She could not finish before the opposite wall came crashing in.
A vast, rotting hand lunged inside, groping with enormous black-and-green fingers that twitched with infestation at the bony tips. The hair on its knuckles was thick as wire.
Jenny shrieked. Lillian threw herself into the front door and was on the street before any of us. We followed in a mob.
"Stay together!" shouted Jenny. "Head for the docks! Find a bunker!"
I skidded and stopped. The giant zombie gorilla roared behind us, finishing off the post office for good. Bradbury, without breaking stride, turned his head: "Tom! Move!"
"I have to find her," I shouted. "I'll see you on the boat."
"Wait!" cried Lillian.
I didn't wait.
I ran. I ran like I hadn't run since grammar school. I cleared obstacles like a show horse. The whole city opened to me, a block at a time, and I owned it yard by painful yard. Behind me I heard the giant zombie gorillas stomping and chewing and tearing apart buildings floor by floor. I couldn't even hear myself breathe.
And there it was.
Macy's, which used to reside between a bank and an apartment building, now resided under them both. Its impressive storefront was a pile of bricks--not a very big one, and difficult to distinguish from the bricks around it. Painted right on the side of the pile of rubble were letters in whitewash, tall as I was: WELCOME. There was a big arrow pointing toward a makeshift door.
The door said KNOCK TWICE so that's what I did--softly, because I knew the giant zombie gorillas were never far off. At once, the door cracked open. Someone's hand took hold of mine and I was hauled inside by a man in a welder's helmet. The door closed silently, carefully, firmly.
"Bets," I gasped. "Where's Bets?"
The doorman raised his helmet. His face was filthy. "You know Bets?"
"Tom!"
Someone broke from the cluster of people in the dim corners of the bunker, and came flying into my arms.
The doubts evaporated the moment she spoke.
"Gosh, here you are!" she said. "I thought--that is to say, I didn't think--oh, come here, you." And she tried to break all my ribs at once.
I reciprocated. But there wasn't time to enjoy it. I pulled back and took hold of her arms.
"Bets, there's a boat coming in to port. Our bunker was going to try to catch it. We think it's--well, something like a rescue."
"A boat!" she said. "It can't be. Not after the--"
"It is," I said, "and I mean to be on it when it leaves this lousy city. Come with me, Bets. Life on the open seas. Away from the giant zombie gorillas. What do you say?"
She hesitated. "But Tom… we're doing all right here."
Her words struck me cold. I never expected them. "What do you mean?"
"We--we're doing all right." She gestured around. "We have food enough for a while, and sometimes new people come by--like you did, just now. We're safe enough. Safer than most. We thought we could make this a sort of town hall when things settle down. Do you really want us to leave this? A boat might be dangerous. It might not be a rescue at all."
I took a hard look around. The ceiling was low and the walls damp. People sat or paced. But I could smell food cooking (the same humdrum tinned stuff we lived on) and I heard talk and laughter. Even with Bradbury and Jenny around, we had rarely found occasion to really laugh.
"I… I said I'd meet them at the boat."
Bets took my arm. "Let them do what they think is best. Now you know about us. You do what you think is best."
"Bets, are you… "
"I'm staying," she said.
All my imaginings about my future had been shattered before, a month ago, with one great blow breaking my dreams like a window and then a series of little ones to shake the last few chunks of hope out of the frame. The boat put a few of them back and Bets broke them out again. Could I live underground forever, always on the end of my nerves, with her at my side? Could I live on a free, open vessel without her?
I watched the possibilities of my future wind out in twisty strands before me, wild and fragile. My vision shook. Then I realized it wasn't my vision at all: that things around me, the walls and ceiling, actually were shaking. The building quivered around us. We quivered within it.
"Tubbo!" I gasped.
"What?" said Bets.
"He's the one--never mind, it's too foolish. One of them. He must have followed me. We have to get out of here!"
Bets took a firm hold of my hand. "No, we don't. The giant zombie gorillas find this place once or twice a week. We're underground. All they can do is shift the rubble a bit and maybe block off an exit. Then they all grow bored and leave. It's like I've been trying to tell you, Tom. We're safe here."
