Hugging his aching ribs, he dragged himself as far from the road as he could, a mile or more, huddling under a bush amid stands of tall cacti. At one time he would have been worried about snakes or scorpions, but now he didn"t care about much of anything. He would wait here until morning-wait for help to come. Then, as if a switch was thrown, he was out.
White. He came to in a world of m.u.f.fled whiteness, with surreal ranks of cacti looming above him like sentinels. It was fog-dense morning fog. His body hurt all over, and he was cold, curled up in a ball with his jacket collar around his ears. It took him a second to remember where he was and why-much longer to believe it. How long had it been? Five or six hours at least. Everything was dead quiet. Maybe it was over.
Stiffly climbing to his feet, he hobbled back in the general direction of the highway. Just to see. He was a little disoriented, but it didn"t matter if he went back the exact same way he had come, as long as he found the road. And a drink. Definitely a drink.
It was a long hike, much longer than he remembered. The terrain became very rocky. He didn"t dare consider that he might be lost. When the fog clears, I"ll see exactly where I am When the fog clears, I"ll see exactly where I am, he thought, but when the fog cleared there was nothing-just more rocks and a barren vista of brown hills. Topping each rise, he kept praying to see something hopeful, preferably a mercado mercado with a cooler full of ice-cold sodas...and was forever disappointed, falling deeper and deeper into despair until by the time he finally did sight the road he had practically given up. But there it was. with a cooler full of ice-cold sodas...and was forever disappointed, falling deeper and deeper into despair until by the time he finally did sight the road he had practically given up. But there it was.
"Oh thank G.o.d," he croaked.
It was the highway all right, however a different, more level stretch than the one he had left behind. There was no traffic-jam here, no Pemex station-the lanes were clear in both directions. Hiking down to it, he fell on the pavement with the grat.i.tude of a shipwreck survivor. But was he north or south of the pile-up? Rather than heading into trouble, he decided to stay where he was and wait for help to come to him. Which was just as well-he couldn"t move another inch. His blisters had blisters. But the thirst was getting out of control; if someone didn"t come along soon...well, someone had to come along.
He got as comfortable as possible and waited. As he sat there, a couple of large black birds landed nearby. It took him a minute to realize they must be vultures. That was interesting, sitting under the hot white sky and watching turkey vultures waddle along the opposite side of the road like fat little undertakers-it was the corniest thing ever. Real vultures! Back and forth, back and forth, exactly as if they were pacing. Which they were, of course. It was too stupid.
An hour pa.s.sed. Then two. Dozing under the makeshift cowl of his jacket, he heard the truck before he saw it. It was a big one-some kind of heavy construction vehicle. It came rumbling around the bend of a hill, and at the sight of it the American let out a hoa.r.s.e cheer: it was a huge red dump-truck bristling with armed men. His body had stiffened from sitting so long; it took a painful effort to get to his feet. By that time the truck was much closer, coming on fast. Its wheels were taller than he was, and there was a railed walkway around the high cab on which several men were standing. They were pointing at him and calling to the driver.
Tears streaking his face, the American waved his arms and shouted as best he could, "Por favor! Por favor!"
The truck slowed, its pa.s.sengers shading their eyes to see him better against the late-day sun. He could see them well enough: a harsh-faced bunch in dirty coveralls, bearing picks and shovels-a prison road crew escaped from their keepers. He didn"t care; to him they looked like angels of mercy. But at the last minute the truck swerved wide and throttled up.
Crying, "No, no!" the young man ran to intercept it, to block the road if he had to. "I"m not crazy!" he shouted. "No estoy loco!"
The truck grew bigger and bigger; the truck took over the landscape, expanding like the Big Bang until its right wheel alone was bigger than the entire world-the whole universe. A black rubber sky studded with shiny pebbles, turning over on him.
The last thing he saw was stars.
