“John was, she wasn’t. That’s his friend, Amy.”
Amy waved.
Daryl Shotgun said, “Make you a deal. Drive him back to the National Guard checkpoint they set up outside town, let ’em check him over and if they give him a clean bill of health, we’ll talk. But until then he ain’t gettin’ past this gate. Him and nobody else. We already had refugees wandering around out here, tryin’ to see what they could steal.”
“Come on, Dad. They’re homeless. They can’t get back in town, they got nothin’, they left everything behind. Don’t be a dick.”
“Don’t push me, Mitchell. We talked about this.”
John said, “If it makes you feel better, if I was infected you’d know it. I saw a guy get it right in front of me and it took hold of him within one minute.”
“Who are you, again?”
Munch said, “Goddamnit, Dad. That’s John. From the band. You’ve met him half a dozen times.”
Daryl nodded and said, “From the band. Of course.”
John said, “Look, don’t let me in. It’s fine. But she needs a place to stay and she was never in town, she was on her way in when they shut down the highway.”
Amy was about to speak up. She wasn’t staying here with these nutjobs, the place had post-apocalyptic rape cult written all over it. Daryl rendered it moot.
“Maybe she wasn’t in the city, but she’s been with you all day. Right?”
Munch laughed, shook his head and said, “Unbelievable. Fuckin’ unbelievable.”
John said, “No, no, it’s fine. I’m not trying to sow discord in your family here. I shouldn’t have asked. We’ll be on our way.”
Daryl said, “That’s right, you will. And I’m gonna tell you the same thing I told everybody else who’s come up to this gate. ’Til a man in uniform comes and gives the all-clear, and maybe not even then, if you show up here again you ain’t gettin’ the courtesy of a warning shot.”
The look on John’s face said he was wondering if he could get the shotgun away from Daryl and smash in his nose with the stock. Amy was pretty sure John could do it, the guy looked fat and slow. But then John snapped out of it and they headed back to the Bronco.
As they did a three-point turn in the lane to head back out into the chaos, Amy sighed and said, “What now?”
“Back to plan A. We head north. Put some distance between us and the bullshit. If we get caught and thrown in jail or quarantine, it’s over. So for right now, the goal is to not do that.”
She crossed her arms and blew some dangling hairs out of her eyes and said, “I don’t like going farther away from him. I mean David could be hurt or running away or who knows what. And we’re just… leaving him.”
John was silent for a moment and Amy detected that there was something he wasn’t telling her. But either he’d tell her or he wouldn’t, she’d learned that she couldn’t press John like she could David. Every conversation took place on his terms.
John said, “Oh, don’t worry. We’ll be back. But we’re coming back strong. We’re coming back to veto all this shit. But we got to load up first.”
And Amy thought,
The Maps and Shit
As they drove, instead of the highway, John only saw blood and brains, splattered on a filthy blue plastic door.
Book II
PAGE 55 SCIENCE AND THE BEYOND DR. ALBERT MARCONI
For the concept of the zombie, we can thank two parties: ants, and a dog who probably died more than ten thousand years ago. Let us start with the dog.
First, you must imagine humanity as it would have existed at the time. Agriculture is a new concept, a radical practice that must have seemed like magic. Settlements are becoming larger. Humans everywhere are struggling with the transition from living in sparse, nomadic tribes hunting gazelle and gathering berries in the woods, to everyday life in close proximity to dozens of strangers in something that could be called a village.
All of this would have been a startling and hugely stressful change for our ancient ancestors. Yes, on one hand there is suddenly more food and comfort and spare time than the species had ever known. But maddening complexity arises at every turn. Language explodes. Man evolves the ability to think in words, essentially creating an entirely new schematic for his brain with which he will create abstract thought for the first time. And along with it, questions. Man needs to understand his place in the universe, and his relation to his creator. But this is not the beginning of science. It is the birth of superstition. What he does not understand, he fills in with this newfound cognitive power. The universe that this man inhabits will be one born from the astonishing new power called “imagination.”
Already at this point, superstitions about the dead would have arisen; decaying flesh is a playground for infectious disease and bacteria—man would have long realized that too much time spent in the presence of the dead means sickness or even death for one’s self. They find burying or burning the dead in a special place, away from the rest of the tribe, prevents this.
So one day, some nameless and now long-forgotten man dies. He is buried in a shallow grave by his friends, as is now their custom. But along comes a dog, or a wolf, which smells under the loose soil the irresistible scent of slightly putrid meat. The dog digs and finds a hand. It pulls it up from the soil with its jaws, but then becomes distracted in its task and runs away. Along come the deceased man’s friends once more, and what do they find? A pale, dead hand, pushing up through the soil, as if clawing for the sky. Their friend, though still clearly dead, attempts to escape from his grave and walk! And thus the undead enter our cultural memory once and for all. That image, of the pale, decaying hand emerging from the grave, can still be found on endless movie posters and horror novels. From that primal fear would develop the mythology of the zombie and the vampire and countless other incarnations across time and cultures.
But why does this haunt us so profoundly? After all, a shambling, decaying man should present less of a physical danger than a quick, strong, able-bodied man who wishes us the same harm. If anything, such a man would be easier to outrun, outwit, and eventually put down. Why would mankind spend a hundred centuries obsessing over such an easily vanquished opponent?
For the answer, we must look to the ant.
As I alluded to, even before civilization began to emerge, agriculture must have seemed to early humans an inconceivably brazen attempt at playing God. Why, to refuse the nuts, berries and game that were naturally placed before you by providence and to instead
