The Walking Dead Collection Read online

  Philip doesn’t say anything for quite a long time. No one does.

  The immense corpse lies still, there on the wet ground, for endless minutes … until something stirs in the man’s extremities, in the tendons of his massive legs, and in the tips of his plump fingers.

  At first, the phenomenon looks like the typical residual nerve twitches that morticians might see now and again, the dieseling engine of a cadaver’s central nervous system. But as Nick and Brian gape, their eyes widening—both of them slowly rising, then slowly beginning to back away—Philip comes closer still, kneeling down, a sullen businesslike expression on his face.

  Bobby Marsh’s eyes open.

  The pupils have turned as white as pus.

  Philip grabs the nail gun and presses it to the big man’s forehead just above the left eyebrow.

  FFFFFFFFUMP!

  * * *

  Hours later. Inside the house. After dark. Penny asleep. Nick in the kitchen, drowning his grief in whiskey … Brian nowhere to be found … Bobby’s cooling corpse in the backyard, covered in a tarp next to the other bodies … and Philip now standing at the living room window, gazing out through the slatted shutters at the growing number of dark figures on the street. They shuffle like sleepwalkers, moving back and forth behind the barricade. There are more of them now. Thirty, maybe. Forty even.

  Streetlights shine through the cracks in the fence, the moving shadows breaking the beams at irregular intervals, making the light strobe, making Philip crazy. He hears the silent voice in his head—the same voice that first made itself known after Sarah had died: Burn the place down, burn the whole fucking world down.

  For a moment earlier that day, after Bobby had died, the voice had wanted to mutilate the twelve-year-old’s body. The voice had wanted to take that dead thing apart. But Philip tamped it down, and now he’s fighting it again: The fuse is lit, brother, the clock is ticking …

  Philip looks away from the window, and he rubs his tired eyes.

  “It’s okay to let it out,” a different voice says now, coming from across the darkness.

  Philip whirls and sees the silhouette of his brother across the living room, standing in the archway of the kitchen.

  Turning back to the window, Philip offers no response. Brian comes over. He’s holding a bottle of cough syrup in his trembling hands. In the darkness his feverish eyes shimmer with tears. He stands there for a moment.

  Then he says in low, soft voice, careful not to awaken Penny on the couch next to them, “There’s no shame in letting it out.”

  “Letting what out?”

  “Look,” Brian says, “I know you’re hurting.” He sniffs, wipes his mouth on his sleeve, his voice hoarse and congested. “All I wanted to say is, I’m really sorry about Bobby, I know you guys were—”

  “It’s done.”

  “Philip, c’mon—”

  “This place is done, it’s cooked.”

  Brian looks at him. “What do you mean?”

  “We’re getting out of here.”

  “But I thought—”

  “Take a look.” Philip indicates the growing number of shadows out on Green Briar Lane. “We’re drawing ’em like flies on shit.”

  “Yeah, but the barricade is still—”

  “The longer we stay here, Brian, the more it’s gonna get like a prison.” Philip stares out the window. “Gotta keep moving forward.”

  “When?”

  “Soon.”

  “Like tomorrow?”

  “We’ll start packin’ in the morning, get as many supplies in the Suburban as we can.”

  Silence.

  Brian looks at his brother. “You okay?”

  “Yeah.” Philip keeps staring. “Go to sleep.”

  * * *

  At breakfast, Philip decides to tell his daughter that Bobby had to up and go home—“to go take care of his folks”—and the explanation seems to satisfy the little girl.

  Later that morning, Nick and Philip dig the grave out back, choosing a soft spot at the end of the garden, while Brian keeps Penny occupied in the house. Brian thinks they should tell Penny some version of what happened, but Philip tells Brian to stay the hell out of it and keep his mouth shut.

  Now, in front of the rose trellis in the backyard, Philip and Nick lift the massive tarp-wrapped body and lower it into the hollowed-out earth.

  It takes them quite a while to get the hole filled back up, each man tossing spade after spade of rich, black Georgia topsoil on their friend. While they work, the atonal moaning of the undead drifts on the wind.

