The effort taxed him mentally, but he nodded. He had made the right sound.
He continued to the middle of the bridge. Here the wind whipped across him, driving off the flies. One vehicle in the center of the bridge was undamaged. He ran his hand along the smooth, warm metal. It remained a beautiful thing-a most pleasing combination of curved and straight, glass and metal, all of it governed by symmetry and grace. He balanced the little plastic bottles on the roof of the vehicle, stacking them in two little pyramids of three each. He put the circular, metal band between the two pyramids, and placed the last bottle inside the circle. As he knew they would be, the pyramids were precisely the same height, and they were spaced perfectly. The band and bottle in the middle were also formed and spaced to complete the whole. It was good how they combined, with each other and with the lines of the vehicle. If there were any people left, perhaps they would see it and admire or enjoy it.
He turned from this creation to the guardrail. Behind him, the city was motionless, dead, and silent in the day’s dying light. Beneath the bridge, the water seemed to sit bloated and unmoving, a thing dead and stagnant, but if he concentrated, he knew he could hear its whispering rush, full of power, mystery, and promise-qualities he heard more and more distinctly as he spun toward the water’s black surface and his uncertain rebirth.
Wayne had been counting on the path still being there, and it was. One of the very last efforts in the city during the outbreaks had been the National Guard attempting to organize things, forbidding unauthorized vehicle use. For their own travel, they had to clear two lanes of the Crescent City Connection. It was the only job they finished. Wayne drove them over the city.
“I always found that amazing,” Sue said, “that you could pass through the center of New Orleans, right over the St. Charles cable car line, French Quarter to the north, Garden District to the south, and never even touch down, never even have to get your tires dirty.”
“Mm.”
“Just float thirty feet above it like a bird on a wire.” She sighed. “You can’t even see it now.” Wayne slowed as they went up the CCC ramp. The Guard had cleared it, yeah, but there were still bits of junk everywhere. Devon coughed. He looked like he was trying to sleep, or cry. Sue was holding him in the front seat, starting to cry herself, and Wayne was turned to look at them, like an idiot, when the Jeep went ba-KUNK. There was a huffing sound and Wayne knew they’d busted a tire. Devon was awake now, and definitely crying. He sounded worse than he had even an hour ago.
Wayne pulled over, then got out and paced around the Jeep. He’d wedged the right front tire over a rusted bumper. It had sliced clean through the rubber. The tire was already empty. There was a spare on the back, but Christ was it dark. Sue said, “What is it?”
“Just the tire, I’m fixing it.”
“What?”
“Stay there, Sue.” He heard her door open. Shit. “Get back in the car, I’ll be done in five minutes.”
He had the spare and the jack already. This was ridiculous. “Where are you going?” He heard her blubbering further up the bridge. She’d grabbed Devon and was carrying him on her chest with his arms wrapped around her neck.
“Christ, Christ,” she panted, as Devon’s green snot wet her shoulder. There were bodies all over. She jogged up the lane as fast as she could, thinking, There might be a car up there. Something with the keys in it, and some juice. She was hyperventilating again. She had no plan. Her face was hot with tears.
Mosquitoes and flies fluttered in the headlight’s beams. She could only hear her sneakers thumping the asphalt and her own sticky breathing. She held Devon tighter.
She reached the crest of the bridge to look down into Gretna on the other side. It was dark over there. She turned. Wayne crouched next to the car. There were no dead in sight, not walking, anyway. Maybe she should go back.
She spun around again, and saw the pill bottle pyramids. Cefdinir. Citalopram. Prazepam. Tramadol. Amoxicillin, more. They were pasty-flaky with dark blood, but Sue could read the labels, and she recognized some of the names. Peggy had once told her the names of some medicines she gave to Brandy after she was attacked, the ones that should’ve helped but didn’t. Which were they?
Devon whimpered into her neck, “I don’t like the dark.”
“I know, baby.” Sue grabbed all of the bottles, stuffed them between her body and Devon’s and turned back toward the Jeep.
Zombie Season by Catherine MacLeod
Catherine MacLeod has tried to watch Night of the Living Dead, but every time she does, she spends so much time with her hands over her face she can’t actually claim to have seen it. When not cowering behind her hands, she writes fiction, which has appeared dozens of times in the Canadian science fiction magazine On Spec, and in other magazines such as Talebones, TransVersions, and the French-language magazine Solaris. Her work has also appeared in anthologies Tesseracts 6, Bits of the Dead, and Open Space. Forthcoming work includes her story “Stone,” which will appear in Horror Library #4.
Death is a horrible and terrifying thing, but it’s a reality that has to be faced. When a loved one dies, most people don’t feel like doing anything but grieve. Sadly, there are a whole host of practical issues that have to be attended to-phone calls to make, financial affairs to be put in order, and funeral arrangements to be made. A coffin must be picked out, the body must be prepared, and a service planned. And, of course, before a person can be buried in the ground, someone’s got to dig the hole, and that’s when society turns to our gravediggers.
We all know this is a vital occupation, but perhaps because of our discomfort with the idea of death, we tend to form some pretty strange ideas about those who dig graves. Ask your average person to picture a gravedigger and what do they imagine? Some weirdo, right? Some lurking creep with frenzied hair and haunted eyes, a guy with a strange voice who spends too much time by himself. It’s an ugly stereotype, and it’s high time that something was done to set the record straight. Gravedigging is an honorable profession, and our gravediggers deserve better treatment at the hands of authors and moviemakers.
We hope that our next story, which portrays a gravedigger as a brave, zombie-battling hero, will eliminate those negative preconceptions and give everyone a more positive, wholesome image of gravediggers everywhere.
The secret’s all in the salt. People just expect the town zombie hunter to carry it, along with a shotgun and squirt-bottle of gasoline. I don’t believe it’ll protect me, but if carrying it makes folks feel safer, that’s fine.
Of course, I’ve always carried salt, but not for reasons that would make anyone feel safe, and that’s fine, too.
The first shriek shreds the air at 7 a.m., and I’m ready. I was a gravedigger, back before Judgment Day put me out of a job-no use digging holes if the deceased aren’t going to stay in them-and these days people say I just have a natural way with the dead. Privately, I don’t think much of their appetite for living flesh, but I don’t judge.
Some people fear the dead, no matter what, and back then I didn’t understand. Now I do. The dead know too many secrets, and some folks have reason to worry.
Like Adam Wade saying his crazy wife ran off to New York, only to have her shamble on home with her head stove in. Or the preacher’s pure-as-new-snow daughter dying of pneumonia, then wandering into church yesterday with the remains of a dead baby caged in her ribs.