World Memorial Read online

  Brother Joel smiled even wider, if that were possible. He walked—strolled, really— through the snow to Park's front stoop. The others followed, stepping farther across the snow. Brother Joel stepped up the shaky metal stairs, stopping one rung below Park.

  "Now then, sir," he said, "my name is Joel. Brother Joel, of the Grace Holiness Church Of The Covenant Victory."

  "Wow," said Park. "Must be a bitch to fit on the name tags."

  Either Brother Joel didn't hear or he ignored him. "The flock and I are out searching."

  "Hope it's not for a trailer." Park didn't move but kept his mind very much on the rifle propped next to him.

  "Oh no, sir, no," said Brother Joel, chuckling. "We have no interest in your property. We have a wonderful church home a few miles from here. We are out searching for lost lambs. Babes in the woods, if you would, sir. Quite literally. Sister Elizabeth?"

  Sister Elizabeth stepped up behind Brother Joel, handing him a small stack of papers. The papers were worn and wrinkled. Park saw pencil marks on them.

  "These children, specifically," said Brother Joel. He handed the papers to Park. Park took them, again wishing he had gloves. The cold stung his hands.

  The wind picked up. Everyone grew still, looking anxiously around at the trees. Park looked at the chains along his walls. He'd used the thickest he could find, running them from the trailer down to roots or anything sturdy. Back before the snow had come.

  "Brother Joel..." said Sister Elizabeth.

  "Be still," said Brother Joel. "The Lord wouldn't lead us out here to be caught in a windstorm."

  "Hope you're right about that, buddy," said Park, watching the trees. They shook and creaked, their branches swaying back and forth. The storms were bad sometimes. When he'd been in Ashton with Angie Land and her kids, the rains had started. They’d lasted for over a year, soaking the ground and making the walking corpses stink. Then the rains stopped and the winds began. Violent, shaking winds, especially bad now that snow covered everything.

  The wind subsided. Everyone looked relieved. Except for Brother Joel. He'd never looked nervous to begin with.

  "See?" he said to Sister Elizabeth. "Have faith."

  "Yes, Brother Joel," said Sister Elizabeth. She looked embarrassed and stepped back to stand behind another woman with blonde hair and a severe black dress.

  Park snorted and looked down at the papers Brother Joel had given him. He thumbed through the first few. They were drawings, sketches in pencil of various children.

  "These the kids you were jabbering about earlier?" said Park.

  "Indeed they are, sir," said Brother Joel.

  "Well, not to tell you your stupid-ass business, but maybe you could have held onto them when you were drawing these pictures."

  Brother Joel chuckled. Park wanted to punch him. "We haven't seen these poor lost lambs in the flesh, sir. They came to Sister Elizabeth in a vision. She's a prophet."

  "How nice for her." Park thumbed through more sketches. One sent a jolt through him, but he gave no sign.

  "Indeed it is, sir," said Brother Joel. "He blessed her and sent her a vision to help us find these lost little ones."

  Park looked through the rest as quickly as he could. He knew one of those children. One that was long dead. He wasn't sure why the crazy asshole had a sketch of a dead boy, but Park didn't like it. As he finished looking over the last sketch, Park's eyes glanced over Brother Joel. On the man's otherwise pristine hands, there was a tiny dark smudge along the cuticle of his left thumb. It was dark red, like dried blood.

  "Not that I hate to disappoint you," said Park, handing the sketches back, "but I've never seen any of your cartoon kids."

  "Ah well," said Brother Joel, taking the sketches back without losing his grin. "It was worth a try. Thank you for your time, good sir. Have a blessed day."

  "You know it," said Park, leaning against the door frame as Brother Joel walked back down the metal steps. Park gave the flock his best don't-give-a-shit look. Why did they have a picture of one of Angie Land's kids? A kid Park knew to be dead? He'd seen the kid dying of a corpse bite. You didn't come back from those.

  Park's thumb hurt something fierce. He watched the flock follow Brother Joel away from his trailer. He resolved to wait a few more minutes, to make sure the weirdoes were well out of sight before he went back inside.

