Necrophobia - 01

by Jack Hamlyn

  “Vietnam,” Diane said. “Legendary weed.”

  Jimmy started laughing.

  He pulled away down Holly Street towards St. John’s Ave, heading North. We hadn’t even made the end of the block when somebody came charging out at us. They were running so I didn’t figure it was a zombie.

  It wasn’t.

  It was worse.

  It was Dick Nickersen, the scourge of the neighborhood. The one guy I was hoping to never see again.

  “Request permission to run his ass down,” Jimmy said.

  “Stop!” Ricki said. “You have to help him!”

  Diane shook her head. “So says Polyanna.”

  “He’s kind of a creep,” Paul said.

  Ricki told him that wasn’t polite and Jimmy slowed the Suburban down and rolled it to a stop. Dick came right up to my window, slapping his hands against it. His face was streaked with dirt, his polo shirt torn. There was dried blood on his arms and leaves in his hair.

  “HELP ME!” he shouted. “OH PLEASE DEAR GOD HELP ME!”

  As I unrolled my window, Diane said, “You know they’re saying a virus might be responsible. He don’t look so good.”

  “You never mind,” Ricki told her.

  “Excuse me,” Diane said, “but I don’t like exposing Pauly to a deadly disease. Maybe it’s just me.”

  As soon as I got the window open, Dick grabbed me by the arm. He was crying and spitting and just about out of his mind: “Oh Steve, oh Jesus Christ, they’re everywhere…those things are everywhere…they got Elena! Last night they got into our house! We fought them off! But they bit her…they bit her arm…they bit her hand!” He looked frantically around to see if they were coming for him. Wiping drool and grime from his mouth, he went on: “There were so many of ‘em! They tore our house apart! We hid in the attic! I nailed the hatch shut and they stood there…those things…those monsters…scratching at the hatch for hours. Elena…oh God…my wife…my wife…she started acting funny! She she she she—”

  “Calm down, Dick. You have to calm down…all right?”

  He leaned against the Suburban breathing in and out deeply. “Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes…I…I must be calm. I must be rational.”

  He kept breathing hard and I waited while Jimmy and the others kept an eye peeled for visitors. After a time, Dick relaxed a bit and started to make some sense. Just after dark, Elena started complaining that she was sick to her stomach, that her muscles ached any time she moved, and that the bites were burning, just burning. She spiked a fever, wiping at her runny nose, talking to people who weren’t there. Getting weird and violent. She went into convulsions and started chewing her own lips until her mouth was a bloody hole. Dick held her down, did the best he could. She started screaming, crying out that she could feel the poison in her blood making its way into her brain. “The infection! The infection! It’s eating me alive!” is how Dick put it. Then she lapsed into a coma.

  By three in the morning she was dead.

  No heartbeat.

  No breathing that he noticed.

  She grew cold. Then, just before dawn, she woke up.

  Her eyes opened and she looked at Dick, her mouth making chewing motions.

  He stared at me as he told that part, his eyes like two windows looking into hell. “She was dead…she was cold and dead…she came at me…she wouldn’t speak…she just kept crawling at me,” he said in a high, broken voice. “I…I had to do it, didn’t I?”

  “Do what?”

  “I had to take the hammer…I had to beat her head in. I had to keep swinging it until she stopped moving.” He looked at his hands like he wondered if they were capable of such a thing. “I had to…didn’t I?”

  “Course you did, Dick,” Jimmy told him.

  “Now listen to me,” I told him. “Listen good, Dick: did Elena bite you? Did she scratch you?”

  He shook his head. “I wouldn’t let her…get that close. I hit her with the hammer. But I had to. Didn’t I have to?”

  I got out and helped Dick in-between Jimmy and I. I thought he was in shock. He certainly acted like it. Once inside, he clammed up and just stared. Nothing more.

  “I got some Percocet in my pharmacy,” Diane said. “Some Vicodin. Maybe it’d help.”

  “Let’s just leave him be for now,” I said.

  So, like it or not, we had another member of our little club.

  Jimmy drove on and we saw the sights.

  In twenty-four hours the world had changed immensely. We came upon neighborhoods where half-devoured corpses were sprawled in yards, houses were burning, cars were smashed in the streets and up on curbs and flipped right over. I noticed quite a few were riddled with bullet holes. We saw a few armed bands of civilians that watched us warily. We saw zombies, too. We saw them everywhere, walking, always walking, driven in a constant forward momentum for prey. At St. John’s and Nile Street, one of them—a woman—stepped right out in front of us and Jimmy jammed on the accelerator and ran her down.

