The Rising Page 6

  She did not want to look down, but did anyway. Whatever it used to be was now red and wet and unidentifiable. Maggots, pale and blind and bloated, wriggled throughout it, carving highways in the unknown flesh.

  Whimpering, Frankie skittered out of the mess. Her feet left gory tracks on the tiled floor.

  The maggots continued about their business, unperturbed. Were they alive or dead, she wondered. Did it matter?

  Above her, concealed in the shadows and spider webs, something rasped-like sandpaper on a board.

  She backed up quickly and collided with a glass wall display. Biting through her lip, Frankie turned. The terrarium was dark. Inside it, something crawled lazily toward her. An skeletal iguana head, cadaverous and menacing, bumped against the thick glass, leaving bits of itself stuck to the barrier.

  Above her, the sound came again, a dryness to it that she couldn't place. Before she could determine its location, a shadow crossed the doorway.

  "Well lookit here," said C. "Got you now, Frankie!"

  Frankie froze. Her tired, bloodshot eyes locked onto the knife C clutched in his right hand. Behind her, the iguana slammed against the glass, its insatiable hunger refusing to be thwarted by the barrier.

  "Yo," C said into his cell phone. "I got the bitch. She in the snake house."

  "Listen C," Frankie pleaded. "We can work this out. I can take care of you. T-Bone doesn't have to know."

  "Bitch please," he spit, "like I'd stick my dick up you? Shee-it! Sides, I ain't gonna waste you just yet. TBone will want to have some fun wit you first."

  He leaped, and Frankie dodged. Dropping the cell phone, C snatched a handful of her hair and yanked- hard. Frankie screamed in fright and pain. The cell phone slid across the tiles, in time with the slithering sound from overhead, drawing closer.

  C slammed Frankie to the floor. Her head cracked on the tile. Her ears rang, and her vision swam away from focus. Warm, salty blood ran down the back of her throat.

  Laughing, C straddled her. His weight crushed her chest. He sliced open her shirt. His blade drew a bead of scarlet between her breasts.

  "Yeah, now we talking," he gloated. "Maybe I will break me off a little somethin' before the crew get here." His grin was lascivious, and his gold tooth glinted in the near dark, as he slid the blade just below her nipple. "You hear what I'm sayin'?"

  Frankie held her breath, too afraid to move.

  C pushed the knife a little harder, drawing more blood. "Answer me, bitch. You hearin' me?"

  "Please, C, don't-"

  Something long and white dropped from the ceiling and coiled around him.

  C's eyes bulged in terror as decomposed flesh wrapped around him. The anaconda had once been the talk of the Mid-Atlantic region, and even in death, it was still magnificent. Frankie didn't stop to ponder its morbid beauty however. She was too busy scurrying backward and bleeding to marvel at the snake's power and speed.

  Her mind did take in its swollen length, and the bones that protruded through the parchment-like hide. It squeezed its prey, glaring at her with one malevolent eye. The other socket was empty save for the maggots wriggling within.

  Again, Frankie screamed.

  C did not. His dark skin turned purple as the undead serpent twisted around him, hiding his legs and his waist and his chest beneath one hundred and fifty pounds of decaying flesh.

  Frankie slid to her feet and stumbled into a side office. Trembling, she slammed the door shut behind her. She pressed the tattered remains of her shirt around her wound, stopping the flow of blood, and examined the cut. She was relieved to find that it wasn't deep. Her nipple was still intact.

  She glanced around the room, searching for a weapon. Oak bookshelves displayed dusty tomes of forgotten zoological lore, never to be used again. A matching desk was in the room's center. Occupying it was a blotter, an in-and-out basket overflowing with paperwork, a tape player, and a coffee mug from which several pens jutted.

  She crossed the room and began to rifle through the drawers. A family, framed in glass, smiled back at her, watching her actions with eternally frozen stares. An all-American family: husband, wife, and two kids-a boy and a girl. The girl was the youngest, probably around four or five.

  Adorable.

  Was she still alive?

  Again, she thought she heard the cry of a baby.

  She flung her hands to her ears, clenching her eyes shut. "Stop it stop it STOP it!"

  The ghost noise continued.

  She considered the pens on the desk. Did she have the courage to just jam one into her eye, forcing it back until it puncture the membrane and sank into her brain?

  She opened the bottom drawer, and a revolver stared back at her. An old one. She scrabbled through the drawer, searching for bullets and finding only the moldy remains of several packages of Twinkies. She opened the cylinder, and laughed out loud when she saw that it was full. Six bullets gleamed at her from their snug confines.

  She slammed the cylinder back into place, and began to believe.

  Then she heard the baby again; louder, more insistent.

  She went to the window and peered outside. A hedge blocked her view from the main concourse, but the backside of the Reptile House looked deserted.

  Gritting her teeth, Frankie forced the window upward and crawled outside into the night air.

  Crouching, she crept toward the bushes.

  Something rustled on the other side. Frankie raised the pistol.

