Apocalypticon (24 page)

Ben finished his tuna and hurled the can at the throng below. It glanced off the forehead of one of the assailants, who didn’t seem to notice. “I don’t think I’m gonna sleep tonight,” he sighed.

“We should try. We’ll have to keep watch in rotating shifts.”

“I’ll take the first shift, and probably all the other ones, too.”

Patrick lay down on his back and stared up at the dark fog above. “I remember a time when a man could go to Disney World without fear of being eaten by savages.”

“You obviously never flew American,” Ben said. “How’s your hand?”

“Eh. It’s okay. Hurts like the dickens, but I think it’s getting better.”

“You think they can smell the gash?” he asked, nodding toward the screeching crowd below.

“That is the most disgusting sounding sentence I’ve ever heard,” said Patrick, wincing.

“You always were a prude,” Ben said. He hopped up and walked around the perimeter. “I don’t know how you and Annie ever—“ He broke off.

“Ever what?” Patrick asked, still staring up into the mist. His friend was silent. “Ben? You fall off the roof?” He rolled over and saw Ben crouching near the corner of the building. “What’s going on?”

“Come here,” Ben whispered, beckoning him with his hand. Patrick stood and looked over the side. A family of deer had just walked into the edge of the clearing, a doe and three fawns. They sniffed cautiously at the grass, their eyes alert, tails pointing straight up in the air. One of the monsters below, one of the injured ones, noticed them first. He spun around and staggered toward the deer on unsteady legs. More of the creatures looked over and saw the deer. They began to turn, one by one, and soon the entire horde was swarming the animals, the limping gimps falling well behind the sprinters. The deer fled into the woods, and the mass of creatures flooded through the clearing like a tidal wave, draining
en masse
into the trees.

“Let’s go!” Patrick cried. He ran to the skylight and dropped through the hole with such awkward force that he slipped right off the chair and crashed to the table below. He rolled off to the floor with a groan and hobbled over to the bags. Ben wasn’t far behind; he hopped down more gracefully and unbolted the front door. Patrick tossed him the knapsack and shouldered his own bag.

“Which way?” Ben asked, frantic.

“The opposite way.”

They cracked the door and peered out, making sure the coast was clear. The last unsteady walker was just plunging into the forest on the far side of the clearing. Ben threw open the door and ran out in the other direction, Patrick close on his heels.

They dove into the trees, and the world became black as tar. They forged onward blindly, taking branches to the face every few steps, but not slowing. After a few hundred yards, they ducked behind a massive, gnarled tree trunk. They listened closely, but there wasn’t a sound to be heard.

“Do you think we’re safe?” Ben asked hopefully.

“I think the second you ask a question like that, we’re doomed,” said Patrick. To accentuate the point, a soft scuffle of feet rose somewhere nearby, off to their left. “Goddammit, Ben.”

They picked themselves up and sprinted on, already breathing heavily under the weight of their packs. “I changed my mind,” Ben gasped as they leapt over a shallow gully. “I don’t want to go to Disney World. I want to stay in Chicago.”

“Okay. You go back. I’m going this way.”

They pushed on blindly through the darkness for several miles, stopping every few minutes to listen for footsteps; sometimes they heard them, sometimes they didn’t. Whatever the auditory outcome, they plunged deeper and deeper into the woods.

Almost a full hour after they’d fled the ranger station, they broke into another clearing. Right in the middle of it stood a house, a single story Ranch with candlelight flickering in the space between the window boards. They stopped at the edge of the clearing, wheezing and sweating.

“One, solitary house in a clearing in the middle of the zombie-infested woods? How can
this
go badly?” Ben asked between breaths.

“I think it’s better than the alternative,” Patrick said.

“Better than running until we find a military base where we’ll be protected by overbearing men with crewcuts and AK-47s?”

“Better than running the four more feet until my heart explodes, then getting ripped apart by Tokka and Rahzar,” Pat said, nodding at a couple of injured man-creatures clawing their way out through the woods. Ben sighed. So it was settled, then. They huffed their way to the front door and knocked.

