by Nathan Allen
This brought the crowd to their arthritic feet.
Wearing a ten thousand dollar Desmond Merrion suit and two thousand dollar Tanino Crisci shoes, Bernard Marlowe, the son of a wealthy investment banker who lived in a seven million dollar mansion and had a personal fortune of over eighty million dollars, had somehow convinced these people that he was one of them.
He thrust his arms in the air triumphantly, and was joined by his family to soak up the sustained applause.
“I believe in democracy!” he declared once more.
It was said that anyone who wanted to run for public office was unsuitable and should therefore immediately be disqualified. The type of person who would want to run the country is the type of person you definitely did not want running the country. It wasn’t that a career in politics made you a bad person; it was that politics attracts only the most vile people.
Bernard Marlowe was a prime example of this. His quest for power was nothing short of sociopathic, and there was no level he wouldn’t stoop to in order to achieve his goal. He would do anything for political mileage, whether it be dragging grieving mothers before the media to underscore the human cost of the zombie scourge, to digging up dirt and spreading innuendo about political opponents and their families and passing it on to his former media chums, to ignoring all expert advice regarding how best to handle undead issues in favour of populist slogans and simplistic solutions.
No one enters politics to serve their community. They do it to feed their own rampant egos. Self-interest remains the number one priority. A politician’s sole objective is to win office, and everything else, including what’s best for the country and its citizens, comes a distant second.
Marlowe’s pledge to repeal the NEVADA law, which protected zombies from unprovoked and excessive violence, was his most brazen display of pandering to the overfed masses. The National Law to End Violence Against the Dead Act had received bipartisan support when it was first introduced, and every other developed country in the world had similar agreements protecting former humans from such atrocities. Ethicists and other leading authorities on the issue were unanimous in their belief that these laws were essential for a civilised society to function.
Now, Marlowe was promising to replace NEVADA with CADAVER (Citizens Against Death And Violence Entering our Residences). He claimed this would restore the rights of civilians to protect themselves against any undead interlopers. CADAVER stated that landowners could use as much force as they deemed necessary to handle a zombie, including lethal force, if one trespassed on or near their property. A citizen was also permitted to use “an appropriate level of force” in the event of “a perceived threat from an undead being”. Put simply, anyone could kill a zombie just so long as they explained to the police afterwards that they felt they were in danger.
Many could not believe Marlowe’s arrogance on this issue. If he did repeal NEVADA, it would be the first time a world leader had rescinded legislation protecting the undead. The proposed CADAVER laws violated numerous worldwide treaties and agreements, all to satisfy one egomaniac’s insatiable lust for power. These new laws would drag the country down to the level of several war-torn African nations, where the undead were routinely beaten to death in the streets and used by the military for target practice and to clear areas of land mines. It would be open season on zombies the moment CADAVER was put in place, since the majority of the population were now irrationally fearful of the zombie threat; a threat that only really existed in their imaginations.
But the facts didn’t matter to Marlowe’s crowd of adoring fans gathered here tonight. They believed in something better than facts; they believed in democracy and simplistic catchphrases. They also had someone telling them exactly what they wanted to hear; that they were the oppressed, the forgotten people, a persecuted minority, and he was the one vowing to correct this inequality.
Politicians think the public are complete and utter fools. For the most part, they’re right.
Fabian would never admit it, but he felt an electric charge shoot through his entire body when he heard Marlowe call out the Zeroes by name. This was undeniable proof of the impact they were making, and that they were now on Marlowe’s radar. They had him worried. The Tribe of Zeroes had arrived.
He hit mute on the TV, cutting off the remainder of Marlowe’s bluster and empty rhetoric.
He stood before the group of assembled Zeroes, crammed inside Miles’ house and spilling out into the front yard. The group had grown exponentially in size over the past few weeks. The release of the footage from the processing centre had given them the attention they so desperately craved, and Fabian had assumed the mantle of leader. He pictured himself as a Che Guevara-type, a revolutionary leading his followers in a mass revolt.
He wasn’t Clea’s lap dog anymore.
“This is our time,” Fabian intoned to his enraptured audience. “This is our moment in history. The time has come for us to step it up a notch and really make things happen.”
Fabian was in his element, high on the attention and drunk on his own self-importance. His footage had gone viral, shining a massive spotlight onto the Zeroes and their cause. Now he could sense a change in the air. They were no longer a joke or a media punchline. They were a legitimate force to be reckoned with. And he was the public face for their cause. He had been granting interviews for weeks with news organisations across every timezone, and the increased visibility had made the Zeroes the hottest underground agitators for every socially-conscious hipster looking for a movement to support. Additional chapters of the group were sprouting up by the hour in all corners of the globe, and their “Z” logo was appearing everywhere, spray-painted on the sides of buses and trains, across corporate billboards and public monuments, and even on the midriffs of supermodels as they strutted down the runway at a recent Paris fashion show. It was the ultimate symbol of resistance.
