Toshiro hurried to the rescue. He stood over them, following the mouja"s head with the tip of his blade. The thing was a young man, no older than nineteen. Toshiro pushed his blade straight through the young man"s ear...but it wasn"t really a young man anymore. It was a dead thing.
Seiji sat up, clutching his b.l.o.o.d.y hands. The creature had bitten off the third and fourth fingers of his left hand. He glanced at Takashi expectantly. Toshiro backed away, waiting for Takashi to make a move.
Takashi had always viewed Seiji with a certain invincibility, and seeing him in that state, unable to shoot, barely able to wield a katana, it set Takashi"s heart on the edge of a blade.
Seiji howled. His body snapped rigid and flailed about on the floor. His muscles hardened, his skin turned to the color of the ocean depths, and his eyes clouded like dirty cubes of ice. He emitted one last sound, a sound like steel against a rough stone. Beneath the grating noise, Takashi discerned a single word-kaishakunin.
Seiji retained none of his masterful dexterity in the afterlife. His stiff legs fought to propel him forward, limping and forcing every jerky step. His arms dangled. His fingers could not flex. His sword forgotten, Seiji"s mouth and shredded fingers dripped dark blood as they reached for Takashi.
Was Seiji"s final word a request? Kaishakunin. When a samurai committed seppuku, the kaishakunin served as the princ.i.p.al"s second; once the samurai had disemboweled himself, the kaishakunin decapitated the princ.i.p.al to alleviate the immense pain. It was a difficult job, physically and emotionally. Was this what Seiji asked of Takashi? It sickened him to think of destroying a great warrior such as this. To kill a friend.
Seiji lunged at Takashi with a growl. Takashi"s blade flashed.
For all of Seiji"s proficiencies, his neck was no thicker than any other man"s. His head rolled into a dark corner of the room.
The silence that followed unnerved the remaining samurai. Takashi opened the door and inspected the area surrounding the lodge. There were bodies all around, but the rest of the mouja appeared to have vanished.
Toshiro wrapped the muskets in the belt and blanket the way he had found them and strapped the parcel over his shoulder. "They may still be useful," Toshiro said as he joined Takashi outside the lodge, "from a distance."
Takashi was too stunned to lead the way, so Toshiro guided him back to the village. The forest was dark. Without a torch, Takashi had no idea where they were going. He was amazed that Toshiro was able to find the right direction, weaving between trees, dodging exposed roots, and not once did they come across what they both feared-more of the mouja. Takashi"s thoughts were of Seiji, the elegant work of art that he had been forced to destroy. No. That he had chosen to destroy. There must have been a way Takashi could have saved Seiji, or at least preserved him in his undead state long enough to find a cure for this illness. The wound was superficial. With skill such as his, a few short digits would not have slowed Seiji for long.
A pain twisted in Takashi"s stomach again, a dull rotting pain, tying his guts into knots. It was tragic, really, what happened to Seiji. "Is there no honor left in this world?" Takashi shouted over the noise. There was a grumbling roar in the distance, growing louder. "A man such as Seiji deserved better. I should not have cut him down, Toshiro. I have dishonored myself. I must face consequences for that."
But no, Takashi thought. Seppuku was not the way. He had a mission. He had sworn an oath. It was his duty to protect these helpless farmers.
Toshiro was not listening. They had reached the ridge overlooking the town. Down in the pit, the town served one final purpose. It would act as a signal fire to warn neighboring villages that the swarm was on its way. The houses were all aflame, the air was polluted with acrid black smoke, and countless mouja prowled the streets. Takashi couldn"t see any people. They must have been in the streets, among the mouja, driven only to feed on their families. Isao and Daisuke were nowhere to be found.
Looking down at the village, Takashi"s heart sank. He fell to his knees and drew his tant. Slowly and carefully, Takashi untied the sash of his kimono and pulled it open. He tucked the sleeves beneath his knees. He wanted to be sure to fall forward. "I swore to protect these people, Toshiro, and I have failed. This is my fault."
"This is no one"s fault," Toshiro said.
"It was my decision to leave the village, and this is the result. Toshiro, you will have to be my kaishakunin. Once I make the cut, be very quick and careful. I do not want to return as one of those things. When I am gone, hurry to the next village. You are fast in the dark. Perhaps you can warn them before those creatures arrive."
