The Resurrected Compendium Read online

  “Four days ago,” the man said.

  Kelsey shifted on the smooth leather and found her voice. “What about it?”

  He waved a hand toward the radio. “That show. Four days ago. Didn’t happen, I mean, they didn’t go on, they didn’t even cancel officially or anything, they won’t have to refund the tickets. But four days ago, that band was supposed to play, and I was supposed to take my daughter. She’s crazy about the lead singer.”

  Kelsey had no response, and he seemed to expect none. They drove on, listening to the music and the DJ’s patter. Everything was old, she realized. It wasn’t a live broadcast.

  “Because they’re all dead,” she said aloud.

  The man’s gaze flicked toward her, then back to the road as though he were afraid if he looked away he’d somehow lose control even though he still drove no more than fifteen or twenty miles an hour. “We’re all dead.”

  “I’m not dead.”

  “We are all dead,” he repeated. “Every last fucking one of us. Some of us are up and walking, that’s all.”

  Kelsey was silent for a minute or so, watching the world crawl by outside. “I’m hungry.”

  The man said nothing. She closed her eyes and let her head fall against the glass again. Her foot ached and throbbed, but so long as she didn’t move it, she could almost pretend it was okay. She listened to the sound of the engine and the cold air whooshing from the vents and the crunch and grit of the tires on the road. She wanted to sleep, but couldn’t quite manage. And slowly, slowly, the car drifted to a stop.

  Kelsey opened her eyes, already knowing what she’d see. She sat up higher in her seat, glad she hadn’t bothered with the seatbelt. The man hadn’t put the car in Park, he simply let his foot slide off the gas. He still held the wheel, but his head had fallen forward against it. His shoulders heaved. She thought he was crying, but in another minute knew the choked sounds were laughter.

  “We are all dead.” He laughed louder. “All of us dead. We are all dead.”

  He turned to her, his eyes wide. Nostrils flaring. His mouth had cracked in the corners, oozing blood. His tongue, thick and coated black, crept out to stroke along his lips.

  And then, yawning, he tipped back his head. He choked and screamed with terrible hilarity as the stuff exploded out of him. He shook with the force of it. He turned to her, his eyes wide and blue and stunned, his mouth split so wide she could see the glimpse of his jawbone. He lurched toward her, grappling. His teeth snapped a hair’s breadth from her nose.

  Her fingers found the pen in his pocket. Mont Blanc, heavy and expensive, the sort of pen Kelsey had promised herself when she got her next promotion. He was choking on his own blood and scrabbling at the hole in his throat half a minute later. When she stabbed his eyes, one tried to come out stuck to the end of the pen but was pulled back by the taut bundle of optic nerves. She carved a slash through his cheeks, then across his forehead while he howled and slapped at her with crooked fingers. Then she shoved the pen straight up his nose, and his one good eye rolled backward into his head. His feet thumped, dancing, but his fingers went limp. She pushed him, hard, and he flew back against the driver’s side window hard enough to star the glass with the back of his head.

  “Fuck you,” Kelsey said. “I’m not dead.”

  29

  Dennis had plenty of food, but he still lined up the sight and let his finger stroke lightly on the trigger. He wasn’t that fond of squirrel, the meat too gamey and too much work to get off the bone for his taste, but beggars couldn’t choose the horses they’d ride, right? Something like that, anyway. The food, even the stuff in cans and boxes, wouldn’t last forever. Best he get used to fending for himself now rather than later.

  He didn’t shoot the squirrel. The shotgun would cut the thing in half, splatter most of it in a spray of blood and bone. There’d be nothing left to eat. Still, he could’ve shot it if he wanted to. He knew it. Instead, he eased his finger from the trigger with a whispered “pow,” and lowered the gun. Best to save the ammunition, though for now he had plenty of that too.

  But he wouldn’t always.

  Dennis had never been a Boy Scout, there hadn’t been time or money for that. No dad to take him to the meetings. But he did believe in the importance of always being prepared. You couldn’t argue with that, and anyone who did was a fool who deserved to end up hungry and cold. Dennis couldn’t say as he thought you’d deserve to end up getting your face ate off by the little girl from next door, but then again, when you were ready to tackle any situation you probably would be able to fend off a rabid toddler with a sudden taste for human flesh.

  Everything was falling apart, and Dennis didn’t like that. A world without fast food burgers and cable television seemed like a sad place to him. But he wasn’t surprised, because he was prepared. He’d been prepared his whole life, thanks to his mother, who’d raised him on a steady diet of conspiracy theories and tin-foil caps. She’d honed him with late-night drills and hours of survival instruction, preparing him for everything from alien invasion to walking corpses.

  He’d moved out from mom’s house when he was old enough to go away to college. Not that he’d gone, of course. Dennis had graduated from regular high school instead of being home schooled only because he’d convinced her the best way to learn how to protect himself was to be exposed to every possible sort of danger, which included mingling with possible clones, androids and pod people. Considering the types of kids Dennis had gone to school with, he wasn’t actually convinced none of them had been sprouted from pods. Especially the girls, who to a one seemed to him to be no more than an extension of some greater, mysterious being. Like the fingers on a hand, all of them mostly alike with their hair, their clothes, the giggle-gabble of their voices, the trailing laughter that followed him down the hall. Fingers curled to punch.

  Mom hadn’t wanted him to leave. They’d fallen out over it. She’d accused him of succumbing to the pressure of an alien implant. Of letting the men in black pay him off. He hadn’t fought with her over any of it — there was no convincing her of anything beyond what she was certain she already knew.

  He’d moved into a small apartment downtown, over the hardware store, close enough to his job at the local burger joint that he could walk. Small enough he didn’t have to spend a lot to furnish it, with windows in the front and back so he could always watch for an invasion. When the time came and the news shows left off talking about the weird tornados and started reporting about riots and soldiers and the government taking over, he’d done just what Mom had taught him to do, and secured all the entrances. He hadn’t bothered calling off work; even if the world didn’t end he was sure he could always get another job grilling kangaroo-meat patties. Maybe even one that didn’t require a paper cap.

  Dennis had an arsenal under his bed and enough dried rations to last for months. He’d been a little lax in storing water, so he filled the tub as well as several jugs. Then, he waited. And he watched.

  The back-and-forth scurrying of his neighbors amused more than scared him. Downtown saw more action in those few days than any other time except at the annual Punkinfest, but this time instead of costumed kiddies begging for candy and drunk high school students looking to hook up, the streets filled with people frantically trying to get out of town. More than three cars at the light caused gridlock. Dennis watched a fistfight break out between his high school gym teacher Mr. Porter and Mrs. Beasley, the lady who played the organ in the local church. Mrs. Beasley won when she kneed Porter in the nuts and then kicked him in the face.

  That had been a week ago. Dennis hadn’t left his apartment, not even when the fire department came through banging on doors and shouting for the entire building to evacuate. Now he sat at his front window, looking across the street at the park and aiming at the squirrels who’d taken over. At some point, maybe sooner than he wanted, he’d be forced to chow down on squirrel surprise. But for now, he was okay.

  He looked down at the body of a man w