September 3, 2048
When he awoke, Jubal looked over at Fiona, who had scooted to the other side of the bed. All he could see of her was a strand of hair sticking out from beneath the covers. He smiled, patted her bottom through the blanket and got out of bed. He wanted to surprise her with breakfast so he slipped on his robe and tiptoed out of the room.
As he scrambled eggs and brewed coffee in the little kitchen, Jubal wondered what their next steps would be. They could not go north to Carlsbad; that was for sure. Maybe they could go east through Texas or south into Mexico. Maybe the farther away they got from Serenity, the better Fiona would feel. Maybe there was hope somewhere, after all.
He set two plates of hot eggs on the table and poured two cups of coffee. He set one cup next to a plate of eggs and carried the other down the hallway towards the bedroom.
“Breakfast is served, my princess,” he called.
Fiona didn’t move.
“Lazy old cow,” Jubal said jokingly.
He went to her bedside and whipped the blanket off her head. He nudged Fiona’s shoulder with his?nger.
He stopped.
Her shoulder felt wrong. And she wasn’t moving.
Jubal dropped the coffee. The hot liquid splashed across his bare feet, but he didn’t feel it. He placed three?ngers against Fiona’s blistered neck.
“No…”
He took her shoulders and shook her hard. Her head lolled from side to side and back and forth, but she did not awaken. He did this for some time before he?nally made himself stop.
That’s when he noticed the empty vial of his mother’s sleeping pills on the nightstand next to a glass of water.
Jubal snatched the glass and sniffed it. Not water. Vodka.
She must have taken them sometime before he woke up.
“Wake, up, Fee, baby!” he shouted into her unresponsive face, knowing deep down that it was no use. “Please?”
Tears flooded his eyes; he could barely see. They spattered against his dead lover’s face.
Jubal took the pill vial and threw it across the room, where it ricocheted off the wall. Beneath the vial had been a small square of the scratch paper his mother kept next to the phone in the kitchen. There was writing on it.
Jubal read through tears:
Baby,
I didn’t want to burden you with watching me slowly die and turn into one of those things. I wanted us to end on a happy moment that we both could treasure forever, no matter where we were.
I dreamed again about the dead army last night and their leader in red. Their leader is not one of them. He is not dead. And he’s not from here. He’s from a darker world. I’m not sure how I know this, but I do. It’s as real and true as my feelings for you.
I hope this helps in some way, but I can’t imagine how. I wish that you would read this and flee. Go far from here.
I’m sorry it had to be like this, my sweet, sweet Jubal. But I had been thinking about it and knew it was the only way for me-and you.
Please forgive me. And I’ll see you again in some happy place.
I’ll be waiting.
All my love,
Fiona
Jubal pressed the note to his lips, dripping tears on it, and placed it on the nightstand.
He reached down and drew the blanket up over Fiona’s face.
Picking his clothes off the?oor, he put them on slowly as if performing a sacred ritual. Then he took Fiona’s note and slid it into his uniform’s shirt pocket, over his heart, patting it after he was?nished.
He went to the living room and strapped on his Glock. He arranged the shotguns neatly on the coffee table and stacked the ammo next to them.
He removed a stack of sewing magazines from the seat of an old wooden chair that had always sat next to the front door and set them on a chair in the living room. He carried the wooden chair to the doorway of his bedroom where he set it down gently and sat on it, facing the bed.
He removed his Glock from its holster, crossed his legs, and waited.
He wasn’t completely convinced it would happen, but it didn’t take long. As…
Fiona.
…the blanketed?gure on the bed began to rise with a muf?ed groan.
It only took one shot.
Hours later, Jubal emerged from the house carrying the shrouded?gure and a shovel.
He looked at the sky; the sun’s heat caressed his face. It was going to be another hell-hot day.
Jubal carried Fiona’s body to the backyard, and though the ground was dry and hard, he set her down gently and began digging near a cactus plant she had always admired.
A few hours later, Jubal was standing over the fresh grave, dripping sweat, grasping for a few words to say. But he really couldn’t?nd any except, “I love you, Fee.”
