The Way of All Flesh Read online

  What the fuck? David thought, unable to believe what he was seeing. They were crazy! They had to be!

  The demon shot at the old woman first. The bullet hit her just below her right eye, and while blood sprayed the air and the impact caused her head to snap to the side, the woman only staggered. She quickly regained her footing and continued toward the demon.

  Simon spoke in David’s ear.

  “This might be a good time to haul ass.”

  That struck David as an excellent idea—the best he’d heard all day, in fact. He turned and ran into the street, Simon loping easily alongside him, the sound of gunshots and animalistic snarls following them as they fled.

  Kate had known it was a dumb idea to go after David alone. Every survivor knew better than to ever go anywhere alone. Even when they were locked up tight inside the high school and supposedly safe, most still traveled in groups of two or three, even when they went to the bathroom. No one who had lived through the early days of Blacktide walked alone, except for very short trips. But she’d failed to put David down when she’d had the chance, and she’d been determined to rectify that mistake.

  And it wasn’t like Nicholas could’ve come with her. Someone had needed to stay and guard Marie. The girl was a rarity among Lockwood’s survivors. She felt perfectly comfortable going out by herself—or at least she felt confident in her ability to keep herself from being eaten. But she had no training and carried no gun. Not because she wasn’t allowed one, but because she said she didn’t need one. Girl thought she was a zombie whisperer or something.

  That was the reason she and Nicholas had gone out today. Marie hadn’t shown up for lunch, and Kate had suspected she’d snuck out to conduct more of her “research”. Kate found Nicholas, and the two of them set out on foot—the survivors only used vehicles when absolutely necessary, for the sound of engines was like a clanging dinner bell for zombies. Kate figured Marie would go to the park. It was one of her favorite places to observe. But this latest experiment, setting out live bait for zombies… She shook her head. That was nuts, even for Marie.

  Kate didn’t think there was a single survivor in town—including herself—who was 100 percent sane, not after what they’d been through. But Marie was crazier than most. So Kate had told Nicholas to remain behind with the girl and had taken off like a gung-ho, kick-ass action hero. And now here she was, standing in a yard with four zombies—counting her brother—staring at her.

  Blacktide had hit in March, and since there’d been no one to mow during the spring and summer, the town was overgrown with tall grass and weeds, and this yard was no exception. There was a tree in the middle of the yard, and she caught a glimpse of a cat clinging to one of the branches. Then she understood what was going on. Zombies would eat any kind of meat, living or dead, though they very much preferred their meals still to be kicking. With most humans either dead, zombified or living in guarded quarters, finding snacks of the two-legged variety wasn’t easy these days. So zombies settled for cats, dogs, rats, whatever they could get their undead hands on. She’d once witnessed a zombie scooping wriggling maggots from the body cavity of a decaying corpse and jamming them into his mouth, one handful after another, as if they were potato chips. She still had dreams about that.

  David, in trying to escape her, had accidently led her into a trap. Unless, she thought, he’d done it on purpose. As far as she knew, that wasn’t possible. Zombies only thought about food and nothing else. But then again, who knew what, if anything, went on in their heads?

  “Thanks a lot, David,” she muttered as she raised her rifle.

  The three would-be cat munchers came at her then, but David remained still, standing and watching, eyes dead, face slack and lifeless.

  The old woman looked like a skeleton covered with phlegm-colored leather. Most of the right side of her face was gone, revealing an eyeless socket, ivory-white cheekbone and grinning teeth. Like so many zombies, the flesh had been worn away from the tips of her fingers—or perhaps chewed off when she’d gotten hungry—exposing the bone underneath. Zombies healed, but not like humans. The edges of her wounds were smooth, but new flesh hadn’t grown to cover the bone. The result made it seem as if the old woman had been born this way, and Kate found the effect more disturbing than if the woman had been sporting ragged, bloody injuries. Her dress was filthy, the fabric covered in so much blood, dirt and shit that it was stiff as cardboard, and the stench hit Kate like a solid wall as the old woman approached.

