IN THE LAND OF THE BLIND
Robert Swartwood
Smashwords Edition
“In
the Land of the Blind” copyright © 2004-2011 Robert Swartwood
Cover photo copyright © 2011 Melissanthi
(http://melissanthi.deviantart.com)
This E-Book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. All rights reserved. No part of this publication can be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, without permission in writing from Robert Swartwood.
Author’s Note
“In the Land of the Blind” won the 10th Annual Chiaroscuro Short Story Contest and was published in ChiZine in 2004. It was reprinted six years later in The Best New Zombies Tales, vol. 1, edited by James Roy Daley. Most importantly, the story was the inspiration for my zombie novel The Dishonored Dead, whose prelude and first three chapters are included in this e-book.
Contents
Excerpt from THE DISHONORED DEAD
Like everyone else he knew, Steven’s heart did not beat. Instead it lay dead in his chest, as docile as his brain and his lungs and his soul. So when he first heard the faint beating sound coming from outside his bedroom window, he didn’t know what to think.
He considered telling his parents. He’d been hearing the beating for almost a week now. Somewhere in the trees and bushes beyond their backyard. Its continuous thump-thumping sounded not outside of his head, but rather in.
When his friend Jimmy came over to the house one day, Steven took him out back.
“Do you hear that?”
“Hear what?”
“Nothing.”
If Jimmy couldn’t hear the beating, Steven knew his parents wouldn’t either. They’d just stare down at him with dead eyes and say, Oh Steven, don’t make things up. You know what will happen if you do.
He knew. It dealt with something only the zombies had, something called imagination. It was dangerous and evil and those who had it were hunted down and put out of their misery.
But one night the beating became too much for Steven. He snuck outside with a shovel—why the shovel, he didn’t know, except that he would need it—and followed the sound until he came to a spot beneath a willow tree. He placed his hand on the dirt where the thump-thumping was the loudest and felt the earth vibrating. He began to dig.
An hour later, his body wearing down, the shovel clinked against something solid. He glanced up and noticed an owl watching him from one of the willow tree’s branches. It stared back at him with lifeless eyes.
What Steven pulled from the earth was a strange rock. It was shaped like a perfect cube, three inches wide, three inches long, and three inches thick. Something inside the rock pulsed, causing it to shake in his hands.
A voice behind him asked, “Do you know what’s inside?”
The rock fell to the ground. Steven, his small hands shaking, quickly turned.
The thing standing there was a crime against nature. Menacingly tall, its hair dark, its eyes full of life, it was one of the zombies he’d learned to fear. A thing that shouldn’t exist. A thing that had imagination, a soul, life.
“Don’t be afraid.” The zombie’s voice carried none of the roughness that Steven was accustomed to hearing. “I’m not going to hurt you.”
Steven opened his mouth but could not speak.
The zombie smiled. “Though even if I were to hurt you, you wouldn’t actually feel anything.”
The owl in the trees hooted twice, flew away.
“That was meant as a joke,” the zombie said, his smile fading. “A poor joke, I know, but a joke nonetheless. Please, say something. I’m risking my life talking to you, the least you could do is say hello.”
Steven didn’t want to say hello. He wanted to run away. But he knew that if he did the zombie would chase after him and tear him apart limb by limb, so he stayed motionless.
The zombie said, “You’re about ten years old, aren’t you.”
Steven nodded.
“You came out here because you heard it calling you.” The zombie motioned with his head at the rock cube on the ground just behind Steven. “Am I right?”
Steven found his voice. “Please don’t hurt me.”
“Didn’t you hear what I said before? I’m not going to hurt you.”
“What do you want?” Steven said, and took a step back, looked around at all the trees, searching for the quickest escape.
The zombie sighed. “I don’t even know what I want anymore. A long time ago I used to think it was possible for the living and the dead to exist side by side. But now ...” He shrugged. “Now this is the land of the dead, and it will always be the land of the dead.”
Steven took another step back, the heel of his sneaker bumping the rock. He looked down at it, looked back up at the zombie. Hesitantly he asked, “What’s inside there?”
“What do you think? It’s your heart.”
“My ... heart? But that can’t be. My heart”—he pointed at his chest—“is right here.”
“Okay,” the zombie said, smiling again, “it’s not really your heart. But inside that cube is life. The thing that will make you just like me.”
“I don’t want to be just like you. You—you—you’re a monster. You don’t deserve to exist.”
“You really have no idea, do you? Say, how many colors are there?”
Steven hesitated again, looking every which way, wishing his parents were here with him right now, wishing Hunters would come to his rescue.
“Colors?” he said. “There are ... three. Black, white, and gray.”
The smile had faded completely from the zombie’s face, his expression now somber. “I really do pity your kind. You miss out on all the little things. Like actually feeling the sun when it’s shining down on you. Or the wind against your face. Smelling the honeysuckles in the spring and tasting even a pinch of sugar.” The zombie shook his head. “Do you realize the rest of the earth hasn’t moved on? It’s just mankind and all the animals. You’ve all moved on, decayed, become what you are. You’ve all become blind, and those like me, the living, are one-eyed men. We’re kings.”