Fabian was experiencing gargantuan headrush. A month ago he was a feckless wannabe, a rich kid slumming it among the underclass. Now he was like the Pied Piper of Trustafarians. The incident at the processing centre had earned him some serious street cred, as well as a criminal record (even if all they could charge him with was damaging government property, for which he received a small fine). He was both loved and loathed by the public, and it was exhilarating.
“This is a diseased culture we’re living in, and it’s up to us to eradicate the virus.” He pointed at the silent image of Marlowe on the TV as he said this. “Because this is more than a battle. We’re fighting a war. We are at war with the government, with Marlowe and his cronies, and with the planet-raping, billion-dollar corporations they all crawl into bed with.”
Such was Fabian’s surging confidence that he could deliver a rant against corporations while wearing $300 Nike sneakers. They were a particularly eye-catching pair, too – neon red with bright orange swooshes.
“Marlowe has fired the starting pistol for an ideological grudge match. It’s us versus them, and we have to be willing to take it further and do what the other side won’t. That’s where we’ve fallen short in the past. They don’t play by the rules, and we’ve just been willing to stand by and let it happen. Well, no more. I say it’s time we took this to the next level. It’s time we got our hands dirty, yeah?”
A chorus of “yeah’s” and “right on’s” from the group backed this up.
“This is our one chance, and we need to capitalise on it. If we blow it, we may never get another shot. But if we get it right, this may be our opportunity to change the course of history. Now who’s with me, yeah?”
The Zeroes let out a rousing battle cry that set off all the barking dogs in the street.
A wicked grin appeared on Fabian’s face. He had never felt more alive.
Chapter 16
“I know what the rules are Steve,” Miles pleaded. “But can’t we just look the other way this one time?”
“I’m sorry,” Steve said, refusing to budge on the issue. “We’re going to
have to report her.”
“Who’s going to know if we don’t?”
“That’s beside the point. The business is in enough trouble already.” Steve slid his letter opener into another envelope and sliced it open. Most of the mail so far had been bills, which wasn’t helping his sour mood. “If we were caught flouting the law a second time, that would be the end of us. There wouldn’t even be an investigation this time. They’d shut us down straight away.”
Earlier that morning, Miles and Adam had attended a job where an elderly Greek woman was found to have been keeping her zombie husband chained up in the basement. The laws regarding this were quite clear; Dead Rite were now obliged to report the woman for harbouring an undead being, and she would be fined, jailed or both.
The woman begged Miles and Adam not to take her husband of fifty-three years away. Like many people, she couldn’t bear the thought of a loved one being sent off to one of those giant zombie prisons, where she would probably never see him again.
“Look Miles, I don’t like the law any more than you do,” Steve continued, jabbing the letter opener in the air to emphasise his point. “But our personal beliefs on the issue are irrelevant. There are serious penalties if we don’t abide by the rules, and I’m not about to take a risk like that.”
“She was old, and she hardly spoke any English. I’m not even sure if she knew what she was doing was illegal.”
Steve gave Miles a skeptical look, then turned to Adam. “Is this true?”
“She knew what she was doing,” Adam said quietly. “She was just putting on that whole confused immigrant act. You saw how much artificial blood she had in there.”
As much as Miles wanted to believe the woman was innocent, deep down he knew that Adam probably was right. They had found bottles of artificial blood inside the house, which she had purchased over the internet and was pumping into her husband to stop him from wasting away.
There was an active online community dedicated to this practise, where thousands of people would share stories and advice on how to keep a zombie in your place of residence without getting caught. There had even been rumours of people continuing to live with their zombie spouses as husband and wife – and everything that entailed. No one seemed entirely sure how this was achieved, and most didn’t like to think about it too much.
These people were all breaking the law, but Miles didn’t believe they should be sent to prison for it. They were just doing what many others would do if they found themselves in a similar situation. While everyone was now aware of what the correct course of action was in the event of a loved one being bitten, no one really knew how they’d react until it actually happened to them. It seemed wrong to punish people just for caring.
Miles and Adam noticed that Steve had been silent for the past half-minute. He was reading the piece of mail he’d just opened.
“What is it?” Adam said.
“More fan mail,” Steve said, a mixture of anger and amusement in his voice.
He cleared his throat and read the letter aloud.
“Dear Pawns of Satan,” it began. “Enjoy what time you have left here on earth, because you are both destined to spend the rest of eternity wallowing in the fiery pits of hell. It’s bad enough that the plague of dead walking the earth was God’s divine retribution for the kind of sinful behaviour the two of you indulge in on a daily basis. But the fact that you are now profiting from it ensures that you and every other sodomite will feel the full force of God’s wrath when Judgement Day arrives.”
Steve and Adam didn’t appear to be all that upset by the contents of the letter, but Miles could feel his blood heating up. He had received similar correspondence from these far-right religious crackpots who preyed on vulnerable people by informing them that their loved ones had died due to the immoral behaviour of others.
Miles now disposed of the letters as soon as they arrived, tossing them into the garbage without opening them. Unfortunately, there were plenty of others who believed everything they read and chose to join the God Squad in their crusade against depravity.