He heard a footstep in the yard behind him.
Swinging around, shovel in hand, he saw three zombies walking quickly toward him. He recognized all of them.
One was old Pops Perez, his straw hat still perched jauntily on his head. The other two were a fat woman named Bertha Benson and her husband, Bob. They looked hungrily at him with their horrible red-yellow eyes.
Jubal reached for his Glock, but realized he had left it in the house, on the?oor in his bedroom. He had lost track of it after…doing what needed to be done there.
Charging the undead intruders, Jubal slammed the blade of the shovel against the side of Pops’s head, wincing as he did so. After all, this was the nicest old man in the world.
Was.
Pops did a spin on one foot and toppled to the ground.
The fat Bensons were still coming at him.
As the Bensons groped for him and Pops got back to his feet, Jubal ran around them and out to the front yard.
Glancing up and down the street, Jubal saw that the whole town had turned up for a visit. Old neighbors, friends and acquaintances shuf?ed about, some falling over as if not able to control their bodies. One or two noticed Jubal and turned towards him, moaning to others, who turned towards him as well.
“At least these fuckers are slow,” he said to no one, as he ran into the house, slamming the door behind himself. “And I’m talking to myself again.”
With reluctance, he went to the bedroom of tragedy for his Glock. Someone-some thing was pounding on the bedroom wall. He ignored it. He made his way back down the hall to the living room. He checked the shotguns-they were loaded and ready.
Multiple?sts pounded at the front door. It shook in its frame.
Jubal reloaded his Glock, holstered it, hung one shotgun from his shoulder and gripped the other one in his hands.
The front door, tearing from its hinges, slammed straight down against the?oor, as the crowd of undead fought to be the?rst one to get hold of Jubal. They wedged against each other in the doorway, blocking their own progress. Their antics reminded Jubal of a Three Stooges routine.
He put his back to the hallway. If things got real bad, he could always run down the hall to his mother’s bedroom, where there was a window into the front yard, giving him better access to his cruiser parked at the curb. He was thankful he didn’t have to go through his own bedroom. The sooner he forgot about that room, the better.
Jubal began shooting zombies.
Randy Minear was?rst. He and Jubal had played little league baseball together down at the city park. Randy had been an amazing short stop. He still moved pretty quick, faster than any of the walking dead Jubal had seen. He was almost on Jubal before the shotgun was raised. The blast removed most of Randy’s head, splattering bone and brains and gore onto the undead behind him. The headless corpse toppled backward, causing several of the zombies to trip and become tangled up.
Jubal took a few steps back to give him some room to maneuver. As he did, he pumped another round into the chamber of the Mossberg. Seven shots to go. Then he had the other shotgun on his back and the Glock in his belt.
A nude?gure struggled past the mass of zombies on the?oor, rolling over the other bodies and landing in front of Jubal. The dead thing stood and he recognized the decaying form of Margie Gilmore, the?rst woman he ever saw naked. When he was 13, he had chased a baseball into her backyard. After he retrieved the ball, Jubal glanced at the sliding glass door and saw Mrs. Gilmore-the mother of his friend Kent-standing there in the nude. Her breasts were quite large and sagged more than a little. Jubal didn’t care. He was frozen in place, blushing over his entire body as he stared at the brown areolas and incredibly large nipples. She held a drinking glass in one hand and she used the other to rub her belly, which served to direct his eyes toward the unkempt thatch of black hair below her navel. Jubal managed to get his body moving then, and he sprinted back to the city park. He never told anyone about the encounter, perhaps because he found it both disturbing and arousing, and he took care to stay far away from Mrs. Gilmore after that.
Now she was within a foot or two of him. The thought of her touch made his stomach do a nauseating?ip. He pointed the Mossberg and removed the left side of her head. Her right eye stared at him as she toppled to the?oor.
Six shells left in this one, Jubal. Choose wisely.
