”

“Never been pushed far enough. Depends on the person, too, I guess. In times like these, it might be pretty easy to kill someone. There’re no consequences, as far as I can see. Except maybe spiritually.”

“Killing the dead is easy,” Scott said.

“It is that. But another living person?” Vick drew in a breath through clenched teeth. “I wish you well on that one.”

“You gonna tell me I gotta live with it or something? That it won’t bring back the dead?”

“Oh, fuck no. Not at all. Call Tenner crazy or whatever you want. I’m just a firm believer that evil is out there, and it ain’t just gonna go away. There’s no talking to it. Ain’t in its nature. And in this world? Where’s there’s no police, no laws, no rules, no clinics…”

“He’s gotta be stopped.”

“Yeah, he does. I understand that. And I hope that… when the time comes, you can pull the trigger.”

There was a moment of silence then, so deep that the silence itself could be heard, and Vick sat up slowly, looking to the window. “You hear that?”

“No. What?”

Vick’s face was half-covered by shadows when he turned to him. “Don’t know, but be on guard.”

He got up and grabbed his pipe. Scott stood with him. He’d never stopped to take off his Nomex coat or pants, and Vick, if he had taken the armor off upstairs, had on everything except his helmet and spiked knuckles.

Vick bent over slightly. “You sure you don’t hear that?”

Scott shook his head.

Without another word, Vick went to the door and drew back the curtain covering the large window. He looked left and right. A moment later, he unlocked the door and stepped outside. Scott followed.

Cold air cupped his face like a hand. Scott tiptoed onto the front porch, stepping over the legs of the granny zombie that Buckle had deposited just outside the front door. Vick wandered onto the front step and held onto the railing, still listening. Scott strained to hear, but as soon as he seemed to be about to detect something, it faded away, teasing him.

Vick walked into the icy street made blue-black by the moon. The sky overhead had cleared and a full moon blazed, a halo of such intensity that Scott momentarily forgot about everything else and stared up at it. Moons like these made him feel all was right with the world. Vick wandered cautiously into the middle of the street, alert and straining, staring off in the direction of the waterfront. No moans scratched the night. The deadheads had all moved on. Haltingly, Scott stepped off the front porch, onto the sidewalk, and took two testing steps before Vick glanced back at him and lifted a hand for silence.

Then Scott heard it.

The barest murmuring of movement, like the softest surf, glided toward them. Vick pointed down the street and Scott strained to see, hoping his night vision was good enough. The way they had come was a mess of dead traffic covered in snow, but through the main drag, straight down the middle of the road, a dark lip of viscous oil bubbled toward them, almost soundless. It covered the white road in a slow, but steady flood.

“What is… that?” Scott whispered, barely aware he’d spoken.

“No idea,” Vick responded, answering as if in a trance and gripping his pipe as if drawing comfort from it. “Never heard the like before. Listen.”

The darkness crept over the snowy roads like a vat of watery coffee grounds that had burst and spilled forth. It enveloped cars. It went around unmoving lumps and swallowed them whole. Bases of trees were swamped. The sound became louder, a low guttural rustling of some unknown material, like walking on a forest floor at midnight, when a person’s senses are almost achingly aware of everything.

It rooted Scott to the ground.

“Oh, my God,” Vick whispered, and Scott could almost hear the man’s jaw drop.

Then he, too, saw what was approaching.

Awash in moonlight and under a sky dimpled with stars, the blackness moving over the ground gradually took on shape, as if it were a foggy nightmare solidifying. They moved in little jerks, strangely different from what he might have expected, and he realized the subterranean humming was the sound of hair and the press of bodies rubbing against one another. A new sound perked his ears, just underneath that dreadful drone, which could only be claws clicking on patches of black ice.

There were millions of them, channeled by the street that Scott, Vick, and the others had slunk along while pretending to be dead.

Rats.

The street was alive with rats.

28

Scott couldn’t tear his eyes away from the horrific tsunami rushing toward him. The rats’ terrible hushed cacophony grew in his ears, freezing him with fear, willing him to just stay right there, just wait, and all would be settled in a few seconds.

Vick clamped a hand onto Scott’s shoulder. “Come on,” he whispered urgently.

“Those are rats!” Scott burst out, following the man back into the house. Vick slammed the door and locked it as Scott slipped by him. They entered the living room and went to opposite ends of the curtains, immediately peeking outside. Vick had the greater range of vision, being able to see farther down the street, while Scott had to make do with much less.

“How the hell could there be so many of the things?” Scott asked.

“I don’t know, man,” Vick muttered. “But I think it’s a good idea to just stay inside on this one. What do you say?”

“Yeah.”

“Oh, shit.”

“What?” Scott could see Vick’s dismayed face lit by a beam of moonlight.

A moment later, it didn’t matter.

Rats surged in front of the house. They covered the width of the pavement, the cars across the street, and the land beyond. Across the way stood another house, painted white, with a black foundation. Rats bobbed and rose against the foundation, their wet ragged backs arched as they undulated along the concrete. As the two men watched, the vermin rose up and over the front porch’s steps in a violent deluge. They continued on past the street, but a wave of them clawed their way onto the porch and quickly located the dead granny gimp in front of the door. Rats located the unmoving heap of flesh in ones and twos, biting into toes and thighs, before a swarm swamped the area and covered the body in a frightening blink. The unmoving gimp jerked from hundreds of little bites, as if being jolted with live wires, before being pulled under the rising torrent of black backs and pale tails. The humming increased, a white noise punctuated by little cracks and pops. An arm was ripped from the body and dragged away in jerks before disappearing below the furry tide. Scott felt his guts freeze. Some of the rats were huge, the size of ferrets, with hairless tails as long as a man’s forearm. He glimpsed some with terrible wounds, deep enough to expose bone. The creatures moved with spastic twitches that spoke of something not entirely natural.

The things swarming the porch area were undead.

“See that?” Scott whispered.

“I do,” Vick replied pensively.

The gimp’s arm popped back into view, bare of flesh and gnawed to the gleaming bone. A human skull bobbed above the mass of flesh, teeth smirking, before disappearing underneath the rats once more. The creatures scurried over each other, layer upon twisting, teeming layer. Hairless tails, white and ghoulish, dragged over the frenzy.

In the road, the rats had risen to shin level—if one were brave enough to walk amongst them.

“Jesus Christ,” Scott breathed, snarling in both fright and loathing.

Then the front door shivered.

The two men scrambled to the entryway and saw the wood tremble. It only rattled softly at first, but then it thrummed as if suffering a violent seizure. Claws raked the outer wood, deep and penetrating. The scratching intensified.

“What’s up with that?” Vick said, aghast.

“They know we’re in here.”

“How do they know that?”

“They can smell.”

“Smell?”

“Rats have a great sense of smell. If they got the virus, God knows what it did to them,” Scott said.

“Shit, the virus sure as fuck’s in them. You saw the street.”

“Hey,” Amy called out from the top of the stairs, making both men jump. “What’s going on?” Her shadow bent over to see.

“We have a problem,” Scott informed her, stepping out of the way to give her a view.

Her outline froze against the dark of the house. “What the fuck is that?”

“Rats,” Vick reported.

A second shadow joined Amy at the top of the stairs. “D’fuck is that?”

The door bucked as if convulsing. Scott edged around Vick and peeked outside, pulling back the curtain.

Rats were scrambling at the sill. Little white claws lashed the wood, seeking purchase. Some even rapped their snouts against the glass.

Scott let the curtain fall back. “They’re crawling on the backs of each other. Is that normal?”

A horrified Vick shrugged.

“I don’t know anything about rats,” Amy said from the stairs.

“You studied every other fucking thing in university!” Scott protested.

The scratching intensified at the door, rattling the wood in the frame and capturing the attention of the people inside.

Buckle bounded down the steps. “I’ll look for something to brace the door.”

Brace the door? Scott thought, looking back at the shuddering slab of wood and glass as the rats tried to work their way through. From the kitchen, Buckle manhandled a large table cloaked in darkness. Vick pulled Scott out of the entryway to allow Buckle to dump the heavy table and press it firmly against the door.

“Some furniture,” Vick said, grabbing a sofa chair and shoving it against the table, adding its weight to the barricade. Buckle and Scott wrestled the sofa over so one end pressed up against the chair.

“Where did they come from?” Amy asked from the stairs.

“Looked like from the waterfront,” Vick answered her. “That’s why Moe was marching away from the area. They knew what was up.”

“They knew?”

“Sensed it somehow,” Scott added. “Not so dead after all.”

“Get your gear on, Amy!” Vick yelled, turning at the creaks coming from the front of the house.

Buckle took two steps at a time to the second floor, following Amy’s dark outline into the gloom.

Scott and Vick stood in the center of the almost empty living room. Scott passed Vick his hood and helmet and quickly donned his own. The sides of the house groaned like a ship’s timbers at sea. On impulse, Scott headed to the kitchen.

“Where you goin’?” Vick shouted.

“Checking out the back yard!” Scott yelled. He hurried into the kitchen and saw a door with white curtains covering the window. He hauled back the material and peered outside.

The land dipped somewhat in the backyard, but rats teemed over everything. Scott saw the outside top step to the back door disappear under the rising tide of undead vermin. Claws worked furiously at the base of the door.

“Jesus,” Scott muttered, and stepped back. The kitchen had nothing to brace the door with. There were two bolt locks and he secured them both, but he knew that it wouldn’t last long before…

Before what?

He remembered his time in Saint John, when the doughnut shop had a problem with rats. The night’s garbage bags were stowed in a wooden shed, secured by padlocks, where they would sit until pick-up. The shed was there to deter people from looking for the stale leftovers and, as such, made only out of sheets of cheap wood. It was enough to keep the homeless out, but not the rats. In fact, the rats had slowly worked their way into the shed, ravaging a garbage bag before their hole by the back corner was discovered.

They had chewed their way through.

A sudden quivering of the back door brought him back to the present, and Scott watched for a few seconds before Vick shouted from the living room.

“What’s it look like back there?” he asked.

“Bad. We’re surrounded.”

Scott returned to see Buckle and Amy on the main floor in full gear, lifting their outerwear over their heads. The walls of the house groaned and softly crackled under the pressure of the undead siege. Scott glanced at Amy tossing the poncho over herself. He stooped and threw on his own. In seconds, all four of them were dressed and ready to move.

“Now what?” Buckle wanted to know.

As if in answer, the distinct sound of something puncturing through wood made them turn toward the front door. Claws clicked off glass.

“That was the door,” Scott said.

“The table’s next,” Amy stated.

“Options?” Vick asked.

“We can stay and fight,” Amy said, “or we can bust out of here and run for it.”

“Bust out,” Buckle voted.

“They’re ankle deep out there,” Scott informed them. “Maybe more.”

“Well, then, what?”

Scott looked to the upstairs. “Come on.”

They raced up the steps, following Scott as he went from one room to another. After inspecting them all, he stopped and shook his head in disbelief.

“What?” Amy asked him.

“No attic,” Scott burst out. “Who doesn’t have a fucking attic in their house?”

Buckle went into one room and ripped the curtains from a window. Perhaps twelve feet across the way and below them was another window. “What about this?”

“What about that?” Vick asked him.

“Oh, sweet Mary and Joseph,” Buckle said, peering below. Scott crowded inside, mouth hanging open. It was a driveway with a car parked just underneath, its white roof luminous. Surging around it was a black river of rats, stretching from the street and into the backyard, flooding everything.

“Can’t jump twelve feet, you idiot,” Vick snapped.

“Didn’t say jump across, Vicky,” Buckle said. “But I’m looking at that.”

The car between the two houses was well above the rising moat of flesh-seeking vermin. Just above that, and much closer, was a wide, old-fashioned window.

Vick pulled back and smiled at his friend.

From the first floor, a crackling of wood and glass reached their ears, startling them all.

“Who goes first?”

“Your idea, Buckle,” Amy said.

“Right on.” With that, the Newfoundlander smashed out the window with his Halligan. He lifted one leg outside and then the other, sitting briefly on the sill.

“Shit,” he muttered.

Then he pushed off.

With a roar, Buckle landed hard on the roof of the car, squashing it inward and cartwheeling his arms for a brief second before getting his balance. He righted himself, arms outstretched, while rats gushed around his island.

“Holy fuck! They stink as bad as Moe!”

“Watch yourself!” Vick yelled back.

Buckle waved and leaned toward the other house. He smashed out the window with the Halligan bar, swiping it around the frame to clear away any remaining shards of glass. Once done, he tossed the tool through the window, made two test swings with his arms, and leaped.

He hit the window too hard.

Buckle slipped, latched onto the windowsill, and managed to hook it underneath his armpit. He hung there for a moment, feet scrabbling against the side of the house as rats nipped at his boots. Slowly, he pulled himself up and through the window, snagging his body armor before yanking it free. In seconds, he popped back out the window and waved the others down.

“Amy,” Vick directed, getting out of the woman’s way. Amy got her legs over the sill, dropped out of the window, and onto the roof of the car without any trouble. She jumped for the window and landed against the lower sill with a solid clap. Buckle grabbed her torso and hauled her inside.

“You go on,” Vick said to Scott. “Watch your feet.”

“Watch your ass,” Scott answered, hearing more wood splinter from the first floor. He wasted no further time and jumped out the window, crashing down on a roof that was looking more like a crater. He landed hard, clanging his bat off the edge of the car’s roof and grabbing for the shotgun slung over his shoulder. Buckle took the shotgun and bat from him and gestured for him to jump. The rats swamped the lower part of the car, as if sensing the meat just above them. Scott focused on the window and sprang toward it, crashing into the sill and holding on for dear life. Buckle and Amy pulled him in and dumped him on an open living room floor.

“Move your fat ass, Vicky!” Buckle bellowed.

There was a crash as Vick landed on the car. He teetered on the roof and fell forward with a grunt. Holding onto his steel pipe, his arms shot up and slammed awkwardly against the house.

“Take the pipe,” Vick gasped.

Buckle reached out and pulled the weapon free of his friend’s hands.

With a groan, Vick shuffled along the wall until he reached the window. Seconds later, they hauled him through and deposited him in the living room.

“Well, this place looks nice,” Scott said, picking up his bat.

“Smarten up,” Amy said, slapping his helmet as she moved past him, toward the windows.

“I’ll check out back,” Buckle said and got moving. Scott got to his feet and righted his helmet.

Amy pulled back a set of white drapes and looked out the windows. “They’re out there, but maybe not as thick. Clustered around the other house.”

“Not for long, then,” Vick said.

Scott agreed.

Buckle came back into the living room. “They’re out back. Ankle deep.”

“Out the back, then.”

They piled into the kitchen, banging against a round table and chairs, and gathered at the back door. Scott glanced out the window there and saw the rats were indeed thick on the ground, but they were still clustered about the previous house in greater numbers. Vick slid the bolts across on the door, unlocking it.

“All right, we get out of here and run to the right. When I get some space, I’m going to cut out to the road again.”

“Why?” Scott asked.

“’Cause I don’t want to be jumping fences and ducking through swing sets out there. They might be infected rats, but we have the longer legs. You all ready?”

They were.

“Let’s do this,” Vick said and threw open the door.

They spilled out into the backyard, and Scott was momentarily stunned by the assault upon the house they’d only just occupied. The baseboards were gnawed down to fibrous white, while a black river continued to pour around the foundation.

So many, Scott thought in awe.

“Come on!” Buckle roared at him. Scott felt rats scrabbling over his boots and Nomex pants. He pawed them off in disgusted reflex, turned, and bolted after his three companions. They crushed several rats underfoot as they ran, but the backyards of the houses were choked with searching rodents.

After running through the backyards of three more houses, Vick led them toward the street. They passed through another narrow driveway between the houses, stomping through streamers of rats. They pressed through dead things and emerged at the side of the street.

The moon was high in the night sky, and its light illuminated a tenebrous layer of pulsating vermin, surrounding the nearest houses and the road. The creatures filled the street, a seemingly unending carpet in the stark moonlight. They swamped Scott and the others’ ankles, clawing and biting at the protective material. Scott danced on the spot, crushing several underfoot before Vick started jogging away from the creatures. He stopped killing and followed.

“Where are the damn things coming from?” Buckle huffed as he caught up to Vick.

“Waterfront.”

“We were on the waterfront for almost two weeks! Never saw anything like this before.”

“Something brought them up,” Amy panted nearby. “Maybe it was a lack of food?”

“Or they wanted something fresh,” Vick said, as they tromped through the thinner outer rim of the swarm.

“Maybe they just got braver,” Scott threw out, feeling a chill as he said the words. The thought of the virus making rats hunger for human meat and driving them above the surface to hunt wasn’t something he wanted to consider.

He glanced over his shoulder.

“Well, shit.”

The rats pursued them. The outer edges of the mass scuttled up the street while far behind, drifts of blackness crawled through the houses where they’d sheltered. Scott thought the rats were massed knee-high at points. What would they do to a person if they caught one? The image of the disappearing granny zombie on the front porch appeared in his mind. Another image followed, the detached arm turning in the tide of ragged hair before slipping under, as if swept away by a savage undercurrent.

He felt his balls draw up in fright.

The mystery of the disappearing dead down in Annapolis.

Well, shit!

He turned back to face the street, seeing tendrils of rats scurrying across the surface.

And ran.

29

The sound of boots on ice and snow-covered asphalt split the night’s silence as they quickly outpaced the swarm. Vick kept them on South Street, periodically coughing and wheezing as he chugged along the road made eerily luminous by the moon. The cold air had gotten into Scott’s lungs as well, and he knew from experience he would be hacking later on. It had been ages since he’d had to do any lengthy running, but since coming to Halifax, it seemed it was all he did. He was quickly running out of gas.

“Wait,” Scott gasped and halted. He bent over and held his knees, hissing in air through his nose and letting it out through his mouth. “I need a break.”

The other three stopped in the street and regarded Scott in silence, breathing hard, but not out of breath. Vick lifted the visor of his helmet and spat.

“We should get off this street,” he said.

“We can do that,” Amy nodded. “We can cut in right here if you want.”

“Wait,” Buckle said, holding out his hand. “Listen.”

It didn’t take long to hear it. The low rustling noise crept along the curbs and crawled into their ears. It wouldn’t be long before the rats caught up to them.

Up ahead lay a T-intersection, cutting across South Street. It was too dark to see the sign, but Buckle gestured for them to stay where they were while he investigated. He walked a dozen steps, cutting to his right and placing his back against a stone wall. Scott watched the man peer around the corner.

He straightened.

And ran back.

“Run!” he whispered in a harsh voice and raced across the street and behind a house.

The others followed, but were slow to pick up speed, not understanding what had driven Buckle back. Then the foremost rank of rats poured around the corner in a wide sweep that forever cut them off from South Street. They tumbled across the road like a rush of spilled apples, sensing fresh flesh and turning in their direction.

The living bolted after Buckle and caught up to him at a high wire fence in a backyard gleaming in moonlight. Buckle kicked the mesh twice, trying to bring it down; when he couldn’t, he decided to climb it. He flipped himself up and over at the same time that Scott reached the fence and practically dived over it.

Scott landed hard and struggled through a deep drift of white. The shotgun slid off his shoulder, and he snatched it and his bat. He drove the bat into the snow and readied the shotgun.

“I’m getting tired of running, man,” Buckle said as he straightened up alongside Scott. Amy and Vick cleared the fence, and they all looked back the way they had come.

The rats flooded the driveway.

“What the hell?” Buckle burst out in exasperation.

“Come on,” Vick roared and started racing through backyards. Scott snatched up his bat and ran after him. They followed in a close line, looking over their shoulders every few seconds. They crossed one backyard and came out into another driveway and onto a smaller deserted side street. Vick led them up the road before cutting into another driveway. He repeated this twice, attempting to get the rats off their trail.

At the corner of one house, they stopped to compose themselves, placing their backs to the wall and staying in the shadows.

“What do you think?” Buckle asked, breathing hard. “We lose them?”

“We zigzagged a couple of times there,” Vick answered, gasping.

But they could hear the hum in the distance.

“Lord Jesus,” Buckle whispered.

“Man up.” Vick punched his shoulder. “Amy’s handling these things better than you.”

“Actually, I’m about to defecate myself,” Amy deadpanned. “Sorry if that’s too much information.”

“I see them,” Scott whispered, pressing himself harder against the side of the house and willing its shadow to hide him. The others did the same and waited, hoping the rats would go around them. The white noise of the rats’ approach grew. The crackling of wire fences reached their ears.

“We were going in and around houses, trying to be cute,” Buckle whispered. “And they’re just coming on.”

Scott stuck out his head and blinked. At the edge of his vision, rats flooded the entire street and homed in on their position.

“We gotta go,” Scott said.

“This way.” Amy took the lead. The others followed her silhouette, a black wisp against snow banks of ghostly white. They passed behind several houses before she slowed and started testing doors, plunging inside the first one that opened. Scott went straight to the kitchen. He unslung his twelve gauge and placed it on a dark table while the others spread out, searching for deadheads. Buckle found a set of stairs, and he and Vick headed up to the second floor. Moments later, they reconvened in the kitchen.

“Empty,” Vick reported.

“Let’s lay up here for a bit,” Scott said. “I need to catch my breath.”

“We put some distance between us and those little fuckers anyway,” Buckle said. Still, he went to the back door and locked it.

“What the hell?” Vick said in disbelief. “Never seen anything like that before.”

“We’re going to have to get back on South Street further down the line,” Amy said. “Once we catch our breaths here, we can stay ahead of them. Get around them.”

“They’re like a fucking wave,” Vick muttered. “Like that helicopter shot, the one covering the tsunami that hit Japan, where the water was rushing across the flatlands. Just like that.”

“We can wait here for a bit, see if they give up the chase,” Scott offered.

