Excerpts

There were four apartments per landing, but most of them seemed deserted. Out of a last shred of modesty, Mathias hadn't dared touch the doors on his own landing.

After hesitating for a long time, he'd chosen to tackle the apartment directly above his own. The total absence of any noise through the ceiling or the walls of his flat had convinced him it was empty. As a precaution, he'd gone as far as pressing his ear against their door several times, listening closely.

Despite there being virtually no risk, he'd had to summon every ounce of courage to force the door open with a wood chisel and a crowbar. Luckily for him, the wooden door wasn't reinforced.

It must have been ten in the morning when, after half an hour of effort, the front door finally gave way. The crash seemed to him to echo well beyond the stairwell, for miles around. Tense, holding his breath, he waited for shouts, blows, or anything else that might come to punish his crime. But only a door creaked somewhere on the upper floors, without a single head appearing over the stair railing to look down at him. There was no sound of footsteps on the stairs.

Without waiting to find out, his heart pounding fit to burst, drenched in sweat, he quickly crossed the threshold, an empty gym bag in hand, then gently pushed the door shut behind him. The echo of his footsteps followed him inside. The good news was that no smell of rotting flesh greeted him.

The apartment was a four-room flat off a small hallway. It wasn't dark, since all the shutters had been left wide open; sunlight lit up the condensation on the windows. In places the curtains were gone, and the wallpaper was starting to fade, proof that whoever had fled had left some time ago.

He deliberately ignored the empty spots on the walls where family photos used to hang, and, very carefully, began his search.

After glancing quickly into the two bedrooms — an unremarkable one for mom and dad, with its bare, faded mattress, and a pathetic second one with its little empty crib — he'd retrieved a lined grey parka from a closet, a bit too big for him, sure, but given the cold, more than welcome.

Next, he'd hurried to check the kitchen, rifling through the white formica cabinets one after another.

Pasta, rice, coffee: the haul had been mediocre, but still worth taking. Finishing his round of the empty home, he'd checked the living room, scanned the shelves next to the empty TV stand. He'd been pleasantly surprised to find a decent stash of paperbacks there: Steinbeck, Caldwell, Toni Morrison, John Irving, and so on...

Strange to think that among these neighbors he'd never known, there'd been a fellow lover of American literature — potentially a friend...

But, like so many others before it, that thought was immediately filed away in his "personal graveyard of stupid assumptions and dumb ideas."

"Weird that they didn't take them when they left," he muttered, stuffing the books in with the food in his gym bag.

The last room held a small desk, probably meant for a computer, of no interest except for the loose stacks of paper, useful for starting a fire if needed.

He relieved himself in the toilet. Then he tried running the tap to wash his hands, without success. He studied his reflection in the mirror — brown eyes ringed from rough nights, his face hollow beneath a two-week beard; for all his twenty-one years, he was starting to look a little too much like a vagrant, with his mop of black hair and his beard with its reddish glints. He promised himself he'd take the time for a proper shave.

Somewhere in the mirror, he thought he glimpsed a blurred shape behind him.

Mathias spun around with a hoarse cry. He saw nothing, no one. Everything was empty. And yet coldly hostile. No sound disturbed the silence except his own ragged breathing. Uneasy, he put on the parka, slung the bag over his shoulder, and after one last look through each room, slipped out of the place.

No one was lying in ambush on the stairs, but he made his way back to his own apartment on tiptoe. It took him a good hour to recover from the shock.

Suddenly, a gunshot rang out.

Anouar dropped to the ground, blood pounding in his temples.

After ten seconds, he got back up. The shot had come from some distance from where he was standing. So it wasn't aimed at him directly.

On the other hand, it was going to draw every undead in the area. The day before, a good ten of them had been after him before he'd shaken them off.

"Anouar, buddy, it's really time to get the hell out of here," he muttered.

At that moment, he heard the sound of someone running. A crash immediately followed — Anouar recognized the distinctive sound of trash cans being knocked over.

He'd seen those trash cans at the corner of the street he was on, which meant whoever was fleeing was heading his way.

Cursing and grumbling, he hurried back into the building's lobby.

The dull slap of shoes on pavement told him the runner was closing in fast on his hiding place.

Screams and guttural growls echoed close by.

He'd planned to retreat to his shelter and wait for things to quiet down. But he couldn't help sneaking a look through the window.

A blonde woman was running straight toward him. She must have lost her rifle.

Even if it often made him come across as a macho type, Anouar had a great deal of respect for women. There was no question of leaving one in danger — let alone letting her get eaten.