Three of the disgusting creatures squeezed through the door, two pushing the one in front. Jubal didn’t recognize any of them. All three tripped over the two bodies on the?oor, and one of them?ew through the air and struck Jubal before he could?re the shotgun. He was knocked onto his back with the zombie on top of him.
It had been a man of medium build. His face was pockmarked by the ruptured boils, and the familiar odor of disease threatened to choke Jubal. The thing swiveled its head toward Jubal’s neck and snapped its jaws. It made a tuneless humming sound, just like Jubal’s father had done when he puttered around in the garage.
The shotgun was pinned between them, its barrel aimed across Jubal’s chest. He worked his left hand up against the zombie’s side and shoved at the snapping monster. Beneath the creature’s t-shirt, the?esh shifted and rolled like the meat on a roasted chicken. As soon as he had enough room to move the Mossberg, Jubal squeezed the trigger. The recoil threw the zombie into the air and drove Jubal’s right elbow into the hardwood?oor. He felt something crunch in the joint and a searing jolt of pain exploded in a white?ash that threatened to drive him to unconsciousness.
The zombie wasn’t dead. That thought was enough motivation to force Jubal to his feet. His vision swam in and out of focus, but he could see the creature also struggling to stand. Part of its chest and left shoulder were missing. The humming had turned into an angry howl. At least it sounded angry.
Jubal brie?y wondered if the dead things felt anything, whether anger or fear. He decided he didn’t care. He switched the shotgun to his left hand and ended the creature with a headshot.
He had used four shots and there were still so many of them trying to pour in through the door. The pain from his right arm was excruciating. He thought retreat might be a prudent course. He pumped a shell into the Mossberg with a one-armed gesture.
Just like a movie hero.
Cold, dead hands closed on his neck from behind.
How-?
He spun around, though it meant turning his back on the others. The zombie turned with him, so he assumed it was a child or a small woman. He still couldn’t see it but at least he knew how it got the drop on him. The picture window in the living room had shattered. It must have happened when he was down on the?oor. He had almost blacked out and his ears were ringing from the shotgun?re, so he wouldn’t have heard it.
He used the barrel of the Mossberg to swat at the thing on his back. His effort had no effect.
Something tore into the?esh at the base of his neck. Jubal screamed and threw his body against the wall. The grip on his neck loosened and he spun around. His attacker was a girl, probably 13 or 14 years old. Her long blonde hair was braided into pigtails.
Jubal’s blood decorated her lips.
He screamed again as he shoved the tip of the barrel under her chin. He pulled the trigger, and the ceiling was painted with the contents of her skull.
Oh sweet Jesus, it bit me!
He backed toward the hallway, keeping his eyes on the advancing dead.
He kept the shotgun level in front of him. With his right hand he felt around on the back of his neck. The pain in his arm made him whimper.
The wound was small, but it was deep and the edges were ragged. His body went cold.
Am I going to change?
He didn’t know if Fiona had been right when she said Jubal was immune to the disease. Even if he were, would the immunity hold up to a direct bite? He imagined the virus or bacteria or whatever it was making its way through his bloodstream, tweaking him as it went along, soon to materialize as ugly, pus-?lled blisters. The next step would be his induction into the dead army.
No fucking way. It wasn’t going to happen.
If it came to that, he would take Fiona’s way out. He would never become one of those things.
Several of the monsters had worked their way past the bodies on the?oor and were getting close to him.
“Motherfuckers,” Jubal said. He started toward them.
He shot the?rst one in the head.
“Fuck you.”
Two more of the things approached, taking its place. One of them was Patty from the diner. Her smile had been replaced by a hungry grin. Her black tongue played across her swollen lips in a disgusting parody of seduction. Patty hadn’t even been sick two days ago. Was this plague working faster the longer it was in the air?
He did another one-handed pump to ready the shotgun.
“Sorry, Patty.” The blast tore through her face and removed the back of her head.
A crazy thought entered his mind: No more Wednesday special.
Laughter welled up in his chest, the crazy kind that you couldn’t let out. Once it took root it would never stop. He jacked another shell into the chamber and killed Patty’s companion.