“Please,” Steven said, and this time his voice cracked even more. He wanted to cry but didn’t know how, and his lower lip trembled, his hands still shook, and without thinking he bent down and grabbed the cube-shaped rock, held it close to him as if it offered some form of protection. “Please, I just want to go home. I don’t ... I don’t want to expire.”
“If I were you,” the zombie said, “I wouldn’t want to expire either. Not until I experienced everything this world has to offer. Because to see the true color of the sky, and the shade it takes when the sun sets ... to experience that for even a second is worth all the fear of being hunted down and destroyed.”
“Please,” Steven said again, holding the pulsing cube in his hands, and it was at that moment the Hunters came out of the shadows.
They wore black uniforms and masks and carried broadswords. The zombie heard them coming—their heavy boots striking the earth sounded like thunder—but he made no effort to escape. He simply stood there, staring back at Steven, and said, “Don’t accept your existence for what it is. Question it. Question everything.”
One of the six Hunters stepped forward. He raised his broadsword and swung it.
Some kind of liquid splattered Steven’s face as the zombie’s head was severed from the rest of its body. He’d heard about living blood but had never known it to exist until now.
The Hunters took the zombie’s body away. Steven was taken back home, where his parents scolded him. His father said some very mean things. His mother cried but shed no tears. They sent him up to his room and told him he wasn’t to come out until they said so.
Sitting on his bed, the cube in his lap (he’d managed to hide it from the Hunters and his parents), Steven stared out his window at the rising sun. It was gray just like the sky. Just like the trees. Just like everything.
The cube-shaped rock in his lap continued to pulse. The sound was so loud it almost drowned out his parents’ arguing downstairs.
He placed his hands on the cube and held it tight. The cube pulsed even more. And slowly, so very slowly, the cube began to dissolve until there was nothing left at all.
Steven closed his eyes. None of it made sense. The sound was gone but still he felt the beating—which now came from within his chest.
He opened his bedroom door with caution and tiptoed the length of the hallway toward the steps. Somewhere downstairs his parents continued arguing, and though he only caught a few words, he knew their dispute involved him. They were worried—not only had their son tried to run away tonight, but he had almost been expired by a zombie—and they wanted to protect him but weren’t sure just how to do it.
He stood at the top of the stairs much longer than he’d intended, staring at the pictures on the walls, at the carpet, even the boarder that ran near the ceiling. Each was a different color, a different shade. Nothing like the gray he’d become accustomed to his entire existence.
Everything had changed the moment he realized his heart had started beating. His body had somehow absorbed the life inside the cube. A warm tingling in his chest had spread throughout his entire body, down his legs to his toes, down his arms to his fingertips, and when he opened his eyes again he had watched with a kind of wonder as the black and white and gray of the world began receding around him, until the floor, the walls, the ceiling, everything was painted with color.
He had fallen back onto the bed then, his body shutting down for a couple of seconds, the muscles and tendons which had never really been used before having to recharge. Even his lungs had begun to work, and he breathed oxygen for the first time, taking large gulps of air until he became acquainted with this new function and began breathing regularly.
As he lay there he sniffed the stale air, could smell what he somehow knew internally was a mixture of dust and decayed skin and hair and laundry detergent. He knew other things internally now too, as if a door to new information in his brain had just been opened.
Somewhere below him now, probably in the kitchen, his parents continued their argument, though there was less intensity now, less gargled and guttural shouting. He knew what they were arguing about. His father wanted to send Steven away for psychiatric help, while his mother wanted to just ignore it, pretend like the entire thing hadn’t happened. Eventually they would arrive to a decision and come to see him. And when they did, what would they find?
Their son—a monstrosity, a crime against nature.
A zombie.
He shuddered at the thought, feeling a chill race through his soul, and found it both terrifying and exhilarating at the same time. It was a feeling he’d never experienced before, and he wanted to feel it again. How many more feelings were there? How many more colors? He remembered the zombie mentioning something about smells and tastes. How many of those were there?
A gasp pulled him away from his thoughts.
He glanced down the stairs to find his parents standing at the bottom. Unlike Steven’s skin which had become pale and smooth, theirs was decayed and brownish gray, their eyes and hair pitch black.
Steven’s mother had been the one who gasped. She held her hand to her mouth and stared up at him with wide black eyes. His father stood beside her, slowly shaking his head.
“I’m very disappointed in you,” he said, his voice scratchy and rough. The sound of his words caused another shudder to pass through Steven’s body, though this one wasn’t as pleasing.
“Oh sweetie,” his mother said, “what have you done?”
When Steven didn’t respond, his father said, “I have no choice. I have to call them.”
He turned away and disappeared from Steven’s sight, leaving only his mother to stand there with her hand still to her mouth. She shook her head, her dull eyes expressing no emotion—though Steven thought that if she were alive they’d show sadness, maybe even tears.
She opened her mouth to speak. Steven expected to hear her gargled voice again, but nothing came out. She shook her head and waved him toward her.
He started down the steps, taking them one at a time, finding the sound his sneakers made on the wood pleasant in a strange sort of way. When he reached the landing his mother fell to her knees. She gripped his shoulders, wrapped her arms around him. Her body reeked of rot and decay and Steven tried to step out of the dead embrace.
“I’m so sorry,” she said, holding onto him tightly. Her breath, he knew internally, smelled of rancid fish. “Your father’s calling the Hunters. They’ll be here any minute. Why would you do this? Didn’t we raise you properly? Didn’t we give you everything you ever needed? Why, Steven? Why?”