“They can’t find us now,” Vick said. “We’re in a house again. The last house I can see how they found us—the body that was out on the front step.”

“Sorry, man,” Buckle said.

“Hey, I was only stating a fact, not pointing fingers. How would you know there was a swarm of rats heading up the street? You couldn’t. There was no way. They came up the street and found the body. From there, they must’ve smelled us inside.”

Amy inspected herself. “The ponchos. They could smell the ponchos. And the hoods. Anything coated in blood and guts.”

There was a moment of silence as those words sunk into their heads.

“Christ, you’re right,” Scott said. “Gimps can smell. Rats can, too. And if they’re feeding on the dead, this probably isn’t helping us too much at the moment.”

“What do we do, then?” Vick asked. “We drop them? What if we come up against a pack of Moe? We got nothing. Sure as hell can’t walk through them like before.”

“Rather square off against Moe than rats,” Buckle stated. “But I see your point. We’re fucked either way.”

“Fucked more with the rats. Those things were chewing their way through the wood. Moe doesn’t do that,” Vick said.

Scott shifted from one foot to another. “We can test to see if their sense of smell is better than Moe’s.”

“How?” Amy asked.

“Look. We’re ahead of them. I say we stay ahead of them. Let’s drop the clothes here and bug out. Get back on track.”

“And if we run into Moe?” Vick asked.

“We try and avoid them. If not, we go through them.”

“Anything we kill might attract the rats. It’ll be a massive connect the dots,” Amy pointed out.

“And if we wear the shit, the rats might find us anyway,” Scott countered. “You got any better ideas?”

Amy shook her head.

“You guys?”

Neither Vick nor Buckle opened their mouths.

“Okay, then. Another minute tops and we go. All right?”

They agreed.

“Fucking rats, man,” Buckle muttered. “And I thought zombies creeped me out.”

Scott mentally ticked off the seconds, feeling his wind return. Once it was up, he stripped off the blood-soaked garments camouflaging him from the gimps and threw it onto the floor. The others did the same.

“We just leave it there?” Buckle asked.

“Yeah. Maybe it’ll throw them off, give us chance to get away. Everyone ready?” Scott looked at each of their faces, dark, but visible through the clear visors attached to their helmets.

“Let’s go.”

Opening the back door, they once again stepped out into the night, listening to the rats in the distance. They darted across two backyards, then walked down another driveway and into a road glutted with low drifts and half-buried cars. Their boots crunched through the frozen snow, making them cringe. They proceeded in a zigzagging line, jogging past swing sets, marble fountains, work sheds, and benches hidden amongst tall, skeletal clumps of trees.

Amy went through another driveway and stopped, the menfolk behind her. A truck parked between two houses was almost covered in snow, but the first thing Scott noticed was the lack of noise—other than their own heavy breathing.

“Can’t hear a thing,” he panted.

“Lost them?” Vick wanted to know.

“I think.”

“Let’s go, man,” Buckle urged.

Amy went ahead with her tonfas in her hands and checked out the street ahead. Against the backdrop of the moon, she seemed almost ninja-like. She returned to the shadows of the houses a few seconds later.

“We’ve got to head down to the end of the street here so I can see where we are, okay? Once that’s done, we can get a better bearing on where to go. That sound good to you guys?”

“All in,” Buckle said.

“Lead on,” Vick added. Scott didn’t say anything.

“You with me?” she asked him.

“Oh, yeah,” he said suddenly. “Just thinking , is all.”

“Anything we should know about?”

Where’s Tenner now? “No. Nothing.”

Amy’s gaze lingered on him for a few seconds, as if wondering if she should press him further. But she didn’t.

She led them out of the shadows.

30

Tenner heard the rats minutes before he saw them.

He had moved down South Street, following the tracks that made him think a parade had gone through town––a notion that was further supported by spying the rear of a huge zombie migration away from the downtown section. He had crept along, not wanting to attract the dead’s attention, drifting toward Spring Garden Road. When he’d realized he had strayed so far off his intended path, he started retracing his steps back to South Street, which he believed his quarry was following. The undead were on the march, and he’d figured they were in pursuit of the living, so he would stay a hundred meters behind the lot of them, moving stealthily from cover to cover and staying out of sight.

When the sun dropped behind a concrete-and-steel horizon, he’d kept on, moving on a slant that would bring him back on the trail of the four last surviving people in Hellifax. He’d turned a corner, and a massive graveyard spread out before him. Seeing the coast was clear, he’d turned to his right and moved parallel with the graveyard, thinking he would reconnect with South Street on the other side.

That was, until he’d heard the noise.

Something told him that getting his ass to higher ground was probably a good thing.

Slinging his rifle over a shoulder, he spotted a fire escape ladder on a nearby brick building and jumped for the lowest rung. He caught it and hoisted himself up until he got his feet underneath him, breathing hard from the exertion. Up he climbed, panting, and pulled himself onto a metal landing three levels aboveground. He elbowed the glass, smashing it, and climbed through the window, noticing right away the stench coming from within the dark room.

Two lanky corpses sat at a narrow kitchen table and turned in a half-frozen way, baring teeth in lipless mouths. They were dressed in summer clothes, and Tenner got to his feet as they tipped over chairs to get to their own. They didn’t hiss or moan, and the only thing brighter than the moonlight shining in through the shattered window were the zombie’s teeth, which appeared in remarkably good shape.

Philistines.

His rifle slid off his shoulder, hindering his right arm, but his left was free. Tenner knocked away a hand and reached behind his back, gripping one of his two ceremonial knives. He unsheathed the blade and stabbed the head of the female zombie coming for him, who was dressed in cut-off shorts that hung from bony hips. The woman dropped in front of him and, for a moment, the blade hooked into her jawbone and he struggled to free it. The male loomed over him, his fingers caressing Tenner’s back like fat worms. Tenner straightened up and shook his arm free of the rifle, which clattered to the floor. He took a hold of the zombie’s head and drove a boot into the side of its knee. The joint snapped like an icicle and the zombie fell, still attempting to hold on to Tenner. The killer gripped the zombie’s head and twisted it around as if trying to pull up a deeply-rooted weed. The pop and crinkle of vertebrae actually made Tenner cringe, although he wasn’t sure why––he’d done much worse to his victims.

The dead thing still moved and pawed at his body armor.

Tenner saw a chair leg sticking out a few feet away. He bent the zombie over, taking his time, and impaled the creature’s eye and skull with the piece of wood. There was resistance, like plunging a finger into sugar, but the zombie stopped moving. Only then did Tenner release it and examine his surroundings.

At the end of the room and next to a gleaming marble countertop was an open doorway.

Then he heard the shuffling.

Tenner went to the doorway and blinked at a corridor filled with carnivorous shadows. The closest one hissed at him, revealing a mouth full of broken teeth.

Tenner slammed the door and pressed his weight against it. A second later a heavy thumping moved him just a bit, but he set his legs and pushed back. The weight from the other side increased, and he knew he would not be able to hold the deadheads back for long. The rifle lay on the floor, but to get to it would mean allowing them to rush in. Tenner snarled and placed his back against the door’s surface. He pulled out his Glocks.

Then he opened the door.

The first dozen or so heads packed into the hall exploded in chunks and startled jumps, as if he were spraying bullets into a mosh pit. He emptied one gun, then brought up the second. The Glock’s lengthy burp devastated another dozen corpses, silencing their wailing.

But more were coming around the corner.

Apartment building, Tenner’s mind giggled in scathing dismay. In getting to high ground, he’d inadvertently climbed into a goddamn nest.

Tenner emptied the mag and tried slamming the door, but legs from the fallen corpse stopped him. Growling, he stomped on the limbs and kicked the zombies savagely. In the corridor, zombies, like unrelenting ghouls on the hunt, crept over the piles of wasted flesh, stumbling against the walls, but advancing on his position.

Tenner got the door closed and reloaded both guns.

When he opened the door again, more zombies entered the fray. Setting his jaw, he poured a full magazine into the mass, making them dance. Faces burst. Skull fragments bounced off the walls. Dark streaks lashed the corridor’s length. The gun went dry and he unloaded with the other, hosing the corpses that remained and mowing them down in a chatter of bullets.

The gun emptied.

But the zombies continued to enter the corridor, drawn to the fight.

Could be at this all night, Tenner thought in exasperation. He didn’t feel like playing anymore. Holstering his side arms, he grabbed a grenade from his vest, pulled the pin, and baseball pitched it over the heads of the reforming Philistines looking for a fight. It bounced off a far wall, and Tenner slammed the door once again.

This time he placed his back against a wall.

The explosion shook the floor, and a mass of flesh blew open the door. Tenner grimaced and peered outside. The blast took out the wall thirty feet away, and surprising moonlight revealed what looked to be a chunk of missing floor as well, making a ragged pit that nothing was about to breach.

Tenner kicked the limbs clear, torsos and blast-severed heads, into the hall, and shut the door for the last time, marveling at what it was like to call down holy fire to smite one’s foes. He turned his attention back to the kitchen. Darkness shrouded most of the room, but he could make out the refrigerator and countertops. The putrid smell of the place made his eyes water, and he was glad for the smashed window. He turned around and went to the woman he’d put down only a minute earlier—Philistine filth. There was no excitement in killing the undead. It was just a chore that had to be done, not at all as interesting as executing the living. Grabbing her arms, he hoisted her up—not surprised at how light the once reanimated cadaver was—and threw her onto the metal landing. Once she was out of the place, he turned his attention to the second zombie and went about pulling the chair leg from the zombie’s eye cavity. The willowy figure was also shoved out the window. Tenner stepped onto the metal platform and grabbed one leg of the woman, upsetting her and sending her falling to the road with a fleshy splat. He did the same for the other before crawling back through the apartment window. Once inside, he righted one of the fallen chairs and sat down.

Then he heard the noise again, forgotten in the brief battle.

He stuck his head back out the window and peered back the way he’d come, but he couldn’t see anything. The road appeared black and wet under the clear night sky, but something struck him as strange.

A feeling he couldn’t identify—fear?—lanced through his consciousness. He realized what the blackness truly was when it advanced. It oozed steadily over the snowy pavement below, and Tenner could only stare. The rats slowly came into view, some of the faster ones scrambling ahead and outpacing the mass. The vermin located the two fallen zombies at the base of the building and pitched into the corpses. More rats joined in twos and threes, until the creatures covered the carcasses like a shifting jigsaw puzzle. The unmoving zombies disappeared quickly in a writhing, twisting carpet. Tenner stayed where he was, watching them consume the carcasses and witnessing the darkness flow down the street. Thousands of rats, perhaps hundreds of thousands, passed the building. He was suddenly grateful that the fire escape’s ladder was well out of their reach. He wouldn’t put it past the little furry bastards to be able to climb.

Tenner flipped up his goggles, lifted his mask, and wiped his face with his palm.

Then he saw the graveyard in the distance.

The rats flooded the area as far as his eyes could see. An undulating sea of undead turned the pale glow of white into sewage black. The bases of tombstones stood against the rush, and the rats flowed around them. Tenner realized then that what he’d encountered in the tunnel was nothing compared to what was crawling over the earth. He looked down to where the two zombies once lay. Dull bones bobbed as every last morsel was gnawed clean.

He could’ve been them.

This wasn’t just a horde anymore.

This was something … biblical.

Tenner picked up his rifle and placed it against one wall. With one hand on his chin, he watched the undead churn. They crawled over each other like black maggots, and he believed he saw faces in their patterns, crying out in terrible pain just before splitting apart. Time and time again faces formed and dissolved. After a while, the rats began to thin out.

Framed in wood and shadow, he pushed himself back from the window and stared out at the graveyard, pondering the existence of the rats as the swarm rippled away. The Philistines were only the beginning. If the vermin were rising in Halifax, they would be in every city. He’d planned to journey to Mexico. If the cities were infested, what would be left for him? Who would have thought it? Perhaps he wasn’t the one to scour the last few souls from the earth. Maybe the rats were more efficient. They were certainly awesome to behold.

The rifle lay propped up against the wall, and his eyes flicked to it.

Perhaps he shouldn’t be here at all, anymore.

He took the weapon and eyed the fluted barrel.

Perhaps he should just be on his way…

He tipped the weapon until the muzzle’s black eye stared straight back at him and waited. His thumb found the trigger, and he squeezed just a fraction. Just a little more pressure and he would travel. The mouth of the weapon touched the top of his nose, right between his eyes, the metal cold to the touch. He waited for something to entice him to go that little bit further.

Nothing.

He eased off on the trigger. “Suicides,” he scoffed. “Not so easy to do.”

Or I’m just not motivated, he thought.

“No.” He grabbed the rifle and examined its length. “Not yet, anyway.”

He sprang up from the chair, knocking it over with a clatter. “Not yet.”

Besides, if he killed himself, the whole world would wink out of existence with him.

The street below was empty, and the drone of the rats had diminished. He slunk back out the window and quietly made his way down the ladder, dropping the last meter. A skull lay at his feet, which he tapped with his toe. Tenner slunk along the wall, searching for rats ahead and eyeing the graveyard to his left. After the way the rats had devoured the two Philistines, he suspected the others had fled. The zombies knew about the rats, knew what they were capable of.

A part of him wanted to educate the dead that he should be equally feared.

He continued walking, keeping to the shadows and moving as stealthily as possible across intersections. Trash bins lay half-buried in snow and a low distant murmuring came from ahead, but otherwise Halifax was dead. He took no chances and stopped twice, listening to the city and hoping for some clue as to which way to proceed.

He hoped Vick, Amy, Buckle, and the mystery man had encountered the rats and had taken some form of refuge. In the dark, the chance of walking past clues as to their whereabouts would be quite high. Tracks could no longer be trusted either, as all the roads had tracks on them. He would need a thunderbolt of luck to find them, and even then––

A shotgun blast rang out over the city, haunting it, and Tenner froze in his tracks. More shots made him turn in the direction of the noise.

Then nothing.

Tenner smiled, felt a burst of hope, and started to jog.

31

If Scott was right about the time, it was somewhere close to midnight. The moon remained almost impossibly bright, transforming the city into a solemn dreamscape. They kept under the shadowy archway of the bare trees whose limbs reached overhead. Darkness draped across driveways and reminded Scott of open graves or entrances to family tombs, and he couldn’t quite shake the feeling something was watching him.

Amy was just ahead, stooped over slightly and hustling with barely a sound. The others trailed behind her in a straight line. She paused once at an intersection, checking a dark sign that informed them they walked along Oakland Road. Amy shook her head. In losing the rats, Scott thought they must have gone really far out of their way. He trusted Amy’s guidance to get them back on track.

She looked back and was about to say something when she stopped, staring past Scott. He turned, as did Vick and Buckle.

Emerging out of the midnight gloom was a mob of deadheads.

A lot of deadheads.

“Well, shit,” Buckle hissed.

The foremost rancid zombie raised an arm and cried out. Other gimps zeroed in on the living, and soon the street was a slow stampede of shadows, made extra creepy by the shadowy lashings of branches.

“Hurry!” Amy whispered and started jogging. They ran around snow-trapped vehicles and linked up with a larger road, where the drifts had been trampled. Amy slowed down. Twenty meters away stood another crowd of deadheads, barring the way. She looked back quickly, and Scott suddenly felt the space between the two bodies of undead close in on them. The houses in the area were generously spaced, considering how tightly packed they’d been on previous streets, and drifts rose up like serpentine spines, covering lawns.

Amy broke into a run.

Toward the zombies now fifteen meters ahead of her.

Holy shit! Scott thought as he increased his own speed. What the hell was she doing?

He glimpsed one of the corpses before them, wearing the body armor and battle helmet of a soldier. A black visor hid its upper face, while its lower jaws remained visible.

Amy altered her path and stomped across a lawn, her feet driving deep into the snow. The men struggled to keep up, and Scott’s legs sunk to his knees––deep enough to suck the energy from him. The two separate groups of zombies joined forces behind them and pursued. Voices of the dead sang out, making Scott run faster.

They slogged around a two-story house and through a backyard filled with deep snow. Amy got halfway up the drift and looked over a fence. She turned around and waved off the men.

“Too deep,” she huffed. “Get to the house.”

Scott turned around and saw Buckle and Vick sunk to their knees. Behind them was a condensed featureless knot of heads, torsos, and arms, all blackened by the shadow of the nearby houses, blocking any retreat.

“Can’t go back!” Vick waved. “They’ll have more trouble than us.”

Amy didn’t argue. She struggled up the drift and crawled over the fence. Scott went after her, feeling the round tops of the fence pickets through his Nomex coat. Vick and Buckle struggled through the snow, their energy being sapped away. The zombies came under the full glare of the moon. The soldier marched forward, outpacing the others, its mouth hanging open almost sadly.

Closing in on Buckle.

“Donny!” Amy cried.

Buckle glanced over his shoulder and spotted the dead thing. He flipped himself over the fence, right behind Vick, flicking up snow as he went. The soldier staggered and bogged down in the drift’s depths.

“This way,” Amy yelled and waded onward, arms flailing, toward a copse of bare trees.

Scott and the other men pulled away from their pursuers, but he glanced back to see the undead crawling over each other to clear the fence.

“We could’ve made a stand there,” Scott blurted.

“Plenty of time to make a stand,” Amy answered, pointing. To their right, more dark figures plodded through someone’s garden.

“The hell they come from?” Scott asked.

“Don’t worry about them—just move!” Vick urged.

Through the frozen brush they went, each step leeching away a little more energy. They outpaced the zombies on the right, but the night was no longer quiet. All around them, Moe wailed in hunger. A wall of glowing snow rose up before them. The trees ended and they stumbled onto a walkway, closer to the towering wall in front of them. Scott realized it wasn’t a snow bank, but the side of a very large concrete structure.

“Dalplex,” Amy said and went to the right.

“Dalplex?” Scott echoed.

“Sports arena,” Vick informed him.

Amy came back and Scott saw why: huge chunks of debris had fallen from the building to the tree line, effectively blocking any further progress.

“Back the other way,” Amy told them. “The Army or Navy must’ve hit the place with something. The place’s shot to shit.”

They turned around and stopped in their tracks.

A crowd of undead came around the corner of the building, slinking and smiling as if they had just heard a truly amusing joke. They swayed on their feet, gesturing with limbs that, in some cases, were not whole. The humans moved forward as a dark wave of Moe––the ones chasing them for the last few minutes––struggled through the nearby trees.

“Lord Jesus,” Buckle said softly, seeing they were penned in.

“We have to go through them. It’s the fastest way,” Amy said, flicking out her tonfas.

“Then, we go through,” Vick said, stepping up to stand at her side. He slipped on his spiked knuckles, weapons Scott knew would have scared the shit out of the living.

“What do we do?” Scott asked.

“Watch their backs,” Buckle answered. “And keep an eye on the bunch behind us.”

There was a pause as teacher and student prepared themselves for the coming battle, then they were swinging. Amy and Vick attacked the dead with an energy that took Scott’s breath away. Back in the parking lot it had been Buckle and Vick facing Moe, but now Scott saw teacher and student united against a morbid enemy. Giving each other room, Vick and Amy greeted the dead with steel and hard wood.

The display was nothing short of stunning.

Scott stood dumbfounded, watching both martial artists as they created a close combat spectacle unimpeded by the inhibitions that would have been present if their attackers were alive. Whatever combat skills they had acquired over the years and finely tuned, they unleashed. The whirling tonfas and flashing steel pipe inflicted devastating blows to the advancing deadheads. Vick and Amy pounded in skulls, broke knees, and snapped arms, ripping out zombies like unpleasant weeds. Vick pumped his spikes into faces and temples while Amy attacked legs, upending corpses before bashing or spiking heads. She flipped one zombie over her back, and Buckle darted forward and brained it with his Halligan. He worked the weapon free with a crunch and pulled back to Scott.

Who just continued to watch.

It wasn’t because he was awestruck anymore or even scared.

He simply realized he would be in the way.

Vick made magic with his pipe and spiked knuckles, thrashing and destroying gimps before they could lay their frozen hands on him. He seemed to be laboring as the fight went on, and the whirling, destructive energy of the steel pipe slowed.

Amy, on the other hand, appeared to just be warming up.

And kicking ass.

She spun the tonfas in her hands so fast that they resembled propellers. Her speed and fury made Scott think of Bruce Lee. She blocked hands with the weapons, spread the arms of her attackers wide, and spiked faces with the pointed ends. The resounding clatter of skulls being smashed became a gruesome rhythm. A soldier got his face bashed to one side before being spiked under the chin. An obese office worker with a rug of a beard had his knee broken and his temple crumpled. She cracked the skulls of three boys so fast Scott wasn’t sure what had happened, hearing only the angry clack of a dancer’s castanets. A female zombie reached for Amy with a skeletal arm and had it snapped into rubber before being swatted to the ground. One bash to another’s jaw sent a hail of broken teeth bouncing off the concrete wall.

Amy darted left and right against the decomposing tide, not standing in any one place, but somehow aware of Vick and his steel pipe. Her movements blurred against the backdrop of slow-moving zombies. A low wall of unmoving Moe lay at her feet, and the zombies struggled to cross it, stumbling frequently. Several times Scott thought to rush to her side to stop a gimp reaching for her leg, only to see her kill it with frightening force.

Then Vick dropped back, chest heaving and arms drooping.

Buckle moved forward, kicking zombies and lashing out with the Halligan tool. Vick had been a symphony of destruction, a smooth-moving flow of practiced strikes; Buckle was brutal force. The Halligan broke bones with each heavy swing. With surprising speed, three zombies appeared out of the shadows and fell upon the former cop. Then Amy was there, hooking two zombies off their feet with her tonfas. Buckle crushed the skull of the last, but more crowded in.

Scott dropped his bat and drew the Ruger. He fired with both hands and emptied the magazine into the heads of three zombies, the exit holes bursting loudly. The weapon clicked dry and he didn’t have time to reload, so he shoved the gun into his boot and shouldered the shotgun.

