So he turned away from the metal door. He bent and picked up the broadsword, picked up the rifle. He slung the rifle over his shoulder, held the broadsword in his right hand, and started back down the corridor.
His body was coming apart, but he ran as fast as he could. He ran down the corridor, turned the corner, and there was Eugene Moss. Just like the first time Conrad had encountered him, they walked into each other—only Conrad realized a second too late that that wasn’t the case, that Eugene Moss hadn’t so much as walked into him this time as he had purposely pushed him away. Forced backward, Conrad tripped over his feet. He fell to the ground and managed to look up just in time to see the pistol in Eugene’s hand.
“Hey there, stranger,” Eugene said. “Miss me?”
Before Conrad could respond, Eugene shot him in the ankle. Next he stepped close, crouched down, shot the other ankle.
“I got to the party a little late, I know. I came around the corner right after you’d sent your boy away. What’s wrong—don’t want Hunters torturing your child to death?”
He put the pistol to Conrad’s left knee, pulled the trigger.
“Speaking from experience, it’s not something you want to see.”
The pistol moved to the right knee, shot him there too.
“I mean, seeing that kind of thing really fucks you up. And if you survive it, like I did, all you can think about is revenge.”
Eugene stepped back and stood there, looking down at Conrad.
“This entire time I knew getting back at Philip wasn’t going to happen. Not that psychotic piece of shit. But you—I went for you three times already, and I almost expired you back in the Labyrinth. So, so close. And since then you’re all I’ve thought about. I keep remembering how you just stood there in my existing room and didn’t do anything while my son was tortured. You want to know how I remember that? Because while he was being tortured, I was watching you. I couldn’t watch him. How could I? So I watched you, and I thought about how you were doing nothing, not even watching, and it made me hate you even more.”
Conrad now had no strength left in his legs. The dead muscles and bones had been obliterated by Eugene’s carefully placed bullets. He would never walk again—a fact that hung loosely in the back of his dead mind—but he also knew that wouldn’t stop him from moving. He still had other options. And so lying there on the ground, he rolled around and used his arms to start crawling up the corridor.
“Where do you think you’re going?” Eugene said. He placed his foot down on Conrad’s left leg, held it in place.
Conrad closed his eyes. He told himself there was no pain, no pain at all, and gritted his teeth as he pulled himself even harder. But Eugene would not budge. He stood there, putting all his weight on Conrad’s leg, and Conrad kept pulling, pulling, pulling, until all the dead muscle and tissue and bone tore apart and he continued on, leaving his leg behind.
Eugene said, “You really are in a hurry, aren’t you?” He bent down and picked up Conrad’s broadsword, moved directly in front of Conrad, walking backward.
“I’m going to use this on your boy. I’m going to tear him apart just like Philip did to Kent.”
His eyes closed, his teeth still gritted, Conrad pulled himself along. He could hear and feel the constant and rhythmic beating up ahead, growing stronger and stronger with every inch. Without even looking Conrad knew he was less than twenty yards away from the room.
“And then when I’m done with your son, I’m going to find your wife.”
Closer now, the beating growing even louder.
“I’ll be straight with you, Conrad. I’m going to have my way with her. I feel it’s proper retribution. I’m going to have my way with her and then I’m going to expire her just like I’m going to expire you, with your own sword.”
Conrad paused. He opened his eyes. He stared up at Eugene and the man stared back at him, grinning now, holding the broadsword up in front of him. It was the wrong way to hold the sword, obviously done by an amateur, what somebody would pick up from watching too many bad television programs and movies.
Eugene looked like he was about to say something else—he even opened his mouth—when footsteps sounded out up the corridor. He stepped back, turned, and there was Philip, a handful of Hunters trailing him, coming their way. Eugene raised the gun, fired off a couple rounds—Conrad saw some of the bullets hit Philip’s already ravaged chest—but the Hunter General kept coming, unsheathing his broadsword, holding it up and then making an expert swing.
Eugene Moss’s head hit the floor moments before his body collapsed. Kicking the head and body aside, Philip glared down at Conrad and said, “I should have saved myself the time and energy and expired him with the rest of his family. Now”—holding the broadsword up in front of him—“where were we?”
