“C’mon, man,” Nick pipes in, “the noise is gonna draw more of ’em … let’s get outta here.”
Philip points the gun at the cop, who grows still at the sight of the muzzle. But Philip doesn’t pull the trigger. He simply smiles and makes a childlike shooting noise: psssh-psssh-pssssh.
“Philip, come on,” Brian says, shifting Penny’s weight in his arms. “That thing doesn’t even—”
Brian stops and stares.
The dead cop is transfixed by the sight of that Ruger in his face. Brian wonders if his rudimentary central nervous system is somehow sending a signal to some far-off muscle memory buried deep in his dead brain cells. His expression changes. The monstrous abomination of a face falls like a rotten soufflé, and the thing almost looks sad. Or maybe even scared. It’s hard to tell behind that beastly snarling mouth and mask of necrotic tissue, but something in those Buffalo-nickel eyes flickers then: a trace of dread?
An unexpected tide of emotion rises in Brian Blake, and it takes him by surprise. It’s hard to put a name to it—it’s partly repulsion, partly pity, partly disgust, partly sorrow, and partly rage. He suddenly puts Penny down, and he gently turns her around so that she’s facing the church.
“This is an away moment, kiddo,” Brian says softly, and then turns to face his brother.
Philip is taunting the zombie. “Just relax and follow the bouncing ball,” he says to the drooling creature, waving the barrel slowly back and forth.
“I’ll do it,” Brian says.
Philip freezes. He turns and gives his brother a look. “Say what?”
“Give me the gun, I’ll finish it off.”
Philip looks at Nick, and Nick looks at Brian. “Hey, man, you don’t want to—”
“Give me the gun!”
The smile that twitches at the corners of Philip’s lips is complex, and humorless. “Be my guest, sport.”
Brian takes the gun and without hesitation steps forward, pokes it in the car, presses the muzzle against the dead cop’s head, and starts to squeeze off a single shot … but his finger will not respond. His trigger finger will not obey the command his brain is giving it.
In the awkward pause the zombie drools as though waiting for something.
“Gimme the gun back, sport.” Philip’s voice sounds far away to Brian.
“No … I got this one.” Brian grits his teeth and tries to pull the trigger. His finger is a block of ice. His eyes burn. His stomach clenches.
The dead cop snarls.
Brian begins to tremble as Philip steps forward.
“Gimme the gun back.”
“No.”
“Come on, sport, give it back.”
“I got it!” Brian wipes his eyes with his sleeve. “Damnit, I got it!”
“Come on.” Philip reaches for the gun. “Enough.”
“Goddamnit,” Brian says, lowering the gun, the tears welling in his eyes. He can’t do it. He might as well face it. He gives the gun to his brother, and steps back with his head lowered.
Philip puts the policeman out of his misery with a single pop that sends a spray of blood mist across the inside of the prowler’s windshield. The bark echoes up and out over the ruined landscape.
The dead cop slumps over the wheel.
A long moment passes as Brian fights his tears and tries to hide his trembling. He gazes through the car window at the cop’s remains. He feels like saying he’s sorry to the dead officer but decides against it. He just keeps staring at the limp body still held in place by the shoulder strap.
The faint sound of a child’s voice, like the flutter of broken wings, comes from behind them. “Dad … Uncle Brian … Uncle Nick? Um … something bad is happening.”
The three men whirl around almost simultaneously. Their gazes rise across the church parking lot, to the place toward which Penny is staring and pointing. “Son of a bitch,” Philip says, seeing the worst-case scenario unfolding before his very eyes.
“Oh my God,” Nick says.
“Shit, shit—shit!” Brian feels his spine go cold as he sees the front of the church.
“Come on, punkin, this way.” Philip goes over to the child and tugs her gently back toward the cruiser. “We’re gonna borrow this nice policeman’s car.” He reaches inside the driver’s door, unlatches it, kicks it open, unsnaps the seat belt, and yanks the limp body from the vehicle—the zombie sprawling to the pavement with the ceremonial splat of an overripe gourd.
“Everybody in—quick! Throw your shit in the back! And get in!”
