The Zombie Plagues Dead Road: The Collected books. (158 page)

The park fires were low and smokey,
most had gone out. The sick far outnumbered the well now, and the
sickness continued to take them. Most lay dead, rising, or waiting
to die. The few who could still fight went down fast.

They entered the Sheep Meadow and the
dying covered the ground. Some had come back already. Slow, ragged,
on the cusp of change. Donita slowed and those that had stayed with
her walked their way through the dead and dying along with
her.

Around her, screams rent the air as her
soldiers took those that fought, and gave them the gift they were
reluctant to take. Their own waste had killed them. The lake water
had become fouled and poisoned, yet they had continued to drink
from it: Even when it had begun to kill them they had not
stopped.

The reservoir had been worse. Hiding
its contamination better, and more had succumbed from that. In the
end the sickness had fed upon itself just as the dead who rose had
fed on the living and the sick. Within an hour the park belonged to
Donita. The occasional scream rent the air, but they were becoming
less. The dead and dying were scattered across the entire park now.
The entrances and exits were wide open, the dead could come and go
as they pleased. The breathers too, if they were foolish
enough.

She continued on her way alone, her
army spread out within the park, feeding, waiting on her
call.

The north end of the park was her
destination and she walked the abandoned pathways and roads,
finally finding East Drive and making her way along the darkened
blacktop.

In the distance there was a glow over
the tops of the trees and buildings. She could pick out individual
streetlights farther away. Harlem. And Harlem would be a harder nut
to crack.

The breathers in Harlem had closed it
off entirely. Abandoned cars blocked the streets. There were
shooters everywhere. The dead or dying were dealt with immediately.
There was no mercy, no second guessing, dead was dead and dead
bought more dead with it. They understood it on their own terms.
They could not see it as it truly was. A gift. She had hoped she
could get them to see it, but she was sure they would not see it
until death introduced it to them. She could smell that fact. It
came to her on the wind that blew across the tree tops and dropped
down to the cracked pavement where she walked: The stench of the
living.

She reached the shadows at the edge of
the trees and peered out at the split where Lenox Avenue veered
away. Quiet, deserted, but not far away she could hear the noise
that accompanied the breathers. The smell of fire and smoke hung on
the air, igniting a fear within her that he could not suppress. She
took the sweeping right hand road and walked quietly along in the
shadows to the park entrance. She left the road and entered the
treeline, following it towards West 110th Street. She stopped
within the trees and looked out at Lenox Avenue where it crossed
110th and headed into Harlem.

On the park side there were buses that
closed off the entrance and marched away into the darkness. The
buses were empty.

On the other side of West 110th a
nearly identical line of buses marched away. The space in between
was littered with corpses, burned out cars, skeletal remains still
resting in the rusted hulks. Beyond the second row of buses the
street lights marched away into Harlem. She could smell the river,
whether the Hudson or The East she did not know. The lights and the
noise of the breathers drew her attention back to the buses. She
scaled a nearby tree and looked over the tops of the buses into the
projects and the city beyond.

The streets inside the closed off area
were clear for as far as she could see. Some places had been
devastated, buildings down, but gangs of people worked there still,
clearing the damaged buildings, or what was left. Small trucks
patrolled the streets. Machine gun toting men in the back, riding
in the open air. Everything she had hoped to see was not there.
There was no disorganization of any kind at all. Whoever was in
charge in Harlem had the electricity on and the peace kept. No
rioting. No bodies littered the streets: If there had been
abandoned vehicles they had been cleared. People strolled the
streets under the lights, looking as though the world had never
changed at all, or had maybe even changed for the
better.

Donita watched from her perch in the
tree for a few minutes longer and then dropped to the ground. She
found the shadows at the edges of the road once more and began her
walk back down into the park.

FIVE

The Nation: October 15th

To Mike it seemed as though the
pounding went on and on.

”
Baby...
Baby.”
Candace from beside him.

“
Yeah... Yeah. I'm,” he
cocked his head to the sound. The door rattled again as someone
pounded on it once more. He swung his feet to the floor and started
for the door. “Yeah... Yeah! I'm coming... I'm coming,”

“
Baby,” Candace called.
“Pants.” His jeans hit his lower legs as he began to turn back
toward her. One hand shot downward and caught them before they hit
the floor: As he pulled them on his eyes met Candace's own. She
shrugged, but her eyes held worry. Good news didn't come pounding
on your door in the middle of the night.

Mike opened the door to Bear and
Ronnie.

“
Hey... Sorry, Mike,” Bear
said. Ronnie looked grim.

“
It's all good... What...
What is it? I mean what's wrong?”

Billy Jingo stepped out of the shadows
of the front porch, Pearl with him.

“
Something I remembered,”
Pearl said quietly. “Something important.”

“
Better get Candace too,”
Amy said from the thicker shadows.

“
Jesus, is everybody here?”
Mike asked.

“
Yeah... We're all here,”
Bob answered. “Better get Candace up too.” Bob stepped into the
light. His face was drawn and haggard. “We might just have
something for them bastards,” He said quietly. He looked behind him
into the darkness.

“
What bastards,” Candace
asked as she suddenly appeared beside Mike. Her hand slipped into
his. “What bastards, Bob.”

'The dead... The dead, Candace....
Pearl thinks... Pearl saw something,” Bob finished. He looked
around once more at the completeness of the darkness. “The barn...
We'll be at the barn.”

“
Right behind you,” Mike
said to his back.

