My spine crawled with a prickling dread, and the absolute silence of the room around me assured me that I wasn’t alone.
God, at that last second when the face—when you could see the little girl’s face—and you could see the anger there, and the rage, and the pure hatred . . . it took my breath away. It was hideous and exquisite. It was malicious death, and it was walking.
It was coming.
Terry kept talking, and the clip was rewound, repeated, replayed.
I forced myself to stop watching. I forced myself over to the other television, to watch a broadcast with a little bit of distance. Something not quite so close. Something not quite so personal.
But CNN had picked up the footage too, and I wondered suddenly if it was Nick’s footage. He’d told me about a man and a girl, and those were the figures I saw on the screen. He had a camera. He was a journalist. The clip might have been his. But if it was, why hadn’t he mentioned it?
Perhaps he didn’t know about it. He’d handed over the SUV, and with it, perhaps, the camera. I hadn’t seen him carrying it.
“Channel Three reporter Nick Alders . . . ” Terry said his name. I wrenched my attention back to the other screen, but I missed whatever she was saying about him.
CNN had aerial footage of people running and swimming. There was looting, sure. Mostly young men, throwing bricks into windows. Then a few families at the Dollar General, where there were diapers and food. Here and there, with helpful graphic arrows and circles to place them, the national news also noted that something strange was coming up out of the water.
You looked at these things—half a dozen or more, at least, caught on tape—and you saw how they moved with that twisting, aggressive gait, and you thought of old movies. You thought of things in black and white, and monsters without a lot of dialogue. But you didn’t say the word. You didn’t say it, because if you did then other people would start to say it. It would spread faster and worse than wildfire. It would cause more panic than if you just said, “Unknown persons” even though you meant “Unknown things. ”
But everyone in that room knew.
We glanced around, catching each other’s eyes and knowing in the worst possible way what was out there. It wasn’t here yet—not reaching out to us, not crawling up to the doors and beating with burned and rotted hands—but it was coming, and we needed to get out. But how?
CNN said, “Evacuation is being orchestrated by Homeland Security and FEMA, with helicopters and all-terrain vehicles as well as boats. Old train lines are running again and the transport cars are moving people instead of meat, lumber, and steel. At this point, authorities are concentrating on moving the displaced citizens to established evacuation points where they can be . . . ,” the reporter tapped at her earpiece and continued, “Yes, they’re moving them into position to be shipped out of town and down to Atlanta—about a hundred and twenty miles away. And—and some are also being sent to Nashville, I understand. ”
“Not Knoxville, though, I bet,” I said under my breath. The river goes right past it or through it, too. If we were having trouble, they were probably having troubles of their own. But I bet they didn’t have zombies.
“The Tennessee Valley Authority has not issued a formal statement except to say that they are aware of the problems at the Chickamauga Dam and that they are working at one hundred and ten percent to try to fix the issues that caused the locks to seize. The weather will be a determining factor in the repairs, but the National Weather Service is predicting more rain for the next two days, at least, so Mother Nature isn’t ready to cut the Tennessee Valley a break. ”
“Why should she?” someone nearby grumbled.
I retreated from the edge of the crowd and pushed myself back against a wall, against a mirrored panel that fogged up with the warmth of my body and the damp that just wouldn’t leave my clothes or my hair. It was cold on my shoulders, but I didn’t care.
They’re coming!
I heard her plain as day, but I didn’t know where she was until I looked up at the mezzanine—and there she stood, hanging over the rail by one hand. She was shouting, not to me specifically, but to anyone who would listen. A little dog began to howl and a couple of babies started to cry; but for the most part she went unnoticed.
They’re coming! she said again. Jesus, can’t you hear them? Up from the river, under the city. Coming, coming, coming, on wet-burned feet.
“Caroline?” I called for her attention, and got it. “What do they want? Just tell us what they want!”
Nothing they can have.
“Then what’s the point?” I asked too loud, because then she was right beside me, closer than I would have liked. Her breath was ashes against my cheek.
Slow them. Stop them, maybe, for long enough. While you can—while they walk below, while they dig their way through the buried city.
“The underground?” I don’t know why I gave it a question mark. I knew exactly what she meant.
How long, do you think—before they emerge?
I thought of the battered little building with its open floor . . . not a block away, if that far. “But I thought they had to stay with the water? Isn’t that how this works, Caroline? They can only rise as far as the water?”
She rolled her eyes at me, then reached out hard and fast—slapping the mirror beside my head and breaking it. They’re dead. They’re not supposed to be able to do anything. I don’t know what binds or stops them. I don’t even know what binds or stops me.
On the floor a few feet away, I saw a small black boy with eyes turned to me as big as quarters. He’d seen the whole thing, bless his little heart. I held a finger up to my lips and winked at him, trying to make it light or funny. It halfway worked. He mustered up a halfway smile, but it didn’t go very far on his face.
“What are we going to do?” he whispered up at me.