Brian and Nick circle around to the other side, throw open the doors, toss in their backpacks, and get in.
Philip slides Penny over the center hump, setting her on the passenger seat and climbing behind the wheel. The keys are in the ignition.
Philip turns the key.
The engine ticks.
The dashboard barely lights, just a dull ember of power left.
“Damnit to hell! DAMNIT!” Philip glances out the window at the church. “Okay. Wait a minute. Wait … wait.” He shoots a quick glance through the windshield, and he sees that the road ahead banks into a steep downgrade, which leads under a train trestle. He looks at Brian and Nick. “You two. Get out. Now!”
Brian and Nick look at each other, stunned. What they see emerging from the church—most likely aroused by the commotion of voices and the pistol shot—would most likely burn itself into their memories for some time to come. Unfortunately it would also linger in Penny’s imagination, probably more vividly: dead things materializing behind gaping holes in stained-glass portals and half-open doorways, some of them still clad in ragged, blood-soaked clerical vestments, some of them in Sunday-go-to-meeting suits and crepe dresses drenched with gore. Some of them are gnawing on severed human appendages, while others carry body parts at their sides, the organs still dripping from the gruesome orgy inside the chapel. There are at least fifty, maybe more, and they move side by side with a lurching purpose toward the police car.
For a single instant, before throwing open his door and joining Nick outside the car, Brian finds his mind flashing on a strange thought: They are moving as one—even in death, still a tightly knit congregation—like puppets of some great overmind. But the notion quickly flies from his thoughts as he hears the call of his brother from behind the wheel of the cop car.
“PUSH THE SON OF THE BITCH WITH EVERYTHING YOU GOT AND THEN HOP ON!”
Now Brian joins Nick behind the car and then, without really even thinking about it, begins to push. By this point Philip has jammed the thing into neutral, and has his door open, and his leg outside the car, and is shoving the thing with his boot with all his might.
It takes them a few moments to build up steam—the churchgoing hoard behind them approaching steadily, dropping their ghastly treasures amid the promise of fresh meat—but soon the cruiser is coasting rapidly down the hill, faster and faster, to the point where Brian and Nick have to hop on board. Nick grasps the whip antenna for purchase. Brian gets halfway inside the flapping rear door, but can’t get himself the rest of the way inside without falling, so he holds tightly to the door’s frame.
By this point the car is halfway down the hill, putting distance between them and the scores of undead shambling after them. The weight of the vehicle is building inertia. The Crown Victoria now feels as though it’s a runaway train, bumping down the cracked pavement toward the intersection at the bottom of the hill. The wind whips Brian’s dark hair as he holds on for dear life.
Nick hollers something, but the noise of the wind and the thumping wheels drown out his voice. At the bottom of the hill lies a defunct Conrail switchyard, its maze of ancient rails fossilized into the Georgia earth, its ramshackle sheds and office buildings as black and decayed as prehistoric ruins. Philip is yelling something that Brian cannot hear.
They reach the bottom of the hill and the steering wheel locks up.
The squad car bangs over the track and careens into the switchyard. Philip cannot turn the wheel. The car skids
. The wheels cut into the cinders, the undercarriage sparking off the iron.
Brian and Nick hold on tight as the cruiser skuds to a halt in a cloud of black dust.
“Grab your shit! Everybody! Now!” Philip already has his door open and he’s already pulling Penny out. Brian and Nick hop off the rear end and join Philip, who hefts his duffel onto one shoulder and lifts his daughter onto the other. “This way!” He nods toward a narrow street to the west.
They hurry out of the switchyard.
* * *
A row of boarded storefronts and burned-out buildings stretches down a perpendicular cobblestone road.
They move quickly along, staying tight under a row of awnings on the south side of the street, their shoulders brushing graffiti-stained doors and Rust-Oleum-flecked windows. The dusk is closing in and shadows are lengthening, burying them in gloom.
The sense of being surrounded is overwhelming, although at the moment they don’t see any creatures, just a long corridor of shitty, obsolete businesses once serving this corroded, forsaken part of Atlanta’s outskirts: pawnshops, currency exchanges, bail bondsmen, auto parts places, taverns, and junk shops.