He stared into her dead eyes and tried to find something there, some kind of life. He had no answer for her and simply shook his head.
His father returned.
“They’ll be here soon, Steven. Make it easy on yourself and don’t try to fight them.”
Body now trembling, he felt wetness underneath his arms and something churning in the pit of his stomach. His mother’s dead hands squeezed his shoulders briefly once more and he glanced back into her dry colorless face, into her black depthless eyes.
Her cracked lips moved, forming just one word, and though she didn’t use her damaged voice, he heard the word clearly in his mind: Run.
Steven hesitated. He glanced at his father and saw that his father had seen what just passed between mother and son. His father’s black eyes became impossibly large. “No,” he said, and started forward, and Steven backed out of his mother’s embrace, bolted for the door.
The first thing that struck him outside was the sunlight, and he had to pause, had to allow his eyes to adjust to the sudden brilliance. He lifted his face to the sky, closed his eyes, enjoyed the warmth for only an instant before he remembered he should be running. Opening his eyes, he saw that indeed the sky wasn’t gray but blue, lighter than his T-shirt, speckled with white puffs of clouds, and all around him was green—in the trees, in the grass, even on some houses.
Scents wafted through the air, mixed scents his new internal mind picked out and pieced apart and gave names to: fresh grass, motor oil, dog shit, dandelions.
Across the street, two dead children played in a front lawn. Steven had once known their names but they, much like his own parents, were now strangers to him. They’d been running around, using large plastic broadswords to play Henry the Hunter, neither noticing him until one paused and stared across the street, then said something to the other and pointed.
Two sets of wide dead eyes stared back at him.
The door behind him opened. He heard his mother’s voice, begging his father to stop, to please let her baby go. His father told her to shut up, that he would deal with her later. Then there was the sound of his father’s heavy footsteps on the porch, his father yelling at him to stop.
Steven ran.
The two children across the street saw him coming and screamed, their voices harsh and flat as they scrambled away.
He reached the street and paused, uncertain where to go next. He thought about the zombie from last night. It had been old, about Steven’s father’s age. How had it survived so many years?
Sunlight glinted off of something shiny down the street. It was a Humvee, one that he had seen only hours before when it had brought him home. The Hunters were coming.
He turned and sprinted in the other direction, hearing shouts from houses where the dead inside saw him and cried out. Sweat ran down his face, as did tears, tears he now shed because he knew it was hopeless, that he wouldn’t outrun the Hunters, that he could never outrun them.
The street came to an end, a bright red stop sign signaling that the driver must either turn left or right. Beyond the bisecting street were trees and bushes and tall grass.
Steven continued forward.
He glanced back after he’d passed a couple dozen trees, saw the Hunters back there, all spread out, all heading in his direction. Before him the woods stretched on for miles, seemingly endless, taunting him with the promise of freedom. He tried keeping his focus on what lay before him but he kept glancing back over his shoulder, each time finding the Hunters gaining more and more ground.
Steven ran, tears and sweat in his eyes, until suddenly there was no ground beneath him. A rut, a simple hole, and it twisted his ankle, caused him to fall.
He tried getting up but fell back down, his ankle denying him any support. He glanced back, saw that the Hunters were even closer.
Fresh tears came, forced by the pain—by real pain—by the realization that he was soon going to die, but also forced by a surreal form of happiness. He didn’t know how many minutes had passed since his body had absorbed the life inside that cube, but he wouldn’t change it for anything, even if given the chance.
The sound of thunder grew stronger as the Hunters neared.
Steven tried getting up once more before falling back down. He looked around him for some kind of help but only saw the grass, the trees ... and he noticed a bush he hadn’t seen before, a green bush covered with many small white and yellow flowers. Something inside him whispered they were honeysuckles, and without thinking he crawled the few yards to the bush and reached out, took one of the flowers from its branch and brought it to his nose, to his tongue.
The Hunters surrounded him, their broadswords drawn and ready. The lead Hunter—the one that had taken the zombie’s head only hours before—stepped forward.
Steven hardly noticed. The sweet pure scent and taste of the flower was more than anything he had ever wished for. Despite the pain, despite the tears, despite the knowledge of his impending death, he closed his eyes and tried to keep this moment fresh in his mind, tried to keep it with him forever.
Continue reading for an excerpt from Robert Swartwood’s zombie thriller The Dishonored Dead
In a not-so-distant future, the world has devolved and most of the population has become the animated dead. Those few that are living are called zombies. They are feared and must be hunted down and destroyed.
Conrad is one of the animated dead. A devoted husband, a loving father, he is the best zombie Hunter in the world. But when he hesitates one night in killing a living adult, his job is put in jeopardy. Instead of being outright dismissed, he is transferred to a program so secretive even the Government would deny its existence—and where Conrad soon learns a startling truth about how his own son might be in danger of becoming a zombie.
As living extremists become more emboldened and blow up a Hunter Headquarters, as a power-hungry Hunter becomes more enraged and will stop at nothing to gain absolute power, Conrad begins to question not just his profession, but his own existence. And before he knows it he is on a journey of self-discovery, remembering a past he was forced to forget, and soon finding himself not only a hunted man, but a man who must now save both his son and the entire world.