Boom. A face exploded. Both Amy and Buckle ducked out of the way, giving Scott all the room he needed.

Boom. A huge chunk flew from a stomach. Boom. The head followed, flying from its shoulders.

Boom. Boom. Two more gimps fell, their skulls shredded.

Buckle crushed the last deadhead’s skull, embedding the Halligan into the zombie’s temple with a harsh crunch.

“Five shots in that thing?” Buckle turned and asked with a wry smile. “That’s a firearm violation, me son.”

“Sorry, Officer,” Scott said.

“I’m not fucking sorry,” Vick muttered, steaming past them. “Get moving!”

The zombies still pursuing them were through the trees, getting closer.

Scott grabbed his bat and ran after the others. Following the wall, they raced around the building and arrived at the main entrance. The clear glass doors were unlocked, but the interior appeared as a starless void. The doors were the automatic kind, and the dead sensors would not allow them entry. With a grunt, Vick shoved one spiked fist into a crease and pried the door back enough so he could get his fingers in. Buckle jammed his Halligan into the widening slot and pulled, his back bending with the strain. The doors finally opened, and Vick waved them inside. Once in, they pushed the doors shut.

“The glass should hold for a while,” he said, eyeing countless dark figures making their way across a snow-filled parking lot. “I think we’re hitting the ones that went by the house.”

“And any others in the area,” Buckle added. Amy looked inside to a second set of doors. She pushed one open and went into the building, seeing soft light deeper inside, at the end of a corridor of blackness.

“Where you heading?” Vick asked.

“Can’t go that way. Gotta find another exit.”

“There’s light ahead,” Scott said.

“Probably a hole made by the same thing that blew that wall to hell,” Amy figured. “Just don’t make any noise. We don’t want to have to go back the way we came.”

“Suppose not,” Scott said. He ejected the empty magazine from his Ruger and slapped in a fresh one.

“How many of those you got?” Buckle asked.

“Last one.”

“Too bad.”

“You said you shoot shit?”

“When I have a gun, yeah.”

“Here, then.” Scott handed him the shotgun. He dug out the remaining two dozen or so shells he had in his pockets and backpack. Buckle took the shells and the weapon, but regarded the shotgun in one hand and the Halligan in the other.

“Kinda awkward,” he said, but slung the shotgun over his shoulders.

“They’re getting close,” Vick whispered, watching the zombies in the parking lot. A gimp abruptly stepped into view at the edge of the glass doors, rapping its face against the clear surface and bouncing back two steps. It moaned and smeared its features across the glass, making it squeal, while others drifted in from the sides. The soldier was amongst them.

“They can’t see us,” Amy said. “We’re too far back from the doors and in the dark. They’ll give up after a while, I bet.”

“Lose the scent?” Scott asked.

“Exactly.”

“Hold on for a bit, then. Let me catch my breath,” Vick whispered.

“Seconded,” Buckle said.

“If you oldtimers can’t keep up, we might have to leave you behind.”

“Jesus, Vick,” Buckle’s voice issued from the dark. “Where’s the respect for seniors?”

“Couldn’t take the strap to Amy,” Vick explained. “Too damn fast. And you know how social services are, man. One phone call and you’d be arresting me.”

“True,” Buckle agreed. “World went to hell long before Moe.”

Amy and Scott eyed the outer doors. The zombies thumped against the glass panes, but they didn’t break. The dead groaned, the sound muted by glass. More came up from the rear, attracted by the others. Seconds became minutes, and a sizeable crowd gathered outside, thumping against the glass. Scott’s unease grew. He didn’t want to stay here much longer, even though he was sure Moe couldn’t see them.

“Time to go,” Amy said after a few moments, perhaps feeling the same way. She held her tonfas in one hand and grabbed Scott’s right arm. “Link up.”

“Ready, then,” Buckle said, latching onto Vick.

“Those are my balls, man,” Vick said, his tone as serious as only a man could be when his boys were being violated. “Just kidding. He really only grabbed my ass.”

Amy groaned and turned toward the men. “Fifties, my ass. You guys are like twelve-year-olds.”

“Just some levity,” Vick went on. “Lord knows he’s probably laughing up there.”

“Yeah, well, he’s up there and your ass is down here,” Amy said, pulling Scott after her. “So just remember that next time you make a funny, ’cause I’ll kick the shit out of it.”

Vick had his free hand on Scott’s shoulder. “How you doing?”

Scott wasn’t quite sure how to answer.

As a train, they slunk toward the shards of light further inside the building.

“Wish to Christ we had a flashlight,” Buckle muttered.

Scott did, too.

32

After killing Murphy, Fist felt one problem had been resolved, but he was more than eager to address any others, should they arise. Interestingly enough, none did, and their foraging went relatively smoothly over the next few days. They eventually rolled over the Nova Scotian provincial border, with a stop in the town of Truro. From there, Fist decided to drive for the heart of the province. Winter storms had made driving terrible. Hunting had been non-existent, forcing them to subsist on their Sackville kills, which they consumed quickly. They had cans of food, but no one was ready to eat only vegetables. It was the one thing they agreed upon with the reanimated corpses.

Fresh meat was best.

They drove down the 102 and slipped unnoticed into Halifax, arriving by early afternoon after a major storm that had clogged the roads with snow. They wrapped the tires in chains, which gave the vans better traction as they pressed deeper into the city. Zombies attempted to welcome them, and the vans pushed through several, their ravaged limbs slapping against the vehicles’ sides with fleshy thuds. The Norsemen eventually lost these greeters and made their way downtown, wary of roads rendered impassable by snow or abandoned vehicles, until they came out on the other side of an enormous office building with a gaping mouth at its base.

An underground parking lot.

It had been an easy thing to drive both vans into the darkness and use them to block the entrance with the vehicles. They cleaned out the two dozen or so zombies that inhabited the underground darkness, killing them with savage efficiency.

And they camped there for two days.

A campfire blazed a few feet away from the vans, fueled by old garbage taken from a nearby bin. Seven of the remaining eleven Norsemen gathered around the flames while the others stood guard at the entrance. They cooked up the last victim of Sackville and supplemented their meal with tins of watery carrots and peas.

It was about then, just after Fist had returned from the dark after urinating against a wall, when they heard the distant gunshots.

Around the fire, the others stopped talking and listened and, for a moment, the crackling of the flames was the only sound. Fist’s soot-blackened eyes narrowed, and he looked in the direction the shots had come from. Farther into the city, but not so far away from where they were camped.

The others didn’t move, waiting expectantly for more gunfire. When it didn’t come, they looked to their leader expectantly, like dogs waiting to be fed. No one would dare move before he gave the word, not after the example made of Murphy, and Fist liked that just fine.

He waited few more seconds before grunting as if he’d heard an amusing remark. The open fire pit burned, casting an evil hue over his men and the nearby area.

Fist got moving toward the van, waving a hand as he went.

Behind him, the others jumped to their feet in savage glee.

*

The darkness enveloped them and made their passage difficult. Several times, Amy bumped up against something, stopped for a moment as if in pain, and continued walking. They went through a gate and another doorway, and light from the moon suddenly gave the dark some semblance of shape.

“Where we heading?” Scott leaned forward and whispered.

“The pool. I’ve been here before, after the renovations,” Amy whispered back. “We’ll cut through the pool area and make our way to the exit on the other side. Get back onto South Street.”

Even though they both wore gloves, he liked being led along in the dark by Amy.

“Do we have to keep holding on?” Buckle whispered.

“Unless you want to fumble around in the dark, yes,” Amy told him. “All right, the pool’s this way.”

They entered a room where chunks of the roof had been destroyed, large enough for snow to blow into the area and coat everything in sparkling, ceramic white. Night sky, lighter than the building’s interior, shone through, and Scott saw stars twinkling between hanging banners. A pile of rubble lay in a heap underneath the rippling cloth. It was as if someone had blown away one section of the roof and left the rest. Snow coated the floor tiles, and even the pool glowed with eerie wonder.

“Holy shit,” Amy said. “Well, this will go faster.”

“What?”

“The water’s frozen.”

“Oh?”

“Hold on,” Amy said and broke away. She stepped to the edge of the pool and stabbed a tonfa through the layer of snow. “Feels solid.”

She tapped again, harder.

Two arms rose from under the snow and grabbed Amy’s wrists, pulling her forward. She shrieked and landed on the powdery surface, where more zombies straightened up, clumps of snow slipping from their frames. Vick yelled and jumped after her, swinging his steel pipe. Buckle went to the pool’s edge and brained a rising zombie with one strike of the Halligan.

Scott kicked one zombie that came up to his knees and bent him backward, only to have the thing come lurching back at him. He realized the dead thing was frozen in the water, from the waist down. Dead fingers grazed the lower parts of Scott’s legs, seeking purchase, before he squashed its head with two blows from his bat. The emerging zombies stayed in place, grasping for the living, but unable to close hands around them. Vick dispatched three deadheads and stood guard while Amy killed her attacker and struggled to her feet. The dead cried out, their voices echoing in the devastated pool area. The creatures reached and clawed for the living, but made no attempt to move forward.

“Well, Christ,” Scott said. All the deadheads had become trapped in the pool. At some point, they had stumbled into the shallow end and stayed there until the water eventually froze them in place.

Amy pulled Scott back by the shoulder, breaking the spell of fascination.

“Fuckers are frozen in there,” Buckle declared, and the four of them simply stood and stared at the writhing figures trapped in the water.

“They probably wandered in here, dropped in, and couldn’t get out. Then it got cold.” Amy shrugged, giving her arms a quick rub. “My tapping woke them up.”

“Just like a dinner bell,” Buckle said.

“We don’t have to go through, right? Just hang to the walls?” Scott asked.

“Yeah, sure,” Amy said, over her fright. There was plenty of room to avoid crossing the pool. The zombies continued wailing as the four of them threaded their way around the tiled edge of the pool. More gimps straightened up in the area where the living had first entered, while corpses in the deeper sections became shorter and didn’t move at all. The water trapped zombies up to their midsections, their lower chests, their shoulders, until…

Scott stopped and stared.

Heads like ruined bowling balls groaned feebly at them, as if the living were the reason for their situation. Other heads appeared as white lumps whose surfaces split apart when their mouths opened. Still more heads, deeper in the pool, didn’t move at all. They were just there, like snowballs waiting to be pushed under the surface. If he cleared away the snow covering the deep end, he was certain he’d find the tops of submerged heads. Perhaps even upturned faces, unmoving and staring up at the water’s surface.

“Move on,” Vick ordered him. Scott suddenly felt as if his own limbs had become blocks of ice.

“Un-fucking believable,” he said in wonder.

“Ain’t it,” Buckle agreed. “The places they get themselves into and still make a grab for you? Kills me, I swear to Jesus.”

“This way,” Amy called to them, standing to the right of a dark doorway.

They pressed on, moving farther into darkness. Amy groped for Scott’s arm again and led him along a concrete wall.

“Here we go,” she finally said.

“You okay?” Scott asked.

“Yeah.” She sniffed and adjusted her helmet. “Just got the jump on me, is all. Poppa Vick had me covered.”

Scott felt a pang of guilt. She was right. He’d stood by as if glued in place while Vick dove in and started swinging.

“I’ll cover it next time,” he vowed in a quiet voice.

Amy looked back at him. “Didn’t mean that as a cheap dig. Just that he and Buckle and I have been around awhile. Understand?”

Scott nodded. He still meant what he’d said, but he kept quiet.

“Did you just nod?” Amy asked.

“Huh? Oh, uh, yeah.”

“Barely saw that, mister. You watch yourself.” He could tell she was smiling. Scott found himself starting to like this woman. She was no-nonsense, tough, and possessed a sense of humor that he was only now starting to understand. Kelly had been like that—without the tonfas.

“Hold on a few minutes,” Vick said in the dark. “We’re safe here, I think.”

“Another breather?”

Silence. “Yeah. Sorry.”

“Me, too,” Buckle added.

“Don’t worry about it,” Amy quietly assured them in the dark. “Ain’t leaving you behind. Even though you’re hard to clean up after.”

The group waited and collected themselves for a few minutes.

“All ready?” Amy finally asked.

They were.

“Let’s go, then.”

They heard the metallic clink of an emergency exit bar being pushed down, and the door swung open. They emerged from the Dalplex and looked around cautiously, checking the corners and trees ahead of them. Scott wondered what other horrors Halifax had in store for them. He suspected that if his hair hadn’t already turned grey from the constant frights, it would simply fall out.

No Moe could be seen.

Amy walked a few paces, the snow rising up to her shins, and peered into the darkness ahead. After confirming the coast was clear, she turned around and abruptly held up a hand.

“You hear that?” she whispered.

Scott listened, hearing that familiar low, rustling hum coming from their left, polluting the clean silence of the night. It was coming from the not-so-distant parking lot where the zombies had once pursued them. Moans rose above the humming, which struck Scott as odd.

“You want to check it out?” Amy asked.

“No,” Vick said.

“Fuck no,” Buckle added.

But Amy moved to a fire ladder nailed into the wall, just ten feet to the right of the exit. She unslung her pack and dropped it in a drift with a soft thud. “You guys hold on here, then.”

“Don’t do it, Amy,” Buckle said.

“I want to see,” Amy replied. “Besides, I’m on the roof.”

“We don’t have time for this.”

Vick didn’t protest, nor did he tell her to be careful, and Buckle shut up as well.

“I’ll come along,” Scott said, not really wanting to. He suspected he was going to see something he didn’t like, but he didn’t want her to go alone. Amy jumped to the lower rung and pulled herself up with surprising speed considering the weight of the padding and gear she wore. Once she got her boots onto the lower rungs, Scott followed.

They climbed fifteen feet to the top. Snow piled on the roof, almost knee-high in places, rising like pale dunes. Once Scott got to his feet, Amy pointed at the dark holes nearby that dotted the roof of the Dalplex.

“Army?” Scott asked.

“Army. This way.”

They made their way toward the parking lot area, avoiding any holes in the roof where the structure might have been weakened by the shelling. The cars farthest away came slowly into view.

Scott faltered to a stop when he saw the scope of what was swarming amongst the deserted vehicles.

“You okay?” Amy turned and asked.

“We have to go back.”

“Just a moment.”

“Amy,” Scott grated. “If this was a movie, this would be the part where the audience would be slapping their foreheads and screaming at us to head back.”

“Listen, we’re above them. Okay? And last time I checked, they can’t climb.”

“Amy… Goddamn it.”

“You coming, then?” Without waiting for an answer, she left him, obviously not bothered if he accompanied her further or not. Scott hesitated, threw his head back in exasperation, and followed. They hunkered down as they got closer to the edge, not wanting to be seen.

Then they saw it.

The zombies on the lot, perhaps a hundred or more, writhed and wailed as rats devoured them from the ground up. Figures staggered from car to car, some falling on hoods as the vermin coated them from head to foot in a wriggling mass. Some gimps reached out to the moon, holding up arms covered in swinging rodents. Other did nothing, muddling along the cars as the teeming tide chewed away at their feet and ankles until they collapsed. When the corpses fell, they disappeared from sight in seconds, covered in hairy crawlers. Scott saw the soldier gimp marching away from the doors, as if trying to escape. Rats piled onto the figure, clinging by jaws and claws, and the deadhead did nothing to stop them. They ripped the unprotected parts of its person, bypassing the body armor. The soldier cried out, some inarticulate whale song that Scott thought haunting, as the rats burrowed inside its still upright carcass. Within seconds, the figure toppled to its hands and knees, and rats swarmed it in a gush. A moment later, its torso sunk to the ground, as if its hands had been gnawed away from underneath it. The soldier rolled to a sitting position, like a chunk of ice righting itself in water. An arm gave way and it toppled over onto its back, then disappeared under the diseased deluge.

“I’ve seen enough,” Amy whispered.

“Huh?” Scott blurted, freaked out by the feeding frenzy.

“Let’s go,” she said and started backing away from the edge of the roof. Scott followed, perhaps never so grateful to run from something in all of his life. He watched where they both walked, not wanting to plunge through an unseen skylight or have some other freak accident and alert the veritable blob just behind them.

“They’re something, eh?” Amy asked, dropping back to his side.

“I can’t believe the things exist.”

“Funny, too. Viruses don’t usually jump from one organism to another. Unless it’s mutated. But this one did. I wonder if it’s gotten to any other animal?”

“Christ, I hope not.”

They retraced their footsteps in the snow.

“See anything interesting?” Buckle asked as they climbed down on the ladder.

Scott shook his head, visions of rats devouring deadheads still in his mind. He knew he’d have nightmares sooner or later.

“We have to get away from here. Not much time.”

“What’s over there?” Vick asked. “We could hear Moe.”

“Moe was being eaten alive,” Amy replied.

“Rats?” Vick asked.

Amy started walking. “Yeah.”

They labored through the snow, away from the parking lot area, and eventually disappeared into the trees. They left the Dalplex center and made their way through high, unblemished drifts, heading for the road.

Fortunately, the rats did not follow them.

Not right away.

33

After several minutes, Tenner crossed onto South Street and jogged for two blocks, over cluttered avenues where the snow had been trampled by countless feet, creating an icy mat that threatened to upend him if he moved much faster. There were no Philistines about and, more importantly, no rats. The vermin seemed to be swinging far to the left, drawn to dead meat. He felt like a gunslinger, swaggering down a deserted street and waiting for anyone to step into view to challenge him. He knew he was on the right path for some reason, and he had learned long ago to trust his instincts. The armor he wore slowed him, its weight considerable, but he wasn’t about to relinquish it. Not after what he’d seen.

Far ahead in a street that glowed in the moonlight, stepping out from between trapped vehicles like shooting targets popping into existence, he saw two shadows. Tenner scurried behind a car, flattening his upper body over the trunk. With the moon still full in the sky and a backdrop of white snow, it was easy to make out the shadows crossing the road, four in total.

Holy shit. He’d found them.

Well, he’d found someone. The city attracted the odd survivor into its web, for whatever reasons. With such a high number of undead running around, not to mention the new and oddly fascinating presence of the rats, Tenner had made the decision to get the hell out of Dodge once he finished his hunt. He fully intended to load up whatever curry and supplies he could aboard his SUV and move out.

But first… First he’d finish what he’d set out to do.

When the dark figures slipped out of view, he crept from his hiding place and double-timed it up the street, his AR-20 shouldered and pointed at the ground. He jogged only as fast as necessary, to keep things from rattling. He looked around at times, scouring the shadows and ensuring there were no zombies or rats nearby.

Mustn’t spook them. Mustn’t, mustn’t. He repeated the words in his mind. The shadows were out of sight, one with the dark, and he hoped he wouldn’t lose the trail. A waist-high stone wall lay on his right, and behind that a great empty space opened up behind a high, wire mesh fence. An athletic field, perhaps. Across the street, a series of townhouses or low apartment buildings blocked any further view. He hoped the buildings were empty. He didn’t need to run into another nest. As he got closer to where he’d last spied the four figures, he slowed down and studied the snow. There were plenty of tracks, but he wasn’t certain if they belonged to his prey or to Philistines.

Once Tenner reached the area where he believed the others had crossed, he stooped over, keeping a row of cars on his right, and peeked in between the derelict wrecks, looking for signs of passage. There were several, but he still wasn’t sure if they belonged to the living. Checking his rear flanks and seeing the coast was clear, he continued his hunt. Ahead, towering trees spread their bare limbs across the night sky, fracturing the moonlight. Behind them, low buildings birthed a courtyard of darkness and made it difficult to see.

Tenner crouched and trotted toward the rows of dark buildings, raising his weapon and hoping he was heading in the right direction. He kept checking the snow for tracks, hoping his quarry would not be caught by the rats or Philistines.

That would piss him off to no end.

*

Led by Amy, they left the road and skirted further inward, aiming to cut though a cluster of buildings when that plan became suddenly impossible. Underneath the dark shape of a pedway, walking as if asleep, was another crowd of zombies, lingering in the space between the buildings as if trapped. They swayed and cried out softly, oblivious to the approaching living. Under Amy’s direction, they dropped to their bellies and lay flat in the snow.

“We’re heading over there,” Amy whispered. “Just follow me. I think I saw an open door at the bottom of that one place. A dormitory’s fire exit, maybe.”

“A residence?” Scott almost stopped in his tracks. “That could be a nest.”

“That’s a nest out there,” Amy said. “But I think I can get us around them.”

“How do you know this place?”

“My husband stayed here for a year. He went to Dalhousie.”

Oh. His stomach suddenly fell away. She’s married? For the first time that night, he was grateful for the dark.

“Lead on, Amy,” Vick huffed. “Get us out of this shit.”

Hugging trees and ducking behind cars, the four kept out of sight and crept toward the open portal. Reaching it, they quickly disappeared inside. Buckle quietly closed the door, and they found themselves in a stairwell. Amy went down a level and disappeared into darkness. The men followed reluctantly, finding her at another closed door at the bottom level.

“Through here and out another door and we’re into a parking area,” Amy said. “Okay?”

The men grunted; they were fine with the idea.

Amy pulled the door open and went inside. Scott breathed in air that felt more like a meat freezer than a student residence. Darkness swallowed them, sending waves of unease through Scott. He couldn’t see Amy.

“Can’t see shit,” Buckle whispered.

“Keep a hand on the right wall,” Amy said from ahead. “Just stay out of the rooms.”

Thankful that there weren’t too many turns, they reached out and used the wall to guide themselves down the hall. Some of the surfaces were grainy, but some were knobby and sticky with an unknown substance. The dark became a rhythm of wall and door. Amy tripped on something—twice—and warned Scott and the others of whatever was on the floor. He nudged the floor with his toes, feeling his way down the hall. A faint smell of decomposed flesh or something similar caught his attention. The wall they followed disappeared twice, indicating open doors or hallways, but there were no lights. None of them stopped or fell, despite whatever littered the tiles underfoot. Scott was thankful he couldn’t see what filled the corridor, as he suspected it wasn’t pretty.