As they move along the scarred storefronts, huffing and puffing with the weight of their loads, not daring to speak or make any unnecessary noise, the urgency of getting inside somewhere begins to work on them. Night is falling again, and this place will be the dark side of the moon in less than an hour. They have no map, no GPS, no compass, no sense of where they are other than the misty landmark of the skyline miles to the west.
Brian feels the anxiety on the back of his neck like a cold finger.
They turn a corner.
Brian sees the mechanic’s shop first, but Philip sees it a split second later and motions toward it with a nod. “Up there on the corner, see it?”
Nick sees it now. “Yeah, yeah … looks good.”
It does indeed look good: On the southwest corner of a deserted intersection one block away, Donlevy’s Autobody and Repair appears to be the only business in this godforsaken area that has any life still in it—although it currently appears closed for the season.
They hasten toward the building.
As they approach, they see that the half-acre lot is recently repaved. The two islands of gas pumps out front, clean and apparently operational, sit under a giant Chevron sign. The building itself—lined with columns of new tires, fronted on one side by a pair of massive double garage doors—is a gleaming slab of silver metal siding and reinforced glass. There’s even a second floor, housing either an office or more retail space.
Philip leads them around back. The rear of the place is tidy, with newly painted garbage Dumpsters shoved up against the cinder-block back wall. They search for a door or window but find neither.
“What about the front door?” Brian says in a breathless whisper as they pause next to the Dumpsters. They can hear the congregation coming down the street, the shuffling, groaning chorus of fifty-plus zombies.
“I’m sure it’s locked,” Philip says, his gaunt, hard face shiny from the labors of carrying his daughter and his duffel. Penny is compulsively, nervously sucking her thumb against his shoulder.
“How do you know?”
Philip shrugs. “Guess it’s worth a try.”
They creep around the far side of the building, and they stay in the shadows under the Chevron awning, as Philip sets Penny and duffel down and hurries up to the entrance door. He yanks the handle.
It’s open.
EIGHT
They huddle for some time inside the repair center’s front office, under the cashier’s counter, next to a spinner rack of candy bars and potato chips.
Philip locks the door and crouches next to the others in the shadows, watching the parade of undead out on the street, passing by the shop, oblivious to the whereabouts of their prey, stupidly scanning with their button eyes like dogs hearing high-pitched whistles.
From this vantage point, gazing through the meshed, reinforced windows, Brian gets a chance to scrutinize the dead clergy and ragged parishioners as they awkwardly promenade past the service station. How did this church full of true believers turn en masse? Did they gather as frightened Christians after the plague had broken out, cleaving to each other for succor and comfort? Did they hear fire-and-brimstone sermons from the preachers about the Revelation to John? Did the pastors furiously cant warning parables: “‘And the fifth angel blew his trumpet, and I saw a star fallen from heaven to earth, and he was given the key to the shaft of the bottomless pit!’”
And how did the first one turn? Was it somebody in a back pew having a heart attack? Was it a ritual suicide? Brian imagines one of those old black ladies—her system clogged with cholesterol, her plump, gloved hands waving with the spirit—suddenly clutching her massive bosom at the first twinge of a coronary. And minutes later—maybe in an hour or so—the woman rises, her porcine face full of a new religion, a singular, savage faith.
“Fucking Holy Rollers,” Philip grumbles from across the cashier’s counter. Then he turns to Penny and swallows contritely. “Sorry for the language, punkin.”
* * *
They explore the repair center. The place is spotless and secure, cold but clean, the floors swept, the shelves well ordered, the cool air redolent with the odors of new rubber and the vaguely pleasant chemical fragrance of fuels and fluids. They realize they can stay here for the night, but it is not until they investigate the large repair garage that they make their most fortuitous discovery.
“Holy crap, it’s a tank,” Brian says, standing on the cold cement, shining a flashlight at the black beauty parked under canvas tarps in one corner.
The others gather around the sole vehicle standing in the darkness. Philip whips off the tarp. It’s a late-model Cadillac Escalade in cherry condition, its onyx finish gleaming in the yellow light.
“Probably belonged to the owner,” Nick ventures.
