Corso, knowing this would enflame Frank, saw it coming. He could have easily ducked his head but instead turned to Frank and winked. The blow caught him on the left side of his forehead. It was an unplanned, sloppy punch; nevertheless, it raised a nasty lump on Corso’s face.
Tommy, Sean, and another cop grabbed Frank and pulled him away while Regina yelled, “That’s it, enough!”
A slowly building laugh stopped everyone cold. They all turned to Corso. The tall, thin, hard-faced man was sitting in his chair laughing at them. A very slight trickle of blood started at the center of the purplish bruise.
“You gotta be shitting me,” Corso said. His laughter subsided bit, leaving a very ugly smile frozen on his face. “You’re fucking pathetic. This is your idea of forcing some stupid kind of confession out of me?” He turned so that he was sitting facing directly forward. “You fucks don’t know the first thing about hurting anybody.” Corso took the whole room in with his steely gaze, “This…is how you hurt someone.”
With a lightning-fast snap of his head and upper body, Corso slammed his face squarely into the metal tabletop. There was a squirt of blood and a sick crunching sound. Corso picked his head back up. There was blood splattered all over his face. It stained his teeth a bright red as he continued to smile. Everyone was frozen in shock and awe.
“Now that’s how you get somebody’s attention,” he said. “Like that…and this.”
Corso again smashed his face into the table. This time when he sat back up, his nose was flattened on his face. Blood was everywhere. His shirtfront was now drenched in the blood pouring from his destroyed nose. Still smiling, he chuckled. “Okay, demonstration over.” His speech sounded like he had a very bad cold. “I hope you pansies learned something here.”
Everyone rushed to grab Corso before he did any further damage to himself. As they pulled him from the gore-coated table, he turned to the still red-faced Frank Larney and amiably said,” Hey, bozo! You think you could set my nose back? I don’t want it to ruin my good looks.”
Tank knew that something had happened and that Corso wasn’t going to show. He quickly set about performing his assigned tasks. Night had already fallen, and he wanted to be out of there as quickly as he could.
They left Corso locked in the room. He had requested that his hands be recuffed in front of him so he could realign himself. When they acquiesced, he put both hands to the sides of his flattened nose and, with several wet crunches, straightened his nose back to a semblance of its former self. “There,” he said, “just as handsome as ever.”
The group gathered outside the warehouse. They looked at each other as if they had just witnessed a poltergeist.
“That was absolutely, fucking unbelievable,” stated Sean. He was running his hand through his hair and shaking his head in disbelief.
Tommy looked grim. “It was as if he didn’t feel a thing.”
Sean nodded. “I know, right?”
“What are we going to do with him?” asked Regina. “We’re not going to get anything out of him.”
Frank and the other cop were not saying a thing. Frank looked absolutely stricken. This was the first time in his career that he felt completely helpless. He was used to being the intimidator, not the one being intimidated. He couldn’t believe it, but he was actually afraid of this suspect.
“Well,” said Tommy, “we can’t leave him locked up there forever. It’s obvious he’s here to spy on us. Get information. Maybe even find out when we’ll be leaving. I don’t know.”
“We could let him sit in there until Jake goes and then let him go back to Bouchard,” stated Regina.
“Or we could just kill him,” said Sean bluntly.
“No,” Regina quickly spoke. “I’m a law-enforcement officer. I won’t just go about killing my prisoners. That’s non-negotiable.”
“We’re the only law here now,” said Sean.
Her emerald eyes flashed at Sean with anger. “I said no. You’re right; we are the only law here. And because of that, it’s up to us to see to it that law is maintained. And I’m talking about real law, not vigilante justice.”
“This still doesn’t solve our Bouchard problem,” said Tommy. “Let me go back and continue brainstorming with Manny. This guy can sit and stew in there until morning. By then, I hope to have a solution, and we can revisit this then.”
Everyone nodded and agreed. They all went their own way, leaving Frank and the other cop to guard Corso.