Conrad closed his eyes. He knew that would give him some time. After all, Philip was all about the show, having others see his greatness. So Conrad closed his eyes and continued crawling, putting one arm in front of the other, pulling himself along.
“You really are pathetic, Conrad. Look at yourself. You’re a disgrace.”
Even closer now, less than ten yards away.
“What do you think your old man would say about this? Just how disappointed would he be? The son of the world’s greatest Hunter resorted to …
this
.”
Less than five yards, the beating even more palpable, echoing inside his head—until suddenly he was stabbed in the back, Philip’s broadsword cutting into his dead flesh and keeping him in place.
“
Answer me!
”
Conrad opened his eyes. He was right there now, right at the door. He couldn’t move, though, and that would be a problem, one he couldn’t afford.
“Can I at least sit up?”
The broadsword withdrew. Conrad moved forward a little more. He rolled over onto his back, nudged himself to the wall, and used his elbow to rise from the ground. Moments later he was in a sitting position, leaning against the wall, the door to the room right beside him. Even with the poor lighting he could see what had become of his legs, or rather what was left of his legs. He could see Philip standing in front of him, holding his broadsword in the proper way, the only way a Hunter could hold it. The other Hunters crowded around behind the Hunter General, watching silently.
“What do you want me to say?” he asked. “That you’re a better Hunter than I am? Okay, fine. I said it before and I’ll say it again. You’re better than me. You’re the best.”
He had positioned himself against the wall so his left side was showing more than his right. He had positioned himself so he had to lean on his right hand, which he now used to reach into his pocket.
“But the truth? The truth is you’re afraid. And being the best means you’re more afraid than anyone else, maybe even my old man.”
Philip said, “What the fuck are you talking about?”
“Why did you choose to become a Hunter?” he asked, pulling the Pandora—
his
Pandora—from his pocket.
Philip lowered the broadsword. “Because zombies disgust me. Because they need to be destroyed. All this is obvious, common sense. Why did
you
choose to become a Hunter?”
“I didn’t. I was forced into it.” Settling the Pandora in his open palm. “I never had a choice.”
“Then you were never afraid?”
“Oh no, I was. That was at least until I started to understand the living. Until I was able to accept them for what they are.”
Philip rolled his eyes, raised the broadsword again. “And what are they, Conrad? Enlighten us.”
“They’re just like you and me, but they’re different.”
Philip chuckled, glancing back at his men. “Very intelligent, Conrad. Thank you for that insight.”
“They’re different because all our existence we’ve been told they’re different. We’ve never been given the chance to see otherwise.” Feeling the energy pulsing inside the cube, thinking about that dead rabbit, thinking about his son. “That’s why we hunt them. Because we don’t understand them. We refuse to understand them. And that scares us.”
Philip chuckled again, shaking his head, and then he stepped forward suddenly, his face now hard, placed his broadsword so the tip was pointing right at Conrad’s throat.
“I,” he growled, “am not afraid of
anything
.”
“No?” And here Conrad smiled as he brought his Pandora out from behind his back, lifted the glowing cube up for Philip to see. “Even this?”
Conrad squeezed the
cube, turned his hand over, and smashed it down on the ground beside him—and like that, strange things began to happen.
The first thing that happened was the constant and rhythmic beating coming from inside the room suddenly stopped. The light within grew brighter, almost blinding. And it was with this brightness that the Ripple began, spreading out, looking for a way to escape.
It came out into the corridor and simultaneously went left and right, not splitting up but stretching out. Part of it rounded the corner, came to the closed metal door, and slipped through the minuscule cracks into the Labyrinth. The other part continued down the other end of the corridor, passing the handful of Hunters, instantly turning them from dead into living. They fell to the ground at once, their blood growing warm, moving now through their veins, their muscles having never worked like this. Their minds, while now living, were still filled with all the knowledge they’d learned over the years, and seeing one another now as zombies—as well as themselves—they went insane. They screamed and yelled and while some placed the barrels of their assault rifles in their mouths and killed themselves, others aimed at their fellow Hunters and began firing. Some who had been shot already began to bleed out, their now living blood oozing from wounds which never would have slowed them down before.
