The Last Mayor Box Set

by Michael John Grist

  Then Lara came.

  I shouldn't be thinking about this now. I rub my eyes, because I need to move. But I need to get my head straight, too. It's a huge deal that the twinges have stopped. I need to come to grips with it somehow, with what it means for me, and that's tied up with Lara in some way I don't yet understand.

  So, I sit on the bed, and I think back to Lara.

  I'd been doing my best to ignore her for months. It wasn't just that she was beautiful, though that in itself put me at risk of twinges every time I saw her. It was also the way she talked to customers. The way she talked to me, when she served me, though I tried to avoid it. She was just nice. Decent. Kind. Always patient. Slightly flirtatious, yes, sure, OK, but beneath that, compassionate.

  "So you're the new mayor, huh?" she asked.

  I looked to the side.

  Shit.

  She was standing right there. We'd never spoken before without the coffee bar between us. Immediately my heart started to race. She was some kind of Afro-Caribbean blend with a French touch to her eyes, with these lovely dark ringlets of hair that circled down her cheeks.

  Shit.

  "We haven't had one for a while," she went on. "The spec is set pretty high."

  I put the phone down and smiled, belying the terror I felt. "It's the culmination of all my plans."

  She snorted. "You are in here a lot. It would probably be me, for all the shifts I do, but they don't let staff use the app."

  I shrugged, far more confidently than I felt. "I'll bring it up with the council."

  She laughed. Her eye-whites sparkled. "So what are you doing here every day, writing a novel?"

  I followed her eye-line to my laptop computer on the table, open on a page full of text.

  "Ah, yeah," I said, "it's not a novel, actually. It's storyboards for a graphic novel. I make them here then I do the art at home."

  Her eyes lit up a shade brighter. "Really? I'm into comics. What's it about?"

  My smile went wry. "Zombies."

  "Ha. That's cool. Do they run?"

  I laughed, then rein it in. This was the closest I'd come to flirting since the coma, and my head was already starting to twinge with the pressure. "They do. Do you want to see some panels?"

  "Panels is like pages? Sure."

  I leaned to the laptop, swizzed the word processor screen away and brought up my latest work, the zombie tower in Times Square.

  Her jaw dropped a little. That and mayor made it a truly great day.

  "You are kidding me?"

  I went all bashful. "No, it's mine. It's the penultimate panel, actually, I'm brainstorming what to do with the last one."

  She leaned over my shoulder and studied the screen closer. It was a view of New York from high up, around the 30th floor of the Chrysler building, but everything was destructed fitting the post-apocalypse; all cracks and weeds and toppled skyscrapers with leathery corpses strung on telephone wires.

  The zombies were there too, heaped in their contorted tower at the Times Square intersection. Drawing it had laid me up in bed for a day. I could barely move for migraine-twinges and thinking I was going to die. It was worth it though.

  "This is amazing. But what's going on?" Her breath touched my neck as she leaned closer. My pulse raced. "What are they trying to get at?"

  I swallowed despite my dry throat and spat out words. "That's the question. At this point all the humans are dead, so it's just zombies left. You'd think they'd roam around mindlessly with no brains left, but in fact they stack up like this. I'm not sure if I should give the reason for it in the last panel, or sort of leave it open."

  She leaned back. "OK, like a cliffhanger. So do you know what they're climbing for?"

  "Yeah. It's not aliens or anything. They're not climbing up to the mother ship."

  She chuckled. I should have stopped there, I knew it, following my doctor's advice. But I didn't. Becoming mayor had emboldened me, and why not?

  "I'll show you if you like," I said. "I'll be here tomorrow. I come in here most days."

  "I know."

  There was a bashful quiet. Of course I'd noticed her before, done my best not to notice her, in fact, but I had no notion if I'd registered on her radar. We'd never talked apart from coffee orders, and really I wasn't supposed to be talking to her then. It could have killed me. I should have just shut up.

