The Living Dead 2 Read online

  The Living Dead 2

  Other Books edited by John Joseph Adams

  Wastelands

  Seeds of Change

  The Living Dead

  By Blood We Live

  Federations

  The Improbable Adventures of Sherlock Holmes

  Forthcoming Anthologies

  The Way of the Wizard

  The Mad Scientist’s Guide to World Domination

  Brave New Worlds

  The Book of Cthulhu

  The Living Dead 2 © 2010 by John Joseph Adams

  This edition of The Living Dead 2 © 2010 by Night Shade Books

  Cover art by David Palumbo

  Cover design by Michael Ellis

  Interior layout and design by Ross E. Lockhart

  All rights reserved

  Introduction © 2010 John Joseph Adams

  Author Notes © 2010 John Joseph Adams and David Barr Kirtley

  An extension of this copyright page can be found on pages 495-496.

  First Edition

  ISBN 978-1-59780-190-4

  Printed in Canada

  Night Shade Books

  Please visit us on the web at

  http://www.nightshadebooks.com

  Introduction

  By John Joseph Adams

  Turns out, zombies really don’t want to die.

  When Night Shade Books and I put the first The Living Dead anthology together a couple years ago (which I will refer to hereafter as Volume One), we had the sense that zombies would be big, but I don’t think any of us realized just how big they would become.

  When the book actually came out in September of 2008, it seemed like the timing was perfect, that we would be hitting right at the crest of the zombie’s popularity. But now it looks like they’ve only become more popular in the intervening period, spreading throughout an unsuspecting population like zombiism itself.

  In the last couple years there have been a slew of new zombie entertainments released, across all media. There have been new movies (Quarantine, REC2, Deadgirl, Diary of the Dead, Survival of the Dead, Dead Snow, Zombie Strippers, Zombieland); video games (Plants vs. Zombies, Dead Rising 2, Dead Space, Left 4 Dead, Left 4 Dead 2); and a veritable horde of books (Pride and Prejudice and Zombies and its sequel, books from several of the contributors to this anthology, and even a Star Wars zombie novel called Death Troopers). Plus, a film adaptation is in the works for Max Brooks’s World War Z, and Robert Kirkman’s The Walking Dead is being made into a television series.

  And all of that’s just off the top of my head—if I wanted to make an extensive list, I’m sure it could be ten times longer. If you were inclined to have zombies in all of your entertainment, I expect you’d have very little trouble finding things to watch, play, or read, all of them chock-full of zombie mayhem.

  But since zombies have continued to dominate the popular consciousness—and Volume One was so popular with readers and critics—it was an easy decision to do a second volume of zombie stories; after all, even at 230,000 words, I couldn’t fit everything I wanted to into the first book!

  And while it’s obvious that the public can’t get enough of zombies, well, I guess it’s just as obvious neither can I.

  Let’s talk a bit about this anthology in particular, and how it is similar to and different from Volume One.

  Volume One was comprised entirely of reprints (except for one original story, by John Langan), but this volume is mostly original with a mix of selected reprints. Twenty-five of the forty-four stories appear for the first time in this anthology.

  With the popularity of zombies infecting the pop culture like it has, more writers than ever have been itching to try their hand at a zombie story, so it was not difficult to find writers eager to participate in the book. I asked some of the top names in zombie fiction—Max Brooks (World War Z), Robert Kirkman (The Walking Dead), David Wellington (Monster Island), Brian Keene (The Rising), and others—along with some bestsellers and rising stars of the science fiction, fantasy, and horror fields—to write me original stories. And boy did they deliver.

  For Volume One, I chose stories that I felt represented the best of the best and together showcased the range of what zombie fiction was capable of. This time around, because my intent was to include the best new stories, I focused on finding the best material that had never previously appeared in a zombie anthology before. So while nineteen of the stories are reprints, there’s a good chance that—even if you’re a hardcore zombie fan—they’ll be entirely new to you.

  To bring this introduction to a close, let’s bring it back to where it started: Why are zombies so appealing?

  Since Volume One came out, that’s one of my most frequently asked questions. (It’s kind of a curious question, as if there’s some reason zombies shouldn’t be popular. Do people ask NFL football players why football is so popular?)

  I can’t claim to know exactly why it is that people love zombies so much, but there are a number of common theories about their popularity.

  Zombies are:

  • an enemy that used to be us, that we can become at any time;

  • a canvas writers can use to comment on almost anything;

  • a morality-free way to fulfill a world-destruction fantasy;

  • a monster that remains scary and cannot be easily romanticized.

  I’m sure that’s all part of it, and we could continue to speculate ad nauseam—I’m sure there are dissertations being written on the subject as we speak. But one thing is clear: Zombies aren’t going to be dying off any time soon, and we’d better learn how to live with them.

  Alone, Together

  By Robert Kirkman

  Robert Kirkman is best-known for his work in the comics field as the writer and creator of the critically acclaimed, bestselling zombie comic The Walking Dead—which is considered by many (myself included) to be one of the greatest comics series of all-time. Other comics he’s written for include Invincible, Haunt, and The Astounding Wolf-Man. He has also worked on many Marvel titles, such as Marvel Zombies, Captain America, Ultimate X-Men, The Irredeemable Ant-Man, and Fantastic Four. Despite all of these writing credentials, this is his first piece of published prose fiction.