As she came racing toward him, wild-eyed, gasping loudly, he stepped out and waved her over.

She saw him, veered off course, and barreled into the building's entrance, nearly slamming into him.

"Come with me, quick!" he said, dashing toward the door of the concierge's lodge.

He didn't look back to see if she was following.

They burst through the lodge door like Olympic sprinters.

As his guest collapsed inside, he leaned against the door and slammed it shut behind them.

Sitting on the floor, the woman stared at him, eyes bulging, breath coming in short gasps.

"The chair! Quick!" he shouted at her.

She seemed to hesitate, then spotted the chair, got up, and grabbed it.

When she handed him the chair, Anouar snatched it from her hands and wedged it against the door handle.

Then he, too, slumped to the floor, back against the wall, panting.

He motioned for her to move back.

"Let's get away from the door," he whispered to the stranger, "too close, they might smell us."

They crawled over to the window.

A sudden uproar in the lobby froze them in place.

Growls and thuds could be heard. Almost immediately, dull blows made the lodge door shudder.

Then, after two minutes, the blows moved off, echoing farther away.

Many footsteps thudded up the stairs. The stairwell's echo amplified the sound.

Little by little, the cacophony faded and became a dull murmur as the undead made their way up through the floors.

Anouar kept his eyes on the door; he'd been holding his breath the whole time. He could finally let out a sigh of relief.

He turned back to the stranger.

He was completely thrown when he saw she was holding him at bay with an Opinel knife.

It was 6 p.m., night had fallen, and the glare of the headlights lit up the ribbon of asphalt unwinding endlessly ahead of him.

He felt on the edge of drowsiness. His head was also starting to hurt; he rubbed his temples with his left hand, then, out of desperation, switched off the music.

That's when he heard the noise echo through the cabin. In fact, he'd been hearing that sound for a while already, but he'd mistaken it for the drum beat.

Clack! A silence. Clack! And it started again.

He broke out in an icy sweat when he realized the noise was coming from behind him. He couldn't help scanning the rearview mirror. Of course, there was nothing to see except the back seat. Yet something was knocking against the bodywork, and it seemed to be coming from... the trunk.

He felt his heart rate spike: the woman, in the trunk! Could she still be alive?

Clack! The sound rang out again.

Without thinking, he tried to turn around, losing sight of the road.

A jolt seemed to throw the car off balance as it struck, then scraped along the guardrail. Richard barely had time to straighten the wheel as the screech of tortured metal rose up. The car swerved for a few yards before he finally managed to regain control and stop. A truck grazed past, blaring its horn loudly and making him jump. Several cars honked and flashed their headlights as they overtook him.

Gasping for breath, Richard switched on his hazard lights; he drove on at a crawl before finally pulling into a rest area.

He was shaking as he got out of the car, leaving the door open.

"Sh...! Oh, sh...!" he stammered, falling to his knees on the freezing ground, in the glow of the Kangoo's headlights.

It took him five minutes to calm down.

It took him just as long to realize he hadn't heard the sound since he'd stopped.

A wave of relief washed over him — what an idiot he'd been! If he could no longer hear the sound, it had to be tied to the car's motion, probably something caught in the axle.

There was only one way to be sure.

Richard got up, gathered his courage, and walked around the car.

The trunk was closed — how could he have doubted it? All that remained was figuring out what had gotten caught in the axle.

Richard knelt down to look under the car, but it wasn't easy to make anything out by the light of passing vehicles alone. If only he'd had a flashlight! So he lay down, pushed his head between the two side wheels, and tried to make something out in the darkness.

Clack!

The sound rang out so loudly that Richard jerked his head up and smacked it against the car's chassis!

"Ow! Son of a b...!" he shouted, pulling himself free.

He straightened up, panicked. A stab of pain shot through his skull, but he paid it no attention.

There was no doubt about it now — the sound really was coming from the trunk!

He backed away, slumped onto the asphalt, panicking, and tried to calm himself down. Throbs of pain and panic played a symphony inside his skull. He forced himself to breathe slowly, until his thoughts cleared, absentmindedly rubbing the tip of his nose.

No choice about it — he was going to have to face whatever being, or thing, kept demanding his attention so persistently. And to face it, he needed, more than ever, to find somewhere well out of the way.

Despite the cold, he took off his jacket to dry the sweat soaking his clothes. Then he climbed back into the car, tossed the jacket onto the passenger seat, and started the engine.

But this time, he took the precaution of turning on the radio; when the music came blaring out of the speakers, he cranked up the volume. Loud.

Clack!

Louder still.