The Ripple passed them, changing them, and continued down the corridor. As it passed the Pandoras which had been set aside, those dark crystal cubes glowed, dissolved, and the Ripple—it was like a breeze, no light to it, no color, just an invisible entity suddenly unleashed—gained power. It went faster. It sped down the corridor, around corners, those Pandoras glowing, then instantly dissolving away into nothingness.
Up the elevator shaft then, up the pipes and other holes, to the basement, to the first floor, up, up, up, the same thing happening on every floor, those that were the dead now becoming the living.
Out of the Herculean then, passing the truck filled with Pandoras, about five hundred of them, all of them glowing, all of them dissolving, the Ripple growing even stronger. It shot up and out, toward the sky and down the streets. It changed all it passed, many of whom were asleep and wouldn’t realize the change until morning. Others were awakened, jerked out of bed, forced to confront what had happened to them now.
Passing parks, places where the ground was soft with grass and Pandoras were buried beneath, the Ripple gained even more strength. The more trapped energy it assumed, the stronger and faster it became, until after five seconds it had gone a quarter of a mile, after ten seconds it had gone a mile, after fifteen seconds two miles, and so on. Building and building, faster and faster, a sharp and heavy breeze passing through the city, through the streets, out into the suburbs.
When the Ripple
passed the Meadowland Inn, Jessica was making love to Tony. They learned earlier that Denise had left, stealing Tony’s keys and car. They couldn’t quite call the police about this—not when the police were no doubt looking for them—and Jessica finally convinced Tony it was okay, they would just wait it out and Denise would eventually return. Jessica didn’t know this for certain, of course, but really she didn’t care. Without Denise she now felt freer, an invisible weight off her shoulders. She had always felt that way about her older sister. So what if Denise was mad at her? Jessica didn’t care. Not even now, in bed with Tony, Jessica lying naked, Tony leaning over her, kissing her neck. Her eyes closed, Jessica said, “Tell me how beautiful I am,” because she knew it was true and she liked hearing it. “You’re beautiful,” Tony said, still kissing her neck, and Jessica said, “No, look at me and tell me.” Tony’s lips left her neck and Jessica kept her eyes closed, smiling, waiting for those wonderful words. But it was at that moment the Ripple passed, changing them from dead to living, and Tony, who had believed his entire existence that the living were monstrosities that should be killed, saw her as a zombie. He cried out, tried to stand, run away, but his body wouldn’t let him. He fell to the floor. Jessica opened her eyes, tried to sit up, but fell back down onto the bed. “What?” she said. “What’s wrong?” “You,” Tony yelled, still unable to get up, flaying around on the ground. “You—you—
monster
. You ugly, disgusting
monster!
”
When the Ripple
passed 58 Orchid Lane, Michael was leaning in to kiss Denise on the lips. And Denise, the steak knife in her hand, brought the weapon up out of the sink and thrust it toward Michael’s chest. But an instant before the blade penetrated his dead flesh, the Ripple passed. It was only an instant, but in that instant Denise witnessed his decayed and rotting flesh turn into living skin. His black eyes became green, his nostrils flared as he took his first true living breath. But then the steak knife was pushed into his chest, into his now beating heart, and his eyes widened, his mouth opened, as he felt pain for the first time. His body jerked, living blood began to ooze from the wound, and he fell to the ground. Denise fell to the ground too. Her body went weak and she hit the tiles hard and knocked her head against something and she felt pain—real actual pain—and cried out. She tried getting back to her feet but couldn’t, not at first. She couldn’t do anything. So she just lay there, staring up at the ceiling, noticing it looked different. The entire kitchen looked different. Quite suddenly she felt something she had never felt before, something besides the pain. It was the twins, kicking. She placed her hands on her stomach. She didn’t know why she took comfort in this, but she did. And with her hand there, she thought about Kyle, about Conrad, and about how much she loved them. Then she thought of something she hadn’t thought about in a long time, three words her husband had carved for her because he said it was true. She tried to get to her feet again. She managed to stand. She left the kitchen, stepping over Michael’s now dead body, hurrying out of the house back to the car. And there the puppy was, just as alive as her, yapping and wagging its tail and licking her with a cool wet tongue. “No,” she said, “no,” and she pushed the puppy away just long enough to start up the car, place it in reverse, and back down the driveway.