Toshiro sneered. He grabbed Takashi by the collar. "No. I will not allow you to do this. Better we go down fighting with steel in our hands. Besides, two samurai with katanas are more powerful than the tallest tsunami. We will take many of them with us. We may even find survivors.
Takashi"s eyes met Toshiro"s intense gaze. Where Seiji had skill, Toshiro had spirit. Takashi held out his hand; Toshiro grasped his arm and pulled him to his feet. They drew their swords, walking with deliberate steps down the ridge. Their eyes glowed with fire. They navigated around the fallen bodies, cutting down mouja whenever one came near. Takashi whispered, "These poor farmers. They never stood a chance."
Toshiro spat. "It is their lot to suffer."
At the center of town, a crowd of mouja had congregated. Their shadows danced on the sandy ground like demons in the firelight. One thousand cloudy eyes found the samurai at once. The mouja charged. Takashi and Toshiro swung hard.
Blood and fire glinted on their blades.
Category Five By Marc Paoletti
Marc Paoletti is the coauthor (with Patricia Rosemoor) of the novels The Last Vampire The Last Vampire and and The Vampire Agent The Vampire Agent. He is also the author of Scorch Scorch, a thriller that draws upon his experiences as a Hollywood pyrotechnician. His short fiction has appeared in anthologies such as Young Blood Young Blood, Book of Voices Book of Voices, Horror Library Vol. 2 Horror Library Vol. 2, The Best Underground Fiction The Best Underground Fiction, The Blackest Death Vol. 2 The Blackest Death Vol. 2, Cold Flesh Cold Flesh, and Thou Shalt Not Thou Shalt Not. Earlier this year, he had a story published in First Thrills First Thrills, edited by Lee Child.
Hurricane Katrina in 2005 was the worst natural disaster in U.S. history. Almost 2,000 people died, both in the storm itself and in the severe flooding that followed. And bad as the storm was, the real horror was the human element-the engineers" failure to maintain the levees, the incompetence of the federal response, and the disorder that ensued. People attempting to flee the storm-ravaged city of New Orleans were turned back at gunpoint by locals who feared looters. FEMA director Michael Brown, a political appointee whose most relevant prior experience had been managing horse shows, became a laughingstock after the president absurdly praised him for doing a "heck of a job."
Most of us never imagined we"d see corpses lying unattended on the streets of an American city. The author of our next story writes, "I watched Hurricane Katrina decimate New Orleans live on CNN. Talk about horror. I was shocked by the devastation, and appalled that the most disadvantaged people were bearing the brunt of the disaster. I finished the first draft of this story in one sitting. Funny what happens when you"re fueled by outrage. Also my childhood home in Sacramento was almost flooded a few years back. I was in Los Angeles at the time. Believe me, it"s grim to get a call from your folks in the middle of the night and hear the fear in their voices as they tell you the levee-which is less than a mile away from them-is about to break."
Remy listened to the wind beat the walls, listened to the rain whip the windows. Since the power was out and it was after sundown, he"d lit candles in the bedroom and rest of the house. He might have considered the thrashing beat a hip tempo if not for what he"d heard over the battery-powered radio crackling on the dresser.
Category five.
This hurricane was supposed to be the worst in a generation, like nothing they"d seen, yet the mayor had done little to get folks like him and Marta out. They were late seventies. Too poor to afford a car. Too old to venture far on their own. They were black. They didn"t matter.
Their home was ramshackle, single story, built long ago in a crumbling ward that sat below sea level and lacked the comfort of close neighbors. On the radio, he"d heard that the 17th Street Ca.n.a.l levee was under a.s.sault by storm surge from Lake Pontchartrain. If the levee failed, the ward didn"t stand a chance. Their home didn"t stand a chance.
He sat next to Marta who lay under thick covers, eyes closed, breathing fitfully. He placed a wrinkled palm on the wrinkled forehead of his love, her sweaty skin the color of coffee and sooty with age, but still beautiful to him after fifty years of marriage.
Remy touched her as he listened to the radio"s thick crackles, to the broken bits of news, to the random chatter. Other wards had been flooded, he"d made out that much. The water had carried away cars and trucks, had swept houses from their foundations, and had caved in crypts and mortuaries freeing the bodies within.
That"s where things got strange.