  It’s another blustery, overcast day, and the sounds of the zombie horde carry up across the sky and over the tops of houses. It drives Philip nuts as he sweats in his denims, heaving dirt on the grave. The oily, black, rotten-meat odor is as strong as ever. It makes Philip’s stomach clench as he puts the last few shovelfuls of earth on the grave.

  Now Philip and Nick pause on opposite sides of the huge mound, leaning on their shovels, the sweat cooling on their necks. Neither says a word for a long moment, each man lost in his thoughts. Finally, Nick looks up, and very softly, very wearily, and with great deference, says, “You want to say something?”

  Philip looks across the grave at his buddy. The moaning noises are coming from all directions like the roar of locusts, so loud Philip can barely think straight.

  Right then, for some strange reason, Philip Blake remembers the night that the three friends got drunk and sneaked into the Starliter Drive-In Theater out on Waverly Road and broke into the projection booth. Waving his fat little fingers in front of the projector, Bobby had made shadow puppets appear on the distant screen. Philip had laughed so hard that night he thought he was going to puke, watching the silhouettes of rabbits and ducks cavorting across the flickering images of Chuck Norris spin-kicking Nazis.

  “Some folks thought Bobby Marsh was a simpleton,” Philip says with his head lowered, his gaze down-turned, “but they didn’t know the man. He was loyal and he was funny, and he was a goddamn good friend … and he died like a man.”

  Nick is looking down, his shoulders trembling slightly, his voice breaking, his words barely audible over the rising clamor around them: “Almighty God, in your mercy turn the darkness of death into the dawn of new life, and the sorrow of parting into the joy of heaven.”

  Philip feels tears welling up and he grits his teeth so hard his jaw throbs.

  “Through our Savior, Jesus Christ,” Nick says in a shaky voice, “who died, rose again, and lives for evermore. Amen.”

  “Amen,” Philip manages in a faint croak that sounds almost alien to his own ears.

  The relentless din of the undead swells and surges louder and louder.

  “SHUT THE FUCK UP!” Philip Blake bellows at the zombies, the noises coming from all directions now. “YOU DEAD MOTHERFUCKERS!” Philip turns away from the grave, slowly pivoting: “I WILL SKULL-FUCK EVERY ONE OF YOU CANNIBAL-COCKSUCKERS!!! I WILL RIP EVERY STINKING HEAD OFF EVERY FUCKING ONE OF YOU AND SHIT DOWN YOUR ROTTEN FUCKING NECKS!!!”

  Hearing this, Nick starts sobbing as Philip runs out of gas and falls to his knees.

  While Nick cries, Philip just stares down at the fresh dirt as though some answer lies there.

  * * *

  If there was ever any doubt about who was in charge—not that there ever was—it is now made abundantly clear that Philip is the alpha and omega.

  They spend the rest of that day packing, Philip issuing orders in monosyllables, his voice low and gravelly with stress. “Take the toolbox,” he grunts. “Batteries for the flashlights,” he mumbles. “And that box of shells,” he mutters. “Extra blankets, too.”

  Nick thinks that maybe they should consider taking two cars.

  Although most of the abandoned vehicles in the community are ripe for the picking—many of them late-model luxury jobs, many with the keys still in them—Brian worries about splitting the ragged little group into two. Or maybe he’s just clinging to his brother now. Maybe Brian
just needs to stay close to the center of gravity.

  They decide to stick with the Chevy Suburban. The thing is a tank.

  Which is exactly what they’ll need to get into Atlanta.

  * * *

  His stubborn cold now settling into his lungs, causing a perpetual wheeze that may or may not be early-stage pneumonia, Brian Blake focuses on the task at hand. He packs three large coolers with food stamped with the furthest expiration dates: smoked lunch meats, hard cheeses, sealed containers of juice and yogurt and soda and mayonnaise. He fills a cardboard box with bread and beef jerky and instant coffee and bottled water and protein bars and vitamins and paper plates and plastic utensils. He decides to throw in an array of chef’s knives: cleavers, serrated knives, and boning knives—for whatever close encounters they might stumble into.