  In The Walking Dead, Robert Kirkman set out to tell a different sort of zombie tale. Most such stories focus on a brief period of intense danger—a single night, as in the original Night of the Living Dead—or perhaps a few days or weeks, and concern the characters eluding predators and obtaining the immediate exigencies of survival—food, shelter, weapons.

  The Walking Dead follows the characters for month after month after month in their grueling quest to stay alive and, more importantly, to stay sane. The stories present searing portraits of disaster psychology—survivor’s guilt, depression, and hopelessness, as well as the grim humor and small acts of kindness that allow people to carry on. The zombies in this world are an ever-present threat, but for long stretches of the story they fade into the background and the emotional landscapes of the characters take center stage as they feud, break down, fall in love, lose heart, and ultimately endure…or not—for this a gritty, realistic world where no one is safe. The characters learn the hard way that other survivors can be more dangerous than zombies, and that the most dangerous foe of all is your own heart.

  Our first story shares this focus on human psychology. This is a zombie story and a love story, the story of an ordinary man in a terrible situation, and of the woman who just might be his only hope to make it out alive.

  She was dressed like a private detective from a low-budget TV show—a pair of slacks, modest high heels, and the most ridiculous trench coat I’d ever seen, one of the shorter ones, that hung just above the knees. I couldn’t help but laugh
, and it was obvious my reaction annoyed her, but she did her best to hide her feelings as she pressed a finger to my lips, quieting me, and gently nudged me back inside my apartment.

  We’d been dating for nearly three months. The next day was our anniversary, and we were supposed to do something together. I can’t remember what now, but she had some sort of last minute work obligation crop up. She called to tell me she wanted to see me that night. I had hung up the phone maybe five minutes before she arrived. She must have called me on the way. She had nothing in her hands. No present. I was suspicious.

  As she closed the door she flashed a naughty grin and opened the trench coat. It’s not an overstatement to say that that moment changed my life. Her slacks stopped shortly above where the coat ended. She’d cut the legs off of a pair of her pants and attached them to a garter belt.

  She wore nothing else under the coat.

  To say this looked slightly ridiculous wouldn’t be a lie but in that moment I couldn’t care less about how silly she looked. She was gorgeous, full-figured in all the right ways, dark hair, bright eyes. I instantly fell in love with her, head over heels, hopelessly smitten, and all that. I already knew she was smart, funny, kind, and all that other good stuff, but to see this work of genius— these pant legs, concocted to better sell the old naked-under-the-trench-coat gag, knowing how much thought and preparation went into something so completely and utterly silly—I instantly knew that this was the woman for me.

  I proposed to her in that very moment. She thought I was joking, of course, but when I did it again two weeks later, properly and with a ring, she accepted. We were married six months later.

  We were married four wonderful years before the world around us fell apart. The world as we knew it quickly disappeared, leaving us and everyone else lost without any hope of regaining the lives we’d grown accustomed to. Diane died two weeks after we abandoned our home.

  My name is Timothy Stinnot, and if it’s Christmas I’m twenty-eight. Yes, it’s as horrible as you would imagine, growing up with a birthday on Christmas. An entire childhood of receiving exactly one more present on Christmas day than my little brother, only to watch him celebrate essentially a second Christmas a few months later. It’s not easy for a kid to overcome that kind of jealousy. Justin is probably dead by now; I have no way of knowing for sure. Some days, I’m jealous of him for that, too.

  My father—who I must also assume is now dead—had this saying when we were growing up: “If not today, when?” It was usually just to get me to clean my room or some other chore I’d been avoiding. He didn’t really give me much advice that didn’t have a direct correlation to something he wanted me to do at the time. It’s really just another way to say: “Don’t put off until tomorrow what you can do today.” But his way was a little catchier. Of course, these days I’ve altered the saying to better reflect the times. Now it’s, “If not right now, when?”

  These days, tomorrow is much less of a guarantee.

  I should be sleeping. Instead, I’m sitting next to the window looking down at the grocery store across the street, listening to Alicia breathe as she sleeps on the floor next to me. I saw the store on our way in earlier tonight. Dad’s motto be damned, it was much too dark to try anything then so I didn’t even mention it to Alicia. Maybe I wanted to surprise her; maybe I just didn’t want to let her down. But I can’t stop fantasizing about what we might find in that worn-down, abandoned building.

  Tomorrow.

  So, I should be sleeping, but instead I sit here, in this empty apartment, surrounded by trash and belongings that weren’t quite worth taking when the owners left. I alternate between staring at the store, and watching the quiet rise and fall of Alicia’s chest as she sleeps.

  She’s not the most beautiful woman in the world, or at least she wouldn’t have been—before. Now she very well might be. Blonde and bone-skinny with a boyish figure, she’s pretty much the exact opposite of Diane and not at all the type of girl I would have dated in my previous life.

