Before I shut off the headlights or the engine, I turned to my wife. “So, what do you think?”
Clare peered nervously through the grimy windshield. “Are you sure we should park here? There’s only one way in. What if we get trapped by a horde of zombies… or something worse?”
I smirked. “What could be worse than that?”
She shrugged. “I don’t know… a mob of those wildling things.”
“Good point,” I conceded. Though I’d only seen the creatures one at a time, it was certainly possible for them to travel in packs. “But if that happens, we wouldn’t be trapped. There’s another way out.”
I pointed toward an untamed trail a few yards ahead. Following my finger, Clare leaned forward and squinted.
Based on her prolonged gaze, I figured Clare needed her glasses to see our meager exit route—but she’d likely forgotten where she’d stowed them. Three terrifyingly eventful days had passed since she’d required them for the drive up to Baton Rouge. I just hoped she hadn’t left them behind—because I had no plans to return to her mother’s house anytime soon. If ever again.
“Joe, my love…” She turned toward me, one eyebrow arched. “Are you insane?”
Guess she doesn’t need her glasses after all. Too bad. I’ve always liked the sexy-librarian look.
Although the path ahead was even narrower than the short road leading to the campsite, I suspected our van would barely fit.
But perhaps it wasn’t the width of the trail that bothered Clare—or my other traveling companions, who had slipped quietly from their still-running car, circled the back of my van, and now stood beside my door.
I rolled down the window to consult with our new friends.
Casey stared ahead, his mouth agape. “Um, Mr. Joe?”
“Just Joe, Casey.” I slid open the door and hopped to the ground. “After all we’ve been through together, I think we can lose the formalities.”
“Um, OK, Joe then… is it such a good idea to park near that place?” He gestured toward the sign posted beside the trailhead.
I followed his gaze. The small placard read, Williams Cemetery.
Bingo… that explains everyone’s reluctance.
No wonder George and Clare seemed equally flummoxed by my camping choice. Even my nearsighted wife had spotted the disturbing sign.
“You really are an idiot,” Jill declared. She’d obviously shuffled up front just to voice her uncharitable opinion. As usual.
Given the zombie shitstorm that had descended upon the world, I understood why the sign hadn’t inspired much confidence in my fellow travelers. The actual path leading to the cemetery probably hadn’t eased their minds either.
The foliage lining the trail created an ominous effect. The white ash and black locust trees on each side arced over the slender route, as if purposely shielding the pathway from sunlight and moonbeams. From the glow of my headlights, I could tell that the trail widened about sixty yards from our campsite, ultimately emptying into a moonlit meadow filled with headstones.
The kind of creepy scene I’d expect to see in a gothic horror movie.
Yep, definitely has a tunnel-of-death feel to it.
But I opted not to share my initial impressions with the rest of the group. Honesty wouldn’t help the situation one iota.
“Listen, everyone,” I said in my most reassuring voice, “this infection isn’t bringing the dead back to life. I mean… if they were already dead before it spread to America.” I sighed, weary of bearing the responsibility of keeping my family and friends calm. “No bony hands’ll be shooting outta the dirt. Especially since the folks buried there are long dead. That graveyard probably hasn’t been used since the 1930s, back when the CCC started reforesting this whole area.”
I’d stated my half-baked theory with all the faux confidence I could muster. Having never visited the Williams Cemetery before, I actually had no idea what we’d find there. The graveyard might not have even existed prior to the Civilian Conservation Corps showing up a century before. Hell, for all I knew, it was only a decade old, and people had still been burying their loved ones there through the previous week. Perhaps all it would take was one tainted rainstorm to reanimate the decaying brains of the interred corpses.
The information that Samir—my app-creating partner in India—had sent me was vague at best. While working for the United Nations, his wife, Dibya, had decoded a strange signal from who-the-fuck-knew-where—a signal indicating the world was about to be engulfed by a shitstorm. As in, zombies would soon cover the planet.
Few people had believed the batshit-crazy warning. Clare’s parents and my family certainly hadn’t. But unfortunately, Samir and Dibya had been right about almost everything—and in keeping with their kindhearted natures, they’d deigned us worthy of a heads-up.
By covertly shipping me a mysterious flash drive, they’d granted us two full weeks to prepare for the zombie apocalypse—a world-ending crisis that they themselves likely hadn’t survived.
A fact that made me incredibly sad.
Despite Dibya’s high security clearance and her even higher IQ, she and her colleagues hadn’t had much time to explore the signal’s origin before the undead swarmed India and the rest of Asia. Besides, Dibya was a scientist, accustomed to proving hypotheses with useful things like facts and figures. Even if she’d survived the initial outbreak, she might never have willingly viewed the entire mess from a mystical angle.
In truth, I owed a pair of voodoo practitioners—the Beauvoir sisters—for my continuing education. Each had separately told me about the Infernal—an apparently hellish plane of existence where all humans were destined to end up after death—and the interdimensional breach that had jumpstarted Earth’s doom. But, frankly, even with all the evidence hinting to such an otherworldly realm, I still had trouble swallowing the idea of another dimension, much less a multiverse.
I glanced at the skeptical faces around me.
“You really think it’s smart to camp by a