The?rst shotgun was empty. He dropped in on the?oor and swung the other Mossberg off his shoulder.
The next zombie through the door was Mr. Handley, his high school math teacher. Handley had given Jubal a particularly hard time in school, apparently owed to an old encounter Handley had with Jubal’s dad. It wasn’t hard to pull the trigger this time.
A shadow fell across the?oor.
Jubal whirled to see two teenagers-a boy and a girl-nearly upon him. He had forgotten about the broken picture window.
There was no time to pump the Mossberg. Jubal swung the shotgun like a ball bat. He knocked the girl to the ground. He struck the boy in the face, driving the zombie to its knees. Jubal hammered at the creature again and again until the thing’s head was pulped and it lay unmoving. He pumped another shell into the chamber, praying the barrel wasn’t ruined.
The girl was twitching on the?oor as if she were in the throes of an epileptic seizure.
He stood over her and?red the shotgun.
The barrel seemed to be in good shape. The girl’s brain matter was spread around her like an unholy aura.
There was no movement near the picture window, so he turned back to the front door. Some of the creatures must have moved on. Only two remained in the doorway. The larger of the two, Damon’s old friend Red, shoved his way past the cute cashier from the Amoco station. Red held his arms in front of him,?exing his?ngers, seemingly anxious to get a grip on Jubal. The dead man made hooting sounds that sounded like some great ape.
Jubal raised the shotgun to pump in another shell. He was covered in blood and other bits of his former neighbors, and his right arm was screaming at him. The wound on the back of his neck didn’t hurt anymore, but it throbbed in time with his pulse.
He sprayed Red’s head across the room. Bits of blood, bone and brain spattered the walls, dotting the Amoco girl, who hungrily licked the gore off her lips with a long gray tongue.
After he blew the Amoco girl away, he walked to the broken picture window and took a peek outside. In the middle of the street, the zombies had a screaming teenage girl pinned down. Her distressed cries reached a fever pitch when one of the larger zombies tore her arm from its socket with a loud pop. An arc of blood squirted straight up from within the swarming mass of dead. The girl’s screaming was muf?ed, then gone. The fresh glistening blood that had splattered the zombies looked like wet red paint.
There was nothing Jubal could do for the girl now. He wondered if she had been the last living townsperson besides himself. It sure seemed like it. The dead were walking everywhere. Jubal never knew the town had so many people. He’d never seen this many at the monthly town meeting-ever.
Several zombies wandered about in Jubal’s front yard. One was amusing itself by repeatedly skewering its?nger on the long needles of one of Ma’s favorite cacti.
Jubal stepped back into the house and reloaded the Mossbergs. As he worked, he happened to glance up at a shelf on the wall next to the TV. There sat an old picture, one that had been there so long that Jubal had stopped noticing it until now. It was of himself as a child with his mother and father standing proudly behind him. His Dad had his hand on Jubal’s shoulder. Everyone was smiling for the photographer and looking quite happy.
They had been happy.
Jubal took the picture down and removed the photo from its frame.
Rubbing his neck, which had stopped bleeding, he went to the kitchen and put the picture along with some non-perishable food into a sturdy grocery bag. He would have used his backpack, but that was in his bedroom and he wasn’t about to go in there ever again.
The picture reminded him of something he hadn’t thought about in a long time. He went to his mother’s bedroom and opened her closet. Moving aside dresses and blouses, Jubal reached to the back corner and felt the item he had been searching for. The closet smelled of his mother’s perfume and it made him dizzy with memory, so he quickly pulled the item out and slammed the door closed.
In his hands he held his father’s Tango-51 sniper ri?e. He wondered if there was extra ammunition for it in the closet but he couldn’t bring himself to open that door again. Once was enough. He’d keep the memories trapped there. They were of no use to him now.
There was a thud. Something large was moving down the hallway toward the bedroom.
He leaned the ri?e against the bed near the grocery sack and slid the Glock from its holster.
