Order of the Dead (12 page)

29

A cold wind swept down from the mountains and rushed past Senna and Alan. The
blades of grass seemed not only to sway in response to the flow of air, but to
shrink away from it and to remain bent even after the gust had passed, as if
the grass itself were anticipating the bitter breeze’s return.

“They tore Matt apart,” Alan said.
“Andy tried to help him and they got him too. Matt and Andy had been closest to
the back door. The zombies coming in through the front of the store were
closing in behind us. They were moving really fast. Everything was happening very
quickly.

“Julie made a move toward the back,
and Chris and I followed. Matt and Andy distracted the zombies long enough, and
that let the rest of us get out through the back. There were more zombies
outside, but not as many as we had coming after us from behind. We ran as hard
and fast as we could. Somehow, we all made it to the warehouse by following Chris.
He was young and strong, and Julie, well, she had one hell of a will to
survive.

“When we got there we couldn’t find a
way in. The zombies chasing us were right behind us, closing in, and we were
forced to confront them. I had an aluminum baseball bat. Chris had a large
wrench. Julie had a fire poker. The stuff we’d picked up and hung onto. Random
make-do weapons. We fought desperately, Chris and I aiming our blunt objects at
the zombies’ heads while Julie tried to stab them. Running on pure adrenalin, we
fended off the first wave of about half a dozen, but we knew it was only a
matter of time until more came.

“We had to find a way in or find
somewhere else to hide. We made our way around the building, and, as much as we
didn’t want to do it, climbed up into the loading dock bays and banged on the
closed shutters. We were betting on there being other people hiding inside, and
we turned out to be right. Good thing, too, because by the time we were let in,
there were so many zombies at the base of the loading docks that it would only
have been moments before they were climbing over each other and into the bays.

“There were twenty-eight people hiding
inside. They welcomed us—most did, anyway. They were relieved to see that some
other people had survived, I think because that gave them hope that their own
loved ones might still be okay.

“And of course there were the ones who
resented us, who saw us as a drain on the limited supplies they’d secured for
themselves. You know, the usual. The ones who didn’t take kindly to us joining
them, we tried to make peace with. We were desperate.
I
was desperate, and
I would’ve fought to stay there, but it didn’t come to that, at least not at
first.

“We stayed there for a long time. Two
or three months. No one knew what to do besides stay put. Whenever any of us
ventured out, the zombies would come to force us back inside. Help never came,
but people would show up at the warehouse sometimes. It got to a point when
there were fifty-four of us and nerves were beginning to run thin because we
were all stuck there and our supplies were running out.

“There was no plan for the future. We
didn’t know what we’d do when the food ran out, where we’d go. We tried to put a
rationing system in place, but the people who’d been the first to secure the
warehouse weren’t having it.

“Even though they’d been welcoming of
others up to a point, they felt that the supplies were theirs to share as they
chose, and not to be rationed or divvied up by others. After some fighting we
managed to settle on a system. Not that it would matter for long. It all hit
the fan a few days later when we got up one morning and fifteen people were
missing, having made off with most of the food and water.”

“Right,” Senna said. She’d heard
plenty of stories like this one before.

“It only got worse,” Alan said. “We
were hungry, but we were trapped. There were times when we drew straws and sent
people out looking for supplies. Sometimes they came back with a bit of food,
other times with nothing, and other times not at all. After we lost about half
a dozen people to these excursions, the people who were left in the warehouse
refused to go.

“The zombies were starting to surround
us little by little. Some were broken and staying that way for some reason. We
weren’t sure why. Something must’ve been happening close to us. We could hear
them all day and all night, trying to get in, running into the walls, the
doors, moaning and grunting, always with the moaning.

“People were starting to lose it.
I
was starting to lose it. We were getting even more mistrustful of one another.
We talked less and less and kept to ourselves more. I didn’t know what to do.
No one did. I found myself reviving the hope of rescue in my own mind, of the
government finding us and getting us out of there, something I’d long given up
on. At least we had water, and it was the fall, so we didn’t have the cold to
deal with on top of everything else.

“A gang formed, made up of the six biggest
people there. Chris was one of them, their leader, in fact. The idea of
cannibalism began to come up in a serious way. Chris and his guys were pushing
it hard, making all the usual arguments.

“They wanted the next drawing of straws
to decide which one of us would be eaten, sacrificed so that the rest could
survive. There was a wall of zombies circling us outside, and a growing band of
cannibals inside. Chris was able to get two more people with him, so they had
eight at that point, but the rest of us didn’t want to go along with the plan.

“The idea of eating human meat was
disgusting to me then, alien,
wrong.
Later, when the settlements were
worked out, it became almost normal, even though it was technically illegal,
the government was too weak to do anything about it, and you know that when
people got hungry, they’d do more than look the other way.