  She burst from the foliage and almost tripped over the baby stroller. It was lying on its side, half on the curb, half in the grass. Strapped safely in the belts was an infant. It raised its tiny head, looked at her, and wailed.

  The frilly pink blouse it wore was dirty and stained, both from the elements and from its own juices. The scalp, once covered with a fine layer of downy hair, had peeled back in places, exposing the dull gleam of bone. It struggled uselessly in the restraints, reaching for her. Its lilting cry continued and in that keening sob was hunger and a need to be comforted.

  Frankie's face crumbled. She shuffled toward it, tears streaking through the grime and blood that spattered her pale cheeks. She reached for the stroller, setting it upright, and the infant cooed at her, grubby outstretched fists pumping the air. She offered her finger and the cold, skeletal fingers curled around it happily.

  Slowly the infant's eyes rose to Frankie's. Its hollow-eyed stare was extinguished as the infant suddenly lunged forward, its ravenous blackened maw widening in an attempt to latch on to her hand.

  Frankie screamed, snatching her finger back from the zombie.

  "What the fuck was that, yo?"

  Frankie dived behind the hedge just as T-Bone and two other thugs rounded the corner, attracted by the baby's cries.

  "Latron, go on around front," T-Bone ordered one of the men, who trotted off around the corner of the Reptile House.

  "Damn, holmes," sputtered the other. "That's a baby!"

  "No shit, nigga," spat T-Bone. He had to shout over the infant's shrieks. "I look stupid to you, Terrell? Blast it while I go check out that window."

  Terrell leveled the shotgun he was carrying at the stroller and jacked the pump. His eyes were wide.

  "I ain't never shot no babies, T-Bone."

  "It ain't no baby no more! Now shoot the fucking thing and let's go get that ho!"

  As if to prove his point, the infant's squeals turned to curses.

  Terrell blasted it in half. Still it continued to curse. Ejecting a shell, he fired again, obliterating its head.

  Yelling, Frankie erupted from the shrubbery. She emptied four bullets into the would-be gunman before he could even pull the trigger.

  She snarled, and fired at T-Bone. The gangster flung himself to the pavement, raised Marquon's recovered pistol, and squeezed off a burst of his own. The shots went low, spraying Frankie with fragments of asphalt and dirt, but missing her.

  From inside the Reptile House came a horrified shout, as Latron discovered the same fat
e that had befallen C. Startled, T-Bone was distracted by the man's screams. Seizing the moment, Frankie fired. A crimson flower bloomed in the middle of T-Bone's forehead. He grunted once, his chest rising, then lay still.

  Frankie emptied the last bullet into Terrell's head, making sure he wouldn't get up again either.

  In the aftermath, the zoo had grown quiet.

  She glanced over at the remains of the baby, then turned away.

  Escaping through the city streets was hopeless. On any night, the streets of Baltimore teemed with people. Now they would be crawling with the walking dead.

  She wondered just how many had been attracted by the gun battle, shuffling toward the zoo even now.

  The streets and alleys were out, as was the beltway. She considered hiding on a nearby tenement rooftop, but that was no good either. She shuddered, remembering the old man and the pigeons.

  Her skin began to itch. Already, her body was demanding another fix.

  A nearby manhole cover caught her eye. She ran to it.

  Something chittered from the shadows. A monkey perhaps. Alive or dead she did not know nor did she want to find out. She clawed at the iron cover, straining. It didn't budge. Her yellowed nails bent, then snapped, and still she pulled.

  Footsteps rang out behind her.

  Still struggling, Frankie turned and screamed.

  Three of them approached her, still dressed in the garments of their former existence. A businessman, red tie now sinking into the bloated, mottled throat. A nurse, whose formerly white uniform was now a tie-dye of various bodily fluids. A maintenance worker, the zoo logo still prominently displayed on his left breast. He carried some type of electric prod, and thrust it outward. It crackled in the darkness.

  Laughing, they advanced on her.

  Frankie shrieked, yanking frantically at the stubborn cover. Something in her back tore. Still she pulled. The abscesses in her arms burst, spurting with pus-yellow blood.

  The cover rose with a screech, and she slid it to the side.

  The zombies drew closer. They did not speak, and Frankie found their silence even more disturbing than the others. She thought of the baby.

  That evil zombie baby that had seemed so harmless...

  Arms weak, collapsed veins turning to water, she still found the strength to raise her arm and extend her middle finger. Then she dropped down into the hole and was swallowed by the darkness.

  She was on the run again, and while she could outrun the zombies, she couldn't escape herself-or the craving that was building in her veins.

  Martin stared at Jesus on the cross and thought about resurrection.

  Lazarus had lain dead in his tomb for four days before Jesus came along.

  Martin opened his Scofield Reference Bible and turned to the Book of John. In Chapter 11, Verse 39, Martha told Jesus "by this time he stinketh; for he hath been dead four days."

  That was pretty specific.

  So was the account of Jesus bringing Lazarus back from the dead.