A lone zombie, its face ruined by disease, saw him and lurched toward him. It moaned hungrily.
Jubal shot it in the head.
A gray-green goo streamed against the hallway wall as the thing fell to the?oor.
Jubal listened for more intruders but didn’t hear anything except for the ones outside, voicing their strange mewlings and groans.
He went to the bedroom’s front window.
Zombies wandered the property, blocking his path to the cruiser. One was sitting in the dirt of the front yard, staring into the face of a severed head, mumbling to it. The head didn’t belong to the teenage girl that had been attacked in the street. It was someone else’s.
“Fucking horror movie,” Jubal muttered as he slid the window open.
He poked the Glock out, aiming at the seated zombie. He pulled the trigger and made a hole in its forehead. Toppling over, the zombie lay still as the severed head rolled back and forth in the dirt.
The other zombies looked around, wondering where the shot had come from.
Jubal pulled back into the room so they wouldn’t see him.
After a moment, he glanced out and saw the zombies standing around the one he’d just killed, staring. One of them kicked the severed head into the street.
Jubal shot them in quick succession, with ammunition to spare. Grabbing the sack, and quickly glancing around the room to make sure he hadn’t forgotten anything, he exited the house through the open window.
With three guns strapped to his back, the Glock and grocery sack in his hands, Jubal squatted down and moved quickly towards the cruiser. He unlocked the car using the keyless entry. As he swung the door wide, several of the zombies moaned loudly, having?nally taken notice of him.
Jubal shot at the nearest one, but missed. He shoved his equipment and supplies into the passenger seat and slid behind the wheel, slamming the door closed behind him. He turned the car on and it roared to life.
The gas gauge read half. That would get him well out of town and hopefully to a station along the highway.
Something slammed against the driver’s side window. Jubal turned to see Doc Mitchell with his dead face pressed against the glass. Slime oozed from his lips.
Jubal showed the doctor his middle?nger, then stepped on the gas.
Doc Mitchell spun around and fell on his ass in the street as Jubal sped away.
“That’s what you get for being such a lousy fucking doctor.”
The zombies wandering the streets of Serenity proved a worthy obstacle course. When Jubal couldn’t maneuver around them or nudge them aside with the car, he drove straight over them with a satisfying bump. He had to use that tactic sparingly, as long as he needed the car.
As he rounded a corner, he slammed on the brakes.
Previous to this moment, every zombie Jubal had ever seen had either wandered aimlessly or attacked like a rabid animal.
The cruiser faced east. Spanning the road ahead of it was a line of zombies standing at attention. Behind this row was another. And another.
Jubal put the car in reverse as other zombies joined the formation, and as, all at once, they began to move.
Like a dead army.
Jubal turned the car around and sped back down the road, knocking aside any stray zombies in his path.
They were bad enough as feral beasts of the dead, but this new thing seemed even more unnerving. Organized zombies.
It struck him that he was leaving town for good, a town he had loved and hated (but not really). Serenity was his home and he was going to miss it. And he was going to miss all the people who had made it a home. Who had made his life worth living. Ma, Damon, Fiona, Pops Perez and the rest. All gone now. All dead.
Was his life worth living anymore? Was he alone in a world of zombies, or were things okay in Texas or up north? Out east? He wouldn’t know unless he found out for himself. Who was responsible for all this? There were so many questions. And Jubal wanted concrete answers. Not rumors, theories and half-remembered snatches of dreams.
He took a side road west, which led to Highway 285. He knew he couldn’t go north. That way was blockaded, unless the zombie army had gotten to the soldiers. Maybe he could go south.
But Jubal didn’t reach the highway.
Ahead of him stretched regiments of zombies, all facing west, all in?le. They trudged along, keeping in perfect step with each other. They must have come from other small towns in the area.
There were thousands of them.
Something glinted in the bright blue sky.
Jubal stopped the car and looked up through his windshield.