“The mothers in the settlements who’d
feed their kids meat, just to have the Fleshers kidnap those same kids later
on, to be fed to other people in other settlements.” He shook his head. “But
that was years later, when there actually were settlements. That was the one
thing the government did right: trying to do away with the flesh-dealing, and
regulating trade what little way they could. And good too, since it was pretty
much the last thing the government did.”

30

Alan sighed. “Naturally, a fight broke out. I’d seen it coming, but I’d stayed.
We’d all read the writing on the wall, but picking up and leaving didn’t seem
like a real option. The people who’d left and stolen our food, we all assumed
they were dead.

“It got heated, and suddenly I was in
the middle of it. We were all so emotional, scared and stupid. Chris and his
posse picked out someone to eat, an older man named Johnston, weak and fat, who
Chris said could make no meaningful contribution to us except as food.

“Johnston tried to run. He got to the
loading docks and managed to force one of the bays open part of the way. The
zombies were there, waiting. They were on the ground below the bays. They
couldn’t climb, so they didn’t get in, but Johnston stopped there. Caught
between two evils he chose us, men over zombies.”

“Who the hell’s place was it to say
that he was for eating, anyway? Turning back from the loading docks, he seemed
to accept it. After Chris and his men secured the bays, they took Johnston back
to the center of the warehouse.

They wanted to hash their intentions
out with everyone present. They were setting up a regime of cannibals or
something, I don’t know. It was like they needed to explain themselves, to make
a case for how they were still human beings, even though they were about to eat
one of their own.

Chris was telling us why it had to be
this way while Johnston cowered and wailed on the floor in front of us. Chris
and Johnston were in the center of the circle. The rest of us were around them,
listening. Chris’s men were in a cluster, and the rest of us were scattered at
the edges of aisles. The division was real, and they were in control. No one
there seemed human anymore. They all looked wild, dirty and pathetic, trying to
hide their shame in Chris’s words, his logic of survival.

“The inevitable moment came when Chris
ran out of things to say. Then he just stood there for a while, looking at us,
and down at Johnston. I guess he was having a hard time coming to grips with
what he was about to do. Maybe he wasn’t convinced by his own arguments. Before
I really knew what I was doing, I’d pushed myself off the aisle I was leaning
on and was walking into the center of the circle, as if Chris’s hesitation was
pulling me in. I remember what I was thinking, too. Nothing. My mind was
completely blank. I had no idea what I was going to say when I got up there, or
what I was going to do.

“And then I was up there, in the
middle of the circle, next to Chris, who was now glaring at me in a stupefied
sort of way, and Johnston—” Alan stopped for a moment and furrowed his brow,
scratching at the prominent stubble on the line of his jaw, “—he was staring up
at me, his eyes red from crying. It looked like he wasn’t sure if I was going to
speed up the process of killing him because I had heard enough and was
starving, or if I was going to try to save him. It was a revolting moment. I
began to speak. I was on some kind of autopilot, I guess.

“I was arguing against Chris, against
his plan, against cannibalism. When I first started talking, Chris interrupted
me, but then he let me go on. He wanted me to say my piece, to give voice to
the doubts that were in the room. ‘It’s only fair,’ he said.

“I hadn’t known what I was going to
say when I got up there, but after I began to speak, a different sort of
plan—not cannibalism—was flowing out of me, and I realized that I’d been
thinking about this for days and weeks, turning it over in my mind.

“I remember my stomach growling while
I spoke, gnawing at my insides. I could hear everyone’s stomach noises around
me. Some people were so hungry they were retching. I don’t think any of us had
ever known a hunger like that before. I know I hadn’t. I was trying to get
everyone on board with moving, escaping the warehouse somehow.

“I thought we could stage a diversion
by making a lot of noise at one end of the warehouse and running out the other.
We could throw crates and boxes off the roof, drawing the zombies there, and
then make a run for it.

“Looking around the room as I spoke, I
could see that they weren’t interested. I tried to speak louder, more
forcefully, but I guess I wasn’t convincing enough. I was never very good at
speaking. Just the idea of doing more work, of getting the crates to the roof
and throwing them down, and then running after that, seemed to exhaust everyone
even more. These people were spent. I was, too, but I didn’t want to be part of
killing another person for food.

“Chris let me finish. Everyone did.
When I had nothing more to say, when I couldn’t think of anything else, we put
it to a vote. I was outvoted by a very large margin. They all had their hands
raised for cannibalism, their heads bowed. No one was looking anyone else in
the eye.

“Chris said that after we ate Johnston,
the next person we ate would be chosen by a drawing of straws. And if people
refused to participate, as had happened this time, Chris would choose the next
person himself. He gave me a look then, and I knew exactly what it meant. So
much for democracy.