  “Good God,” Ricki said.

  “Harden your heart, honey,” Jimmy told her. “Gonna get worse than that.”

  He was right. Oh, how right he was.

  Behind us, the zombie lady lay broken in the street, inching along like a slug.

  “I wonder if this is like the biblical Rapture,” Diane said, as if it were no big deal if it were, she was just mentioning the fact.

  The farther North we pushed the more of it we saw. Not one or two zombies, but dozens of them patrolling through neighborhoods that were absolutely deserted. Lots of evidence that they had once been populated—bullet holes in the sides of houses, wrecked cars, bodies in the streets stripped like wolf packs had been gnawing on them, not enough left to rise up. But nothing living but the trees and grass. Just those hollow-eyed corpses mindlessly walking, some standing in yards, others on porches. If you slowed down, they’d all begin to converge like seagulls when you tossed a French fry out the window. But if you kept cruising right along they seemed disinterested.

  “Man,” Paul said. “There’s zombies everywhere. I mean, everywhere.”

  “Thicker’n flies on shat,” Diane said.

  “Or ticks on scat,” Jimmy said.

  “Zombies,” Dick said like it was something he had not considered before.

  Ricki wanted to say something. The wheels in her head were turning and turning, throwing a lot of sparks, but not grabbing on anything like cogs without teeth. How did you frame this with positive parental reinforcement? You didn’t. That stuff was all part of polite society and there was nothing polite out there now.

  Diane lit a cigarette and Ricki didn’t even comment on it.

  Jimmy turned on the radio because he said it was time for the President’s speech. “Let’s see the old Prez put a spin on this one.”

  The Prez didn’t bother. He was fresh out of spin and pretty much milked of hope. “Good morning,” he said. “I speak to you now on a matter of not only national security but international urgency. Due to the outbreak of a viral agent known as Necrophage I have been forced to not only declare nationwide martial law but to call our fighting forces back home from every corner of the globe to better contain the threat that faces each and every one of us. You have no doubt by this point heard a great many things on TV and the internet. The more unfortunate among you have seen them. I stand before you now, not only awed but hesitant about what I must say. Now, according to our best minds that have been working on this problem since its first occurrence early yesterday morning, the Necrophage virus is extremely dangerous. It’s too early to tell for sure, but we are estimating a communicability factor of something like 80% and a mortality factor of nearly 100%. Believe me when I say I share your fears and anxieties. The virus appears to be not only airborne but transmitted by the bites of those infected. The origin of the virus is unknown at this time. But those infected exhibit flu-like symptoms followed by coma that lasts anywhere from two to six hours. Upon awakening, the infected are irrational and violen
t, often clawing and biting anyone that gets within close proximity. This is a time of great peril for our nation. As medical experts confront this issue, I ask each and every American to avoid gathering in crowds, to stay home when possible, and to cooperate with civil authorities in their task of restoring order. Following this address, there will be an announcement by Homeland Security detailing quarantine procedures and ongoing containment operations. Stay tuned to your local radio and TV stations for Civil Defense information and the location of the nearest shelter where food, medical aid, and protection may be found…”

  “Notice how he didn’t mention the word zombie,” Jimmy pointed out. “Hell, he ain’t even admitting they’re dead people. Just irrational and violent. Now ain’t that a kicker?”

  The President went on to assure the country that all available resources had been activated and the outbreak would be contained. Maybe he was right, but from what I was seeing it seemed unlikely. Necrophage. That was apparently the new name for the virus. In Iraq, the spooks had called it necrovirus. I wondered if the Prez would ever publicly admit that this had not been the first outbreak. I doubted it.

  “He never mentioned the Rapture,” Diane said.

  “What’s that?” Paul asked.

  “Never mind,” Ricki told him.

  When we reached Yonkers Ave we ran into a roadblock enforced by the National Guard. When we got up there a soldier came right up to the car. He was in full combat kit with his M-4 carbine held in a ready position.

  “This road is closed to civilian traffic,” he said. “I need to ask you to turn around and return to your homes.”

  “Shit,” Jimmy said.

  I leaned over. “Hell, they letting you play with live ammo, troop?”

  The soldier took off his shades. “Ha! Hey, Sarge! Get this shit, eh? Two months back from dancing with the dune coons in Afcrapistan and I pull this. Fucking-A! You believe it? Just like you used to say in Iraq: if you’re horny, join the Army and you’ll get fucked every day.”