The walls shook again.
"Bets!" I said.
She frowned. "It does seem different than usual. I wonder… "
As she spoke, a young girl in an oversized hardhat came tearing inside from a door in the back. She got hold of the man who had let me in. "It isn't the giant zombie gorillas!" she cried, taking him by the sleeve. "We're being shot at!"
"What?" said the man. "By who?"
She spread her arms wide. "How should I know? There's fog everywhere! But it was coming from the ocean. It was cannonballs! Hitting this, that, and everything!"
Cannonballs! I went to the pair of them. Bets came along. "We heard that the Laurel Street bunker saw a boat of some kind coming in to port not a few hours ago," I told him, since he seemed to be in charge.
"Great Scott!" he said. "Where'd anyone get a boat nowadays?"
"Search me, sir," I said, adding the sir because his tone demanded it. "Some of my friends were going to try to board it. They think it's a rescue."
"Sounds like an invasion force instead!" he barked.
"Well, we ought to find out for sure," said Bets. "Is the radio picking up anything?"
The girl in the oversized hardhat went dashing off. She returned in an instant. "No sir," she said. "Just white noise. But I've got them listening close!"
"Sir," I said, "I'm Tom, by the way--maybe the giant zombie gorillas can't break your bunker and you'd know that better than I, but I'll bet a mortar shell could. And if somebody is shooting at the giant zombie gorillas, shooting something big enough to sting, you know, these monsters will be kept busy for a while. This might just be the time to make an escape."
He tilted his lid a little to get a look at me. "Tom, you may not like this particular frying pan, but I promise you the rest of the world is the fire."
"Then I'll go alone," I said. "I'll check out the ship. I'll try to keep them from shooting at this place, and I'll try to send word back if it really is a rescue."
Bets said, "Oh, Tom!"
I took her by the shoulders. "Listen, Bets, please. Two hours ago I swore I was getting out of this town, and my only regret was leaving you behind. Now I've got you. I can't stay here and live like a rat underground any longer. But I can't be happy without you. Please, Bets. Please come with me."
She bit her lip. I worried she was going to cry.
"Oh, all right!" she said at last. "Damn you, Tom Findley. I can't stand this hole any longer either. I'll come with you. Because it's you. But you'd better not leave me again, now or ever. Do you hear me?"
"I hear you," I said. "I hear you. I'm so glad to hear you again."
She kissed me. It almost made the whole terrible situation worthwhile.
#
The Macy's bunker lent me a hardhat; the man in charge said it might bring me luck, and hoped I'd try hard to return it. He said it as a sort of joke. Bets gathered her own things and a helmet for herself. It only made her look more adorable.
Hand in hand we crept through the ruined streets. We steered clear of any loud noises, whether gunfire or the shrieks of a giant zombie gorilla. The girl lookout had been right about the fog and smoke. We could tell we were headed toward the docks, but only just. At one point Bets grabbed my arm and jerked me behind a building.
"One of them," she mouthed to me. I craned my neck around the corner. One of the giant zombie gorillas strolled past. I swallowed and felt pale.
Bets nodded gravely. We set off again.
The streets were not so devastated that we couldn't pick a path through them, though it was neither fun nor easy. For every building that stood, another was strewn across its neighbors. I had not been out scavenging for some time, and it made me ache to see the valuables--what had once been valuables--tossed among the bricks and debris. I stopped to scoop up a small, flat food tin with the label burnt off. It's never prudent to leave food behind.
"There," said Bets, in a low tone, just at the edge of my ear. "There they are."
We had reached the docks. Not far out over the fog-riddled water, we could make out billowing sails.
"Sails?" I murmured. "Where did they--"
"It doesn't matter," she murmured back. "I won't be happy until we're on board. Please let's go."
Sailing ships! I couldn't imagine anything that old could still float. But as we crept closer, I could just see the black ends of cannons extend from the side of the ship. They burst with a roar of cannon fire. Perhaps, I thought, my spirit rising, perhaps the giant zombie gorillas have knocked our civilization back hundreds of years, but mankind was fairly dangerous back then as well…
"I see a lifeboat!" I said, as we crested the last mound of rubble. I held out a hand to help her. "We can row out! Bets--we're going to make it!"
