Season of Rot

Prologue

“Run!” Mark shouted.

Brent’s legs pumped as he raced to catch up to the train and Mark’s outstretched hand. He could hear the growls of the dead behind him, but he didn’t dare glance over his shoulder to see how close they were. Instead he poured everything he had into a final burst of speed. Mark grabbed him and pulled him onto the train.

Brent collapsed, struggling for breath as Mark, standing above him, opened up on their pursuers with his Winchester. He picked off the closest ones, his rifle spitting out spent casings.

The train gained speed and the dead fell farther and farther behind.

“Sweet Lord,” Brent blurted out. “That was too close.”

Mark laughed, propping his weapon against the inner railing of the car. “It’s what you get for volunteering for this job.”

“Maybe,” Brent replied. “But that doesn’t mean I have to like it.”

He got to his feet and dusted himself off. “Damn. The dead aren’t supposed to be this close to the border yet. No one knew they’d overrun Bloomington already. Last time we sent out a recon party, they were two towns over.”

Mark nodded. “They’re coming. There’s no stopping them. I don’t care what anyone says—it’s only a matter of time until they make it to the East. Ain’t nothing gonna stop them. Not even the river.”

“Well, we ain’t goin’ down like those cavalry boys did. We’ll hold the line. We’ve got to.”

“You’re lying to yourself boy. The West belongs to those things now. We can’t guard the whole Mississippi River. Soon enough the dead will be across it and in the cities too.”

“How can you believe that?” Brent asked.

“Simple. I believe in God. This is the End Times. It’s gotta be. Hell on Earth and all that comes with it, boy. I’ve made my peace. Hope you’ve made your peace with Him too.”

Suddenly, Mark and Brent were tossed about as the train’s brakes began to squeal. They clutched the car’s rails, trying their best not to tumble off onto the tracks.

“What the hell?” Mark screamed as the train stopped. They could hear shouting from the steam engine.

Mark grabbed his rifle, which by some miracle hadn’t been lost on the tracks, then he and Brent hopped off the car and went to see what was happening. Several other soldiers from the train’s small contingent were standing around, cursing. A massive tree blocked the railway. It would take too long to remove the trunk and branches from the tracks.

Mark motioned for Brent, and the two approached Captain Stephenson, who stood among the men inspecting the tree.

“Are we running or standing?” Mark asked.

Stephenson whirled on them. “Soldier, you better watch your mouth or you’ll be dead before those rotting bastards ever get here.”

“Yes, sir,” Mark said, grinding his teeth. “But you didn’t answer my question.”

This was Stephenson’s first command behind the quarantine line. He was sweating under the pressure, forced with only two choices that were pretty much suicide. Finally, he looked Mark in the eye. “We’re standin’! I think it’s time we gave the dead back some of the hell they’ve given us.”

Stephenson addressed the thirty-five men standing around him. “Get the Gatling set up on the rear car. Make sure the damn gunner is somebody who’s used one before. Everybody else, load up with as much ammo as you can in your pockets and form a defensive firing line flanking that car. Let’s show those monsters the US Army won’t go down easy!”

Everyone took up their positions as extra guns were loaded and placed within easy reach. Mark manned the Gatling in the center of the line, and Brent, hunched on the dirt with his rifle aimed at the horizon, found himself missing the company of the gruff and burly old-timer.

The dead came into view. Hundreds of them stampeding towards the train and its small cluster of defenders.

“Hold you fire!” Mark shouted.

Stephenson shot him a glare but knew it was an order that needed to be given. “Aim for their heads!” he added reluctantly, giving a nod in Mark’s direction.

As soon as the dead entered firing range, the Gatling gun started blazing, tearing into the middle of their ranks. Everyone else tried to pick their shots more carefully, making sure the ones they aimed for wouldn’t be getting back up.

Not even the spinning barrels of the Gatling could slow the dead’s charge. They trampled the bodies of the fallen until they slammed into the defensive line without mercy. The line broke, half of the soldiers knocked to the ground under the gnashing teeth of the dead. A few tried to fight but died instantly as the dead overwhelmed them.

Grasping, eager hands yanked Mark off the car from behind the Gatling, and the old man disappeared in the sea of the dead.

Brent ran, tossing his empty rifle aside and jerking his Colt free from the holster on his belt. His feet crunched gravel as he darted down the length of the train. When he reached the fallen tree he knew there was no way in hell he could jump it. So he veered to the right and took off into the woods, with more than a dozen of dead giving chase.

Sweat rolled off his face and skin. In desperation, he hopped onto a tall tree and started to climb. Cold hands closed on his legs and ankles, and a set of yellow teeth cut through his uniform and into his thigh.

“God, forgive me,” Brent pleaded as he pressed the Colt to the side of his head. He pulled the trigger, and his limp form fell into the waiting mob below.

One

Grant looked up from the article he was composing as Edgar entered the room. He knew from the smirk on Edgar’s face whatever news the man was about to share would be bad. Though they’d worked together at Harper’s throughout the end of the Civil War, they’d never gotten along.

Edgar pulled out a chair and took a seat across from Grant without asking if he was intruding.

Grant met Edgar’s eyes as the man stared at him. “May I help you?”