  "Lazarus come forth!" and the dead man did just that, still bound in graveclothes. Jesus then commanded the crowd to turn Lazarus loose, after which John dropped the narrative and moved on to the conversion of the Jews and the Pharisee conspiracy.

  Nowhere in the Bible did it say Lazarus went around eating people.

  The Bible that Martin had known, taught, and loved for the last forty years was full of examples of the dead coming back to life. But not like this.

  "He that believes in me shall have eternal life," Martin spoke aloud.

  His voice sounded very small in the empty church.

  He wondered if the things he had glimpsed in the street were still believers. At one time, many of them had been members of his congregation.

  Martin had seen a lot in his sixty years. He'd survived a copperhead bite when he was seven and pneumonia when he was ten. He served as a Navy chaplain during Viet Nam, and made it back home alive, only to have Desert Storm claim a son of his own in return. That had been their only child. He'd outlived his wife, Chesya, gone five years now to breast cancer.

  His faith had gotten him through it all.

  He needed that faith now, clinging to it as a drowning man would grasp a lifeboat.

  But he also found himself questioning it. Not for the first time-the Lord had given him all kinds of tests over the years, though never anything so fundamental as this. But, as Martin was fond of telling his flock, the good Lord didn't waste his time testing those who didn't have much to offer.

  He moved across the church to the boarded-over stained glass window and peered through a knothole in the plywood.

  Though not quite dawn, the darkness was already receding. Becky Gingerich, the church organist, had lost her soiled dress overnight. Now she squatted among the shrubs, clad only in a filthy pair of once-white cotton panties. Her sagging breasts swayed freely. She gnawed on a forearm as if it were a chicken leg, then cast it aside, staring off into the distance and moaning softly. Something had attracted her attention.

  A man appeared, cautiously limping down the street. His jeans and flannel shirt were dirty and torn. He clutched a pistol, but the weapon dangled limply by his side. He did not seem to notice the corpse moving in the shadows. Wearily, he collapsed to his knees on the sidewalk.

  The hedges rustled and Becky darted forward. Half conscious, the man seemed unaware of the danger.

  "Hey!" Martin shouted, beating his fist against the plywood. "Lookout!"

  Mouthing a quick prayer, he dashed into the narthex

  and struggled to move the heavy wooden pew propped against the door.

  Sliding it aside, he grabbed the shotgun from the coat rack, undid the four recently installed deadbolts, and ran outside.

  Hearing the commotion, the stranger turned as the zombie lurched toward him. He raised the pistol and fired. The bullet tore through her shoulder. Running across the yard, Martin ducked as the second shot missed its mark completely.

  The man squeezed the trigger again, and missed. He fired a fourth time, but the clip was empty. Confused, he looked at the pistol, then stared up at Becky.

  He closed his eyes, and Martin heard him whisper "I'm sorry, Danny."

  Martin slammed the shotgun into the creature's back. The former organist toppled face first to the sidewalk; yellowed teeth breaking on the pavement.

  Martin jacked a shell into the chamber, and placed the barrel against the base of the zombie's skull.

  Becky screamed in rage.

  "Go with God, Rebecca."

  Brain matter and skull fragments sprayed across the sidewalk like a Rorschach pattern.

  The sun peeked over the rooftops. The roar of the shotgun echoed through the quiet streets, greeting the dawn.

  "I'm afraid that's going to attract attention. We'd best get inside!"

  The elderly black man held his hand out to Jim who took it. Despite his age, the man's grip was firm. He wore crumpled khakis and black shoes.

  Something white peeked out from beneath the neckline of his yellow sweater.

  A preacher's collar.

  "Thank you, Father," Jim said.

  "Pastor, actually," the old man corrected him, smiling. "Reverend Thomas Martin. And no need to thank me. Give your thanks to the Lord after we're safe."

  "Jim Thurmond, and yeah, let's get off the street."

  A hungry cry, followed by another, was all the incentive they needed.

  "Is this your church, Reverend?"

  The old man smiled. "It's God's church. I just work here."

  Martin fixed him a makeshift bed using blankets and a pew. Jim resisted, insisting that he only needed to rest for a moment, and promptly fell into a deep but troubled sleep. Martin sipped instant coffee and stood watch, listening to the occasional shriek of the things outside.

  Shortly before noon, a wandering zombie discovered Becky's corpse and began to feed on her remains. Martin watched in revulsion as, like ants, more of the creatures were attracted to the feast. Occas
ionally, they would glance around at the surrounding houses and the church. Martin wondered if they would be moved to investigate, but they seemed satisfied with the free lunch.

  An hour later, when the knot of fetid things scattered, nothing remained of Becky except bones and a few red bits, smeared across the sidewalk and grass.

  Jim awoke at sundown, alarmed at first and unable to remember where he was. He sat up, looking around the church. This wasn't the shelter! Then he saw the preacher, smiling in the candlelight, and he remembered-

  -and in remembering, he thought of Danny.