“Then he seemed to realize that he may
have been too harsh, and he backtracked, praising Johnston for the sacrifice he
was making, even though it was unwilling, saying how it would help the rest of
us survive for a while longer, and possibly even to escape. He was telling
Johnston, who was now sobbing again, that his death was something to be proud
of, that he should agree, that he had
already
agreed.

“It was like being in a madhouse. Then
Chris told his men to keep Johnston there and disappeared down an aisle. He
came back with a length of pipe that he’d been hiding somewhere. Some of us had
knives, and a few had guns, but no one had any bullets left. I’m not sure why
he wanted to use a blunt object like a pipe. I guess it’s no worse than being
stabbed to death or having your throat slit.

“I was still standing in the middle of
the circle, watching Chris walking over with the pipe. I could see him
cracking, losing it just a little. He was nervous, unsure in his movements. And
then my mind turned off entirely.

“I felt my whole body sinking to a
more basic level of awareness. Everything loosened up, got a little bit slower.
As Chris walked by me, I swung, and hard. My fist connected with the space just
below his temple, and he crumpled. I couldn’t believe that I knocked him
unconscious. His men began to move toward me, but just before reaching me, they
fell on Chris. And then everyone else did, too.”

“They all jumped on him.” Alan grimaced.
“And tore him apart.”

31

“They ate him,” Alan said. “Raw. They ripped him open with their hands and
teeth, reaching into his belly to pull out his organs. Blood was everywhere,
running from their mouths, down their arms, all over their clothes.

“He woke up and screamed and kept on screaming
as they pulled him apart, until one of them ripped his throat open, I think it might’ve
been Johnston, who’d taken his chance to join in and kill his captor. Chris didn’t
struggle much longer after that.

“It seemed like something I’d caused,
like something I’d done.” Alan shook his head sadly. “I had. I know it wasn’t
my fault, not really. Eating people became more and more normal after the
outbreak, like a taboo that wasn’t talked about, but that went on all the time.

“Except that first time, the first
time I saw it happen, as a result of things I was at least partly responsible
for, and realizing that was just the beginning... I don’t know. I guess the
first time really leaves a mark.”

Senna nodded. “It does. The first time
I saw it, I didn’t understand what I was looking at. I saw the cooked arms and
legs and…they were obviously human, but my mind resisted making that connection
at first. But you didn’t cause it. It wasn’t you. We all fell into anarchy, and
you knocking that man out was for good reason. You couldn’t control what
happened after.”

“The worst part of it,” Alan said, “the
worst part for me…” He trailed off, looking ashamed.

She squeezed his hand, but he didn’t
feel like he could continue. This was what she couldn’t know about him, what he
couldn’t admit to her.

Worst of all, he’d wanted to join in.

He’d wanted to get down on his hands
and knees with the others and add his head to the fray, to tear meat from
Chris’s body and eat it, to push the hunger back for another day.

“I ran after that,” Alan said at last.
“I didn’t care about the danger anymore, about the zombies that were waiting at
the loading docks. I just wanted to get out of there.

“I waited for everyone to turn in for
the night. I wasn’t going to sleep. When everyone had disappeared into their
own corners or to the tops of aisles where they hid or wherever, I got some rope
and some wand lighters, and went up to the roof.

“I needed to make enough noise to draw
the zombies away from the east side of the building, where the loading area
was, but not enough noise that the other people, the
cannibals
in the
warehouse, would hear, and I thought I could do it, because it took less to get
the zombies going than it took to wake a person. I went to the west side of the
roof, facing Route 250.

“It might have been better to keep the
zombies concentrated at the loading docks and escape to Route 250, toward the
main road, instead of the way that I was planning to go, but the entrance that
was closer to the west side of the building had too many people sleeping near
it.

“The loading area was deserted,
because no one wanted to be that close to the zombies. It was hard enough to
sleep with the hunger gnawing at your belly without having to listen to them
moaning in the background, too.

“I broke open a couple lighters and
poured lighter fluid on the end of the rope. Then I lit it and lowered it off
the roof, down the side of the building. I moved the rope back and forth,
scratching it against the ground and the side of the building, and the noise of
that and the faint crackle of the burning rope began to attract the zombies. As
soon as I saw that it was working, I went back inside. I didn’t have any things
to gather, so I just went. What was left of Chris’s carcass was still sitting
in the middle of the warehouse when I left.

“Had there still been zombies there
when I opened one of the gates, I don’t know what I would’ve done, but they
weren’t there. They were all moving to the west side of the building, so I
climbed down to the ground as softly as I could and pulled the gate shut after
me. Then I slipped into the forest behind the warehouse, and when I crossed the
tree line, I felt free.”