For the first time in a very, very long time, John Grigio was unsure of what to do. There'd always been a certain concrete rhythm to his life while protecting possibly the largest gathering of survivors on the east coast. Maintain the wall, salvage for supplies, kill the undead. Continue until doomsday, which he'd been expecting any day now, if he was honest with himself.
Now he stood, in line with about fifty of his men, facing well over two hundred corpses in the stadium. The walking kind of corpses. Surrounded by dead skeletons. The non-walking truly dead kind. That the walking corpses had helped his men kill.
Life had spun into reverse, and he had no idea what was supposed to happen next. Normally, at this point, there would be shooting followed by exploding heads. But the corpses weren't doing anything but standing there. Swaying. Some of them - and he'd had to do a double take just to be sure he wasn't seeing things - seemed to be smiling.
He wondered how much longer they could just stand here facing each other.
"Excuse me... sorry... coming... through..." A faint paper thin voice rose from the mass of dead in front of him, and slowly the group parted. From the gathered corpses came a man, dead of course, wearing a sports jacket, polo shirt and slacks. He was balding, and stared at him with intense wolf-like eyes.
A soldier nearby raised his rifle. John motioned for him to lower it, and waited for the corpse to do whatever it was going to do.
"Hi," the dead guy said, in the same whispery voice. Then he did something completely unexpected, that shook John's world a little harder.
The corpse extended his hand in greeting.
The Colonel stared at the corpse, at the corpse's hand, and back at the corpse.
"Hi," the balding zombie said again, and this time motioned up and down with his hand, as if to instruct someone on how to shake hands.
This was the moment, John realized.
Well, not shooting that kid in the head had really been the moment, but a part of him held back because he didn't want to traumatize his daughter any more. Then the boy had started bleeding, and insanity reigned.
But this, this was huge. Did he truly believe that this was possible? That the world could change? Could he make that leap himself and... change?
F**k yeah.
John walked forward, and took the corpse firmly by the hand, giving him the bravest handshake he'd ever given anyone. The corpse shook his hand again and again, and then again. And kept going. By the tenth go, John pulled away and stood facing the corpse.
The dead man looked up from the remains of their handshake and stared at John. A slow, stuttery smile spread on the corpse's face.
"Thank... you..." the dead man said.
John had a horrible feeling he was going to break down in tears in front of his soldiers. He could actually feel his eyes watering. It wasn't something he could afford now, so he clamped down on the feeling, trying to stay present, and emotionless. It was incredibly hard. Whatever he did, he had to avoid thinking about... his wife.
That closed him down, and he took a deep breath. "You're welcome. Thanks for helping my men with the skeletons."
The balding corpse nodded, and nodded back to the dead crowd, and the crowd started nodding, the movement rippling from the front to back across the mass of dead.
Now John felt like laughing. So this is what insanity feels like, he thought, and clamped down again.
"I'm John," he said, finally.
The man became very still and stared at John again, frozen as if he'd just shut down. The effect was unsettling, and John found himself unconsciously reaching for his sidearm. He stopped himself and forced himself to relax.
The man turned on again, and seemed to wrestle with a word, "I'm... mmmm..." he hummed, then shook his head. "M. I'm M."
John raised an eyebrow, but nodded, "M... Good to meet you."
M's face slowly, falteringly, lit up in what John could only describe as joy. The dead smile returned, much more sure, and he nodded again. "You... too." Then his brows dipped and he met John's eyes. "R?" he asked, followed by "Julie?"
It was jarring to hear his daughter's name come from a corpse. He wanted to ask how he knew Julie, but realized M had first asked about R, the boy in their hospital. What was with all these one letter names?
He paused, not really sure how to answer. He could only assume M was R's friend, however that worked out in the world of the undead. And he had gone and shot R, putting him in hospital. This could be a little sensitive.
"R is in the hospital," he finally answered. "Julie... is fine."
"Hospital?" M asked, and John could see he was more confused than concerned. The corpse's brow knit in concentration.
Was he trying to remember what that was? Did M know what had happened to R, that he was... well, this was going to be interesting.
"R is alive, he's... changed. But all the damage he got as a corpse, still there. He's in the hospital to heal from that."
M stared at him in wonder. "Living?"
John nodded, and smirked, then despite himself, the smirk spread into a big grin. "Yeah."
And he realized how very, very long it'd been since he'd grinned, in earnest. A grin that wasn't a thinly veiled threat.
M had turned back to the dead, and had raised his arm, hand curled in a fist, to the mass of dead. "R! Alive! Living!" he yelled, his voice no longer a whisper, and the corpses before him stirred, some moaning, some trying to speak and failing, others mumbling half formed words.
"Exhumed!" he roared again, and more of the dead roared back, arms raised, black mouths gaping.
John looked back at his men, and found most of them looking to him, concerned and confused, fingers on triggers, rifles raising. This many undead in one place, this agitated, was in every other circumstance, deadly, and the soldier's instincts were screaming at them right now. He felt it too. They were going to have to fight instinct and to stay calm. He projected as much confidence as he could and signaled to them all to stand down. Eventually the guns lowered.
M had noticed. He looked back at John with a thin smile, and spoke in a whisper, "We... want to help. Not... eat."
John smirked, "Then we won't shoot."
So, what was their next move? They had a bunch of dead people next to thousands of living. What was the next step? He couldn't just let them walk into the city. The people wouldn't understand, someone would lose it and start shooting, and that would be it.
"What do you need from us?" he asked.
"Contact," M replied, without stutter or delay. His eyes bore into John's.
John arched an eyebrow, "Contact?" he echoed.
M nodded, then reached out again, and clamped his hand on John's arm. There was a click behind them as the soldier nearest to John, Peterson was his name, cocked his M16 and leveled it at M's face.
Both John and M turned to stare at Peterson, who shuffled uncomfortably for a moment, looking back and forth between them both, then slowly dropped the gun barrel.
"Twitchy," M observed, looking back at John.
"Hard to unlearn what's kept us alive," John answered and looked down at M's hand. "You need... touch?"
The corpse nodded, then smirked. "Just not... bad... touch."
John was stunned when he realized the dead man in front of him had just cracked a joke, and that the strangled noise coming from his throat was a laugh. For a long moment, he couldn't speak. The world had done a one-eighty on him, and he'd completely lost his footing. His sureness. Now the dead were talking, cracking jokes and laughing.
Maybe he'd lost his mind? Maybe he was actually locked in some room in real life rocking and babbling to himself. Maybe this was a dream?
He didn't deal too well with maybes. Screw it. This was actually happening, and he had a chance to bring humanity back from the brink. He was going to make that happen anyway he could.
A plan started to form in his mind. A way to bridge the gap between these dead and his living. It wouldn't happen overnight, but it would happen. They just needed a little patience, and a lot of courage.
A lifetime's worth.
—-
I adored the book Isaac wrote, but I very much appreciated what Levine did with the story, particularly when it came to how he handled the Colonel. He showed the man as just a little more human, with an ability to change, to hope. I really felt it was one of the more dramatic transformations in the story, at least at an emotional level. While R's is really the most incredible, it's much more physical. He's courageous in choosing to follow Julie, and protect her, but really, he's just following his heart and doesn't know anything different. Grigio has been worn down for a decade, almost worn through. He had to make a conscious effort to believe and trust, something many never learn to do because they can't handle things going south again, or being hurt again. So I loved that from the movie, and that's the John in my story. Perhaps a tiny bit more of a sook really ;)