“Who is it?” sang a sweet female voice from the other side.

“Please, we need help!” Ben cried. A small group of remarkably uninjured runners burst into the clearing just then and sprinted toward the house. Ben pushed forward and pounded on the door. “Please! Let us inside!”

The voice behind the door mumbled something they couldn’t understand. The slathering savages were closing in, quickly. Patrick pulled Ben away from the door. “Amateur,” he muttered, shaking his head. He cleared his throat and pressed his palms together. “Ma’am? We hate to disturb you, but it’s rather urgent.”

They heard a lock slide back, and the door cracked open. “Yes?” asked the woman on the other side, pressing her eye to the slit.

“Let us in, let us in, let us in!” Ben cried, absolutely frantic. He moved to enter, but she held the door in place.

“I don’t know you, do I?”

“No! Lady, look! There are man-eating zombies right behind us, for the love of God, please let us in!”

The woman peeked over their shoulders and saw the wild humans sprinting toward them. “Your friends certainly seem rambunctious,” she said cautiously.

“Rambunc--? Lady,
they’re trying to eat us
!” Ben screamed.

“Mary, who is it?” asked a man’s voice from somewhere inside.

“Two boys who want to come in,” she said.

“Do we know them?”

“No, dear, they’re strangers.”

“Did they say what they want?”

Ben slapped the door with his palms. “Lady, please!”

“No, they just said they want to come in,” she said, unperturbed.

“They’re probably just Jehovah’s Witnesses, dear. Go on, let them in.”

“They’re not Jehovah’s Witnesses, darling, they’re dirty.”

“For crying out loud!” Ben screamed. “I did not come all this way to die on a porch!” He lowered his shoulder with the aim of driving it through the door, but suddenly, the lead runner was on them. The madman dove forward, knocking into Patrick, who collided with Ben, who fell into the door, which flew open under the combined weight. “Oh!” the woman cried, pinwheeling back into the foyer. The three men went down in a heap in the entryway, Patrick scrabbling for the runner’s throat to hold his teeth at bay, Ben floundering under their weight. Patrick managed to get his feet planted on the runner’s chest, and with a strength he’d never known he had, he pushed off and launched the creature back through the doorway. It crashed into two others just jumping onto the porch, and the three of them went down like bowling pins, screaming and snarling. Patrick scrambled for the door, slammed it shut, and threw the locks just as the monsters outside came smashing up against it.

“What is the meaning of this?” the woman demanded, stamping her foot. They could see her easily despite the night’s darkness; candles burned everywhere, on every tabletop, in converted wall sconces, even in the stately chandeliers above. The entire house was as bright as dawn. The woman herself practically glimmered. She was a little shorter than medium height, and slim, wearing a sleeveless blue-and-white polka dotted dress cinched at the waist and poofed out in a wide skirt. Her yellow hair framed her thin, pretty face perfectly, with well-coiffed ringlets pinned back over her ears. Her dark blue eyes, her full, red lips, and her small, pointed nose completed the package of a 1950s middle class housewife to a T. She had her fists planted firmly on her hips, scowling down at the two men on the floor. Even looking angry, she was uncommonly attractive. And exceptionally clean.

“Well?” she said, tapping her heeled shoe on the hardwood floor.

They struggled to their feet. “Those things, they were—“

“Miscreants, from the look of them,” she finished sharply. “Barging into my house like animals. I should have you arrested! In fact, I think I’ll do just that. Warren, ring the sheriff!” she called over her shoulder.

A man in an argyle cardigan appeared behind her. He wore dark slacks with a sharp crease and a crisp white shirt under the sweater. His black hair was perfectly parted over his left eyebrow, rising in a slight wave in front. “Now, now, Mary,” he said, patting his wife on the shoulders, “let’s not be so rash. Look at them, can’t you see how scared they are? Something’s got them in a tizzy. Nothing a good meal couldn’t fix, am I right?” He leaned in conspiratorially. “Or if not that, a stiff sip from the bar,” he said with a wink.