He thought he"d heard reports that said disinterred bodies were coming back to life. Witnesses on the radio had sworn it was true. Supposedly, dead bodies had writhed and flailed as floodwaters swept them along and when they"d washed against higher ground, they"d clambered to their feet and walked. Walked Walked. He shook his head. Here people were spinning foolish tales about the walking dead when Marta couldn"t walk at all.
"We"ll get through this, you "n" me," Remy whispered, taking his wife"s hand. "Like we got through so much else."
She moaned softly. Marta had been sick for a long, long time. So long, in fact, that he"d nearly forgotten what their life had been like before the disease. Ovarian cancer. It didn"t make sense to him since she was far past childbearing age-not that they"d had children-but her ovaries had become polluted just the same, and the cancer had spread to her stomach and then her spine.
"We"ll get through this, hon," he repeated, but didn"t know how to make good on the promise if the levee broke. How could he when most of the city had run off? When the police and fire fighters had run off as well?
Lightning flashed, casting the room bright white, and then thunder growled as fiercely as the apocalypse.
Taking the radio, Remy shuffled down a dark hallway into a kitchen lit by candles. He fetched more matches from a cupboard, and then counted cans. They had enough food for a week, which would have been fine if the morphine he"d dripped so carefully onto Marta"s tongue with a baby"s eyedropper hadn"t run out that very morning. He couldn"t call the hospital for more, either, because the landline was dead and he"d never been able to afford a cell phone. Of course that was a.s.suming the hospital staff hadn"t left town, which they probably had.
Without morphine, Marta had nowhere to hide from the pain; already it was becoming too much for her. One moment she"d be lying there peacefully, and the next she"d be mewling and balling her fists and crushing her eyes closed with such force that he"d feel her agony like it was his own.
Mewling... that was the only sound she could make now.
Remy looked into the living room at his trumpet, which hung on the wall in a gla.s.s case above the fireplace. He"d put it away over a year ago when Marta got so sick she couldn"t sing along with him any more.
At times he"d fooled himself into believing that folks had come to the Bourbon Street clubs they booked to hear his sharp-noted riffs, but deep down, he"d always known they"d come for her. Achingly hourgla.s.s in form-fitting blue, Marta would take the stage as quietly as an afterthought, press her full lips to the mic, and then float her voice sweetly, robustly, through a room"s smoky air in time with his trumpet"s plaintive moan. Jazz, blues, gospel, rock-she could sing them all. Transform Transform them all. Her soulful, smooth-rasping lullabies never failed to transfix, to shake free what was hidden, to soothe like promises of hope the damaged spirits of those who listened. None more than his. None more. them all. Her soulful, smooth-rasping lullabies never failed to transfix, to shake free what was hidden, to soothe like promises of hope the damaged spirits of those who listened. None more than his. None more.
No more.
Marta"s voice had been siphoned by the cancer. What he would do to give Marta her voice back. To stop her constant suffering.
The radio crackled. Remy placed it on the kitchen counter and fussed with the dial.
"...broken..." he heard the broadcaster say. "...17th Street Ca.n.a.l levee...mercy on our souls..."
Remy went cold with fear. So it had happened. He had to get Marta outside and up onto the roof, but how could he when he lacked the strength to move her fast enough to beat the coming floodwater?
Suddenly, an idea occurred to him. He dashed to the utility closet, whipped out his raingear: an opaque-plastic poncho to cover his tweed jacket, shabby white shirt, and gray slacks, and galoshes to cover his cracked Oxfords. And then, as he grabbed a shovel, he heard it.
A deep and distant roar that swelled like the charging thrum of a thousand battle tanks-a sound he"d last heard as a young man in the killing fields of Korea-until it shook the floor, the walls, the house. The gla.s.s case surrounding his trumpet shuddered then cracked down the middle as plaster dust fell in streaks from the ceiling. The roar-nature"s own terrible riff-grew so thick that he thought he might feel it slide against his fingers, and then came a cracking, trembling boom boom followed by a mad-static hiss. followed by a mad-static hiss.
The house groaned and held. But for how long?
Lightning flashed, giving him a glimpse of the flood through the living room window. A dark wave tumbled past, followed by another and another. Grimy water flowed underneath the front door, soaking fast across the carpet, as the flood level surged against the sill.
And then he saw something else.
