Suicide Kings by George R. R. Martin and Melinda M. Snodgrass

zombies, too? ’Cause you know I love me some zombies.”
    Hoodoo Mama crouches down in front of her. “This is no way to run a fucking railroad, Bubbles. Cocksuckers out here want you gone, baby, gone. You can’t stay like this.”
    Michelle can’t look at Joey. Not after what they did.
    “What? After we fucked?” Joey says. A group of zombies appears behind her.
Damn it
, Michelle thinks.
It’s my dream and there are still zombies.
    “Shit, Bubbles, if you get like this every time you tear off a piece . . .”
    “Okay, that is so not what happened!” Michelle yells. But she remembers what went on between them and feels ashamed and aroused.
    “Don’t you understand?” Michelle wails. “I betrayed Juliet. Why did I dothat? And I’m now the size of a elephant and, apparently, too large to move or be moved. Oh, and if I’m not mistaken, I think I have the power of a nuclear explosion in me.”
    The zombies vanish. Joey stands alone on a blighted landscape. She’s frail, tiny, and anyone could hurt her.
    Then Michelle is back in the pit. Adesina is there. Her face is obscured by her hair come undone from its braids. She isn’t wearing the faded dress anymore. Her body is barely covered by rags.
    “Adesina,” she says softly. Michelle crawls to her. She tries not to think about the corpses. She brushes the hair from Adesina’s face. A dark bruise swells on the girl’s left cheek. There are half-healed cuts on her chin and on her forehead.
    “Why are you in my dreams?” she asks. Michelle puts her hands on Adesina’s temples. She allows images to flow through her mind, trying to connect.
    Adesina pulls away. It hurts. Dreams aren’t supposed to hurt. Nothing hurts Michelle. And dreams don’t smell. And there is a definite lack of bunnies here.
If there aren’t bunnies, then this isn’t a dream. But if this isn’t a dream, then what is it?
    There are bodies piled up in the pit. They’re in different stages of decomposition. And it reeks. A stench so bad she can barely keep from gagging.
    “Adesina, are you really down here?”
    And as she says it, a shriek explodes in her mind and Michelle runs to the only place far enough away that she can’t hear it anymore.
    The Sudd, Sudan
The Caliphate of Arabia
    The sudd was a stinking swamp.
    The bloated bodies, already rotting in the sun, didn’t help. Siraj gasped, gagged, dug a handkerchief out of his pocket, but the rising vomit couldn’t be stopped. He turned aside and puked. The bile and chunks pattered in the standing water. A breeze hissed through the papyrus, carrying away the scent of vomit, but bringing more stench of death and blood, overlaid with cordite and gunpowder. Smells Noel knew well.
    They picked their way through the reeds and papyrus, seeking reasonablydry ground. Bodies floated in the waters to either side. There were more on the solid ground. Noel paused over one corpse. The man’s face was gone. He squatted down, and inspected the raw wound at the top of the corpse’s skull and beneath his jaw. “No bullet did that,” Siraj said.
    “No. His face has been bitten off.” Noel pointed at the raw edges. “Those are teeth marks.” He stood and looked around. Now that he knew what to look for he saw many more faceless corpses.
    “What does that?” Siraj asked.
    “Probably not your average soldier in the Simba Brigade.”
    They broke through the reeds to a relatively open, dry patch of ground. Ruined tanks sat smoldering like Easter Island monuments to some forgotten war god. Several of the tanks were tossed aside, as if a giant’s child had thrown them in a fit of massive pique.
    “I think we can safely assume that Tom Weathers was here.” Noel scanned the tank graveyard and spotted a human figure leaning against the shattered treads of one reasonably intact tank.
    He and Siraj ran to the man. His face was smoke-blackened, and blood had turned his shirt into caked armor. He was in his early forties, and he recognized Siraj.