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Автор Джонотан Мэйберри

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This is for George A. Romero (1940–2017).

When I was a kid I saw your first film,

Night of the Living Dead, on its world premiere.

As an adult, I got to work with you on the last

project you completed before you left us,

the anthology we coedited, Nights of the Living Dead.

You are the Godfather of the Living Dead, now and forever.

I miss you, my friend.

And—as always—for Sara Jo.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Special thanks to some real-world people who were willing to enter the world of the living dead with me. Thanks to my literary agent, Sara Crowe of Pippin Properties; David Gale, Laurent Linn, and the whole team at Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers. Thanks to my brilliant and talented assistant, Dana Fredsti. Thanks to Dr. John Cmar, Director, Division of Infectious Diseases, Sinai Hospital of Baltimore; Joe McKinney, San Antonio PD; Carl Zimmer, author of Parasite Rex (Atria Books); ethnobotanist Dr. Wade Davis; comparative physiologist Mike Harris; Dr. Richard Tardell, specialist in emergency medicine (retired); Dr.

Nancy Martin-Rickerhauser; thanks to Rhian Lockard, Gail Guth-Nichols, Carmen Elisa, Rachael Lavin, Nikki Guerlain, Chris Newton, Gabrielle Faust, Rachel Maleski, and Vinessa Olp; thanks to J. Dianne Dotson; thanks to Stacey Hood, Chris Wren, Dyer Wilk, Kelly W. Collier, and K. R. Chin; Alan Weisman, author of The World Without Us (Thomas Dunne Books); and thanks to some of my real-world friends for allowing me to write them into this odd little tale—Solomon Jones, Randy Kirsch, Alethea Kontis, Karen Peak, Luis Alberto Urrea, and Jamie Ford.

PART ONE

NEW ALAMO, TEXAS

LATE AUGUST THE STILLNESS

It is the secret of the world

that all things subsist and do not die,

but retire a little from sight

and afterwards return again.

—RALPH WALDO EMERSON, ESSAYS: SECOND SERIES

GABRIELLA “GUTSY” GOMEZ BURIED HER mother on wednesday. And again on Friday.

This was the world and that’s how it was.

THE SIGN OVER THE CEMETERY read “Hope. ”

Gutsy kept trying to believe in the sign, but every day it was getting harder to understand what the word even meant. Hope for what? Hope for who? Hope for where?

She stood in the road, one hand on the bridle of the weary, patient old horse; her other hand on the broad-bladed machete that hung from her belt. All the metal fittings on knife and bridle had been sanded down and painted in flat colors. There was nothing reflective on anything she wore, on the horse, or on the work cart. Reflections were dangerous this far from town. The wheels of the cart and the harness strapped to the horse were greased where they needed grease and padded where they needed padding. Reflection drew one kind of trouble and noise drew another.