The Zombie Plagues Dead Road: The Collected books. (102 page)

At first her vision was
blurred, but as she walked on, it had changed. Her
eyes
had changed. The
world seemed to jump suddenly into sharp focus once
more.

She had stopped, her knees
buckling at the sudden urge to reverse and run away. She had
actually taken two scrambling steps backward before she realized
she could not run away from this...
this
change,
she decided to term it.

She made her way to the
water, and she had seen herself reflected back from the water of
the harbor.
Her hair was a ruined mass of
black. Stringy, tangled, plastered to her head like a helmet in
places. But it was her eyes that had caused her to stare the
longest.
They were cloudy marbles in the
moonlight.

She had seen those eyes reflected back
from the water of the harbor. She had gone for the water because
you had to have water to survive, every living thing did. She had
not yet accepted that she was no longer a living thing.

The moonlight reflected off
the trash strewn water. A drowned cat floated by and transfixed
her. She had been torn between vomiting and reaching into the water
and retrieving the cat... bringing it to her mouth...
tasting
it. But the
moment had passed, and she had shaken herself... come back to
herself. And that was when she had seen her eyes reflected in the
harbor water.

She was only hours dead, and it all
came back. They had shot her. They had.... But she had run from the
group of men after they had shot her. They had laughed and let her
go, and so she had run.

The pain in her chest had
been worse than it had ever been, and she had run right into the
arms of someone else... some
thing
else. She never saw him... her... whatever it had
been. Its teeth had found her neck. The blood had spurted, and she
had spiraled down into darkness, the pain no more.

She bent to bring the water in her
cupped hands to her dry, cracked lips, and she had seen her eyes.
Dull, colorless marbles in her head. Barely reflecting light at
all. And she had known... known she was dead. Not that all the
other things had not already told her, but that her mind had
finally clicked over, taken the information it had shoved to the
corners of her cloudy thoughts and thrown it out into the
conscious.

She had shaken it off. Scooped the
water to her mouth, swallowed and then gagged, vomiting the water
back up. Her body would not accept it. She had stood from the
water, shaky, unsure of anything.

There was smoke in the
air. She could see it, and it frightened her.
Suddenly
frightened her. She looked
down at the water, shiny, black, and then something jumped into her
mind. A word... South...
South...
And it made sense. It made sense of the fear of
fire. It made sense of not being able to breath. It made sense of
the hole in her chest. It explained nothing, yet it made perfect
sense.

She turned in the street. She did not
know north from south. For a second that seemed to matter, but as
another second slipped by, it stopped mattering at all. She stood
for a second longer and then walked off into the shadows of the
street.

March 13th

Donita

She came awake in the dark, sat up, and
stared into the darkness. The old factory was still, quiet, but she
knew something had pulled her from her sleep.

Her body had been reduced to skin and
bone. The skin had stretched tight, illuminating the bones beneath
it, causing ridges and valleys where she had never seen
any.

Her skin had peeled away from her face
in a few places, and the bone showed through yellow-white, gleaming
in the moonlight. Her face was framed by her black hair. It had
come back, thicker, changed, but back. It made her wonder what else
might change too.

She wandered slowly from the old
factory and focused on the moon above, the moon that had never
meant much of anything to the old Donita. Now it talked to her,
pulled something inside of her - spoke to her very
being.

She stood quietly and scented the air.
People had been here. Something else, traveling by, had wondered
about her but decided against tasting her, warned by some
instinct.

The people worried her the most. She
could tell from the scent that they had lingered, and they would be
back. If she stayed, she would have to deal with them if they came
back again.

She looked up at the buildings. Some
city, she did not know where it was or what it's name was, only
that it was south, and south was where she was headed still, New
York far behind her.

She looked off at the other buildings.
The hunger drove her. She needed to feed, but she needed more. It
occurred to her that she needed more of her own kind. They were out
there. They were out there waiting for someone to lead them. Maybe
that someone was her. She had no idea where that thought came from,
but she trusted in it. She looked up and down the street once more,
scented the air and then moved off toward the river.

CHAPTER THREE

Harlem

March 15th

“
What I
care about is how it goes,” Madison said. “Things are goddamn
crazy...” She leaned forward and lowered her voice. “Cammy, these
guys intend to run things here...
Right here!”

“
Never happen,” Cammy said.
Her eyes slid past Madison and found Dollar where he stood with the
curtains barely opened, looking out into the street, one gun
stuffed into the back of his jeans, the other out and in his hand
where he flicked the safety on and off, on and off as he peeked
through the curtains at every new gunshot. There had been running
gunfights most of the day. He was crazy, and getting crazier as the
time rolled by.

“
I know. Which is why we
need to go. When it fails, they'll come here and kill all of us,”
she whispered.

Dollar's head suddenly appeared over
Cammy's shoulder. “And what are you two bitches whispering about?”
His eyes were wild. He had access to as much cocaine as he wanted,
and he had been shoveling it in for the last few days, unsure of
how much he wanted, how much his body could handle, where to draw
the line, or even if there was a line he should draw. He scared the
hell out of Madison, and it took a lot to scare Madison.

“
Shit women talk about,”
Madison spat. She pushed Cammy away, got up and got right in
Dollar's face. “We need shit, and I already told you, I'm going to
get it.”

“
Go and I'll shoot you
dead,” Dollar said. He waved the gun in her face.

“
You know
what, I don't think you will,” Madison bluffed. “And, anyway, we're
not leaving, we're just going to get some things...
lady
things... then
we'll be back. You really gonna kill me over some shit like
that?”