“Turn on the right coming up and one flight of steps down,” Amy whispered, the words floating back to him. He felt along the wall until it fell away. He made the turn, descending carefully until his foot touched a step.

There was something stretched out on it.

“What the hell,” Scott muttered.

“Something’s on the steps,” Amy said before he could say any more. “So be careful.”

“That’s a man,” Vick said.

“A dead man,” Buckle said, his voice hanging in place as if he’d stopped to inspect the shape. The notion didn’t set well with Scott. It was a fucking void in here, and any moment he fully expected something to clamp around his wrist or ankle and pull him down into oblivion.

“Leave it, Buckle,” Vick insisted.

“Just making sure,” Buckle said, his voice a whisper in the dark, heightening Scott’s growing stress.

“Shit.”

That was something Scott didn’t need to hear. “What?”

“I must’ve missed a turn or something,” Amy stated.

“Huh?”

“There was supposed to be a door down here. The dark is messing me up. And it’s been years since I’ve been here. Hold on.”

Hands groped Scott’s chest, and Amy passed him in the dark. The others shuffled in the featureless soup until she walked past.

“All right, keep up.”

They retraced their steps, the wall on the left now, moving through pitch blackness as cold and deep as some undiscovered arctic cave. Scott brought up the rear, pausing for a moment.

He’d heard something behind him.

“You guys hear that?”

He peered back the way he’d come, but he could see nothing. The dark was so utterly devoid of shape it was as if someone had gouged out his eyes.

Except sound.

It was back there, somewhere, in the dark. It seemed to stop when Scott did, advancing only when he did. But that couldn’t be right. Gimps made noise.

He heard it again. Scott’s senses became completely aware, everything coming online, trying to detect the exact location of the noise.

Ssssshumt.

The soft, definitely organic sound was somewhere behind them and slinking forward.

“You guys hear that?” he repeated, wondering why the hell they hadn’t answered him.

But the others had marched ahead.

Jesus, Scott thought, keeping his hand on the wall and shuffling forward. He stumbled up the steps, feeling the weight of whatever it was on the steps.

“Scott?” someone called out ahead. Amy’s voice.

Ssssshumt… Ssssshumt.

Panic rose up in Scott’s chest and, for a moment, he was certain whatever was following in his wake was going to grab him—grab him and haul him back there, where it would nail him to the ground and gut him with hooks or claws or something even worse. He plodded forward, sightless, keeping one hand against the wall and leaning against it for support. The noise seemed to be only ten paces away and getting closer. That same soft squishing sound, like something wet and dangling being dragged along the tiles, just tickling it, before a heavy weight came down upon it and another ponderous step was taken.

“Scott?” Amy called again, and he could hear Vick’s and Buckle’s grumblings in the void.

“Here! I’m here!” Scott called, not loudly, but certainly no longer whispering.

“Hurry,” Amy called. Why did she sound so far away?

Then he was falling.

In his haste to get back to the main floor, he’d forgotten about the open doors and had fallen right through one, landing on his side in a huff and expulsion of air.

“Scott!” Buckle cried.

Ssssshumt. Ssssshumt. The sound was much closer than Buckle.

Scott scrambled to his feet and tightened his grip on his bat. If there was something out there, he’d crack open its skull before it got him. All at once, visions of terrible things—giant eyeballs with fanged mouths or worms the size of trains—flashed before his mind’s eye. He pushed them away and reached out in the total dark, wondering––hoping––he’d touch something familiar.

“Scott,” Buckle whispered nearby. “Where y’be, me son?”

“Here.” Scott stepped forward and bumped into something. He tried to grab it, but it landed with a crash on the floor, shattered pieces suddenly playing piano. He didn’t think a nuke could’ve made more noise.

Then a hand grabbed him.

“Gotcha,” Buckle said, his hand gripping Scott’s shoulder. “You okay? Breathing awfully hard.”

“Something was following me,” Scott managed to say.

“What?” Buckle pulled him back to the doorway, where he finally regained his bearings.

“Listen, and get ready just in case,” Scott warned.

But after ten seconds, it was Amy’s voice that broke the tomb-like silence. “Hurry, you guys.”

“Don’t hear anything,” Buckle said to Scott.

“It was catching up to me,” Scott said, fear in his voice. “Then I forgot about the open door and fell through.”

Silence. “Nothing out there now. Would’ve come for us after you broke the lamp or vase or whatever that was, I think.”

There was no mistaking that. So what had he heard?

“C’mon,” Buckle said, reaching out and guiding him back by the shoulder. Scott puzzled over the noise he’d heard all the way back to Amy and Vick.

“What happened to you?” Amy asked.

He shook his head and then realized no one could see it. “I don’t know. Heard something back there.”

“What?”

“Don’t know. It slacked off when Buckle reached me.”

For a moment they listened, not hearing a thing.

“Don’t want to scare you guys, but…” Amy began.

“But what?” Vick’s voice.

“This place had a reputation at one time. Back in the day. I never believed it, but…”

“But what?” Scott wanted to know.

“Well… just that there were a couple of suicides in the place. Some kids hanged themselves. Around exam time, I think. I remember Jordy––my husband––talking about it. Guys would hear things at night. Only hear things, never see. Sounds outside their doors or late at night in the laundry room. Whenever someone investigated, nothing was found.”

“Amy?” Vick asked.

“Yeah?”

“Can we get the fuck out of here?”

Amy hesitated before answering. “This way.”

“Thank you,” Vick said, annoyance in the martial artist’s voice––but Scott also thought that, in a world where corpses walked, it was very possible that Vick believed in such stories. There was a hint that perhaps the older man’s nerves were also starting to fray in the constant blackness.

Giving directions when needed, Amy led them once more through the dark, taking longer this time, until they turned another corner and a distant window oozed moonlight. Scott exhaled in relief.

“Almost there,” Amy whispered, her coarse voice sounding impish. Seconds later, they gathered before a door to the outside. The window offered a view of an empty parking space underneath the residence, and an opening that led out into a lane and, beyond that, a road.

“Well, shit. Almost home,” Amy said, looking out the window.

Scott took a peek and shrugged. “Nothing. I was expecting deadheads. Where are they, do you think?”

“You want to see Moe?” Amy asked.

“Hell no, I’m happy.” Scott smiled, relieved to be out of the dark.

“Ready, oldtimers?” Amy directed at Vick and Buckle.

“Gonna slap your ass you ever call me that again,” Buckle warned her softly.

“I like ‘oldtimer,’ myself,” Vick said. His steel pipe rasped against floor tiling.

“Anything’s an improvement over pussy, eh?” Buckle said.

Scott made a face and shook his head.

The Newfoundlander caught the movement. “Don’t worry about us, me son. Them’s only terms of endearment. Besides, old Vick won’t remember any of it two minutes from now.”

“I’ll remember kicking your ass just fine,” Vick deadpanned. “Just keep it up.”

The abrupt opening of the door quieted them all, and Scott suspected that was Amy’s intent. She entered the parking area and the rest of the men filed out after her. Beyond the parking area, an empty lane and parallel road beckoned. Amy stopped and peered around the corner, ensuring everything was clear. They took in the gleaming road frosted in white. Across the way, a large gathering of empty-looking condos loomed in the sky.

“All right, the way looks clear,” Amy said. “We’re on Oxford. We keep going straight, or at least parallel with it, until we reach Connaught.”

“Not a lot of places for cover out there, Amy,” Buckle said, frowning. “Except for the cars.”

“We’ll make do with that, then. Unless you have a better idea?”

Scott didn’t. Neither did Vick or Buckle.

“All right, then,” Amy stated. “We go.”

34

Tenner moved stealthily through the snow, hearing the moans from the dead up ahead and concealing himself when necessary. He didn’t want to stir them up, not when he felt he was close to his quarry. He ducked behind a car and studied his surroundings. A mob of zombies stood within the confines of what appeared to be a courtyard up ahead, and he didn’t think Vick or the others had gone that way. They’d be avoiding the Philistines.

So… where?

The tracks around him were of no help; there were simply too many. He looked at the closest building, a stone structure with every window dark and forbidding. His attention drifted to its base. The dark rectangular shape of a closed door captured his attention.

He checked on the zombies, making sure they hadn’t seen him, and kept low to the ground as he moved toward the closed door. When he reached it, he dropped into a crouch and extended his fingers, feeling the snow and appreciating that a section of it had been swept over in a fan shape, as a door might do if it had been opened and then closed. The marks were recent. It wasn’t a certainty, but he liked the odds that his old gang might have ducked inside the building to avoid the zombies lurking in the courtyard.

The moon hung fat in the sky, but it was dropping. He found the door handle and opened it; he could barely see the stairwell inside it was so dark. He paused and listened, not hearing anything. Staying bent over, he left the door open and crept around the corner of the building, taking the long way around. Ahead lay the white strip of the street. His boots sunk into deep drifts, slowing him, but he eventually reached the far corner and edged around it.

Holy shit.

Just topping what might have been a rise in the land, he spied shadows on the pavement, moving away from him.

They might have been zombies.

But Tenner didn’t think they were.

He treaded softly ahead in pursuit, passing a parking area on his right, empty and uninteresting. Fresh tracks of a small number of people lay in the snow. They were grouped together and seemingly in a line, not at all like a crowd of undead. They went to the edge of the parking lane and dropped five feet, over a stony embankment and to the main street’s sidewalk. Tenner reached the corner of the building and placed his back to it. Off in the distance, he heard the restless dead.

The little devils, he thought. They had come this way and stayed out of sight of the zombies by crouching below the embankment, which appeared to run beyond the length of the street. The building he had his back against was built on a low mound, as were the others surrounding it.

He retreated to a snow-covered car and placed his AR-20 on the roof, the butt of the weapon firm against his shoulder. He lifted the goggles to his forehead and squinted through the scope, moving the weapon until he spotted the retreating shadows sinking behind a rise in the street. They were spread out and, for a moment, Tenner wasn’t sure who he’d be firing at. He selected one shadow, targeted its head, and flipped the selector switch to single-shot mode.

Then he took aim once more, baring teeth.

Which one are you? Vick? The mystery man? He focused on his target. What might this bullet bring?

They were almost over the crest and out of sight, the asphalt gobbling them down to their waists, then their torsos. One winked out of sight––probably Amy. She was the shortest. Tenner centered the lines of the scope on the head of his target and held the weapon steady. He had no idea who he held in his sights. A ripple of excitement coursed through him, and he welcomed it with a shiver. Someone was about to die. Thoughts of what they might be talking about went through Tenner’s head, and he smiled. Whatever the conversation, it was about to be disrupted.

That familiar rush burned through his frame and nerve endings, the same chill that came before any killing. Then he reconsidered, frowning just a little.

He shifted his aim.

And squeezed the trigger.

35

Placing some distance between the gimps behind them, they straightened up and drifted toward the middle of the road. The street ahead was thankfully empty of both rat and Moe, and cars on either side provided enough cover so that the need to crouch wasn’t so great. Scott glanced up at the moon. He figured it was perhaps one in the morning of a very long day. Stars winked back at him, clear and sparkling bright enough for him to almost wish he could just lie down on the icy pavement and simply watch them all. Ahead, the road stretched out and narrowed to some dark, unseen point.

He stepped closer to Amy. “How much further?”

“Depends. If it was a straight walk, maybe six or seven hours.” She turned to look at him, her face and eyes dark under her visor. “But it isn’t a straight walk.”

“Okay.”

“Shhh,” Buckle hissed from the rear.

Scott winced at Amy, who gave him a little smile. For a long second, Scott saw just how attractive she was.

A gunshot punched the stillness and knocked Vick off his feet, belting him over as if a heavy plank had hit him upside the head and knocking him flat on his back. Scott and Amy froze in their tracks, processing what had just happened.

“Get down!” Buckle cried, all attempts at silence forgotten.

They flattened, scrambling toward Vick and seeing the puddle of blackness spreading around his head.

Amy let out a barely suppressed shriek, which came out like a muffled five o’ clock whistle.

“Shhh,” Buckle said, grabbing Vick’s armor and flipping him over. “Shhh, I got you. I got you. Shhh.”

He pushed Vick’s visor up over his face and peered into his open eyes. Vick groaned. His arm hung from his shoulder at an awkward angle, and blood spurted rhythmically from under the Kevlar plates, which made Amy moan as loud as any Moe.

“Shush, Amy. Shhh!” Buckle hissed. He quickly ripped open the padding of the man’s snowsuit with a wet sound.

“Is he okay?” Amy asked, leaning in and placing a hand against Vick’s rough cheek.

“No,” Buckle said. The Newfoundlander tried to turn his friend onto his side, but he gave up. He widened the tear in the snowsuit material and grimaced at the sight of raw meat. The round had bitten a chunk out of flesh and bone, and only a thread of sinewy tissue kept Vick’s lower arm attached. “Jesus, Jesus, Jesus,” Buckle whispered.

“What?” Amy asked frantically.

Buckle gripped Vick’s sizeable bicep and probed the flesh with his fingers. “See how the blood’s squirting out here? In bursts? That’s not a vein opened up. That’s an artery. Listen now, I’m going to keep pressure on this for as long as I have to. Head over to those apartments back there and find me something to tourniquet his upper arm, okay? And a lighter and something to burn––paper or cloth or anything. Okay? Go!”

Amy stood and bolted for the row of apartments. Scott watched her run off before looking back at Buckle, who did a double take.

“The fuck you waiting for?” Buckle snarled. “Get after her!”

Scott did just that, leaving the former cop to tend to his friend.

Watching them go, Buckle turned his attention back to Vick. He pulled the man’s hood down with bloody fingers and placed a cheek over Vick’s face. The old bastard was breathing, but Buckle knew how bad gunshot wounds could be. Worse, it was clear to him that this particular shot had pretty much destroyed the bone in the upper arm and shredded the artery there, resulting in the spurt––spurt––spurt of blood. No vein did that. A vein would only ooze blood.

“I gotcha, buddy,” Buckle breathed, staying in control and releasing a hand so that he could unsling the shotgun and place it on the icy road. He saw the strap then, and scoffed at himself. With his free hand, he reached down and grabbed his knife. It was going to be tight. Buckle took a breath and quickly cut the hemp strap off the shotgun. Baring his teeth, he looped it around Vick’s arm and pulled tight, cutting off the flow. He looked up and couldn’t see if anything was approaching over the crest of the street, but it didn’t really matter.

“Don’t you worry one bit now, me son,” Buckle whispered to his old friend. He looked at the blood on the road. There would be company soon, and he expected he’d hear their wailing long before he could see them.

“I gotcha,” Buckle said, and adjusted the strap on Vick’s arm, trying hard to focus, to maintain tension, and hoping that Amy and Scott would return soon.

36

When the shadows crumpled together and disappeared, Tenner knew he’d hit the mark right where he wanted. Who’d he hit? Tenner stood up and listened, the AR-20 pressed firmly against his shoulder. Two shadows fluttered away from where the wounded man lay, disappearing in the gloom of an apartment complex near a stone church. That was interesting. Tenner didn’t think they were simply abandoning one of their own, which got him wondering if he’d killed his target. He wasn’t completely familiar with the rifle, and he wondered if it fired something more powerful than a standard 5.56 mm round. Memories came back to him, reports suggesting the Army had developed an explosive-tipped shell. That brought a wry smile to his face. He really wanted to use his knives on his quarry, but the idea of accidently killing someone with a bullet amused him.

That still left three to hunt down and cut up.

He figured it was time to get over there and check things out.

Tenner straightened up and moved around the car he’d set his rifle on, then stopped in his tracks. The undead were wailing, alerted by the shot and drawn to the commotion. He went to the building on his right and peeked around the corner.

Undead. A hundred of them at least. Probably more. Attracted to the blood.

In his haste to slow his old companions, he’d made the mistake of not considering what the Philistines would do. It was a stupid mistake, one born from uncharacteristic impatience. If nothing else, the dead were predictable. Once attracted to something, they would investigate, alone or en masse.

It was just his luck that this time, they were investigating en masse.

Placing his back against the stone wall of the building, he thought about his next move. High ground came to mind, and he looked at a nearby window just to his left. He wheeled toward it and kicked, putting a boot through the glass. A moment later, he’d cleared away the shards and squirmed into a student’s dorm room, with a mussed up bed and desk. Tenner went to the door, opened it, and entered a corridor where windows allowed moonlight to transform the opposite wall into a length of wide piano keys.

He located a stairwell and huffed up three floors, emerging into a similar corridor and entering an identical room. He took up position at the window, facing the street below from a higher vantage point. Tenner smashed out the glass with his elbow. Dropping to his knees, he pointed the barrel of the assault rifle out the window, resting its length on the sill, and panned from side to side. He immediately spotted two figures, their faces swathed in shadow. One was bent over the other, who appeared quite dead.

Tenner took his eye away from the scope. Zombies were approaching their position, walking through a smattering of trees and heading for the street. Though the cold had slowed them, it wouldn’t take them long at all to reach their stricken prey. Tenner felt a bit of disappointment. He’d already played a game of “Dead Invaders” with the old mechanic––he couldn’t remember the guy’s name. It had been weary work shooting all those zombies bearing down on the man, and he really didn’t want to do the same again.

He settled in to watch. If anything, it would be interesting to see just what kind of person the attending shadow would turn out to be. Would he or she stay with their fallen comrade to the last? Or perhaps try to move the wounded, which Tenner dismissed. Better than reality television, he thought, smiling faintly with his cheek against the scope.

Right at that moment, two sets of headlight beams lit up the street.

Tenner’s brow crumpled up in puzzlement a second before he saw what was coming and heard the growl of engines.

*

Buckle’s heart leapt in his chest when he saw the headlights. Two sets of great, harsh eyes bore down on him and Vick. The engines got louder, and he hoped beyond hope that whoever they were, they were friendly. He heard Moe coming, but he wasn’t about to leave his compadre to bleed out on the pavement. If things looked bleak… He had the shotgun and would do them both. Not that he wanted to die––he might actually enjoy living in a world where survival was day to day.

If it weren’t for all of the fucking zombies.

So, with Moe heading their way, he hoped for a miracle.

The machines steamed toward them, slowed, and stopped not ten feet away from where he and Vick lay in the road. The brakes squealed, and the angry glare of the headlights made Buckle squint and raise a hand to shield his eyes. It seemed like a long time since he’d last seen a moving vehicle, and the headlights on this one made him feel exposed. The grisly extent of the blood pooling around Vick heightened his worry.

Doors opened and boots hit the pavement. Shadows formed. Big men, covered in slabs of something that Buckle couldn’t quite distinguish in the harsh light. They spread out without identifying themselves. The engines idled, creating a grim chugging that did nothing to allay Buckle’s growing trepidation.

Three figures sauntered over to where he still clenched Vick’s arm, their boots scuffing up snow. The slabs covering their bodies were a collection of sports gear or body armor, seemingly nailed to their persons or lashed on with strips of leather twine. One wore a hockey face cage, but he couldn’t see the man’s face. It took him a second to realize that the newcomer had blackened his face with paint or some other substance.

The one with the face cage spoke. It came out in a guttural bark that sounded exhausting to produce. Buckle was no linguist, but it sounded like a hodgepodge of Slavic languages.

Others came into view on the Face Cage’s flanks. Buckle saw their spiked clubs and shotguns, all short-barreled and swinging from hip holsters.

For a few seconds, they stood in the wash of the headlights and stared down at the pair of men.

“Who the fuck––” Buckle started.

Face Cage stepped forward and kicked Buckle in the face, crumpling him. He turned his head at the last possible moment, so the steel-toed boot connected with the edge of his helmet. The force was still enough to knock him away from Vick. He felt something grab him and drag him by his arms, away from Vick.

“Hey,” Buckle tried to say, in a loopy daze. Someone hauled him to his feet and slammed him against the van. A massive paw clamped about his throat. The pressure increased, choking off any more words.

The others stood around Vick. They talked, but Buckle couldn’t understand a word. Five of the warriors made a skirmish line facing the zombies shambling toward the street.

Buckle grimaced. Only five?

Behind the line, Face Cage beckoned to another man, who looked as if he wore chopped-up tire treads. The warrior brought forth a heavy-looking cleaver and bent down over Vick.

Buckle struggled, and the man holding him punched him twice, and then a third time––quick, powerful blows to his stomach and liver. His body armor absorbed most of the force, but then an elbow slammed into his jaw, snapping his head to the right and bringing sparkling motes to his vision.

“Relax,” a floating head said. The face had a huge grinning mouth filled with white fangs. “We’re going to operate on your friend.”

Buckle saw figures kneeling beside Vick. He saw the cleaver rise up and strike down, then heard the muted chink of steel on asphalt and ice, echoing in his daze. Laughter rose up then, deep and cruel-sounding, and he saw one of the brutes lift Vick’s arm into the air, pumping it in mocking victory.

Then Buckle smelled the tang of gas.

The men around Vick set fire to the stump of his arm. It ignited with a whoosh, and they let it burn until they decided to stomp out the flame. In nightmare fashion, the man with Vick’s arm jokingly reached out with it to paw at his companion. A hand swatted the limb away with a curse.

Another elbow slammed across Buckle’s face, clipping his already broken nose and refocusing his attention. The impact made his eyes water and his vision go hazy. He struggled to see, and gradually a black line of warriors standing before a crowd of Moe came into view. The zombies approached the end of the slope and, heedless of the five-foot embankment, fell and landed flat on their faces. The line of men moved forward, and the reaving began. Axes and mauls rose and fell in time with war cries and the wail of the dead. A few shotgun blasts punctuated the air. The warriors allowed the zombies to come forward, fall, then dispatch them as they tried to stand. The brute holding Buckle up by the throat laughed and cried out in a foreign tongue and, when the Newfoundlander looked down, he saw his captor’s forearms were covered in writhing black and green eels.