At first he thought it was debris held in place by opposing currents, but then he realized it was the naked corpse of a man-one washed from a cemetery and long dead, judging by the decay. The flesh was shriveled and fish-belly white, the eyes were worm-eaten, and the jaw, a skinless mandible, opened and closed like the corpse was trying to describe the destruction it had witnessed. Open and closed. Open and closed. The jaw opened and closed so much it made him think for a moment that stories of the dead coming back to life might be true.
Remy chided himself for entertaining the silly idea when the corpse lashed out and grabbed the window frame. He could only stare in disbelief as the thing pulled itself toward him through the roaring deluge, and then slammed its rotted face into the gla.s.s. The window shattered and let in a thick rush of black, foul-smelling floodwater.
Remy threw up his arms to protect his face from the gla.s.s as the thing clutched both sides of the window frame and stepped a twisted, rotted foot onto the flooding carpet.
He continued to stare in shock, not wanting to believe what he saw but unable to deny the truth before him. Alive! Alive! The radio was right! Alive! Alive! The radio was right!
When the thing brought its other leg through the window and then reached for him, Remy snapped out of his fugue and swung the shovel. The flat of the blade struck the thing"s chest with a wet-sack slap, pushing it back. But then it kept coming, growl bubbling in its throat, like it hadn"t felt any pain at all.
He swung again, striking the thing"s face this time, and the rotted skull imploded in a gush of pink. The headless body took a final step before it collapsed splashing into the water, which was high enough now to soak Remy"s pants above the galoshes.
Still clutching the shovel, Remy bolted from the flooding living room. It wouldn"t be long before the water flowed down the hall and reached the bedroom.
That thing was alive!
Mind still reeling, he slammed the bedroom door closed and then wedged clothes underneath it. That would hold back the floodwater for only a minute or two, but it was something, at least.
Holding the shovel under one arm, he dragged the dresser to the middle of the floor then clambered on top of it and stood as straight as he could without hitting the low ceiling.
"I"ll be right back, hon," Remy said, trying to keep the panic from his voice. "Just wait there as best you can." Marta mewled, gripped the blankets. The morphine was wearing off, and he felt her growing agony in his chest, in his heart.
Age had taken a toll on him, but he knew it had taken more of a toll on the cracked, off-grade ceiling. He jabbed the shovel up again and again, shattering thin plaster, rending pink insulation, splintering worm-eaten beams. Finally, he broke through brittle shingles and saw the night sky. Raindrops pelted his face as he wormed up through the ragged hole and then stood on the roof near a small brick chimney, wind whipping his poncho.
By light of the moon, he saw that the water had taken the entire neighborhood, uprooting trees, rolling cars, flooding houses, creating a trash-strewn sea in every direction. He and Marta could expect to be stranded for a long time. Too long. And then he noticed flailing silhouettes flowing among the houses when lightning revealed what the moon hadn"t-dozens of animated dead, like the one that had broken through his window, caught in the rushing floodwater. Rotted bodies, broken bodies, bodies with limbs missing, bodies stripped of flesh. Some floated and thrashed while others strode through the chest-deep water, straining to escape the vicious current. Over the din of rushing water came a flat, plaintive sound. Moaning, he realized. A wailing chorus from the dead that rose up with a life of its own.
Remy closed his eyes and considered his only choice.
G.o.d willing, he"d have the strength to hoist Marta through the hole and onto the roof, and then he"d do his best to cover her with his poncho to keep her dry and hide her from the dead things that surrounded them. But they"d still be stranded. And Marta would still be without her morphine.
Below, Marta cried out in agony. Desperation shot through him. What else could he do?
He scrambled around the roof, looking for a safe way off, but the water was everywhere, rushing past in black, white-capped fury. He scanned the surface for debris, for a bobbing chunk big enough to use as a raft, but again there was only black water. Black water and the thrashing, floating bodies of the animated dead.
Marta cried out again, voice tinged with such pain, such agony, that Remy moaned in frustration and blind emptiness as rage blossomed along with his fear. He beat the chimney until his knuckles were b.l.o.o.d.y, crying out himself, his own anguish mingling with Marta"s cries and the moans rising up from the dark water around him.
And then he felt a sudden calm come over him. There was another way out of this. Another way. For a moment he felt a flicker of doubt, but another cry from Marta decided the issue.
The animated dead moved with ease and felt no pain. That much had been clear from the thing in his living room. As unbelievable as it seemed, he could not doubt what he had witnessed or question the opportunity that had been placed before him.