The Other Side By Jamie Lackey
Jamie Lackey"s short fiction has appeared in Atomjack Magazine Atomjack Magazine, Bards and Sages Quarterly Bards and Sages Quarterly, Drabblecast Drabblecast, and in the anthology It Was a Dark and Stormy Halloween It Was a Dark and Stormy Halloween. She is also a slush reader for Clarkesworld Magazine Clarkesworld Magazine and an a.s.sistant editor for the and an a.s.sistant editor for the Triangulation Triangulation annual anthology series. She hails from Pittsburgh, where George Romero filmed annual anthology series. She hails from Pittsburgh, where George Romero filmed Night of the Living Dead Night of the Living Dead.
For most of history, human beings have been throwing up walls. Walls seem to offer protection from a hostile world, and give us a sense of control, of keeping people where we think they ought to be. But walls definitely have a spotty history when it comes to their actual usefulness. The magnificent Great Wall of China never really did keep the barbarians out, nor did the walls of the Roman Emperor Hadrian. The Berlin Wall ultimately failed to keep Germany divided, and the strenuous efforts by the Israelis to put up walls between them and the Palestinians haven"t really proven effective.
Can we have much confidence that walls would do any better against zombies? And of course with any wall there"s the question not just of what are you keeping out, but also what are you holding in. Our next story is about fences, about boundaries, and being on the wrong side of them, and, of course, about zombies. The author says, "This story is about high school students almost twenty years after a zombie apocalypse. And unrequited love. I started thinking how the world would be different if there were zombies, but they"d been driven back decades ago. The zombies might still be a threat, biding their time, waiting to strike again, or they could have all rotted away without anyone noticing. The emotions in the story are what make it personal to me-the need to fit in, the fear, and in the end, the sorrow and regret."
No one has seen a zombie in my lifetime. The twelve-foot-high electrified chain-link fence that protects us from the dead land pa.s.ses behind my house, and I used to stare into the woods for hours on end, looking for zombies. I saw a racc.o.o.n once, peeking out through a broken window in a half-burned townhouse. It might have been undead. But it might not have been.
There used to be regular armed patrols on the dirt road inside the fence, back when I was little, but eventually the manpower was diverted to other projects. Federal troops still come around once a year in a tanker truck and burn back the vegetation in the buffer zone with napalm.
We have about fifty feet of scorched earth so that if they do come out of the woods, we can see them before they get to the fence. It keeps them from using trees to climb out, too. But like I said, no one has seen a zombie for well over a decade. Some of the kids in my school want to take the fence down and see what"s beyond it, see if there are any people up in Canada anymore. But anybody who was alive during the apocalypse is set against ever taking the fence down. Just in case Just in case, they always say. Just in case. Let them keep the dead land Just in case. Let them keep the dead land.
There was a group of guys in my high school who wanted the fence down. They were idiots, but they were cool, and I wanted desperately for them to like me. They threw Katie over the fence because they could, and because they wanted to prove that the zombies were gone.
Katie and I were best friends. Best friends outside of school, anyway. She"d always been kind of a dork, and she didn"t even drink or party anymore, not since the previous Fourth of July. Something had happened while I was away at a family picnic, and no one would tell me about it. Anyway, Katie wasn"t someone to hang out with in public, since I wanted to be cool.
I was an a.s.shole to her. But she put up with it. I didn"t figure out why till too late. She had thick gla.s.ses and curly hair and average everything else. But none of this would have happened if she hadn"t been so smart.
But she was brilliant and didn"t bother to hide it from anyone, so they picked her to hurl over the fence. They were jerks, but they weren"t murderers, so I didn"t think they"d do it till her body actually hit the ground on the other side.
They used the volunteer fire truck. They put up that ladder meant to save people and stranded kittens and tossed my best friend into the dead land. She landed in the fresh ashes, and for a second everyone was silent.
Then I started screaming at them, which pretty much killed my hopes of high school popularity. They laughed and opened some beers and settled in to see if the zombies would show up. I cried and screamed for them to get her out until they punched me, then I got my cell phone and called the police.
They left in a hurry after that.
All through it, Katie sat on the ground and stared at the fence. She didn"t look toward the woods once. She didn"t look at me either.
The police were no help. They wouldn"t get her out. She was outside the fence. She counted as infected. It didn"t matter that I"d been watching the whole time and that she didn"t have a mark on her. They couldn"t let her in. She might be a zombie.