Face Cage appeared at the edge of Buckle’s vision and barked something at the man holding him. He didn’t sound overly impressed. Face Cage loomed in front of him, and the warrior held up a scarred fist that looked to be the size of a bony melon.

Just before it crashed into Buckle’s face.

37

The door to the apartment Scott and Amy chose wasn’t locked. They went in and began frantically searching for something that would serve as a tourniquet for Vick’s arm. The apartment was a small two-bedroom that smelled of stale animal hair, suggesting the owners had owned a dog or cat. The darkness hid no gimps, and for that they were thankful.

Scott fumbled his way through kitchen drawers and cupboards and located an extension cord, a tablecloth, dish towels, and a box of matches, all the while listening to Amy tear through a room behind the kitchen.

“You got anything?” he called, dumping his goods into the table cloth and bundling it into a makeshift sack. The matches went into his pocket.

“Yeah,” Amy said as her shadow emerged from the bedroom. “I got a belt.”

Amy’s voice became distracted. “Who are those guys?”

“Huh?” Scott turned. She pointed to the still open door and the light in the street. Outside, a good fifty meters away, stood two large vans. Men got out of the vehicles and surrounded Vick and Buckle.

Then one almost kicked Buckle’s head off.

Scott made for the door, but Amy grabbed him by the arm. “Wait,” she hissed.

“They’re kicking them!”

“I can see that,” Amy said, visibly straining to keep her control. “But there’s more of them than us. Just wait.”

“But Vick––”

“Vick would do the same.”

Scott blinked at her before turning back to the scene on the street. Buckle was being dragged to a van, while several men had made a line facing a crowd of dark deadheads moving in from the slope. In the glare of headlights, a figure crouched over Vick’s body, lifted what looked to be a cleaver, and chopped down.

Amy gasped and clamped a hand over her mouth. Scott said nothing, not even when the chopper stood with Vick’s severed limb and made jokes with it.

Scott pulled out the Ruger. Amy caught the movement and didn’t say anything to stop him this time.

Gunshots made them both crouch and hang back from the door, hiding in the apartment’s darkness. Zombies on the slope fell, partially illuminated by headlights. Men stepped toward the front ranks of the mob and started swinging axes and clubs. More gunshots cut the air. Howls and cries rose up from the newcomers. One of them hacked off a gimp’s head and held it up to the night, screaming as he shook it fiercely, before slinging it into the snow. The gimps continued to attack, but the men that fought them didn’t back down. They kept on dispatching the dead with enthusiastic efficiency. More zombies shambled in front of the headlights—white, half-naked forms that clutched and clawed at the front of a van. One van lurched forward with a dragon’s growl, pushing some zombies back and running over others. Rib cages crinkled before being crushed. Skulls popped like knots in burning wood. Human voices cried out in an unrecognizable language.

“You hear that?” Scott asked.

“Yeah,” Amy said. “What language is that?”

Scott listened and brought the Ruger up to his waist. “Don’t know. Hey, I’ve still got this.”

“There’s about eight of them out there,” Amy said. “And they’ve got guns, too. We can’t do anything right now.”

“Thought they were your friends?”

That got a reaction from her. She turned to face him, displaying what Scott recognized as barely suppressed fury.

“They are,” she said at last. “So… wait.”

Suddenly feeling like shit for saying such a thing, Scott took a deep breath. “Sorry,” he got out. “That was dickish of me.”

Amy looked back to the road. “It’s okay,” she muttered.

He wasn’t sure if it was or not, but he still stung a little from the exchange. He stepped back, dealing with the maddening urge to rush out there and start shooting. There were now seven men that he could see, with drivers still in the van. It finally occurred to him to ask who had shot Vick. He believed it was Tenner. Somehow, the sick bastard had gotten his hands on a rifle. But who were these other guys?

“I think Tenner shot Vick,” Scott said.

“I agree,” Amy said, not taking her eyes off what was happening outside. “So who are these guys?”

“Just thinking the exact same thing.”

“And?”

A second shot split the night air, and one of the newcomers fighting the zombies fell.

*

Tenner didn’t know who the hell these new guys were, but he knew they were taking away two people he wanted to finish off himself. Through the scope, he watched the newly arrived road warriors spread out, subdue Buckle, and drag him away––easy to distinguish with the headlights lighting up the entire scene. And he saw the field surgery performed on the man he’d gunned down while others put down zombie after zombie, holding a line and systematically killing the dead. They looked like a line of assembly workers the way they were stretched out, taking apart any corpse that got close.

Two of the men picked up the carcass of the man Tenner had shot and carried it back behind one of the vans, where Buckle had gone. He realized these warriors weren’t hanging around for long, and that bothered him. Two of his former companions were still out there, perhaps watching as he was. Waiting. And why exactly was he waiting? These guys could obviously take care of themselves, yet they were nothing compared to Tenner. He was the man. Even better, he was the man with the gun. He watched them through the scope, merrily killing zombies. They were having far too much fun, it seemed. They had no fear, and Tenner believed that was just unhealthy. Fear was a defense mechanism. He didn’t need it, but others did. He’d give them something to be scared of. It was his world, after all, and anyone existing in it had to realize that glaring fact.

Tenner adjusted the rifle’s butt against his shoulder. He caressed the trigger of the AR-20 as if it were spider’s silk, and he drew a bead on one unfortunate brute hacking away at Philistines with a fire axe. He drifted from the man with the axe to the windshield of one of the vans. He couldn’t see the driver, but he imagined he’d be there, right behind the wheel.

None of them were going to leave the area.

*

Fist walked up and down the battle line, swearing at his killers as they hacked the dead to pieces. Some of the dead tried to flank them, and Fist stepped in to stop them. Pell joined him, and both of the Norsemen took to bashing in the skulls of the slow-moving corpses or shooting them outright. Fist had to admit, he never tired of killing the dead.

But then he heard two shots––shots that weren’t from his lads.

He turned around in puzzlement and saw two bullet holes in the windshield of the nearest van.

“The fuck…?” Fist exhaled in shock. Pell looked to him in wide-eyed confusion.

Then the other windshield crinkled as two rounds went through it, puncturing the glass in lacy white blooms. Fist looked beyond the range of the headlights to the dark buildings farther down the street.

A fifth shot made him duck. The other men dropped into crouches, trying to bunch themselves up into as small a target as possible. Zombies still advanced on the line, and some of the men swung their weapons at the dead things’ legs, chopping them down to the ground.

Someone’s trying to get their buddies back, Fist realized. He stormed to the nearest van and slapped the door, making it shudder.

“Get out of here!” he roared.

One of his men, a large grunt actually wearing Viking horns, emerged from the back and jumped into the driver’s seat. He started the engine and stomped on the gas. The van’s wheels spun on the icy roads for a few seconds, and the engine bloomed before the tires finally caught traction. The vehicle blasted away, speeding from the gunfire. Fist marched toward the second van and yanked open the door. The driver was there, staring at the ceiling with a spurting hole in his hockey vest. A second shredded wound in his neck dribbled blood over his clothes and seat.

Fist ducked and turned, just in time to hear the shot and see another of his men go down, his head sheared from his shoulders. The body landed at an angle from the head, the limbs shivering as if electrified.

A zombie loomed over the crouching Pell, but the big Albertan gripped the thing’s knees and manhandled it into the street. Two brutal elbow strikes broke open its skull, spilling a rotten cauliflower pulp. There were no more zombies seeking to make meals of the Norsemen.

There was only the shooter.

“Sniper!” Fist roared, scanning the nearby buildings. “Pell!”

A head jerked up.

“Stay with the van, Herman!”

A riot helmet came into sight.

“With him! Everyone else, with me. Zigzag!”

Fist sprang forward, carrying a heavy maul and making himself as difficult a target as possible. Three other men got to their feet and followed. Their howls were low at first, gradually becoming undulating shrieks of glee.

A zombie wearing the body armor of a soldier appeared out of the gloom and confronted Fist. He swung his maul and half-tore off the head, killing it with one blow. Fist barrelled over it, whooping war cries meant to petrify the shooter, cause him to make mistakes—or make him run.

Either way, Fist and his boys would catch up with the one who had fired upon them. They’d hunt the shooter down until they caught him. Fist knew from past victims how long they could keep a person alive, and they’d gotten exceptionally well-versed in making those final moments as mind-blowingly torturous as possible.

*

When the four shadows charged down the street, punctuating their displeasure with a graphic beheading of one of the Philistines, Tenner drew back from the scope and chewed thoughtfully on his inner cheek. He watched the four men race down the icy roadway, pounding their way toward the building he was in, screaming as if their asses were on fire. That was a good guess on their part. Perhaps it was the angle of the shot that gave his position away? In any case, they were coming, and they sounded pissed, if not a little ridiculous.

The shouting was intended to frighten him, to get him off his game. It reminded him of a playground story he’d once heard, of a spider who had spun a web large enough to catch a cow. When the animal stepped into the sticky strands, the spider stuck its head out of its hiding hole, blinked, and instead of staying away from the larger animal, exclaimed “Fuck yeah!”

Tenner leisurely withdrew the rifle from the window. He reached to his death vest and ripped open one of the Velcro strips holding a grenade in place. With a spider’s grace, his fingers wrapped around the egg-shaped explosive. There were only four men charging. He watched as, halfway to the building, their screams died away to loud huffing.

Just like dogs.

Dogs, Tenner thought, tugging on the grenade. It came free and left its pin and ring rattling against his vest.

Fuck yeah, he thought and tossed the live grenade out the window.

Two seconds later, the resulting explosion lit up the night and rocked the building’s foundation.

*

The blast screwed up Scott’s vision and prompted both him and Amy to drop to the floor. He took great gulping breaths, trying to calm his shaken nerves. Only seconds before, four howlers had been storming down the street, their vicious wailing petering out into the occasional grunt, becoming quiet and serious as they reached the parking lot of the dormitory.

Then… boom.

Scott thought he saw a fragment of something being flung backward into the night, lit up against something as fiery as the sun. A split second later, Amy was pulling him down.

“What the fuck was that?” she hissed in his ear.

“I think…” Scott shook his head to clear it. “I think it was a mine or some shit.”

“Couldn’t have been a mine,” Amy retorted, getting to her hands and knees and pushing her back against a wall. “More like a rocket or something.”

“A rocket? Where the hell he get something like that?”

“Same place he got the gun to snipe those guys out there.” Amy made a distasteful face. “Bastard must’ve found some weapons somewhere.”

“I think so,” Scott agreed. He crawled toward the open door and looked out as Amy peered out a window. Smoke wafted from the direction of the building, but all else was quiet.

“Can’t see shit,” Amy said. “But the residence is still standing.”

Screams split the night, causing Scott to tense up. Tenner hadn’t gotten all of his attackers. The smoke began clearing, and the base of the building materialized out of the gloom. Scott couldn’t see anyone over there.

“Van’s still there,” Amy informed him.

She was right. One of the vehicles was right in the middle of the street, its headlights still blazing. That didn’t seem particularly smart to Scott. Running into a bomb wasn’t especially bright either, but who could’ve known that Tenner had gotten his hands on explosives?

“We should take the van,” Amy said, meeting his eyes.

“And leave?”

“Yeah.”

“I can’t leave, Amy. Not with him still out there.”

“Vick and Buckle are in trouble.”

“Do you know where they’ve gone with them?”

“No, but I saw two of those bastards out there getting into the van. You’ve got the gun. We can make them talk.”

“And then?”

“We go,” Amy said simply.

Scott exhaled. “I’m right with you until that last part. We can meet up at the house, if anything.”

Amy hesitated for a moment, thinking things over, her face dark. “All right. We go now.”

She got to her feet and readied her tonfas. Scott climbed to his and readied his gun.

“You ready?” she asked.

“Yeah.”

Amy went to the door, stayed low, and slipped outside. Scott followed her, crouching and staying in the shadows of the apartments as they crept toward the van.

38

The sensation of swaying coaxed Buckle back to consciousness. He’d been in a few good fistfights in his career as a cop, but never had he been sucker punched. There was always the courtship, when the guys who wanted to fight would wave their fists in his face seconds before actually committing to a swing—a swing with a lot of pent-up, nervous energy behind it. That first punch was usually a dandy. There had been no pent-up nervousness with the guy that had bopped him, however. No, sir. There was only long experience there. Buckle wanted another shot at the fucker.

But first…

His shoulders and wrists ached. They had stripped him of his helmet, mask, and cloth bandage. He cracked open an eye and slowly gazed upward. His hands were handcuffed, and he appeared to be hanging from a meat hook fastened to a thick metal strut. His legs dragged below and bent behind him, grazing the wall, as if he were in a painful prayer. Darkness bathed the interior of the van. There were two men up front, both concentrating on driving. One of them wore a helmet with thick horns; the other had removed his, revealing a dark bulb of semi-spiked hair. A third man sat on a sofa seat parked against the opposite wall, his helmet turned, peering at the drivers. Things shook and jangled, chains and meat hooks. The smell of rancid blood and burnt flesh forced Buckle to wrinkle his face, and his broken nose reminded him not to do that again.

He moaned before he could stop himself, wincing immediately after.

“He’s awake,” the guy sitting on the sofa declared. One of the drivers said something in a language that reminded Buckle of Klingons, but that couldn’t be right––it wasn’t even a real language, for Christ’s sake.

Laughter from the front. Buckle couldn’t see anything beyond the drivers, but he could see Vick’s dark form sprawled out near the back door.

The guy on the sofa stood, placed a hand on pipes that ran the length of the van’s ceiling, and peered into Buckle’s battered face. He wore a face mask, the visor blackened with paint; he had etched a smile with serrated teeth on the surface. The man’s eyes were visible, although Buckle wished he couldn’t see them. They scrunched up at the corners in evil mirth, as if the brute was grinning behind the visor. Buckle didn’t like that idea. He and other cops would talk about human nature at down times, and they agreed that if there were no laws, no consequences, and no peace officers, some individuals would run rampant through the streets and do things purely on whim—until someone with balls stopped them. The thing before him appeared tickled to have a live subject, and it didn’t seem inhibited by morals. Dread coursed through Buckle. This brute was exactly what he and his cop buddies had imagined so very long ago. A prime specimen of chaos, to be avoided and feared, and here he was, standing right in front of Buckle, who was in no condition to do anything about it.

Things, the Newfoundlander suspected, were about to get very bad.

“Gonna tenderize ya,” a voice hissed eagerly from the grinning maw. Much to Buckle’s dismay, the grinner held up a fist wearing metal knuckles. They weren’t spiked, which made him thankful for all of a second. Almost carefully, the man undid the clasps fastening Buckle’s body armor to his body. Grinner couldn’t remove it entirely, as that would require unhooking him, but he loosened the armor enough so he could peel the plates back to expose his stomach and ribs.

“This,” the happy face declared, “is gonna hurt. Might even kill you. Not that I give a shit.”

The first punch crushed a rib and robbed Buckle of breath. Pain made him squeeze his eyes shut and he gasped, each expansion of his ribs lighting up his nerve endings as if they were being held to a flame. He swung from the hook and got his feet underneath him.

Grinner saw the attempt to stand and didn’t like it.

He held on to the pipes overhead and stomped on Buckle’s left ankle, shattering the joint. Buckle shrieked, swayed from the hooks, and blacked out.

The punches brought him back.

The punisher took his time while the van moved, regaining his balance just before unleashing blows that snapped out from the shoulder and pistoned into Buckle’s body, the pain increased tenfold by the metal knuckles. One punch to the face and Buckle forgot about the screaming sirens in his mashed ankle. A flurry of strikes, some catching on Kevlar, ripped into his hanging mass and rocked him like a slab of beef, bouncing him off the wall and placing even more tension on his wrists. A hand gripped the Newfoundlander’s chin, squeezed, and crunched an elbow into it. Teeth flew. Another elbow, and Buckle’s jaw snapped with a crack. Grinner studied him for a moment, eyes narrowed above the cannibalistic smile. He rammed an open palm into Buckle’s nose. Not happy with the lack of sound, Grinner squished Buckle’s nose to the left and right, as if working a knob on an old radio, before pushing his head back until he was looking at the ceiling.

Buckle swooned on the edge of consciousness when a hard hand gripped his chin. The contact made him burp out a little cry of agony.

“Don’t you pass out on me, you little shit,” Grinner warned. “You pass out on me and I’ll hurt you bad. You understand? I’ll fuck you up so bad not even God above will want to lay on hands. And the Devil himself will send you back here. So don’t pass out, hear me?”

Buckle felt the fat pad of a finger on his right eye.

“You ever have a thumb in your eye?” Grinner asked softly. “Ever have one just go right on in there? Huh? Oh, you can scrunch up your face and all, but if…”

Oh, Jesus. Buckle could feel the thumb start to press.

“If I push hard enough,” Grinner went on, “it’s… going… in.”

The pressure increased. Motes of light penetrated his personal darkness, and Buckle squealed. The van bumped over something, jostling Grinner for a moment and causing him to remove his thumb, come back, and adjust his grip.

“I had this one guy,” Grinner continued on conversationally, “hanging from a post. Got mouthy with me. After I stuck one thumb in his head, well, that really got him going. Wouldn’t shut up. Not even after I shook his head around like a bowling ball. That was something to see. I’m not good at much…”

That statement was emphasized by more pressure on Buckle’s eye. He tried to twist away, but another hand clamped on his face, holding him in a vise, and a second thumb wormed its way around his other eye, probing.

“Not good at much at all, really,” the voice went on.

Buckle tried to turn his head, to hide it in his arms overhead, but the hands held him fast.

“But if there’s one thing I’m getting a reputation for, it’s putting a hurt on people. Just… fucking them up. Y’know what I mean? Don’t care what it is, really. Blinding them, cutting them, mashing their balls. S’all fun.”

Grinner’s breath expelled as if a real smile matched the mirth projected on his visor.

Then the thumbs dug in.

“You feel that?” the voice asked. Buckle did. His torturer was in position and had a good grip. Playtime was coming to an end. He felt the jagged ends of chewed nails grind into his scrunched up eyes, causing him to mew involuntarily, a sound he’d never made in his life.

“Well, goddamn.” Grinner chuckled darkly as his thumbs pressed further inward. “This fucker’s about to shit himself.”

Feeling something about to give horribly, Buckle’s mouth dropped open to scream.

“Hey.”

Vick drove his spiked knuckles under the chin of the torturer. The impact bounced Grinner’s head off the ceiling of the van. He released Buckle, who opened his eyes as if he’d been underground for years. Vick stepped forward, cocking his one arm and driving it into the man’s throat. Grinner went down with a bloody-sounding gurgle, and the driver with the horns whipped around. The one with the short, spiked hair lunged out of the passenger seat, his face a horrible snarl of rage.

Buckle grappled with his shattered ankle and battered body, but still managed to get one leg under himself and stand. Pain exploded in his skull like a halogen light on full power. Buckle tried to get his hands unhooked from overhead and fell back, out of strength and out of breath. The new attacker reached out and grabbed the front of Vick’s body armor. Vick twisted, wrapping his remaining arm around the man’s elbow joint, and heaved up against it. The man with the spiked hair screamed. Vick kicked out a knee and Spike went down. Vick went to punch him and blinked in confusion. He realized he couldn’t finish off his foe.

He was one arm short.

Growling, Spike surged forward, lifting Vick off his feet, and even with his arm still locked up, heaved him into the ceiling. The impact rattled the van’s still-moving frame. The driver shrieked gibberish. Vick grimaced and released Spike. They toppled to the sofa, Vick landing underneath the other man. His boot heel flashed up and cracked Spike’s chin. Blood burst from the man’s face. Spike shouted something in that Klingon-sounding language. He swarmed the one-armed sensei and rained punches down into Vick’s midsection, huge haymakers that dropped like fifty-ton bombs falling from heaven. Even from where he hung, Buckle heard the furious rhythm of meat on metal plates.

Filling his lungs with air, Buckle got his one good leg under him. He straightened, unhooked himself from above, and suddenly dropped to the floor. He rolled over the still-gurgling Grinner lying on the bare metal, the sounds of punching just next to him crashing into his ears like fleshy cymbals. He felt the butt of something on Grinner’s waist. Buckle grabbed it, lifting it free with a rasp of leather on metal.

He brought up a sawed-off pump shotgun.

“Hey, buddy!”

Spike looked up and, for the briefest of moments, looked utterly gobsmacked, a split second before Buckle blew the man’s head apart like an overripe melon.

The ex-cop roared, jacked the weapon, and sent a spent cartridge flying into the dark. He placed his back against the wall of the vehicle. Amazingly, Grinner pushed himself up on his elbows, a dark froth spilling from the ruined meat of his throat.

Buckle shot him through the base of his skull, dropping the man like a reanimated Moe.

The van veered wildly, eliciting cries of pain from both Buckle and Vick. Buckle pumped the shotgun a second time and slapped an arm against the wall for support. He steadied his gun arm, willed it to be still. The Viking at the wheel looked back, saw the barrel pointed at him, and fumbled at the door. Buckle fired just as the horns clattered off the man’s head in his haste to fling himself out of the moving van.

Vick groaned as he pushed the corpse away. “Is that all of––”

The van crashed, slamming into something that refused to move. The impact turned Vick’s words into a startled grunt, jolting both men and flinging them into darkness where everything stopped at once.

39

With a brute of a henchman behind him, Fist entered the parking area of the dormitory and took a moment to compose himself. He adjusted the hockey helmet covering his head, sticking his fingers into the cage that protected his face and rubbing an itch around his nose. Then he snarled.

“That was a grenade,” he hissed to Shipp.