  Have you ever heard of Smurfette Syndrome? Smurfette was the lone female Smurf on the children’s cartoon of the same name. The syndrome dictates that when a group of men have only one female, the men in that group will grow to find her attractive, no matter how much they may otherwise not be attracted to her if there where other females present. The male desire to procreate takes over your brain and forces you to suddenly consider the only female available to be extremely desirable.

  I desire Alicia extremely.

  When Diane was still alive I used to think that I could never be with someone else if something ever happened to her. I know it’s something people do all the time but I just couldn’t imagine doing it myself. It seemed like such a betrayal. That was, of course, before Diane died. I never considered what complete and utter loneliness felt like—how tormenting it was, and just how much that torment could make you desire to connect with someone.

  We started out as a group of six—five guys plus Alicia. I met up with them about six months ago, almost a month after I’d lost Diane. Alicia and I have been alone for two. Guess what happened to everyone else.

  There was David Never-Got-His-Last-Name. He lasted all of ten days: rounded a corner as we were leaving town when the walkers got him. He distracted them long enough for the rest of us to get away.

  I never really walked out front much after that. I do more now that it’s just Alicia and I, but even still, not very often. One of the things I love about her is how strong she is, and brave. Things I’d never even say I was, she is. Sometimes I feel like I’m the one protecting her, but really we’re protecting each other. I sometimes wonder what she’d say on the matter.

  The Carson twins lasted a little longer than David. We were at a used car lot, trying to siphon enough gas out of the cars and trucks to fill the tank of a passenger van we’d commandeered. There were just four of us by that point and we really should have tried to get something with better gas mileage, but I think we wanted a vehicle we could all sleep in.

  Carson One—that’s what I called him when I had to call him by a name—got his leg mangled up by a walker that had been hiding under an old Ford Taurus. I don’t know if it had done that on purpose or if it had ended up there by chance. Either way, Carson One’s leg got mangled all to hell and we knew right away that he was done for, soon to be one of them—we all know what the bite does.

  Carson Two—I think it was Two…. Come to think of it, I could have them reversed in this story. (That happened a lot.) Anyway, Carson Two saw his brother mangled up, bleeding all over the asphalt, crying and carrying on—and he just loses it. Maybe it was a twin thing, where he was feeling the pain of his brother, but he wailed on that thing like a man possessed, which isn’t something you should ever do—cutting your fists up and rubbing open wounds on one of them is about the same as getting bit. Alicia, James, and I all yelled for him to stop, trying to get him to see what was coming for him. All his screaming and carrying on had drawn a lot of attention—the kind that gets you killed.

  The three of us ran away as Carson Two got torn to bits. James and Alicia hadn’t seen as much of that kind of thing as I had. They didn’t talk very much for the next few days.

  James was Alicia’s fiancé. They were both very young, about the same age Diane and I were when we got married. Before the whole damn world went to shit, they were in love.

  I’m getting upset just thinking about it—the three of us, alone…them hugging and holding each other all the time. The way they slept in a tangled mess, stealing each other’s breath throughout the night. Me off to the side, the worst third-wheel situation in the history of the world. I was still in agony over the loss of my wife and now here I was, trapped with two honest-to-god lovebirds. I wouldn’t have thought that this hell on Earth could be made any worse, but seeing those two so in love with each other somehow did.

  The day he died, James and I had been looking for medicine for Alicia. She had been sick for almost a week. We’d been out
all day, and it was starting to get dark when we headed home. I was lost in thought, agonizing over all the time I was likely to spend over the next few weeks watching James and Alicia together. Seeing him watching over her, tending to her every need, reminding me of how alone I was, how much I missed Diane.

  In a split second it was over. When the walkers moved in and swarmed around him, I watched, unable to save him as they tore him apart. Just like that, he was gone.

  I might’ve said that my prayers had been answered but then I’d have to stop and consider who it was that had answered them.

  “They got him,” was all I could say to her when I returned to camp. She recovered from her illness in a few days, even without the medicine; she didn’t stop crying until much later.

  Over time, the spells between tears got longer and longer and we began to talk about the things we had each lived through. I couldn’t talk about what happened to James without crying, something about being so close to it. I saw Diane slaughtered in front of me, all the others, and now James. It was all too much. Both our hearts had been broken. We were two people, alone, sharing in each other’s agony over what we’d lost. All we had now was each other.

  After James was gone, I started to notice things about Alicia that I hadn’t noticed before: the point of her nose and how it was slightly off center; the dent in the middle of her bottom lip; the way her voice would crack ever so slightly when she got excited about something. There was no TV, and no movies, so my main—no, my only—pastime had become obsessing over Alicia.

  Alone together, we talked. For hours, day in, day out, about nothing in particular. I told her all about Diane and all that she had meant to me. She talked about meeting James on their college campus. I told her about my mother’s horrible childhood, relaying the stories I’d hear as a child when complaining about absolutely anything at all. She told me about her sister’s heart condition, about the long trips to the hospital, how she occupied herself in the waiting room. No story too mundane, no detail too personal. We had nothing but time and so we talked.