The earth heaved. As I tumbled down, I saw that we had been climbing not a pile of rubble but a giant zombie gorilla nestled deep in the fruits of its own destruction! I rolled down his knee and across his vile foot. Bets skipped back, eyes wide as plates. The giant zombie gorilla stood. His left arm ended in a bony, green, gangrenous stump at the shoulder.
"Tubbo!" I gasped.
Bets and I clung to one another, ducking behind his great heel. The monster rolled to his knuckles and paced toward the shore, sniffing deep. Just then a cannonball came roaring through the thick mist: it passed not a hundred yards from Tubbo and sank into the side of an abandoned factory.
Tubbo reared. He loomed above us. His good arm pounded his chest in sluggish arrhythmia and the scream from his torn throat was the ungodly rasp of dead flesh and broken teeth. I recognized his behavior at once. He was posturing--not at us, but at the ship, the floating thing twice his size spitting boulders at him. He challenged it as he would a living thing. He would attack it like one, too.
I clutched Bets. "He's going to tear that ship plank from plank!" I hissed in her ear. "We must stop him."
She looked at me with dull, sad eyes. "Okay, Tom," she said. She put a hand in her bag. "You'd better run."
"I won't run!" I said.
She drew a pistol and aimed high. It lurched hard in her hand.
Tubbo reared forward. Bullets were not enough to fell his type, but this one lodged in his skull, and he noticed it. He made a huge swooping turn. His knuckles pounded down yards from us. Bets took my hand and began to back away. Her mouth quivered. "I'm sorry, Tom," she whispered--or maybe she couldn't quite get the words out. I knew what she meant.
"It's just all right," I said. I knew this was my last chance. I had to make it count. "I'm glad I'm with you. Bets--I love--"
I finished the sentence in a howl as Tubbo swiped his giant hand toward us, took hold of me like a child holds a crayon, and swept me into the sky.
I would have been sick if I'd eaten anything that day. I heard, faintly, Bets calling from below, but the whoosh of wind in my ear covered it. In seconds I was face to face with the beast. His vast eyes were large as my head, and scraped white as wool. His breath reeked of the death he had eaten and the death he had become.
I became suddenly very calm. Just avoid the teeth, Tom, I told myself. They're barely held together, they're decaying flesh. Some have clawed their way out of the gullet and lived. Only be sure to avoid the teeth. And take a deep breath.
I took a deep breath.
Tubbo roared again--that rasping scream, that insane alarm that heralded our demise and broke down our city. I cringed between his fingers. I forced myself to straighten, to go down aware, alert, like a man. I could see so far from here. The city stretched out to my left: not quite lifeless. The sea stretched out to my right. I saw the ship clearly now. It was not one, but many. A dull, far-off boom. And then, to my terror, I realized that what I had taken for cannons emerging from below deck were, in fact, cannonballs--and they were getting bigger--I heard them whizz through the air, all around--and one struck Tubbo's ear and burst out the other side with a massive spray of white bone and black flesh.
And then I was falling.
And then I was not.
Darkness and stars warred in my vision. I thought I heard Bets calling my name, although I must have been addled from the fall, because it sounded like there were three or four of her. My head reeled. I rolled to my elbows and crawled across the spongy black palm toward the pad near the thumb. I thought I saw someone coming toward me, but my vision made multiples of him. He reached me--got me under my arm--one on each side--could it be that I was not so addled? Were there many, after all?
"Got you, old boy." It was Bradbury, on my left. "Nice adventure you had, didn't you?"
"It wasn't nice at all," said Bets, on my right. "Can you walk, Tom? They have a lifeboat."
My vision cleared. I saw Jenny and Lillian before me, and Bets and Bradbury at my sides, supporting me. "I can walk," I croaked. I wasn't sure right then that I could, to be honest. But I had the desire to be useful.
"They're warships!" said Jenny, as we went, as quick as we could, to the docks. "They're going to shuttle us north where there aren't so many of the you-know-what's. We've been taking people back and forth. There are more than you can imagine, Tom! This city isn't as dead as we thought."