“Grenade?” Shipp asked, his eyes almost bulging behind his black painted visor. “Where the fuck did he get that?”

“Don’t know,” Fist said. “Leftovers from a soldier, maybe? But that’s valuable property, in any case. Where the others?”

“Gone around. Looking for another way in from the sides.”

Fist grunted. He spotted a door facing the parking area, leading up into the guts of the building. Hefting his maul with one muscled arm, he briskly walked toward it with Shipp at his heels. They stopped at the door and studied the dark interior.

“All sorts of nasty shit could be in there,” Shipp said warily, holding a spiked club.

Fist’s eyes, blackened with soot, fixed on the other man and narrowed evilly. “We’re nasty shit.”

Shipp quickly nodded his agreement. That was good. Fist knew he had to get his boys in the right frame of mind before an ass stomping, and this was a fight––not the slaughter they’d grown accustomed to.

Not bothering to ask if Shipp was ready, Fist opened the door and entered the building.

*

In the crinkling of brick and the weedy sound of dust and debris settling, Tenner sat and waited. He carefully stuck his head out over the windowsill and scanned the ground. Brick, concrete, and shards of wooden beams sprinkled the snow, as if the foundation had taken a direct artillery shell. The amount of destruction made him touch the six remaining grenades at his chest and give them an affectionate rub through the Velcro. He couldn’t see any of the remaining screamers down there, but he believed he’d gotten at least one. The safest thing was to assume the remainder were in the building, looking for him. Naturally, they would be coming upstairs—the highest point in the building, where a sniper could inflict the most damage. He wasn’t at the highest point. There was at least one more level above him, but they would probably search the entire place, just to be certain—unless they were idiots.

Evil. Delicious and pungent. He sensed their raw presence closing in. Packs like this might have a purpose in the new world, but Tenner didn’t want them around. Their methods were raw and unrefined compared to Tenner’s silky approach. He was well aware that, unlike good, evil fed upon evil. Even if he could’ve somehow rolled back time, perhaps even been able to converse with them and establish an alliance of sorts, he knew eventually he’d kill them or they’d kill him.

No, it was best to execute the whole fucking lot.

The remaining van was still in the street. Tenner knew he’d sniped the driver, and chances were good he would be able to drive away in the vehicle. But first he had to kill some people. He slunk to the door and dropped to his chest, feeling the weight of his body armor. Just outside and to his right was the stairwell he’d used earlier. Ahead was an indistinct corridor, its length slashed in two places by moonlight coming from open doors. The spectral light cut up an otherwise haunting darkness. He had a choice: go hunting or stay here and wait for them to find him. Exhaling, he climbed to his feet and went to the stairwell door. It opened with a whine, making him cringe. He listened. Nothing. Tenner returned to the room and rummaged around until he found some paper, which he immediately folded. He took the wedge and jammed it between the door and the floor, keeping it open and in place. He would hear anything coming up that stairwell, and one grenade would mangle the lot of them.

Tenner hefted the AR-20 and flicked the rate of fire switch. He couldn’t see exactly what he’d selected, but he’d find out eventually. Hopes of getting the full electric rock and rolla show filled him. Dropping to his chest again and aiming down the length of corridor, he decided to sit and wait.

And let the dogs sniff him out.

*

The silenced weapon felt heavy in Scott’s hand as he and Amy slunk in the shadows, skirting the flood of headlights from the van. Was he really about to shoot someone, a living being? That question branded his mind and distracted him from the task at hand. Amy stopped once and glanced back at him, and he could feel her wondering what the hell was wrong. He thought about telling her, but it would take a good five minutes to explain why he wasn’t certain he could pull a trigger and how killing dead things was pretty damn easy, comparatively speaking. The moral implications of shooting a living person bothered him, and if it was bothering him now, what would he be like if he actually did catch up to Tenner? The man who’d sliced up his friends and left them hanging from support beams in a basement?

Amy stopped behind a low drift, just under the van’s passenger side window. Scott settled in beside her, watching the machine for any signs of life. He caught the unmistakable tang of blood and wondered if the dead would smell it as well. If so, they would have very little time.

“You ready?” Amy asked.

Scott blinked.

“Scott?” Amy asked, and he faced her.

“I don’t know… I don’t know if I can do this.”

“What?”

A fine time to pussy out of shooting someone. He winced and shook his head.

“Give me the gun.” Amy held out her hand and beckoned with gloved fingers. “I’ll do it.”

The sharpness in her voice surprised him. He did as he was told.

“I’m sorry.”

“Just watch my back. Here.” She handed him her tonfas.

“I’m sorry, Am––”

But she was already moving, on knees and elbows, approaching the van from the rear. Scott felt ashamed by his inability to act. He thought he could kill Tenner, knew he could put the murderer down, swore it, but those gears had slipped with the reality of the moment. The men in the van were savages, but he just couldn’t do it. God above help him, he couldn’t bring himself to kill another living, breathing person.

He held up one of the tonfas and briefly wondered if he could make it spin like Amy did. He settled on holding of it like any regular club.

Amy was at the back of the van and on her feet. She edged around the rear, holding the Ruger at shoulder height. Shouting came from the van, and Scott kept his eyes on the passenger side, occasionally glimpsing a hand coming up to the glass.

Amy disappeared around the side of the van.

His heart began to race. Scott wondered if he should go after her, but he decided against it. Amy could handle herself––had handled herself for a very long time. He could back her up, but––

The Ruger’s hushed bark erupted from the other side of the van.

*

Amy didn’t know why Scott couldn’t pull the trigger, but she didn’t force the issue. It took a lot to put down a living person. Lord above knew she’d crossed some dark line when her husband and daughter had become infected with the virus, clubbing them to death with a cast-iron frying pan of all things. They weren’t her family anymore, of course. At the time, though, when wide-eyed Jordy came flying at her from the bathroom, he was still her husband of eight years. She’d flipped him over her hip and put him through the glass coffee table. He’d just kept coming, even when she broke his leg, then his arm, then his other arm, and finally his other leg, just to immobilize the twisting frothing thing that only that morning had held her in his loving arms.

She remembered going to the kitchen afterward and hearing the pounding on Joanne’s door. Amy had gone to her daughter’s room, placed her face to the door, and simultaneously felt and heard Jo beating the wood. She wouldn’t answer her mother. Worse, the screeching had intensified at the sound of Amy’s voice. Since then, she’d had nightmares of Jo clawing her way through the door and coming for her.

When Amy had turned around, she discovered Jordy slinking along the floor, bunching up a rug under his dripping mouth, eyeing her as he moved like some hellish slug.

She jumped over him in the hallway, his teeth snapping at her feet as she went over and found the only weapon in the house besides the knives. She’d completely forgotten about the golf clubs in the bedroom.

Amy clubbed Jordy’s skull with the edge of the frying pan until he stopped moving, until the bone crumpled and grated under his scalp like the broken pieces of a plate.

When she regained control, she found out Jo was on the floor in her bedroom, her head mashed in as well. Somehow, Amy had forgotten the details, but she’d killed her own daughter. And that was that. The zombie apocalypse had baptized her in the harshest way possible.

She approached the driver’s door. Something had smashed the side mirror, so she wasn’t worried about being spotted, but there was a chance the driver might get out. She gripped the door handle with her right and brought up the Ruger with her left.

Amy had killed the two people who had meant the most to her. She still struggled with the psychological damage of those acts, even though they’d been necessary. Vick had tried to help her, but his forte was hand-to-hand combat; they both knew he wasn’t cut out to be a grief counselor. He’d tried, though, eventually becoming her new family.

And these fuckers dressed for Halloween had cut him up. Probably even killed him. Outside the van’s door, Amy adjusted her grip on the handle and took a short, clarifying breath.

Living or dead, it didn’t mean too much to her. If someone fucked with her family, Amy would not hesitate.

She yanked the van door open and fired a salvo into the two men inside, making them jump and jolt in their seats. The driver came off the worst; his arm burst in a swell of blood, and his face became a spurting wreck of meat and bone. Blood spattered the dash. The guy on the passenger side took rounds to his armored chest. Amy fired high, but his head was encased in a battle helmet of some sort, and the air sizzled with the sound of bullets ricocheting off metal. Another lacy white hole appeared almost magically in the windshield. Rushing her shots, she put a round into the passenger’s meaty thigh, his kidney, and blew off the pinky of his left hand as he tumbled out of his door and out of sight.

She stepped back from the driver’s side, intent on going around and finishing the task, but she glimpsed the glazed eye of the driver swivel in her direction.

Amy stuck the barrel of the gun under his chin and squeezed the trigger, popping off the top of his skull.

*

Amid the blustery firing of the Ruger, a big man flung open the passenger door and fell from the van. He rose and pulled what looked to be a sawed-off, doubled-barreled shotgun from a thigh holster. Scott got up and charged, feeling his boots punch through the depths of snow, faintly aware of the final shots coming from within the van.

The survivor’s head lurched up and homed in on Scott. The shotgun came around, and Scott realized he’d made a mistake. He lurched to the left, toward the back of the van. The brute in the military helmet fired, and Scott felt the hot storm of pellets rip by his shoulder.

Missed.

The shooter shouted in frustration and struggled to reload the weapon. Scott charged along the side of the van. The man’s head flicked up, eyes going wide behind the visor.

Amy reached him first, snapping a kick into the warrior’s midsection, buckling him over and mashing him against the side of the van. She grabbed the back of his head and pulled it down as her padded knee came up and crashed into the visor. There was a crack, and the shotgun dropped from his hand. Amy didn’t stop. She kneed his head repeatedly and, when her victim slumped to the ground, she stomped, grunting with each impact.

“Amy.”

She stopped and regarded Scott.

“He’s done.”

The man at her feet wasn’t moving. The amount of blood leaving him told them both he wouldn’t be going anywhere ever again. Scott scooped up the shotgun and threw it into the van. He turned the battered form at his feet onto its side, looked for more weapons, and saw none.

Amy went back around the van and hopped in the driver’s seat.

“You coming?” she asked.

Scott stood outside the vehicle. The dormitory stood gloomy underneath the night sky, wisps of smoke lingering as if something burned.

“I can’t,” Scott said. “I have to…” stop Tenner he wanted to say, but couldn’t.

“You think you can kill him?”

Scott didn’t answer.

“Well?”

“I’m going to try,” he said. “Gun, please.”

“It’s empty.”

“You emptied it?” Scott was incredulous. “That’s a little much, ain’t it?”

“Hey…” Amy said, looking ahead. Perhaps she was going to say something sarcastic, but instead she hesitated, leaning forward into the steering wheel.

“Scott,” Amy started. “Get in the van.”

He was about to protest, but the sounds stopped him––that soft, unmistakable rustling that he’d already encountered too many times. He stared ahead and saw them scurry up over the white road, a writhing, knobby carpet. The rats had finally caught up with them. The blood and the recent dead all over the area had brought the seemingly unending wave of undead vermin.

An uneasy Scott got into the van. “Drop me off over there.”

Amy gaped at him. “I’m not going anywhere near there. That’s driving into them.”

“Amy, drive me over there right fucking now and you can be on your way.”

“No.” She put the machine into gear.

“Goddammit.” Scott gnashed his teeth and jumped out as she put the van into reverse. He never looked back. He got out his bat and climbed the nearby slope, getting out of the immediate path of the rats. There was no way he was going to let Tenner escape. If he did, the killer would only keep on killing innocent people. He doubted he could convince Amy he could stop him, not with Buckle and Vick probably dying somewhere. He didn’t blame her.

But he had to see this through, had to steel himself to do what needed to be done.

Facing that familiar river of undead, Scott plunged forward toward the dormitory. Rats streamed by him, zeroing in on the meat, both old and fresh, lying in the street. He stepped on a few that got in his way, glancing back to see the van’s headlights still on, Amy behind the wheel, rats teeming around the two motionless bodies the two of them had thrown into the street.

He was focused on the dark mass of the building ahead when he heard the angry exchange of gunfire.

40

The other two survivors of the grenade blast weaved around the opposite side of the dormitory until they came to the main entrance. High overhead, not visible from the road, was a pedway that connected the top floor with the adjacent building. Shards of glass from broken windows littered the ground as the two men walked up to the dormitory’s closed door. White paint, still in relatively good condition, glowed with moonlight. Armed with shotguns and axes, the ready-to-kill pair opened the door and barged inside.

Cray had been something of a leatherworker back in the real world, and he’d seen right away the protective qualities of tire rubber, which he fashioned into armor for himself and the others. He’d also been a member of the local Society for Creative Anachronism, so he knew how to construct a Roman cuirass. Once he and the others went back west and got home, he intended to get to work making more tire cuirasses, improving on his initial design. The one thing he wanted to find on this trip were ancient weapons, and he cursed himself for not insisting on ravaging the big museum they’d passed in Toronto.

Nolan spoke mostly in grunts, growls, and barks of harsh laughter. Quick to anger, Nolan had already killed two men on this expedition over jokes at his expense. While he wasn’t the best conversationalist in the world, he had other talents, like being able to kill people with little hesitation and swinging a murderous axe. No other man beside Fist instilled fear like Nolan, and some wondered if the crazy man would eventually make an attempt at the leader’s position. Such a move would only incite a bloody breakdown in the party, as several of the Norsemen didn’t want Nolan in charge. Fist was scary, but Nolan was unstable. Of all the people to be paired with as they went into a potential nest, Nolan was the best and perhaps the worst companion Cray could have asked for.

“This way,” Cray said, pointing toward one of two corridors. An archway opened into some type of common area, its features nearly invisible under a blue-black canopy of darkness.

Not totally unexpected, Nolan ignored Cray and went the other way. Swearing to himself, Cray was half-tempted to shoot the bastard in the back. He turned around and followed the man’s meaty frame. Nolan was the only one in the group who didn’t wear any protection. His clothing consisted of a couple of sweaters, a leather jacket, and a thick winter coat that bulked him up even further. He did wear an old riot helmet missing its visor, but he didn’t seem to care. Nolan was baiting the dead to fight him, but none had yet taken him.

They made their way to the end of the hall, pausing at open doorways and making certain the rooms were empty. When they located the stairwell, Nolan opened the door with one hand while holding on to his axe with the other.

Empty.

“Hrrm,” Nolan growled, in a rattling voice, as if his throat was coated in smoker’s phlegm.

Cray thought the killer might have said more, but he didn’t dare reply.

“Meh,” Nolan grunted, arching his head back and studying the stairs. He moved up. When Cray entered the stairwell, he couldn’t see up or down. The darkness swallowed Nolan and, for a moment, Cray hesitated. The dark would be a perfect place for Nolan to kill him. He didn’t have any reason to, but one simply couldn’t tell what the brute might do.

“Mmhrrr,” Nolan growled.

“Right,” Cray muttered, holding his shotgun before him and carefully placing a shoulder against the wall for guidance. He started up the stairs.

He caught up to Nolan just as the man opened the door to the second floor. Pale light gave the corridor shape, and the corpses filling it turned at the clicking of the door. Over Nolan’s shoulder, Cray could see the dead shuffle toward the unpredictable grunt, their dark faces moaning.

“Mehhehe,” Nolan chortled, in what Cray thought was pure Orcish glee. Nolan hefted his axe and went to meet them, much to the other man’s dismay. Cray hesitated to follow.

The corridor was dark and many doors had been left open, leaving the dead occupying them to slink forth as if escaping tombs. Nolan took ten steps and chopped downward––the ceiling just high enough for such a strike––cleaving one dead thing’s head open with a crack. Nolan pushed the corpse back with his boot and wrenched his axe free. He drew in a breath and nearly decapitated another zombie with one mighty swipe. Nolan raised his axe again and split open another face, driving the thing to its knees. The dead filled the corridor beyond the slaughter, struggling to get into the melee. Nolan met them head on, wading into a fray that was potentially beyond even his vicious capabilities.

Ghoulish forms slinked forth from the open doorways in frightening silence, freezing Cray where he stood. They reached for Nolan, clawed at his back, and the warrior turned on them with a puzzled grunt. He grabbed the throat of one dead man and savagely put its head and torso through a nearby window. The blow might’ve killed a living man, but the dead thing’s limbs only fluttered in annoyance. More dead closed in on Nolan, crowding him and his axe, and the killer soon found himself immersed in zombies. He released his weapon with one of his trademark grunts, not sounding panicked in the least.

The fool was trying the same thing Fist had done back when the van had crashed. Trouble was, as destructive as Nolan was, he was still no Fist. Cray dropped back to the stairwell, poised to bolt, unwilling to risk himself to save the brute’s life. The corpses swarmed Nolan, and for a moment, he appeared as a great black lumberjack, methodically tearing at flesh as pale as maggots and grunting as he punched undead faces. He slammed one body into the wall. Another he hugged to his chest and crushed. The zombies latched onto him in a mesh of limbs, and Nolan disappeared from sight. Then a hammer rose into the air, and the killer began splitting the heads around him with surgical precision. With a roar, he lifted one zombie well above his head and threw it forward, where it tumbled out of sight with a fleshy rattle. He killed three zombies as they tried unsuccessfully to bite into his layered belly. Nolan got his back against a wall and, with one hand, grabbed a face, lined it up, and smashed it with his hammer. More zombies joined the fray with chilling eagerness. Nolan’s strikes became slower, requiring more effort to pull the hammer free from a skull, until one zombie reached out with both hands and grasped Nolan’s arm. Another did the same, homing in on Nolan’s wrist, where the sleeve drooped down just enough to reveal skin.

One of the corpses sank its teeth into that meaty morsel. Nolan’s grunt became a wheezy scream, as if something once fun had suddenly become quite serious. He jerked his wrist back and, in the sparse light, ripped out a chunk of his own flesh. Blood flowed down his arm like oil. Another zombie stretched over its brethren, and Nolan bashed its face away. But there were too many covering him. He actually headbutted a corpse, crunching its nose, but that didn’t stop it from wrapping its white arms around Nolan’s tiring form, its open mouth seeking his throat. Zombies grabbed his gushing wrist, siphoning off veins and chewing deeper.

Nolan slowly sank under the dead tide, finally disappearing with a muted whimper.

Cray almost wanted to help the man, but it was better this way. And it was better for him to get the hell away from the zombies. He’d made the mistake of standing about and watching Nolan fall.

Then he heard the hissing above him in the stairwell.

Cray looked up and just barely saw shapes squirming in the inky blackness, moving toward him. He brought up his shotgun and fired, briefly lighting the stairs and glimpsing a mass of torsos and limbs oozing downward. Cray backed up and figured it was time to beat a strategic retreat.

Something crashed into his legs from behind and staggered him. A corpse moved at his feet. Cray turned on the landing, heard the briefest rush of air, and didn’t have time to look up. A weight slammed into his back, stunning him and driving him to his knees. A moment later, the tide of flesh on the stairs overran him, bending him backward until his knees popped painfully, all the while slowly wrenching the hockey helmet from his head, the chin strap finally snapping. Cray thrust his arms against the bodies, yelling for help, yelling for them to stop, and finally screaming, but they just continued to pile onto him, reaching, reaching…

He still had enough time to shriek when fingers clawed out his eyes, and mouths fastened onto his cheeks like toothy leeches.

*

That bloodcurdling scream ripped through all levels of the dormitory, making the few living things nearby stop and listen. The sound hung hauntingly on the air, ebbing away until it was abruptly cut off.

In another stairwell on the far side of the building, Fist stopped in his tracks and listened to the scream until it ended. He turned to Shipp and muttered, “That one hurt.”

*

Hearing the same lingering scream, Tenner shifted on his belly and waited, listening to the sound until it stopped. When silence established itself once more, he set his attention on the dark corridor ahead and whoever or whatever might fill it. He hoped they came soon. He was getting bored, despite the intriguing sounds from elsewhere in building.

Then he heard something, faint, but coming from the end of the corridor. Almost gracefully, he placed an eye to his scope and studied the darkness, settling into a more comfortable position. A shard of light touched the lower part of the door, gashing it, and Tenner was just able to make out a widening crack. He waited. The question of who it might be would soon be answered. He hoped it was alive. The dead usually had trouble opening doors.

The crack widened.

Tenner tsked to himself. But then, there was no real way for his visitors to know what lay ahead of them.

Two shadows edged carefully into the corridor, one ahead of the other.

Tenner waited until they filled his sights, then he squeezed the trigger.

At the last possible moment, one shadow split from the other, the wall seemingly swallowing the dusky outline. It was at that moment that the AR-20 went full rock show and lit up the corridor, hammering vicious rounds into the remaining shadow and throwing it back into the stairwell. The weapon rattled slightly against Tenner’s shoulder, stitching up the outline with tracers that cut the gloom like lasers. He stopped firing a few seconds later, smelling the cordite, and studied the results through the scope. The second shadow had disappeared, split from the other, while Tenner discerned boots pointing to the ceiling where his first kill had fallen on his back.

“Missed, you little prick,” a voice called.

Tenner smiled wanly. “I’d say you were just lucky.”

“Lucky?” A pause. “I’ll show you lucky, when I’m ripping your balls out instead of your throat.”

Tenner’s expression slackened at that.

“Gonna cut you up. Eat your heart.”

Another interesting threat. “Really? Well, I’ll give you five seconds to make your move.”

Through the scope, Tenner watched as an arm reached out and grabbed the leg of his first victim. It violently hauled the dead body into the nearby room, disappearing before Tenner could draw a bead on it.

Then he heard laughter. The man was laughing?

That made Tenner smile. He liked a victim with a sense of humor.

The noise of wood being shattered made him cock his brow.

