Not Flesh Nor Feathers

God, at that last second when the face—when you could see the little girl’s face—and you could see the anger there, and the rage, and the pure hatred . . . it took my breath away. It was hideous and exquisite. It was malicious death, and it was walking.

It was coming.

Terry kept talking, and the clip was rewound, repeated, replayed.

I forced myself to stop watching. I forced myself over to the other television, to watch a broadcast with a little bit of distance. Something not quite so close. Something not quite so personal.

But CNN had picked up the footage too, and I wondered suddenly if it was Nick’s footage. He’d told me about a man and a girl, and those were the figures I saw on the screen. He had a camera. He was a journalist. The clip might have been his. But if it was, why hadn’t he mentioned it?

Perhaps he didn’t know about it. He’d handed over the SUV, and with it, perhaps, the camera. I hadn’t seen him carrying it.

“Channel Three reporter Nick Alders . . .” Terry said his name. I wrenched my attention back to the other screen, but I missed whatever she was saying about him.

CNN had aerial footage of people running and swimming. There was looting, sure. Mostly young men, throwing bricks into windows. Then a few families at the Dollar General, where there were diapers and food. Here and there, with helpful graphic arrows and circles to place them, the national news also noted that something strange was coming up out of the water.

You looked at these things—half a dozen or more, at least, caught on tape—and you saw how they moved with that twisting, aggressive gait, and you thought of old movies. You thought of things in black and white, and monsters without a lot of dialogue. But you didn’t say the word. You didn’t say it, because if you did then other people would start to say it. It would spread faster and worse than wildfire. It would cause more panic than if you just said, “Unknown persons” even though you meant “Unknown things.”

But everyone in that room knew.

We glanced around, catching each other’s eyes and knowing in the worst possible way what was out there. It wasn’t here yet—not reaching out to us, not crawling up to the doors and beating with burned and rotted hands—but it was coming, and we needed to get out. But how?

CNN said, “Evacuation is being orchestrated by Homeland Security and FEMA, with helicopters and all-terrain vehicles as well as boats. Old train lines are running again and the transport cars are moving people instead of meat, lumber, and steel. At this point, authorities are concentrating on moving the displaced citizens to established evacuation points where they can be . . .,” the reporter tapped at her earpiece and continued, “Yes, they’re moving them into position to be shipped out of town and down to Atlanta—about a hundred and twenty miles away. And—and some are also being sent to Nashville, I understand.”

“Not Knoxville, though, I bet,” I said under my breath. The river goes right past it or through it, too. If we were having trouble, they were probably having troubles of their own. But I bet they didn’t have zombies.

“The Tennessee Valley Authority has not issued a formal statement except to say that they are aware of the problems at the Chickamauga Dam and that they are working at one hundred and ten percent to try to fix the issues that caused the locks to seize. The weather will be a determining factor in the repairs, but the National Weather Service is predicting more rain for the next two days, at least, so Mother Nature isn’t ready to cut the Tennessee Valley a break.”

“Why should she?” someone nearby grumbled.

I retreated from the edge of the crowd and pushed myself back against a wall, against a mirrored panel that fogged up with the warmth of my body and the damp that just wouldn’t leave my clothes or my hair. It was cold on my shoulders, but I didn’t care.

They’re coming!

I heard her plain as day, but I didn’t know where she was until I looked up at the mezzanine—and there she stood, hanging over the rail by one hand. She was shouting, not to me specifically, but to anyone who would listen. A little dog began to howl and a couple of babies started to cry; but for the most part she went unnoticed.

They’re coming! she said again. Jesus, can’t you hear them? Up from the river, under the city. Coming, coming, coming, on wet-burned feet.

“Caroline?” I called for her attention, and got it. “What do they want? Just tell us what they want!”

Nothing they can have.

“Then what’s the point?” I asked too loud, because then she was right beside me, closer than I would have liked. Her breath was ashes against my cheek.

Slow them. Stop them, maybe, for long enough. While you can—while they walk below, while they dig their way through the buried city.

“The underground?” I don’t know why I gave it a question mark. I knew exactly what she meant.

How long, do you think—before they emerge?

I thought of the battered little building with its open floor . . . not a block away, if that far. “But I thought they had to stay with the water? Isn’t that how this works, Caroline? They can only rise as far as the water?”