  The woman growled like an animal as she attacked, moving swift as a striking panther despite her age. Kate fired, but her aim was off, and the bullet ripped through the old woman’s remaining cheek, tearing away the flesh and releasing a gout of the horrendous-smelling black ooze that passed for blood in zombies. The impact slowed the woman, only for an instant, but that was all Kate needed. She drew in a breath, forced herself to take time to aim, and fired again.

  The woman’s head snapped back, and she collapsed into the tall grass.

  One down.

  She saw David turn and begin lurching toward the street. This was the second time he’d chosen to flee rather than attack, and it puzzled her. Zombies had a certain instinct for self-preservation, but their hunger trumped everything else. A lone zombie would attack a group of well-armed humans without hesitation if it was hungry enough, and the damned things were always hungry enough. Presumably, David was too. But this was twice now that he’d avoided attacking her. Maybe his sense of self-preservation was stronger than that of most zombies. Or maybe, just maybe, on some level he recognized Kate as his sister and he couldn’t bring himself to harm her.

  Kate knew it was a foolish, even vain, thought, but she couldn’t help it. She and David had been so close growing up, and she so desperately wanted to believe that some vestige of their twin bond remained.

  She told herself she should take a shot at David before he got too far away, but she had two other zombies to deal with, and, unlike her brother, both of them were determined to make a meal out of her. The man came at her next, moving swiftly despite his bulk. His gut had a number of chunks bitten out of it, and Kate figured a guy that fat was probably like a mobile snack bar for his fellow zombies. His partially eaten stomach bobbled up and down as he ran, granting Kate a glimpse of what lay between his legs—or rather, what didn’t. It seemed someone had gobbled up his naughty bits, leaving only a bloodless hole. She wondered if he’d done it himself—torn his junk off with his own hands and shoved it in his mouth. It wouldn’t surprise her.

  As the man neared the old woman’s corpse, Kate hoped he’d be tempted by the easy meal, fall upon the body and begin tearing at it with his teeth. But he ignored the old woman and kept heading for Kate. His milky eyes cleared as he drew closer, as if his senses had sharpened to help him make his kill. She’d seen zombies do this before, but that didn’t make the effect any less disturbing. Flabby, mottled lips curled away from his teeth in a snarl, and while his teeth didn’t look any different than those of a living man, Kate knew that, like all zombies, they were fused to the jaws, had in fact become almost outgrowths of bone. Add to this jaw muscles that were far stronger than they had been in life, and you had the undead equivalent of a land shark. Or, in this guy’s case, a land whale, she thought.

  He reached for her with discolored sausage fingers, moving with more speed than a creature of his bulk should’ve been capable of. Even so, she sidestepped him easily, and rather than wasting another round, she slammed the rifle butt into the side of his head. She was rewarded with a satisfying crunch as a section of the zombie’s skull caved in. The blow rendered him off balance, and he staggered a few steps before collapsing to the ground, flattening a wide patch of grass beneath him. Normally Kate would’ve checked to make sure the fat zombie was down for the count, but she still had the girl to deal with, so she spun around and repositioned her grip on the rifle in case she needed to fire.

  The girl was nowhere to be seen.

  Kate swiveled her head
right, left and back again, but she didn’t see the girl. Had she fled? It didn’t seem likely. She’d never known a zombie to pass up a meal. Until David, that is. Then it came to her: The grass. She’s using it for cover.

  Two small hands wrapped around her left ankle with an iron grip, and she looked down to see the girl pull herself forward the last few feet, belly sliding over the ground, teeth bared, milky eyes clearing as she readied herself to take a bite out of Kate’s leg. The girl retained only the barest resemblance to a human—skin sickly yellow, hair stringy and matted, a section of her scalp torn back to reveal bone so white it looked polished. But she was a child, and those were always the hardest for Kate to deal with. She hesitated, and the small zombie let out a sound that was halfway between a moan and a growl, fastened her teeth on Kate’s boot and bit down hard. The teeth didn’t penetrate the boot’s tough hide, but the pressure from the bite was so strong that it made Kate wince.