“I just wanted to tell you personally you’re being reassigned. The paper needs someone out in the field to cover the new war raging in the West from the frontlines and—”

“This isn’t a war,” Grant interjected. “Men aren’t killing men. It’s a plague. They’re just quarantining off half the bloody country to contain it.”

Edgar cleared his throat. “Call it whatever you want, Grant, but to the paper and the government it’s a war. The plague that’s ravaged the frontier is working its way here, and if the army can’t stop it then God help us all.” Edgar reclined in his chair, tipping it off the floor. “Almost the entire army is stationed along the length of the Mississippi River, trying to hold the border between us and the dead. Good men are dying out there every day. To me, that’s a war too.”

“What do you want from me, Edgar? Did you just want to see how I would react when you told me I was going?”

Edgar ignored him. “The 112th regiment is about to make a push westward to see how bad things really are on the other side, and to exterminate as many of those things as they can. I want you to go with them. As I said, we need someone out there so that people here can know what’s happening in the West. You’ve been in the field before. Hell, if I recall correctly, you claim you actually fought in some of the battles you covered near the end of the last war.”

“Not by choice,” Grant muttered.

“Go home and pack your bags. You’ll be leaving first thing in the morning to meet up with the 112th and the main force of the push west. I’ll have all the papers you’ll need ready by then.”

“Yes, sir,” Grant answered coldly.

Edgar got up and vanished into the halls of Harper’s, leaving Grant in peace.

He sat still for a moment, letting his new assignment sink in. If even half of the reports over the past few months were true, he was heading into Hell itself. The dead owned the West now. Allegedly, some tribes of Indians still held out against them, but those stories were unconfirmed and off the record. The paper didn’t want people believing that savages could outlast civilized man, because without a doubt the western states were lost. The plague had swept through them like wildfire on a prairie, turning everyone who contracted it into a walking corpse intent only on devouring the living and spreading the plague.

Many people believed this was the End of Days as described in the Bible. New churches opened their doors here in the East every day, and revivals seemed a nonstop occurrence. Grant was not a religious man and the whole mess stunk of desperation, but even he had to admit this was like nothing the human race had ever faced in all of recorded history.

He pushed his chair back from his desk and walked over to collect his coat from the hook by the door. If there was any real hope left to be found, he would find it. If nothing else, his readers deserved the truth; he could at least give them that.

Five days later Grant arrived in Franklin. The 112th had beaten him there and were already well prepared for the East’s first major counteroffensive against the plague. The plan, if it could be called that, was simply to cross the Mississippi, push as far west as possible and kill everything they came across, then fall back to reinforce the border until another offensive could be launched. The military command knew the dead didn’t breed. They wanted to thin out their numbers and, step by step, expand the border westward until they reached the Pacific, making the US whole once more.

The 112th was just one of many regiments sent across the river at various points, but it was newly formed and composed of mainly green troops who’d never seen combat. Grant wondered if Edgar had assigned him to that particular regiment because they were the least likely to make it back.

He shook the dark thoughts from his head as he marched up the steps of the town’s administrative building, headed to report in to the regiment’s commanding officer, General Peter Alves. Alves had the reputation of being a hard ass who got things done, a competent leader despite his personality and lack of social skills. He’d climbed the ranks quickly, but always seemed to end up with the worst or most dangerous missions on his plate.

As soon as Grant walked in, a young man dressed in an aide’s uniform rushed to meet him. “Mr. Grant?” he asked, outstretching his hand.

“Yes.” Grant shook with him. “How did you know?”

“You were expected, sir. Besides, you sure ain’t from around here. No one here wears clothes as fancy as yours. You just had to be from New York, sir.”

Grant laughed. “I’m here to report in to General Alves.”

“I know, sir. The general’s busy though. I’m sorry. However, he did leave orders as to where you’re being accommodated.”

“Accommodated?”

“Sorry, sir. I mean as to which platoon you’ll be traveling with.”

Grant felt his stomach turn. The general was putting him off in more ways than one. “You mean I won’t be traveling with the general himself?”

“No. Let’s see… You’re being placed under the care of Sergeant Robert Hank. He’s a veteran, sir. The general said he’d be more than able to not only ensure your safety while you’re with us, but also be able to show you what it’s really like to be fighting the dead.”

“Wonderful.” Grant faked a smile. Things just kept getting better and better. “Where can I find this Sergeant Hank?”

“He and his men are in the barracks just across town. Do you want me to escort you there?”

“No,” Grant said, and he turned and walked out of the building. He was just about done being cast aside, and he was having a tough time holding his anger in check. Surely, he figured, things couldn’t get any worse.

The dead thing raised its head to look at the surrounding soldiers, straining against the ropes that held it to the post in the middle of the training field.

“Fire!” Hank ordered.

A chorus of rifle cracks erupted as Winchesters spat empty shell casings and soldiers pumped fresh rounds into their chambers. When the cacophony ended, the dead thing still twitched and rolled its head back and forth, emitting a low, hoarse moan.

Hank spun to face the dozen new recruits who’d just riddled the thing’s body with holes. “What the hell’s the problem here?” he asked, screaming in the face of the closest private. “I ordered you men to kill that thing! Why isn’t it dead?”

No one answered.