*

Fist hauled Shipp’s bleeding carcass into the room and grunted as he inspected the weapon’s handiwork—an automatic of some sort, and a prize if he could get his hands on it. That was something he was going to work on, and his old buddy Shipp was going to help him. Fist stood, flung his maul to the floor, and inspected the room. There was a closet with open doors and these he attacked savagely, slamming them shut and putting a boot through one. He kicked one door down, ripped at the shards, and pulled them from the frame with furious energy. There was one man at the end of the hall, one very confident man, but he was about to find out what it was like to fuck around with Fist. He got his hands on Shipp’s sawed-off shotgun, so common amongst the Norsemen, and rooted through the dead man’s pockets, searching for extra shells.

Shoot at me, Fist fumed, baring his teeth. No one shoots at me.

He manhandled Shipp’s corpse to its feet and pushed him against the wall, smelling his blood. Ol’ Shipp was going to help him out once more. Ol’ Shipp was going to help him get his paws on Confident Man with the gun and wring his goddamn neck.

“You ready, man?” Fist bellowed, struggling with Shipp’s body.

“Ready, fucktard,” the voice floated back.

Fucktard. Fist fumed and snarled. He was going to enjoy flaying this man.

He lifted Shipp so that his still-armored corpse faced away from him, the side with the bleeding holes facing out. He noted the plates on Shipp’s back were fine. Fist counted on his own body armor to stop anything getting by the fleshy barrier. It seemed like a good idea––it worked in the movies.

Whirling around the corner, Fist and his human shield emerged into the corridor and thundered down its length.

*

A howl of fury and murderous intent accompanied by the pounding of heavy boots and a flopping shape charged Tenner’s position. The rushing apparition startled him for all of two seconds, before he shook his head and fired. Tracers lashed into the thing coming at him, some audibly pinging off armor plates, but still it charged. Tenner kept firing, his forehead knotting in concerned concentration, hitting the torso dead center. The roar grew louder. The heavy stomping made the floor tremble. Tenner shifted targets and shot at the thing’s legs, sending tracers into shins and hearing the crack of hard plastic. The mass faltered, stumbling, but still it came.

Tenner rose to one knee and unleashed the full fury of the weapon into the multi-limbed berserker barreling down on him. The tracers blasted into the mass until the magazine clicked dry.

Then it was on him.

*

Fist felt the bullets rip into his lower legs. One or two might’ve shattered a few ribs as well. Whatever the bastard was firing pelted him good and lit him up like a night of fireworks. He felt stings on his forearms where bullets blew through the twisted wreck of Shipp’s body and grazed him. Fist went down. Before Shipp’s legs struck the floor, Fist heaved him ahead and yelled. The body fell on what looked to be a soldier, who struggled to his knees in the doorway, but Shipp landed heavily and tangled up his assault rifle. Fist fell forward, the pain of his lower legs momentarily overridden by the furious eagerness of finally getting his hands on his foe.

The soldier tried to aim the rifle, but Fist slammed his mallet of a hand into the man’s face, knocking him backward. The Norseman yanked his foe’s helmet down, blinding him. The soldier punched, hitting Fist’s cheek with substantial force, but rage diluted the blow. Fist clawed his way over Shipp’s frame and jabbed an elbow into his foe’s head, then another, which heralded a relentless flurry of heavy strikes. Fist snarled as he drummed punishing elbows into his target. Some shots hit flesh and bone; some connected with the helmet. The soldier released the rifle and a hand snaked to his side. Fist paid it no heed, quite happy to pummel the man’s head, seeking to break it open.

Then something plunged into his guts twice, fast and hard. It retracted and went into him again, this time sawing upward. Fist felt his guts sizzle in agony. He slammed his elbow into the helmet again, bouncing the head off the floor, but the knife was still in his midsection. His strength waned. Fist felt that hot lick of steel disemboweling him, and he pushed the soldier away in reflex as he tried to back off the man like a fat crab.

But the soldier reached out and held on to him.

“Oh, no,” seethed a hard voice. “You said you were gonna cut me up. Said you were gonna eat my heart.”

The knife punched into Fist again, and the room spun. He needed to get off the soldier, but his armored foe reached out with his arms, one of which ended in a knife, and embraced him.

“Gonna eat my heart, huh? Gonna eat my heart?” Fist glimpsed a white smile, then cruel eyes that flashed red. The knife plunged into him once more, a length of searing light that cut into his arms to the bone.

Fist’s breath left him.

The soldier punched his face cage and, with a mighty effort, heaved him off and got out from under the Norseman. Fist flailed an arm at his opponent’s head, but it was caught and bent backward. It snapped with a crack, like hard candy.

More cuts with the knife, taking more of Fist’s strength. Hands pulled off his armor plating. The soldier on him was no longer a man, but a spider. Fist bucked one last time and threw it off balance, sat up, and threw a punch to the creature’s midsection. His knuckles slammed into armor plates. He twisted, throwing the other off-balance. Fist got to his knees, bleeding, adrenaline surging. The spider screamed. Fist roared back and cracked a knee into its head, whipping the skull back and flinging the body against a wall. Fist thundered forward, bloody spittle spewing from his lips. He stomped, laying a boot into the wood where the spider’s face had been only a split second earlier.

Then it was on him again in a scurry, punching and slicing into his guts and Fist didn’t have the energy to fight it. It bore him backward, and they both fell to the floor. A quick scramble, then a pair of knees pinned the Norseman’s shoulders. Fingers ripped away his face cage. A long knife appeared above him and descended slowly. The meager light in the room made the steel appear very cold.

“Gonna cut me, hm?” the spider croaked. Its eyes, like that of man, looked crazier than Fist’s .

The Norseman felt the knife prick the soft part of his throat, right underneath his chin.

Then the heavy thrust, straight to the brain, and the sound of his own dying gurgle echoing in his ears.

41

Scott headed for the door in the parking lot underneath the dormitory building and stopped in his tracks. Memories of that ghost thing went through his head. He decided to enter the building through the hole in the foundation he’d seen seconds earlier. He started climbing the mass of debris and brick toward the gap.

A blinding wash of headlights made him lift a hand to shield his eyes. Amy drove up in the van. She stopped the machine and jumped out, a shotgun in her hand.

“You forgot this,” she said and held out the weapon. It was his own.

“I had this,” he said, indicating the bat. “But I’ll take that. You heading out, then?”

“No. I’ll hold off on searching for the boys a few minutes more. Bringing you along would be smarter. Extra manpower.”

“Oh. Well.” Scott looked at the jagged hole granting access to the lower room. “Better get going, then. Here, put this in my backpack,” he said, handing her the bat.

When he turned, rats flooded the road beyond, still flowing toward the smell of blood and sending shivers through him. If Tenner was in there, they’d have to be fast.

He got moving over the crinkling pile of bricks and wood. Amy followed him, bumping into more debris and causing it to tumble.

“I heard gunfire earlier,” Scott said, lifting the shotgun to his shoulder and peering ahead. “Inside.”

Amy said nothing, so he continued on, glancing back at times to see if she was still behind him. She had her tonfas out and crouched, waiting for him to keep walking. Having her there was a huge relief. Time and time again she had proved herself to be an unflinching rock.

They shuffled over the debris and found a hallway and nearby stairwell. Scott started up the stairs, holding his shotgun before him even though he couldn’t see a thing. He kept his shoulder to the wall, and his Nomex rasped as he rounded corners and proceeded up the stairs. Amy placed her hand on his back and followed. They went up three floors, passing two closed doors and coming to one that was wide open. It wasn’t the door that caught his attention at first, although he saw the lump of something wedged underneath it to keep it in place. Pale light illuminated white and black tiling.

It also revealed a head. And boots.

Then the smell hit him.

Sticking out of the room were two bodies. Scott placed his back to the wall and took a breath. He whirled into the opening and discovered the dead men stretched far into the room. Suddenly fearful of his back, he turned around and looked down the hallway. Sensing the coast was clear and not hearing or seeing anything, he turned back to the corpse. Amy knelt beside them both, studying in silence. She looked at him in the limited light and held a spiked tonfa near her throat. She swished the weapon grimly underneath it, and Scott got the meaning. One man had been cut up and left with a knife in his head. A pool of blood as black as tar surrounded him, while the other was shredded by gunfire. Both were van warriors.

“Christ almighty,” Scott muttered. The black tiling was really blood, and he realized he’d been stepping in it. He didn’t like the idea of leaving bloody tracks. Memories of Teddy and Lea flashed through his head, and he knew then that if he ever had to kill a person, it was going to be the psycho he was after.

He eased around Amy and studied the floor, and his heart raced.

There, heading into the stairwell, were a set of boot tracks.

“Amy,” he whispered.

“What?”

“Look.”

They studied the blood, seeing where it hit the stairs and went up, fading into black. Scott took the lead, shotgun first, and Amy followed. They kept in contact with the wall as they climbed the stairs. At the top, a wide ray of moonlight split the darkness like a silver beacon. They paused at a wide landing. Scott pointed to the heavy metal door, which stood wide open.

“Pedway,” Scott whispered, gesturing ahead with his shotgun. Fresh air hit their faces. A long stretch of tiling, concrete, and steel beams connected the dormitory with another building almost thirty meters away. Amy stepped onto the pedway, tonfas at her side, and stared up at the moon sitting low in the night sky. The glass had been smashed out in places, leaving shards of broken panes or entire sections missing, from the base of the pedway all the way to its roof. Vertical bars ran the length of the crossing, like a ladder whose rungs were spaced too far apart. Amy walked forward, gazing at a closed door, and Scott moved behind her. It was a four-story drop, but what really caught his attention were the rats milling about below, a thick knobby carpet surging through the buildings.

“Shit,” Amy whispered, studying the mass.

“We can still get back. Or even wait them out. That door is metal.”

“I’m not thinking about that,” Amy informed him. “I’m thinking about Vick and Donny.”

That made Scott peer at the shifting surface below with growing worry. A second later, he studied the floor and moved toward the other building.

“Where are you going?” Amy asked.

“Tracks go that way,” Scott answered and started following them.

42

Wrestling with the dead bastard underneath him had been like wrangling with an angry elephant, but Tenner gutted him all the same. He got up from the wreck of a man at his feet and gazed around the room. He couldn’t see his rifle. The van man had slapped it from his grip. A quick search revealed nothing and, with amazed horror, Tenner looked at the window. It couldn’t have gone out there, could it? Tenner leaned out studied the ground. The rats were massed below, and the rifle was nowhere to be seen. Worse, the van was also missing. With a groan, Tenner pulled the helmet from his head, as well as the mask underneath, and tossed both onto the floor. There was no way he was going to try and get them back on. With his good hand, he felt the rubble of his broken nose and grimaced. His cheeks blared out in pain as well, shifting like shattered clay. Every breath felt like red embers flaring in his chest. Feeling the inside of his mouth with his tongue, he realized the savage had destroyed his teeth. His front ones were broken, leaving only shards of enamel. Others were gone completely, and more shifted loosely in his gums. That was on top of what felt like most of his facial bones being smashed. Blood seeped into his right eye, blinding him until he wiped it away.

He knew he looked like shit.

“But I look better than you, shit-fucker,” Tenner whispered to the dead man at his feet, and even that hurt.

He growled in pain and frustration. He had to get out of here, but where? The screams from below suggested the Philistines were nearby. Tenner looked at the door and stepped into the corridor. The stairwell on the left beckoned, and he felt pulled in that direction for reasons unknown. Cradling his broken wrist, he allowed it to simply drop and hang at his side. For a moment, dizziness gripped his senses, as well as an overbearing feeling of unwellness. He leaned against the wall, breathing deeply, suffering, then grinning.

Gods didn’t die. Reality would wink out the very instant he did.

But he grudgingly admitted they sometimes got seriously fucked up.

Using the wall as support, he climbed the stairway to a landing and an open portal that led to a bridge. Not a bridge, he realized, but a pedway, and with enough bars on it to make him think of cages in a zoo. Fresh air slapped his face and cleared his mind a little. He wiped at his eye and forehead, astonished by the amount of blood. Cringing at every painful breath, he crossed to the midway point of the pedway and gazed down.

Rats.

Tenner chuckled darkly and allowed a few plops of blood to fall from his face to the foragers on the street. Their reaction was quite interesting. The closest rats homed in on the blood the very second it blotted the snow. When the world had still functioned and he’d been forced to hide his true self, people had kept rats as pets. He thought that was a wonderful idea. When he was feeling better, he’d capture some of the furry little undead fucks, maybe use a small aquarium as a holding pen. He might even use them on future victims.

This on his mind, he reached the far door and opened it—another stairwell and another open door leading to a series of rooms. Another dormitory. One of the rooms would have a bed, and a bed sounded just fine to Tenner. With that firmly in mind, he closed the door behind him.

Then, through the square window, he saw Amy and the mystery man emerging from the building on the far side of the pedway.

Tenner blinked and made an agonized sound. The pair dawdled, being cautious, but then the man who knew him straightened up, shotgun ready, and walked toward him, oblivious that Tenner hid behind the door and watched from the darkness.

His left hand gripped his Glock and lifted it from its holster. Tenner placed it just behind the glass, keeping it in the shadows, and aimed. One burst would finish him. Mortals hunting gods, wounding gods, wasn’t something to be taken lightly. He’d have to explain it to these lesser beings.

The mystery man got closer to the door, hand reaching for the handle.

And Tenner, despite his pain, smiled once more.

*

“Scott, wait,” Amy called, and he did.

“What?” His hand was on the door handle.

“Don’t get too far ahead of me.”

Good point. Scott waited, trying to look beyond the window’s safety glass. Another void, but there was faint light from a hallway to the left.

“All right,” Amy said, just behind him.

“You ready?”

“All set.”

Scott opened the door. He stepped across the threshold and a gun snaked out from the dark and pressed against his helmet. Amy froze.

“Don’t move,” Tenner warned. “One move, Amy, and I ventilate him.”

Scott felt the click against his helmet, and his heart and stomach plummeted.

“Hello, Amy,” Tenner said. Then to Scott he said, “Shithead.”

Scott lowered his shotgun to his pelvis and Tenner leaned forward. “You lift that thing and I’ll shoot your knees off. Might do it anyway.”

The rats rippled beneath the pedway, sensing the living, but unable to locate them.

“Careful now. Drop the shotgun,” Tenner instructed.

Scott set his jaw and did as he was told.

“Back up, Amy, and toss the sticks over the ledge.”

She hesitated, just a moment, but complied.

“A little more, a little more. All right. Stop there. Excellent. Now, then.” Tenner smiled, half-squinting in the pedway’s shade. “There’s been something puzzling the hell out of me for the past few hours, and I get to find out what it is, right now.”

He paused and squinted in discomfort.

“Who the hell are you, anyway?” Tenner asked Scott.

“Huh?”

“Who are you?”

“You don’t know?”

Tenner shook his head and grimaced. “Nope. Time to ’fess up.”

Scott wavered. “A few months ago. You were down in Annapolis. You killed two friends of mine. Shot me in the back. Left me for dead.”

Tenner’s lips pursed in thought. “Woman and a guy? In the basement?”

“Yeah.”

“I remember you. I shot you dead,” Tenner hissed.

“You should’ve checked more carefully.”

“Why? Would’ve found out you were still breathing. I’d have put a bullet into you for certain if I’d known. Or worse. Probably worse. Holy shit,” he seethed with evil mirth. “That was you. Man, you owe me a thank you for not checking closer. You wouldn’t be here today.”

Scott held back a reply.

“So you healed up,” Tenner continued. “Got all better. Locked, loaded, and looking for revenge. Hm? Looking to even things up. Get some cutting time in. Took you a while. I’ve been here for a month or so.”

“Still found you,” Scott said through clenched teeth.

“Yeah, you did. Tough shit, ain’t it? I almost feel bad here.”

He smiled again, pale and sinister, and Scott knew he only had another second to live. He turned just a little toward his captor.

Right then, sounds drifted up from the stairwell. Tenner’s head flicked just enough to dislodge a large bead of blood welling up on his busted forehead and it slipped down into his eye, causing him to squint.

Scott ducked.

Tenner fired, the bullet grazing the top of Scott’s helmet with a frightening pop and whizzing off into the dark.

Scott tackled the man and drove him into the wall just to the right of the open doorway. Cackling, Tenner drove a knee into his gut and spiked an elbow to the back of his neck. Even with his Nomex gear and hockey vest, the blows made Scott gasp. Tenner pushed him back and snapped out a front kick that pistoned Scott backward. He hit the wall off-balanced and put his foot down, except there was nothing underneath him.

With the sharp sensation of tipping, Scott fell into the darkness of the stairwell.

*

Tenner came forward, paused in the doorway, and turned just as Amy gripped his vest and rolled backward, flipping him over her and landing him flat on his back. The impact stunned him and he lost his Glock, but his indignity at being manhandled in such a way galvanized him to roll over and get to his knees. He grabbed for his remaining gun. Awkwardly, his left hand pulled the weapon from his right hip. Amy walked toward him as he fumbled with the gun, correcting his grip.

Tenner almost got it a second before Amy spun and kicked it from his hand, sending the weapon spinning off into the sea of vermin.

“Ohh you––”

Bitch, Tenner wanted to say, but Amy front-kicked him, sending him flying backward before scuttling to a stop on his ass. Once again he got to his knees, then his feet. His left hand found the hilt of his knife, and he jerked it free.

Amy came forward, her face dark and drawn, her hands in a fighter’s guard.

Tenner giggled. He was going to so enjoy impregnating her.

He lunged.

The knife never reached her. She caught the blow with both arms and twisted his wrist in a direction it was never meant to go, eliciting a half-scream, half-grunt from Tenner. He dropped the knife and she spun into him, whipping the point of her elbow across his jaw with wrecking-ball force. Tenner barely felt the thunderous barrage of fists from the woman after that, which backed him along the pedway. He thrust out his wrecked right arm, almost shooing her away, but she swatted it to one side before stepping into his guard and lacing her fingers behind his head.

“For Tickle,” he heard her say, before his head was pulled down to her upcoming knee, mashing them together like an egg hitting the floor. The impact unhinged his jaw and crumbled whatever facial bones were intact from his previous fight. She kneed him three more times––fast, punishing blows in devastating Muai Thai style—before finally releasing him.

Tenner collapsed in a heap, gasping, hurting, almost drunkenly bewildered.

*

Amy wasn’t finished.

Not by a long shot.

“For Sammy and Schaffer.” She stomped on the killer’s midsection, buckling him like a broken plank, before unloading a hammer of a fist straight to his jaw. Tenner’s eyes unfocused with the connection, and he trembled on the tiles. She soccer-kicked his ribs, and he didn’t react. On a whim, she took interest in his right ankle and crushed it under a boot heel. That caused him to shiver and whimper.

“That one’s for Vick,” she panted, looking around for a gun. She could’ve choked him to death, but she didn’t want to touch the killer anymore. Amy backed away from the human wreck on the pedway, with the intent of finding Scott’s shotgun and blowing Tenner’s head off.

“Amy,” Scott said, standing in the doorway with his shotgun and still wearing his ruined helmet. “The hell you doing?”

She stopped. “Sorry.”

“S’okay.”

“Just that,” she shrugged, “he murdered three people I knew. That other poor person we found in the street there. And maybe even Vick. I know you wanted to finish him off, but… I guess I wanted him more.”

Scott didn’t reply right away. “I guess you did. Don’t worry. I’m not upset.”

“Then give me that.”

“This?” He held up the weapon. “Why?”

“You know why.”

*

A current of blackness, deep and sparkling, whorled Tenner’s senses about like a rag doll held up to the sky. Voices came from beyond, the sounds elongated and without meaning. The sky, black and empty, reminded him that he was a god, a fucking god, and with that thought, summoned whatever power he had remaining in lifting his left hand to his chest. Tenner rolled onto his side and fumbled at his vest. He was a monstrous deity, death on two legs, and so much more than the physical pain laying fiery siege to his mind. He was… a sun god… and his power and death for the world lay clenched in his fist.

With a feeble breath, Tenner cocked back his good arm, not bothering to take aim at the mortal shit standing at the end of the pedway.

Willpower alone would direct his wrath.

Finding the strength to smile, Tenner rolled the grenade toward Amy and Scott.

*

In the pause of Amy’s last words, understanding what she wanted to do, Scott heard the wobbling rattle and saw the black thing rolling toward them, guided by the sloped edge of the pedway. Amy turned as Scott bolted by her. He didn’t know what it was, only that it came from Tenner’s spectral shape in the middle of the pedway.

And he kicked it back.

Too hard. The bauble flew across the gap between the two buildings and, for a split second, Scott lost sight of the thing. He heard it rattle off something solid, then glimpsed it drop to the floor in front of the open doorway on the opposite end of the pedway.

Before it exploded like a black sun.

*

Steel and concrete gave way like wet paper, and the pedway fell away from its moorings with a resounding shriek of metal and dust, before it slammed into the ground four levels below. The ceiling collapsed, pinching the ends of the structure into a V. The impact made the three figures still on the walkway tremble, fall, and finally slide down the sharply angled ramp.

Straight toward the rats.

*

Scott felt the ground go out from under him and he turned and flailed, letting go of the shotgun. He latched onto Amy’s leg and held her as they both slid toward the bottom. He screamed. Amy screamed and grabbed at a bent metal bar. Her outspread fingers slapped off the first one.

She hooked a second, before Scott’s weight pulled her down.

She missed the third entirely.

And snagged the fourth with both hands, halting their slide. Scott’s weight dragged on her for a few seconds before he grabbed at another bar and released her legs. He gazed up, meeting her wide eyes, and clung to the bar as if it were life itself.

Then they both looked down.

They’d stopped perhaps ten feet from the bottom.

Far enough away to watch.

*

Tenner’s side slammed into the base of the opposite building, where the roof and the floor squished together. Unfortunately it was his left side, and his own body weight pinned his arm beneath him. Dust coated his body and made him cough, and an awful ringing filled his ears. Disoriented, he twisted left then right, before realizing his arm was underneath him, feeling his fingers wriggle just past his ass. He lifted his chest off the shattered slab of concrete and looked up.

