I stood there unable to move. I became a spectator to the scene as the small shell scurried after Lawrence and he did his best to get away. The shell had stringy light brown hair and was wearing some sort of dress. Bile burst up in my throat as I realized the dress was a princess gown. Wetness of tears running down my cheeks shocked me out of my paralysis, and I sprung forward. The shell was completely focused on catching up with the big cop and unaware of my presence. The gun within inches of its head made sure that it would never be aware of anything ever again. The bullet traveled through its head and into the back wall of the bedroom. A spray of blood and bone and chunks of brain matter also hit the wall and oozed down.
The motionless shell sat atop Lawrence’s chest until he rolled out from under it. He pushed himself backward until his back was against the wall. The big detective turned toward me and said, “Shit! What the hell was that?”
I had sat down on the bed and looked at the thing on the floor. “I think it was the reason that we need to always be careful.”
He nodded, and we had sat there for quite some time without speaking.
Given the state of the world, it seems a bit strange to talk about being lucky, but there was no denying that all in all our small group had been lucky beyond belief. I have never been the type to make a habit of counting my blessings, but we had been lucky enough to make our way out of the police station with a functioning car, get Taylor, and find Christina. I would have to figure in comparison to a whole lot of people that put us in the lucky group. On top of that, we had found a place to stay with a good supply of food and which had, thus far, proven to be safe. We had avoided the few threats that the place held. When you thought about it like that, we might even be in the very lucky group.
The whole building had been checked out and except for the body disposal, which we were doing day by day, everything was settled. Christina and Taylor now spent a lot of their time playing in the hallways.
Over a few days, Lawrence and I had managed to haul most of the toys and a lot of the furniture down from the third floor to our adopted home on the first floor. The whole place soon looked like a princess’s dream home. Christina was thrilled to inherit all of the treasure. There was a single time that she talked about where we had gotten the things.
When we had given her the red & white tricycle, she examined every minute detail before sitting on it and saying, “This used to be Heather’s, but now it’s mine.” Taylor, Lawrence, and I had exchanged amused expressions. “It’s okay. I never liked her very much.”
“Christina! That’s not a nice thing to say,” Lawrence’s expression showed his disapproval of the girl’s attitude.
“But Lawrence, you don’t know her. She’s not very nice.”
Lawrence’s mood melted, and he said, “Maybe not, but you still shouldn’t say things like that.”
“Sorry, Lawrence,” she answered with her lower lip protruding.
The big cop could not help but smile and said, “That’s okay, honey. Go enjoy your new tricycle.”
She had sped away with Taylor following.
“I’d say that someone know how to play you like a fiddle,” I chuckled.
“You got that right!” The detective agreed.
Thinking back on that time, I wish it had lasted longer.
Once we secured the building and got all the food stored in our apartment as well as the place next door, it was time for the gruesome process of disposing of the bodies. If it had not been for the growing smell, I would have suggested just leaving the corpses where they were. Okay, that idea may have been simple laziness on my part. As Lawrence pointed out, leaving the bodies around could attract more shells as well as be the source of other diseases. Surviving the initial threat from the “killer cold”, as it was being called by one of the television hosts, then being killed by some disease carried by the rotting corpses would be the definition of irony.
One afternoon, Lawrence and I were in the kitchen discussing the best method for getting rid of the bodies.
Lawrence was suggesting that we needed to get them out of the building.
“I don’t think it’s a good idea to dump them just anywhere outside. That may attract shells from all over the city,” I said. “The last thing we want to do is draw attention to ourselves.”
“Good point, but have you seen any place around for convenient body storage?” Lawrence asked before realizing that Christina had skipped into the room.
“Store-age?” She asked with a giggle. “Mommy said there was store-age in the basement.”
“Are you sure?” I asked. “What exactly did she say?”
She stopped skipping for a moment and enjoyed being the center of attention. “Mommy exackly said that some of her clothes were in store-age in the basement.”
“What a smart little girl you are!” Lawrence exclaimed. “Do you know how to get to the basement?”
She nodded. “I can show you, but Mommy said that I cannot go down there.”
“That’s right, honey,” I said. “You should not go down there. Just show us the way.”
She made a face as if she was considering my request. “Hmmm, I don’t know…” After a moment, she smiled and said, “Okay, I will show you.”
She giggled and ran out of the kitchen, leaving Lawrence and me to stare after her.
“Uh, I think we’re so supposed to follow her,” I laughed.
“After you,” Lawrence pronounced.
We found her standing near the front door. Taylor looked over from the couch as we turned the locks. “What’s going on?” He asked.
“Christina is going to show us how to get down to the basement,” Lawrence answered.
“I didn’t know this place had a basement,” he commented as he followed us into the hallway.
“That makes three of us,” I said.
Christina skipped her way down the hall to the front door, and then she turned to make sure everyone was following her. Once we got a within a few yards of her, she spun around to the left and skipped away. At the base of the stairs, she moved up a bit as if she was going to climb the stairs. However, as we got closer, she changed directions and skipped back down the stairs and around the other side of the staircase near the wall.
