Empire's End Read Free

wind... I’ve
seen them. “Alpha zombies,” as the commander calls them. I’ve only
seen a few, and they didn’t last long against our troops, but Lord
they were frightening.
    I guess that’s it for now. I want you to know
that I am safe and I am happy. Believe me when I say that our men
and women in uniform are up to the challenge, and only the best of
the best were handpicked to protect the Senate President’s convoy.
I think we’re going to make a real difference out here. We’re going
to save the badlanders.
    I love you, and I’ll see you in a month’s
time.
     
    Todd
     
    * * *
     
    Mom never got the latter.
    It was lost in the ambush. An ambush by
rotters.
    Heavy with stains of blood, the letter fell
into the Utah sand and was forgotten in the unfolding chaos. Then,
eventually, it was buried, and finally the elements claimed it and
erased the words that a naïve young man had written to assuage the
fears of his worried mother.
     

Two / The New Flesh
     
    October 18 th , 2112
     
    Every Main Street in every town in the
badlands looked the same. The leaves had turned and fallen from the
trees encroaching on empty businesses; plants grew in smashed
windows and uprooted the sidewalk. The sun bleached crumbling brick
and cracked asphalt, The rust-eaten skeletons of cars sat in the
street, now home to small animals, the entire city slowly being
reclaimed by Nature; the last signs of human life nothing more than
scars fading in her flesh.
    This particular Main Street in central
Colorado had only a few cars in the road. There was a minivan that
had run up onto the sidewalk, and a police cruiser abandoned in the
middle of the street. At the end of the street, however, blocking
off a municipal plaza, was a barricade of vehicles scorched by
fire
    And at the other end of the street, hanging
from a traffic light, was a man in a noose.
    He’d hung himself that very morning, and the
rotters scattered throughout the area had begun to take notice.
Raspy moans issued from desiccated throats, and creaky joints made
scraping sounds as the dead started to move.
    The moans increased in volume, attracting
rotters from nearby streets. It wasn’t long before a mob of several
dozen shuffling corpses was advancing inch by inch toward Main
Street, most of them with no idea why; they just followed the
sounds.
    Rotters who would have once growled
menacingly at their competition could now only gurgle on the rotten
paste filling their windpipes. They hadn’t fed in perhaps years and
had just stood, silent, patient; waiting for food to come along as
they decomposed. The virus could only fight off the elements for so
long. The dead in this Colorado city were nothing more than
shambling husks. But most of them still had arms, and fingers, and
most important of all, teeth. And they all had the hunger.
    They closed in on the hanged man from all
directions. The man wore a dark suit. He was pale and hairless and
thin. A pleasant breeze carried the odor of decay through the air,
though none of them could smell; had they been able to, they might
have noticed the lack of any odor coming off the hanged man.
    Closer, closer. Thick saliva gathered behind
swollen lips. Hands groped through the air. The moans all came
together in a maddening crescendo.
    The hanged man had one arm behind his back.
Strapped to it was a blade: a long, curved implement made from
fused bone, sharpened to a razor’s edge on both sides. Its tip
rested against the noose around the man’s neck.
    His eyes opened. They were dark and lifeless,
doll’s eyes. They stared coldly down at the undead.
    A shoulder sling and wrist straps secured the
enormous curved blade to his right arm. A leather thong bound
around his hand, he simply flicked his wrist; and the noose was
severed.
    The man came down in a tight crouch, sending
plumes of dust into the air with his impact. Before any of the
stupid, shambling dead had a chance to register what was happening,
to even hazard a guess at