Dead Man Walking

by Zach Adams

  Isaac jerked back around to face the original zombie (a word he was still hesitant to use but had now become the only discernible thought he could latch onto).

  The monster had completed its examination, raised its raspy wheeze to a blood-curdling shriek, and made a mad dash for its prey, blood flying every which way from his gaping mouth. Isaac could hear the two behind him do the same.

  Well, there you go you useless lump, you went and got us killed.

  It’s not his fault, there was nothing in orientation about an after-hours zombie attack.

  The argument in Isaac’s head descended into a cacophonic volley of insults, mocking tones, and detailed instructions for the other to misbehave with a tree.

  Isaac reminded his debating thoughts that they were all part of the same person, so tree sap on one’s privates is tree sap on the others. Also, he added that the zombies may have been close enough that he could smell iron on their breath, but the well-dressed gentleman with silver hair in the doorway seemed calm and ready to help. By all laws of logic and probability he was aware of, Isaac would be dead in three and a half seconds anyway, so no need for extra stress.

  Panic and Rage stared out through Isaac’s eyes. They agreed that there was indeed a rather pale man with silver hair and an incongruously cheerful smirk standing at the fair end of the room, absent the blurry gray doppelganger Isaac normally saw with people and seeming to emit a faint glow. He was dressed in a white suit with vague green specks all over it, with a feathery gold and silver cape to go with it.

  Whoever he was, he seemed more-or-less qualified to handle such an unexpected threat.

  The new arrival was pointing the palm of his left hand at the scene, his thumb extended at a right angle. He twitched his hand down at the wrist and every molecule in the room sang out in unison, connected by static electricity.

  “Dí’prætä.”

  A razor-thin hemisphere of light erupted in a three-foot radius around Isaac. The zombies, all of whom had just taken a flying leap for his neck, landed on the bubble and bounced off.

  They each landed on their backsides with a dull thud, totally incapable of processing this development. They caught the pale man’s scent and turned on him, assuming he would make a decent meal as well.

  The suited man shut his eyes and delicately pressed his fingertips together, then his palms before he turned them toward the zombies. He intoned a series of syllables in a steady waltzing rhythm, continuing to use the molecular structure of the library as a network of loudspeakers.

  “Tä’gläcí äy æ’chévän.”

  They all froze, and a few of Isaac’s rapid heartbeats later the monsters disappeared into thin air. As they went, the electric buzz throughout the area died down until it vanished entirely, along with the bubble around Isaac.

  Without a word, the new arrival sniffed the air like a bloodhound while wandering toward Isaac. He stopped every few steps and screwed up his face in concentration. He finally followed his nose to Isaac and began sniffing the young man’s scalp, seeming to not notice there was a person under the hair. He jumped back in surprise when he finally did.

  “Oh, I am so sorry! I did not realize that you were a person.” The new man said with a grin and an accent with traces from most of Western Europe. His voice, though still bouncy and full of life, had lost the musical quality it had when the entire building spoke for him.

  “Who are you?” The stranger asked.

  Isaac stared at him without blinking, “Uh…Buh” floating through his mind again. He waded through a mess of scattered vocabulary to find a coherent response until he finally landed on, “I-Isaac Falc-cone.”

  The activation of the various anatomical components required for speech set off a domino effect which rattled every other bit of their host, who began to shake violently as tears once again fell down his face.

  The newcomer twitched slightly. “Just a fair warning, Uh-Buh, you ought to take care not to give away so much of your name to strangers. I mean you no harm, but many entities may take it as an invitation.”

  “Inv… Wha…” Isaac stammered.

  The man with the silver hair smiled, grabbed Isaac’s wrist, and helped him to his feet. He swept some loose zombie dust from Isaac’s clothes, looked him in the eye, and spoke with extraordinary calm. Isaac couldn’t decide if he was comforted by or terrified of the stranger.

