It"s three miles to the town"s west gate but there"s a deep culvert where the outflow from the city"s water treatment plant flows through a grate under the wall on its way to the river. If we went far enough away from the wall it became more shallow, but that was in the woods.
"Sensei?" Lou asked.
Sensei and I caught up to Richard and Lou, and looked down. It was steep, fifteen feet down, then back up the same on the other side. Also, there was a trio of zombies crouched in the shallow stream.
"Follow," Sensei said, and dropped over the edge with his sword drawn.
The zombie Sensei landed on didn"t stand a chance. Neither did the one he cut as he dropped, but Sensei fell backwards into the stream, after landing, and the other zombie leaped at him.
Richard jumped. He missed with his feet but he fell over and knocked the zombie sideways, away from Sensei. He swore sharply. Sensei got up and cut the zombie down.
I looked behind. The crowd was fifty yards behind and coming steadily, some of them almost jogging if you could call a quick, step-drag, a jog.
"Go," I told Lou. "Carefully, though. I think Richard"s broken his foot."
She slid down the steep side in a shower of rocks and dirt, pulled Richard to his feet, and began climbing up the other side, supporting Richard. I waited until Sensei had joined them, supporting Richard from the other side, then slid down myself.
I wanted to reach the far side before them. If anything came out of the woods, they"d be handicapped as they came over the edge. I ran ten feet down the gully and scrambled up to where I could grab a root sticking out of the bank. With it, I reached the top in time to see two zombies come out of the woods. Very old zombies, probably early infected. They hardly looked human. All their clothes had rotted off and with it lots of skin. I couldn"t even tell what s.e.x they"d been, but thank goodness they were slow ones. I had time to pull Richard over the lip before they were even close.
The one in front reached out its left arm and I just cut it off above the elbow. It staggered in the other direction, suddenly heavier on its right side. It would probably have recovered its balance in another step but the gully was right there and it went over the edge. I split the other one down through the sinuses and turned back before it fell. On the other side of the gully the first of our pursuers had jumped down into the gully and was starting to claw its way up our side.
Sensei tilted his neck side to side, stretching. His voice was calm and low. "Lou, check his leg. If it"s a sprain, bind it. Rosa, you"re with me, on the edge."
It was a good place to make a stand. They were clumsy and, even unopposed, it took them several tries to get up the bank to the rim. Mostly we just split their heads open, letting them dislodge others as they fell.
The problem was they were still coming. I didn"t really see an end to them, and some of them were being driven down the gully into the woods where I knew they"d be able to climb out easily.
We"d put twenty or so down for good when Lou said, "Bad sprain, I think. I duct taped it."
"Then we should go," said Sensei. "Start off. We"ll follow."
We killed fifteen more.
Richard was moving okay, limping heavily, but he and Lou were working well as a team with Lou taking the legs and Richard finishing them. We went through a field of sugar beets, moving down the rows parallel to the wall.
"Go for the gate," someone said, loudly.
I looked up. One of the guards-not Danny-was watching us from the wall but he kept his gun slung, thankfully.
"I"ll be waiting!" He headed down the parapet at a slow jog, light-footed. He"d still get there well ahead of us.
The next field was hay, cut short and harvested recently, for it felt like a stubbly lawn. Without Richard"s sprain, we could"ve sprinted across it, but at least we could see everything come at us.
I was expecting to see more ahead of us, for the wall and the gates draw them, but instead I started seeing bodies. Bodies in pieces.
"Sensei, Diego"s been here."
There were sharp cuts, heads, arms, legs. Not a few were cleaved entirely through the chest from the shoulder down through the ribs.
He nodded and frowned. One of the bodies had not been infected for it had also been eaten. The infected don"t eat other infected, not after the first day or two. Something about the taste. But this body had been sliced first, several times. Including the neck.
"Sensei?"
He frowned. "I don"t know. Maybe the zombies had already killed or mortally wounded him, er, her, and Diego put her out of her misery."
