The Living Dead 2 (The Living Dead, #2)(63)

Meanwhile I could hear the dead in the lobby. They’d gotten through the door somehow. They didn’t make any noise but I could hear it when they knocked over furniture or crashed into the walls. How long did we have?

Not very long.

“Vance, come in, please,” I said.

“Darcy? What’s going on?”

I closed my eyes and thought about how much I loved that man. This was the man who was going to save Candy. And me. And Finster. “Vance, we have a couple hundred of them here. We’re locked in the reception office and can’t get out. You have to come save us.”

“I can see them,” Vance said. “I’m about a mile away.”

“Oh, thank God,” I said. “Oh, thank you Jesus.”

“Stay with me, Darcy,” Vance told me. “Is everyone okay?”

“Candy and I are fine. Finster broke his leg, and it’s bleeding.” I didn’t want to say what I suspected, that he might already be dying of a bite wound.

“Understood. How’s Simon holding up?”

“Simon?” I asked. As if I didn’t know who he was talking about.

“If he’s screaming too much, just let him play with his electronics.” Vance was quiet for a second. “Why don’t I hear him screaming?”

“He’s not in here with us,” I admitted. “The last time I saw him, he was outside of the fence. Opposite the gate.”

Vance didn’t respond for a while.

“Vance, come in,” I shouted.

“I’m still here, Darcy. Just trying to save my breath. We’re moving fast. You say Simon is outside of the fence. Okay. That’s good.”

“It is?”

Vance sounded determined. Steadfast. “All of the dead are inside the fence. Maybe they didn’t see him there. Maybe they just think you’re the better meal, since there’s three of you.” He took his mouth away from the microphone, but I could hear him giving orders. “Joe, Bruce, Phil, get down there and get that gate closed—that’ll give us a second or two. Arnold, do you see Simon down there? Take Mary and just pick him up. Don’t stop if he fights you, just hold him still and pick him up. Yes, damn it. That’s exactly what I’m saying. No, we are not leaving him behind. We need him if we’re going to rebuild anything. If we’re going to have a future.”

“Vance,” I called. “Vance, what should we do? I don’t think we can get out of here without help. Tell me your plan.”

“Hold on, Darcy,” he said, and went back to issuing orders.

Outside, the dead started pounding on the office door. The furniture barricade jumped every time they struck. It was loud, very loud in the tiny office, and the air in there started to feel very stale.

“Vance, please. Tell me how you’re going to get us out of here,” I said.

The radio was silent.

“Vance. Please. Vance, you son of a—”

“We’re not, Darcy.”

I opened my eyes. Finster was staring down at me. The barricade started to fall apart.

“We can’t. We don’t have the numbers. If I tried, I would just get all of us killed. I’m sorry. We got Simon to safety, if it’s any consolation. He’s going to be a big help. He’s going to teach us how to build things.”

“That’s—no consolation at all! Listen, you stupid motherf*cker, my baby is in here! My little baby. She’s scared, and alone, and—”

“Darcy, it has to be this way. We’re going to run away, and hope the dead don’t follow us. I think they’ll be too busy trying to get at you to notice. Thank you for that. Your sacrifice is going to let other people live.”

“My baby, Vance. My baby is in here.”

“Call me names. Tell me what an * I am. If it helps,” Vance told me. “I promise, I won’t turn my radio off until I know it’s over. But I’m sorry. That’s all I can do for you.”

“What is he saying?” Finster demanded. “I can’t hear him!”

“Mommy?” Candy asked. Three-year-old trust only goes so far, I guess.

I swore and screamed at Vance, then, used every nasty, obscene insult I could think of. Called him a prick. Called him impotent. Called him a traitor and a baby-killer. Thought up some new names just for him.

But I knew. Even as the barricade collapsed and the dead poured into the room—even then, I knew, he wasn’t a bad man.

He was good people.

But these are evil times.





Lost Canyon of the Dead

By Brian Keene





Two-time Stoker Award-winner Brian Keene is the author of more than a dozen novels, including zombie novels The Rising, City of the Dead, and Dead Sea, the latter of which shares the same milieu as this story. Other novels include The Conqueror Worms, Castaways, Ghost Walk, Ghoul, Terminal, Dark Hollow, Urban Gothic, and his latest, Darkness on the Edge of Town and A Gathering of Crows. Other recent work includes his new, ongoing comic book series The Last Zombie from Antarctic Press. Keene’s short fiction—which has been collected in Unhappy Endings and Fear of Gravity—has appeared in a variety of magazines and anthologies, including the zombie anthologies The New Dead and The Dead That Walk.