Some sort of silver vehicle, like an airborne jet-ski, buzzed over the army of zombies. At one point it hovered in place. Then it buzzed around again, herding the undead towards the west-towards Nevada. It was too far away and Jubal wished he had remembered binoculars so he could have a better look. But it was close enough to see the color of the rider’s clothing.
Red.
For a brief moment he thought it might be some new military craft. Then he recalled the dream, the half-remembered details suddenly and sharply in focus.
The?gure in crimson strode across a sea of dead bodies, waving a silver staff, urging the corpses to rise and obey him. As the cadavers struggled to obey, the man in the robes turned to look at Jubal. It wasn’t human. The head was too tall and very thin, as if a giant had squeezed it between its?ngers. The eyes were black, deep set between the angular cheekbones. There was no nose to speak of and the mouth was nothing more than a cruel gash. Behind the creature, yellow mist billowed and rose like stage fog in a magician’s show. Jubal knew it to be poison, a foggy messenger carrying the plague of the dead army.
He snapped to full alertness. He wasn’t sure how much of the memory had actually been in his dreams, or if his subconscious had embellished the scenario. He quickly decided it didn’t matter. The dream-the memory — had the feeling, the texture of truth.
And if it were true, the implication was monstrous. It meant this wasn’t an accident. It meant there was a design here, a hand responsible for the death of all he had ever known and everyone he loved.
And if it wasn’t true, Jubal decided he didn’t care. He had endured more than any person could rightfully expect in a lifetime. It was time for a little payback.
He stepped out of the car, leaving the engine running.
He estimated the dead army was less than two hundred yards away. The odd?ying machine that carried the red-robed?gure darted over the lurching creatures, looking as harmless as a?re?y from this distance. There seemed to be no reaction to Jubal’s presence. They either didn’t know he was there or they didn’t care.
That was about to change.
Jubal calmly removed the sniper ri?e from the cruiser. His father had purchased the Tango-51 though the sheriff’s of?ce, so he could get the professional discount. He had called it the?nest ri?e ever made. Jubal ran a hand over the green and black?nish. His father had taught Jubal to always care for his weapons so he would be able to rely on them. Jubal had followed that advice. It was close to two years since the gun had been?red and Jubal had cleaned it afterward, as he always did. He knew it would?re accurately. He slid back the big bolt action and made sure it was loaded. He didn’t think he would need more than one round.
Using the roof of the car for a rest-and trying to ignore the pain in his right elbow-Jubal put his eye to the scope and searched for the crimson?gure.
It took a few seconds, but he found it. At?rst, he could only see a?eld of red, but the scope’s resolution was amazing. He shifted the ri?e a fraction of an inch and he found its hideous face.
It was exactly as it had been in his dream. The black and bottomless eyes seemed to stare straight into his mind. He could feel the power radiating from this strange being, power that would eventually overwhelm everything on the planet. Fighting back was a lost cause. It would be so simple to put the gun down, to give up No.
Jubal gasped. That thing had noticed him. Jubal didn’t understand how, but the creature on the?ying machine had connected with him like two satphones communicating.
It had to be the plague. It not only changed humans into those undead beasts, it also linked everyone together in unexplainable ways.
I’ve tuned into the dead frequency.
Jubal ran a hand over the wound on the back of his neck. Though the bleeding had stopped, the bite was sticky and it ached.
That thing could talk to me. Maybe not with words, but I understood the surrender message it was sending out. Does that mean that I’m turning?
Other than the pain from the bite, and the ache in his arm, Jubal didn’t feel different. But if the disease was transmitted more quickly through direct contact, his transformation could begin at any time. If it happened, he could?nd himself unable-or unwilling-to?ght.
He couldn’t take that chance.
The strange glider was still hovering over the army of the dead. He felt an odd tickling deep within his skull, a gentle hand sifting through his thoughts.
Fuck that.
He leaned forward with the barrel of the sniper ri?e again on the cruiser’s roof. Jubal closed his eyes. He exhaled, as his father had taught him. His opened his right eye and found the non-human pilot through the ri?e’s scope. He squeezed the trigger.
He thought he saw something resembling surprise?ash across that alien face before the bullet left the barrel.