He wondered about Marta"s voice as he lowered himself back through the hole in the roof and onto the dresser. Would it return when her pain disappeared? He listened to the moans coming through the wall as clear as a back-up chorus. Maybe the dead could do more than moan. Was that so hard to believe in the face of all this? Maybe the dead outside chose chose to moan their woe, to moan their woe, chose chose to moan in eulogy for the living who no longer grieved for them. to moan in eulogy for the living who no longer grieved for them.
But such would not be the case with Marta and him. They would choose to do otherwise. They had each other. They"d always have each other.
Remy clambered down from the dresser, rushed to Marta"s side, and leaned over to kiss her forehead. She opened her pain-stricken eyes.
"Do you trust me?" he whispered.
She blinked her eyes once slowly in reply. Always. Always.
Nodding, he turned and opened the bedroom door.
The floodwater rushed in to soak the tops of his galoshes, then chilled his calves, then his knees. The cold water kept rising as he sloshed back to the bed, sat by Marta"s side, and stroked her forehead.
It had to be something in the water that brought the dead back. It had to be.
"Close your eyes, hon," he said.
But she didn"t close her eyes. He knew she could sense his doubt. His fear. In fifty years, he could never keep a secret from her.
She might have known what was about to happen, too, because she reached out, gently pulled his face to hers, pressed her lips to his ear. And began to sing. For the first time in so, so long.
Her raspy, pain-etched voice sc.r.a.ped only the bottom of the notes she used to reach, but it soothed his spirit just the same, long enough and completely enough until the floodwater delivered them into their new beginning.
Living With The Dead By Molly Brown
British Science Fiction Award-winner Molly Brown is the author of the novels Invitation to a Funeral Invitation to a Funeral and and Virus Virus. Her short fiction has appeared many times in Interzone Interzone, and in the Mammoth Book Mammoth Book anthologies: anthologies: Jules Verne Adventures Jules Verne Adventures, New Comic Fantasy New Comic Fantasy, and Future Cops Future Cops. Other anthology appearances include Steampunk Steampunk, Time Machines Time Machines, Celebration Celebration, Villains! Villains! and and The Year"s Best Fantasy and Horror The Year"s Best Fantasy and Horror. Many of these stories have been gathered in her collection Bad Timing and Other Stories Bad Timing and Other Stories. In addition to writing prose fiction, Brown has written and appeared in a several short zombie films, and some of her stories have been optioned for film and/or television.
One of the challenges of a.s.sembling an anthology of zombie fiction is deciding exactly what const.i.tutes a "zombie" story. The term originated in the Caribbean and originally referred to recently deceased individuals who had been brought back to life through magic to serve as slave workers. After the word zombie was used in connection with the marketing of George Romero"s 1978 film Dawn of the Dead Dawn of the Dead, the term has mostly been a.s.sociated with ma.s.ses of mindless, hungry undead who kill and convert the living. In recent years, the film 28 Days Later 28 Days Later and the video game and the video game Left 4 Dead Left 4 Dead have depicted zombies as belligerent infected who aren"t actually undead. However, they are otherwise so similar to Romero zombies that everyone calls them that, and they can really be cla.s.sified no other way. have depicted zombies as belligerent infected who aren"t actually undead. However, they are otherwise so similar to Romero zombies that everyone calls them that, and they can really be cla.s.sified no other way.
But where do you draw the line? In this anthology series we"ve chosen to take an inclusive view and expose readers to the broadest possible spectrum of zombie fiction. Which brings us to our next story. One thing that"s been interesting to watch is how the term "zombie" has fallen into colloquial usage-i.e., we often refer to people as zombies when they"re performing mindless tasks, or planted in front of the television, or in a state of emotional detachment, even if they"re not trying to kill anyone. On this view, the defining feature of zombies is that they"re animate but not present. Our next story is a quiet tale of suburban life that explores this side of zombiehood.
I went to the park today, and for the first time in five years, Alice looked at me as if she knew me. went to the park today, and for the first time in five years, Alice looked at me as if she knew me.
Alice used to be my best friend. We were in the same cla.s.s at school. We used to do each other"s hair and borrow each other"s clothes until one night when we were both sixteen, and everything changed.
The details don"t matter now. All you need to know is we were at a party in a bas.e.m.e.nt, and we both snorted something that we thought was cocaine, but it wasn"t.