“
It's not bad news,” Ronnie
told him. “Jesus... Jesus, I think it might be good news, Mike.” He
began to follow as Mike closed the door and then he and Amy walked
with them down to the barn.

~

The lights in the barn seemed
excessively bright after the darkness of the valley. People
probably were getting used to real darkness all over the world,
Mike though. There had always been a glow from cities, some sort of
electric light somewhere, but now there was none at all. What had
seemed like darkness had only been an illusion.

Everyone appeared half dressed, still
hoping for a state of sleep. Mike himself had pulled on the jeans,
zipped them up and shoved his feet into his boots. He wore only a
cotton t-shirt and the night was cold. Candace handed him a
lightweight jacket and he slipped it on. Amy wore a thick robe, bob
was dressed, but his feet were clad in slippers. He turned his eyes
to the thin young woman at Billy's side. “You have the floor,” Mike
told her, unsure what he was about to hear.

Pearl lifted her eyes from the floor.
“I know a few things, but I just didn't know if I could trust it.
And I don't know if it is any use to you.” She looked at
Billy.

“
Just tell them,” Billy
said softly.

She nodded, lowered her head as if
composing her thoughts, and then spoke.

“
So Billy is telling me
that he came from Watertown a long while back. I hadn't known that,
but then he begins to tell me about the place, and I realize he
really has been there, same as I have been.” Her eyes rose to their
own. “I was there when it all happened. I was living there before
it happened. I worked off downtown... A mission there.”

“
We met some people from
there,” Candace said.

“
Not long after,” Mike
agreed.

“
Far north,” Candace said.
“Up by Canada.”

Pearl nodded and her eyes became shiny
as she did. She caught her breath, as it seemed to run out on her
words. “I... I was there when the first quake came... They took me
with them or I might have died with the rest of them. The ones that
had come at me might have killed me.” Her eyes overflowed as she
finished.

“
Well... Take it slowly,
girl,” Candace told her. “Take it slowly.”

Pearl drew a deep breath and began. “I
was on my way to work. It was just before the big quake. The power
was still on...”

The Nation: October 15th

Dawn came cold and gray, barely
coloring the valley. Thick, heavy gray clouds filled the skies, and
a dense gray-white fog covered the floor of the valley. The whole
world seemed to be made of shades of gray, Candace
thought.

She sat just under the overhang in a
small canvas backed chair with two cups of coffee and waited for
Mike to come off post. She had seen George Dell leave on his way to
relieve Mike, so it should be only a few minutes, she
thought.

The meeting in the barn had lasted into
early morning. Not sunrise, but near to it. They had all left in
silence, walking back through the darkness, lost in their own
thoughts. Mike had left to relieve Tim who had covered his post and
Candace had given up the pretense of returning to sleep and made
her way to the cave where she had found hot coffee and a few others
gathered talking in low voices. The conversation had faltered when
Candace had come in, blowing on her hands. It was actually cold out
this morning.

The lag in conversation didn't surprise
her anymore. It had been going on since they had become big enough
that not every one knew everyone. But she and the other council
members were known, and invariably conversation stopped or skipped
a few beats when one of them walked into a room. She supposed it
was a sign of society rebuilding itself. Groups forming, differing
opinions being expressed. It was the way of the world. She had
believed not long ago that it was a way whose time had passed, but
society seemed like just another organism that found ways around
the roadblocks to achieve its purpose was: Whatever that might be.
She had simply smiled, poured herself some coffee and carried it
out to the stone ledge and waited for the sunrise.

There were four posts. The first was on
top of the mountain where you could see for miles in any direction.
Post two was about a quarter mile away in the valley that lead up
to the notch, situated on a ridge that kept the post well hidden,
but allowed line of sight for the whole valley.

The third post was at the end of their
valley where it bent into the El to the right. The valley wall
fractured there, and soared several hundred feet straight up toward
the ridge. There was a small cave high up on that wall. It appeared
inaccessible from the valley floor, but was actually accessed
through a small opening at ground level, and a set of carved stone
steps that wound upward through the rock to the small cave and
beyond. Hundreds, perhaps thousands of years old: Worn down in the
center, but after cleaning the fallen rock that had accumulated
over the years, easily accessible and climbed.

The fourth post was on the other side
of the mountain, halfway down the valley, where yet another of the
small caves sat high in a rock face; accessible by the same type of
stone steps carved into the rock. Worn smooth, polished by the
thousands of feet that had climbed them.

Mike had the second post. The first and
the second post had been made from the steel cabs of two trucks.
The frames, cabs, wiring, had all been used. Even the engines had
found a home in a project. Nothing was wasted. It had taken the
better part of a week to winch the cabs into place and cement them
there, but they had made them work. A little camouflage and you
would never have suspected they were there.

The doors were operational and painted
a flat gray-black to blend in to the surrounding rock. Both had
been set back under ledges so that the glass would not reflect the
sunlight or the moonlight. Shrubs and vegetation had been
transplanted around both, so that even close up they could not be
seen. They were dry, warm and allowed a level of comfort that the
people that had once inhabited this valley had probably not
enjoyed.

They had two more cabs, one that was
earmarked for the El in the second valley, and the other at the end
of the high meadow. But, Candace thought as she sipped at her
second cup of coffee, it appeared as though the weather might be
turning. It had been growing colder day by day, but this morning it
felt cold enough to snow, and the sunrise didn't seem to be doing
much to change that.

Candace liked the way the cold air made
her feel more alive, awake. She supposed that by the end of winter
she'd be tired of that though. Just looking forward to the heat of
summer once more.