Maybe this communications network travels both ways. Maybe I sent my own greeting across the dead frequency.
The message may have been delivered, but not as he intended. The 7.22 mm shell tore through the creature’s shoulder, knocking it from its?ying machine.
Jubal had aimed for the head.
The strange craft began to slowly spin,?oating away.
He lowered the ri?e. The orderly lines of walking dead broke formation, each cut free from the robed thing’s control.
It was time to go.
Jubal climbed back into the car. He propped the Tango against the passenger door and picked up one of the shotguns.
The zombies were spread out, both in the road and on the cactus-strewn desert that surrounded it. There were too many of them to avoid, so Jubal decided to use the largest weapon he had. He stomped the accelerator.
The?rst zombie he hit rolled under the car and provided a satisfying crunch. The next one?ew into the air and landed against the windshield before spinning off to one side. The safety glass cracked but did not break.
He managed to clip several others with the edge of the front bumper as he tried to in?ict the most damage possible without destroying the cruiser. As he drew closer to the spot where the undead had originally been lined up, Jubal saw a?ash of red.
He slowed the car and rolled down his window.
The creature he had shot was lying in a twisted mess next to the road. Seeing it through the ri?e’s scope had not prepared him for the size of the monster. If it had been standing it would have been close to eight feet tall. The thing’s arms were very long and were now bent into unnatural shapes. If it had anything resembling a human skeleton, its back was broken. Its left shoulder was leaking a black gelatinous?uid.
Jubal checked the perimeter around the car. There were plenty of zombies, but none close enough to pose an immediate threat. He stepped out of the cruiser.
The alien creature studied him with those insect-like black eyes. They seemed to have sunken even further into the elongated skull. Jubal could now see that the thing’s robe was decorated with hundreds of odd symbols, all delineated in golden embroidery. He could smell something like exotic spices, and beneath that scent was the unmistakable pungency of rot.
The creature’s breath came in shallow, whistling gasps.
A wave of terror passed through Jubal as he stood so close to a being that came from somewhere other than Earth.
“Can you understand me?”
The creature made no sound save for its labored breathing. He thought he felt the tickling in the back of his mind, but the sensation quickly passed.
“My name is Slate. I don’t know where you came from or why you’re here, I just-” Jubal’s voice broke. He had to clear his throat before he could continue. “I just know what you’ve done. You’ve killed us all, haven’t you? You’ve taken away everything decent and good in my life and you’ve probably taken me, too. But before I go, I want you to deliver a message for me. If you have any friends out there, send ’em one of your mind bulletins or whatever they are. You tell ’em Slate did this. Jubal Slate.”
He raised the shotgun.
If the creature understood what was happening, it did not show it.
“Do they believe in Hell where you come from? I hope so.”
The thing’s thin, lipless mouth twitched.
Jubal pulled the trigger. The alien head exploded in a geyser of thick, black blood.
He shot it again for good measure.
His eyes burned with hot tears, but he had no time for remorse. The dead army was getting closer. He returned to the cruiser.
Before he climbed into the vehicle, the sun glinted off something metallic. A few feet from the corpse of the alien thing, a strange silver rod lay among the rock and sandy soil.
He didn’t know what it was, but it made his skin crawl just looking at it.
It belonged to that thing. That’s what he used to control the dead army.
Jubal got into the car and backed over the staff. It broke into many pieces.
He put the cruiser in drive and drove away, clipping a few more zombies along the way.
The zombie demolition derby had damaged the cruiser’s radiator. He kept going long after the temperature gauge climbed into the red. Just outside of Van Horn, Texas, the engine seized up with a grinding crunch and a cloud of smoke.
He gathered his weapons and supplies and walked into town.
The streets were deserted, but he took no chances. The?rst building he saw was a Rexall drug store. He hammered the glass door open with his Glock. There was no alarm. He let himself in and shoved a heavy cosmetics display case against the broken door. At least it would give him some warning. He curled up behind the checkout counter and slept for a long time.