  Brian fills another box with toilet paper and soap and towels and rags. He rifles through the medicine cabinets and takes cold remedies and sleeping pills and pain relievers, and while he’s doing this, he gets an idea: something he should do before they depart.

  In the basement, Brian finds a small can half full of Benjamin Moore Apple Peel Red and a two-inch horsehair paintbrush. He finds an old three-by-three-foot-square piece of plywood, and quickly but carefully, he writes a message: five simple words in big capital letters, large enough to be seen from a passing vehicle. He nails a couple of short legs on the bottom edge of the sign.

  Then he takes the sign upstairs and shows it to his brother. “I think we should leave this outside the gate,” Brian says to Philip.

  Philip just shrugs and tells Brian it’s up to him, whatever he wants to do.

  * * *

  They wait until after dark to make their exit. At the stroke of 7 P.M.—with the cold, metallic sun drooping behind the rooftops—they hurriedly pack the Suburban. Working quickly in the lengthening shadows, while monsters swarm against the barricade, they form a sort of bucket brigade, quickly passing suitcases and containers from the side door of the house to the open hatch of the SUV.

  They take their original axes with an assortment of additional picks and shovels and hatchets and saws and cutting blades from the toolshed out back. They bring rope and wire and road flares and extra coats and snow boots and fire-starter blocks. They also pack a siphoning tube and as many extra plastic tanks of gasoline as they can fit into the rear storage well.

  The Suburban’s tank is currently full—Philip managed to siphon fifteen gallons’ worth earlier in the day from an abandoned sedan in a neighbor’s garage—as they have no clue about the status of local gas stations.

  Over the last four days, Philip had discovered a variety of sporting guns in neighboring homes. Rich folks love their duck season in these parts. They love picking off green heads from the luxury of their heated blinds with their high-powered rifles and purebred hounds.

  Philip’s old man used to do it the hard way, with nothing but waders, moonshine, and a mean disposition.

  Now Philip chooses three guns to stow in vinyl zip-up bags in the rear compartment—one is a .22-caliber Winchester rimfire, and the other two are Marlin Model 55 shotguns. The Marlins are especially useful. They’re known as “goose guns.” Fast and accurate and powerful, the 55s are designed for killing migratory fowl at high altitudes … or, in this case, the bull’s-eye of a skull at a hundred-plus yards.

  * * *

  It’s almost eight o’clock by the time they get the Suburban packed, and get Penny situated in the middle seat. Bundled in a down coat with her stuffed penguin at her side, she seems oddly sanguine, her pale face drawn and languid, as though she were about to visit the pediatrician.

  Doors click open and shut. Philip climbs behind the wheel. Nick takes the front passenger seat, and Brian settles in next to Penny in the middle. The sign sits on the floor, pressed against Brian’s knees.

  The ignition fires. The growl of the engine carries across the still darkness, making the undead stir on the other side of the barricade.

  “Let’s do this quick, y’all,” Philip says under his breath, slamming it into reverse. “Hold on.”

  Philip puts the pedal to the floor, and the four-wheel drive digs in.

  The gravitational force throws everyone forward as the Suburban roars backward.

  In the rearview mirror, the weak spot in the makeshift barricade looms closer and closer until … BANG! The vehicle bursts through the cedar planking and into the dim streetlight of Green Briar Lane.

  Immediately, the left rear quarter panel collides with a walking corpse as Philip stands on the brakes and jacks it into drive. The zombie launches twenty feet into the air behind them, doing a limp pirouette in a mist of blood, a piece of its moldering arm detaching and pinwheeling in the opposite direction.

  The Suburban blasts off toward the main conduit, smashing through three more zombies, sending them flinging off into oblivion. With each impact, the dull thumping sensations traveling through the chassis—as well as the yellowish buglike smears left on the windshield—make Penny cringe and close her eyes.

  At the end of the street, Philip yanks the wheel and screeches around the corner, then pushes north toward the entrance.

  A few minutes later Philip barks another order: “Okay, do it quick—and I mean QUICK!”

  He slams down on the brakes, making everybody lurch forward in their seats again. They’ve just reached the great entrance gate, visible in a cone of streetlight across a short expanse of shrub-lined gravel.