Advance Praise for The Dishonored Dead
“The Dishonored Dead is one of the most original and gripping zombie novels I have ever read, offering a glimpse into the life of a zombie in a world turned backwards, where zombies live and humans are feared. Highly recommended!”
— Jeremy Robinson
Prelude
In the Land of the Dead
He could hear the zombie in the dark up ahead—what sounded like an adult, saying, “How many colors are there in the world?”—and his first thought was they had a multiple attack. Then he heard another voice, one which belonged to a dead child, and he knew the situation had just escalated.
“Colors?” the boy asked hesitantly, his cracked and withered voice full of fear. “There are ... three. White, gray, and black.”
He slowed and raised a fist, signaling the other Hunters to take their time. Now that a child was involved, they had to be even more cautious.
“I really do pity your kind,” the zombie said. “You miss out on so many different things. Yes, in the land of the dead only those colors exist. But would you like to know how many colors there are in the land of the living?”
He could just now make out the two figures—definitely an adult and child—through the trees, standing in a small clearing. He placed his hand on his broadsword, pulled it silently from its sheath.
“Thousands,” the zombie said. “More colors than you could ever imagine ... though, of course, you can’t imagine anything, can you?”
Moonlight shone through the trees and illuminated the two of them, and he could see the boy standing beside a freshly dug hole, a pile of dirt beside it. In his trembling hands was a shovel.
“Please,” the boy said, looking quickly around him, “please don’t hurt me. I don’t—I don’t want to expire.”
“If I were you I wouldn’t want to expire either. Not until I’d experienced everything this world has to offer.”
The rest of the Hunters having taken their positions surrounding the zombie and the child, he knew it was time to act. There was about five yards between the two of them, which meant that if they went in fast, the boy would be safe.
“Do you realize the rest of the earth hasn’t moved on? It’s just mankind and the animals. You’ve all moved on, decayed, become what you are. But Mother Nature”—the zombie now shaking his disgusting head—“she hasn’t given up on you yet. She still wants you to find your way. And when you do—when all of you do—I think she’s going to hold her breath in anticipation for what happens next.”
His broadsword gripped tightly in his right hand, he raised his left hand to signal the other Hunters.
“In the meantime, do yourself this one favor. Don’t accept your existence for what it is. Question it. Question everything.”
He brought his hand down and at once the Hunters hurried forward, tightening their circle around the clearing. The boy looked around even more frantically, surprise overtaking the fear in his black eyes.
He strode right up to the zombie who just stood there completely motionless, staring down at the boy. Less than ten yards away, now less than five, he took in everything about the scene—the shovel in the boy’s hands, the hole, the pile of dirt, a square rock on the ground beside the hole shimmering in the moonlight—and raised his broadsword.
But stopped.
For a moment there was a heavy silence. The only sounds were that of dead insects chirping and a dead owl hooting in the trees. Then the zombie looked back at him, said, “Well?” and that was when Philip stepped forward, his own broadsword raised, and severed the zombie’s head from the rest of its body.
Chapter 1
Conrad was no stranger to living blood.
Ever since he was ten, had begun his training, he understood that blood was the final step in every hunt. A zombie ran, you chased it, and once you cornered it, walked right up to it, you raised your broadsword and took its head, releasing blood. Even when his father, the greatest Hunter to ever exist, had passed down his own broadsword to Conrad on the day of his graduation from Artemis, he had embraced him and whispered into his ear, “Make sure every time you hunt, this sword tastes blood.”
And it had tasted blood, so much living blood over the past twelve years. Mostly children, sure, because that’s what most of the zombies today were: boys and girls no older than ten years old, always running away from him, always crying and screaming until he stopped their tears and silenced their screams forever. It was his job and he was good at it, great at it, and he always made sure every time he hunted he followed through with his father’s wishes.
He made sure every time he hunted, his broadsword tasted blood.
He made sure it was covered in it.
But tonight something had gone wrong. Tonight his sword should have tasted blood, but it hadn’t, and this, Conrad knew, was bad news. Very bad news.
Sitting alone in the locker room, an irregular dripping coming from the showers, Conrad stared down at the broadsword in his hands. He just didn’t understand it. He didn’t know what had gone wrong. Never before had he hesitated, never once, but this morning he had, and with no way to explain it even to himself, no way to rationalize this egregious error.
The locker room door opened and in walked Philip, the second lieutenant still wearing his uniform but not his mask. Without looking at Conrad, Philip went to his locker, opened it, started to take off his uniform. Conrad continued staring down at his sword until Philip had slammed his locker shut and walked toward the showers, a towel now wrapped around his waist. He paused before entering, turned back, and Conrad shifted his gaze up from his sword to Philip.
The man was well built, his shoulders wide, his chest expanded. A tattoo of his broadsword was etched over his right pectoral.
Philip glared back at him, his black eyes intense. He opened his mouth, started to speak, but then shut it, shook his head and entered the showers.
When the hiss of water started up a moment later, Conrad got to his feet and went to his locker. He raised a fist, meaning to smash it into the panel, but stopped himself at the last moment. He opened the locker, intending now to slam it shut again, and found his family staring back at him, his wife and son smiling in the gray pictures taped there: one of Denise, one of Kyle, one of the two of them together, Denise in a hospital bed holding a newly-animated Kyle in her arms.