  “Unimportant. Uh-Buh I-Isaac Falc-Cone, nice to meet you,” The visitor said, still holding on to Isaac’s wrist. “You may call me L’æon. Næ’vös shívæ!”

  Chapter Seven: The Brain Gang

  ?2018?

  L’æon pulled Isaac to the front door as if the latter didn’t work in the building. The librarian’s assistant seemed to have lost the will to operate by his own power. The stranger took a short detour to fetch Isaac’s belongings for him, after interpreting the human’s stutters and whining sounds as requests to do so. When L’æon saw the mess Isaac had made of the bookshelf, assuming it had also been a result of the assault, he reassembled the books in perfect Dewey Decimal order. Without touching any of them. For the duration of their race to the parking lot, Isaac stared at the back of the pale man’s head, barely able to remind himself to carry out complex tasks like blinking or breathing.

  The pair made it out into the night and looped around the corner to Isaac’s hidden car. The streetlights surrounding the area added a creepy orange shade to the darkness.

  L’æon helped Isaac into the driver’s seat, after the distracted librarian had absently walked straight into the door. L’æon observed as Isaac pulled the door handle to permit entry, and carefully repeated the motion on the other side.

  “How fascinating!” L’æon exclaimed as he examined every inch of the interior. He sniffed the doors and dashboard, completely disregarding the paralyzing shock his companion was suffering from. He peered at his reflection in the rear-view mirror as if he hadn’t seen it in years and tapped his finger on the frozen clock below.

  “What sort of thing is this?” L’æon asked, still sniffing and examining like a dog. “Some armored beast, tamed for transport? It has been a rather long time since I have been to Earth, you see. At least, I think it might be, I was not counting. Bit of an old habit. At any rate, I believe I spent most of the last visit indoors. Have you heard of a group, I think they called themselves…?”

  L’æon trailed off, freezing in a look of great concern while he sifted through his memories. His breathing steadily picked up speed and his eyes were peeled wide open.

  “The Beatles!” L’æon finally cheered. “They were doing quite well the last time I visited, but I know how fickle some species in this dimension can be.”

  Isaac stared at L’æon blankly, with his head tilted to the left and his mouth hanging open. The lunatic, since Isaac could think of nothing else for this moonlight-dipped weirdo to be, simply beamed back. Isaac blinked a few times once his eyes started to sting, and that was enough to shake his brain back to life. He blurted out the first coherent concept that occurred to him.

  “Is this the beginning of the zombie apocalypse?” Isaac tried to sound calm and confident as he spoke. He failed, and his voice came out first as a rasp, then cracked into a murine squeak. L’æon put his hand to his mouth to stop himself laughing.

  “Oh, you vö’géminë are creative. No, it is not a zombie apocalypse, that would be ridiculous.” L’æon said.

  Isaac exhaled for what felt like the first time since meeting this person. He felt a reassuring sense of normalcy creep over him, enough so that he could convince his hand to start the vehicle. Three tries, as always, before the engine roared to life (Another product of Isaac’s own revision. Others who encountered the vehicle described its starting noise as a nervous yelp, like a small, frightened dog. Truly a steed fit for its rider). He began to guide the machine out of the parking lot.

  “No, it is not a zombie apocalypse,” L’æon continued matter-of-factly. “First off, those beings are called hollows, no
t zombies. And the apocalypse is going to be caused by something much worse.”

  The first part of the ride back to the apartment was a quiet one.

  The commute between the library and the apartment complex was short, a fact Isaac had never appreciated as much as he did now. He had maintained a death grip on the steering wheel and made an earnest effort not to glance to his right.

  To take his mind off the insanity at hand he envisioned himself as an ostrich, but instead of hiding his head in the sand he hid behind an invisible wall of denial. If he didn’t look at the problem, it would simply cease to exist, and he could stay reasonably sane.

  It was all a hallucination, Panic squeaked. You must have injured something when you fell earlier.

  This explanation satisfied Isaac momentarily. His hands stopped shaking, most of his muscles relaxed, and everything was right in the world again.

