Slowly We Rot (29 page)

The first thing Noah noticed once
he was out on the sidewalk was the sky.  It was a washed-out shade of purple. 
Somehow he hadn’t noticed this when peering through the bookstore’s smudged
plate glass window.  He’d never seen anything quite like it and for a moment
could do nothing but gape skyward, temporarily oblivious to the threat still
lurching toward him.  The shade of purple darkened some toward the horizon in
every direction.

          At first he wondered if
this might be another in a long line of indicators that something had gone
wrong in his head.  Granted, he was keeping himself in an altered state as much
as possible, but maybe what he was experiencing now was a sign of something
deeper than that.  An intense panic gripped him when the idea that a growing
tumor lodged somewhere in his brain was responsible for all his perceptual
problems, including the sky’s strange color today.  It was an idea he couldn’t
easily dismiss, but that sense of overwhelming panic departed mere moments
later, yielding to Zen-like acceptance.  Whatever was happening inside him, if
anything, was nothing he could do anything about.  This was the new world. 
There were no healers or headshrinkers he could consult.  All he could do was
muddle his way through until he couldn’t anymore.

          The zombie was almost
upon him.

          Noah got his left hand
up in time to brace it against the thing’s chest and give it a hard shove.  The
creature took a few staggering steps backward but did not topple over, despite
wobbling precariously for a moment.  When it had regained its balance, it came
at Noah again.

          He put the muzzle of
his pistol against the thing’s forehead and squeezed the trigger.  It’d been a
while since Noah had fired any of his weapons and the tremendous boom of the
gun’s report in the empty street made him wince.  A spray of blood and brain matter
erupted from the back of the zombie’s head and it took a final awkward step
backward before dropping like a sack of rocks in the street.

          On the sidewalk was a
shopping cart loaded with things Noah had scavenged from various stops along
the way since leaving Henryetta.  It contained cases of bottled water, some canned
food, another pair of never-used athletic shoes in a box, and an array of other
items.  Some of the other things could generously be classified as necessities,
while others, like the cardboard display cutout of a bikini model holding a can
of beer he’d lashed to the front of the cart, were just random, useless things
that had captured his imagination.  He was turning into something of a
post-apocalyptic packrat.  The bikini model cutout had been meticulously
wrapped in multiple layers of clear packing tape to protect it from the
elements.  Noah had no memory of having done this and assumed it had happened
while he was in a blackout.

          That kind of thing happened
a lot.

          The cart also contained
numerous bottles of whiskey.

          Noah shoved the pistol
into a hip pocket and reached into the cart to retrieve one of the bottles.  He
broke the plastic seal and removed the cap.  After taking a long slug from the
bottle, he resumed his scrutiny of the sky.  He was sure it would revert to its
natural color at some point.  Whatever the explanation for the purple hue was,
it couldn’t stay this way forever.  But now that he was past the shock of it,
there was an undeniable beauty in this strange, purple sky.  He recalled stories
he’d heard about the sky changing colors ahead of a tornado, but those mostly
involved it turning green or greenish-yellow.  He didn’t know for sure, having
never witnessed this firsthand.

          This was something
different.  He was pretty sure of that.  For one thing, there were no gathered
storm clouds on the horizon.  The phenomenon was also nothing like the way the
horizon would sometimes light up in various shades of crimson at sunset.  This
was nothing of the natural world, at least not as he’d known it up until now.

          He was still staring at
the sky with the bottle poised at his mouth when a noise somewhere off to his
right brought him back to earth.  A glance in that direction made him frown. 
Another dead thing emerged from the open door of a boutique across the street. 
Like the one he’d just put down, this one appeared not to have been dead very
long.  It was a female in a pretty burgundy and black dress, the hem of which
hit just above the knees.  She wore sandals and had long black hair.  Though
she was in the process of turning into a rotting mess, Noah sensed she’d been
pretty in life.  The bloat that had occurred in death made her flesh strain
against the fabric of the dress, but he discerned enough of her normal body
shape to confirm this opinion to his satisfaction.

          The dead thing’s head
snapped in his direction as it came out onto the sidewalk.  Its mouth dropped
open, emitting the usual inarticulate growl.  Noah sighed as it came off the
sidewalk and started toward him.  It was hard not to take running into two
zombies in the space of a few minutes after not encountering any for so long as
a sign of some kind, an ominous portent, especially happening in conjunction as
it did with the arrival of the purple sky.  He needed to grab his shit from the
store and head back to the interstate while it was still daylight.

          He put the cap back on
the bottle and set it in the rear compartment of the cart.  Taking the pistol
out of his pocket, he stepped out into the street.  The zombie’s mouth opened
wider and it growled again.  Noah couldn’t help noting that it moved more
gracefully than the usual dead thing, with only a mild stagger.  He supposed
that was a product of only being recently dead.  On the other hand, the male
zombie he’d shot moments ago looked as if it’d been at about the same stage of
decay as this one.  Maybe what he was seeing in this thing’s gait was some
final lingering vestige of the woman it had been.

          Noah shoved the pistol
in his pocket again as he neared the zombie, a bizarre and possibly suicidal
impulse abruptly overriding his common sense.  The dead thing growled again
when it got within grabbing range, its mouth opening wide as it lunged for his
throat.  Noah stopped the lunge with another straight-arm shove, but this time
it wasn’t executed with the same level of force he’d used on the male zombie. 
When it came back at him, he again braced a hand against its chest, this time
at a spot dead-center just above its breasts.  He slipped his other hand around
its waist, allowing it to settle at the small of the dead thing’s back.  The
creature growled louder and clutched at him, its mouth straining again to reach
his throat.