He thought about everything he had been able to provide for his family, how they had never been forced to go without, and how his simple mistake this morning could change it all.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered to them, closing his eyes and touching his forehead to the pictures. “I’m so sorry.”
Captain Norman Rydell’s office door was open when Conrad made it to the top floor. He knew it was an invitation but still he waited just outside the threshold and knocked on the frame. Norman didn’t even look away from his computer monitor when he motioned him inside.
“Shut the door, too,” he said.
Conrad sat in one of the two chairs facing the captain’s desk. Aside from the humming computer on the desk and the ticking clock on the wall, the room was silent.
After a moment Norman turned away from the computer. He looked at Conrad and tapped the stack of papers in front of him. “Do you know what this is? It’s your file. Every single thing about you since your time at Artemis until this very moment is in here. Every kill, every commendation, everything, I’ve printed it all out and here it is. And unfortunately today I have to add something to it. So I’m going to ask you just once. What happened this morning?”
“I don’t know, sir.”
“You don’t.”
Conrad shook his head.
“Would you like to know what Philip told me?”
Conrad waited.
“He said you froze. That you approached the zombie and raised your sword but did nothing else.”
Conrad shifted his eyes away. He thought about the day he’d graduated. About how up until that point nobody knew who his father truly was—not even Denise—and how on that day his father had embraced him for the very first time in front of the world and told him to make sure the sword always tasted blood and now today for the very first time it had not.
“Well?” Norman said.
“I ...”
“Yes?”
“I don’t know, sir.”
“That’s not an acceptable answer.”
The computer on the desk continued to hum, the clock on the wall continued to tick.
Conrad said, “Sir, if you would like my resignation, I would be more than willing to—”
“Stop it. Just stop it right there.” Norman leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms. “Yes, what took place this morning shouldn’t have happened, but it’s not the end of the world. You’re my first lieutenant and I have never questioned anything you’ve ever done. But what happened this morning, I want to know why.”
Norman was fifty-two, twenty years older than Conrad. He had short gray hair and a thin gray mustache. He came from a line of honorable Hunters—his father a Hunter, his father’s father a Hunter—and the fact that the line would end with him had always been a sore point. Norman and his wife (Beth, who’d expired three years ago) had never been able to conceive after their first child, a boy who’d expired when he was two, and though nobody had ever come out and said it, the truth was always there: Norman had let his family down.
“It’s Kyle,” Conrad said.
“What about Kyle?” An expression of worry creased the captain’s decayed face. “Is he okay? He hasn’t ...”
But Norman didn’t continue. He didn’t have to. The unspoken question was whether Kyle had become infected with some kind of parasite. It seemed children were most likely to become infected, and it was almost impossible to extract a parasite once it had taken hold. That was why children were given more shots and vitamins than adults, who took half the amount. That was why parents were encouraged to give them the proper lotions for their decayed skin, to keep flies from laying maggots, to keep any other parasites at bay. Because when a child became infected its body began to decay at a very rapid rate, first the hair falling out, then the skin, until that child expired completely, leaving a very fat and well-fed parasite.
Norman and his wife had witnessed this firsthand with their own child, watching their son withering away and not being able to do anything about it.
“No,” Conrad said, “nothing like that. It’s just that, well, his animation day is coming up. In two weeks.”
“It’s his tenth, isn’t it.”
Conrad nodded.
“Yes, I can see why that would make you worry. But it should be okay. Kyle’s a good boy. Nothing’s going to happen to him.”
“I hope so, sir. But when I went to kill that zombie this morning, I looked at the boy and for some reason it made me think of Kyle.”
“Speaking of the boy”—Norman glanced at his computer monitor—“it appears the zombie managed to infect him with a parasite. It doesn’t look like he’ll make it through the day.”
Conrad closed his eyes, placed a hand to his head.
“Don’t beat yourself up about it. You did everything you could.”
Conrad knew the captain was right. An anonymous tip had come in, giving them the location, and they had made it to the suburbs in record time, managed to track the zombie’s trail into the woods, and as far as Conrad had seen the zombie hadn’t once touched the boy. Still ...
“Has the boy been questioned?”
“You mean regarding the hole?”
“Yes.”
“He said he and his friends had buried something there a year ago, some money, and he wanted to dig it back up. Then he said the zombie came out of nowhere and tried to attack him.”
“Are you sure? Because it sounded like the zombie had been talking to him for a while.”
Norman squinted at the computer monitor again. “Well, yes, the boy did say the zombie said some things, but he couldn’t remember much of it. You have to keep in mind, the parasite in his body is already eating away at him, and he ... he wasn’t very lucid when he was interviewed. Awful, awful thing for his parents.”
“What about the adult zombie?”
“What about it?”
“There hasn’t been an adult zombie attack for months.”
“We’re looking into that too.”
There was a silence.
Conrad said, “Are you sure you don’t want my resignation? The other men, they ...”
“Yes?”
“I don’t think they can trust me after this.”
Norman didn’t answer right away. He sat there a moment, watching Conrad closely. Finally he said, “You’ve always been fighting a losing battle. It’s because of your father, who he was, what he was. Henry the Hunter, the world’s greatest Hunter, who will forever exist in movies and TV and video games.”