  Park frowned. The kid in the picture, the dead son of Angie Land, looked older. Looked about three years older, like he would look now. And this Sister Elizabeth woman had dreamt of him? It was all too weird.

  Park watched the last stragglers head into the trees. He'd had some dreams of his own. Had them every night. Some were of a woman he'd never seen before, a woman with dark black hair and a white dress, telling him to stop trying to kill himself. Every morning he’d tell her to fuck off and go back to trying.

  Some dreams were of his daughters, both definitely dead. One torn to shreds by corpses, the other dead at the hands of a man Park had then killed. Other dreams were of Angie and her kids, each looking older, the way they would look now. And there was the boy, Dalton, alive and well. These dreams bothered him. Angie with her living kids, even one he knew to be dead, and his own dead and gone.

  The last stragglers vanished from sight. Park didn't trust them. The whole flock gave him the willies, but Brother Joel especially bothered him. What if Dalton were alive? And why were these people looking for him? What would they do with him? Park knew it was crazy. Dreams didn't mean shit.

  But he also knew how he had hurt his thumb. The day before, Park had hit on a new method of suicide, one that didn't hinge on whether or not his rifle fired. He'd pulled a cinderblock out from under the rear of his trailer and lugged it inside. He'd laid down on his back, holding the heavy block over his head.

  Then he'd let go. The block scraped and jarred his thumb on the way down, and he'd been sure it was headed straight for his forehead.

  Then it was behind him. Somehow, the block thudded to the floor, inches from the top of his head. He hadn't seen it change course. He knew sure as shit he hadn't moved. One moment the block was plummeting for his head, then the next it was behind him.

  "Ain't that some shit," Park had said, his thumb throbbing as he lay on his floor.

  And he stood there in his doorway now, still feeling it. Each pulse reminding him that some weird shit was afoot.

  Fine, he thought, crossing his arms and staring at the snow. Assuming Dalton was alive somehow and Park was having dreams of him, so the fuck what? What the fuck did Park care? His own children were dead. Why should he care if Angie Land lost one of hers? She had a spare.

  Park snorted into the biting wind. He knew the death of his kids wasn't Angie's fault—she'd helped find them. It certainly wasn't Dalton's fault. And the other one, Maylee, had been a good friend to his daughter the last few days she'd been alive.

  In his dreams, Park recognized the area where Angie Land and her kids were living. It wasn't far. A day's walk, maybe two. If he found them, he could warn them about Brother Joel and the others. If not, maybe he’d find some new gloves along the way.

  "Well shit," said Park to no one. “It's not like I have anything to do around here."

  * * *

  Joel stopped and stood in the snow. He heard his flock stop behind him. He looked up to the sky. It was starting to snow, and it was growing dark.

  He turned to face the flock. "Be of good cheer, brothers and sisters. Your blessing will come."

  Joel stepped over to Elizabeth. She saw him coming and drew herself up proudly. Joel knew she would have to work on her pride. It was an easy sin to fall into when given the gift of visions. It pained him to see her suffer in her sin, but he knew God would see her through.

  "You're sure you saw that man in your visions, Sister?" he asked.

  "Plain as you're standing there, Brother Joel," said Elizabeth. "He's connected to the children somehow."

  Joel looked among the rest of the group. His gaze landed on Frank
lin and Bud, two good men, strong in the Lord and good with their guns. It was Bud who'd shot the corpse as they’d approached the trailer. He was maybe a little too quick to shoot, but he was good of heart.

  "Brothers Franklin and Bud," he said, smiling at them, "I'm afraid there's a task I must ask of you."

  "Of course, Brother," said Franklin, stepping forward. Bud stood silent but expectantly, his wild hair slowly collecting snow.

  "I need you to stay behind and keep an eye on our friend back there. The Lord has a plan for him, he just doesn't seem to realize it yet."

  Franklin adjusted a red and black hunting cap on his bald head. "For how long, Brother?"

  "Hard to say," said Joel, pondering the snow. It began to fall harder, collecting on trees around them. Bare branches clawed at the darkening sky overhead. "He may know the location of at least one of the children. Follow him if he goes anywhere. Report to me if he leads you to a child."