While the night passed and the moon shown down on the quiet city, the only activity was at the barricades, where an increase in the zombie presence was causing rising consternation among the people guarding the jury-rigged roadblocks. With all the roads that needed attention, they couldn’t check them all. No matter how hard they tried, there were too many barricades and too few people to guard them all. They were down to single coverage at most.
As the morning sun rose over the city, the sky started gathering clouds. It looked as though rain was imminent. Tommy answered the knock on his door. He had been up half the night with Manny, planning a response to the threat of Bouchard and his pirate crew. When he answered the door, he was a little surprised to see Cpl. Rich Foley panting as if he ran all the way there.
“Is there a problem, corporal?” he asked, suddenly alert.
“Yeah, Sarge,” blurted out the obviously concerned soldier. “It’s Vince Pasko. He’s missing.”
7
Stephen Dowd pushed himself back from his dining-room table. “Finally,” he spoke triumphantly, “it’s done. Gentlemen, I think we can now say that we have ourselves a plan.”
Max Blair clapped his hands and said, “Now we’re talking.”
Luke stood, smiling. “Okay, before we run this past the rest of them, let’s go through this one last time.”
Steve and Josh groaned while Max said, “No, no, boys. It’s a good idea. Make sure we have our ducks in a row.” He smiled. “A Marine is always squared away.”
Steve stood and smoothed out the map they had obtained from the Van Nesses. Being new to the area, they had multiple maps of West Palm Beach and the rest of the county. Placing his finger on the map, he started. “All right, here we are. We will take all our own cars after siphoning the gas from the other parked vehicles. We head out and go east to South Flagler Drive. Then from Flagler to Okeechobee Boulevard and from there to 95.”
“Sold!” said Josh.
“Let’s get everyone together,” Luke said, absently brushing hair from his eyes, “and we’ll let them know what we’ve decided to do.”
Max looked up at them and said, “We’ll just have to get this past Ana.” This comment resulted in groans from everyone.
As Steve cleaned up the dining-room table and Max and Josh went over little details, Luke went down the hall to his condo. Five minutes later, he came back with a bottle of scotch.
“Here we go. I got this as a gift and was saving this for an occasion. And this is it.” Luke held the bottle up and looked at it adoringly. “Dalmore Fifty-Year-Old Decanter,” he said in hushed tones, “the favorite choice of the rich and royal families of the world’s elite.”
Steve came in from the dining room. “Oh,” he said, “so you mean us?”
Luke looked at the bottle and then back at Steve. “Well, I guess if you attribute being elite to being alive, then the answer is a yes; we certainly are.”
They all took a seat in the living room, next to the floor-to-ceiling windows. Sean brought in his best glasses, and Luke solemnly poured the four of them a stiff drink.
Holding up his glass, Luke toasted, “Here’s to us, the survivors of the Marina Palm Tower Zombie Survival Planning Committee.” They all took a reverent sip of the amber, liquid gold.
“Wow,” said Josh, “this is good.”
“No,” responded Steve, “good is for Chivas Regal; this is goddamned great.”
“Aaahh,” sighed Luke in pleasure.
“Here’s to swimmin’ with bowlegged women,�
�� said Max, raising his glass again. They all looked at him.
“Is that from the movie Jaws?” asked Steve.
“Yes it is,” replied Max. “You know your movies.”
“I also know that Quint made that toast right before the shark had him for breakfast,” Steve said sarcastically. “Seriously. Maybe you should think of a better movie to toast us.”
They all laughed heartily at that. Then they settled into their appreciation of the rare bottle of expensive scotch. After a time in which they either savoured the incredible whiskey or just became lost in their own thoughts, Steve broke the mellow silence. “You know,” he said wistfully, “I really used to enjoy the view from here.”
The windows provided a panoramic view of West Palm Beach. Normally, Steve would sit here and smile at the view he had always admired. Now, looking out, all he could notice was the devastation of the surrounding area. Two buildings down but not directly in the middle of the view was the month-old still-smouldering wreckage of his friend Josh’s condo building. Although the copter crash had created a huge explosion and fire, Steve still thought it was amazing that there was still that much smoke coming out of the charred wreckage. He could also count five, no six, more buildings that were already burned or were still burning fiercely. Add to that the carnage caused by wrecked vehicles that had plowed into one another or into the ground-level windows of various businesses, and it was a dismal view no matter how warmly the sun was shining or how sparkly the ocean looked. Zombies seemed to be roaming everywhere.