  "Dinner," I said instead. "I'll show you at dinner tomorrow night. There's a great modern French spot nearby, they do logarithmic art on the walls and they have a cat that sings for its supper. My treat. I'll show you the panel. You render judgment."

  Her left eyebrow raised a fraction. "A date? I suppose I was asking for this."

  "I'm the one asking. I think it'll be fun."

  She laughed. "Points for opportunism, then. What if I say I have a boyfriend?"

  "Then you'll have to buy the finished comic yourself. No free peeks at the last page."

  She laughed again, and her bright eyes narrowed, appraising me. "Well, you seem OK. No scurvy, rickets, nothing like that. It's a deal. Give me your phone."

  I handed it over solemnly. She tapped on it deftly then handed it back. "I'm not in here tomorrow," she said, "but we can have dinner. The cat better sing. I want good logarithms."

  "Only the best."

  She raised her eyebrow a little higher. I wasn't entirely sure I knew what a logarithm was, so I hoped she wouldn't ask. I saw it on a flyer.

  "Lara," she said. "That's my name."

  "Amo. It means love in Latin. My parents were hippies."

  "Amo the mayor, OK. I'll see you."

  She turned and left. There were other people's novels to check on, probably, and my constituents to serve. My heart was racing. A date!

  Sitting now on the bed, I flick through my phone to her number. There it is. Lara. I should've thought of it earlier.

  I hit the button and it rings…

  6. JEMIMA/JANIQUA

  No answer.

  A minute goes by, and then another while it rings, and I'm thinking to myself that maybe she lost her phone, or maybe she was infected the minute she stepped out of the apartment, or maybe she just doesn't want to talk to me, or maybe she's currently running for her life and…

  The phone dials off and shunts me to a voice mail. I hang up and dial again.

  The phone rings.

  I try to imagine where she is, what she's doing, until abruptly something clicks, and I hear a second of what might be her voice, or some kind of static ghost, and I'm just starting to shout something back when the line goes dead.

  "What the hell?"

  I look at the screen. My phone has betrayed me. Was that her voice?

  The signal is gone: zero bars. I hold it up and 'scan' for a signal, but nothing comes.

  "Shit," I curse, and go to the window. They're all out there still. They love it as I lean out of the window, and hold up the phone to the sky like I'm trying to draw down lightning, but still nothing.

  Zero bars.

  "Shit shit shit!"

  I pace around my room, making them creak hungrily in the hall outside. I look at the phone and click dial and listen to the nothing on the other end. Click, nothing, click, nothing.

  Was that her? Is she alive? Does she need me, even now?

  "Shiiiit!"

  It makes me crazy.

  I start doing crazy things.

  I smash the glass out of my window and toss mugs and plates down at the ocean of gray heads, but that doesn't do a damn thing. Mugs bounce off their heads in shards, and plates, no matter how hard I Frisbee them down, just buckle whichever one they hit for a few seconds.

  I toss my computer monitor. I won't need it any more, with the power out. It's heavy, edged, and hits a man on the head corner-first, staving in his skull. There's a nasty crunch and he goes down. Then he comes right back up.

  That dampens the crazy for a moment. I feel nauseous, looking down at his buckled skull. He's looking right up at me, with his right eye bugging
out. He still looks like a person despite the gray skin and the massive crumple in his forehead.

  I gag a little.

  "Shit," I whisper, between spitting out the foul taste of green tea. He's dressed like a salesman with his tie neatly knotted at the throat. Now black blood discolors his white shirt.

  It makes me dizzy. I just tried to kill someone. It doesn't seem to matter that he's already dead, or infected, or whatever, I still feel sick to my stomach. I don't know anything about what he is. Could be they'll all recover in a day or two, and I just tried to kill a human.

  But Lara's out there.

  The nauseating wave of shock and horror hits that hard truth and breaks. I can't let worries like that stop me. Lara has to be alive. I have to make finding her and getting safe together my top priority, no matter the cost.

  Thinking that simplifies things. Cerulean said wait it out, but he's not around any more. He didn't hear Lara's voice on the phone line. It's time to go.