  Bud nodded, his snow-coated hair bobbing against his shoulders. "Got it."

  "You know how important the children are, brothers," said Joel.

  The men nodded.

  Joel looked up at the sky, letting the snow fall gently on his cheeks.

  "We will get our reward," he said, and smiled.

  * * *

  Park shut his front door and walked onto the stoop. He slung his rifle over his shoulder and walked down the steps. It had started snowing.

  "Great," he said.

  Reaching the ground, he turned to walk around the side of his trailer. He stopped, his chest tight. He considered waiting until morning. He wouldn't be leaving until then. He could give it one more night. His chest throbbed. He coughed and shook it off, and resumed walking. He was silent, his boots crunching in the snow and whatever twigs and dead leaves were underneath.

  A soft groan came from the backyard as he reached the corner. He stopped again.

  "Damn it," he said, snorting into the wind. "Fuck it all to hell."

  He rounded the corner and headed into the backyard. It was growing dark. Night was falling fast, but there was still enough light to see. He wished there wasn't.

  His daughter Lori sat chained to a stump. She was dead, and had been for years. She moaned softly, grinding her teeth as snow fell onto her cheeks.

  "Hey kiddo," he said, stopping a few feet from where she sat.

  She groaned at nothing. A dark spot on the front of her jacket marked where she'd been shot by her bastard of a stepfather. Park had killed the asshole and enjoyed it. Park hated the man for killing Lori.

  But now he mostly hated himself for not putting Lori out of her misery sooner.

  "I'm sorry, Lori," he said, feeling like he was choking. "Should have done it long ago."

  She groaned and shifted around on the stump. Her chain clinked.

  For the first six months, he had tried feeding her raw dead animals he’d hunted. She wasn't interested. He'd considered letting her eat him, but he didn't want to come back. Eventually he realized she didn't need to eat at all. Corpses didn't eat because they needed to.

  He raised the rifle, aiming at her forehead. His chest was almost too tight to breathe.

  "Sorry again," he said. "Love you baby girl."

  She moaned at him, blinking in the falling snow.

  He fired.

  One

  Maylee Land gripped the cold metal of the ladder and peered out into the trees. She was maybe twenty feet up, a few feet over the makeshift walls of World Memorial. World Memorial was a town her mother had built. Or the closest thing that passed for a town these days.

  Walls of wooden planks and sheets of metal surrounded what had once been a medium-sized farm. Behind the walls sat trailers, sheds and crude shacks people had managed to cobble together. At the front of it all was a small farmhouse. Maylee lived there with her mom and her brother. The town had grown up around them.

  It was so cold her worn gloves almost stuck to the ladder. There were several ladders like it spread across the town, nailed and chained together atop each other so as to stick up over the walls. They served as guard posts. The Town Guard consisted of those healthy enough to defend the town from the dead who wandered the landscape, looking for the living to consume. And Maylee was now in charge of the Guard, despite being only eighteen. Healthy young adults were in short supply and she had proven herself many times over the years. For the first year, before others had shown up, it had been her doing most of the defending, especially after Mom had been hurt.

  Beyond the wall was a large field, covered in snow. Beyond that were woods, acres of frozen trees stretching on for miles. She stared into the trees, watching. The morning sky was bright, cold and clear. She blinked, staring harder.

  "I got something!" she yelled out. Beneath her, a guard ran to a nearby alarm rope. The ropes were set all over town. They ran up to large collections of scrap metal and wood. The guard yanked on the chain, over and over. The metal and wood clanged and clattered, loud enough to be heard over the whole town.

  Maylee took both feet off the rung she stood on and straddled the ladder. Using her gloves to guide herself, she slid down the ladder and landed hard in the snow. Her legs complained but she didn't care. She ran to a large metal gate that led outside. The gate had once been used to close off an area for livestock, but had since been extended and covered with wood and metal until it stood over twice its original height and had no openings. She nodded to Walsh, who was already opening the gate. He was maybe sixteen, almost too young for the Guard.

  Maylee rushed out into the snow and veered off where she knew a driveway to be. The driveway had been covered by so much snow it was indistinguishable from the land around it. It led to a nearby road that cut through the countryside. No one ever came down that road.