I was looking at the blood spray. "Definitely alive during the first cut."
We pushed through to the apple orchard beyond the hay. The field hands had done a good job of keeping the underbrush down, but the trees were unpruned and many of the branches dipped down close to the ground, heavy with unripe fruit, obscuring the sight lines.
The crowd of zombies on our tail hadn"t entered the hayfield and it was clear that they were beginning to tail off as the ones in the rear got distracted and wandered away.
We moved carefully into the orchard, looking in all directions. The orchard predated the wall and the rows ran at an angle, making it hard to see too far ahead. We rounded one low-branched tree and saw him, two rows over.
Diego was sitting on a pile of bodies, his arms resting on his thighs, his head hanging. The sun was behind him, casting his figure in silhouette, but he was instantly recognizable by his size, posture, and especially his hair, which he wore in a top knot, like the samurai chonmage chonmage style. style.
Lou"s hand went to her mouth and froze but Richard saw him and cried out, "Diego!"
He turned then, and the light fell across his front.
In one hand he held his sword, in the other he held an arm. Someone else"s arm. His chin was covered with blood as was his shirt front.
"Oh, no." Lou fell to her knees. One hand went to her stomach and the other covered her mouth.
"Rosa, take them around." Sensei gestured at the side of the orchard closest to the wall. "Keep them moving to the gate." He didn"t look at us as he said this. Instead, he walked forward, his hands resting on the scabbard and handle of his sword.
"Sensei, shouldn"t we take him together? He"s still holding his sword! He"s still holding his sword!"
As I said, the recently infected retained their physical skills and Diego had been studying with Sensei for twenty-five years. His physical skills were considerable.
"Could you cut him, Rosa? I"m not sure I can, but I must. Get Lou and Richard to the gate. My will is in the Kamiza Kamiza at the dojo. I haven"t changed it but you are listed as my preferred successor, after Diego." He finally looked around at me. The corners of his mouth were drawn down hard, but they twitched up briefly in an almost smile, and then he winked at me. at the dojo. I haven"t changed it but you are listed as my preferred successor, after Diego." He finally looked around at me. The corners of his mouth were drawn down hard, but they twitched up briefly in an almost smile, and then he winked at me.
He stepped out briskly toward Diego.
d.a.m.n him!
I grabbed Lou by the arm and said, "Help me with Richard. We"ve got to run for it."
She was sobbing, but she staggered to her feet and grabbed Richard"s other arm. We began running toward the wall.
Diego ignored Sensei and ran toward the wall, too, blocking our path. He raised his arms to hold the sword jodan jodan, over his head, but realized he still held the arm in his hand. He shoved it down into his shirt where it hung, the fingers just sticking above his collar, then took the sword up high.
"MA-TE!" screamed Sensei, and Diego jerked back slightly and looked confused. Sensei had used that command thousands of times during Diego"s training. It meant stop or wait. Diego turned back toward Sensei who still hadn"t drawn his sword.
"See," said Richard, reaching out. "He"s still in there! Diego, it"s okay!"
Diego turned and slashed at Richard"s extended arm. I pulled Richard back. The sword cut through Richard"s shirt sleeve.
Sensei drew then, and Diego turned and slashed, kesa kesa, at Sensei"s neck.
Sensei blocked, absorbing the strike and drawing his elbows into his body, then slid his sword down Diego"s blade, going for the thumb. Diego drew back to cut kesa kesa on the other side. on the other side.
Sensei drove forward, letting Diego"s strike pa.s.s behind him and then turning away from Diego while very close, and bringing his blade around to cut Diego"s exposed side.
The arm, Diego"s snack, stuck down his shirtfront took the brunt of the cut, and, though Sensei sliced all the way through it, his sword only cut an inch or so into Diego"s abdomen.
Diego turned like a snake and cut at Sensei"s back but Sensei had kept going, putting him just out of range. Sensei pivoted and sliced up vertically, the move from the Suburi Happo Suburi Happo, designed to cut from groin to chin, and Diego jerked backwards to avoid it.
