Bobby Marsh’s eyes open.
The pupils have turned as white as pus.
Philip grabs the nail gun and presses it to the big man’s forehead just above the left eyebrow.
Hours later. Inside the house. After dark. Penny asleep. Nick in the kitchen, drowning his grief in whiskey … Brian nowhere to be found … Bobby’s cooling corpse in the backyard, covered in a tarp next to the other bodies … and Philip now standing at the living room window, gazing out through the slatted shutters at the growing number of dark figures on the street. They shuffle like sleepwalkers, moving back and forth behind the barricade. There are more of them now. Thirty, maybe. Forty even.
Streetlights shine through the cracks in the fence, the moving shadows breaking the beams at irregular intervals, making the light strobe, making Philip crazy. He hears the silent voice in his head—the same voice that first made itself known after Sarah had died:
For a moment earlier that day, after Bobby had died, the voice had wanted to mutilate the twelve-year-old’s body. The voice had wanted to take that dead thing apart. But Philip tamped it down, and now he’s fighting it again:
Philip looks away from the window, and he rubs his tired eyes.
“It’s okay to let it out,” a different voice says now, coming from across the darkness.
Philip whirls and sees the silhouette of his brother across the living room, standing in the archway of the kitchen.
Turning back to the window, Philip offers no response. Brian comes over. He’s holding a bottle of cough syrup in his trembling hands. In the darkness his feverish eyes shimmer with tears. He stands there for a moment.
Then he says in low, soft voice, careful not to awaken Penny on the couch next to them, “There’s no shame in letting it out.”
“Letting
“Look,” Brian says, “I know you’re hurting.” He sniffs, wipes his mouth on his sleeve, his voice hoarse and congested. “All I wanted to say is, I’m really sorry about Bobby, I know you guys were—”
“It’s done.”
“Philip, c’mon—”
“This
Brian looks at him. “What do you mean?”
“We’re getting out of here.”
“But I thought—”
“Take a look.” Philip indicates the growing number of shadows out on Green Briar Lane. “We’re drawing ’em like flies on shit.”
“Yeah, but the barricade is still—”
“The longer we stay here, Brian, the more it’s gonna get like a prison.” Philip stares out the window. “Gotta keep moving forward.”
“When?”
“Soon.”
“Like tomorrow?”
“We’ll start packin’ in the morning, get as many supplies in the Suburban as we can.”
Silence.
Brian looks at his brother. “You okay?”
“Yeah.” Philip keeps staring. “Go to sleep.”
At breakfast, Philip decides to tell his daughter that Bobby had to up and go home—“to go take care of his folks”—and the explanation seems to satisfy the little girl.
Later that morning, Nick and Philip dig the grave out back, choosing a soft spot at the end of the garden, while Brian keeps Penny occupied in the house. Brian thinks they should tell Penny some version of what happened, but Philip tells Brian to stay the hell out of it and keep his mouth shut.
Now, in front of the rose trellis in the backyard, Philip and Nick lift the massive tarp-wrapped body and lower it into the hollowed-out earth.
It takes them quite a while to get the hole filled back up, each man tossing spade after spade of rich, black Georgia topsoil on their friend. While they work, the atonal moaning of the undead drifts on the wind.
It’s another blustery, overcast day, and the sounds of the zombie horde carry up across the sky and over the tops of houses. It drives Philip nuts as he sweats in his denims, heaving dirt on the grave. The oily, black, rotten- meat odor is as strong as ever. It makes Philip’s stomach clench as he puts the last few shovelfuls of earth on the grave.
Now Philip and Nick pause on opposite sides of the huge mound, leaning on their shovels, the sweat cooling on their necks. Neither says a word for a long moment, each man lost in his thoughts. Finally, Nick looks up, and very softly, very wearily, and with great deference, says, “You want to say something?”
Philip looks across the grave at his buddy. The moaning noises are coming from all directions like the roar of locusts, so loud Philip can barely think straight.
Right then, for some strange reason, Philip Blake remembers the night that the three friends got drunk and sneaked into the Starliter Drive-In Theater out on Waverly Road and broke into the projection booth. Waving his fat little fingers in front of the projector, Bobby had made shadow puppets appear on the distant screen. Philip had laughed so hard that night he thought he was going to puke, watching the silhouettes of rabbits and ducks cavorting across the flickering images of Chuck Norris spin-kicking Nazis.
“Some folks thought Bobby Marsh was a simpleton,” Philip says with his head lowered, his gaze down-turned, “but they didn’t know the man. He was loyal and he was funny, and he was a goddamn good friend … and he died like a man.”
Nick is looking down, his shoulders trembling slightly, his voice breaking, his words barely audible over the rising clamor around them: “Almighty God, in your mercy turn the darkness of death into the dawn of new life, and the sorrow of parting into the joy of heaven.”
Philip feels tears welling up and he grits his teeth so hard his jaw throbs.
“Through our Savior, Jesus Christ,” Nick says in a shaky voice, “who died, rose again, and lives for evermore. Amen.”
“Amen,” Philip manages in a faint croak that sounds almost alien to his own ears.
The relentless din of the undead swells and surges louder and louder.
“SHUT THE FUCK UP!” Philip Blake bellows at the zombies, the noises coming from all directions now. “YOU DEAD MOTHER
Hearing this, Nick starts sobbing as Philip runs out of gas and falls to his knees.
While Nick cries, Philip just stares down at the fresh dirt as though some answer lies there.
If there was ever any doubt about who was in charge—not that there ever was—it is now made abundantly clear that Philip is the alpha and omega.
They spend the rest of that day packing, Philip issuing orders in monosyllables, his voice low and gravelly with stress. “Take the toolbox,” he grunts. “Batteries for the flashlights,” he mumbles. “And that box of shells,” he mutters. “Extra blankets, too.”
Nick thinks that maybe they should consider taking two cars.
Although most of the abandoned vehicles in the community are ripe for the picking—many of them late-model luxury jobs, many with the keys still in them—Brian worries about splitting the ragged little group into two. Or maybe he’s just clinging to his brother now. Maybe Brian just needs to stay close to the center of gravity.
They decide to stick with the Chevy Suburban. The thing is a tank.
Which is exactly what they’ll need to get into Atlanta.
