The Living Dead 2 (The Living Dead, #2)(113)
“Remember how happy a lot of us were at first? All that news footage of people in tears running up to embrace their loved ones fresh from their graves? Mangled bodies pulling themselves from automobile accidents or industrial explosions or recently bombed buildings… all those terrified relatives standing around crash, accident, or other disaster sites, hoping to find their husbands or wives or kids or friends still alive? Reunions were going on left and right. It would have moved you to tears if it hadn’t been for a lot of them missing limbs or heads or dragging their guts behind them like a bride’s wedding-dress train. That didn’t matter to the grieving; all they saw was their loved ones returned to them. They had been spared. They had been saved from a long dark night of the soul or whatever. They didn’t have to give in to that black weight in their hearts, they didn’t have to cry themselves to sleep that night, they didn’t have to get up the next morning knowing that someone who was important to them, someone they loved and cared about and depended on, wasn’t going to be there anymore, ever again. No. They were spared that.
“It didn’t take long before we figured out that the dead were drawn back to the places or people they loved most, that meant everything to them while they were alive—at least Romero got that much right in his movies. At first I thought it was just a sad-ass way of reconciling everything, of forcing it into a familiar framework so we could deal with the reality of these f*cking upright corpses shambling back into our lives—hell, maybe it was just a…I don’t know…a knee-jerk reaction on the dead’s part, like a sleepwalker. Maybe their bodies were just repeating something they’d done so many times over the course of their lives that it became automatic, something instinctual. I mean, how many times have you been walking home from someplace and haven’t even been thinking about how to get from there to here? Your body knows the way so your brain doesn’t even piss away any cells on that one. Home is important. The people there are important. The body knows this, even if you forget.
“But then the Coldness started. I…huh…I remember the initial reports when people started showing up in emergency rooms. At first everyone thought it was some kind of new flesh-eating virus, but that idea bit it in a hurry, because all of a sudden you had otherwise perfectly healthy, alive human beings walking into emergency rooms with completely dead limbs—some of them already starting to decompose. And in every single case, remember, it started in whichever hand they’d first touched their dead loved one. The hand went numb, then turned cold, and the coldness then spread up through the arm and into the shoulder. The limbs were completely dead. The only thing the doctors could do was amputate the things. If the person in question had kissed their loved one when they first saw them…God Almighty…the Coldness spread down their tongues and into their throats. But mostly it was hands and arms, and for a while it looked like the amputations were doing the trick.
“Then the doctors and nurses who’d performed the surgeries started losing the feeling in their hands and arms and shoulders. Whatever it was, the Coldness was contagious. So they closed down the emergency rooms and locked up the hospitals and posted the National Guard at the entrances because doctors were refusing to treat anyone who’d touched one of the dead…those doctors who still had arms and hands, that is.
“The one thing I have to give us credit for as a species is that the looting wasn’t nearly as bad as I thought it would be. Seems it didn’t take us very long to realize that material possessions and money didn’t mean a whole helluva lot anymore. That surprised me. I didn’t think we had any grace-notes left. Bravo for our side, huh?
“Look, I’ve got to…I’ve got to try and make it to the bathroom. I can at least cut through the production booth, but once out in the hall, I’m wide open for about five yards. The thing is, I’ve been in this booth for five days now, and while the food’s almost held out—thank God for vending machines and baseball bats—I’ve been too scared to leave, so I’ve been using my waste basket for a toilet and…well, folks, it’s getting pretty ripe in here, especially since the air-conditioning conked out two days ago. I gotta empty this thing and wash the stink off myself. If you’re out there, please don’t go away. I’m gonna cue up the CD and play a couple of Beatles songs, ‘In My Life’ and ‘Let It Be.’ I’m feeling heavy-handed and ironic today, so sue me. If I’m not back by the time they’re over, odds are I ain’t gonna be. Light a penny candle for me, folks, and stay tuned…”
“…Jesus H. Christ on a crutch, I made it! It was kind of touch and go there for a minute…or, rather, not touch, if you get me…but here I am, with a gladder bladder and clean hands and face, so we’re not finished yet, folks. There’s still some fight left, after all.
“I need to tell you a little bit about our receptionist here at We-Gab Radio. Her name’s Laura McCoy. She’s one of the sweetest people I’ve ever met, and if it weren’t for her, most days at this station would be bedlam without the sharp choreography. Laura has always been a tad on the large side—she once smiled at me and said she didn’t mind the word ‘fat,’ but I do mind it…anyway, Laura has always been on the large side but, dammit, she’s pretty. She’s tried a couple of times to go on diets and lose weight but they’ve never worked, and I for one am glad they didn’t. I don’t think she’d be half as pretty if she lost the weight.