Bets helped me into the lifeboat. She stroked my cheek. "And neither are you."
I thanked my Maker it was true. As we rowed away from shore, I realized it didn't matter where the giant zombie gorillas came from--or even where the rescue ships came from, although I certainly intended to ask. All I had to know was that they did exist, and that I had done everything I could with them. As I held Bets in my arms, gazing out at man's last army fighting nature's most hideous one, I realized that I had everything I needed right here: my girl, my health, my friends.
Giant zombie gorillas or not, it wasn't such a bad life after all.
Memories
The neurology professor remembered what it was like to think. He recalled heartbeat and breath churning from the brain stem, stance and posture tickling the cerebellum. Then the stimuli would crawl up his spine to the cortex, wriggling into perception in the parietal lobe; reasoning would worm through his frontal lobe; words would chew through his temporal lobe to become speech. All those squirming neurons for a moment of thought.
The professor plucked a maggot from his rotting tongue and reinserted it into his ear. Yes, he was sure. In life, thinking must have been very similar to this.
About the Author
Amanda C. Davis is a combustion engineer who loves baking, gardening, and low-budget horror films. Her work has appeared or is upcoming in Goblin Fruit, Shock Totem, and Cemetery Dance, among others. She tweets enthusiastically as @davisac1. You can find out more about her and read more of her work at https://www.amandacdavis.com.
More from Amanda C. Davis
The Lair of the Twelve Princesses
Bay has nothing to show for her years of military service but the clothes on her back, a bad leg, and a sardonic imp in a bottle who's more harm than help. When she hears an open call for bodyguards for the twelve headstrong princesses, she thinks the job could reverse her fortunes. Unfortunately, her new charges are under a nightly curse, and everyone seems determined to keep the details a mystery--including its victims.
Luckily, Bay has a trick up her sleeve. Her imp owes her three wishes, and is desperate to grant them
. She's been hoarding his magic for an emergency, but it might be time to cash in: according to a fine-print clause in her contract, if she cannot solve the princesses' curse in three nights, she'll be executed the following dawn.
This 9000-word novelette first appeared in InterGalactic Medicine Show in January 2012. Cover elements by Jessica Truscott and Jeannie Ann Numos.
Available now in many formats.
"A clever idea, and darker than the original...where wonder is replaced by a murderous conspiracy."
–Lois Tilton, Locus
"An enjoyable mystery furnished with refreshingly original magic effects."
–Dario Ciriello, Tangent Online
"A good story."
–Bob Leishman, Tangent Online
Wolves and Witches: Now available from World Weaver Press
Witches have stories too. So do mermaids, millers’ daughters, princes (charming or otherwise), even big bad wolves. They may be a bit darker–fewer enchanted ball gowns, more iron shoes. Happily-ever-after? Depends on who you ask. In Wolves and Witches, sisters Amanda C. Davis and Megan Engelhardt weave sixteen stories and poems out of familiar fairy tales, letting them show their teeth.
Available now in many formats.
“It’s in the details that Davis and Engelhardt get you. I don’t know if it’s love or obsession or maybe just succumbing to the spell, but what stays with me is the tenor and texture of these tales retold–whether the fabric of a dancing shoe, the hollowness of bones in the wind, or the sharp critique of stereotyped social norms. Let yourself be enchanted and enjoy.”
–Dan Campbell, Bull Spec
“Davis and Engelhardt’s Wolves and Witches: A Fairy Tale Collection is a joy, start to finish. At times eloquent, at times written in a bare-bones style, this collection of verse and prose takes familiar fairy tales and turns them into something darker, deeper, and delicious. My very heart was stolen by a cobbler with a bad leg. That’s good storytelling.”
–Mercedes M. Yardley, author of Beautiful Sorrows
“In their collection of re-envisioned fairy tales, Wolves and Witches, Amanda C. Davis and Megan Engelhardt deliver an assortment of poetry and short fiction that entertains the ear and tickles the mind. The prose is assured, clever, and insightful, and the stories, which often experiment with perspective, dance from the page.”