“You want to know why?” Hank drew his revolver and put a bullet into the dead thing’s forehead. Its body slumped, limp against the post. “You didn’t shoot the damn thing in the head!” Hank pointed across the river at the other shore, far off in the distance. “And when you’re over there, if you don’t shoot for the head you won’t just be wasting ammo and my time, you’ll be dead just like it.”

Hank lowered his voice. “A headshot is the only way to take one of those things down and make sure it stays that way.” He cut his normal sermon short as a man in an expensive suit approached the training area. “All of you back here in an hour. We’ll try this shit again then. Dismissed!”

The privates scattered in fear of their sergeant’s rage, and the man in the suit clapped. “Commendable speech,” he said, not offering to shake hands. “I’m Jacob Grant from Harper’s; I was told you’d be taking care of me when we go across.”

“You’re going to have to take care of yourself, mister. These greenhorns ain’t worth a load of cow dung yet. It’ll be all I can do to take care of myself.”

“Nonetheless, I suppose I’m going to be a part of your platoon now, according to General Alves.” Grant’s eyes came to rest on the corpse tied to the post; it looked as if it had been rotting for days. “My God… That thing really took a dozen rounds and was still alive?”

“No, it wasn’t alive. But it was still hungry. They’ll keep coming at you as long as they can move.”

“But it’s dead now?”

“Dead as a doornail. Destroy their brain and they’re restin’ peaceful again like God intended.”

Grant kept staring at the corpse.

“Relax,” Hank assured him. “The only way you can get the plague is if one of them bites you or scratches you up pretty good.” He looked Grant up and down. “You sure you’re up for this, newsboy?”

“Somebody has to be. People have a right to know the truth about all this. Maybe then we can make sense of it all.”

Hank laughed. “Right.” He realized he was still holding his revolver and tucked it into the holster on his belt. “We ship out at first light, newsboy. I imagine you’ve already been on the road a while, so I suggest you try to get some rest. There may not be any for a long time once we get started. I’ll show you where you can bed down.”

The two men walked away from the corpse, leaving it dripping blood onto the field.

Two

As the sun rose above the Mississippi River, a line of heavy streamers and ferries discharged their living cargo onto the western bank. A few dozen cavalrymen hit the shore first, galloping off into the trees to make sure the surrounding area was clear of the dead; a line of infantrymen followed off the boats. Over two hundred strong, the men fanned out along the shore, taking aim at the tree line to create a safe perimeter for the rest of the regiment to come on land. The whole area was a flurry of activity. Officers ran back and forth, barking orders as Gatling gun emplacements were set up and everyone dug in. Soon the beachhead was secure, with no sign of the enemy. Over a thousand soldiers stood waiting for further orders, eager to push forward.

General Alves and his superiors were well aware this would not be a conventional war. There would be no organized resistance from the enemy. The regiment was to split its allotment of personnel into smaller search-and-destroy platoons of fifty or more men. These platoons would fan apart in a sweeping motion, moving westward ahead of the main force. Many of the platoons would be assigned a specific region or town to investigate along the way before meeting at a pre-established rally point and returning to the main force.

To form up their platoon, Grant and his men fell in with another squad led by an officer named Simon Wayne. Wayne was a distinguished graduate of West Point and would be in charge of their unit with Hank as his second. The group consisted of fifty men total, and their assigned destination was a town named Canton.

Finally the orders came and the regiment was on the move, breaking apart as it marched. As Grant’s platoon broke off to head for their objective, he took one last look at the shrinking body of the main force, hoping whomever had thought up this operation had known what they were doing.

The platoon was over a day out and two days from Canton before they found their first sign of the dead. A corpse lay in the middle of the road, sprawled out beside a wagon, which looked to have been headed east before it lost a wheel. The body was badly decomposed, but one could see that more than the birds had been at it. Pieces of the man lay everywhere, as if they’d been carried off, gnawed on, and discarded. A young private named Ben fell to his knees near Grant, and his lunch splattered the dirt road. Many of the men in the platoon covered their mouths while others stood strong with disciplined faces of stone.

“Damn, boy!” a soldier named Clint said to Ben. “No sense in getting all torn up about it. He’s dead and gone.”

Grant turned to face Clint, clenching his fists and resisting the urge to strike him in the jaw. Instead, he pulled out his notebook and pencil and began to sketch the horrific scene.

Dalton, one of the platoon’s two trackers, knelt beside the body to inspect it. “Been dead about two days. From the looks of things, I’d say there were five of the dead. Took him apart fairly easily too, as if they caught him off-guard. Poor soul didn’t even have time to go for his shotgun in the wagon.”

“What do we do?” someone asked.

“Bury him,” Wayne ordered.

Grant approached Hank. “Why do you think he didn’t get up? As one of them?”

“Look at his head.”

Indeed, a patch of the man’s skull was caved in. Apparently as the things had pulled him to the ground, he had smashed his head on the large rocks bordering the road.

Hank and Grant watched the men hastily dig a shallow grave in the soft dirt of the woods. No one wanted to touch the body. They had all been taught how the plague spread and they knew it couldn’t be contracted by merely touching one of the infected, but not all fears are rational, Grant imagined. Finally, he offered to move the body himself. Hank helped him hoist the corpse and toss it into the sad excuse for a grave. No sooner than they were done Wayne began shouting orders.