Norman grinned at the absurdity of it all—he knew Conrad saw it as an embarrassment, his father selling out so that nobody would forget him when he expired—and then quite abruptly the grin faded.
“Everyone’s expected so much from you, and believe me, you’ve delivered. Over nine hundred kills since you became a Hunter, and that’s not counting all those you killed when you were training. Not quite up to the five thousand on your father’s belt, but I’d say you’re the best Hunter in the world right now.”
“If you don’t want my resignation, sir, then why did you call me here?”
Norman closed Conrad’s file and set it aside. He picked up another, held it up for Conrad to see. “Can you read what’s written on this?”
The words TOP SECRET were printed on the white folder.
“Not very conspicuous, I know. But this is the real reason I wanted to speak with you. I think ... well, I think it’s time for you to move on.”
Conrad shifted in his chair. “Move on?”
“To whiter pastures. It’s a program that’s been around for decades. Only those men who are Hunters can do what this job entails, and it’s not just any Hunter. They have to have honor, integrity, intelligence. Your name actually came up a few years ago for this program, but there was no way we were going to give you up. Now”—Norman shook his head sadly—“now it looks like I have no choice.”
Norman placed the file on the desk, tapped the two words with a decayed fingernail.
“But this right here? This isn’t a joke. Even before I show this to you, I must have your word you will never tell anybody about it. You can never tell Denise, you can never tell Kyle, you can never tell anyone. I’ve been involved in it for nearly twenty years and never once told my wife, even when she was on her expiration bed. Do you understand?”
Conrad, staring at those two words on the file, nodded.
“I need to hear you say it. I need you to say you understand.”
“I understand.”
“Good. Because if you think being a Hunter is the most important job there is, I’m sorry to say you’re wrong.” He tapped the file again. “It’s this. This is what truly keeps the world safe. So if you’re prepared to take on that responsibility, take the file. But keep in mind that if you do, there is no going back. If you have any hesitation at all, it would probably be best that you do resign right now, leave this building, and never look back. Understand?”
Conrad did. His fears of losing his job, of not being able to provide for his family, had quickly left his mind. Still, as he kept his gaze level with Norman, as he leaned forward to take the file, his thoughts returned to his son. Kyle would turn ten in less than two weeks, and it was at that age when children were the most susceptible to turning.
And despite Norman telling him he had nothing to worry about, that Kyle was a good boy, the simple truth was this: if his son turned, Conrad would have no choice.
He’d have to kill him.
Chapter 2
By the time he left Hunter Headquarters it was nine o’clock in the morning. His usual routine when he headed home was to first stop and pick up a bouquet of flowers, then weave his way through the city streets of Olympus, drive over the bridge, merge onto the Shakespeare Expressway. But before he left the city he noticed he was low on fuel and decided to stop at the first station he came to.
He pulled up to one of the pumps and got out. He had just swiped his credit card when he heard someone yelling.
“Hey, buddy, what the fuck?”
A large man was heading his way. Behind him was a black pickup truck, a child about Kyle’s age in the passenger seat. The child’s lifeless eyes were wide as she watched.
Conrad looked around the pumps. A convertible had pulled up to the pump directly opposite his, the driver having just gotten out. He was wearing a gray baseball cap and had his head down, and Conrad figured the large man was talking to him.
But then the large man came right up to Conrad and said, “Well? What you got to say for yourself?”
The driver in the baseball cap walked past them, his head still down, headed toward the store.
Conrad said, “Excuse me?”
“I was here first,” the man said. A large finger suddenly appeared an inch from Conrad’s face. “You cut in front of me.”
“I did?”
The man nodded, jabbed the finger a half-inch closer. “You’re fucking right you did. Now what are you going to do about it?”
Conrad knew exactly what he could do about it. He could pull out his Hunter’s badge and hold that in front of the man’s face. It would be a shock to the man of course—the man seeing him as no threat, a guy dressed in street clothes, driving a sedan with a bouquet of flowers on the passenger seat. The man no doubt figuring Conrad was just another citizen out for a Saturday afternoon drive and not someone who hunted down and killed zombies.
“Hey, asshole,” the man said. He was wearing mechanic’s clothes, some dried oil on the pants. “You deaf or something? You got five seconds to move your sorry ass or I’m gonna move it for you.”
So yeah, he could pull out his badge, show it to the man, watch the man quickly back down, apologize, probably offer to pay for his gas. He could then make the man do anything he wanted—kneel down and lick his shoes, make a fool of himself in front of everyone watching them now—but truthfully that had never been Conrad’s style.
“Five.”
He had no problem letting this man go first. He had an idea he could take him even without his Hunter’s badge—he was about this man’s size, after all—but the sight of the girl watching them made him pause.
“Four.”
Still, he wanted to give it a couple extra seconds, so he glanced around the pumps again, at the people watching, at the convertible parked on the other side of the pump. It made him think of the driver he’d at first mistaken as this man’s sudden rival, and he glanced toward the store where he’d last seen the man headed.
And watched just then as the very same driver jumped into a van and slammed the door shut.
“Three.”
Conrad glanced at the convertible, glanced back at the van now screeching away.
“Two,” the man said, curling both of his hands into fists.
Conrad said, “Get the fuck out of here.”