I tried to get Richard and Lou moving again, and Diego saw or sensed the movement. He leaped back into our path, blocking the way.
"No, Diego!" Richard yelled.
Again, Diego hesitated, looked confused.
Sensei closed in again, and Diego faced him, moving away from us without unblocking our path. Diego struck, lightning fast, shomen shomen, and Sensei slid off the line, guiding the sword away, to cut back shomen shomen. Diego moved sideways, without blocking, and struck again, so fast, that Sensei barely had time to get his head out of the way. The sword bit hard into Sensei"s shoulder but Sensei"s rising block kept it from cutting all the way through the bone.
Sensei fell and Diego raised his sword again, to finish Sensei, but I drew and thrust quickly into Diego"s back.
It didn"t kill or disable but it got his attention.
He turned and cut viciously, kesa kesa, but I"d stepped back. As his sword went by I tried to cut his wrist, but I hesitated and nicked his forearm instead. He came back horizontal and Lou"s sword blocked it. At the same time, tears streaming down his face, Richard thrust into Diego"s stomach.
Diego stepped back and put his hand to the wound, then held it, looking at the blood. He sniffed it and his nose wrinkled. He gripped the sword again, both hands, and I dropped to my knees and said loudly, "Da-TO!" "Da-TO!" When we bow out of cla.s.s, the first thing we do is take our sword out of our When we bow out of cla.s.s, the first thing we do is take our sword out of our obi obi and put it down on the floor before us. I set my bare sword down, not in its scabbard, like we"d normally do, but in the same position, edge toward me, handle to the right. and put it down on the floor before us. I set my bare sword down, not in its scabbard, like we"d normally do, but in the same position, edge toward me, handle to the right.
Diego almost did it, starting to lower the sword and bend his knees in reflex, but then he stopped and raised it again.
Lou lowered her sword and said, "Diego, love, come to me."
Diego froze, his mouth opening and his face softening, and I s.n.a.t.c.hed up my sword and, left hand flat on the mune mune, thrust it up through Diego"s jaw and all the way into his brain.
Diego fell to the side, his sword still gripped solidly in his hands.
Lou dropped back to her knees and threw up. Again.
We made Richard limp by himself as we carried Sensei to the gate. We kept him from bleeding to death but it was a close thing. Richard brought back his brother"s sword, and we"re saving it. Boy or girl, his child deserves something of her father"s.
All that throwing up wasn"t just something Lou had eaten.
"Sensei would never have allowed you to come along if he"d known you were pregnant."
Lou nodded and kept crying.
Danny, the southern guard, was discharged from his post and set to garbage detail. He wasn"t at the gate because he was pilfering in the kitchen gardens. Had a nice business in black market tomatoes.
Sensei"s shoulder was never the same. He still lives at the dojo and he makes comments from the side of the mat, but mostly he leaves it to me, and he never went out of the gates again.
But I did.
The Days of Flaming Motorcycles By Catherynne M. Valente
Catherynne M. Valente is the critically acclaimed author of The Orphan"s Tales The Orphan"s Tales series, which has won the Tiptree Award, the Mythopoeic Award, and was a finalist for the World Fantasy Award. Her novel, series, which has won the Tiptree Award, the Mythopoeic Award, and was a finalist for the World Fantasy Award. Her novel, Palimpsest Palimpsest-which she describes as "a baroque meeting of science fiction and fantasy"-is a finalist for the 2010 Hugo Awards. Her young adult novel, The Girl Who Circ.u.mnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making, The Girl Who Circ.u.mnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making, which was originally self-published online and is forthcoming in print from Feiwel and Friends which was originally self-published online and is forthcoming in print from Feiwel and Friends, recently won the Andre Norton Award. A new series, beginning in November with recently won the Andre Norton Award. A new series, beginning in November with The Habitation of the Blessed The Habitation of the Blessed, retells the legend of Prester John. Her short fiction has appeared in the magazines Clarkesworld Clarkesworld, Electric Velocipede Electric Velocipede, and Lightspeed Lightspeed, and in the anthology Dark Faith Dark Faith, where this story first appeared.