“Okay, people, let’s keep moving. Be ready. We know they’re around these parts for sure now.”

The platoon reassembled into a loose marching formation and continued on.

Just before dusk, they made camp in a clearing near the road. The troops were on edge whether they showed it or not. Wayne ordered them to kindle numerous fires, preferring the safety of the light over concealment. If the fires brought the dead to them, it would be a good thing, even if it would be hard to see the enemy beyond the glow.

Grant took a seat at one of the larger fires beside Ben. The private couldn’t be more than nineteen years old.

“This your first time in the field?” Grant asked.

Ben nodded. “I signed up after the slave war. I want to do something for my country, to make a difference in this world somehow. I didn’t think it would be killing dead men.”

“It’s better than killing the living,” Grant assured him.

Ben looked at him, his mouth dangling open in shock. “You fought in the Civil War?”

“I did. I just wasn’t a soldier. The problem with battles is that they pull everyone into them, whether you’re a non-combatant or not, doesn’t matter. No one takes the time to ask or care.”

Grant gestured at Ben’s weapon. “That’s one of the new Golden Boys isn’t it?”

Ben handed him the rifle. “Winchester 1866. Tube magazine, fifteen shots before reloading, sharper accuracy, and much less likely to misfire than a musket.”

Grant whistled as he examined the rifle. “If we had these a few years ago, the war would’ve been over a whole lot sooner.”

Ben smiled and reached to take the rifle as Grant gave it back. “You’re not carrying a weapon?”

“No. If things get bad enough for me to need one, I expect there will be plenty lying around for me to use.”

A rifle cracked on the other side of the camp. Both Ben and Grant hopped to their feet. The lingering rays of the dying sun, combined with the firelight, lit the clearing well enough to show what was happening at the edge of the camp. A pack of dead men and women, numbering in the dozens, had emerged from the woods and were darting towards the camp perimeter, howling like starved animals in a rage. The sentries and several other men were already letting them have it. Rifles blazed, their chambers spitting casings onto the grass. The dead weren’t even slowing; in fact, they seemed to be gaining speed, as if spurred on by resistance.

“Aim for their heads!” Wayne was roaring from behind the hastily assembled firing line. Hank shoved the shouting officer aside and aimed his Winchester at the dead. His shot blew open the skull of a middle-aged man at the head of the pack, spraying blood and bone into the air. The man fell, trampled under the feet of the dead behind him.

Hank’s action snapped the other soldiers out of their panic by showing them the dead could die. It happened too late though. Only around ten of the things took hits to the head before the pack collided with the firing line. Men screamed as cold, rotting hands dug into their flesh. A couple of them were knocked to the ground and fed upon while the rest tried to retreat.

Wayne drew his sidearm and dispatched an elderly woman chewing on the cheek of a private. “Fall back!” he urged as a man missing an eye leapt at him.

Hank stepped between Wayne and his attacker at the last second, batting the thing aside with the butt of his rifle. As he fell on top of the creature, he tore a knife from a sheath in the top of his boot and, with all his weight, drove the blade to its hilt into the thing’s skull.

Grant turned to check on Ben, but the boy was gone. He’d raced forward to join the melee. Grant cursed. So much for his plan of just picking a weapon off the dead. He felt exposed and vulnerable. He knew he was too, and he had to do something—anything. He couldn’t just stand here in the open. To hell with it, he thought, and he charged into battle.

Not far from him, a dead woman had pinned a soldier to the ground and was trying to get a clean bite at his throat. Grant tore her off the man and shoved her away. She was on her feet faster than he could believe.

Only the private’s quick recovery saved Grant’s life. By luck more than skill, the soldier managed to put a bullet into her left eye as she threw herself at Grant, and just like that the camp was quiet once more.

Grant took a deep breath, recollecting himself as he appraised the situation. Nine soldiers in the platoon had died in the attack. Another fifteen or more received bites or wounds and were just as dead. It was only a matter of time. Grant saw Wayne and Hank, already off by themselves, having a heated discussion. Grant headed straight for them.

Both of the officers fell silent and glared at him.

“Gentlemen, surely you were given orders on what to do with the wounded, considering the nature of the plague,” Grant said. “This should not be a topic open to debate.”

“You know he’s right, sir,” Hank said, seeming a tad less angry after hearing what the journalist had to say.

Wayne scowled. “What would you have me do? Do you think any sane, armed man is going to stand there and let me shoot him?”

“It has to be done. The sooner the better,” Hank said. “If one of them turns, who knows how many more of us he’ll take with him.”

The rest of the platoon had already clearly divided itself: those who weren’t injured wanted to be far away from those who were.

“Good Lord,” Grant said, exasperated. “Did they not give you a plan on how to deal with this?”

Neither Wayne nor Hank answered him.

Grant ripped the revolver from Wayne’s hand and started over to the wounded. “You men are all dead. You know it. The question is, are you going to die with honor in the service of your country, or fight what must be done at the cost of those who will carry on with this mission?”

Grant’s answer came in the form of a rifle crack and a bullet whizzing by him; instinctively he dove for the ground.