The man cocked his head and frowned, clearly surprised Conrad had said anything to him at all. But Conrad barely noticed this as he turned away, opened his door, climbed in and pulled his pistol out from the glove box. He was required to carry it but had never used it except at the shooting range, and now he was getting back out of the car—the large man holding up his hands, saying, “Don’t shoot, man, it was just a joke”—he was turning back toward the fuel station exit, where right this moment the van was headed.
He stepped around the car, got into a shooting position, aimed ... but the van was moving too fast, pulling onto the highway.
He turned back to the man, said, “Get your daughter out of here.” He stepped back, shouted, “Everyone, get out of here, now!”
Then he started running toward the highway, the gun in hand, and got only forty yards before the convertible exploded.
The blast was small but enough to knock him to the ground. He tried his best to hold on to the pistol but it skittered away. His hands scraped the macadam and tore off flesh. He rolled over and looked back at the pumps, saw the billowing cloud of smoke, his own car on fire and tilted on its side, a woman crawling away from the flames and screaming and screaming, though he couldn’t hear her—he couldn’t hear anything except a high-pitched whine—and didn’t know why. By then he was getting back up onto his feet, turning around and staggering forward, picking up the pistol, continuing on.
When he made it to the highway seconds later, the van was long gone. Something bumped the back of his legs and he spun around, his gun aimed. A car had screeched to a halt behind him, its driver honking, yelling at him to get out of the way. But Conrad still couldn’t hear anything and only watched as the man saw the gun and quickly held up his hands, his mouth now hanging open.
Conrad lowered the pistol, dropped his shoulders. He turned back toward the fuel station. That massive cloud of black smoke was still billowing toward the sky, cars were still on fire, the woman was still screaming and crawling away from the flames. His ears were still ringing but he was starting to hear a few things, namely the traffic on the highway, a car alarm blaring.
Flicking on the safety, he stuck the pistol in his pocket and hurried back toward the destruction.
Chapter 3
58 Orchid Lane was a modest two-story just like every other house in Dead Oak Estates, one of just a number of countless suburbs surrounding Olympus. When he pulled into his driveway at two o’clock that afternoon, he noticed Thomas mowing his lawn across the street.
He got out of the car—the new sedan he’d been given an hour ago, plastic still on the floor mats—and waved to Thomas. His old neighbor waved back, then held up a finger, turned off his mower, and started across the street. Conrad walked down the driveway to meet him.
The first thing Thomas said was, “I saw the news.”
“Yeah?”
“A zombie attack last night, and just five hours ago a bombing.” Thomas shook his head. “Those living extremists just don’t know when to stop.”
Around them dead birds sang, a dead dog barked, dead children cried out as they splashed around in a backyard swimming pool.
Thomas noticed the bandages on Conrad’s hands and frowned. Then he glanced at the new car. He stared at it a moment, his mouth starting to fall open, and Conrad quickly shook his head.
“Don’t say it.”
“But—”
“Yes, I was there. And yes, they were most likely trying for me. But I don’t want Denise to know.”
Thomas was in his early sixties. Like most men his age, the majority of his hair had fallen out, his skin was starting to peel, and it would only be another year or so until he expired completely. He had moved into the house across the street only a few months after Conrad and Denise had finally settled and got all of their things unpacked. He was a widower, his wife having expired the year before, and as it turned out he used to be a Hunter too. Thomas had actually been the first one to approach him about this. After a month or two, while Conrad was outside, Thomas came up and claimed that by just looking at him he could tell he was a Hunter. At first Conrad denied it, tried to play it off as a joke, but eventually Thomas got it out of him and they quickly became friends.
Now, looking worried, Thomas said, “How did they track you?”
“I don’t know. We’re still trying to figure that out.”
“But I thought you always watched out for tails.”
“I do. But I was still in the city when this happened.” Conrad shrugged, not sure what else to tell his neighbor, getting antsy because after everything he’d been through he just wanted to go inside and see his family.
Thomas glanced at the new car again, then at the bouquet of flowers in Conrad’s hand (a different bouquet, of course, the other having burned in the explosion), and he said, “You want to go inside and see your wife and son, I know. I’m sorry for talking to you like this.”
“That’s okay.”
“But I just ... I miss it, you know?”
“I know.”
“Just remember what I always tell you: anything you need, anything at all, don’t hesitate to ask.” Thomas smiled and started backing away, shooing Conrad toward the house. “Go. Go be with your family.”
Conrad found Kyle in the living room. His nine-year-old son was on the floor in front of the TV, a controller in his hands, playing the latest video game based on Conrad’s father. Henry the Hunter 6: Destruction, the game was called, and it was required for every child in the world to play at least two hours of this game each day. That was why the typical school day consisted of only five hours, so that the students had time to make it home to finish their studies.
The game was just like all the rest, an endless battle of Hunter versus thousands and thousands of zombies. All children played the part of Henry—even girls, though girls were forbidden to become Hunters per the Hunter Code—and with Henry’s famous broadsword in hand they would move through cities, towns, forests, deserts, severing the heads of every living thing they encountered.