          A brief moment elapsed
during which Noah wondered whether he was really about to do this.  It was
something a sane man would never consider.  He was putting his life at risk for
a moment of wildly inappropriate whimsy.

          But he didn’t care.

          Noah executed an
awkward turn in the middle of the street with the zombie still clutching at
him.  There was a hitch in the dead thing’s step as it moved with him, but he
was able to keep it upright by only slightly increasing the pressure of his
hand against its back.  Satisfied that it wasn’t about to slip from his grasp
and fall to the street, he turned with it again and this time it managed a bit
of that lingering grace he’d detected before, with a much less pronounced
hitch.

          Soon he fell into a
nice rhythm and moved with the zombie down the street in a series of turns that
felt almost smooth and practiced.  Twice he pushed the dead thing away.  Each
time it came immediately back into his embrace, returning with a fluidity that almost
made the thing seem like a willing partner.  Noah knew this was a false
perception.  He was already buzzed from the relatively modest amount of weed
and booze he’d had since regaining consciousness, but he wasn’t so far gone yet
that he could believe something of the woman this thing had once been was really
awakening.

          But it was a nice
illusion and he opted to revel in it a while longer.  He started humming as he
twirled the zombie down the street and in his head he heard ballroom music.  He
imagined he was on a dance floor at some swanky society event, a gala ball with
everyone decked out in flowing gowns and tuxedos.  There was laughter and
chatter all around him.  A big band orchestra was playing on a bandstand. 
Magic was in the air.

          Noah pushed the zombie
away yet again and this time when it came back into his embrace he botched
getting his hand properly braced against its chest.  One of its hands was able
to get to his neck.  A long fingernail tore into his skin, drawing blood.  Noah
cried out and gave the dead thing a much harder shove.  This time when it came
back at him survival instinct kicked in and he jerked the pistol from his hip
pocket.  He was able to get it up and aimed just in time to put a bullet
through the creature’s forehead.  His heart was pounding and he was shuddering
in relief as he watched it hit the street.

          But he felt a twinge of
sadness once he’d calmed down.  He stared at the now permanently dead creature
and for a moment moisture blurred his vision.  For a few moments, he’d
interacted in an almost intimate way with a thing that at least looked like a woman. 
He knew the emotion was stupid.  The reality of what he’d done was far removed
from how he’d seen it in his head.  But he’d become sure the real thing would
never happen again.  That night with Linda now seemed stranger somehow than his
dance with the zombie, like an anomaly that didn’t fit with the reality of this
empty world.

          Noah heard fresh
stirrings in the vicinity and wiped the moisture from his eyes.  He turned
about and saw three dead things moving slowly toward him down the middle of the
street.  Where they’d come from he didn’t know.  The one in the lead was no
more than a dozen yards away.  It was significantly more decrepit-looking than
the two he’d already killed, moving with a loping, wobbling gait.  One of its
arms was missing.  The others were right on its heels.  Noah was startled to
realize how close he’d come to being taken by surprise.  Another few moments of
wallowing in melancholy and he would have been dead.

          He raised the pistol
and shot the lead zombie.  Then he shot the other two.  His aim was off with
the last one and he needed two shots to put it down.  The gun clicked on an
empty chamber as he reflexively squeezed the trigger another time.

          Yet another zombie
emerged from an alley between buildings.

          And then another.

          And another.

          Until there were more
than a dozen of them in the street, all heading his way at roughly the same
slow, lurching pace.  Unlike the first two, these had all been dead quite a
while.  There were more of them than he’d run into at one time since that horde
outside of Jackson.  He’d been wrong not to immediately flee the area upon
correctly reading the obvious portents.

          He sighed.  “Time to
go.”

          He returned to the
bookstore at a run.  It was the fastest he’d moved in a long time.  The whiskey
and THC in his system made it a more arduous thing than it should have been. 
Fortunately, there were no additional zombies blocking the way back.  A glance
up at the sky showed it had turned a darker shade of almost angry-looking
purple.  Yet another sign.

          Noah picked up the
pace.

          When he reached the
bookstore, he went inside and grabbed his rifle and utility belt.  He ran back
outside, set the rifle in the cart, and strapped on the belt.  Once he had it
secured around his waist, he went back inside for his pack.  He grabbed it and
started toward the entrance, but then, hesitating, he stopped in his tracks and
glanced back at the rows of bookshelves.

          He fretted for a few
moments before poking his head outside to gauge how much time he had.  The
zombies were about a half block away.  And they were among the slowest
shamblers he’d ever seen.  Deciding to take the chance, he ran back to the spot
where he’d passed out the night before, opened the pack, and crammed dozens of
old pulps in before zipping it shut again.

          Heart pounding, he ran
back outside, dropped the pack in the cart, got himself set behind the handle,
and glanced back at the pursuit one more time.  They were closer than he would
have liked, but he thought he could still outrace them, even with having to
push the heavily weighted-down cart.  In the event he was wrong about that, he
was prepared to abandon the cart, but he really hoped that wouldn’t be
necessary.

          He steeled himself
first with a slug of whiskey and then pushed the cart into the street.