Best New Werewolf Tales (Vol. 1) (21 page)

One of the zombies locks eyes with me, and I know then that my time has come. Before dying, the zombie was a man named Chef. I met him just last night, when he reluctantly offered me shelter.

Apparently, that was his last mistake.

* * *

Last night.

The sun was already low in the sky when I found the diner.

I’d just gotten into town, hopeful that Brooklyn would have a rescue center or shelter for survivors. It’d been three weeks since the zombie outbreak, since the moon had been a waning crescent. I’d spent most of that time tracking my daughter, Melanie, after discovering that her mother, my ex, had been killed. Melanie’s trail took her through multiple survivor camps in Ohio, Pennsylvania, and now here, in Brooklyn. It was a trail of desperation and fear. As recently as a few days ago, Melanie fled with a group of survivors to the Big Apple.

Brooklyn was worse than I’d imagined. The streets were filled with abandoned cars, dead animals, the crumbled remains of toppled buildings, and a mix of abandoned possessions: clothing, television sets, high-end jewelry. I imagine those first nights, there’d been a lot of looting—before everyone realized how out of control our world was going to become. Before gasoline and shotgun shells became more valuable than diamonds and cash.

Less than an hour into my walk downtown, a pack of zombies—more than I’d ever seen gathered in one place—started chasing me through the city. I was faster than them, but they were everywhere, cutting me off at every corner. There were hundreds of them, in varying states of decay and dress. A businessman missing an ear. A rotted corpse wearing a blue dress covered in mud and maggots. A teenager in a
Twilight
t-shirt missing an arm.

When I saw the diner, I knew that people were in there. It wasn’t just the thick wood covering the window or the single word spray-painted on the front of the building:

HELP

No, it wasn’t just that. I could smell them.

I pounded on their front door, screaming for help. “Please. Please let me in. They’re after me. Oh, God. Don’t let me die.”

Behind the barricaded door, a man and a woman talked about whether or not to let me inside, though I couldn’t tell who was taking which side.

“Please,” I begged. “I’m just trying to find my daughter.”

When the door finally opened, it wasn’t hard to tell who was arguing in my favor and who was against. A tall man with thick forearms and wild curly hair had a shotgun leveled at my heart. Next to him stood a fit woman, probably in her thirties, with a fashionable haircut and exhausted eyes. She pushed the shotgun aside and pulled me into the diner.

“Knock it off, Chef,” she said. “We’re in this together. It’s us against them. If we don’t stick together, we’re going to lose.” She turned her attention to me, offered her hand. “I’m Abbie.”

Apart from Chef and Abbie, the only other occupants of the diner were two women, two men, and a little girl.

Chef placed the shotgun in the corner and looked me up and down. “You got any food?” he asked. I shook my head. “What about ammo? I’m guessing that’s too much to ask.”

I shook my head.

Abbie led me to the rear of the diner and introduced me to the rest of the crew. The two women were likely a couple. I can’t remember either of their names; I’ve never been much good with names, or people for that matter.

Abbie introduced the little girl, Gail, last. The child was tied down to a bed made out of two booths nested together.

Inside my skull, I heard a growl.

The child was pale and sweaty. A blood-stained bandage made from a kitchen apron was wrapped around her forearm. Her eyes were pale as the full moon. I’d seen this before. She’d been bitten, and she was going to turn. Soon, by the looks of it.

“And this is my niece, Gail,” said Abbie. She held up a hand, as if to block what I was about to say. “Don’t say it. I know. She’s going to become one of them soon. I’m not a fool. I know the situation. But before I lose her forever, I’m going to make the most of the time we have left.”

“And after that?”

She held up a shiny handgun and her face became a mask of resignation. “After that, I’ll put a bullet in its head.”

* * *

It’s morning now, and the seven zombies shuffle toward me. Little Gail is the most hideous of all, the front of her tiny dress covered in blood and a huge chunk of flesh missing from her neck. When she moans, her neck makes a hideous whistle.

I stand up slowly, staggering backward. I try to scream, but I can’t. It’s like my throat is stuffed with gauze.

What comes out instead is a howling moan, the sound of a large dead tree creaking in the wind. At the sound of my moan, the seven zombies cock their heads. Their blue lips fall back over their grey teeth, and their dull yellow eyes drift away.