Steve screwed the letter up and let out a barbed laugh. “We should show them our financial records,” he said as he lobbed the ball of paper into the wastepaper basket. “Then they’ll see that we’re not exactly profiting from the situation.”
“Maybe we should let them know that it’s been a while since we indulged in sinful behaviour on a daily basis,” Adam said.
“Adam,” Steve said quietly. “I don’t think this is the time or place to be talking about this.”
“Right, so we should just ignore the problems we’ve been having and hope they all go away?”
The temperature in the room seemed to rise slightly. Miles could sense that Steve and Adam were on the verge of another major argument, so he discretely slipped out of the room without either of them noticing.
A minute later he heard their raised voices echoing throughout the building, as another simple discussion descended into a pointless quarrel over nothing.
This kind of thing was happening more and more over the past few weeks. Tensions were running high around the office, nerves were frayed, and everyone was flying off the handle for the smallest of reasons.
Steve appeared to be under the most pressure. Elliott’s performance at the processing centre a few weeks back had resulted in Dead Rite being slapped with a quarter of a million dollar fine. Not that this came as a surprise to Steve; the chief investigator presiding over the case was a long-time associate and close personal friend of Jack Houston. As soon as he heard that, he knew they wouldn’t receive anything less than the maximum penalty.
Dead Rite now had ninety days to come up with the money. For Steve, this time frame was like an additional form of punishment. He wished they would just terminate their contract rather than dragging it out for another three months. He felt like a prisoner on death row, waiting to be put out of his misery.
Miles arrived home a little after ten. He avoided going anywhere near the lounge room after hearing Clea and her gaggle of friends camped out in there. He wasn’t in the mood to put up with their antics tonight, so he went straight to his bedroom.
He sent Shae a text message asking where she was, then switched on the TV.
The news tonight was dominated by the latest scandal involving a female government minister and the earth-shattering revelation that she’d been romantically involved with one of her staffers shortly after her first marriage had ended. The report delved into all the lurid details; he was nineteen, she was his thirty-three-year-old boss, and the implication that this affair cast doubt on her integrity and her ability to perform her duties. The reporting was so sensationalised and over the top that many viewers may have been left with the impression that some wrongdoing had occurred, instead of a rather pedestrian story of two adults who entered into a consensual relationship that had ended sixteen years ago. The whole grubby saga belonged in the pages of some trashy gossip rag, not as the leading story of a supposedly respectable news and current affairs program. It was low-rent entertainment disguised as news, and it was indicative of the depths to which journalism had sunk in today’s political climate.
It came as no surprise that The Daily Ink, Bernard Marlowe’s favourite newspaper, was the one to break the story, splashing it across the front page of that morning’s edition. It also came as no surprise that they chose to target a rival female minister, ignoring the many male politicians who spoke of “family values” and “upstanding morals” while embarking on extramarital affairs and visiting prostitutes. Marlowe himself has had to make several sexual harassment suits quietly disappear via secret payments and non-disclosure settlements.
Miles sent Shae another text, then switched the TV off and headed to the kitchen for something to eat.
One of Clea’s friends had beaten him to it and was helping himself to the contents of the refrigerator. Miles had never seen this guy before, but he hadn’t taken long to make himself at home.
�
�You Miles?” the stranger asked without looking up.
“Uh, yeah, that’s me,” Miles replied, somewhat surprised to have his reputation precede him.
“I hear you work for Dead Rite.” He spat out the words “Dead Rite” as if they were puppy-killing child molesters.
“Uh-huh.”
The stranger closed the fridge and turned to face Miles. His hair was dyed jet black and styled into a trendy mohawk. He had a nose ring and a goatee, and his torn black t-shirt and jeans were held together with tape and safety pins, like the punks used to wear in the seventies. The difference here was that this guy probably bought his outfit from a boutique designer store rather than the charity shops favoured by punks. In all, he looked like what the wardrobe department of a TV cop show thought a typical punk-anarchist might look like, right down to the studded bracelets around each of his wrists.
He also looked about ten years older than what Miles had first thought. The majority of the Zeroes were directionless youths in their late teens or early twenties. This guy looked like he was on the wrong side of thirty.
Miles immediately grew suspicious of his motives for joining the Zeroes. It may have had less to do with fighting oppression and injustice, and more to do with gaining access to a bevy of idealistic and impressionable college-aged girls.
Despite his appearance and his somewhat advanced age, he was still an unusually handsome man. He had a face so angular that it appeared to be made entirely of polygons.
“Kneel,” the stranger said.
“Excuse me?”
Miles was taken aback by this abrupt command. He worried this encounter was about to take a turn for the weird.
“That’s my name,” he said, pointing to himself. “I’m Neil.”
“Oh,” Miles said. “Hi Neil.”
Neil returned to the lounge with an armful of food and beverages.
“Your friend’s a bit weird,” Miles overheard Neil saying from the lounge.