Dead Earth: The Green Dawn (10 page)

He removed a stack of sewing magazines from
the seat of an old wooden chair that had always sat next to the
front door and set them on a chair in the living room. He carried
the wooden chair to the doorway of his bedroom where he set it down
gently and sat on it, facing the bed.

He removed his Glock from its holster,
crossed his legs, and waited.

He wasn’t completely convinced it would
happen, but it didn’t take long. As...

Fiona.

...the blanketed figure on the bed began to
rise with a muffled groan.

It only took one shot.

Hours later, Jubal emerged from the house
carrying the shrouded figure and a shovel.

He looked at the sky; the sun’s heat caressed
his face. It was going to be another hell-hot day.

Jubal carried Fiona’s body to the backyard,
and though the ground was dry and hard, he set her down gently and
began digging near a cactus plant she had always admired.

A few hours later, Jubal was standing over
the fresh grave, dripping sweat, grasping for a few words to say.
But he really couldn’t find any except, “I love you, Fee.”

He heard a footstep in the yard behind
him.

Swinging around, shovel in hand, he saw three
zombies walking quickly toward him. He recognized all of them.

One was old Pops Perez, his straw hat still
perched jauntily on his head. The other two were a fat woman named
Bertha Benson and her husband, Bob. They looked hungrily at him
with their horrible red-yellow eyes.

Jubal reached for his Glock, but realized he
had left it in the house, on the floor in his bedroom. He had lost
track of it after...doing what needed to be done there.

Charging the undead intruders, Jubal slammed
the blade of the shovel against the side of Pops’s head, wincing as
he did so. After all, this was the nicest old man in the world.

Was.

Pops did a spin on one foot and toppled to
the ground.

The fat Bensons were still coming at him.

As the Bensons groped for him and Pops got
back to his feet, Jubal ran around them and out to the front
yard.

Glancing up and down the street, Jubal saw
that the whole town had turned up for a visit. Old neighbors,
friends and acquaintances shuffled about, some falling over as if
not able to control their bodies. One or two noticed Jubal and
turned towards him, moaning to others, who turned towards him as
well.

“At least these fuckers are slow,” he said to
no one, as he ran into the house, slamming the door behind himself.
“And I’m talking to myself again.”

With reluctance, he went to the bedroom of
tragedy for his Glock. Someone—some
thing
was pounding on the
bedroom wall. He ignored it. He made his way back down the hall to
the living room. He checked the shotguns—they were loaded and
ready.

Multiple fists pounded at the front door. It
shook in its frame.

Jubal reloaded his Glock, holstered it, hung
one shotgun from his shoulder and gripped the other one in his
hands.

The front door, tearing from its hinges,
slammed straight down against the floor, as the crowd of undead
fought to be the first one to get hold of Jubal. They wedged against
each other in the doorway, blocking their own progress. Their
antics reminded Jubal of a Three Stooges routine.

He put his back to the hallway. If things got
real bad, he could always run down the hall to his mother’s
bedroom, where there was a window into the front yard, giving him
better access to his cruiser parked at the curb. He was thankful he
didn’t have to go through his own bedroom. The sooner he forgot
about that room, the better.

Jubal began shooting zombies.

Randy Minear was first. He and Jubal had
played little league baseball together down at the city park. Randy
had been an amazing short stop. He still moved pretty quick, faster
than any of the walking dead Jubal had seen. He was almost on Jubal
before the shotgun was raised. The blast removed most of Randy’s
head, splattering bone and brains and gore onto the undead behind
him. The headless corpse toppled backward, causing several of the
zombies to trip and become tangled up.

Jubal took a few steps back to give him some
room to maneuver. As he did, he pumped another round into the
chamber of the Mossberg. Seven shots to go. Then he had the other
shotgun on his back and the Glock in his belt.