She rolled her eyes at me, then reached out hard and fast—slapping the mirror beside my head and breaking it. They’re dead. They’re not supposed to be able to do anything. I don’t know what binds or stops them. I don’t even know what binds or stops me.

On the floor a few feet away, I saw a small black boy with eyes turned to me as big as quarters. He’d seen the whole thing, bless his little heart. I held a finger up to my lips and winked at him, trying to make it light or funny. It halfway worked. He mustered up a halfway smile, but it didn’t go very far on his face.

“What are we going to do?” he whispered up at me.

“I don’t know,” I told him. “But I’ll think of something. I always do.”

I caught a glimpse of Nick’s reflection in the mirrored wall. I turned to surprise him before he could sneak up on me. “Let me ask you something,” I dove right in. “Say, hypothetically, we needed some explosives of some kind.”

“Say, hypothetically, that you’re out of your fucking mind.”

“Man, there are kids here. Knock it off.” I gave a parting nod to the kid on the floor and took Nick’s arm, leading him back into the hallway, towards the entrance to the parking garage.

“If the worst thing that happens to them today is that they hear a little bad language, they’ll be in ridiculously good shape.”

“Yeah, but. Look, the things that are coming—they need to come up and out, and I think I know where. They’re working their way up the underground, into the old tunnels beneath the city. I heard them coming, I swear to God. There’s a boarded up little place—I was there when we spoke on the phone yesterday—and they’re coming up from underneath it.”

“Not all of them, they aren’t. I saw them down by the water myself. People are still seeing them down there. They’re tearing through the things at the river’s edge—you know, the restaurants and stores, and the spots around the aquarium.”

“Okay. Sure. Some of them are coming up the long way. But some of them are coming up from underneath. We don’t know how many of these guys exist. You said what—half a dozen, documented? That’s not much of a horde.”

“Half a dozen caught on tape. Maybe twice that many actually spotted. It’s hard to tell at night.” He let the thought drop and picked it up again. “But now that the sun’s up, it’s better than the rain at night. Maybe we could go scouting and—”

“Let’s not resort to such drastic tactics yet, all right?”

“Drastic? Last night you wanted to storm the old newspaper building, if I recall correctly.”

“Not storm it, precisely,” I argued. “I merely noted it as a place of interest. It’s a spot we should check out if we can, because I think there’s something there. The ghosts were talking about it like it means something.”

He leaned around me and pushed against the glass door, which opened to let us outside. Even though the air was palpably damp, it was better than the closed up, recycled oxygen within the old hotel. It was better than breathing everyone else’s used-up air; and smelling the rain was better than smelling overdue diapers, sick people, and body odor.

I turned my face to the sky and let the drizzle hit me, because at least it was only drizzle.

“But you’ve said it yourself, the ghosts don’t always know what they’re talking about. People who are wrong when they’re alive are just as likely to be wrong when they’re dead.”

“True. But there seems to be a pretty good consensus among the early victims—they’re the ones I’m seeing, the skater kids and the homeless guys who went missing before anybody gave a shit. Speaking of which, have you seen Christ?”

We were back at approximately the spot we’d left him the night before, but there was no sign of him.

“Nope. Not since we left him here. Where do you think he went?”

“Heaven knows, but it might not care.” I turned myself in a circle and made a cursory glance at the street—occupied from curb to curb with parked cars, the sidewalks lined with people smoking, talking, or just taking a chance to smell something fresh.

“So he’s the one who set the apartment fire, huh? I guess you knew about that all along, didn’t you?” I heard an accusation there, even though it sounded like he was working to keep it in check.

I tried not to bristle. “All along? You mean, did I know he was going to do it and then somehow fail to report back to you about it?”

“No, that isn’t what I mean and you know it.”

“I knew he did it, but not until after the fact. I’d guessed he might have done it, and then he went ahead and confirmed it for me. He’s not much good at keeping secrets, in case you hadn’t noticed.”

“I noticed. But you didn’t feel compelled to report him to the cops or anything—why’s that?” ns class="adsbygoogle" style="display:block" data-ad-client="ca-pub-7451196230453695" data-ad-slot="9930101810" data-ad-format="auto" data-full-width-responsive="true">