At the moment Kyle was busy fighting an ax-wielding zombie. The zombie was massive—it looked like it weighed five hundred pounds, stood ten feet tall—and it kept swinging that gigantic ax. But Kyle didn’t back down. Using the controller he ducked the blows, moved forward, moved back, until the right opportunity presented itself and he swung his own broadsword. And there, just like that, the blade connected with that thick neck and the massive head slid off those massive shoulders. The gray images on the screen flickered, the word WINNER! appeared, and as the game began to tally up the points for this round, Kyle noticed his father standing in the doorway and quickly stood up.
“Sorry, Dad. I didn’t hear you come in.”
“That’s okay. How long have you been playing?”
“About an hour.”
“A lot of kills?”
“Yeah, a lot. How was the trip?”
“It was good.” Conrad looked around the living room, noticed his wife had once again rearranged the furniture. “But the flight was a long one. Eight hours.”
“That doesn’t sound fun at all.”
“Trust me, it wasn’t. Where’s your mom?”
“Kitchen, I think.” Kyle turned, yelled, “Mom, Dad’s home!” and then looked back at his father.
“I could have done that, you know.”
Kyle shrugged. “Did you see the news?”
“No, why?”
“Last night there was a zombie attack.”
“There was?”
“Yeah. And just a couple hours ago there was a bombing in the city.”
“Really?”
Kyle nodded, eager now, but before he could say anything else Denise appeared through the doorway from the dining room.
“Hi,” she said, smiling at Conrad.
“Hi.”
Kyle looked at his mother, at his father, at his mother again. “I’m guessing you two want to be alone.”
“That’s okay,” Conrad said. “We’ll go upstairs.”
Kyle sat back down on the floor, picked up the controller.
Denise walked across the living room to meet Conrad in the doorway. She hugged him, kissed him on the cheek, and said, “Long flight?”
Conrad nodded. “But guess what I brought you.”
“I have no idea.”
“Come on, guess.”
“Gee, I don’t know. Could it be flowers?”
Smiling, Conrad brought the bouquet of flowers he’d been hiding out from behind his back. Denise smiled her beautiful smile and took the flowers from him. “Believe it or not,” she said, “I already have an empty vase filled with water just waiting for me to put something in it.” Then she noticed the bandages on his hands—he’d been keeping both of them behind his back, so Kyle wouldn’t see—and looked up at him sharply.
Conrad made a show of yawning and said, “I’m ready for bed.”
Denise glanced back into the living room, made sure Kyle was absorbed in the game (the faint sounds of zombies screaming were now coming from the TV), before gently taking Conrad’s hand. She led him up the steps and down the hallway to the master bedroom. She closed the door behind them and immediately turned to face him.
“What happened?”
“Nothing major.” He looked around the bedroom, trying to spot anything up here that might have been rearranged. “At the kill last night I somehow tripped and fell on my hands, scraped them pretty badly.”
“But you wear gloves when you hunt.”
One thing about his wife: not much ever got past her.
“It’s nothing, okay?” He held up his hands, so she could see there really weren’t that many bandages. “They’ll be on for a day or two and come off and everything will be fine.”
She noticed his posture, the way he wouldn’t meet her eyes. “Is something wrong?”
“It’s just ... it’s been a long week.”
“I’m sure it has.”
She led him to the bed. Once seated, Conrad took off his shoes, started undoing his jeans. Denise helped him with his shirt. When he yawned again, she said, “You really are tired.”
“I’m exhausted.”
“Maybe I should tell you later.”
“Tell me what?”
She went to the bathroom, returned with the special lotion the doctor had prescribed. “How long do you plan to sleep?”
“A day or two.”
She smiled, opened the cap, and squirted some of the lotion onto her hand. “Here. Let me do your back.”
She climbed onto the bed behind him and started rubbing it into his skin. Next she did his arms, carefully worked around the bandages on his hands, told him to lie back down so she could do his legs.
“How are you feeling?”
“Tired.”
“You know what I mean. Has this lotion ... has it helped any?”
Five months ago Conrad had started losing his hair. Only a few strands here and there, but then he found some flakes of skin falling off too, and so they made an appointment with a doctor. Some tests were run and came back to show that there were no parasites in Conrad’s body. The doctor could not determine why Conrad’s hair and skin had begun falling out, but he ordered Conrad to use the recommended lotion that would help replenish his skin.
“I think it has.”
“Are you lying to me?”
“No.”
Denise finished up with his legs. She recapped the bottle, set it on the nightstand, and went to the windows to close the blinds. The midday sunlight winked out, first from the one window, then from the other, and she came back over and sat down on the edge of the bed.
“Ready for my news?”
His eyes were closed. He had begun drifting ever since she started rubbing the lotion into his skin. He hadn’t known she had any news, but he grunted a yes anyway.
“I’m pregnant.”
Conrad opened his eyes.
She smiled down at him. “With twins.”
Conrad pushed himself up into a sitting position. He was speechless. He reached out, touched her hand, her arm, her shoulder, her face. She continued smiling back at him, and with no words to say, none to express his surprise, his shock, his complete happiness, he leaned forward and pressed his dry and decayed lips against hers.
About the Author:
Robert Swartwood was born in 1981. His work has appeared in such places as The Los Angeles Review, The Daily Beast, ChiZine, Postscripts, Space and Time, and PANK. He is the editor of Hint Fiction: An Anthology of Stories in 25 Words or Fewer. Visit him at www.robertswartwood.com.