Dawn of the Living-Impaired Read online

  The college boy and the man who'd been chanting both cupped their hands around their mouths to make megaphones and called, "Braaaaaaaiiiiiiinns!" in slow, dragging imitation of the undead.

  The good doctor stood up. "I will not have them subjected to this blatantly hostile abuse! NALI's purpose is to increase public awareness and help our clients."

  "Maybe it would help for everyone to see the progress they've made under treatment," Elaine suggested. "We're all operating on the basis of what we've seen in the media, and probably have a negative, sensationalized view."

  "Progress!" Gillespie snorted. "Couple of zombies, hosed off and put in clean clothes. Maybe you can train 'em like animals, but they're still flesh-eating monsters. Suppose you bring them out here and they decide it's an all-you-can-eat buffet?"

  "Barb has been flesh-free for eight weeks," Wyatt-Anderson said huffily. "Danny, for almost as long. They're proof that the patch and the treatment are effective, two of our most compensated clients."

  Elaine caught the eye of one of the backstage crew, and he responded with a nod. Moments later, a small group emerged from the side door of the set. Three men and a woman, all in pristine white lab coats, ushered in two shuffling figures. An appalled, fascinated "Ooooh!" came from the audience, accompanied by a shifting rustle as they all leaned forward to get a good look. For most of them, this was the first time they'd seen one of the unfortunate necrivores, except on television.

  The larger of the two, introduced as Barb, must have been a huge woman in life and hadn't diminished much since. A drab mustard-colored sweatsuit neither concealed nor flattered the drooping swell of her belly, or the pendulous melon-sized breasts that bobbled like loosely-filled sacks of gelatin. Her behind was truly mythic in its proportions, and with her head bent down against the glare of the studio lighting, her chins descended to her chest in a series of mushy folds. They'd obviously made an effort to get her presentable. Her skin was doughy and blue- grey, but she was clean and not visibly maggot-ridden. What was left of her hair, clumps of mahogany brown that might have otherwise been pretty, had been drawn neatly back in a scrunchied ponytail. She had the sadly sweet face of so many hopelessly obese women, hinting at the beauty that might have been hers, had her life taken a different turn.

  Danny moved with considerably more ease, as it would have taken about eight of him to make up one Barb. He couldn't have been more than ten years old when he died, and the evidence of his death was present in the form of bite marks and missing hunks of flesh up and down his scrawny arms, as well as a malformed dent in the side of his head. The ghost of an impish smile lurked around his slack, dry lips. He wore jeans, an oversized football jersey, and high-top sneakers, like any other kid. Yards of spice-scented wrappings might have suited him better, for he appeared wizened and dry, more mummified than rotting. His dark skin had taken on a hue and texture reminiscent of ash-coated beef jerky.

  General Gillespie made a sound somewhere between a moan and a snarl as the two zombies shambled closer. Their attendants stopped them at the center of the stage, Cameras 1 and 2 zooming in for close-ups. Both of their patches were in plain sight, pasted to the sides of their necks just below the ear (or, in Danny's case, the crushed and mangled cartilage that used to be an ear). In a final bizarre touch, the patches were, for some reason, the gleaming plastic pink-tan that used to be called 'flesh' by the crayon people, a color that didn't even match the skin of any race of the living. On Barb and Danny, it was as hectic as a clown's vivid red cheeks.

  Doctor Wyatt-Anderson crossed her arms smugly beneath her breasts and threw Gillespie a silent "Told you so!" as the nervous tittering and revolted gasps of the audience gave way to murmurings of pity. Elaine understood their feelings, for there was something unspeakably tragic and solemn about the pair. They stood, slouched by both the poor posture of death and the inescapable defeated hopelessness of their circumstances.

  Danny goggled at the nearest camera. One of his eyes was milky but otherwise normal; the other was distended from the socket as if it had been popped out and replaced, but the fit would never quite be the same. That orb was roadmapped with broken veins, and a purpled corona engulfed the pupil.

  The bleak incomprehension in their stares changed as they took in the sight of the studio audience, dozens and dozens of healthy humans. The glint put Elaine in mind of reluctant dieters confronted with a bakery window.