I take an awkward step forward, and the zombies shuffle away, giving me space. Now is my chance. I take another step, trying to sprint for the front door. My joints creak like rusty hinges and my muscles feel like play-doh. I fall face-first onto the floor, and my eyes catch my upside-down reflection on a bent spoon.

Staring back at me are two dull yellow eyes.

I’m one of them.

I stand up and stare at the strip of mirror on the wall. Shake my head. Dammit. I’d only wanted to find Melanie. I place a hand over my chest. No heartbeat. Instead, there’s an emptiness. A void.

And my heart, it’s just rotting inside me.

* * *

Last night.

My heart quivered as I stepped onto the diner’s roof. I needed to get out of here, far away from these good people before the change came. I was plotting my escape when the smell of cigarette smoke distracted me. Sharp teeth bit into my urgency and tugged it to the back of my skull.

Abbie stood on the roof’s edge, a cigarette held at her side. She looked at me. Her lopsided grin was like a crescent moon. That wicked smile in the sky that yawns open into an unblinking, laughing eye. I shuddered.

The rooftop offered a beautiful view of the city. Nearby, an old church thrust its steeple into the sky. In the distance stood the Statue of Liberty. I half-expected the statue to be moaning and staggering into the water. Below, the zombies moaned and pounded futilely against the diner’s reinforced door. Abbie flicked ash at them lazily.

“The odd thing is, I can’t hate them,” she said. “As much as I want to, I can’t. They’re just pathetic and hungry. I can’t fault them for that.” She holds up her cigarette. “I can’t smoke up here during the day. Chef’s worried that I’d be spotted. But at night, I can go through two packs. I’m as bad as they are.”

In my skull, claws paced restlessly, clacking on bone.

I shook my head. “No, you’re not.”

“Do you know what I obsess about, when I’m not thinking about Gail? I think about running out of cigarettes. How lame is that?”

I shrugged. “You’ve got a beast inside you. It’s hungry and wants fed, no matter how much it might hurt you in the process. The only way to make the beast go away is to starve it, but that doesn’t always work. You can tie it in chains or lock it in a cell, but deep down you know the beast will always find a way out. So, you just do your best. You try to make it through the day.”

“Sounds like you speak from experience.”

I shrugged and tapped my skull. “I’ve got my share of monsters in here.”

“You know, this probably isn’t the safest place in the city,” said Abbie, tapping her heel on the roof. “I mean, now you’re locked in here with a monster.”

If only she’d known.

“I’ve been in worse spots,” I said. “Believe me.”

“So, how old is your daughter?”

“She’s sixteen. Melanie’s a survivor. I’ve been following her almost since the outbreak. Do you know— Are there any other groups of survivors here in the city?”

She shrugged. “Mostly everyone left during the Evacuation, but we’ve heard noises at night, over near Park Slope.”

I nodded.

“How’d you and your daughter get separated?”

“I haven’t seen her since before the outbreak. Her mother and I, we had some issues that couldn’t be resolved. Mostly my fault. So, I left. I was out West when the outbreak started. By the time I got back to Ohio, Mel was gone. And her mother—her mother was one of those things.”

Abbie patted my shoulder. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be. Death is just a fact of life.”

She shook her head sadly. “Not anymore.”

* * *

It takes me a moment to get my bearings. Just like the other undead, I sway gently. My first step is right into a chewed-up wad of flesh on the floor. Why is it familiar?

I stomp and scrape my foot against the floor, trying to get the tissue off of my boots. Again, I lose balance and crash into the floor.

The zombies wander around aimlessly, bumping into tables, knocking chairs against the floor. Somehow, I’m different than them. My thinking is slower than usual, like I’m trying to run underwater, but at least I’m still thinking. Where they seem to be acting on instinct, I still have my capacity to reason, to apply logic.

Zombie Chef pounds at the same door. He’s clueless, utterly clueless about how to get out of here. All seven of them are clueless. Abbie is clawing at the wall, scratching off specks of dried blood. Amazingly, despite being dead, her haircut still looks pretty good. The other zombies mill about, occasionally breaking something or falling down—often both at the same time.

Staggering across the room, I make my way to the front door and gently shove Chef aside. He moans in protest, but doesn’t resist.