  Shoot her! she told herself. Now, while she’s busy—just press the rifle muzzle to that patch of exposed skull and pull the trigger!

  But she didn’t move. Faces passed through her mind, phantoms from a past that might not have been that long ago by the calendar, but which seemed a hundred, no, a thousand years away. Faces of children—children who had sat behind desks in her classroom and called her Mizzcroft, the words spoken fast and run together as if they were one. Children who had smiled and laughed and talked when they should’ve been paying attention. She could still remember their names, could call the roll in her mind. Adams, Claire. Arthur, Eli. Baker, Jackie…

  The girl zombie bit down harder, gnawing at the boot like a frustrated animal. Kate knew it would only be a matter of seconds before she decided to try her luck on a less protected part of her prey’s anatomy. And still Kate continued mentally reciting her students’ names.

  Briggs, Cameron. Church, Julia. Dohner, Alice…

  The child zombie pulled away from the boot with a frustrated snarl. She let go of Kate’s ankle, drew herself onto her knees and made a lunge for Kate’s thigh.

  Suddenly Nicholas was there. He grabbed hold of the girl from behind and slammed her onto the ground facedown. He pressed his left hand to the back of her head to keep her from whirling around to bite him, and with his other hand jammed the blade of his hunting knife into her neck, just below the skull. Black oozed from the wound as Nicholas expertly moved the blade back and forth, severing the brain stem. If she’d still been human, she would’ve died instantly, but since she was a zombie, the procedure only rendered her immobile from the neck down. She let out a sound that was a combination grunt-growl-moan, a blend of frustration and confusion.

  “Sorry I didn’t stay in the park,” Nicholas said, not sounding sorry in the least. “I figured you might need some backup.”

  He wiped his blade clean on the girl’s soiled blue jacket and then stood, his expression calm and relaxed. His face had been like that the entire time he’d been dealing with the girl. His features had displayed no fear, no anger, no anything. Just detached efficiency. He was always like that when he killed, and during those times, when she saw the emptiness on his face and in his eyes, he seemed as frightening to Kate as any shambling corpse.

  Then the emptiness was gone, replaced by an expression of concern.

  “Jesus, Kate—you okay? Did you get bit?”

  Even though every survivor had avoided infection during the initial outbreak, whatever immunity they had to the Blacktide virus—or whatever the hell it was—could be overcome by a single zombie bite. Once bitten, humans had a better-than-even chance of becoming zombies themselves. And if they didn’t transform, their wound quickly became infected and severe necrosis set in, resulting in a rapid but agonizing death. Either way, zombie bites were a death sentence.

  “No. I’m all right.” She forced a weak smile. “Thanks.”

  He returned the smile. “No problem.”

  She was about to ask where Marie was, but the girl walked into her line of vision. She didn’t say anything to either Kate or Nicholas, didn’t even look at them. Instead she walked straight to the zombie child and looked down at her. Nicholas went off to check on the other two zombies. He was satisfied the old lady was out of action, but he stomped on the fat guy’s head several times, just to be thorough. Kate did her best to ignore the wet sounds of his boot reducing brain matter to paste.

  “Did you recognize her?” Marie asked.

  “No.”

  “So she wasn’t one of your students.”

  Nicholas returned, dragging his right foot in the grass to clean off the worst of the mess.

  “She wasn’t.” After what Blacktide had done to the world, Kate found it hard to believe in God—at least a God who was kind and loving—but she thanked Him anyway. As horrible as it was for her to see any child zombie, she didn’t think she could stand to see one of her students who’d been transformed. Or, even worse, her niece and nephew. She’d never found their bodies. For all she knew, her brother’s children were wandering around town just like their father, searching for living flesh to devour.

  “But she probably went to the school where you taught,” Marie said. “You probably saw her in the hallway or in the lunchroom, or maybe on the playground at recess.” She still didn’t take her eyes off the girl’s still form.

  Kate’s stomach roiled with nausea at the thought, but she said, “I suppose. Forget about that, though. What the hell were you doing in the park?”