  I grab my bag, survey my room a final time, then move the chair beneath the skylight, push it wide open, and climb out onto the roof.

  It's chilly but sunny up here, kneeling on red sloping slates that are thankfully dry, so I'm not slipping on moss. The rippling crowd below start to breathe harder as they see me. To the south the smoking skyline of Manhattan rises over the blocks of apartments. Still there are no jets or helicopters in the air.

  Nobody is coming. There's still no signal on my phone.

  I move, sliding awkwardly up to the roof's sloping crest, where a line of stacked ceramic tiles runs like a monorail. I hold onto it and pad left along the roof, looking down into the square back yards behind each house.

  Three houses over I see the first parked motorbike, a black and chrome beast which is surely more than I can handle on a first outing. I've never ridden a bike before, plus there's no skylight into the garret for easy access, so I slide on. Two buildings further on there's a pastel green moped on a kickstand, much more my style, and a skylight in the roof.

  I try to pry it open, and find it's already unlocked. I peer in checking for people, but there are none. It's a rec room with a drum set in one corner and some workout weights in the other. I dangle in from the skylight frame, then drop to the carpeted floor with a soft thump.

  Breaking and entering.

  Remembering something from a movie I saw, I go to the weights. The dumbbell bars look just about right, and after I slide the weights off one, it fits in my hand perfectly as a club. I creep to the door and creak it open.

  The corridor beyond is mercifully empty. The house smells like toasted bagels, and there's a large poster of Bob Marley's face on the wall. I tread lightly to the stairs and start down. The inhabitants like flowery wallpaper. I pass by four bedrooms, two for kids with their names written on hanging signs.

  Jemima

  Janiqua

  It's not an apartment block then, but a single family. They must be rich. I hope they're all out. I pad down with my senses on high alert, straining for any sound. By the ground floor my heart is going crazy.

  I pad over the tiled corridor toward the back, where there's a classy kitchen with a polished granite breakfast bar, bright plastic stools, and a full-length glass door through which I can see the moped in the yard. I start toward it, then see someone standing off to the left by the sinks, with his back to me.

  "Uh," I say, involuntarily.

  It's a guy in a bathrobe with long dreadlocks. He turns, and I see he's wearing blue pajamas beneath the open robe. His skin is a gray tan and his eyes are ice-white.

  An awkward moment passes.

  "I'll just," I start, perhaps intending to finish with 'let myself out,' but he doesn't give me the chance. With his robe fluttering behind him he charges.

  "Shit," I mutter and try to get my dumbbell club up in the air. He hits me before I can bring it down and slams me back against the half-open kitchen door, which crashes shut with a wall-shaking slam.

  I try to bounce away but his weight pins me and his outstretched fingers claw off my hoodie. His mouth is open and for a second his cheek hits my cheek and I freak out completely, spinning a frantic elbow into the side of his head.

  The force knocks him down to his knees, and I leap away and kick him in the head, the same way I'd kick out at a rat, not really wanting to touch it. I connect and his head whacks to the side but it does nothing but slow him briefly, because he keeps coming.

  "Goddamn shit," I curse, because now my foot hurts and I'm penned in and all I have is this damn metal club.

  I bring it down on his shoulder, too squeamish to go for the head, and with a horrible crack his collarbone crumples in. He doesn't seem to care though, and rises to his feet smoothly, leaning in.

  I drop my weight low and shoulder him in the breastbone as hard as I can. It's enough to send him tumbling into the bright stools at the bar. There's another crack as his skull bounces off the sharp stone edge, then there's blood pouring down his back and spreading across the floor.

  My legs go weak. He's on his knees and I kick him in the chest, driving his head back against the marble again. He manages to snag my jeans leg with his hand, pulling me off balance. I bring the bar down on his forearm with all my strength. The heavy metal snaps through the bones like they were made of Graham crackers, and his arm distends like a marshmallow.