  What must they look like to those glassy gazes? A parade of meaty limbs and delectable torsos? Didn't they always say that you couldn't help someone who didn't want to be helped? What was the treatment doing to them? As far as she knew, as far as anyone knew, the living dead came back with only one driving impulse. To eat. And now that had been taken away from them. What did that leave?

  "My God," Elaine heard herself say. "This is terrible!"

  "The growth rate of the living-impaired population," Wyatt-Anderson said, "has leveled off, thanks to the increase in cremation as a form of funerary services. But there are still millions of them out there, and they need your help."

  Gillespie shook his head. "What they need is to be sent back where they came from. That one lady was right. This is no way to be!"

  Barb swiveled slowly in his direction. Watching her move was like watching the gaseous atmosphere of Jupiter rotate, bands of flesh shifting and sliding at different rates. A whiff of her odor reached Elaine. Mostly soap and talcum powder, but underneath was a faintly rancid, wholly repugnant reek of spoilage.

  The general realized with utter horror that he was the focus of three-hundred-plus pounds of zombie attention, and took an involuntary step back.

  "Deaaad," Barb said, forcing the word sluggishly through liquefying vocal cords.

  "Dead," Danny seconded, his voice more clear, but raspy as a file on sandpaper.

  "And they should stay that way," said someone from the audience. Elaine recognized the intense brunette without needing to look. "Dead things should stay that way. This is wrong, can't you see it, wrong!"

  Doctor Wyatt-Anderson stepped forward to argue, but Barb's chins tripled and receded as she nodded. "Rrrrrrronnng!" Her pudgy, sausage-fingered hand floated up as if tied to a helium balloon. It wandered aimlessly around her head for a moment, pulled strands of hair from the scrunchie to hang lank in her face, and then found the edge of the patch. Two of her fingernails peeled loose as she dug at it.

  "Barb, stop it," said one of the attendants.

  Danny squinted up at his behemothic companion, some dim understanding welling in his muddy eyes.

  Barb's patch came unstuck with a grisly squelching noise, tearing away a spongy mat of skin and flesh with it. "Dead!" she shrieked. "Dead-dead-dead!"

  The attendants rushed in, bringing heavy-duty tasers out of concealed holsters. Elaine, rooted to the spot, was buffeted as the audience yielded to instinct and thundered for the exits.

  "Dead-dead-dead!" Danny parroted, and ripped the patch from his own neck so vigorously that he nearly beheaded himself. The ivory knobs of his vertebrae poked through like stepping stones.

  "Stop her!" Wyatt-Anderson ordered above the din. Then, incredibly, "We'll never get funding like this!"

  It was, Elaine would later think, a pretty crappy set of last words. Barb lumbered forward with the force of a charging rhino, and crushed the doctor's ribcage with one swing of her massive arm.

  Still unable to move, hypnotized by the spectacle, Elaine observed with detached marvel the way the impact sent ripples through the zombie's flab.

  Barb seized Wyatt-Anderson, pulled her close as if going for a kiss, and clamped her jaws on the doctor's shoulder. Elaine, in a space beyond horror now, batted at Barb's face with the microphone and squashed her nose into a soggy ruin. Barb let go of her victim.

  An attendant grabbed for Danny as Doctor Wyatt-Anderson's body was hitting the ground. The dead child writhed, snake-fast, and got a mouthful of muscle, eliciting a scream that was more terror than pain ... and it was a lot of pain.

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sp; Barb, stepping mostly over but partly on the fallen psychiatrist and, cracking bones like twigs underfoot, reached for the darling of the daytime talk shows. Elaine thrust out the microphone and Barb chomped into it, masticating furiously on the spongy black covering before spitting it aside.

  Someone dropped an iron safe onto a solid hardwood floor. Or at least that was what Elaine's first thought was as the colossal boom resonated through the studio. It wasn't until the side of Barb's skull blossomed out in a pulpy yellow and grey spray that she realized what had happened. The giant body went down so hard that it wouldn't have been surprising to hear car alarms go off in the parking lot outside. Elaine very nearly went down with it, as Barb's flailing hand snared the front of her blouse. She was yanked backward to safety by the college guy in the cableknit sweater.