“I used to enjoy a lot of things,” responded Max. “Before Pandora came and then the Pandora 2 Mutation, this was a really great life. When I finally packed it in and retired here with my wife, Roberta, I thought I had died and gone to heaven. We swam every day in the pool, met new friends, and went out to dinner almost every night. Took up golf. Man, I thought I had it made.” Max looked down and smiled longingly in his drink. “Then Pandora came. I remember when that comet hit Mars, and everyone got really scared. Bobi and I went up to the roof with the Rosens and the Biermans to watch the dazzling sunsets. You remember that, Steve? I saw you and Luke up there too. You had those two blondes you two were seeing back then. Those sunsets were gorgeous, and I recall thinking that this is going to be the best time of our life.”
Max rubbed his nose and blinked a few times. He sighed heavily and then continued, “Then people started getting sick. Bobi did too. It hit quite a few people in this building. But then everyone got better and we thought, ‘What the hell, a passing flu. Nothing to worry about.’ Ha, nothing to worry about my ass. Next thing you know, I’m in Good Samaritan Medical Center holding my Bobi as she dies in my arms in their goddamn waiting room.” Tears were in Max’s eyes now. “I’m sitting there, crying and yelling for a doctor, when the emergency room doors open and this big orderly comes barrelling out with two zombies attached to him like leeches. He’s swearing and yelling, all the while trying to grab these two ghouls off his back. I didn’t know what they were then. I just thought they were some kind of crazed drug addicts. I didn’t even know when a nurse came staggering out with her whole throat ripped open. She collapsed in the doorway, holding both doors open, and we could see the havoc going on inside. People fighting, running back and forth, biting each other. It still didn’t sink in. Not even…not even when my wife woke up.” Max shook his head and looked away. He took a gulp of scotch and sat back with his hand over his mouth, silently looking out the window.
Everyone sat there quietly. Luke was fidgeting with his watch. Eventually, he looked at Max and then at Steve. He cleared his throat and then took a small sip of the Dalmore. “When the Pandora 2 Mutation started to hit, I was invited by a friend and customer to his boat. It was docked in the marina, and he was going to take an overnight to Miami. He and his wife had just recovered from the first Pandora, and he wanted to celebrate their newfound good health. I was sick of sitting in the bar of my restaurants every night, staring at empty tables and watching my business head into the dumper. It seemed like half of the population had the sickness and the other half stayed home, afraid they’d catch it. So I called Jackie. She was the blonde you saw me with,” Luke added, looking at Max, “and the next day we went aboard Ralph’s boat. Two days of fun and merry mischief.
“When Jackie and I arrived there, Ralph and his wife looked ill. He apologized profusely and suggested that we just anchor in the waters off the marina and party. Maybe if they started to feel better, we’d head down to Miami.
“It was okay at first. Ralph and his wife Dee are nothing if not game partiers. But as the day went on and turned into night, they got sicker and sicker. Dee threw up over the rail, and she and her pale-looking husband retired to bed early. Jackie and I sat topside and finished the wine. Feeling increasingly uncomfortable, we decided to go to sleep and leave early in the morning. It was clear that they were in no shape to do anything. On the way to the cabin, I could hear somebody getting sick in the head.
“Middle of the night, Jackie wakes up. She hears banging around on deck. I’m a little hung over and just want to sleep, so she goes topside herself to see what all the ruckus is about. I’m just falling back to sleep when I hear her give out this blood-curdling scream. Christ, I jump up, hit my head, and almost piss myself. I ran up the stairs onto the deck, and I see Ralph and Dee attacking my girlfriend in the galley. She is wrestling Ralph while it looks like Dee has her teeth locked around Jackie’s bicep. The first thing I do is grab Ralph and throw him off her. He goes sailing over a table, and then I grabbed Dee. While I have Dee around the waist, Jackie yanks her arm back. I swear to God, she pulls her arm back and half of her fucking bicep rips off, still locked in Dee’s teeth. Jackie’s staring at her arm, screaming, and Dee turns her head around and looks me right in the eyes. I swear, at that moment, I did pee myself. Her eyes were milky white and just dead looking. I’d never seen skin that pale. She looked like one of those geisha girls. And all the while, though it was probably only a few seconds, she was chewing on her hunk of Jackie’s arm and swallowing the pieces.
