City of the Dead

'And the city of nations fell... for the plague was exceedingly great.'

-Book of Revelation, Chapter 16, Verse 19

 ONE

Standing next to their battered Humvee, Jim, Martin, and Frankie stared into the distance. A cemetery stretched off to the horizon along both sides of New Jersey's Garden State Parkway, and the highway cut right through the graveyard's center. Thousands of tombstones thrust upward to the sky, surrounded by tenements and overgrown vacant lots. Tombs and crypts also dotted the landscape, but the sheer number of gravestones almost overwhelmed them.

Jim said, 'I remember this place. It used to freak me out every time I drove up here to pick up Danny or drop him off. Creepy, isn't it?'

'It's something all right,' Frankie gasped. 'I've never seen so many tombstones in one place. It's fucking huge!'

The old preacher whispered something beneath his breath.

'What'd you say, Martin?'

He stared across the sea of marble and granite.

'I said that this is our world now. Surrounded on all sides by the dead.'

Frankie nodded in agreement. 'As far as the eye can see.'

'How long after all these buildings crumble,' Martin sighed, 'will these tombstones remain standing? How long after we're gone will the dead remain?'

Martin shook his head sadly. They finished examining the Humvee for any damage suffered during their last battle with the dead, at a government research facility in Hellertown, Pennsylvania. It was an experiment at this facility that had led to the dead coming back to life in the first place. Jim and the others had been attacked outside the facility and barely escaped, and now they were back on their journey to save Jim's young son, Danny.

Satisfied that the Humvee hadn't suffered major damage, they continued on their way.

As the sun began to set, its last faint rays shone upon the sign in front of them.

BLOOMINGTON-NEXT EXIT

Jim began to hyperventilate.

'Take that exit.'

Martin turned around, concerned.

'Are you okay, Jim? What is it?'

Jim clenched the seat, gasping for air. He felt nauseous!

His pulse pounded in his chest and his skin grew cold. 'I'm scared,' he whispered. 'Martin, I'm just so scared. I don't know what's going to happen.'

Frankie cruised down the exit ramp and flicked on the headlights. The tollbooths stood empty, and she breathed a sigh of relief. 'Which way?'

Jim didn't answer, and they were unsure whether he'd even heard her. His eyes were squeezed shut, and he'd begun to tremble.

'Hey,' Frankie shouted from the front seat, 'you  want to see your kid again? Snap the fuck out of it and get your shit together. Now which way?'

Jim opened his eyes. 'Sorry, you're right. Go to the bottom of the ramp and make a left at the light. Go up three blocks and then make a right onto Chestnut. There's a big church and a video store on the corner.'

Jim exhaled, long and deep, and began to move again. He sat the rifles aside and double-checked the pistol, shoving it back into the holster after he was satisfied. He pressed himself into the seat and waited, while his son's neighborhood flashed by outside.

A zombie wearing a tattered delivery uniform jumped out from behind a cluster of bushes. It clutched a baseball bat in its grimy hands.

'There's one.' Martin rolled down the window enough to squeeze off a shot.

'No,' Frankie said, stopping him. 'Don't shoot at them unless they directly threaten us or look like they're following.'

'But that one will tell others,' he protested. 'The last thing we need to do is attract more!'

'Which is exactly why you don't need to be shooting at it, preacher. By the time it tells its rotten little friends that the lunch wagon is here, we can grab his boy and get the fuck out. You start shooting and every zombie in this town is gonna know we're here and where to come find us!'

'You're right.' Martin nodded, and rolled the window back up. 'Good thinking.'

An obese zombie waddled by, dressed in a kimono and pulling a child's red wagon behind her. Another one sat perched in the wagon, its lower half missing and few remaining entrails and yellow curds of fat spilling out around it. Both creatures grew agitated as they sped by,  and the fat zombie loped along behind them, fists raised in anger.

Frankie slammed on the brake, slammed the Humvee into reverse, and backed up, crushing both the zombies and the wagon under the wheels. The vehicle rocked from the jolt.

She grinned at Martin. 'Now wasn't that much quieter than a gunshot?'

The preacher shuddered. Jim barely noticed either of his companions. His pulse continued to race, but the nausea was gone, replaced with a hollow emptiness.