They dragged me home and took my statement and I didn"t see the guys again who tossed Katie over. I heard that they were taken away in the night and executed.
She was still there the next day, sitting and staring.
"Katie?" I called through the fence. "Are you okay?"
She looked at me, and her eyes filled with tears. "I"m not going to get out of here, am I?"
"I"ll figure something out."
Katie just shook her head and went back to staring. Her tears made trails through the ash that had settled on her skin. I"d never touched the fence before. I knew some people who had, but I never did, till that day. I was watching Katie"s tears, and I reached out and grabbed onto the fence.
When I woke up, my head felt like it had exploded and I couldn"t move my arms.
Katie was standing on the other side of the fence, one finger reaching through the chain links. "Are you okay?"
When I woke up again, she was still there. "Thing really packs a punch," I said.
"It was made to put a zombie down long enough for a clean headshot."
At least she wasn"t crying anymore. But it was getting dark. I got up slowly, flexing my fingers to make sure they still worked. "I have to go home."
"I know," she whispered.
I touched her fingertip, staying carefully away from the fence. Her skin was cold and dry. I wanted to hug her. "I"ll get you out."
I tossed her a bottle of water and my peanut b.u.t.ter and jelly sandwich. That night, I called every government agency I could find a number for, but they all repeated the same thing. She"s outside the fence, she could be infected. No one wanted to risk another outbreak. I called the volunteer fire chief, and he said the same thing.
So did Katie"s parents.
I heard it enough times I started to half believe it. After all, I hadn"t been watching her the whole time. She could have been bitten. I wouldn"t know.
I skipped school and went straight out to see her. "Are you infected?" I asked. She looked the same as always. But sometimes, they looked the same. Sometimes, they could even still talk.
"Of course I"m not," she said.
I wanted to believe them so I could give up on her and mourn. "You"d say that if you were."
That p.i.s.sed her off. "You think I"m bitten? You think I"d be horrible enough to want out of here if I was? Do you think I want to be the cause of another outbreak?" She pulled off her shirt, then her pants, and unhooked her bra, all faster than I could think of a response. "See? No bites."
She kept her underwear on. She"d whipped off her bra, but left those on. "What about on your hips?" I said.
Her face turned red, as if she suddenly realized that she was standing in front of me almost naked. "How could a zombie bite me through my underwear and not leave any marks on them?"
"Maybe it happened when you were going to the bathroom or something," I said. I stared at her, searching for signs of the change.
"I didn"t get bit there." She sounded close to tears.
"Prove it!"
She didn"t move.
I took a step back. She was lost. Dead. No, worse worse than dead-a monster. I started to walk away. than dead-a monster. I started to walk away.
"Wait!" she shouted. "I swear, I didn"t get bitten."
"Then prove it."
"I was drunk." Her voice shook. "I didn"t know what I was doing, and I"ve been saving up to get it removed."
"What are you talking about?"
She took off her panties very slowly, then turned for my inspection.
There was no bite, but she had a tattoo that I hadn"t known about, just below the crest of her pelvis.
My name.
She was crying. Sobs this time, with painful gasping breaths between them. "I"m not infected." Her voice was different when she was crying. I"d never heard it like that before. "I"m not!"
I didn"t know what to say to her. How could I? She was in love with me, and some tattoo artist somewhere knew it-half the school probably knew it-and I hadn"t? She was my best friend.
"Is this what happened on the Fourth of July?"
She nodded and wiped her eyes, but she refused to look at me.
"You should have told me," I finally managed.
"What good would it have done?"
I couldn"t answer her. I just didn"t feel the same way about her and we both knew it. "I"m still looking for a way to get you out of there."
"I love you," she said. Her voice still sounded different.
I wanted to cry. I ran home.
The next day, she wasn"t there.
There was a dark spot in the shadows of the woods. It might have been blood. But it might not have been.
