Book of the Dead: A Zombie Anthology (10 page)

(…fol owed instantaneously by a suffocating weight of blackness…) Survival instinct overriding sentiment. There is no time to care, just the wil to survive.

Corvino catches sight of his reflection in the window, the encroaching darkness defining the face that stares back at him, il uminated from above by cold electric light. Shadows pool his dark brown, deep-set Italian eyes, framed by his thick, black brows, the pal or of his skin wan and mottled in the unnatural light. His mouth is a faint, terse red slash. The nature of his work, the index of his experiences, do not encourage levity; he is a serious man who performs serious tasks with irrevocable results.

He scratches at his jawline, his fingernails grating against the fringe of stubble that coats his cheeks. Layers of dry skin adhere to the nails. He flicks them away.

Lack of proper nourishment
.

Corvino steps into the corridor. To his left, Skolomowsky and Lewis stand outside their respective classrooms, the latter’s navy blue jacket splashed with dark patches. Skolomowsky smiling. Cordite and the copper aroma of blood drift in the stale air of the high school. Corvino looks to the right. No sign of Harris. As he is about to move toward the room, Harris appears.

“Clear,” he states in his harsh Brooklyn accent.

Corvino nods, turns to Skolomowsky and Lewis.

“Ditto,” says the Pole.

Corvino pul s the radio from its holster as he replaces his Colt automatic in its sheath under his left arm.

“Alpha to Cleanup. Fourth floor sweep and clean complete. Start bagging them.”

He signals visual confirmation to the bag boys in the parking lot from the wide windows next to the stairwel . Ten men in teams of two, each with a body bag, trot in formation up the steps and through the open doors.

“Are there any other rooms in this building that have not been swept?” He addresses the question to Lewis, but Skolomowsky answers.

“No,” the big man replies. “Every inch of this place that’s worth checking has been covered.

We’ve got them al .”

Corvino nods slowly. “Any resistance?”

“Nope,” Lewis says.

Corvino notices a bul et hole on Lewis’s jacket, fringed by a brown stain.

“Nada,” mutters Harris.

“Not enough,” Skolomowsky adds, smiling. “Too easy.”

Corvino looks penetratingly at the Pole. Skolomowsky’s passion for bloodletting threatens to cloud his professionalism again.

(…Tehran… Juzl dead… Lewis wounded… Skolomowsky’s cock-up? … mission aborted…) Skolomowsky: professional kil er; professional sadist.

He distrusts the Pole, who has perverse tastes.

(…Nashvil e… Skolomowsky… the remains of a prostitute… skinned alive… the motel room awash with blood… unnecessary…)

Skolomowsky continues to smile at Corvino.

“Something wrong?”

Before he responds, the first duo of bag boys appear at the top of the stairs.

“Where?” one inquires.

“Each room… No,” he says final y to the Pole. “Check weapons, then return to the parking lot.”

Corvino turns his gaze to the window, aware Skolomowsky is stil staring at him. On the horizon smal pockets of fire pulse in the South Washington suburbs. He looks down at his gun, pul ing it free from the velcro strap, pops the clip, and replaces the cartridge with a ful one.

Just in case.

A second duo run up the steps. He points to the nearest classroom. Lewis, Skolomowsky, and Harris file past him, heading to the first floor.

He has dispel ed the question of what is happening. Like any good government employee he obeys orders; speculation is for the Think Tank, a foot soldier merely carries out orders.

Below him Lewis, Skolomowsky, and Harris gather in the parking lot next to the two gray armored vehicles. Bag boys and Beta team emerge from the school entrance to join them.

Corvino pul s the cigarette pack from his pocket without thinking, places a smoke between his dry lips, pauses, removes it, replaces it in the box.

He screws up the pack and tosses it to one side.

A sharp chil has settled in the air. Lewis paces by the truck, his M16 slung over his shoulder; expression calm, his movements indicate his internal feelings: stress, too many sleepless nights, and the psychological aftershock of what the Hit teams refer to as AZ—After Zombification—

clearly taking their tol on his flayed nerves. Corvino can see he is a prime candidate for postoperation crack-up.

“Hey, Lewis,” the Pole says. “Lewis. I’m talking to you.”

Lewis does not respond.

“Lewis. You’re slowing up. You hear me?”

Corvino is walking across the parking lot as Skolomowsky speaks.