“Not until the children are in bed,” Mary said hotly. “Please excuse me while I have a word with my husband.” She took him by the elbow and led him back down the hall. They spoke in hushed tones, hers frantic and punctuated by quick, sweeping hand gestures, his calm and, they hoped, soothing.

“This place gives me the creeps,” Ben whispered. The entire house was spotless; the floors were scrubbed and polished, the furniture was dusted, the stairs were vacuumed, pictures still hung evenly on recently painted walls, little knickknacks were organized perfectly on their shelves. Aside from a few necessary post-M-Day renovations, like boarded windows and padlocks on some of the doors, the house looked like it was ready to be photographed for a pre-apocalyptic issue of
Home and Garden
. It was eerie as shit. Ben said as much. “And what’s with Betty Draper and Astronaut Darrin? Did we just walk onto the set of
Leave it to Beaver
?”

“Stop mixing your references,” Patrick said. “It’s confusing.”

Their hosts finished their discussion. Mary marched off in a huff. Warren walked back to the entryway, giving the two men a broad, easy smile. “I apologize for my wife. She can be a little...high strung sometimes.”

“No, no, no, it’s completely fine,” Patrick said, waving his hands in the air. “We barged into your house; she has every right to be upset.”

“It’s just that we were about to be savagely eaten by mutants,” Ben added helpfully.

Warren laughed. “We’d be happy if you boys would be our guests tonight. We’re just finishing up dinner, but there’s some soup leftover, if you’re hungry. We’ll keep it warm for you, why don’t you go clean up? The guest bathroom’s just down the hall there. You’ll find plenty of water. We draw it from our own well,” he said with a proud wink. “When you’re all cleaned up, join us in the dining room, right back down this way, the last room on the left, right back there. All right, now? Welcome to our home.”

•

The soup was easily the best thing Ben had ever tasted; carrots, celery, onions, kale, white beans, basil, and thyme, seasoned with healthy amounts of pepper and unhealthy amounts of salt. The flavors danced together in a symphony of flavor unlike anything he’d tasted in the last three years. Even the fresh venison of the night before couldn’t compare (especially not in hindsight). Paired with the fact that he’d just had his first hot bath in over three years, thanks to his hosts’ well and well-stoked fires, he now felt perpetually on the verge of grateful tears. “The soup is amazing,” he managed to say between spoonfuls. Warren grinned.

“The vegetables and herbs are grown right here in our own little garden. Mary’s got a heck of a green thumb, a
heck
of a green thumb!”

“Oh, stop it,” she said, blushing.

“It’s true! Isn’t it true, kids?”

Two young children, one boy and one girl, sat across from Patrick and Ben. The boy was older, maybe by a year or two, and was dressed like his father, in a red cardigan over a white turtleneck. His hair was parted the same way, too, left to right with a gelled wave in front. The girl wore a pleated jumper over a light blue blouse. Her dark hair was pulled back and tied with matching ribbons that streamed down her back.

“Your father asked you a question,” Mary said sharply.

“Yes, father,” they answered in unison. The boy rested his head on one hand and drew imaginary pictures on the tablecloth with the end of his spoon. The girl wriggled uncomfortably in her seat, which had been boosted up with dictionaries so she could reach the table. “May we be a’scused?” she asked.

“You may not be,” their mother said. “It’s not polite to leave the table while others are eating.”

“Oh, no, please, we don’t mind,” Patrick said through a mouthful of kale.

“It’s not polite,” she repeated firmly. “Nor is it polite to speak with your mouth full.”

“Mary,” Warren said, “these men are our guests.”

She frowned. “I’m glad you’re enjoying the soup,” she said.

Ben stole a questioning glance at Patrick, but his companion was taking a passive approach to their host’s tone by ignoring it completely and hurrying up with his dinner. Ben did the same.

“Now you may be excused,” Mary said when Ben had finished slurping the dregs from his bowl. The children beamed and exploded out of their chairs. They scampered out of the dining room with squeals of delight.