  She reached a snow bank and dropped to her stomach, looking out across the field.

  She heard other guards come up behind her. She pulled her scarf down, sputtering in the snow, and put a battered pair of binoculars against the bridge of her nose. She scanned up and down the nearby trees and hills, but saw nothing.

  "Are you sure you saw something?" said Walsh from behind her.

  "Shhh!" said Maylee.

  "She's showing off," said an older man's voice behind her. It was Elton Hayes. Elton had positioned himself to be leader of the Guard when Derek, the last leader, died at the hands of three half-frozen corpses. The Guard had elected Maylee.

  "She's showing off to show she's up to it," said Elton. A few guards chuckled with him. Not everyone had voted for Maylee.

  "Suck a dick, Elton," said Maylee, turning the knob on the bridge of the binoculars.

  "You should respect your elders," said Elton. Elton had lived nearly forty five more years than her eighteen. He worked out furiously every day to prove he was as tough as the youngsters in the Guard. He was lean, muscular and his long grey hair was tied back in a taut ponytail.

  "I'll get right on that," said Maylee, moving her gaze to the right.

  The binoculars landed on a corpse wandering in the snow, staggering among the few dead trees that dotted the field.

  "There!" said Maylee.

  Where?" said Walsh behind her.

  "There," said Maylee. She pointed, not taking the binoculars from her eyes. The corpse was a man, fat and bald. Large black wounds were coated with frost. He worked his cracked, frozen lips up and down over rotten, dark-yellow teeth.

  "There's nothing," said Elton. "She wants to prove she's special like her freak brother."

  "I see something," said a young woman named April from behind Maylee's right shoulder. "There. Moving in the trees."

  "What?" said Elton. "That's a speck. A great big speck of nothing."

  "For fuck's sake," said Maylee. She lowered the binoculars and pushed herself up to her knees. She whipped the binocular strap over her neck and stood. "I got this one. Wait here."

  "Wait!" said Elton. Maylee heard him and the others scrambling. She didn't bother to look back or stop.


  She ran out into the field, rounding a tree as she undid a belt strapped diagonally across her chest. She reached up over her shoulder as the belt fell away. Her hand closed on the handle of an aluminum bat the belt had been holding in place. The bat was dented and dirty, with several large nails driven through it. “Ella” was written across it in black magic marker, a reminder of older times. She whipped it over her shoulder and held it in front of her as she ran.

  She rounded a snowdrift and neared the corpse, holding the bat out to one side.

  "Heads up fucker!" she yelled. The corpse whipped his fat bald head to face her. It blinked its clouded eyes and hissed past its swollen tongue.

  Screaming, Maylee swung the bat for the fat corpse's head. It thudded into its temple, driving a large rusty nail into its skull. The corpse shook with the impact and groaned, black fluid leaking from its mouth.

  Grunting, Maylee twisted the bat back and forth, then wrenched the nail free. A portion of the corpse's skull came loose, spilling dead skin and dark goop across the snow. Maylee brought the bat up and slammed downward as hard as she could on top of the corpse's skull. The corpse's head crumpled inward, dark gore shooting from its ears and nose. It toppled backward and was still.

  Maylee smirked down at the corpse and turned to face the rest of the guards as they rushed across the snow.

  "Too slow!" she said, laughing. Then cold dead hands closed on the back of her neck.

  "Whoa," she said, feeling dead flesh brush against her cheek as a corpse leaned in to bite. She whipped the bat up over her shoulder, slamming downward where she guessed the corpse's head to be. She heard a crunch and winced as the handle smacked into her shoulder. The corpse groaned and let go.

  The guards rushed across the snow in front of her. Dunwoody, a middle-aged man with a thick beard and a limp, held out a battered rifle. "Duck!" he yelled.

  Maylee dropped to her knees, her shins crunching into the snow. She heard - almost sensed - the corpse leaning down behind her. She spun around and dropped to her back, kicking upward. The corpse, a thin man missing a chunk of his face and with frost covering the blackened edges of his wounds, jerked to a stop as her foot hit his chest.