Dead Sea

    See, it wasn't just the zombies that we had to watch out for. If it was, and if the president and Homeland Security and the Centers for Disease Control and the rest of our government had acted quickly enough, then maybe none of this would have happened. But they didn't. Just like Pearl Harbor and 9/11 and Hurricane Katrina and all the other national disasters. When faced with an unimaginable crisis, the government failed to respond in an effective and timely manner. Maybe they couldn't. I mean, there's probably no FEMA playbook for what to do when dead folks start running around eating people. It's not the sort of thing the government plans for. It's an unimaginable scenario.

    But it wasn't imagination. It was real.

    In the weeks that followed there were dangers other than just the zombies. Looters and gangs of armed thugs roamed the streets. Cops and National Guardsmen who'd gone off the deep end shot the dead and living indiscriminately. America returned to the glory days of the Old West. Things like innocence and guilt didn't matter. The only law that mattered was the law of the gun. They evacuated Washington, D.C., and sent the president, his cabinet, and all the king's horses and men who worked in the House and the Senate off to secure underground bunkers in Virginia and Maryland and Pennsylvania. They were supposed to be able to run the country from there. They didn't. Things fell apart.

    Our cities and towns resembled Somalia or Beirut. Well, to be honest, my neighborhood had been like that even before Hamelin's Revenge. Only difference was now the rest of the country got a taste of what it was like to live in the ghetto. Instead of drug gangs and tweaked-out freaks on crystal meth or crack, we now had vigilantes and zombies. Not much of a change, and in either case, the cops still didn't show up when you called them.

    I remember a press conference with the secretary of state. He was sweating like a pig. Looked nervous. He assured the reporters that President Tyler, the vice president, and cabinet members were all fine-and that the crisis was passing. Things would soon be under control, and society would return to normal. Until then, martial law would remain in effect as a cautionary measure.

    Except that nobody was calling the shots. The person in charge was the guy with the most firepower, and that changed from moment to moment.

    People didn't aspire to cure the disease or stop it from spreading. They only aspired to not get eaten by a zombie. They'd always worried about their careers and homes and favorite television shows and what their most-loved Hollywood starlet had done. Now the only thing they worried about was staying alive. And the worst part was that if you'd asked people, they probably couldn't tell you why they bothered resisting. Did it matter? What was the point? The zombies outnumbered the living. Why not surrender, or eat a bullet? Like I said, survival instinct is a motherfucker. You do what you have to, even if you don't understand why.

    Some people had higher aspirations, of course. When there's blood on the streets, there's money to be made. That's an eternal law in the ghetto, and the rest of the world learned it soon enough. Stocks, bonds, shit like that-worthless. Cold hard cash ruled the day, and price gouging was common. Twenty bucks for a gallon of gas or a bottle of water. And when the cash became as worthless as the paper it was printed on, the barter system took over. Your wife-your daughter-in exchange for what you needed to survive.

    The madness continued. Burning the dead became the law, but there weren't enough fire pits or crematories to go around. Last bit of the news 1 saw, in Pennsylvania, a National Guard officer had reportedly ordered the death of civilians by firing squad. They were accused of looting. In Miami, zombies overran the airport. A popular television preacher committed suicide, believing that the Rapture had occurred and he'd missed it. In China, a nuclear reactor went into meltdown. Chicago and Phoenix were on fire. The military finally retreated from New York City after losing control and admitting defeat.

    More people died every day. Then they came back. And every day there were less of us. It was a cruel, cruel summer.

    I stayed inside. Didn't have any family. My mama died years ago. Breast cancer. Our health insurance sucked. There wasn't much they could do, in any case. Found a lump during a routine exam. Three months later, she was gone. I never knew my old man. Heard he was useless. That's all I knew of him. "Mama, tell me about my dad." "He was useless." I had a brother, Marcus, who lived in California. Hadn't seen him in years, and when the phones went down, I had no way of contacting him. I hadn't been in a serious relationship in a long time-not since my last partner, Louis, moved to New Orleans. I had no one to worry about. So I hid. 1 was safe inside my home, and had no reason to leave.