Brian Keene: Dead Sea

I was alone again.

Deciding I’d be safe enough, I resolved to finish the job in the morning. I felt exhausted and weak and dirty. I tried to remember the last time I’d showered, and couldn’t. Washing up with a sponge and a bowl of rainwater just didn’t cut it.

In the darkness, I ate a can of fruit cocktail. I didn’t have much of an appetite, but I forced the fruit down anyway, even the chunks of pineapple, which I hated. Why is it that when you open a can of fruit cocktail, regardless of the brand, there’s always too much pineapple and not enough cherries? Of course, I don’t guess there will be any fruit cocktail for a long time. If humanity ever does get back on their feet, we’ll have more important things to worry about first. As I sipped the juice from the can, I thought about all the groceries I’d left behind on the street. Sooner or later, I’d have to go out again. It was either starve or forage. Day or night—didn’t matter when I went. The danger would be the same. Tonight it had been Alan. Next time it could be me. But I didn’t want to think about that just then.

Naked and sweating from the late summer heat, I collapsed on top of the damp, dirty sheets. The pillowcase stank, even with the stench from outside creeping into the house. The pillowcase smelled like me—of dirt and grime, hopelessness and despair. I had no way to do laundry, and water was too precious to waste. I lay there, tossing and turning, thrashing around. I couldn’t read in the darkness, and I didn’t want to risk using the flashlight. There wasn’t really anything to read, anyway, even if I had been willing to use a light. Just a stack of past-due bills and shut-off notices and a few out-of-date magazines for which there’d be no follow-up issues. It’s amazing how the feature articles in Time magazine and Newsweek, the stories that had seemed so important, become meaningless and trivial. Distant, as if they were ancient history. I had an iPod and the battery was still good on it, but I couldn’t listen to it without somebody else to stand guard. With the headphones on, I wouldn’t be able to hear if someone—zombie or otherwise—tried to break in. (Alan and I had slept in shifts, even during the day; making sure one of us was always awake and on watch.) I couldn’t read, couldn’t listen to music, and didn’t want to think. Add in the sweltering mid-August temperatures and the fear and uncertainty I felt. I was fucked. I didn’t think that I’d be able to sleep, but eventually I did. Fitfully.

I don’t remember dreaming. Not that night or any other night, either. I’ve never been able to remember my dreams. I used to get this weird sense of jealousy when I’d hear other people tell me about their dreams. Most boring shit in the world, but I was always fascinated by it anyway. Wondered if my own were the same. Even their nightmares held me spellbound. Now, all I had to do was look outside. East Baltimore was crawling with nightmares, and there were plenty of them to call my own. Stinking, rotting corpses ran amok in the streets, leaking fluids and shedding body parts. The gutters were thick with offal. Between the smell and the danger, it’s a wonder I slept at all.

A scream woke me. I bolted upright, eyes snapping open, fists clutching the sheets. The sound had already faded, and I wondered if it had been real or if I’d imagined it. Maybe I was finally becoming conscious of my dreams. Out of habit, I turned to the alarm clock to see what time it was, but of course the clock wasn’t working. With no watch and no other way of knowing, I decided to try going back to sleep.

Then I smelled smoke. Burning wood, melted plastic… maybe burned flesh, too. I glanced around. My pulse hammered in my throat. There was an orange glow coming through the bedroom window. I’d nailed boards over it, both outside and inside, and had closed the shades and the curtains, but a few rays of light crept around the edges. Another scream echoed through the night. I sat up the rest of the way and slid my bare feet onto the floor. The room was hotter now-hotter than it had been when I’d fallen asleep. I listened for another scream and instead heard a crackling sound.

Smoke. Light. Heat. Sound.

Fire…

I jumped out of bed and ran into the living room. One of the pieces of plywood that I’d nailed over my picture window had a small knothole in its center. Not enough for the zombies to see inside, but enough for me to see out into the yard and the street beyond. Alan and I had used it to spy on the neghborhood, making sure that the coast was clear and our defenses would hold. Still naked, I knelt in front of the peephole and looked outside. The sky was on fire, lit up with shades of orange, red, and yellow. The houses across the street were smoldering, and beyond them, the neighborhood was ablaze. I didn’t live in a row home exactly, but most of the houses for blocks around were similar in size and shape—little run-down, one-bedroom boxes with tiny yards. They were grouped close together, and the flames leaped from one home to the next. The street was filled with thick clouds of smoke—and filled with those fleeing the inferno, both the living and dead.

It was terrifying and surreal. The parade of survivors came first. Some were naked or in their underwear, others wore pajamas, and a select few were dressed for survival: Kevlar vests, combat boots, camouflage, and stuff like that. All of them were trying to escape the inferno. There were probably two dozen total. I wondered where they’d all come from. I’d thought all along that Alan and I were the only people left alive in our immediate neighborhood, but obviously I’d been wrong. It was weird to think that while I’d been huddled inside my home, my neighbors had been doing the same, hiding in basements and attics, waiting for whatever happened next, fighting to stay alive one more day. I’d felt alone and miserable, and meanwhile, these people had probably been feeling the same way.

Most of them were on foot, some without shoes. They ran down the street without looking back. The survivalist types were armed with assault rifles. I wasn’t sure what type, but they were the kind you saw in movies. A few of the others clutched weapons or belongings, but most of the people in the fleeing crowd were empty-handed. A black Lexus coasted among them, car horn blaring, the driver trying to get through. A man dressed like he was going deer hunting spun around and fired three shots through the windshield. Screaming, the people around him scattered. The man calmly approached the car, opened the door, tossed the driver to the pavement, and then slid behind the wheel. Another guy raced by on a motorcycle, weaving in and out of the pedestrians.

The dead came next. They were mostly human, but there were a few animals as well. Some of the zombies were missing limbs. Others had huge, ugly wounds that wept blood and pus-injuries that should have been fatal. One shirtless corpse was missing its entire abdomen. A few strands of gristle hung down to its crotch. The gaping stomach cavity was empty—no organs, just pink meat and bones. I wondered if it still craved living flesh, and if so, what happened after it had eaten. How could it digest anything without a fucking stomach? How could they process food when they were dead? And why didn’t they eat each other instead of munching on the living?

A naked dead man stepped out of the alley and passed through my yard. He was covered with dirt and blood, and his skin was a dark bluish-purple, the color of a bruise. There was something else wrong with him, too, but I couldn’t tell what it was until he turned toward my house again. Then I saw what was wrong. His genitals were missing—replaced by a big, bloody hole. I recognized the dead man as one of my former neighbors. Never knew his name, never talked to him while he was living. Just the occasional head nod from over the fence. And now here he was, dickless and dead.