  “I told you. I was conducting an experiment.” She was still holding her journal, and she tucked it against the small of her back before crouching next to the girl. She took hold of her head and turned it so she could look at the face. Her eyes were open, clouded white once more, and her mouth opened and closed rhythmically, like a fish out of water. Marie had a pencil tucked behind her ear, and she removed it and used the eraser end to probe the girl’s mouth. The child snarled and snapped at the pencil, breaking off the last couple inches. The zombie gnawed the wood in her mouth, and Marie’s eyes narrowed as she watched.

  “Interesting,” she said softly and tucked the broken pencil behind her ear.

  “What were you trying to prove with that squirrel?” Kate asked. Her tone was harsher than she intended, but she couldn’t help it. Marie creeped her out, especially when she did weird shit like this.

  Evidently a pencil end was a poor meat substitute, for the zombie girl spit it onto the ground. Marie made no move to pick it up. She looked at the girl’s face a moment longer, before standing and turning to face Kate.

  “I wasn’t trying to prove anything. I just wanted to see if a zombie could figure out a way to get at the squirrel. I thought they might hit the cage until the bars bent, or maybe even throw it to the ground. But I never thought one would open the cage door.” She sounded excited.

  Nicholas shrugged, unimpressed. “Maybe he got lucky.”

  Or maybe he remembered, Kate thought.

  “And did you see the way the male shared with the female?” Marie asked. “I’ve never seen anything like it before! Do you think maybe they’re…I don’t know, changing somehow? Evolving?” She frowned suddenly. “Hey, when you took off after the male, you called him by name. You said you were going to take care of…David! That was it! Do you know him?”

  “Forget about that,” Kate said, ducking the question. “You keep pulling dumb-ass stunts, and you’re going to get yourself killed.”

  “Really?” Marie said. “You’re the one who almost died today. Not me.”

  Kate started to reply, but she realized that Marie had a point, so, hard as it was, she kept her mouth shut.

  “You two can talk later,” Nicholas said. “Right now, we need to get out of here. If the sound of gunshots doesn’t draw more zombies, the smell of their own dead will, sooner or later.”

  Kate knew he was right. Being out in the open was dangerous enough, but staying put for longer than a few minutes at a time was an excellent way to commit suicide. It gave time for
zombies to gather. One zombie, two? Not that big a deal. Twenty, thirty, more? Very big deal.

  She looked up at the tree but saw no sign of the cat. Sometime during her struggle with the zombies—probably the first time she’d fired the rifle—it had gotten down and hauled ass. Smart kitty. She glanced at Marie.

  Smarter than some humans, she thought.

  “Let’s head back to the school,” Kate said. She gave Marie a stern look. “All three of us.”

  Marie glanced at the zombie girl one last time. “Shouldn’t we kill her before we leave? You know, as a mercy?”

  “She’s down and she’s not getting back up. I’m not going to waste a bullet on her,” Nicholas said. “We need to conserve ammo.”

  “You’ve got your knife,” Marie said. “You could stab her through the eye, cut into her brain…”

  Nicholas was still holding his blade, and he flipped it around and held it out to Marie handle first. “Be my guest.” There was a slight smile on his face, but his eyes were cold and calculating. Kate had the impression that he was conducting an experiment of his own, waiting to see how Marie would react.

  The teen started to reach for the knife, paused, and then lowered her hand. She then looked to Kate.

  “We can’t just leave her here,” she said, a pleading note in her voice. “They’ll eat her. Alive.”

  “So what?” Nicholas said. “It’s the circle of life.” His smile grew wider. “Or in this case, unlife.”

  Kate sighed. She knew Nicholas wouldn’t do anything about the girl. To him, zombies were nothing but mindless eating machines without thought or feeling of any kind. Once they’d been neutralized, as he put it, he forgot about them.

  That left it up to her. If only it hadn’t been a child…

  She took a deep breath, stepped forward, raised her rifle over the zombie girl’s head and brought the stock down hard.