A new battle erupted in the camp between the living and the dying. Men fell on both sides. Dalton, the tracker, was one of the bitten. He turned on the other wounded near him and rammed a knife into the spine of the closest soldier. As the man collapsed, Dalton took his handgun from his hip and, his hand and trigger finger moving like lightning, emptied the weapon into his companions.

It was over quickly. As the smoke cleared, Grant stood over Dalton’s body with Wayne’s gun and personally made sure the corpse did not rise. It was the least he could do for a man so honorable, even in the face of death. Grant tossed the gun at Wayne. “It’s done now, sir,” he said coldly.

He walked away without another word, leaving Wayne and the others to deal with the bodies.

Three

At the break of dawn, the remaining eighteen men headed west once more. No one spoke. There was nothing to be said that anyone wanted to hear out loud. They ate their midday meal without stopping, and only as the sun was beginning to set did the tired, beaten men pause to rest.

This time only one small fire was lit, and everyone did their best to stay near its light. The night watch was set up so that ten men were awake and combat-ready at all times. Grant volunteered for the first shift. He carried a rifle as well as a sidearm now, unwilling to put his life in the hands of someone else. If another full pack of the dead attacked them, there would be no survivors this time. They would be overwhelmed and there wouldn’t be a damn thing any of them could do about it.

Grant found himself sitting with Clint, Ben, and another soldier he didn’t know by name, listening to them talk.

“We made good time today, didn’t we, Sam?” Clint asked.

Sam nodded. “I figure we should reach Canton before nightfall tomorrow.”

“Sam, is it?” Grant asked, extending his hand over the fire to the leather-skinned man. “You look like you’ve been through this before.”

“Reckon I have. I was stationed in the West when the plague broke out.” Sam reached for the coffee brewing on the fire and filled his tin cup. “I’m one of the few who made it across the river before things got too bad and the quarantine line was put in place.”

“You’ve fought these things before then?” Grant pressed, his reporter’s instinct getting the better of him.

Sam stared at him with the eyes of a veteran. “We’ll be better off when we reach Canton. Fightin’ the dead in the open is suicide. The bastards are too hard to kill. Guess no one told that to the folks at home when they was puttin’ this mess of an operation together.”

“I didn’t sign up for this,” Ben said aloud. “I really didn’t. It ain’t right.”

“Ain’t nothing right about the dead gettin’ up and tryin’ to eat ya. Pull it together, boy,” Sam warned. “The shit ain’t even started for us yet. Last night was nothing. Wait till you see a herd of those things, over a hundred or more strong, come tearin’ at ya. Then you’ll have a memory that’ll really haunt ya.”

“We’re gonna kill those bastards and send ‘em back to Hell where they belong. All of them,” Clint promised, gritting his teeth as he cleaned his rifle.

“This town, Canton,” Grant cut in. “Do you know anything about it, Sam?”

“Not much. Think a couple hundred folk called it home. It’s one of those towns that just sprang up in the rush west. The odds of us getting in and out of there alive ain’t too great, but like I said: at least there we’ll have somewhere to fortify and make a stand.” Sam sipped at his coffee. “You boys should be getting some rest. Our watch is over and I bet we’ll all be pressin’ it hard again tomorrow.”

The night passed with no sign of the dead, and just as Sam had predicted, the next day was filled with a rigorous march. As the squad drew nearer to Canton, their expectations of another attack rose, but none came.

Wayne himself was on point as the group entered the town. The place stank of rotting flesh and death. There was no question that the dead were lying in wait, and quite likely a large number of them.

Wayne surveyed the closest buildings and picked the one that looked the most secure. “Clint, Ben: go check out the jail. I want it secured as fast as possible. Everybody else, hold your positions and be ready to move in on their signal.”

Clint and Ben darted for the building and disappeared behind its door, which swung in the breeze.

Hank tapped Grant on the shoulder as they waited. “See that?” he asked, directing the journalist’s attention to the eastern side of town.

“I’ll be damned,” Grant muttered. “Tell me that’s not what I think it is.”

“Wish I could,” Hank said, frowning. “It’s an orphanage all right. A big one from the looks of the thing.”

“You don’t think…” Grant couldn’t bring himself to finish the sentence.

“I sure do. The plague doesn’t give a crap how old you are.”

A gunshot echoed inside the jail. Five more rang out in its wake. Wayne was on the verge of ordering more men into the building, but Ben popped into the doorway and gave the all-clear sign. Almost en masse the squad sprinted for the cover of the building. Grant and Hank entered last, pushing the door closed behind them.

Hank spotted a heavy looking desk. “Gimme a hand!” he ordered. Grant and two other men helped shove the desk in front of the door, wedging it as tightly shut as they could. “That should at least give us some warning,” Hank said, satisfied.

Ben fought through the gathered men toward Wayne. “The place is clear, sir. We only found one of the dead in here, and it was locked up in one of the cells.”

“What were all the shots then?” Wayne asked.

“Ben panicked,” Clint replied, emerging from the rear of the building. “And we had a hell of time hitting the thing in its head, what with it slinging itself against the bars, trying to get at us.”

“What’s the plan?” Hank asked Wayne as he walked up.

