Lou looked down at the corpse at his feet. Zeke, finallystill. His body had sat on the floor of the theater for a day, the entire groupin shock at the demise of their presumed leader. Lou had carried the head upfirst and set it down on the hot roof with the sort of reverence that the mandeserved. Zeke had bound the individuals in their group together with hisplans, with his confidence. He had given them purpose and direction. Now, theywere all just sulking loners waiting for the inevitable, waiting for death tocome knocking at the door... but death didn't knock. When it was your time, itjust kicked the fucker down. He had seen that with his own eyes.
Once he had moved the head to the roof, Zeke's body hadcome second. He had thrown the stinking mass over his shoulder and climbedcarefully up the ladder that led to the roof, rung by rung, pausing every sooften to catch his breath and readjust Zeke's body on his shoulder. He had notbeen a small man, that was for sure.
They had all said their goodbyes earlier, those that hadknown him the longest, and even those that hadn't known him very long at all.The words had all been positive, nice things, the type of things that a cynicmight call platitudes. But in the end, the group had all agreed that his bodyhad to go. No one wanted it in the theater. It was too similar to the creaturesthat were banging on the walls and doors. No one wanted to see the deadanymore. They wanted to huddle inside, bury their heads in the sand, and hopethat it all just sort of went away.
Lou looked down at the ground again. There was only oneway it was all just going to go away... a two to three second fall ought to doit. In the distance, a skyscraper that had been burning steadily for the lastday finally crumbled to the ground. Lou felt the ground quake underneath hisfeet, and a cloud of debris, dust and smoke sprung up into the sky... yet itstill burned, even the ruins still burned. Good, he thought. Let itburn. Let it all burn.
Lou bent down and grabbed Zeke's body, throwing it overhis shoulder and balancing it on the edge of the waist-high wall that ranaround the perimeter of the movie theater's roof. "Sorry, buddy." Hepushed the body over the edge, and watched it tumble to the ground. It fellquick, quicker than Lou had expected. A little less than two-seconds and it wason the ground. The swollen stomach of Zeke's body had burst open, spilling itsdecaying and putrefied contents on the cement sidewalk that surrounded thetheater.
Without thinking about it, Lou turned around and grabbedZeke's head off the ground. The flesh was cold and made his stomach turn. Itfelt as if he were lifting a thing made of wet clay. He threw it over the side,and then wiped his hands on his jeans. It didn't matter. It's not as if hisjeans could get any dirtier.
Lou regarded the Portland skyline one last time. Flameshad started climbing one of the still remaining skyscrapers next to the onethat had collapsed. He climbed down the ladder, into the darkness of the movietheater thinking, Let it burn. Let it all burn.
Chapter 1: Catching Up
Anderson Broussard, known as Andy to his friends whenthey were still alive, sat in the projection room of the movie theater. Theroom was hotter than the rest of the theater due to its proximity to the roofand the fact that air conditioning appeared to have gone the way of thedinosaur.
Andy wondered if there were any cities out there thatwere still making a go of it. Was L.A. doing fine? Not if they lost theirelectricity. Hell, L.A. had been known to have brownouts before the shit hadhit the fan. He imagined groups of scared survivors huddling in their attics,dying from dehydration and heatstroke rather than the bites of the dead. Wouldthey rise as well, without having been bitten?
Thinking about survivors made him think about his owngroup of survivors. He didn't know what had overcome him on that night, thenight the explosions had rocked the city streets. Helicopters had rained firein the distance; blinding fireballs had risen to the sky. Andy had watched itall from the roof of the movie theater, the night offering the only realrespite from the heat inside the building. Without air conditioning, thecavernous spaces had become sweltering sweatboxes. At night, on the roof, hewas able to climb up and get some fresh air, enjoying the coolness of theevening as it washed over his skin.
That night, as the city burned, he had watched as a groupof survivors wound their way through the dead, limping and carrying theirinjured up the street, guns in their hands and blood pouring from multiplewounds. The dead were following them, slowly but surely. He knew they couldn'trun forever. Despite his mind telling him not to, he decided to help them.
Andy had pounded across the roof, scrambled down theladder, and almost fallen and broken his neck in the process. The emergencylights were still working then, so he was able to sprint through the theater tothe front doors, which were plastered with movie posters for films that wouldmost likely never see release. He had thrown open the door and called thesurvivors to him.
He had never been so happy to see people as Andy had alreadygiven up on ever escaping the theater alive. He still remembered the day he hadbecome trapped there. It was only three days ago, but it seemed like alifetime. Change had a way of lengthening time as folks around the world werediscovering. Everything had changed. Time had slowed to a crawl, and everymoment seemed to last forever. At some point during his days alone, sitting inthe movie theater, watching movies by himself and shoveling popcorn into hismouth, he had realized that the theater was very likely to be his tomb.
Andy had no car. He