  Isaac made it about twenty-three seconds before glancing at the passenger seat again; L’æon remained as determined as ever to continue existing, and Isaac flew back into a silent fit.

  Yeah, that makes sense, Rage replied. Except you’ve still got a fucking psycho in your car.

  L’æon put a hand gently on his shoulder. Isaac looked up at him to see the now-serious look on the man’s face.

  “Nothing tonight has been a hallucination, Isaac,” He said, in a reassuring tone which only half-accomplished its purpose.

  “You were attacked by hollows in the library, I saved you, and a more polite term would be ‘eccentric’.” L’æon continued. He turned to face the street in front of them and hummed a cheerful tune, feeling incorrectly that the conversation was finished.

  “Where the hell did you, and those hollow things, come from? How are you hearing my thoughts, can you do that to everybody?” Isaac demanded, startling L’æon.

  The pale stranger nodded, glad that Isaac had finally caught up with the situation. He cleared his throat and began to explain. He chose his words extremely carefully, in his relatively humble opinion.

  “Most are quieter than others, though your thoughts are particularly cacophonous. Hollow are the victims of psychic enslavement by what your kind call vampires. Their mind breaks over time until all that is left is what you saw. The vampire in control can direct them at a specific target or restrict their wandering to a certain area. They make brilliant guard dogs of course, but I will not trouble you with any further details of the hollowing act itself.” L’æon wiggled the fingers of his left hand, as if it might illustrate his point more clearly.

  “Why not?” Isaac asked.

  “They would trouble you. Next question?”

  Isaac stared at him, absorbing everything his mind could process. It wasn’t much. He struggled to think of a follow-up inquiry - L’æon was much calmer and more confident than Isaac could hope to be, and it had a disarming effect.

  “What about you? How did you know to show up right at that moment?” Isaac finally asked. L’æon took a deep breath.

  “I had no idea,” L’æon admitted. “I am looking for something I know not what, and it led me through your library.” He paused before adding, in a melodic harmony which would take three stringed instruments to replicate, “Sálvë häzunä.”

  The sound sent shivers up Isaac’s spine. He asked what the strange language was.

  “I was explaining that my timing was good fortune. It is the dialect of a higher dimension, which my people…” L’æon trailed off, his face freezing over as his mouth hung open.

  Isaac, anxiously keeping an eye on the icy road, glanced to his side at the paused L’æon every few seconds. The car nearly French-kissed three snow drifts and a street-crossing moose.

  “Humans lack the capacity to fully comprehend it,” L’æon finally continued. The sudden sound startled Isaac into bumping his head on the roof of the car, jerking the vehicle momentarily into another lane. He corrected the machine, taking steady breaths to slow his heart rate.

  There’s no traffic, we’re okay, everything is fine, Isaac tried to convince himself. His blood pressure disagreed. L’æon went on speaking.

  “Any attempt to fit the total meaning into your mind would burn you out of being.” Isaac felt a flash of hostility. For a second, he felt like snapping back at the man, demanding he tell him everything, but forced the image from his thoughts.

  “You still haven’t told me where you came from, or why.” Isaac said instead, fighting to keep a neutral tone. L’æon sighed, considering how best to answer the question. It was several long seconds before he did.

  “I came from that dimension - or at least, I used to. Hidden in a world severed from the bondage of time, in a shimmering silver forest, there is – was - a beautiful metropolis.” L’æon fell silent, sighing lovingly before he spoke again.

  “Átrí Nä’lún. Home of the Æ’géminë, that is elves to your kind, which is a bit of an oversimplification. Never been sure where the nickname came from, actually…” The man, or elf, drifted into distraction yet again, but course-corrected his train of thought after a brief pause.

  “The place is so fantastic, just teeming with life, with everything one might need… I am unsure I could do it justice in your language. I have been away from home for quite a while, you see. A day, or perhaps a week ago, I found myself in this place called, I believe, Gulorrah Prime. Lovely planet. Great mechanical cities everywhere, though a few too many weapons for my liking. I was attempting to make a good impression by showing their king a party trick with a cup of tea, which I did not yet know was a terrible idea. Gulorrian’s are quite distrustful of magic, you see. Luckily, I failed to finish it because I became distracted.”