There at the dark corner was a door. Christina stood next to the door, making a show of being bored as she waited for us to catch up to her.
“What took you guys so long?” She asked.
“You’re just too fast for us old people,” I said.
“Okay, Taylor, I want you to take Christina back to the apartment and lock the door,” Lawrence told him.
The boy started to protest but then stopped himself and said, “Okay, Detective Lawrence. C’mon, Christina, let’s go play a game.”
She was happy to go with him. “We’re gonna play wild ponies, okay?”
“Whatever you want,” Taylor answered as he led her back to the apartment.
After they were out of earshot, I asked, “So what’s with you and Taylor? I mean, you seem to have some great power over the kid. Every parent in America would love to have that kind of control of their children.”
“You don’t think it’s just my charming personality?” Lawrence asked flatly.
I chuckled a little. “Well, if you say so.”
“I told you that Taylor got himself into some trouble some time back. Well, I have to admit I saw something in the kid worth saving and pulled in some favors to keep him from going away for a long time. Some kids younger than him’re already beyond saving. Taylor just made a dumb mistake and being locked up with a bunch of hard cases wasn’t gonna do anything but turn him into something bad. So I just did what I had to do.”
Discussing the subject clearly made the detective uncomfortable, but I was not about to let him escape without a little ribbing. “Detective Lawrence, you are just a big softy, aren’t you?” He grunted in response. “So I get the fact you made a special effort to keep Taylor from being locked up, but that still
doesn’t really explain why he is so concerned about doing what you say. I know plenty of kids who have gotten help from teachers and others but then don’t give a shit about anything they’re told.”
There was a long pause before Lawrence blurted out, “I withheld evidence.” It was not easy to see him in the dim light, but I could tell that he was looking down as if ashamed. “There was a carjacking that went to hell. The driver got shot, a middle-aged guy. He was an insurance salesman, I think. Had a family and no sort of criminal involvement. Just a guy who had the bad luck to be driving through the wrong part of the city on the wrong street at the wrong time.”
“And Taylor shot him?” I could not stop myself from asking.
He looked at me for a second and then shrugged his shoulders. “What do you think?”
“I don’t know I wasn’t there,” I answered.
“Well, I wasn’t there either, but I found a little 38 on the ground near where I stopped the kid. Taylor knows I have the gun. My guess is it’s covered with his finger prints, and that is the only reason he gives a shit about what I have to say,” he said, making it clear he had tired of talking about the subject.
I grinned at his discomfort and asked, “Did you ever think that he obeys because he respects you? You might just be the first person who ever took a chance on him.”
“Careful the butterflies and rainbows are flying out of your butt!” He pronounced and turned toward the door.
I could not help but laugh at the cop’s colorful way with words.
He pulled the door, and it came open with a groan. We both stood there staring into the darkness beyond, not feeling eager to plunge forward.
“Ready to go check out the store-age? I asked, trying to keep things light.
Lawrence did not seem to notice my effort and motioned for me to follow. I hesitated for a moment. Plunging into unexplored darkness was not high on my list of desirable things to do this morning, but it needed to be done and I have to admit that I was curious about what was in the basement. Forcing my brain to be quiet, I stepped onward.
Chapter 5
The first step screamed under my weight. The creak echoed through the darkness. I froze, expecting something to spring out of the inky black facing me. After a moment, I took another step. Another creak and another moment of breath held. My heart pounded as I looked back to Lawrence. In the next instant, there was an explosion of light.
“That might make it a little easier,” Lawrence muttered after flipping the pair of switches on the wall just inside the doorway.
I grinned at my failure to check for a light switch. “I think you’re right.”
The stairs and the room below were now brightly lit. I crept downward, still watching for any sign of movement. None presented itself, but that did not ease the tension squeezing every part of my body.
“Maybe we can get to the bottom before midnight,” Lawrence’s sarcasm was spoken within inches of my ear.
My first response was to move to the side of the narrow staircase to let him pass, but, just as he started to move by me, I was shoved forward by a need to be off of the stairs. The result was Lawrence being pushed against the wall as I squirted by him.
He grunted. “What the fuck, Turner!”
“Sorry… I… uh… sorry,” I stammered once my feet were on the rough gray concrete of the basement floor.
I stood there looking around at the chaos held there. The basement was much bigger than I had expected. I am not sure why, but I had pictured some sort of 12 by 10 foot wine cellar. This was not a wine cellar. The basement spread over about half the area of the other floors. Along one wall were numerous cardboard boxes. Some were stacked neatly and bound with packing tape while other others had been ripped open and their contents of clothes and papers scattered around the area. Shelves holding various paint cans and cleaning supplies lined another wall. Stacks of several small boxes containing large black trash bags stood on the cement floor below.
Lawrence picked up one of the boxes and pulled out a large plastic bag. “These could work for wrapping up bodies.”
