He found a mirror and examined the new body. It was good. It was very good. Caucasian male, midtwenties, naked-the arms and chest were a chiseled mass of muscle. No visible wounds. Ob flexed and smiled. He searched through the host's memory, learning that he'd been a weight lifter named Gary, and employed as a law enforcement officer. He'd barricaded himself in the apartment and died of a heart attack in the chair. For all his strength, he'd had a weak heart. The death had occurred only a few minutes ago, while he'd been masturbating to the memory of an ex-girlfriend. Ob glanced down at the bottle of baby oil on the floor and then returned to the host's mind. Ex- military, combat trained and proficient with a variety of weapons. He searched deeper and laughed out loud. His host knew the location of several fully stocked police and National Guard armories.
'Oh, I like this.'
He posed some more, admiring the coiled strength and form. He reached down and played with the penis, shaking it at the mirror. Though flaccid, it was well proportioned. Perhaps later he would try it out and learn what was so special about the act of procreation the humans seemed so preoccupied with.
Still nude, he searched the apartment, verifying that there were no other humans. Disappointed by the lack of prey, he walked to the door.
He gripped the plywood with both hands, but then paused. This body was in perfect condition. There was no sense in damaging it this early into the possession. Instead of ripping the barricade off with his bare hands, he looked for a hammer. Finding one, he removed the nails and walked out the door.
Severed body parts littered the stairway-congealing piles of viscera and haphazardly strewn limbs. He stepped through the carnage and almost slipped in a half-dried pool of blood. He left red footprints in his wake.
Near the bottom, a head rolled its eyes toward him. The dry, black tongue slithered out of the dirt-caked mouth like a piece of liver, wiggling for his attention. Ob bent over and picked the head up.
'Alas, poor Yorick. I knew you well...'
The head's lips moved, but no sound came out.
'Do not try to speak, brother. Your body lacks the necessary equipment.
I will release you so that you may try again.'
The eyes blinked, and then the head mouthed silent thanks.
'Go and find another body.'
Ob slammed the head into the wall, cracking the plaster. He struck it a second time. The skull split, and the brains leaked out. The lips stopped moving.
The lobby doors were chained shut. He'd expected this, seen it in his host's memories. He pulled the fire extinguisher from the wall and smashed out the windows, picking the fragments of glass out of the way so that they wouldn't damage his new form. Then he crawled outside into the night.
The city was alive with the dead-teeming with them. They were like ants, scurrying through the streets and alleys and buildings. New York City once had a population of over eight million people. Now, it was the world's most populated graveyard. Zombies waved from balconies and fire escapes and honked their horns at each other as they drove by in cars and cabs. Humans, rats, pigeons, cats, dogs-the undead represented every life form native to New York. The air was ripe with the smell of rotting corpses and the screams of those few still living. Rotting garbage littered the streets; the former civilization's debris mingled with offal and internal organs. Graffiti covered the wall of a building across from him, dating from both before and after the Siqqusim's arrival: JESUS SAVES and WEST SIDE BOYZ next to I AM LOOKING FOR MY WIFE-DAWN WILLIAMS-I AM AT OUR APARTMENT and the undead response of WE HAVE YOUR WIFE, MEAT!
In the street, fourteen humans had been tied spread-eagled to the hoods of cars, and a group of zombies slowly flayed the skin from their bodies with razors, box-cutters, and butcher's knives. Another human hung from a lamppost, and was being used as a living pinata, his body beaten with spiked clubs until it burst open, showering them with bloody prizes.
Other zombies participated in more mundane activities such as exploring buildings, driving cars and lounging on porches. Several used the windows of a decrepit brownstone as target practice and their cheers drowned out the gunfire. Another group played football in the streets-a severed human foot taking the place of the pigskin. Others played jump rope with a grayish-pink string of human intestines. A dead python slithered through the streets, vertebrae poking through its scaly flesh.
When Ob strode into their midst, all activity ceased. The gathered corpses immediately recognized him. The atmosphere became charged.
He raised his arms. 'Hello, brethren!'
A thunderous cheer echoed through the concrete canyons. It was picked up and repeated throughout the city in a multitude of languages: English and Chinese, Arabic and Spanish, French and German, Hebrew and Italian.
It was chirped from beaks, barked from canine throats, howled from feline mouths, and hissed on the tongues of serpents. But the words were all the same.
'Hail! Hail! Ob has come! Engastrimathos du aba paren tares! Hail!'
They ran to him, stroking his unblemished flesh and shouting with joy.
They offered him strips of raw, bleeding flesh and still-warm organs, which Ob gratefully accepted. He ate, and crimson dripped from his chin, splattering onto his bare chest. Then, surrounded by the crowd, Ob leaped onto the hood of a delivery van, climbed onto the roof, and held up his hands for silence.
'Siqqusim! Who am I?'
'Ob! Ob! Ob!' The cheers roared into the night, shaking the windows in the buildings.
'Indeed I am. I am I.'
This statement was greeted by more cheers.
'Brothers, you have done well here. This shall be our Necropolis. A new Babylon. How many humans still infest this place?'
A zombie in a fraying business suit stepped forward, followed by another covered in third-degree burns.
'Not many, lord,' said the suited one. Its right eye socket was an empty pit. 'A few scattered survivors. There is one large group, about a hundred, gathered in a building of steel-what they call a skyscraper. It is similar to Babel of old. They call it Ramsey Towers.'