  The elf stopped talking for a moment, pausing to see if a new question would fall from Isaac’s open mouth. When none came, he continued.

  “I smelled a disturbance, and it led me to Alaska. This is Alaska, yes? I got a bit lost in this new Átrí - I believe the large green tablet near the stone trail said Anchorage - which is why I was unable to stop the hollows before they found something to eat. Do you smell vinegar?”

  L’æon waited once again for Isaac’s response, which was a simple “No.” The elf looked disappointed, but not surprised.

  Isaac pulled into a secluded corner spot behind the apartment building and turned off the car. As they finally prepared to step out into the night, L’æon spoke again.

  “The knowledge-place, where we met. You are a guardian of the place and its contents?” He asked.

  “I’m… a librarian. Assistant to the regional librarian, actually.” Isaac said, confused by the importance L’æon seemed to place on his menial job. “I organize and put labels on books.”

  L’æon perked up. “Such a position was highly respected among my people. You must be incredibly proud.” Isaac shrugged as L’æon skipped to his next point.

  “Your position would be a wonderful asset to my search. Perhaps you could aid my investigation. I could share some of my knowledge of the universe with you, in return.”

  Isaac froze with one leg hanging through the car door. This insane - sorry, eccentric - stranger was offering him something that, if he wasn’t dreaming, may have been too amazing to pass up. While they searched for whatever it was L’æon wanted, he could see things no human could imagine. Go on the adventures he dreamed of as a kid. Maybe even come across more pages like the two he found before.

  No more library, he thought excitedly. No more stupid #9 or blank notebooks or Beige or bills or… He felt himself deflate.

  Or Chloe, Tobias, Uncle Vic, and Donny. And if those hollows are any indication, I’ll be decapitated, dismembered, and disemboweled within a day. Which, frankly, sounds disgusting.

  “No,” Isaac said shakily after a long pause. “No, I can’t. I’ve got… Things to do.” He offered weakly as an excuse.

  L’æon frowned at the response, clearly disappointed. They were both now standing on either side of the vehicle, facing each other.

  “Well, that is unfortuna
te,” L’æon said. “Oh well, you shall probably live longer that way. It has been a distinct pleasure, Uh-Buh.” He went on with a short bow, then turned on his heels and proceeded to skip off into the night.

  “Y-you can just call me Isaac,” The librarian interrupted shyly, taking the opportunity to avoid eye contact and fetch his backpack from the back seat. L’æon was momentarily confused.

  “Yes, that sounds much more human,” He said thoughtfully, as if agreeing with a decision Isaac made. “The first one is more interesting though. Alas, it is your choice. Once again, it has been a pleasure, Isaac.” He repeated his short bow.

  “Likewise, I think,” Isaac replied as he wrestled his bag from the car. “Getting attacked by monsters, not so much. Definitely a change of pace, though. Thanks for—”

  Isaac cut himself off as he stepped back from the seat. The only thing standing on the opposite side of his car was a tall, wooden fence.

  Isaac crept into the apartment as carefully as he could manage. The gears in his head were spinning so fast that he was afraid Chloe would hear them. He was suddenly appreciative of the fact that Gamora and Nikola spent most of their time napping.

  Isaac fished his key from his backpack and helped it do its job with the door. All lights were out inside. Chloe hadn’t passed out on the couch while working this time, but she had left the foot-and-a-half tall chrome computer tower she had been building, with R4-10 written across the base in black lettering stickers. She had taken on the project independently, apparently because her college workload wasn’t enough, having bragged since childhood that she would build the “greatest computer ever”.

  Four years since she drew up the original design and she still said it was, “About thirty percent finished,” anytime she was asked.

  At least she makes progress on her projects, Panic whined.