I nodded at his comment while picturing the unpleasant task of bagging the corpses. My latest body count was at thirty-eight. I figured we would need at least two or three bags per body. My razor-sharp mathematical mind quickly calculated that to mean we had to have around one hundred fourteen bags to get the job done. The absurdity of my doing logistics for the disposal of bodies brought a twisted smile to my face. The line on the package Strong enough for all your business and household needs sent me into hysterics. I stopped and held onto one of the shelves for support as the fit of laughter rolled through me.
Lawrence moved next to me. He just watched me for a minute before saying, “I know things seem pretty damn dark right now, but you gotta believe it’ll get better. You gotta keep going.”
The words of genuine concern made me realize that he thought I was crying. This misunderstanding sent another wave of hysteria crashing down on me. Once I regained some ability to speak, I looked at Lawrence and said, “I’m sure glad that we don’t have to settle for some cheap-ass, bargain-brand trash bags.” I lost my voice to laughter once again as I pointed to the line on the box.
The big cop stared at the box for a few seconds before a smile broke across his face. The smile then blossomed into a chuckle, “Yeah, we sure don’t wanna use one of them wimpy bags!”
I wiped away the tears of laughter streaming down my face, trying to regain some sense of seriousness about the task we had ahead of us. However, the release provided by the laughter may very well have been what we needed to face the chore. In any case, I felt a bit better as we explored the rest of the basement.
Underneath the stairs and across one wall was a series of metal lockers, not unlike those found in high school except these were much larger. The doors looked to be about four-foot wide and six-foot tall. Each door had a padlock attached so we could not check inside. I figured that someday we might want to check out the contents of the lockers, but that could wait. Right now, we needed other things. We found one of those other things just beyond the lockers.
In a dimly lit corner, easy to miss, was a door. The only thing that made it stand out as a door was a small handle which had been painted with the same greyish white as the walls. I wondered for the briefest of moments at the attempt to conceal the door, but a pull on the handle scattered those thoughts. Just as I started pulling, the door flew open on its own.
A reflexive twist to the side like some matador prevented the blades of the hedge shears from going into my throat. As it was, I got a pretty good cut in my shoulder. The blades moved passed me as did the tall thin man holding the wooden handles of the shears. Both ended up a few feet into the basement.
Lawrence was standing nearby with his gun raised. The man with the shears stopped abruptly and shook his long gray hair as if the sight of the gun surprised him. A moment later, he again started moving toward Lawrence with the shears pointed out in front of him.
“Look I don’t wanna shoot you, and I’m figuring that you don’t wanna get shot.”
Once again, the man paused as if the words caught him by surprise. He was wearing a dark blue sweat suit and sandals.
“Just set the trimmers down, so we can talk about this,” the detective said in his most calming voice.
“So you dudes aren’t like those other things?” He continued to hold the shears pointed outward even as he asked the question.
Even in the tense situation, the sound of the stereotypical surfer voice coming from the man brought a smile to my face. I must have giggled too, because Lawrence shot me a disapproving glare. “No, we’re okay. Not quite sure what all happened, but it’s pretty damn clear the shit has hit the fan!”
The man lowered his gardening tool. “Yeah, I’ve been listening to all the chatter on the police scanner. I’m telling you somebody somewhere is totally trippin’ out. They’re talking about dead people coming back to life and walking around and stuff.
Give me a hit of that! You know what I’m saying?”
“So you’ve just been hiding out down here the whole time?” I asked.
He turned around to look at me as if he was considering his answer. “No, man, I went upstairs a couple of times. I saw some crazy shit going down.” He looked at me as though he was sure that I would not believe what he was about to say. “I swear I saw the old dude from apartment 118 ripping into one of the guys that were here to paint 120. Craziest shit ever! I even went out on the street one day, not much better out there. People just goin’ off on each other for no reason! The whole scene was total madness.” His voice got lower, and he stepped closer as if he was confiding some secrets in us. “Have you dudes ever heard about some of the wacked out experiments scientists did in the sixties and seventies? I mean they slipped acid to people just to see how they would react and whether a little LSD could make someone go off the deep end.” He chuckled a little before continuing. “Hell, they could have just asked me. I would tell them it just helps to free your mind from some of the limits that society places on everybody. Nothing wrong with that is there?”
“Okay… uh… Mr.…” Lawrence began.
“Kelly, no mister, just Kelly.”
“Okay, Kelly, we are just trying to secure the building and dispose of the bodies before they start rotting. Think you can help us with that?”
“Sure thing, man.” He glanced over at me as I held my arm at the place he had struck me. He saw the blood and said, “Oh, dude, I’m freaking sorry about that. C’mon inside. I got a first aid kit and stuff to fix that up.”
We followed him through the door in the wall, uncertain about what we would find inside.
Like so many things over the last few weeks, what I saw in Kelly’s room was not what I expected. Rather than some stoner haven with shag carpet, worn bean bags chairs, futons, and a lava lamp, we stood in a well-decorated apartment with leather furniture, a large oak desk, a huge flat-screen television on the wall, a stove and full-size chrome refrigerator/freezer.
Surviving When the Dead Have Risen Page 5