The massive box of a building stood nestled in a wasteland of dirty cars, rotting corpses, and great bundles trash blowing about in the wind. Sam and Grace surveyed it from the edge of a forest several hundred meters out, Sam scanning for danger through binoculars while Ruck whined from around his knee.

“The dog is hungry again,” Sam said tersely.

“I got him.” (more…)

The ocean of bodies ebbed, swayed, leaning as if caught by a wind. There was the familiar moan, keening in time with the currents and Josephine could feel their longing; it was difficult not to give in to the urge and let her own throat vibrate softly, join their song.

The aroma of fresh coffee kept her from stepping off the back of the Landrover towards them.

“Full moon,” Stephen said, holding up a cup. “No moving them tonight.” (more…)

For over sixty five years now – nearer seventy – ever since we were kids in the street, me and Ben have been joined at the hip. When we were young we were reasonably fashion conscious, mostly in our efforts to get girls, but nowadays we’re like dirtied up versions of Gandalf and Radagast, facial hair and all. It’s a kind of a disguise, you see, as our unwashed, shuffling, old man movements can sometimes fool the Dead into thinking we’re them. Except when we’re on our bikes, of course.

In recent years, in this suburban desolation, we’ve had to avoid corpses entirely because we can’t defend ourselves too well anymore. Bad joints and malnutrition have made us slow and feeble; Ben even more so than me. His arthritis barely lets him walk. So for us its eyes peeled all the time and ears open all the time, but this morning we dropped the ball. Not a single whiff of danger registered on our radars. I mean, with our experience we really should have seen them coming. It just goes to show how charmed we’ve been all along. (more…)

I

Within a week every person in Barrel County was either holed-up or dead… to some degree. Most of the Barnes family was of the former category. Shortly after graduating in 1969, Charles Barnes married his long-time sweetheart Barbara O’Day. They had reluctantly purchased an ancient house on the outskirts of the town of Lyons, New York. They didn’t want the seventy-five year-old “fixer-upper,” but it was the only thing they could afford at the time. (more…)

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1

Caine stopped, followed seconds later by Abel. Both turned their noses to the almost impalpable breeze. Maddy slid to a stop on the mucky soil, gratefully taking deep breaths. Checking her watch, she was impressed: 26 hours. They were approaching record territory. Jimmy John Donaldson had gone 38 hours straight, necessitating 2 teams working in tandem, but he had been a brain damaged clinical psychopath known to stay awake for 72 hour stretches. The kid she was tracking now was smart but   scared and running on adrenaline. The chemical fire on your bones only lasted so long. Once it was gone it left only ash and despair. (more…)

Jack Spencer stood at his window and watched the world crumble. High in his apartment, he could see across the city. In the distance, buildings burned – black smoke spiralling. Three days before, a plane had come down. A military jet or similar. Jack had heard the whine of its engines. He’d rushed to the window in time to see the impact. The explosion had been huge – akin to a small nuclear bomb. Jack guessed it had been carrying weapons, or that it had hit a gas station. Perhaps both. A mushroom cloud had bloomed high into the cloudless sky. Seconds later, the building had shaken as though in an earthquake. Jack had braced himself, sure his time was up, sure the foundations would give way and he’d plummet to his death, riding the floors as he took a theme-park ride to Hell. (more…)

1

We are three days out of the Bight of Biafra headed west. The trade winds favor Lady of Mercy and push us along at an easy 12 knots cutting a sharp wake through calm seas. I spend most of my time above decks as the autumn air retains a temperate nature infinitely preferable to the suffocating heat in the crew quarters and hold. I am not the only one, the crew, all 15 of them, are loathe to descend the ladders into the hold unless so ordered, and even then they grouse. Captain Machado runs the ship well, and though this is only my second trip as a First Mate, he conveys an air of authority below his otherwise easy manner. He’s pounded some brute of a deckhand into sniveling and bleeding more than once, but his violence is never excessive or gratuitous. I’ve shipped on other vessels where men were nailed to the deck or thrown to the sharks for the slightest infraction, though this brutality is generally reserved for Dutch traders and French privateers. (more…)

“You good?”

It was a dumb question. Hetch knew the answer, and it started with an N and ended with an O.

Dean lay on the bed, his eyes half open—he had barely been awake for the last few hours, and now, as Hetch was about to go, he had woken, if only briefly. The wound in his side was bandaged as good as Hetch could get it, the patch being a sheet torn length-wise and wrapped around Dean’s midsection. Still, a dark splotch of red had bled through. (more…)

It was the smell of the dead that Rodney hated the most.

It was thick and pungent, but also sickly sweet, like sugar poured over feces. Once that odor hit his nostrils, it seemed to linger there in a terrible sense memory, even long after the danger had past. There had been times after the dead rose when Rodney would snap awake at night, from nightmares of that odor alone. (more…)