Dead Sea Read Online Free PDF Page A

ablaze. I didn't live in a row home exactly, but most of the houses for blocks around were similar in size and shape-little run-down, one-bedroom boxes with tiny yards. They were grouped close together, and the flames leaped from one home to the next. The street was filled with thick clouds of smoke-and filled with those fleeing the inferno, both the living and dead.
        It was terrifying and surreal. The parade of survivors came first. Some were naked or in their underwear, others wore pajamas, and a select few were dressed for survival: Kevlar vests, combat boots, camouflage, and stuff like that. All of them were trying to escape the inferno. There were probably two dozen total. I wondered where they'd all come from. I'd thought all along that Alan and I were the only people left alive in our immediate neighborhood, but obviously I'd been wrong. It was weird to think that while I'd been huddled inside my home, my neighbors had been doing the same, hiding in basements and attics, waiting for whatever happened next, fighting to stay alive one more day. I'd felt alone and miserable, and meanwhile, these people had probably been feeling the same way.
        Most of them were on foot, some without shoes. They ran down the street without looking back. The survivalist types were armed with assault rifles. I wasn't sure what type, but they were the kind you saw in movies. A few of the others clutched weapons or belongings, but most of the people in the fleeing crowd were empty-handed. A black Lexus coasted among them, car horn blaring, the driver trying to get through. A man dressed like he was going deer hunting spun around and fired three shots through the windshield. Screaming, the people around him scattered. The man calmly approached the car, opened the door, tossed the driver to the pavement, and then slid behind the wheel. Another guy raced by on a motorcycle, weaving in and out of the pedestrians.
        The dead came next. They were mostly human, but there were a few animals as well. Some of the zombies were missing limbs. Others had huge, ugly wounds that wept blood and pus-injuries that should have been fatal. One shirtless corpse was missing its entire abdomen. A few strands of gristle hung down to its crotch. The gaping stomach cavity was empty-no organs, just pink meat and bones. I wondered if it still craved living flesh, and if so, what happened after it had eaten. How could it digest anything without a fucking stomach? How could they process food when they were dead? And why didn't they eat each other instead of munching on the living?
        A naked dead man stepped out of the alley and passed through my yard. He was covered with dirt and blood, and his skin was a dark bluish-purple, the color of a bruise. There was something else wrong with him, too, but I couldn't tell what it was until he turned toward my house again. Then I saw what was wrong. His genitals were missing- replaced by a big, bloody hole. 1 recognized the dead man as one of my former neighbors. Never knew his name, never talked to him while he was living. Just the occasional head nod from over the fence. And now here he was, dickless and dead.
        A few of the creatures were obviously from some of the higher-income parts of the city. I wondered what had brought them to my neighborhood. Had they come here while they were still alive, forced to flee into the ghetto, a place they would never have set foot in under normal conditions? Or had they come here after death, hunting for food? The corpse of a white yuppie wandered down the street, arms outstretched and mouth open. His distended belly was swollen with gas. Two shards of red, broken glass jutted from his forehead like horns. Despite the horror, I had to laugh. He looked like Satan in a Burberry shirt. Another dead man was dressed in the tattered vestiges of a Catholic priest. Apparently, they weren't immune either.
        The creatures shuffled along behind their fleeing prey,