The inspiration for this story came when Valente visited Augusta, Maine, for the first time. "Augusta, despite being the state capitol, is an extremely economically depressed region, and the dilapidation of the downtown area and the general atmosphere of silence and a city long past its prime truly struck me," she says. "It looked like the zombies had taken over in 1974 and people just said: "Well, we have to go to work tomorrow." The idea of that quiet apocalypse took hold of my heart; an apocalypse you just have to live through and find a way to co-exist with was fascinating. I finally felt like I had something new to say about zombies."
Zombies may be caused by any number of factors-a supernatural event, a man-made virus, or radiation from a pa.s.sing comet-but one thing is nearly universal: you have to kill them to survive, and killing them is completely justified because it"s self-defense and you have no choice. But what if zombies didn"t have to be killed? What if they shouldn"t shouldn"t be? What if you could live side-by-side with them and make a new kind of life for yourself among them, even as the world around you has fallen to pieces? be? What if you could live side-by-side with them and make a new kind of life for yourself among them, even as the world around you has fallen to pieces?
To tell you the truth, my father wasn"t really that much different after he became a zombie.
My mother just wandered off. I think she always wanted to do that, anyway. Just set off walking down the road and never look back. Just like my father always wanted to stop washing his hair and hunker down in the bas.e.m.e.nt and snarl at everyone he met. He chased me and hollered and hit me before. Once, when I stayed out with some boy whose name I can"t even remember, he even bit me. He slapped me and for once I slapped him back, and we did this standing-wrestling thing, trying to hold each other back. Finally, in frustration, he bit me, hard, on the side of my hand. I didn"t know what to do-we just stared at each other, breathing heavily, knowing something really absurd or horrible had just happened, and if we laughed it could be absurd and if we didn"t we"d never get over it. I laughed. But I knew the look in his eye that meant he was coming for me, that glowering, black look, and now it"s the only look he"s got.
It"s been a year now, and that"s about all I can tell you about the apocalypse. There was no flash of gold in the sky, no chasms opened up in the earth, no pale riders with silver scythes. People just started acting the way they"d always wanted to but hadn"t because they were more afraid of the police or their boss or losing out on the prime mating opportunities offered by the greater Augusta area. Everyone stopped being afraid. Of anything. And sometimes that means eating each other.
But sometimes it doesn"t. They don"t always do that, you know. Sometimes they just stand there and watch you, shoulders slumped, blood dripping off their noses, their eyes all unfocused. And then they howl. But not like a wolf. Like something broken and small. Like they"re sad.
Now, zombies aren"t supposed to get sad. Everyone knows that. I"ve had a lot of time to think since working down at the Java Shack on Front Street became seriously pointless. I still go to the shop in the morning, though. If you don"t have habits, you don"t have anything. I turn over the sign, I boot up the register-I even made the m.u.f.fins for a while, until the flour ran out. Carrot-macadamia on Mondays, mascarpone-mango on Tuesdays, blueberry with a dusting of marzipan on Wednesdays. So on. So forth. Used to be I"d have a line of senators out the door by 8:00 a.m. I brought the last of the m.u.f.fins home to my dad. He turned one over and over in his b.l.o.o.d.y, swollen hands until it came apart, then he made that awful howling-crying sound and licked the crumbs off his fingers. And he starting saying my name over and over, only muddled, because his tongue had gone all puffy and purple in his mouth. Caitlin, Caitlin, Caitlin.
So now I drink the pot of coffee by myself and I write down everything I can think of in a kid"s notebook with a flaming motorcycle on the cover. I have a bunch like it. I cleaned out all the stores. In a few months I"ll move on to the punky princess covers, and then the Looney Tunes ones. I mark time that way. I don"t even think of seasons. These are the days of Flaming Motorcycles. Those were the days of Football Ogres. So on. So forth.