“…I said you’re losing it. Just like in Tehran.”

“Sweep complete?” Hutson, the Beta team leader asks Corvino.

As he is about to answer, a movement at the right corner of his field of vision: Lewis swinging the butt of his M16 in an arc to connect with Skolomowsky’s jaw. A crunch as the Pole backflips to the tarmac. Lewis shrieks, diving on his downed partner, his mouth wide.

Corvino pul s the .45 from his holster, squeezing the trigger as the barrel comes into line with the side of Lewis’s head: Lewis, at Skolomowsky’s throat, tearing out the soft flesh and chewy esophageal tract. Dark blood fountains in the night air.

He’s missed!

The thought frags his concentration as he squeezes off a second shot. That, too, goes wild. But the third finds its target and the right side of Lewis’s head explodes. Lewis deflates over the Pole’s stil twitching body.

Corvino’s mind is out of sync.

He’s missed
.

One-Shot Corvino, Mr. Trigger, has actual y missed.

The Pole is stil moving. The squeal he made as Lewis ripped out his trachea ceases, replaced by a harsh, rasping wheeze as his lungs draw in oxygen directly through the gaping throat wound.

The Pole heaves the corpse off him, sits up. The wheezing increases, his shrunken eyes retreating farther into the withered sockets. Like a stunned yet stil enraged bul , he lumbers to his feet, his face a rictus of rage.

Harris opens fire with his .357 magnum.

The first bul et catches the Pole in the groin. He bucks to one side but continues standing. The second catches him in the chest, exiting with a sound like snapping branches. The third takes his right arm off at the elbow.

What the fuck is Harris playing at?

The head, always the head; Corvino aims and fires…

…and the Pole’s face disappears, the body sagging to the ground with a wet thud.

Corvino turns to Harris. The team member’s face is a blank chalkboard, his features an unwritten text.

“Once we get back to Capitol Hil you’re off duty, Harris.”

Harris says nothing. He stares with empty eyes, his magnum smoking in his fist.

Corvino moves away from the vacant assassin to face Beta team, al of whom have their guns up.

“Clean this mess up,” he nods in the direction of Skolomowsky and Lewis. “Let’s load up and get this chuck wagon back to the White House. The president needs fresh meat.”

Two members of Beta place their Ml6s against the nearest truck and pul fresh body sacks from the vehicle’s rear.

In the space of one minute, total change.

It begins with a crescent of muzzle flashes and a thunderous roar.

Fifteen seconds: As Corvino turns, a bul et catches Hutson in the throat; he gags, blood spurting from his mouth as he stumbles back; two bul ets take Corvino in the stomach, spinning him around; five Cleanup members fal ; some begin blasting back with their Ml6s at the gunfire that comes from the perimeter of the parking lot; Corvino’s .45 jerks in his hands as he pul s off five rapid shots: blood pumps from his stomach where a section of smal intestine bulges from the large hole in his combat jacket; behind him, a figure tries to stand as more bul ets rip into its torso; others drop to the ground.

Thirty seconds: Popping the spent clip from his pistol, Corvino speed-reloads, continues to fire, oblivious to his damaged internal organs. A bul et grazes his forehead, sending a stream of red into his eyes; he fires blind, tugging another cartridge from his ammo belt as he goes into a crouch that pushes his viscera through the now gaping hole; brains leave a head; the downed men writhe on the gore-soaked ground as wave upon wave of bul ets tear into their bodies.

Forty-five seconds: Corvino keels over, his gun spinning from his hand: He twitches spastical y as he tries to crawl toward a truck. The parking lot is a firework display; as if punctuating the performance, one of the trucks (the one toward which Corvino crawls) explodes as a stray shel hits the gas tank, sending a firebal up up into the darkness, flaming gasoline spraying his smashed body.

Fifty-seven seconds: Corvino continues to crawl, his intestines uncoiling snakelike as his body burns. He is dying for the second time. There is no pain.

Sixty seconds: Corvino fades to black.

Nick Packard pul ed the clip from the Ingram. His ears were ringing. Someone shouted, but whatever was cal ed did not register against the pealing bel s sounding out in glorious jubilation inside his head.

The young policeman, who had joined the Washington force only six months before, had hardly ever used a gun. Now the Ingram felt like an extension of his right arm. And hot shit, did it feel good!

