David Dunwoody - Empire

Death poised his thumb and forefinger around it. "When you die, the flame merely ceases." And the tiny, pulsing light did grow smaller, then faded altogether.

Atherton was dead. Death crushed the candle's wick out and returned it to its place.

The spectre gathered his robes and climbed back onto the pale horse. They continued for a while down the road at a lazy gait, down to the gates of Jefferson Harbor.

The Jefferson Harbor Landfill was located at the end of town, near the swamp that defined the western perimeter. Concrete slabs had been erected in a crude wall at the edge of the swamp, with wire fencing used to cover any gaps. The whole mess was threaded with equal parts barbed wire and overgrowth. The west wall was a worthless measure if ever there was one, nothing like the well-built barriers on the north and eastern perimeters. To the south, the Gulf of Mexico.

Gene Pastore stood atop a mountain of filth and stared at the dense swamp. What was the point of putting that eyesore inside the perimeter? It wasn't even worth dumping in. The landfill's girth was expanding south, onto the beach. He'd have to burn another ton of this shit before it hit the water.

There was a P.O. boat just off the shoreline. Gene waved to the two patrol officers standing on it. They stared through him. "Didn't see me, I guess." He muttered. They were local boys, weren't they? No reason not to be polite, unlike the stone-faced Army fellas that had just pulled out of town. The radio said that military support was being withdrawn from all coastal cities. The Senate wanted people to move inland. Why? So the Senators and their families could take all the country's provisions? "Beats me," Gene said to himself. As far as he was concerned, moving everyone into the heartland was like building the rotters a triple cheeseburger.

God, it was hot. Boiling inside his ratty old uniform, Gene mopped his brow with an old handkerchief and dropped it into the garbage. His back was killing him too. At the age of sixty, he had hoped someone else would take his place, give the old man a break. But there was no retirement in his future. Just rats.

Rats, rats, rats. Most of them were undead, too. Only Gene could tell the living from the dead. They just had a look about them, a cold, solitary look. And the dead rats were fatter than the other ones. They fed on their own kind, and their kind were plentiful.

He was wearing waders and thick work gloves. The bastards wouldn't try to eat him but they'd probably bite if he wasn't careful. Gene carried a shovel to pin the vermin down and hack them up. Kicking them into a fire was easier, but garbage burns had to be controlled, small. The smoke rising into the sky brought undead. Not only that, but while Gene was used to the stench of the landfill, burns were another story. Maybe it was the charred, half-rotted flesh of the rats; the smell of death after death. Gene spat and wiped his mouth with a gloved hand.

"How does a starving town make this much fucking garbage?" He asked an undead rat. It was perched atop a broken chair, watching him intently. Part of its face had been gnawed off. A tiny red eye still rolled around inside the bony eye socket.

"You and me both." Gene said. He swung the shovel and smashed the rat down through the chair. These little buggers had actually given him a respect for the living rodents that still dared enter the landfill. It wasn't man versus animal anymore — it was the living against the undead. Gene brushed a fly off his cheek and wondered if they were undead too. Gone from eating shit to eating each other.

There was a sharp crack from the ocean, then another. Gene saw one of the P.O.s pointing a sniper rifle past him, toward the swamp. Must've seen something. What good did shooting at it do? Those boys were too scared to come ashore and nail the rotters. Gene hefted his shovel in one hand. He'd take care of any unwelcome visitors.

Speaking of which, another rat was lumbering over piles of soggy cardboard, distended belly dragging along. Gene aimed the blade of the shovel at its dark face and thrust downward. The rat skittered aside with surprising speed, just in time to avoid the strike, and the shovel sank into the refuse.

Gene shook the crap off the shovel. There was something bloody underneath the cardboard, too big to be a rat. It was partially wrapped in a moth-eaten blanket with smiling dinosaurs in bright colors. He considered this for a half-second before a terrible thought came to him.

"Oh my God."

He gingerly worked the shovel underneath the blanket and peeled it away. The underside was crimson, yellow dinosaurs obscured by gore. It was difficult to loosen; someone had lovingly bundled the misshapen form, tiny and frail and barely recognizable for what it was.

Gene stumbled back with a cry, dropping the shovel. His foot struck the ruin of the broken chair, and he fell flat on his back. A foul wetness seeped through his uniform and he found himself sliding helplessly down an incline. He pawed at the garbage around him; a glove came off and his bare hand sank into some curdled mess. "Shit! God!" He tried to orient himself so he could see where he was going, but only managed to go elbow-deep into the garbage, all the while still sliding.

He nicked his ungloved hand on something. Yanking it free, he saw the ragged little bite, and he saw the rat's head as it struggled in the garbage. It was dead.

He plowed headfirst into an array of discarded plumbing. Gene felt the surreal but distinct sensation of metal slicing through his cheek before he fell unconscious.

Fred R. Moorecourt, Senator from the great states of Illinois and Indiana, beat on the gates of Jefferson Harbor and hollered until his already-pounding head threatened to erupt. There was no scaling the gates, with loops of barbed wire welded to each pole. The walls were fifteen feet high and perfectly smooth. He stumbled along the perimeter in desperate search of a handhold. Senator Moorecourt cursed the wall and kicked it. That's when he learned that two toes on his right foot were broken. Moorecourt fell to the ground in a ball.

Walls, borders, bullshit. The imaginary lines that defined the United States were eroding every day. Already representing the combined territory of two states, Moorecourt expected more to fall under his jurisdiction as Americans moved inland. Maybe that's why he had risked coming out here: to expand his rule. It was a miserable thought, but it rang truer than any of the noble rhetoric that he & his colleagues broadcast from the north.

Goddamn coastal refugees. Anarchists. Of course, when they ran out of supplies, when troops stopped patrolling their perimeters, then they blamed the Senate. The Senate told survivors to migrate away from the oceans, to consolidate aid and resources; men like Moorecourt put their lives on the line on these goodwill missions. Still this stubborn distrust. And now, two broken toes, a concussion and this goddamn wall.

He looked back down the road; the wreck was a blot on the horizon. He should have gotten into the Hummer and grabbed a gun. Too tired to go back, though. Too risky. The badlands were crawling with hungry undead.

"Oh, Jesus." Turning northeast, he saw two shapes moving through blighted grass. Their stiff movements and emaciated bodies gave them away immediately as dead. God willing, their eyes had shriveled and fallen out of their heads, and they weren't really ambling straight toward him.

Or maybe they were.

Using the wall for support, he limped along as quickly as he could. He thought about Atherton, whom he'd seen gasping for breath in the middle of the road, and whispered a silent prayer that the undead would catch his scent. Maybe they'd even eat the fresh corpses in the vehicles. Moorecourt's sister and her husband remained in the towncar. Why Amanda had insisted on coming along, he didn't know. Husband Doug had represented the P.O. Union and was supposed to talk to local law enforcement about withdrawing. But Amanda loathed politics almost as much as she loathed Moorecourt…