They don"t bother me, mostly. And okay, the pot of coffee is just hot water now. No arabica for months. But at least the power"s still on. But what I was saying is that I"ve had a lot of time to think, about them, about me, about the virus-because of course it must have been a virus, right? Which isn"t really any better than saying fairies or angels did it. Didn"t monks used to argue about how many angels could fit on the head of a pin? I seem to think I remember that, in some book, somewhere. So angels are tiny, like viruses. Invisible, too, or you wouldn"t have to argue about it, you"d just count the b.a.s.t.a.r.ds up. So they said virus, I said it doesn"t matter, my dad just bit his own finger off. And he howls like he"s so sad he wants to die, but being sad means you have a soul and they don"t; they"re worse than animals. It"s a kindness to put them down. That"s what the manuals say. Back when there were new manuals every week. Sometimes I think the only way you can tell if something has a soul is if they can still be sad. Sometimes it"s the only way I know I have one.
Sometimes I don"t think I do.
I"m not the last person on Earth. Not by a long way. I get radio reports on the regular news from Portland, Boston-just a month ago New York was broadcasting loud and clear, loading zombies into the same hangars they kept protesters in back in "04. They gas them and dump them at sea. Brooklyn is still a problem, but Manhattan is coming around. Channel 3 is still going strong, but it"s all emergency directives. I don"t watch it. I mean, how many times can you sit through The Warning Signs or What We Know? Plus, I have reason to believe they don"t know s.h.i.t.
I might be the last person in Augusta, though. That wouldn"t be hard. Did you ever see Augusta before the angel-virus? It was a burnt-out hole. It is a burnt-out hole. Just about every year, the Kennebec floods downtown, so at any given time there"s only about three businesses on the main street, and one of them will have a cheerful We"ll Be Back! sign up with the clock hands broken off. There"s literally nothing going on in this town. Not now, and not then. Down by the river the buildings are pockmarked and broken, the houses are boarded up, windows shattered, only one or two people wandering dazed down the streets. All gas supplied by the Dead River Company, all your dead interred at Burnt Hill Burying Ground. And that was before. Even our Wal-Mart had to close up because n.o.body ever shopped there.
And you know, way back in the pilgrim days, or Maine"s version of them, which starts in the 1700s sometime, there was a guy named James Purington who freaked out one winter and murdered his whole family with an axe. Eight children and his wife. They hanged him and buried him at the crossroads so he wouldn"t come back as a vampire. Which would seem silly, except, well, look around. The point is life in Augusta has been both s.h.i.tty and deeply warped for quite some time. So we greeted this particular horrific circ.u.mstance much as Mainers have greeted economic collapse and the total disregard of the rest of the country for the better part of forever: with no surprise whatsoever. Anyway, I haven"t seen anyone else on the pink and healthy side in a long time. A big group took off for Portland on foot a few months ago (the days of Kermit and Company), but I stayed behind. I have to think of my father. I know that sounds bizarre, but there"s nothing like a parent who bites you to make you incapable of leaving them. Incapable of not wanting their love. I"ll probably turn thirty and still be stuck here, trying to be a good daughter while his blood dries on the kitchen tiles.
Channel 3 says a zombie is a reanimated corpse with no observable sell-by date and seriously poor id-control. But I have come to realize that my situation is not like Manhattan or Boston or even Portland. See, I live with zombies. My dad isn"t chained up in the bas.e.m.e.nt. He lives with me like he always lived with me. My neighbors, those of them who didn"t wander off, are all among the pustulous and dripping. I watched those movies before it happened and I think we all, for a little while, just reacted like the movies told us to: get a bat and start swinging. But I"ve never killed one, and I"ve never even come close to being bitten. It"s not a f.u.c.king movie.
And if Channel 3 slaps their bullet points all over everywhere, I guess I should write my own What We Know here. Just in case anyone wonders why zombies can cry.