Where the Heart Was By David J. Schow
David J. Schow"s most recent novels are Gun Work Gun Work and and Internecine Internecine. He is also the author of the novels The Kill Riff The Kill Riff, The Shaft The Shaft, Bullets of Rain Bullets of Rain, and Rock Breaks Scissors Cut Rock Breaks Scissors Cut. One of the early innovators of zombie fiction, he is the author of the notorious story "Jerry"s Kids Meet Wormboy," which, along with several other zombie tales, appears in the collection Zombie Jam Zombie Jam. Schow has done a lot of work in television and film, including co-writing (with John Shirley) the screenplay for The Crow The Crow and writing teleplays for Showtime"s and writing teleplays for Showtime"s Masters of Horror Masters of Horror. Schow is also generally considered to be the originator of the term "splatterpunk."
Our lives are full of things that we wish would just go away: worries, fears, doubts. Also bills, advertis.e.m.e.nts, and enemies. And also, of course, rotting corpses. Them most of all. Alas, in the case of zombies, these things we never wanted to see again have returned, and while they may run amuck in our streets, cause our civilization to collapse, and bite and convert our neighbors and friends, at least we can be consoled by the knowledge that they can be stopped by a bullet through the brain, and that this time-dammit-they"re staying down.
It"s troubling when something you"re trying to get rid of comes back once when all the laws of reason and common sense say it can"t, but how much worse is it when that same unwanted thing keeps coming back over and over again? As children, many of us were given nightmares by a Warner Bros. cartoon in which a family goes to ever more elaborate lengths to abandon its incredibly annoying dog, only to have the dog show up at the front door again and again and again. If the cartoonists thought this sort of thing was amusing, they were wrong-it"s terrifying, a fact Stephen King well understood when he wrote his story "The Monkey," about a cursed toy that simply cannot be disposed of. Our next story combines these two ideas. It"s bad enough when a rotting corpse comes crawling home. But what if it turns into a habit?
Victor Jacks ambled through the back door to ruin their lives on Thurs-day. Which was a pain, since Victor had been p.r.o.nounced dead the pre-vious Sat.u.r.day.
"Stubborn sumb.i.t.c.h." Renny reached under the bed for the ballbat. He was on hands and knees, forced to paw around until it finally came out with dustb.a.l.l.s and hair kitties chasing it. Renny, who was allergic to animal dander, sneezed ear-poppingly. This trebled his rage.
Renny"s life was one that Victor"s back-from-the-dead encore was designed to ruin. Barb"s was the other. Just now she was backed into a corner, shrieking like an ingenue in a fifty-year-old horror film. Unlike those World War II heroines, she was naked. Renny still had his socks on. Apart from his Timex, he was garbless, but for the baseball bat. This, he refused to yield in the name of mere modesty.
Victor looked a bit s.h.a.ggy, having been deceased for the better part of the work week. His shoulder blades, b.u.t.t and legs down to the heels were blue-black with dependent lividity. His eyes were so crusty that one was welded shut. His hair was lank and wild, the most alive thing about him; his skin tone hung somewhere between catgut and bottled pig"s knuckle.
He crackled as he moved. That would be rigor.
He had obviously been walking for some time. At each of his joints the dry flesh had split into gummy wounds with chafed and elevated flaps. The distance from the morgue to Barb"s bedroom was about twelve pedestrian miles.
Provided, that is, Victor had come here directly, after sitting up on his slab and deciding to ruin their lives, Renny thought. And that p.i.s.sed him off even more.
Renny"s next explosive sneeze spoiled his aim. He wiped his nose with his forearm. Barb kept screaming, totally out of character for her, and Renny wished in a mean flash that she would either faint or die.
Enough.
At the crack point it was the batting that mattered, not the invec-tive. The bulb end of the bat smashed Victor"s dead left ear deep into the dead left hemisphere of his dead brain. Victor wobbled and missed his zombie grab for Renny. He didn"t have a chance.
Renny was foaming and lunatic, swinging and connecting, swinging and connecting, making pulp. It was what he had ached to do to Victor all along. What he had fantasized about doing to Victor just last week, when Victor was still alive. His yelling finally drowned out Barb, who was still shrunken fetally into her corner, her eyes seeking the deep retreat of trauma.
Renny"s eyes were pink with rage. Flecks of froth dotted the corners of his mouth. He kept bashing away with the bat, pausing only to sneeze and wipe. Victor put up as good a fight as a dead person could, which is to say, not much.