The first rat chomped into his nose with such ferocity that Tenner screamed as if his heart had been gouged from his chest. Two fastened onto his cheeks while another got a chunk of his ear. He twisted away with his free right arm, and the pain from ramming his useless hand into the ground turned it to fire. Rats swarmed up and over the rubble and foamed about his limbs. He pushed himself backward in an attempt to free his pinned left arm, just as a rush of rats dug into his destroyed ankle. That lit up his senses like a row of wailing klaxons. Flailing his pained white arm, he knocked the rats away from his face. Still in a deadly awkward position, he attempted to roll over and only partially succeeded. Rats piled on his body, enveloping him, biting everywhere, bypassing his body armor, and burrowing through to his flesh. Seconds! Tenner’s mind shrieked the word.

“Help me!” he screeched, as a rat’s jaws snapped onto his lower lip. More went for his throat. He swiped them away with his right hand and scooted his butt into the air, driving his shoulder into the furry wave overpowering him.

Teeth were gnashing down on his flesh all over.

“Help…” he managed to get out, the cry dying in his throat.

Then he remembered the grenades.

His death vest, and the one-yank pull system that would set them all off.

Rats bit at his ears, cheeks, and neck—he swiped those away quickly—and pushed himself back. He fumbled at his vest and looked down.

Tenner’s jaw dropped.

His left hand had almost been stripped to the bone. Even as he watched, rats clung and chewed on the tatters of remaining meat.

By force of will alone, Tenner pushed away from the mass flowing over his legs, until his back pressed up against the stone slab behind him. The rats rose up over his legs, crowding his crotch , then his midsection. Their teeth gnawed at him in a frenzy. He slammed his head back one last time and glared in wild agony at the two survivors dangling just above him.

“HEEELLLL––”

A rat, perhaps the size of a well-fed puppy, with half of the flesh covering its skull sheared away as if it had been scraped off with a rock, rushed up Tenner’s chest and bit down hard on the fat guitar string that was his jugular. Several more rats lashed into his face.

Tenner’s world went red.

*

Scott and Amy saw the rats swallow Tenner’s form, his throat exploding in red ink which showered the backs of the undead, making their hair gleam. Tenner’s struggling weakened, but his body continued to shiver, jig, and jerk. He slipped downward, the sea of vermin claiming him, and disappeared into the undulating depths. The last thing Scott saw of Tenner was the top of his head.

And the rat burrowing under a flap of scalp.

Then he was gone, lost under that ravenous tide.

“Scott!”

He looked up.

“Climb!”

He blinked and started doing just that. Using the vertical bars of the pedway like a ladder, both of them climbed, well away from the gruesome display. They reached the open doorway and climbed inside, collapsing when they did.

Scott placed his shoulder to the doorframe and looked back down, but there was nothing to see besides the dead. They continued watching in silence, the sound of the feast below in their ears.

Amy laid a hand on his shoulder and pulled him away.

43

Sometime during the night, when the rats finished feeding and moved off in search of more prey, Scott and Amy got up and retreated inside the dormitory. They entered a room three doors down, went inside, and closed the door. Vick was either alive or dead, and finding him would take time and push them beyond their physical limits, having exhausted themselves in their confrontation with Tenner and the rats. As much as she hated to do it, Amy decided to sleep on it. Maybe, just maybe, things would take care of themselves in the morning.

They placed their packs to one side. There was a bare, single-person mattress in the room, but neither had any problem sharing it, and both were secretly grateful to do so. Amy took off her padded vest and helmet, and Scott removed his ruined motorcycle helmet, running his fingers over the lightning bolts. They lay down in their remaining protective wear and got comfortable. Sleep found them lying innocently next to each other.

Scott woke once, listening and imagining that something was scratching at the door. There wasn’t, however, and he eventually went back to sleep, if only for a short time. He woke twice more in the dark. Once because the grinning , bleeding face of Tenner had found him in his dreams, just before the rats swelled up around the killer’s face and sucked him down, chewing out the man’s eyes before he disappeared under their teeming, hairy bodies.

The other time he woke when he felt an arm wrap around him and discovered Amy’s sleeping, drooling face tucked into his shoulder.

That time he settled back and simply studied her features. Her face was the last thing he saw before he eventually closed his eyes and fell asleep.

And in sleep, as in life, she protected him from nightmares.

*

Morning found them in a sleepy tangle of limbs.

“Morning, pumpkin,” Scott said as Amy opened her eyes and regarded him sleepily for a moment.

“Morning, squash,” she replied. And they smiled.

They got up and sat next to each other on the bed.

“We better get moving,” Amy said.

“Let’s go, then.”

They pulled on their headgear and outerwear. Moments later, they made their way through the corridor and down the nearest stairwell. They eventually emerged from the dormitory without incident and saw the skyline, pink with morning light. They wandered around to the edge of the building. Scott paused and peered around the corner, making certain the coast was clear.

“Nothing.”

“They’re all gone,” Amy said, peeking out at the trampled snow.

“With the daylight,” Scott said. “We better get moving.”

But he hesitated.

“What is it?” she asked.

“I have to check on something.”

He walked to the fallen pedway, stopping for a moment to marvel at the devastation Tenner’s grenade had wrought. Amy came up behind him.

“I want to find my tonfas,” Amy said softly, and Scott nodded. They searched the area, finding, of all things, Tenner’s Glocks, several untouched spare magazines, as well as a tattered vest filled with six eggs that they both realized were grenades.

No Moe. No rats. Certainly no Tenner.

“I keep thinking the fucker’s alive,” Scott muttered and inspected the V of the crumpled pedway. Not much remained. They found his shotgun, as well as shreds of cloth and white armor plating surrounded by tatters of material—but no body. Scott hadn’t expected one.

Amy found her tonfas in the snow, and they both located the tattered remains of what looked to be a vest of body armor, the bare, cream-colored plates exposed, and a few spare magazines for a larger, undiscovered gun.

“These will come in handy,” Amy said, gathering up the extra munitions.

Scott looked at her for a moment, then took half of what she’d grabbed. His thoughts were reflective, relaxed. Tenner was gone. What else was there to do? Return to Gus? He looked at Amy. She felt his eyes and returned the look.

“What?”

“Nothing,” Scott said. “Let’s get looking for Vick and Buckle.”

“Been thinking about that,” she said. “Let’s go.”

They set out for the van. Along the way, resting atop of a pile of debris, was a ferocious assault rifle that matched the spare magazines they had just found.

This welcomed find was darkened by a much grimmer discovery in the rear of the parked van, something they hadn’t taken the time to search during the night. Seats filled the rear, as well as meat hooks. Scott figured they’d be from a butcher’s shop. A rack of cleavers and axes lined one section. An open milk crate of loose red shotgun shells was jammed behind the driver’s seat.

“Thing looks like a battle wagon,” Amy remarked.

“Gives me the creeps.”

“I’m starting to think anything gives you the creeps.”

“Well…” Scott said, but didn’t protest. He was too glad to have her around. They got settled in the van and drove onto the street. Amy drove, watching the road through the bullet-battered windshield. The bodies that had been left in the road were gone, but neither of them said anything about it. The rats were almost all-consuming, it seemed. Along Oxford Street, nothing moved.

Sometime later Amy steered onto Robie, and they finally spotted Moe. The dead prowled streets in a half-frozen malaise. Only a few dozen of the creatures, however, and they looked wretched. The van drove through them slowly, knocking them aside or running over them. Some of the corpses turned around, as if they were surprised to see the big machine pushing through, but they didn’t attack. Scott noticed that they didn’t pursue them, either. He settled back into his seat and quietly appreciated the rumble of the van as it motored forward. The snow banks had been trampled, and they rumbled through it all with few problems.

It wasn’t until they reached the 102 that they started hitting heavier drifts.

At one point, Amy stopped the van and got out. As always, the dead lingered nearby, but not in the immediate area. She returned to the van seconds later, paying greater attention to the road.

“Anything up?” Scott asked.

Amy regarded him. “Tire tracks.”

*

Scott was glad Amy was at the wheel. Halifax was her city, and she drove around for the next couple of hours, searching for where the tracks might lead. Eventually she lost the trail, and Scott could tell it bothered her. She finally resolved to get them both to Scott’s safe house, abandoning the search for her companions.

The roads were in better condition than what Scott remembered, and he attributed it to Amy. This was her city. She got them by clumps of deadheads and evaded larger clusters altogether. When one road was impassable, she got the van moving down another, getting as close to the house on School Avenue as possible. Zombies lurked all around, but any road or side street with large numbers were bypassed entirely. They stuck to the 102 and headed over deserted overpasses, but they were about to abandon the van when the snow became too deep for even the chained tires.

Scott was looking out the window when he spotted another black cargo van in the opposite lane. It appeared like a black beacon amongst the other half-stranded cars covered in snow.

“Amy?”

“I see it.”

They drove over the snow slowly and got as close to the stopped van as they could. The front of the vehicle was squished inward, as if the thing had been driven into a tree or pole.

“Better check it out.”

Amy was already out the door. Scott hauled up his shotgun and loaded it with the loose shells from the milk crate. He left the assault rifle, preferring the familiarity of the twelve gauge. He exited from the rear; Amy was already at the other vehicle. She had her tonfas out and ready.

Without asking, she rapped on one of the rear doors.

“Anyone in there?” she called. When there was no response, she rapped on the rear door once more. “Hey. You in there, Vick? Buckle?”

Something inside moved.

Amy regarded Scott, who had just arrived at her side, his shotgun ready.

“Amy?” a muffled voice asked from within.

The doors opened.

And Amy hugged the one-armed Vick, who was beaming weakly at her.

*

The house was a thirty-minute march away. Scott returned to the house, located a sled, and brought it back to the van. When he got back to Amy and the others, it was quarter to four. They talked about it for a minute, and none of them wanted to stay with the vans overnight. They loaded Buckle onto the sled, and Scott pulled it behind him. Vick marched with slow, deliberate steps, his one arm wrapped around Amy’s shoulders for support.

They walked in the dark for about an hour until they found the house.

Six Months later

The trees along the highway blushed vibrant green, declaring that all was right with the world. All manner of vehicles dotted the shoulders and sometimes the road itself, and Scott had to take care driving around them all. Anything could jump out in front of the SUV. It hadn’t happened yet, but one never knew in the real world. He drove the Durango along the highway, making the final approach to Gus’s manor. The last month had been the hardest, he thought. Ever since he’d gotten up in the morning, emerging from the white house with satin green shutters that needed a new coat of paint, every hour was a challenge to control himself from stomping on the gas pedal.

“We there yet?” Buckle asked from the passenger seat.

“Almost.”

“That why you’re stomping on the gas?”

Scott felt an embarrassed heat creep into his face. “Sorry, man.”

Buckle didn’t answer. He pulled up the AR-20, locked, loaded, and ready to split undead hairs if need be. His ankle hadn’t healed completely right, and he walked with an aching limp. “But,” he would remark with a thankful expression every once in a while, “I still got everything.”

“Look for a gate on your side,” Scott told him.

“A gate?”

“Yeah, with leaves on…” Scott trailed off and shut his mouth, remembering how Gus had camouflaged the thing. “Don’t worry. I’ll see it.”

“Nice area, the Valley. Always liked it,” Buckle commented, becoming reflective.

Of the group, he was the only one who’d volunteered to come here with Scott, and for that, the New Brunswick native was thankful. Six months ago, they had taken what they could from the downtown and historical section of the city, transferring the MREs from the van that Tenner had booby-trapped to the SUV and the remaining van. These they drove down the highway, to the little town of Blandford, which would serve as a push-off point to Big Tancook. They linked up with the rest of the waiting group, a little more than a dozen men, women, and children. It took longer to transport everything, included the wounded, to the little island off the coast. Gas was spared for motorboats and, if the weather wasn’t fair, they waited until the next day.

In the end, it was worth it.

Big Tancook was the undead-free refuge they had hunted for and, over the next few months, Scott actually felt much better about the survivors’ chances. But despite the food, and the planting of Amy’s seeds, Scott would look through the kitchen window of the deserted house he and Amy had taken as their own and stare out at the dark, shifting waters of the Atlantic and wonder.

Gus was still out there.

And he’d vowed, when he had the chance, he would return to the mainland and retrieve his friend.

“Hey, that it?” Buckle said and pointed, pulling Scott out of his thoughts. He slowed the SUV and felt his heart go cold.

The gate was flung wide open.

That wasn’t like Gus—unless the man was shitfaced. Still, it wasn’t like Gus to leave it open like that.

“Yeah,” Scott muttered. “That’s it.”

“Something wrong?” Buckle said, fixing on the scattered cars and trucks littering the highway.

“Don’t know.”

The SUV turned off the highway and climbed the slope, passing under a full green canopy where sunlight dappled the crushed stone of the road. The machine bounced in places, and at one point Buckle had to place his hand against the dashboard. Scott drove on, forcing the vehicle to climb.

They went up the last bit of slope, and the stone walls came into view.

Scott’s heart sank.

Cars and trucks lay before the gate. Some were burnt out, but others appeared fine—lifeless, but fine. Beyond the vehicles, the gate had been destroyed, its timbers burnt to black cinders. What was worse, the usual heights of the house, seen so easily from this point, simply did not exist anymore. Scott braked and brought the SUV to a rumbling stop. He stared, and not even Buckle dared to break that somber silence.

After a while, he drove closer to the gates, stopped the vehicle, and got out. Buckle limped after him. The air was fresh and a light breeze blew, making the treetops rustle softly.

“Well… shit.” Scott exhaled, standing at the ruined mouth of the gate and taking in the black wreck of the house. Structural beams, black in the summer sun, rose up only halfway. The rest of the charred woodwork had collapsed on itself, but several pieces of wood lay all over the property, as if sprayed from the house.

Or exploded.

There were a lot of little black forms around the ground as well, scattered all over the place and cooked by the sun, looking like streaks of black leather. Scott stooped to inspect the stains, grimacing when he identified little bones and claws. Scott straightened up and lifted his twelve gauge. He studied the tree line for a moment, then the cars, marveling at the sheer number of rat stains there around the property. Buckle did the same, his face slowly hitching up in distaste.

Scott in the lead, they walked through the gate and approached the house. Every step made Scott’s heart break a little more. The place had been devastated by fire. Even the garage was little more than a black stain ringed by an equally charred concrete foundation. He saw what he knew to be the shredded husk of the Beast, the roof of the van blown off, as if it had been caught in a blast of incinerating heat. Another vehicle was beside it, twisted and burnt, and Scott had to think for a moment. Gus must’ve found a second truck or van. He wouldn’t have left his dear old Beast if he could help it. He loved that machine.

Scott walked right up to the front of the house and peered down into what had been the rec room, where he and Gus had sat in drunken stupors and watched horror movies from the ’70s and ’80s. The area was a murky pit filled with chunks and pieces of debris and covered in dried slivers of tar—an unearthed grave. Scott’s shoulders slumped.

“You okay?” Buckle asked.

“Let’s go around,” Scott finally said, his throat tight, not okay in the least.

The pool was filled with burnt pieces of wood that bobbled idly. The deck appeared as if something had shelled it from above, and Scott figured whatever had destroyed the house had flung fire far enough to ignite it. The furniture Gus had kept out there was also gone. The lawn chairs had burnt down to the metal bones.

He stopped at the edge of the cliff and stared at the expanse of Annapolis, stretched out toward a mountain range like a sleeve of mottled skin. The city was just as black as the house in places, ravaged as if by some great fire.

“Jesus, Jesus,” Buckle said, taking it all in.

Scott looked over the edge and spotted the charred bones far below, piled up right at the base of the cliff.

“And Jesus,” Buckle muttered.

Scott swallowed and hunkered down. Skulls grinned back up at him, keeping their secrets.

What happened here? Perhaps the rats were here as well and they had somehow made it to the house. Perhaps Gus had burned the house down or accidentally started a fire. It was clear that a small war had happened on the property, and that losses were heavy on both sides. He wondered who the people were at the base of the cliff and if Gus was amongst them. Looking back out over the city, a feeling of despair and loss burned in Scott’s chest.

Annapolis was gutted. The house was razed to the ground. And Gus was gone, probably dead.

“Well, Christ,” Scott muttered.

“Sorry, man,” Buckle offered.

“Yeah.”

“You want to stick around?”

Scott thought about it. He gazed at the property, remembering the many times Gus and he had survived the city below and gotten epically wasted. Somehow, no matter how sad he felt, if Gus had indeed died on the side of this rock…

He’d probably taken an army with him.

“Nah. Let’s… let’s go on back.”

Scott turned around, feeling his throat constrict and his eyes moisten, and quietly made his way back to the waiting SUV. As he passed the black crater of the house, he tried very hard not to look at it. Very hard, but he sneaked a peek anyway. Just as he turned his back on the now-dead sanctuary from an undead world, he heard, in the deep places of his mind, a mountain man’s haunting laughter, distant and merry and probably drunk, tinged with a touch of madness.

Even though it was only a memory, Scott smiled feebly all the same.

And was ever so grateful for it.

44

They’d parked the Durango in a garage, along with some other vehicles that were still operational. The day was almost at an end, so they camped out in one of the deserted houses near the water, locked the doors—even though they believed the area was safe from Moe—and went to bed early. In the morning, they’d make the crossing.

Just after dawn, with the sun making the water shine, they got into one of the boats, started up the little outboard motor, and puttered away from shore. Seagulls sang as they glided over the boat, looking for handouts the two men didn’t have.

They cut across the dead calm of the sea, approaching Big Tancook and its government-built wharf. Buckle steered, humming a maritime song about privateers. Newfoundlanders, he informed Scott in between verses and without a shred of arrogance, were born on the water and were the best when it came to boating and working the sea. The man from Saint John didn’t dispute it. Over the past six months, Buckle and Vick both had grown fond of the young man, and they considered him an integral part of the group. Buckle liked him not because of his skills or his considerable work ethic, but because of his level head. In the new world, a calm head and common sense were gold. He could be withdrawn at times, like now, but given the circumstances, it was understandable. Vick liked the man for other reasons.

The Newfoundlander’s arms and shoulders ached, and he knew he’d feel an arthritic burn well into the day and night, but he hummed away as he steered. The little outboard motor puttered away in the morning stillness, pushing the bow of the boat across the sunny turquoise glass of the water. It took a little over an hour to reach the grey shores of the island, and in time, its rocky shape slowly solidified, no longer indistinct on the horizon.

Buckle kept on humming tunes of the sea, filling the silence. Scott hadn’t spoken much since Annapolis, and Buckle left the man to mourning his friend. He didn’t have the entire story, but he’d heard enough about Gus and how the two men had taken turns saving the other’s life. The thought that he might have succumbed to rats was a terrible one, but Scott didn’t want to sign off on the man just yet. Perhaps Gus had survived the terrible blaze on his mountain. Maybe he still lived somewhere. And if he did, perhaps their paths would cross once more. In time, the little community might leave the island to live on the mainland again, after the virus that had taken so many lives finally burned itself out.

Looking over his shoulder, Buckle steered the boat to the wharf. There was a forty-foot yacht there, a home in itself, but far too harsh on fuel. The tall masts of sailboats were on the opposite side, as well as three smaller rowboats. Whoever had drawn watch to keep vigil over the deep waters had spotted them already, and a small crowd had gathered on the wharf under a bright sun.

When he caught a glimpse of Scott’s profile, Buckle saw that the sadness the bearded man carried on his shoulders seemed to have sloughed off. On a whim, Buckle aimed the boat past the wharf, before cutting the motor and allowing them to drift to shore.

The figures on the wharf followed them in. One smaller figure, carrying a little bit more in the midsection these days, broke into a small run, leaving the others behind.

That made Buckle smile like a privateer. If only he had some rum—Captain Morgan, perhaps.

The salty smell of brine perfumed the air and made it smell good. A rock struck the bottom of their small craft, and Scott grunted a warning. Buckle just kept on humming, until the boat ran aground on a sandy beach.

“Home again, home again, jiggity jig,” the Newfoundlander said in a weary voice. He checked the outboard motor and heard a splash. Scott plodded ashore, leaving wet tracks in the sand.

Wearing cargo shorts, a T-shirt, and a thankful smile, Amy met him halfway. They hugged as if they’d been separated for years instead of days. Buckle didn’t overly care for public displays of affection, but there was something right about seeing those two embrace. He wouldn’t pass that thought on to Vick. Buckle glimpsed him walking up the shore, his one arm swinging, a smile on his face. The six other people from the wharf approached the couple from behind.

Buckle decided to take his time hauling the boat ashore. He stole peeks at the pair every now and again and felt his own stony heart soften, if only just a bit.

On the beach, like a picturesque scene for a painter, Scott held Amy for a long time, kissing her forehead and lips. Just before the others joined them, he reached down and placed a careful hand on Amy’s belly.

And felt the new life there.

TO BE CONTINUED

About the Author

Keith lives in Canada, on the island of Newfoundland.

Try these other titles by Keith C. Blackmore:

Heroic Fantasy

The Troll Hunter

White Sands, Red Steel

131 Days (Book 1)

131 Days: House of Pain (Book 2)

131 Days: Spikes and Edges (Book 3)

131 Days: About the Blood (Book 4)

Horror

Mountain Man

Safari (Mountain Man Book 2)

Hellifax (Mountain Man Book 3)

Well Fed (Mountain Man Book 4)

Mountain Man: Prequel

The Missing Boatman

Breeds

Breeds 2

Breeds 3

Cauldron Gristle (novella—contains Mountain Man short story “The Hospital”)

Private Property (novella)

Isosceles Moon (novella)

Isosceles Moon 2 (novella)

Science Fiction/Fantasy

The Bear That Fell from the Stars

Children’s

Flight of the Cookie Dough Mansion

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