  I feel like I might puke. He barely notices. He leans against his broken arm while trying to get to his feet, and instead bends the bones back the other way against the floor. I gag as his now-useless appendage flops like a fish. He looks at it, pushes off the stub of forearm bone so hard it pierces the skin and blood starts coming out there too, and gets onto his feet.

  He's like a Terminator. I kick him pathetically in the thigh and hit him again with the bar in the other shoulder. Another crack rings out as his other collarbone snaps, and now both his arms sag uselessly at his sides. He gets to his feet with them dangling weirdly in front of him.

  Shit shit shit, this is too messed up. I want to go back to my room. I notice he's wearing fluffy red slippers with faces on. It's too much. I back up frantically and he follows. His blood is everywhere now, dribbling down his neck and spilling out past the white knob of bone sticking through his forearm, puddling across the dark floor tiles.

  I grab the kitchen door and plunge back through it, slamming it behind me.

  The hall beyond is lit by a half-light cast through the glass by the front door. I stand with my back to the door, panting and holding tight to the handle, waiting for him to try and force it open. Of course he doesn't. He thumps and shuffles against the door like a zombie. His blood leaks underneath. He hasn't got any functioning hands to open the door with. He hasn't got the brain for it either.

  Still, I don't let go of the handle, not even while I puke, not until one of his kids comes bounding down the stairs, Jemima or Janiqua, her ice-white eyes pinning me like a bug to the door.

  7. ZOMBIE FORT

  I can't do this.

  I let go of the door handle and dart to the left as the little girl comes around the bottom of the stairs. I barrel through another door without a second to think and slam it behind me with a loud bang.

  How many goddamn dead people in one house?

  Their living room lies before me, with two sofas facing each other, a big-screen TV at one end and a faux fireplace at the other, a coffee table, a big piece of Orwellian-looking art on the wall, and scrabbling around in the middle are two more infected.

  Shit!

  Jemima/Janiqua thumps at the door behind me, her dad thumps in the kitchen, and now I'm looking at the mom and the other kid, and it's horrible. I should have stayed in the goddamned kitchen.

  They have crusty dark blood around their mouths, spattered with bits of purple and pink gut. The mess of it spreads to their throats, their hands, their forearms, dressed in pajamas both. The girl has a weird yellow cartoon character on hers, and there's a big splodge of quivery meat right on the creature's stupid y
ellow face. Their dark hair clings in ratty bands to their chins.

  "Oh God," I murmur.

  They look up at me. I crane my neck to see what they've been eating. On the floor, fouling the taupe carpet with its well-chewed red and black viscera, lies what looks like half a tortoiseshell cat.

  I puke a little in my mouth; it's a bad day for acid reflux. Now I see the clumps of brown and black fur sticking to their cheeks. Oh lord, they've been eating their pet. They rear up and come for me, and I start moving. I get one of the sofas between them and me, and they circle around after me, thankfully both coming the same way, and I go around ahead of them.

  Shitting ridiculous, is all I can think as we run around a second time, then a third, with them straining to reach me. I have to time it just right so they're both almost on me, or I risk having them come around both sides at once and pincer me.

  I scour the room for a way out. The dumbbell bar hangs slackly in my hand, but I'm not doing that again. There's a dining room stretching out into a conservatory beyond the sofa, overlooking the yard, but I have just a few seconds lead time on them, not enough to open the door if it's locked.

  I go around the sofa and they follow.

  "Wait a second," I bark at them, but it has no effect. "Jemima, Janiqua, mom, just wait a damn second!"

  Nothing. I get it in my head that maybe I can herd them, and start planning how I'm going to shove the coffee table here and the sofa there, like constructing a maze, but I was never good at Tetris and I can't figure it.

  We hit the fifth time around.

  "Arrgh!" I shout, and break for the dining room. They follow. I hit the door with time enough to try the handle, but of course it's locked, then I'm back to circling, this time around the gorgeous redwood dining table. They clatter after me and I pull a chair out and tip it in their path.

  The mom hits it hard in the shin and goes down, then the kid follows. It takes them a second to get back up. I use that time to throw another chair at them.