“Christmas comes early,” Philip says, kicking one of the massive tires with his muddy work boot. The luxury SUV is enormous, with huge molded bumpers, giant vertical headlights, and big, shiny chrome wheels. It looks like the kind of vehicle a secret government agency would have in its fleet, the sinister tinted windows reflecting the bloom of the flashlight back at them.
“There’s nobody inside it, right?” Brian shines the beam off the opaque glass.
Philip pulls the .22 from his belt, clicks a door open, and points the muzzle in at the empty, showroom-clean interior, with its wood trim, leather seats, and console that looks like a control center for an airliner.
Philip says, “Bet you a dollar to a doughnut there’s keys in a drawer somewhere.”
* * *
The whole incident with the cop and the church seems to have pushed Penny into a deeper stupor. She sleeps that night curled into a fetal ball on the floor of the repair area, covered in blankets, her thumb in her mouth.
“Haven’t seen her do that in a coon’s age,” Philip remarks nearby, sitting on his bedroll with the last of the whiskey. He wears a sleeveless T-shirt and filthy jeans, his boots sitting next to him. He takes a sip and wipes his mouth.
“Do what?” Brian is sitting cross-legged, bundled in his blood-spattered coat, on the other side of the little girl, careful not to speak too loudly. Nick dozes over by a workbench, zipped in a sleeping bag. The temperature has plunged into the forties.
“Suck her thumb like that,” Philip says.
“She’s dealing with a lot.”
“We all are.”
“Yeah.” Brian stares into his lap. “We’ll make it, though.”
“Make it where?”
Brian looks up. “The refugee center. Wherever it is … we’ll find it.”
“Yeah, sure.” Philip kills the rest of the bottle and sets it down. “We’ll find the place and the sun’ll come out tomorrow and all the orphans will find good homes and the Braves will win the fucking pennant.”
“Something bothering you?”
Philip shakes his head. “Jesus Christ, Brian, open your eyes.”
“Are you mad at me?”
Philip stands and stretches his sore neck. “Now why the fuck would I be mad at you, sport? It’s business as usual. No big deal.”
“What does that mean?”
“Nothing … just get some sleep.” Philip walks over to the Escalade, kneels down, and looks under the chassis for something.
Brian climbs to his feet, his heart racing. He feels dizzy. His sore throat is better, and he stopped coughing after a few days of rest and rejuvenation in the Wiltshire house, but he still does not feel a hundred percent. Who does? He goes over and stands behind his brother. “What do you mean by ‘business as usual’?”
“It is what it is,” Philip mutters, checking the SUV’s underbelly.
“You’re mad about the cop,” Brian says.
Philip stands up slowly, turns, and comes face-to-face with his brother. “I said go to sleep.”
“Maybe I have a harder time shooting something that was once human—so sue me.”
Philip grabs Brian by the nape of the T-shirt, spins him around, and slams him back against the side of the Escalade. The impact nearly knocks the breath out of Brian, and the noise wakes up Nick, and it even makes Penny stir. “You listen to me,” Philip growls in a threatening, husky voice that’s both sober and drunk at the same time. “Next time you take a gun from me, you make sure you’re ready to put it to good use. That cop was harmless, but who knows about next time, and I ain’t gonna be the one babysitting you with nothin’ but my gonads in my hand, you understand? You read me?”
Brian is nodding, his throat dry with terror. “Yes.”
Philip increases the pressure on Brian’s shirt. “You better get past your namby-pamby bullshit sheltered life and start carrying your weight around here and stoving some heads in because it sure as hell is gonna get worse before it gets better!”
“I understand,” Brian says.
Philip doesn’t let go, his eyes glinting with rage. “We’re gonna survive this thing, and we’re gonna do it by being bigger monsters than they are! You understand? There ain’t no rules anymore! There ain’t no philosophy, there ain’t no grace, there ain’t no mercy, there’s only us and them, and all they wanna do is eat our ass! So we’re gonna fucking eat them! We’re gonna chew ’em up and spit ’em out, and we’re gonna survive this thing or I will blow a hole through this whole fucked-up world! You follow me? You FOLLOW ME!”