  “This’ll just take a second,” Brian says, grabbing the sign, clicking his door handle. “Leave it running.”

  “Just get it done.”

  Brian slips out of the car, carrying the big three-by-three sign.

  In the cold night air, he hastens across the gravel threshold, his ears hyperalert and sensitive to the distant thrum of groaning noises: They’re coming this way.

  Brian chooses a spot just to the right of the entrance gate, a section of brick wall unobstructed by shrubbery, and he positions the sign against the wall.

  He sinks the wooden legs into the soft earth to stabilize the board, and then hurries back to the car, satisfied he’s done his part for humanity, or whatever is left of it.

  As they drive off, each and every one of them—even Penny—glances back through the rear window at the little square sign receding into the distance behind them:

  ALL DEAD

  DO NOT

  ENTER

  FIVE

  They head west, slowly, through the rural darkness, keeping their speed down around thirty miles per hour. The four lanes of Interstate 20 are littered with abandoned cars, as the macadam snakes toward the sickly pink glow of the western horizon, where the city awaits like a bruise of light on the night sky. They are forced to weave through the obstacle course of wrecks with agonizing slowness, but they manage to put nearly five miles behind them before things start going wrong.

  For most of these five miles, Philip keeps thinking of Bobby and all the things they could have done to save him. The pain and regret are burrowing deep down in the pit of Philip’s gut, a cancer metastasizing into something darker and more poisonous than grief. In order to fight the emotions he keeps thinking of that old trucker’s adage: Scan don’t stare. Gripping the wheel with the practiced clench of a longtime hauler, he sits forward in his seat, his gaze alert and fixed on the margins of the highway.

  For five miles only a handful of dead brush the ghostly edges of their headlights.

  Just outside of Conyers they pass a couple stragglers shuffling along the shoulder of the road like blood-spattered AWOL soldiers. Passing the Stonecrest Mall they see a cluster of dark figures hunkered down in a ditch, apparently feasting on some sort of roadkill, either animal or human, impossible to tell in the flickering darkness. But that has been the extent of it—for five miles, at least—and Philip keeps his speed at a steady (but safe) thirty miles per hour. Any slower and they risk hooking a stray monster; any faster and they risk sideswiping the growing number of
wrecks and abandoned vehicles cluttering the lanes.

  The radio is dead, and the others ride in silence, their gazes glued to the passing landscape.

  The outer rings of metro Atlanta roll past them in slow motion, a series of pine forests broken by an occasional bedroom community or strip mall. They pass car dealerships as dark as morgues, the endless ocean of new models like coffins reflecting the milky moonlight. They pass deserted Waffle Houses, their windows busted out like open sores, and office parks as barren as war zones. They pass Shoney’s, and trailer parks, and Kmarts, and RV Centers, each one more desolate and ruined than the last. Small fires burn here and there. Parking lots look like the dark playrooms of mad children, the abandoned cars strewn across the pavement like toys thrown in anger. Broken glass glitters everywhere.

  In less than a week and a half, the plague has apparently savaged the outer exurbs of Atlanta. Here, in the rural nature preserves and office campuses, where middle-class families have emigrated over the years to escape the arduous commutes, backbreaking mortgages, and high-stress urban life, the epidemic has laid waste to the social order in a matter of days. And for some reason, it’s the sight of all the devastated churches that bothers Philip the most.

  Each sanctuary they pass is in a progressively worse state: The New Birth Missionary Baptist Center outside of Harmon is still smoldering from a recent fire, its charred ruin of a cross rising against the heavens. A mile and a half down the road the Luther Rice Seminary features hastily hand-scrawled signs over its portals warning passers-by that the end is nigh and the rapture is here and all you sinners can kiss your asses good-bye. The Unity Faith Christian Cathedral looks as though it’s been ransacked and scoured clean and then pissed upon. The parking lot at the St. John the Revelator Pentecostal Palace resembles a battlefield littered with bodies, many of the corpses still moving with the telltale, somnambulant hunger of the undead. What kind of God would let this happen? And while we’re on the subject: What kind of God would let a simple, innocent good old boy like Bobby Marsh die in such a way? What kind of—

  “Oh shit!”