It was standing in the back yard, holding an arm, chewing. Part of the fence to the Whitley’s yard was down, that must have been how it got in.
They van was in the garage, fully packed. All there was left to do was get in, open the garage door, and drive away, make a run for it. I don’t know why he bothered. We were leaving anyway.
But Morris, you know, his home is his castle. So out he goes with the baseball bat, and of course gets bit. He was still swinging the bat when I drove away.
“Phil.” She was shaking his shoulder. “Phil.”
“What, Christ Deb, I’m sleeping. Leave me alone.”
“Phil, it’s raining. Help me.”
He took a deep breath and grudgingly opened his eyes. “All right, I’m up.”
They put on their coats and started gathering up cans, milk jugs, anything handy. When their arms were full they climbed the stairs up to the roof, where there were already some cans partly filled with rainwater. Phil emptied those into a jug and reset them in place. “What time is it?”
“Five.”
“Have Deshaun check them again in an hour. I’m going back to sleep.”
She had fallen asleep on the couch, and when she woke up with a start, it was as if someone had parked half a dozen trucks on the lawn with their headlights on hi-beam and pointed right through the front window. She was still processing that when the banging on the front door started.
“Who’s there, what do you want?!”
She considered calling the police, but it was always possible that it was the police. “Go away! Fuck off!”
They were banging on the back door too. When the banging on the roof started, she knew it wasn’t the police.
I had a full share on a U-235 run between Rykle and the refinery stations around Calumny. Of course, when we got there, they couldn’t pay for the whole load. Somebody owed them money, and shit flows downhill…
They did, however, have a beat-up grid runner they’d taken in trade from another client. The others wanted nothing to do with it but I accepted it in lieu of most of my share. Still have enough left over to fix it up pretty nice.
I hear there’s real money in smuggling chem into the inner systems, if you don’t get caught.
The ship was a whisper in his ear. It told him everything he could no longer see for himself, since the accident. If the corneal transplant had taken, it wouldn’t have been necessary, but with only a robot arm for a doctor…
He was disappointed that no matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t hear problems with the engines before the ship could whisper about them into his ear. It just seemed like something he should be able to do, as a blind man; and especially as a blind man who has spent his entire life alone in deep space.
He’s running and crying. He’s fallen down two, three times already, and has skinned his knees and one of his palms. That’s only made it easier for zombies to smell him, but he’s too out of his mind on fear and adrenaline to realize that.
Everywhere he goes, there are more of them. He stops to rest only to be frightened into running again by a clammy hand on his shoulder or a nearby moan. His feet and his chest are on fire.
There are people in some of these houses, he knows. But no one will let him in.
She was perched on the tile roof of the three-story building, having climbed carefully up early from her dorm room window that morning. A lot of kids had gone home for the weekend, so the campus had been deserted. She hadn’t seen a living student since late Monday.
Occasionally a zombie would wander out into the quad and she would carefully take her shot. There were already at least thirty bodies lying motionless in the grass or on the pebble walkways.
She hadn’t missed once. And to think she had joined the shooting team to be close to a boy.
“What about that one?” He pointed at a zombie: naked, all leathery skin and protruding bones, tottering slowly down the street towards them.
“Been exposed, couple years. Hasn’t had anything to eat in a long time.”
“Take it.”
The girl squeezed the trigger, and the bolt flew over the broken asphalt and struck the skeletal zombie in the forehead. She watched, transfixed, as it collapsed.
“What should you be doing right now?” He said, testily.
“Sorry!” she quickly loaded the crossbow.
“Good. Don’t forget next time; load right after shooting, no matter what.”
“Yes, Dad.”
“Okay. What about that one?”
“Hey, can anybody read?”
“Yeah, what?” Old man Lowe set his crossbow down and made his way to where the young man was standing. Tacked to a closed door was a note, written on paper yellowed with age.
“What’s it say?'”
“Hold your torch up. ‘My name is Jean Louis Lefebre. I was bitten and have locked myself in. Do not open the door unless I respond verbally.’ Well now.”
From beyond the door, they heard faint scratches. “Could be rats…”
“Somehow I doubt it. Son, hand me my crossbow and let’s put poor Mr. Lefebre out of his misery.”
The war between the Suul is short but spectacular. Their fighting disturbs the matter of the universe into vortices, forming the first galaxies and stars.
Wyn is killed In the furious violence, but so are Whe and Sye, and the war concludes. Myn and Eyl, victorious, wed and together rule. Jyl reluctantly descends into the underworld to wed Bol, whose last-minute intervention helped win the conflict.
The children of Myn and Eyl are the Meyelu. The children of Bol and Jyl are the Beyelu. Vyl, alone, seeks to create artificial intelligence by recombining Ul’s soul and body in miniscule quantities.
I don’t know how I managed, but I pushed him off. He was trying to bite me. I’ve never been that scared in my life. I ran into the kitchen to get the phone but he followed me in, and I grabbed the skillet off the stove and hit him with it. The eggs were still in it, it burned my hand here, see? That knocked him over but he just got right back up again. Then I grabbed the carving knife and stabbed him. I guess I was screaming pretty loud, because Mr. Oglethorpe showed up with his gun…
There isn’t a soul left in town.
We holed up on Sunday, and waited out the screaming and the sirens and the shooting. The zombies never even tried to get in, probably didn’t know we were in here. Maybe the new windows kept the smell from getting to them, I dunno. For a couple days they just sort of milled around. We woke up this morning, and they were gone. Chris and I drove all around, didn’t find anything. It looked like some people made a stand at the high school, but there’s no one there now.
It’s fucking eerie.