Captain Stipe waved to the group composed of cops and civilians to advance. The flaming truck il uminated the carnage. Several gore-slicked zombies thrashed on the ground like maggots. One was trying to lift an M16 with a broken arm, so Packard fired a quick burst at the creature’s head.

Take that, you friggin’ sonofabitch fuck-faced flesh-eater!

“No more shooting!” shouted Stipe. Packard’s ears were beginning to clear.

“Okay!”

There were thirty of them: seven cops and a ragged assortment of men and women, their ages ranging from late teens to mid-fifties. Al were armed to the teeth with a wide selection of handguns, rifles, axes, pitchforks, a couple of crossbows, and numerous knives. One kid, a zit-covered geek, even had a homemade flamethrower, a Hudson sprayer/blow-torch combo that, despite its primitivism, could real y kick ass.

“Packard,” Stipe signaled to the young cop. “You’re keen to wipe these things out, so finish ’em off.”

“Fuckin’ A.”

Packard fired three short bursts and the last of the dead meat stopped moving. Al but one.

What remained of Dominic Corvino rol ed over, a final twitch of the death nerve. Packard plucked his .38 special from his hip holster and fired twice into the burning head of what had once been Dominic Corvino.

Hel , you couldn’t be too careful these days
.

Stipe walked over to a bul et-riddled body that lay face down on the tarmac. The police captain pushed it over with his foot. “Government assholes.”

“Say again?” Packard said as he drew near.

“These are government dicks. I recognize this one.”

“So what?” Packard hawked up a bal of phlegm, which he spat on the creature’s face. “They’re stil fuckin’ zombies. Dead scum.” He kicked the body, his boot breaking a rib.

“Yes, but these were organized, right? They were working together, not running rampant. I mean, if some of these things are retaining intel igence, we’re in deeper shit than we think.”

Stipe wiped the back of a hand across his forehead.

He went to the back of the truck that was not on fire and unzipped a body bag. It contained the corpse of a smal child, a little girl about seven, shot through the chest, her once rosy cheeks dotted with chickenpoxlike splashes of dried blood.

The child had been normal.

“Sheeit!” Packard’s eyes widened. “This stil gets to me, especial y the kids. So what do you reckon?” He continued to look at the dead girl, her dimpled cheeks frozen marble under the light of the police captain’s torch.

Stipe turned to him, his lips pursed.

“I think it’s time we visited the White House.”

6.
A Sad Last Love at the Diner of the Damned

By Edward Bryant

There once was a beautiful young woman with long hair the russet gold of ripe wheat. Her name was Martha Malinowski and her family had lived in Fort Durham for three generations. Martha was nineteen and had spent her entire life in the border area where southern Colorado shades subtly from browns and tans to the dark green mountains of northern New Mexico.

Martha’s eyes were a startling blue that deepened or paled according to the season and her mood. Her temperament had begun to darken with the onset of early winter snows, and so her eyes began to reflect that. Now they appeared the color of the road ice that formed on the headlights and steel bumpers of the pickups lining the parking strip beside the Diner.

She waited on tables for one, sometimes two long shifts each day at the Cuchara Diner.

Occasional tourists speculated aloud that the Diner was more properly cal ed the Cucaracha.

Henry Roybal, the owner, would gesture at the neon tablespoon suspended in the front window.

That made little difference to the tourists who rarely understood Spanish. The locals around Fort Durham simply referred to the place as the Diner. The Diner itself was a sprawling stucco assemblage that had been added to many times over the decades. Its most notable feature was Henry Roybal’s pride and joy, an eight-foot-high neon EAT that flashed from red to green and back again while a blue arrow pointed down at the Diner’s front door.

Martha Malinowski’s fair features haunted the il icit dreams of many in the community. She was largely oblivious to this and to the dreamers themselves. She ignored the ones she did notice.

Her cap was set for Bobby Mack Quintana, the deputy sheriff. Bobby Mack was always cordial toward her, but that seemed to be about it. Martha wondered if he was just too shy to express his feelings.

Then there was Bertie Hernandez who openly lusted after Martha. Crude, rude, and vital, his buddies and he were among Henry’s best customers. Martha was never glad to see them coming into the Diner. But a job was a job, and business was business in this world of sage, scrub grass, endless horizons, and Highway 159. Someday Martha would have saved enough cash to leave this place. Or if Bobby Mack wanted her, then perhaps she would stay. She was practical about romance, yet stil maintained her dreams.