“
What things?”

“
Tampons.”

“
Oh, Jesus,” Dollar
said.

Madison laughed.

“
I don't want to hear that
shit. That's woman’s shit. I don't want to hear it at
all.”

“
Yeah,
dipshit. I tried to tell you that, but you wouldn't let us go, and
now it's critical...
Crit-it-cal!
So unless you want us
bleeding all over the place, we have to go.” She was still in his
face, inches away.

Dollar stared at her. “I can't fucking
believe you said that. That's... that's way too much information.”
He spun quickly toward the front windows as the crash of nearby
gunfire broke the silence of the street. “You go out there, you'll
get killed.”

“
Yeah, well, we'll go the
back way. Either way, we're going,” Madison said. Her hand moved
fast, fished the pistol that was jammed into the back of his pants
- behind the belt - out, and then stepped back away before Dollar
realized what had happened and spun around.

“
And I
said...” Dollar started as he turned around. “Wow.” He froze and
stared at the gun that had appeared in Madison's hand like so much
magic. “
Now why did you take my
gun?”
he asked. His empty hand felt along
the back of his jeans where he was sure the gun had come from. He
stuffed the gun in his hand into the waistband of his jeans, this
time in front. Madison laughed.

“
That is not the question
you should be asking,” Madison said.

“
No? Then
what is the question I should be asking,
bitch?”
Dollar asked. He began to
walk towards her. “I bet you ain't got no period either... neither
of you. Just said that to keep me away, I bet.”

Madison laughed. “Well, you're right,
but that isn't where we were in this conversation. Where we were,
was the question. You...” She pulled the slide back on the
Automatic, chambering a round. “... should...” Her thumb swept
downward and clicked the safety off, “...be asking me the question,
and you're not.”

Dollar stopped in his tracks. “Don't
fuck around, girl. That ain't no toy.”

“
The
question, you dumb fuck! The question,”
Madison screamed. She pushed the pistol into his
face.

“
Okay!
Okay! The fucking question... The fucking
question...”
Dollar shrank back,
but bumped into the wall and stopped. “I don't know the question. I
don't know it.”

“
Will she
do it?” Madison said. “
Will the
crazy bitch shoot me?”

Dollar's eyes squinted. Madison waved
the gun up and down. His hand darted for his own gun where he had
stuffed it into the front waistband of his jeans.

“
Yes she
will,”
Madison yelled as she fired.
Dollar was falling before she finished yelling her answer. A second
later, as Dollar gasped for air, laying on his side, his knees
drawn up, a sucking sound coming from the hole in his chest,
Madison reached down, caught Cammy's hand, and they both fled
toward the back of the apartment, and the door that lead into the
alleyway.

Watertown New York

Mike's Journal

It’s been a very long day in more ways
than one. We are five now. Lydia is gone. It’s crazy, but true. Tom
is in bad shape, sitting by the fire, reading Lydia’s
diary.

We buried her today in Huntingtonville,
a little place outside of the city. There’s a cemetery there right
by the river. Tom's parents are buried there. Now Lydia is too. It
took a lot of work; the ground is still frozen a few feet down. It
could’ve been worse. If everything wasn’t melting, we would’ve had
a much harder time digging the hole. Tom couldn’t bring himself to
do it. Bob and I did it.

To make the explanation
short, we were ambushed. I shouldn’t say
we.
I wasn’t even there. Neither was
Jan. We were left behind to watch the cave.

It started in the night; these kids
came and stole one of our trucks. We didn’t know they were kids, of
course. It turned into a mess. Three kids are dead, young kids.
What a waste. We don’t even know why they did it, why they chose to
shoot at the others, none of it.

Everyone is messed up - me, Jan too,
because we weren’t there. But it’s over. This part’s over, but
really it’s not over at all. I don’t know what’s next. None of us
do. The day has already lasted fifteen hours so far. The sun
doesn’t seem to be moving at all. We don’t know what to make of it.
Everyone just wants to get past this day, for it to be
over.

Donita and the boy

She had made the boy a few days before.
She had been heading out of another city when she had found him and
his mother. The mother had given in with no fight. Donita had
considered her for her army, but then rejected her. Perhaps if she
had fought, maybe. But it seemed to not be a part of who she was.
And Donita could not take the chance that she would evolve into a
non fighter. It was not something she needed.

The boy's changing was slow, but it was
happening She had thought about it before she had done it. The
young would be useful. The willing... The powerful... But there was
no way to convince them to this side, and so it would have to be
the young at first. They were more easily subdued. They could grow
into it. They would still change, still become powerful, but they
would be much easier for her to control while they did.

Once she had more than the
boy, she would have help. No longer would it be only her. She could
see the way it would be, not the way her old self saw, but this new
way, this new way of knowing that had nothing to do with anything
inside of her. Nevertheless, it was solid,
real.
She could, and did, trust the
knowledge that came to her. She would have her army. It would only
take time.

Watertown New York: March 17th
(Late)

Candace's Diary

I know Mike has written tonight, much
earlier, so I won’t go over the same things that I assume he wrote.
It’s been a nasty couple of days, and we don’t know if the bad
things are over or not. We have new people with us. I really like
Patty. I can talk to her, and it’s been awhile, even back in the
world, since I’ve been close to another woman like that.
Relationships seem to form fast now. It’s just the way of the new
world. We’re just taking life as it comes, at face value I guess.
There are no directions for us.