  General Gillespie, his uniform jacket all askew and a holster visible tucked into the rear of his pants, leveled a gun roughly the size of a small cannon at the attendants struggling with Danny. Electricity leapt and sizzled as they tried to use their tasers to subdue the ravenous boy, but Danny was having none of it. The taste of hot blood and warm meat was in his mouth for the first time in weeks, and he was not going to be denied.

  "Get clear!" ordered the general. When they didn't obey, he strode into their midst, flinging them aside like dolls.

  Danny was atop the bitten attendant, whose thrashings had ceased once zombie teeth tore open his throat. The dead boy had burrowed his face under the attendant's chin and was snacking and slurping loudly.

  Gillespie slammed his foot down on Danny's back, set the barrel of the gun to his head, and with a wincing grimace that reminded Elaine of the way her mom would look when fishing around in a turkey for the giblet packet, pulled the trigger. That safe hit the floor again. The bullet plowed through Danny's small and already cracked skull, out the other side, and lodged somewhere in the attendant.

  Panic and chaos ensued. The exits were crammed with desperately shoving people, and one of the other attendants, in a total loss of sanity, tried to tase the general, but Gillespie had the presence of mind to drop his gun and disarm the man hand-to-hand rather than blow away a living human on live TV.

  Speaking of which ... Elaine saw that, while the cameramen had fled, the lights and the 'ON AIR' sign were still on. Camera 1 had been knocked aslant and was getting nothing but stampeding, fleeing feet. But Camera 2 was getting everything.

  "It's all right!" General Gillespie bellowed. "They're down! Both down!"

  His words took the edge off of the furor, but it all went to hell again a split second later.

  With a sudden convulsive lurch, Doctor Wyatt-Anderson pushed herself upright. She held herself awkwardly, with half of her ribs caved in, and one arm dangled crazy-jointed and limp. The general, the college guy, and Elaine together shouted a word that would have been edited out or bleeped on tape, but they were still live, still rolling.

  Wyatt-Anderson's gaze fell upon them. Formerly haughty and cold, it was now filled with a mindless hunger. Her lips drew back to expose a view that would have been right at home in a toothpaste commercial. She darted forward and swiped a handful of manicure at Gillespie.

  The gun roared again, the shot hitting Wyatt-Anderson in the temple and smashing most of the top of her head off. She cartwheeled in a tumble over the dove-grey chair that Elaine vowed never to sit in again, and came to rest in a heap at the bottom of the window with its fake cityscape scene.

  Elaine looked, wide-eyed, and saw the intense dark-haired woman lower the general's gun.

  "Wow," said the college guy shakily. "I guess she wasn't just president of the National Alliance for the Living-Impaired --"

  It was either the hellish insanity of the moment, or the reek of blood and decomposition, making them take leave of their senses, but the rest of them came in with him on the end.

  "She's also a client!" they chorused, and finally someone in the control room had the good sense to go to commercial.

  SEVEN BRAINS, TEN MINUTES

  The brain lay in front of me, pink-grey and pulsing in the sun.

  I could see the edge of skull, sheared off so neatly by the cranial saw. The bony rim of nature's bowl. With its contents bulging up out of it like an extra-large scoop of ice cream. Or maybe gelatin. Hadn't they even, in the dim and gone days before the world ended, made gelatin molds shaped like brains?

  If I pretended that's what this was …

  No. It might quiver, it might shimmer, it might have the same gelatinous quality, but I knew better. I knew that the temperature would be all wrong. Warm. Body temperature, it'd be.

  Of course it would. And why not? The body was still alive.

  The guy it belonged to was in shock. He'd be dead – and probably glad of it – within minutes. Sooner, if I did what I was up here to do. What I had to do.

  I couldn't.

  Not even for Val.

  Did she even know? Did she even recognize me? Or had fear taken her beyond all that?

  The sun beat down. A rusty haze of dust filled the air. I could hear the flap of canvas and the sounds of the crowd. I could hear the Fat Man's laughter from above and behind me.

  That was where Val would be. Up there in the bed of the customized pick-up truck. With the Fat Man. Naked. Chained. A blue ribbon wrapped around her waist.