A nude figure struggled past the mass of
zombies on the floor, rolling over the other bodies and landing in
front of Jubal. The dead thing stood and he recognized the decaying
form of Margie Gilmore, the first woman he ever saw naked. When he
was 13, he had chased a baseball into her backyard. After he
retrieved the ball, Jubal glanced at the sliding glass door and saw
Mrs. Gilmore—the mother of his friend Kent—standing there in the
nude. Her breasts were quite large and sagged more than a little.
Jubal didn’t care. He was frozen in place, blushing over his entire
body as he stared at the brown areolas and incredibly large
nipples. She held a drinking glass in one hand and she used the
other to rub her belly, which served to direct his eyes toward the
unkempt thatch of black hair below her navel. Jubal managed to get
his body moving then, and he sprinted back to the city park. He
never told anyone about the encounter, perhaps because he found it
both disturbing and arousing, and he took care to stay far away
from Mrs. Gilmore after that.

Now she was within a foot or two of him. The
thought of her touch made his stomach do a nauseating flip. He
pointed the Mossberg and removed the left side of her head. Her
right eye stared at him as she toppled to the floor.

Six shells left in this one, Jubal. Choose
wisely.

Three of the disgusting creatures squeezed
through the door, two pushing the one in front. Jubal didn’t
recognize any of them. All three tripped over the two bodies on the
floor, and one of them flew through the air and struck Jubal before
he could fire the shotgun. He was knocked onto his back with the
zombie on top of him.

It had been a man of medium build. His face
was pockmarked by the ruptured boils, and the familiar odor of
disease threatened to choke Jubal. The thing swiveled its head
toward Jubal’s neck and snapped its jaws. It made a tuneless
humming sound, just like Jubal’s father had done when he puttered
around in the garage.

The shotgun was pinned between them, its
barrel aimed across Jubal’s chest. He worked his left hand up
against the zombie’s side and shoved at the snapping monster.
Beneath the creature’s t-shirt, the flesh shifted and rolled like
the meat on a roasted chicken. As soon as he had enough room to
move the Mossberg, Jubal squeezed the trigger. The recoil threw the
zombie into the air and drove Jubal’s right elbow into the hardwood
floor. He felt something crunch in the joint and a searing jolt of
pain exploded in a white flash that threatened to drive him to
unconsciousness.

The zombie wasn’t dead. That thought was
enough motivation to force Jubal to his feet. His vision swam in
and out of focus, but he could see the creature also struggling to
stand. Part of its chest and left shoulder were missing. The
humming had turned into an angry howl. At least it sounded
angry.

Jubal briefly wondered if the dead things felt
anything, whether anger or fear. He decided he didn’t care. He
switched the shotgun to his left hand and ended the creature with a
headshot.

He had used four shots and there were still
so many of them trying to pour in through the door. The pain from
his right arm was excruciating. He thought retreat might be a
prudent course. He pumped a shell into the Mossberg with a
one-armed gesture.

Just like a movie hero.

Cold, dead hands closed on his neck from
behind.

How—?

He spun around, though it meant turning his
back on the others. The zombie turned with him, so he assumed it
was a child or a small woman. He still couldn’t see it but at least
he knew how it got the drop on him. The picture window in the
living room had shattered. It must have happened when he was down
on the floor. He had almost blacked out and his ears were ringing
from the shotgun fire, so he wouldn’t have heard it.

He used the barrel of the Mossberg to swat at
the thing on his back. His effort had no effect.

Something tore into the flesh at the base of
his neck. Jubal screamed and threw his body against the wall. The
grip on his neck loosened and he spun around. His attacker was a
girl, probably 13 or 14 years old. Her long blonde hair was braided
into pigtails.

Jubal’s blood decorated her lips.

He screamed again as he shoved the tip of the
barrel under her chin. He pulled the trigger, and the ceiling was
painted with the contents of her skull.

Oh sweet Jesus, it bit me!

He backed toward the hallway, keeping his
eyes on the advancing dead.

He kept the shotgun level in front of him.
With his right hand he felt around on the back of his neck. The
pain in his arm made him whimper.

The wound was small, but it was deep and the
edges were ragged. His body went cold.

Am I going to change?

He didn’t know if Fiona had been right when
she said Jubal was immune to the disease. Even if he were, would
the immunity hold up to a direct bite? He imagined the virus or
bacteria or whatever it was making its way through his bloodstream,
tweaking him as it went along, soon to materialize as ugly,
pus-filled blisters. The next step would be his induction into the
dead army.

