thinking about what had happened. I wasnât thinking at all. I bolted up the stairs into the main floor of the library, knowing in a moment he would get back up and come after me. Knowing I had to run.
A thin trickle of moonlight came in through the plate-Âglass windows upstairs. Just enough that I could see the bookshelf that had toppled onto the floor, spilling books everywhere. Just enough I could see gray shapes moving around the desk, around the shelves, around the stairs leading to the upper floor.
There were zombies everywhere.
I tried not to scream as I turned for the door, wanting to get out, not caring what I had to do to get out. A zombie loomed up in front of me before the doorâÂI could smell it even more than I could see itâÂand I lashed out with the knife, cutting deep into its face. The pain of the wound did nothing to it, of course, but the force of the blow was enough to knock it sideways, to make it stumble. I leapt past it and out the door.
Outside the lawn was a vast placid surface of grass, silvered by the moonlight. Beyond lay concrete and asphalt, all painted the same color. Overhead a thousand stars watched like spectators. I looked left. I looked right. I looked straight ahead.
Everywhere I saw shadows moving, lurching upward from where theyâd been sitting or lying on the ground. Shadows with long strawlike hair and red eyes. I could see the red of their eyes even in the darkness.
I dashed out toward the street, thinking I should keep out in the open as much as possible. The buildings around me offered the promise of shelter but also of shadows, and while the zombies couldnât seem to see in the dark any better than I couldâÂthe one on the basement stairs had barely been aware of me until I flicked my lighterâÂI knew I could stumble into one of them before I knew it was there. Out in the street the red-Âeyed shadows starting looming closer, but I dodged around them, running as fast as my legs would carry me. I had no idea where I was going, no idea what I would do next. No place was safe. There was nowhere to run to where this would be overâÂthe zombies owned this town. They owned all the world outside the cities and the government zones.
I just ran.
Â
CHAPTER 15
T he looter whose knife Iâd taken had said the zombies got âplayfulâ at night. I would later learn what that really meant. It had nothing to do with how the zombies thought or felt. They donât do those thingsâÂtheir virus eats holes in their brains until they can feel nothing at all. They didnât care about night or day. Zombies donât care about anything but how hungry they are.
They do have some primitive kinds of instincts, though. They are hunters, and they know or they learn that itâs easier to catch prey when the prey canât see you coming. Maybe they even have some rudimentary sense of self-Âpreservation, and they know that humans are dangerous in the daylight.
At night they have the advantage, and they donât hesitate to take it.
I was surrounded by them on all sides. Iâd never imagined there were so many of them, that there could be so manyâÂon the radio, the government always claimed that they were dying off, that every year the zombie population was dropping at a precipitous rate. Winter killed far more of them than government patrols, but it was estimated that within fifty more years they would be all but extinct.
I think maybe the radio lied.
Or maybe there were just so many of them, back during the crisis, that nobody could even imagine the vast numbers, the untold millions of them out there in the wilderness. There must have been a thousand of them in Fort Lee, New Jersey, alone. There could have been many more.
As I ran they lurched and grabbed at me, stumbled toward me, drawn by the sound of my feet pounding on the pavement, drawn by my simple vitality, my speed they couldnât
A thin trickle of moonlight came in through the plate-Âglass windows upstairs. Just enough that I could see the bookshelf that had toppled onto the floor, spilling books everywhere. Just enough I could see gray shapes moving around the desk, around the shelves, around the stairs leading to the upper floor.
There were zombies everywhere.
I tried not to scream as I turned for the door, wanting to get out, not caring what I had to do to get out. A zombie loomed up in front of me before the doorâÂI could smell it even more than I could see itâÂand I lashed out with the knife, cutting deep into its face. The pain of the wound did nothing to it, of course, but the force of the blow was enough to knock it sideways, to make it stumble. I leapt past it and out the door.
Outside the lawn was a vast placid surface of grass, silvered by the moonlight. Beyond lay concrete and asphalt, all painted the same color. Overhead a thousand stars watched like spectators. I looked left. I looked right. I looked straight ahead.
Everywhere I saw shadows moving, lurching upward from where theyâd been sitting or lying on the ground. Shadows with long strawlike hair and red eyes. I could see the red of their eyes even in the darkness.
I dashed out toward the street, thinking I should keep out in the open as much as possible. The buildings around me offered the promise of shelter but also of shadows, and while the zombies couldnât seem to see in the dark any better than I couldâÂthe one on the basement stairs had barely been aware of me until I flicked my lighterâÂI knew I could stumble into one of them before I knew it was there. Out in the street the red-Âeyed shadows starting looming closer, but I dodged around them, running as fast as my legs would carry me. I had no idea where I was going, no idea what I would do next. No place was safe. There was nowhere to run to where this would be overâÂthe zombies owned this town. They owned all the world outside the cities and the government zones.
I just ran.
Â
CHAPTER 15
T he looter whose knife Iâd taken had said the zombies got âplayfulâ at night. I would later learn what that really meant. It had nothing to do with how the zombies thought or felt. They donât do those thingsâÂtheir virus eats holes in their brains until they can feel nothing at all. They didnât care about night or day. Zombies donât care about anything but how hungry they are.
They do have some primitive kinds of instincts, though. They are hunters, and they know or they learn that itâs easier to catch prey when the prey canât see you coming. Maybe they even have some rudimentary sense of self-Âpreservation, and they know that humans are dangerous in the daylight.
At night they have the advantage, and they donât hesitate to take it.
I was surrounded by them on all sides. Iâd never imagined there were so many of them, that there could be so manyâÂon the radio, the government always claimed that they were dying off, that every year the zombie population was dropping at a precipitous rate. Winter killed far more of them than government patrols, but it was estimated that within fifty more years they would be all but extinct.
I think maybe the radio lied.
Or maybe there were just so many of them, back during the crisis, that nobody could even imagine the vast numbers, the untold millions of them out there in the wilderness. There must have been a thousand of them in Fort Lee, New Jersey, alone. There could have been many more.
As I ran they lurched and grabbed at me, stumbled toward me, drawn by the sound of my feet pounding on the pavement, drawn by my simple vitality, my speed they couldnât
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