The dead stirred in the streets outside. Their howls seemed to come from everywhere at once. The gunfire undoubtedly had alerted them.

Wayne stood in front of his men. “We have to hold this place if we want to stay alive. I want that door and the rear entrance better secured. Use anything you can find. Get them barricaded off!” After a brief pause, he said, “In the meantime, I want men on the roof. We should have a clear view of the surrounding area from up there and should be able to pick off the dead without actually engaging them face to face.”

Hank snapped into action, directing the men and making it happen. Only Grant stayed with Wayne, not taking part in the bustle of activity.

“That’s a good plan,” Grant said.

“No one asked your opinion.”

“I’d just like to point out the dead are going to swarm around this jail like flies. We may not have a way out of here when the time comes.”

“There’s always a way out,” Wayne said curtly.

Hank was the first to make it to the roof. He rushed to the edge and peered down at the streets below. The dead were coming out of the woodwork. He counted over a hundred before he gave up in frustration. “Get your asses up here now!” he shouted at the other men he’d assigned to the roof. Then he dropped to one knee into a firing position and splattered the brains of a former clergyman racing towards the jail’s main door. The other men joined him and soon the roof was a cloud of gun smoke, but the howls of the dead only grew louder and more numerous as shell casings showered the rooftop like rain.

Something thudded into the door of the jail so hard it shook the desk braced against it.

“They’re here!” a soldier shouted in warning.

The door began to shake as the things hammered on it from outside.

“Get the ladder to the roof taken down!” Wayne yelled. “Those men up there need as much time as we can give them! Be prepared to retreat into the holding cells. We can back ourselves in where they can’t reach us, but we’ll still be able to blow their asses to Hell. And damn well make sure someone thinks to get the keys!” he added.

Dead fists punched through the door with the sound of splintering wood, and the heavy desk was easily pushed aside under the weight of the mob. The men opened fire as the dead started to pour in, bottlenecked by the doorway; the soldiers didn’t even wait for Wayne’s command.

Grant scurried up to the roof and then kicked the ladder to the floor. There was no way in Hell he was going to lock himself away, surrounded by those things straining to get at him. Hank and the others were far too busy blasting the dead in the streets to notice him. Grant choked on the acrid clouds of gun smoke, which hung in the air all over the roof. “Ammo!” he heard someone yell.

“Ain’t no more, son!” Hank called back. He noticed Grant and snatched the journalist’s rifle from his hands. “Here!” Hank tossed it to the soldier. “Make it count!” To Grant, he said, “Get us some more ammo up here!”

“I can’t!” Grant screamed over the gunfire. “They got in! It’s a bloodbath down there!”

“Shit!” Hank paused to think for a second, then shouted for the men on the roof to hold their fire. The soldiers stared at him in confusion, and he peered past Grant into the jail below. The howls of the dead around the building were too loud for him to hear what was happening downstairs. All he could see through the hole was a surge of dead people pushing over one another towards the cells at the rear of the building. His face had become a mask of stone. “We’re dead,” he finally admitted.

“How many are left in the streets?” Grant asked.

“Too many. They’re packed half a dozen thick all around the walls of this place.”

“But they’ve stopped coming?”

“Just about. Guess most of ‘em are here by now.”

Grant raced to edge to see for himself. “We just need to get off this roof and make a run for it.”

“Through all of them?” Hank pointed at the sea of snarling faces looking up with hungry, hollow eyes.

“You gentlemen didn’t happen to bring along a Ketchum did you?”

Hank laughed. “No. Grenades aren’t safe to carry on a mission like this, but… I think we can make something that’ll work just as well as what you’re thinking. We’ll need a distraction though.”

From the soldiers around them, Hank hastily gathered the components he needed to fashion a homemade bomb. It was going to take most of their ammo, but he hoped it would be worth it. “Any volunteers for the distraction?” he asked without looking up from his work.

“I’ll do it, sir,” Ben said, stepping forward.

Grant started to protest, but Hank somehow sensed it and cut him off. “Good on you, boy. If any of us make it out of this Godforsaken town alive, I swear your sacrifice will be remembered.”

When Hank was ready, Ben lowered a rope over the west edge and climbed down to hang just above the reach of the creatures, screaming and taunting them with his dangling legs. The dead swarmed beneath him in a frenzy, and more and more drifted around the building to converge beneath the young private.

Hank lit the fuse on his bomb and tossed it into the street on the eastern side. Another rope followed quickly after it, even before the explosion came. The roof shook—Ben, unable to hold on, fell into the grasping arms of the dead, and on the other side of the roof, men slid down the rope to the now mostly cleared street below them. Those who hit the ground first took potshots at the closest dead to buy time for the others. Then as a whole, the remnants of the platoon ran towards the edge of town and the cover of the trees.

Inside the jail, Wayne and two other men were using the last of their ammo on the dead. The things flung themselves over and over into the cells, stretching their arms between the iron bars. One of the other two soldiers had already been scratched, but Wayne was waiting till the last possible second to put him down. He wanted as many of the dead sent back to Hell as he could manage.

When the explosion hit the street outside and shook the building, it caught Wayne and the others off-guard. The soldier who wasn’t wounded careened into the hands of the dead, and Wayne saw them tear open his throat. Blood sprayed into the air.

