The slog west was interminable. What struck Alan as odd was that down among them they didn’t smell bad at all. Maybe it was all the wadding around his nose and mouth, but they seemed virtually odorless. Did the stink rise? Were they losing their scent or was he merely desensitized? They were ghastly to behold, though, and being in their midst hammered home the improbability of their existence. How did they persist? Some were barely more than skin tarpaulins encasing collapsed innards and strings of sinew. Movement would brush his undercarriage and he’d look down only to see some half-, third- or quarter-zombie inching along the pavement like a semipulverized worm. The most natural bit of genetic programming was the survival instinct, but this was so beyond that.
The crowd seemed to swell as Alan pushed onward, the space between him and them closing, closing, closing. The material of the hunting parka, the uncounted layers of baby snowsuits, all of it, felt inadequate. The undead’s emaciated frames, their pointy shoulders-some ending there, armless-their angular hipbones, all of it scraped against the plasticized shell of his outerwear, injecting amplified echoes directly into his ear canals. His pulse thudded in his temples and he could hear his heart laboring. He fought the urge to scream. To laugh. To cough. He wanted to choke. Bile rose in his throat several times and he swallowed it back. How can they not smell me? I must reek of fear. Any second I might shit myself. Does shit sound the dinner gong? Do they still crap? Though many people did so at the moment of death, defecating seemed likely to be solely the province of the living. But these things ate living human flesh. After it went down did it just sit in their stomachs or did they expel it? Seeing them in the flesh, it was hard for Alan to imagine them digesting. They were so withered, almost mummified. Did the ones missing their gastrointestinal tract still feel the need to feed? Did they absorb nutrients? So many questions.
Alan felt like the zombie equivalent of Dian Fossey, a scientist studying a contrastive species… only dumber.
He looked down at the pavement to check for zombie scat.
Am I insane? I must be. What sane person would be out here in the first place? The padding he wore began to feel like a giant sweat diaper, because Alan felt it must be spraying off him. He stood motionless, pondering his predicament and his grip on it. His eyes focused not on what was happening beyond the the twin layer of fogged lenses, but retreated within, his focal depth confined to his own eyeballs. Things moved there: floaters. He watched the transparent blobs swim in the vitreous humor between the lens and retina.
A fly alit on his goggles, its unexpected appearance making Alan flinch. His spasm attracted some unwelcome glances and the odd hiss. Oh shit. Don’t let me get killed by a fucking fly. The insect remained on the lens, grooming or whatever it was they did when they fussed with their forelegs. Seeing was growing more difficult as the condensation crept further down the lenses. Alan’s eyes darted back and forth, making contact with dead eyes in the mob. It struck Alan that he’d portrayed something inaccurately in his zombie portraits: he’d made their eyes symmetrical, forward facing, their vision binocular. Up close he could see that in almost all of them-the ones who still had eyes-their peepers pointed in different directions, one aimed straight out, the other rolled to the side or pointed inward at the nose. Some rolled back into the socket. All glazed with death, grayed and fogged and yellowed. Flies and larvae crawled in and out of the zombies’ various orifices, their hosts organic mobile homes.
Alan’s head ached.
Maybe there was a word for what his stomach was experiencing, but probably not one in English. Maybe German. And thirty letters long.
Something gripped Alan’s ankle and panic bypassed his leg and deposited itself directly in his colon. He looked down and through the miasma saw a legless zombie with only one arm hitching a ride, its clawlike, almost fleshless hand digging splintered nails into the thick fabric of Alan’s hunting overalls. Oh fuck. Oh Jesus. Alan didn’t dare attempt to shake it off for fear betraying his humanity-his edibility. Maybe if I start moving again it’ll go away. Step after mired step the freeloader was dragged until Alan found himself stuck, unable to impel that leg forward. He looked down again, straining his eyes to fathom the hindrance. Another zombie had trodden on Alan’s passenger. Alan tried to disengage his leg from the bony hand. Nothing doing. In death-or would that be unlife-was rigor mortis the status quo? Until his hitchhiker’s hitchhiker stepped off, Alan was anchored to this spot.
Alan wished he wasn’t an atheist.
The other zombie stumbled off the back of Alan’s passenger and he moved forward, wondering how long the calf-gripping parasite would hold on.
Situated in a large apartment building, the Barnes & Noble was midway between Second and Third. It struck Alan, as he waded through the crowd, that zombies didn’t really walk. The ones that could stood upright, sort of, but they just kind of shuffled around aimlessly, their movement dictated by the group rather than the individual. They were like plants impelled to move by a breeze. The only time he saw them propel themselves with purpose was when it was feeding time. But I’m moving with purpose. Maybe because I’m moving so slowly. It had to be scent. Were there scientists anywhere working on answers? Some underground bunker somewhere? If so, was that even a comforting thought?
As he cleared the southwest corner of Second Avenue, Alan felt his passenger again snag on something; this time the sensation was accompanied by the sound of fabric tearing. Alan looked down and saw the culprit, scarcely visible through the haze: not his zombie hanger-on, but a rusty detached bumper. His guest’s detached hand, however, was still hooked onto Alan’s pants leg, the rest of the zombie lost in the profusion of spindly legs. Then Alan noticed a splotch of something pale and pinkish. Paint? Chalk? His own pale skin exposed in the perforation. Fuck. The bumper had torn it, too. He transfixed on a small blossom of red dripping down his calf.
The adjacent zombies’ postures stiffened a fraction, as did Alan’s.
Inches away, one zombie canted its head at an angle that telegraphed its intent: to begin the beguine. Fuck that. Faster than Alan would have thought possible the zombie lunged and snapped at him, burying its teeth in the outer layer of the parka, near the shoulder. The padding was thinnest there and Alan felt a pinch. Not skin breaking, but piss inducing. Alan punched his attacker hard and it fell away, leaving behind a couple of teeth.
Nonetheless, the word was out: dinner is served.
Scent.
Violent motion.
The zombie’s associates heaved toward Alan, their need raw, guileless. Alan swatted at them, punching and shouldering. They were weak but plentiful. He was practically blind, but his goal was within yards. More teeth and limbs bit, pawed, and clawed at Alan. He heard more material tearing. One arm penetrated the outer parka shell and he felt it groping at the bib of his overall. If he started hemorrhaging Baby Sof’ Suit® infant winter onesies he’d soon graduate to plain old hemorrhaging. The image of his own entrails boiling out filled his forebrain. No, no, no! He twisted side to side and the perpetrator’s arm snapped off with a sickening pop, still twitching within Alan’s coat, its bony digits grazing his right nipple, which stiffened inappropriately. Oh god, oh god, I’m being felt up by a severed arm!