Brian Keene: Dead Sea

I’d only gone about a half block when I encountered the first zombie, an old woman dressed in a soiled nightgown. I smelled her before I saw her, and figured that if her stench was stronger than the smoke, she must be close indeed. I had time to hide behind a green garbage Dumpster before she lumbered out of the haze. Her wig was missing. Her bald scalp looked like a peeling onion, and her varicose veins had burst right through her skin. The corpse’s lips were shredded, hanging from her face in gray-white strips. I let the dead woman wander by. She moved in silence. The only sound was the buzzing flies inside of her.

When the coast was clear, I continued on my way. Flames flickered in the night. I didn’t see anyone else on the street. Either the mass exodus of survivors had gone another way, or the fires had trapped them, or they’d ended up as dinner for the dead. I moved cautiously, but quickly, too. Stayed mindful of what was behind me. Eventually, the smoke grew less thick. I passed by the burned-out shell of a car. A family of four had cooked inside the vehicle. They were just blackened shapes now, two adult-sized and two child-sized—a zombie’s well-done Happy Meal. I wondered how it had happened. Was that horrible, agonizing death by fire preferable to facing whatever had trapped them inside? And what had burned them and their car? It couldn’t have been the current inferno. The flames hadn’t reached this street yet.

Eventually, I got far enough away from the fires to drop my washcloth. The smoke cleared and visibility improved. I immediately wished that it hadn’t. More wrecked and abandoned automobiles choked the street and the bloodstained pavement was littered with body parts: severed heads, organs, and scraps of human meat. I recognized one of the heads. It was the guy who’d owned the liquor store around the corner. He was still functioning, despite the fact that he no longer had a body. His eyes focused on me, and his pale tongue slid across his dry, cracked lips. I tried kicking him across the street, just like Alan had done earlier that night, but his teeth clamped down on the toe of my boot. He didn’t break the leather, but held firm just the same. I hopped around on one foot, trying to shake him off. His head came loose and soared through the air, shattering a storefront window. His teeth lay scattered on the pavement. They crunched beneath my heels as I walked on. It made me long for the days when the only thing littering the sidewalks in my hood was empty crack vials.

I passed by a Catholic church—a gothic-looking building with a cross-topped steeple and bell. Several of the stained glass windows were broken and neon red spray paint covered the front doors. The graffiti said god is dead. Across the street was a pawn shop. Our neighborhood had plenty of pawn shops and liquor stores and check cashing places, but not many banks or factories. In truth, I was happy to see the liquor stores burn. They were blight. Cautiously, I peeked inside the pawn shop, hoping there were some weapons left, but the looters had picked it clean. The only things left were a few musical instruments, an old video game system, and a severed hand lying on the floor. Mopping sweat from my forehead, I continued along past a newsstand, another liquor store, and a row of houses. A bloodstained flyer advertising the Fourth Annual East Baltimore Black Singles Weekend fluttered by in the hot breeze. The rear end of a car stuck out of a barber shop. A pizza joint stood open to the elements, ransacked of everything, even the tables and fixtures. My stomach rumbled. Despite everything, despite the danger and the stench in the air and the body parts in the streets, I was hungry.

Shuffling footsteps caught my attention, followed by a low moan. Then came the stench. I ducked into a doorway and waited. Three zombies stumbled out of an alley. I could smell the rot wafting off of them, even from the other side of the street. I held my breath, waiting for them to pass and praying they wouldn’t see me. My prayer went unanswered. The graffiti on the church doors had been right. God was dead now. Just like everyone else. God was a zombie and these were his children.

He must have smiled upon them.

They saw me, lurched toward the doorway, and I wondered how it was possible that dead men could still drool.

The first corpse was in bad shape: both his arms were missing, an ear hung by a thread of cartilage, and one empty eye socket festered with maggots. His face was expressionless. He showed no emotion, just blank hunger. His two companions followed close behind him; a teenage girl who barely looked dead, and a middle-aged man whose wrists were cut downward rather than across. He’d wanted to make sure he did it right. Too bad it hadn’t kept him from coming back. The bite mark on his forearm, right in the middle of the cut, was proof enough of that. I wondered if he’d been bitten first and committed suicide in some effort to stop the infection or had cut himself before the zombie attack. It didn’t matter. Either way, he was back now. Death was not the end.

“Damn, you guys stink.”

If they understood me, they gave no indication. I tried to laugh, but my mouth was dry. It sounded more like a frightened whimper.

They were slow and stupid enough that I could easily get away from them. Just slip out from the doorway and run around them, making sure to keep a wide berth. But before I could do that, more creatures wandered into the street. None of them carried weapons or showed the slightest bit of cunning or tactical ability. If they had, I’d have been dead. One clutched a cell phone in its hand. When I took a closer look, I realized its arm had been burned somehow, and the phone had melded with its skin. Melted flesh stuck to the plastic like taffy left out in the sun.

Taking a deep breath, I raised the pistol and shot the first zombie—the one with the eye socket full of worms—in the throat. Blood, flesh, and maggots spun through the air. I’d been aiming for his head. That left me with one bullet, and the fucker was still coming. He staggered a few more steps, almost close enough to touch. His head tilted to one side because of the damage I’d done to his neck. It didn’t matter. Cursing, I darted from the door and ran the gauntlet. The creature reached for me as I sped by him, his thick fingers clawing at my shirt. Fabric tore. I shook him off and danced away from his friends while he stuffed the torn piece of my shirt in his mouth. The girl spun and tripped over her own feet. The dead man with the cut wrists moaned unintelligibly, and then fell overtop her. The two corpses sprawled in the road.

Running for the other side of the street, I couldn’t help but laugh again. They were so clumsy. So… stupid. All I had to do was keep moving and not let them touch me, and I’d be fine. Outthinking them was no problem. Neither was outrunning them.

Being outnumbered, however, had its disadvantages. And a second later, I found that out.

More of the creatures blundered into the area, attracted by the gunshot. Before I could reach the curb, they had me surrounded. The stench was brutal. My laughter turned to a scream. I glanced around, frantic, but there was nowhere to go. Just that quickly, the odds had changed. They swarmed toward me, grasping and clawing, gnashing their stained teeth.

And then the odds changed again.

“Hey, mister.” A child’s voice; sounded like a boy. “You’d best duck unless you want to get shot!”

I couldn’t see the speaker. Hoping that my last bullet would be true, I raised the pistol and aimed at the closest zombie. Before I could squeeze the trigger, a thunderous blast rocked the street. I jumped. There was a flash from the second story window of a nearby row home. The creature’s head exploded, splattering the creature behind it. The second zombie licked the gore from its lips. Luckily, none of it had landed on me.