The Oasis of Filth Read Online Free PDF Page B

zombies out, but it seemed to bother very little with keeping anyone in. I suppose when you could avoid having one or two extra mouths to feed, you were fine with people disappearing. What a model of efficiency. Our government had created a society so organized that it knew that losing a citizen could actually make caring for everyone else easier. How shrewd! But we had yet to realize all of this, so we tried to paddle quietly, slowly, over to Northern Virginia. It must have made a comical scene, the most ridiculous escape in history, although I suppose no one ever saw it. Or if they did, they didn’t care.
     
    We reached Arlington in full dark. The only lights were behind us, in DC, since Arlington, Alexandria, and the other surrounding cities had largely been abandoned in the pullback. Stepping off the boat, onto land, with Arlington National Cemetery spreading up the hill to our right, overgrown but still recognizable, we felt like astronauts taking their first steps on another world. I’d been here before, many times. But 10 years of changes... well, it was a lot to take in.
     
    We took one look back at DC.
     
    “What now?” she asked.
     
    “Good question.” I scratched my head. “Jesus, there could be zombies anywhere. We can’t just sit here all night.” So we moved.
     
    I remembered — and, like I said before, it’s funny what you remember — that Interstate 395 was right there, just to our left. In the daylight, we could follow that to 95, our path south. But for now, shelter was the only concern. Too nervous and bewildered to go far, we walked straight ahead, to a marina in front of the Pentagon. It was dark and seemingly inactive, but filled us with an unbearable fear of the unknown. We found a boat that was still afloat and thankfully wasn’t overrun with untold grime, and we climbed aboard. In minutes we were both asleep, lying above deck, close together in the cool evening air of spring.
     
    * * *
     
    Hours later, with the moon gone and darkness all around, with DC’s light shimmering so near and impossibly far away, we awoke to a sound. It was a scraping, a scritch-scratching on the dock. It could have been a raccoon — it should have been a raccoon. But I felt it in my bones before I even saw anything. It was a zombie.
     
    We propped ourselves up quietly. It hadn’t noticed us yet. I got the feeling that scanning the dock might be part of its nightly routine, but who knew. I’d never sat so close to one of these creatures and just... studied it .
     
    If it hadn’t been for its rather feral motions, it would have been hard to declare it anything other than a human being. It — she — was female. Maybe mid-40s, Caucasian. But she could have been in her 20s. Age was hard to tell. She looked ragged. Her clothes were too filthy to clearly recognize, but looked like a button-up shirt, possibly flannel, and jeans, torn and covered with layers of dirt. The skin on her face at this distance appeared... bumpy. Her hair was a tangled mess, and her shoes seemed to be long gone. She breathed with the labored rasp of an upper respiratory infection, and cocked her head to one side. She was agitated but not enraged. Her eyes had a milky appearance and she didn’t seem to see very well; she spent a lot of time scavenging with her hands, which were clearly deformed. We watched, terrified and amazed, finally laying eyes on the monster we’d feared for so long.
     
    And she stopped. With an almost casual manner, she turned toward us. Slowly, twitching, she shambled to the foot of the pier where our boat was tied. She took a step out onto the pier, wincing and licking her lips. She stopped, sniffed the air. I stiffened, willed myself not to breathe, felt Rosa next to me do the same. I stole a glance at her; she was frozen with fear. I thought Please, Rosa, just stay still and be silent. And my right hand, the one propping me up, slipped. I caught my slide with a dull thump , my elbow hitting the deck.