harnessed to it, very much alive, though in poor shape and clearly spooked. Bodies covered the road around the wagon, and an overturned Gatling gun lay in the wagon’s bed; a soldier’s body was propped against it, rotting in the heat of the sun.
Clint broke into a run for the wagon.
“Clint!” Hank shouted, but the private didn’t even slow down.
As he reached the wagon, the soldier on the Gatling snarled and sprung at him. It wrestled him to the ground, and with jagged fingernails it slashed his cheek.
The others advanced more cautiously with Hank in the lead, checking bodies as they went.
“God help me!” Clint wailed, managing to roll out from underneath the dead man’s assault. He drew his Colt and jammed the barrel against the man’s forehead.
At the sound of the shot, the woods around the road roared to life with the hungry cries of the dead.
“Get the horses loose!” Hank barked, swinging to meet the corpse of a farmer that charged at him from the trees. Hank put a shot into its chest to slow the thing down, then put a second round into its face. The farmer hit the gravel road with a thud.
With his knife, Grant cut one of the horses free of its harness. The terrified animal fought to run as the dead poured onto the road, and Grant was barely able to hold it in place. Had the horse not been a trained military animal it would have been long gone the second he managed to get it loose.
Grant and Hank exchanged a sad glance as the others fired wildly to stem the tide of the dead.
“Go!” Hank ordered.
Grant didn’t hesitate. He mounted the animal and kicked its sides. The horse didn’t need any encouragement; it cut a path through the dead and charged away from the battle. Grant didn’t look back as the gunfire turned to screams.
Hank was the last to fall. He stood alone on the road as the dead circled him. His empty rifle smoked in his hands. “Come on, you pieces of shit! Come on and end this!”
He met the first one head-on and busted its skull with the butt of his weapon, but then, moving as one, the dead dragged him to the gravel, gnawing on his flesh even before his body hit the road. Hank screamed as they ripped his intestines from his stomach and passed them around. An ugly, deformed corpse with no nose leaned over and assaulted him with its rank breath. The thing tore into Hank’s throat, and blood spurted into its face.
Except for the chewing sounds, the road had fallen silent.
Near dawn, Grant’s horse gave out and he was forced to continue on foot toward the beachhead. Far in the distance, he could hear cannons discharging, and clouds of smoke rose from beyond the trees.
Longing for his rifle, Grant paused and drew his Colt. He counted three rounds left in the chamber and hoped they would be enough to see him the rest of the way.
As he stood, weapon in hand, a dead woman staggered out of the bushes to his right. He jerked his gun up, but held his finger on the trigger.
The bulk of her face was gone, as were her eyes, and her tissue looked burnt, as if she’d been caught in an explosion. A long trail of her insides spilt from her waist and dragged on the dirt behind her as she lumbered forward, oblivious to his presence. A low moan rose from her throat as she continued past Grant, deeper into the woods. He couldn’t keep his eyes from following her. He felt a mixture of hatred and pity he didn’t think he’d ever be able to describe for his readers should he make it home.
When the woman had vanished, Grant turned and continued towards the sound of the battle. The gunfire was louder now, and the cries of dying men intermingled with rifle fire. He reached the edge of the trees and ducked down as two dead men raced past him into the conflict on the river’s shore. The whole riverbank was a mass of blood and bodies, most of which lay unmoving. Only here and there in scattered formations were there soldiers left to hold the beachhead. Grant couldn’t distinguish the wounded from the dead in the sea of human flesh that littered the shore.
The army was in full retreat. Men were paddling small boats into the river’s currents as massive steamboats continued to fire at the shoreline with cannon emplacements. Grant heard the hiss of an incoming ball and ducked even lower as it exploded among the bodies.
As blood fell from the sky, Grant hopped to his feet and made a dash for the river. Hundreds of dead Indians were swarming out of the woods upstream. It looked as if all the tribes had finally united against the invading white man. Many of the dead clutched tomahawks out of instinct or some lingering phantom of their humanity, though it was clear they didn’t know how to use them. Several of them noticed him and with a cold, curdling war cry changed their course, running headlong in his direction.
In that moment, Grant knew the West was truly dead. If a people so noble and so courageous had failed to survive, what hope did Easterners have against them?
Grant chose the clearest route to the water, dodging the arms of a corpse sitting on a mound of its own shredded flesh. Its legs were nowhere to be seen.
Grant hit the river and waded in without slowing down, splashing his way along until the bottom was out of reach and he was swept up by the currents. The water was freezing cold, a brown mixture of blood and mud; he swam as hard as he could.
Through the thick clouds of smoke hanging on the surface of the water, he could see the fleet of mighty steamboats more clearly, the last great defenders of the eastern shore. As the current tugged him south, he struggled to swim eastward. His left foot brushed something underwater and he felt a hand close around his ankle. His head splashed under and he came face to face with the bloated remains of a fat man trapped in the rocks below.
Water flooded Grant’s lungs as he tried to scream, and moments later the murky waters of the Mississippi flowed a tiny bit redder.
Epilogue
President Johnson stood before Congress. Most of the faces stared at him with open contempt, still riled at him for allowing the Southern states into the Union after the slave war without harsher punishments for their transgressions. Even now, in the face of the darkness brewing in the West, they wanted their vengeance. Did they not understand what was happening in their own country? Were they too lost in the past to save the future? He prayed not.
“Gentleman, I have asked you all to gather for this emergency session because this morning I received some most bleak and frightening news. Our push westward has failed and our army is in a state of retreat.”
Murmurs and gasps of horror rose in the crowd.
Johnson steadied himself and continued. He knew he would take the blame for the army’s failure in the long run, assuming he lived long enough to see things return to normal.
“It is worse still, I’m afraid. I have been informed that the dead are now crossing the Mississippi in enough numbers to be a threat to us all. The plague has come ashore in the East, good sirs, and if we do not stop it now, we’ll have no other chance.”
As the room broke into chaos and panic, Johnson paused to take another deep breath and prayed he would be strong enough to lead this country to victory over such an unnatural and unholy foe.
He called for order and the congressmen settled enough for him to be heard.
“Now, gentlemen, this is what I suggest we do…”
As he laid out his plans for the next line of defense, outside in the streets of Washington a homeless man staggered out of an alleyway. A woman turned to him on the busy corner to ask if he was in need of help. The man’s hands closed on her neck as she tried to scream.
Bystanders recoiled in horror as the man pulled her close and bit into the top of her skull. The authorities came running to see what the trouble was, and the end of the world truly began.