“Just then, Ralph gets back up and comes after me. I throw Dee at him and then punch him in the face. Now, I know I’m not Mike Tyson, but it didn’t even faze him. I grab a big throw pillow from one of the chairs, and I’m using that to fend off their attacks as I back up. I noticed that Jackie had stopped screaming but, truthfully, didn’t even think about it. I had just backed up as far as I could when over Ralph and Dee’s shoulders I saw Jackie walking toward us. She was covered in blood and looked just like the two in front of me. She looked…hungry. Just as she rushed over, I pushed the big pillow into them and then jumped over the side. We weren’t out far, so I easily swam to the dock. Climbing up, I looked back out and saw them snarling and reaching out for me.
“I ran back home. I was attacked twice on my way back. The first zombie I hit with a pole I found. It was near the entranceway of the marina. I think it was a gaff. Anyway, I hit him with it, and the hook stuck in his head and he went down. The second happened a block before this building. I was trying to outrun another zombie, but then a woman came out of the doorway. The zombie veered off and jumped her instead.” He paused and blew air out of his nose. “It was a dark time.”
Everyone had a story about that particular time. When the Pandora 2 Mutation happened, everybody’s life was bloodily ripped apart.
Steve sat there drinking his scotch. He didn’t want to tell his story. He didn’t want to tell anybody about having to beat his gym manager to death with a kettle ball. Or about that school bus he’d seen off the side of the road. And when he stopped his truck and went over to help, he opened the folding bus doors and dozens of little dead zombie children poured out and chased him back to his vehicle. And how it felt when the tires bounced over their small, bloodied bodies. No. No, he didn’t want to say it ever again. He hoped that someday he wouldn’t even remember.
Turning the conversation to more comfortable small talk, they finished their drinks. A
fter sitting silently for a few minutes, Steve rose and said to the group, “No sense stalling. Let’s put the plan in front of the rest of the group and get this thing working.”
A half hour later, everyone was back and seated in Steve’s condo. He laid out the entire trip for them and then sat back and waited for their reactions. Ana, of course, was the first to speak.
“I don’t like it,” she said. “Why do we all have to take our own cars? That’s too many vehicles. We’d be like a parade out there. Shit, we might as well put a marching band at the front of it. Here comes lunch.”
“For once,” said Dan, “I think she’s right.”
“Fuck you too, Dan Roebling,” spat Ana.
“Yeah,” Mark chimed in, “what if one of us gets stuck out there? Runs over something or gets a flat?”
“That’s the idea,” answered Max.
“What?” they all said at once.
“Wait, listen to me,” said Steve. “Think about it. If we are all in, say, two cars and the same thing happens, what then? Are we going to fit ten people in one car? With all our stuff too? Impossible! What would have to happen then is that the second car would have to leave the passengers of the stuck car behind. There would be no choice.”
Cries of protest came from the group. They were all talking and gesturing at once.
“No one would do that,” shouted Ana.
“You can’t leave people to die,” seconded Gail.
“Yeah,” said Dan, “we could put them someplace. Empty out some of our belongings to make more room.”
“That’s right!” piped in Ginger.
“Really?” said Steve, standing there with his arms akimbo. “And as we all get out and start unloading, what are the zombies doing? Do think they’re just going to stand there and wait for us to figure out new seating arrangements? They’ll be swamping us. Pounding on the windows trying to get in. Are you putting five people on the roof?”
“Yeah,” agreed Luke. “Even if we could, the undead would just reach up and drag them off.”
Pandora 2: Death is not an Option Page 4