No fucking way. It wasn’t going to
happen.

If it came to that, he would take Fiona’s way
out. He would never become one of those things.

Several of the monsters had worked their way
past the bodies on the floor and were getting close to him.

“Motherfuckers,” Jubal said. He started
toward them.

He shot the first one in the head.

“Fuck you.”

Two more of the things approached, taking its
place. One of them was Patty from the diner. Her smile had been
replaced by a hungry grin. Her black tongue played across her
swollen lips in a disgusting parody of seduction. Patty hadn’t even
been sick two days ago. Was this plague working faster the longer
it was in the air?

He did another one-handed pump to ready the
shotgun.

“Sorry, Patty.” The blast tore through her
face and removed the back of her head.

A crazy thought entered his mind:
No more
Wednesday special.

Laughter welled up in his chest, the crazy
kind that you couldn’t let out. Once it took root it would never
stop. He jacked another shell into the chamber and killed Patty’s
companion.

The first shotgun was empty. He dropped in on
the floor and swung the other Mossberg off his shoulder.

The next zombie through the door was Mr.
Handley, his high school math teacher. Handley had given Jubal a
particularly hard time in school, apparently owed to an old
encounter Handley had with Jubal’s dad. It wasn’t hard to pull the
trigger this time.

A shadow fell across the floor.

Jubal whirled to see two teenagers—a boy and
a girl—nearly upon him. He had forgotten about the broken picture
window.

There was no time to pump the Mossberg. Jubal
swung the shotgun like a ball bat. He knocked the girl to the
ground. He struck the boy in the face, driving the zombie to its
knees. Jubal hammered at the creature again and again until the
thing’s head was pulped and it lay unmoving. He pumped another
shell into the chamber, praying the barrel wasn’t ruined.

The girl was twitching on the floor as if she
were in the throes of an epileptic seizure.

He stood over her and fired the shotgun.

The barrel seemed to be in good shape. The
girl’s brain matter was spread around her like an unholy aura.

There was no movement near the picture
window, so he turned back to the front door. Some of the creatures
must have moved on. Only two remained in the doorway. The larger of
the two, Damon’s old friend Red, shoved his way past the cute
cashier from the Amoco station. Red held his arms in front of him,
flexing his fingers, seemingly anxious to get a grip on Jubal. The
dead man made hooting sounds that sounded like some great ape.

Jubal raised the shotgun to pump in another
shell. He was covered in blood and other bits of his former
neighbors, and his right arm was screaming at him. The wound on the
back of his neck didn’t hurt anymore, but it throbbed in time with
his pulse.

He sprayed Red’s head across the room. Bits
of blood, bone and brain spattered the walls, dotting the Amoco
girl, who hungrily licked the gore off her lips with a long gray
tongue.

After he blew the Amoco girl away, he walked
to the broken picture window and took a peek outside. In the middle
of the street, the zombies had a screaming teenage girl pinned
down. Her distressed cries reached a fever pitch when one of the
larger zombies tore her arm from its socket with a loud pop. An arc
of blood squirted straight up from within the swarming mass of
dead. The girl’s screaming was muffled, then gone. The fresh
glistening blood that had splattered the zombies looked like wet
red paint.

There was nothing Jubal could do for the girl
now. He wondered if she had been the last living townsperson
besides himself. It sure seemed like it. The dead were walking
everywhere. Jubal never knew the town had so many people. He’d
never seen this many at the monthly town meeting—ever.

Several zombies wandered about in Jubal’s
front yard. One was amusing itself by repeatedly skewering its
finger on the long needles of one of Ma’s favorite cacti.

Jubal stepped back into the house and
reloaded the Mossbergs. As he worked, he happened to glance up at a
shelf on the wall next to the TV. There sat an old picture, one
that had been there so long that Jubal had stopped noticing it
until now. It was of himself as a child with his mother and father
standing proudly behind him. His Dad had his hand on Jubal’s
shoulder. Everyone was smiling for the photographer and looking
quite happy.