The explosion weakened the building’s structure just enough for the cell door to give way under the mass of bodies ramming against it.

A rotting hand grabbed Wayne’s face and shoved its fingers into his eyes. He shouted in the face of death, fighting even as he fell.

As the men from the roof neared the edge of town, their legs pumping beneath them and their breath coming in ragged gasps, they saw movement in the trees. A flood of small figures emerged to meet them.

“Sweet Jesus!” someone cried out. “They’re just children!”

More than three dozen orphans stood between the men and their hope of survival. They were all dead.

“Keep moving!” Hank ordered. “Fight through them!”

The soldiers and the children collided in a running brawl. To Grant’s right, a child grabbed a man by the thigh and sent him sprawling. Before he even had a chance to scream, the children climbed all over him, tearing him apart with their tiny hands.

A young girl, who must have been no older than twelve when she died, dropped the doll she’d been cradling and reached out for Grant as maggots swam in the gray flesh of her contorted face. She growled, baring red-stained teeth, and Grant shot her in the head with his Colt. He didn’t take time to watch her body fall.

“This way!” someone shouted, and Grant changed his course to follow the sound of the voice.

Four

Grant collapsed on the ground of a small clearing in the woods, his muscles burning from being pushed past their limits.

“I think we’ve lost them for the moment,” Hank said as he and the other four survivors finally came to a stop.

“About damn time,” Clint spat and dropped to the ground, checking his rifle. They had been on the run for nearly two hours and were exhausted.

“We can’t stay here long,” Sam said.

“I know,” Hank agreed. He rested his weight against the trunk of a tree. “We’re never going to make it to the rally point. It’s too far, especially since we just backtracked away from it to stay alive.”

“This mission has gone all to Hell.” Clint loaded his last rounds into his rifle. “I vote we hightail it home while we still can.”

“There has to be some farmsteads in these parts,” Sam thought aloud. “It’s possible we could find some horses left alive while we head east. Make the trip a lot faster.”

Hank nodded. “That settles it then. Let’s get going before we have company.”

Grant wearily pushed himself to his feet as the exhausted men got back on the move. “Anybody got anything to eat?” he asked.

Hank handed him a hard biscuit from the pouch on his belt. “Go easy on it. There may not be anything else for a while.”

Grant thanked him for the food and nearly shattered his teeth on it. Stale or not, he had to admit the bread tasted wonderful. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d eaten, and his body needed something if he was going to keep moving. He cursed himself for spending far too much time behind his desk at Harper’s.

“Wait!” Clint said suddenly. “I think I know where we’re at. We passed this area on the march in. If I’m right, there should be a farm not too far from here to the north.”

“Well, what are we waiting for?” Hank asked. “Lead us to it.”

The farm was a large one. Fields of corn and wheat rustled in the wind as the men approached its barn. The horse inside had long ago starved to death, and flies buzzed over their remains. The house was empty as well, but at least they’d found a place to take shelter for the night. After a quick raid of the house’s pantry for a cold supper, they opted to stay in the barn despite the smell, sleeping high above the floor in the hayloft.

At the crack of dawn, they looted the last of the edible food for breakfast, then set out eastward once more. They found the road their regiment had marched in on and followed it towards the Mississippi River and the army’s beachhead. It seemed like every other hour of the long trek, they could hear the howls of the dead in the distance. Sometimes the cries came from behind them; other times they came from ahead—the men had no choice but to continue on.

“We must have pissed them off,” Clint said. “They weren’t this far east as we came in.”

“Or maybe other squads have already retreated to the beachhead along this road and the dead followed them,” Grant pointed out. “Either way, it was just a matter of time until they headed east. That’s why we were sent here, to stop them before they did. It’s what a disease does; it spreads.”

“Holy shit!” Clint exclaimed. A supply wagon sat in the middle of the road ahead of them. Two horses were harnessed to it, very much alive, though in poor shape and clearly spooked. Bodies covered the road around the wagon, and an overturned Gatling gun lay in the wagon’s bed; a soldier’s body was propped against it, rotting in the heat of the sun.

Clint broke into a run for the wagon.

“Clint!” Hank shouted, but the private didn’t even slow down.

As he reached the wagon, the soldier on the Gatling snarled and sprung at him. It wrestled him to the ground, and with jagged fingernails it slashed his cheek.

The others advanced more cautiously with Hank in the lead, checking bodies as they went.

“God help me!” Clint wailed, managing to roll out from underneath the dead man’s assault. He drew his Colt and jammed the barrel against the man’s forehead.

At the sound of the shot, the woods around the road roared to life with the hungry cries of the dead.

“Get the horses loose!” Hank barked, swinging to meet the corpse of a farmer that charged at him from the trees. Hank put a shot into its chest to slow the thing down, then put a second round into its face. The farmer hit the gravel road with a thud.

With his knife, Grant cut one of the horses free of its harness. The terrified animal fought to run as the dead poured onto the road, and Grant was barely able to hold it in place. Had the horse not been a trained military animal it would have been long gone the second he managed to get it loose.

Grant and Hank exchanged a sad glance as the others fired wildly to stem the tide of the dead.

“Go!” Hank ordered.