I pick up the hammer after several tries. My hands are numb, like I’ve had a shot of Novocain in each finger and am wearing thick wool mittens. Grunting and growling, I manage to slip the claw of the hammer between the wood and the door. I push against the door, and the wood groans.

The noise is exactly the same as the feeling that’s growing in my gut: a horrible emptiness worming its way through the soil of my insides. A hunger unlike anything I’ve ever felt. It burns like a dull grey fire in my gut, its flames licking through my entire body.

By the time I break through the front door, I’m almost blind with hunger. I stagger into the crisp morning air, sniffing madly.

I catch a vague scent and follow it down the street. My seven zombie companions follow after me, moaning and grunting. Maybe they can sense that I’m different from them. Smarter. Superior.

The alpha male of the pack.

* * *

Last night.

When Abbie and I came back downstairs, Gail’s breathing was shallow and raspy. Like somebody sharpening a knife. Her eyes rolled back into her head, and her limbs contorted languidly.

Abbie fiddled with her gun, agonizing over when to pull the trigger. Chef remained slumped by the front door, his gaze shifting between the street and Gail. It was clear that Chef was preparing to make Abbie’s decision for her. A nasty triangle of tension swelled between the three of them—Abbie, Gail, and Chef—and the rest of us didn’t dare to interfere.

When the tension snapped, it wasn’t Abbie, Gail, or Chef responsible; it was me.

Rather, it was the Wolf.

When I stood up, I could already feel the full moon pulling at my marrow and blood. Panic rose on a lake of sweat on the back of my neck. It was too early. The moon couldn’t be up yet—

Damn it. The Wolf had tricked me again. The closer we get to moonrise, the more the Wolf is able to exert itself over me. Manipulate me. Make me forget things. I’d had every intention of going up on the roof when the change came, of locking myself up there, but now it was too late. The Wolf was punishing me for all those nights I’d contained it. For all those times the Wolf had emerged only to find itself locked up or bound by chains.

A coat of fur simmered beneath my skin. I fell to the floor screaming, my mouth full of chalk and broken glass. My teeth were rearranging themselves; four fangs digging out of my gums. Blood spilled from my fingertips as thick claws forced themselves through my tender skin.

If there’s anything in this world that I loathe more than myself, it’s the damn Wolf.

The Wolf consumed me, as it did every full moon night. It ate me from the inside out, its wild animal hunger gnashing and tearing at my insides. At least, that’s how it felt.

Abbie knelt to examine me, but then screamed. I growled back, baring my fangs. Soon, the diner was filled with screams and shouts, and then with gunfire.

Wouldn’t you know it, not a damn one of them had any silver bullets.

It was a feeding frenzy. Those fools had that diner locked up so tight, there was no way they could escape. One of the lesbians made a break for the rooftop stairs, and I tore out her stomach, left her lying in front of the stairwell door, effectively blocking it. I attacked Chef next, who blew a chunk out of my shoulder with his shotgun. Even as I tore his throat out, I felt a familiar tingle in my shoulder, as the muscle, bone, and skin stitched itself back together.

I can’t remember much of what happened next, just that the Wolf slaughtered them all and saved Gail for last, like dessert. After all, she was tied down, going nowhere. When I tore out her throat, the flesh tasted like bad milk.

After that, a fuzzy blanket of white light enclosed my consciousness, and the Wolf took over completely. I’m fairly certain that this blanket of light is what keeps me from going insane. If I had to experience every horror committed by the Wolf, I’d easily lose my mind. It’s some built-in function of the Wolf’s affliction, putting my mind in isolation while the Wolf runs free.

The last thing I saw before the Wolf took over is the lump of diseased flesh that I spat upon the ground.

* * *

We shuffle east for several apocalyptic blocks along Atlantic Avenue, gathering a few stray zombies in our wake. I follow the scent of human flesh to a cheap hotel. The front door of the hotel is missing, torn from its hinges. I charge inside, ready to feed the hunger, but soon find only disappointment. The elevators in the lobby are shut down, and the only stairwell is barricaded by a pile of dirty mattresses and broken dressers. It’s passable, but it’d take a lot of time and make a lot of noise to get through. I’m about to moan in rage, but then an insight snags at my thoughts.