  The others in the line to either side of me were straining against the iron bar, teeth bared, foamy drool on what was left of their lips. We had our hands tied behind us and numbers on placards strung on ropes around our necks.

  The bell rang.

  The bar dropped.

  "And theeeeeyyyyyy're off!" the Fat Man bellowed.

  *

  We picked up Patty just outside of Bakersfield.

  I didn't want to. I would have roared on past and left her in a whirl of grit and soot.

  But when Patty waved, Jess said we should stop.

  "We can't take care of everybody," I said. "We've got to look out for ourselves."

  "Don't be a jerk, Scotty," Val said. "Stop the car."

  "Don't call me Scotty. You know I hate it."

  "Scotty, Scotty, Scotty," she sneered.

  The end of the world hadn't done a thing to her looks or her attitude. It hadn't put a shake in her hands or purple circles under her eyes or anything.

  Gorgeous.

  But a bitch.

  "I think we should stop," Rick said, checking out the thin blonde. He was Val's brother, but didn't have any of her good looks. Skinny, pimply, a loser from the word 'go.'

  Two of a kind, that was me and Rick.

  "We are a girl short," Jess said, putting his arm around Sharon. She only rocked in her seat and hugged the dog. "Us, you and Val, and poor Rick left over."

  "Oh, puh-lease." Val's laugh was a snort. "Me and Scotty? Don't make me sick."

  I hated her.

  I wanted her so much it burned.

  When everything started, with the deadies and all, Rick and I were the first ones to figure out what would happen, how it would all go down. We read comic books and horror novels and watched all those old movies. We knew.

  Everyone else went around in denial. First, they said it was nothing but rumors, urban legends, hoaxes. Then, when it was proved real, they said it would blow over. Then, that the government would take care of it. Then, that scientists would find a cure. Then …

  And by then, well, there wasn't much of anyone left who wasn't taking bites out of people.

  *

  The crowd roared. Deadies lunged, with jaws gaping and putrescent tongues snaking out. They went face-first into the opened domes of the skulls and commenced a smacking, slurping, munching feast.

  I shook so hard my teeth clattered. Someone threw a crumpled-up aluminum can at me. It bounced off the filthy rags I'd draped over my chest.

  Couldn't do it. Wouldn't do it.

  They'd kill me, though, if I didn't. If they found out.

  It had seemed like a good idea, at the time.

&
nbsp; No, that's a lie. It had seemed a stupid, gross, inhuman idea from the get-go. But the only idea. The only way to get out of this hell, let alone the only way to save Val.

  I turned my head. The mud and gunk with which I'd coated my face cracked and flaked off in places, but that was okay. Made me look authentic. Like I was losing skin in the dry, desert heat. My disguise fooled the livies, and somehow it fooled the deadies, too.

  That was the part I'd been most worried about. Rick said that they could sense us, that they homed in on the signals our brains gave off or something. I didn't know if these ones were decomposed beyond that, or if the Fat Man just had them so well-trained that the only time they'd chow on a livie was when it was a competition or a prize.

  Either way, my ruse had gotten me in. Fooling the livies had turned out to be the easy part. Whenever a livie died, rather than burn the corpse, the guards moved it over to the corral before it could reanimate. They weren't exactly diligent about checking for vital signs, either. I'd made like I had been hiding a wound all along, played dead, and voila. In among the deadies.

  Maneuvering to be one of the contestants had been a little trickier, but it had worked. Here I was, competing for a tempting prize.

  I could see Val in the flabby circle of the Fat Man's arm. He was feeling her up, squashing her against his blubbery side.

  Val looked on the verge of tears and that decided me. I had to do it, no matter how sick it was. For her. Then she'd finally look at me and see me, see and appreciate the real Scott Driscoll.

  The deadie beside me was gnawing on the side of a hollowed-out head, trying to peel off a flap of scalp. One of the handlers was there to inspect the empty hole of the cranium.

  "Done!" the handler shouted, thrusting his fist in the air.

  More people hustled forward. With movements born of practice and efficiency, they unlatched the empty, popped in the refill, and scrambled out of the way as the deadie dove in for seconds.