Grant didn’t hesitate. He mounted the animal and kicked its sides. The horse didn’t need any encouragement; it cut a path through the dead and charged away from the battle. Grant didn’t look back as the gunfire turned to screams.

Hank was the last to fall. He stood alone on the road as the dead circled him. His empty rifle smoked in his hands. “Come on, you pieces of shit! Come on and end this!”

He met the first one head-on and busted its skull with the butt of his weapon, but then, moving as one, the dead dragged him to the gravel, gnawing on his flesh even before his body hit the road. Hank screamed as they ripped his intestines from his stomach and passed them around. An ugly, deformed corpse with no nose leaned over and assaulted him with its rank breath. The thing tore into Hank’s throat, and blood spurted into its face.

Except for the chewing sounds, the road had fallen silent.

Near dawn, Grant’s horse gave out and he was forced to continue on foot toward the beachhead. Far in the distance, he could hear cannons discharging, and clouds of smoke rose from beyond the trees.

Longing for his rifle, Grant paused and drew his Colt. He counted three rounds left in the chamber and hoped they would be enough to see him the rest of the way.

As he stood, weapon in hand, a dead woman staggered out of the bushes to his right. He jerked his gun up, but held his finger on the trigger. She’s blind, he realized.

The bulk of her face was gone, as were her eyes, and her tissue looked burnt, as if she’d been caught in an explosion. A long trail of her insides spilt from her waist and dragged on the dirt behind her as she lumbered forward, oblivious to his presence. A low moan rose from her throat as she continued past Grant, deeper into the woods. He couldn’t keep his eyes from following her. He felt a mixture of hatred and pity he didn’t think he’d ever be able to describe for his readers should he make it home.

When the woman had vanished, Grant turned and continued towards the sound of the battle. The gunfire was louder now, and the cries of dying men intermingled with rifle fire. He reached the edge of the trees and ducked down as two dead men raced past him into the conflict on the river’s shore. The whole riverbank was a mass of blood and bodies, most of which lay unmoving. Only here and there in scattered formations were there soldiers left to hold the beachhead. Grant couldn’t distinguish the wounded from the dead in the sea of human flesh that littered the shore.

The army was in full retreat. Men were paddling small boats into the river’s currents as massive steamboats continued to fire at the shoreline with cannon emplacements. Grant heard the hiss of an incoming ball and ducked even lower as it exploded among the bodies.

As blood fell from the sky, Grant hopped to his feet and made a dash for the river. Hundreds of dead Indians were swarming out of the woods upstream. It looked as if all the tribes had finally united against the invading white man. Many of the dead clutched tomahawks out of instinct or some lingering phantom of their humanity, though it was clear they didn’t know how to use them. Several of them noticed him and with a cold, curdling war cry changed their course, running headlong in his direction.

In that moment, Grant knew the West was truly dead. If a people so noble and so courageous had failed to survive, what hope did Easterners have against them?

Grant chose the clearest route to the water, dodging the arms of a corpse sitting on a mound of its own shredded flesh. Its legs were nowhere to be seen.

Grant hit the river and waded in without slowing down, splashing his way along until the bottom was out of reach and he was swept up by the currents. The water was freezing cold, a brown mixture of blood and mud; he swam as hard as he could.

Through the thick clouds of smoke hanging on the surface of the water, he could see the fleet of mighty steamboats more clearly, the last great defenders of the eastern shore. As the current tugged him south, he struggled to swim eastward. His left foot brushed something underwater and he felt a hand close around his ankle. His head splashed under and he came face to face with the bloated remains of a fat man trapped in the rocks below.

Water flooded Grant’s lungs as he tried to scream, and moments later the murky waters of the Mississippi flowed a tiny bit redder.

Epilogue

President Johnson stood before Congress. Most of the faces stared at him with open contempt, still riled at him for allowing the Southern states into the Union after the slave war without harsher punishments for their transgressions. Even now, in the face of the darkness brewing in the West, they wanted their vengeance. Did they not understand what was happening in their own country? Were they too lost in the past to save the future? He prayed not.

“Gentleman, I have asked you all to gather for this emergency session because this morning I received some most bleak and frightening news. Our push westward has failed and our army is in a state of retreat.”

Murmurs and gasps of horror rose in the crowd.

Johnson steadied himself and continued. He knew he would take the blame for the army’s failure in the long run, assuming he lived long enough to see things return to normal.

“It is worse still, I’m afraid. I have been informed that the dead are now crossing the Mississippi in enough numbers to be a threat to us all. The plague has come ashore in the East, good sirs, and if we do not stop it now, we’ll have no other chance.”

As the room broke into chaos and panic, Johnson paused to take another deep breath and prayed he would be strong enough to lead this country to victory over such an unnatural and unholy foe.

He called for order and the congressmen settled enough for him to be heard.

“Now, gentlemen, this is what I suggest we do…”

As he laid out his plans for the next line of defense, outside in the streets of Washington a homeless man staggered out of an alleyway. A woman turned to him on the busy corner to ask if he was in need of help. The man’s hands closed on her neck as she tried to scream.

Bystanders recoiled in horror as the man pulled her close and bit into the top of her skull. The authorities came running to see what the trouble was, and the end of the world truly began.