  Jimmy burst out laughing. So did Diane. I saw Ricki glaring at me in the rearview. I guess I had quite a mouth on me when I was in combat.

  The soldier’s name was Tony Russo. We’d both been part of the 2nd Platoon, 1st Stryker Cavalry Brigade, one of only two National Guard units in the country that used the Stryker vehicle. We’d seen a lot of shit together.

  “They call you back up yet, Sarge?”

  “Hell no. I been out five years.”

  “Don’t matter. They’re going to be calling up guys out for six and seven.”

  I had a nasty suspicion something like that might happen. “Any chance you letting us through?”

  “You sure you want to? It’s bad up ahead. Lots of wrecks and pile-ups.”

  “We need to get somewhere.”

  Tony looked around. “Yeah, just for you, Sarge. You were always good to us, man. Anybody stops you, tell ‘em you’re doctors or some shit.”

  He waved us through and we got out on the Avenue and Tony was right: it was bad out there. There were wrecks everywhere, Guard units and police and ambulances. There were choppers buzzing overhead. I saw Guardsmen dragging off bodies and throwing them in the backs of trucks. I had the feeling they had not been living people when they were put down. From the Avenue we could see great sections of the city were burning.

  “Can I ask where in the hell it is we’re going?” Jimmy said.

  “Get us on Sprain Brook,” I told him. “We need to make the Taconic Parkway.”

  “Oh boy,” Ricki said.

  “Oh boy what?” Paul asked her.

  “You ask your father. I have a nasty feeling I know where we’re going.”

  I looked at her in the review and she said, “Tucker?”

  I only smiled.

  When things get bad you need help from someone who’s just a little bit badder. We needed somewhere to go. Somewhere safe. Somewhere we could lay low and not have to worry about the walking dead coming to take a bite out of us. We needed to seek the aid of someone who would protect us. And if that someone just happened to be a little crazy…what of it?

  We were going to see Tucker.

  TUCKER, THE GREAT AND TERRIBLE

  A word about Tucker will probably be necessary.

  I never mentioned what it is I did for a living. I was a bricklayer, a union guy, and I generally jobbed from one construction site to the next. The hours were long but the pay was good. And after my Guard unit was mobilized to Iraq, I never again complained about my aching back. After a few runs down the IED Highway, even Manhattan rush hour is doable.

  Although I had worked construction in various capacities through the years—cement guy, sandwich guy, coffee guy, ditch guy, shovel guy, flag guy, dump truck guy—it wasn’t until I got back from Iraq that I joined the OPCMIA and started making good money. The OPCMIA—Operative Plasters’ and Cement Masons’ International Association—had its union hall on Laconia Avenue in the Bronx. The first two meetings I attended were uneventful, just the usual union business, gripes, grievances, pissing and moaning that is lock, stock, and barrel for the working man.

  The third monthly meeting was where I first saw Tucker, or “Sixty-Five” as some of the old hands called him.

  When he walked into the meeting ten minutes late nobody dared mention the fact.

  The guy next to me, Tommy Shills from Brooklyn, elbowed me and whispered, “There he is, old Tuck the Great and Terrible.”

  And you know what? It wasn’t sarcasm. This guy was great and terrible. He stood about 6’3, had to go in at a sharply-chiseled 250 pounds. He was bald as cue ball and had a steel-gray ZZ Top beard hanging to his chest that gave him the look of an outlaw biker. He had massive squared-off shoulders, a barrel chest, and arms like dock pilings. There were tattoos on those arms and not the vanity art you see on so many wannabes these days, but the real thing: the one on his left forearm was a skull-and-crossbones and said USMC beneath it. An old, rugged jarhead by the looks of him.

  But no ordinary rugged jarhead.

  Tuck came in with a six-pack of Black Label and a fiddle, of all things.

  While most of the boys refrained from making eye-contact with him, yours truly was staring. He caught my eyes and stared back. And smiled. It was a warm, friendly sort of smile that just seemed out of place on that mug of his that looked like it was chipped granite.

  As union business was discussed, Tuck swallowed one beer after the other. Then when one of the boys from Queens was bitching about some Dominican scabs working a site up in Jackson Heights and how the union had best intercede before things were handled in the time-honored way (and some Dominicans ended up in the hospital), Tuck let out this massive belch that rattled the windows.

  Sammy Argante, the business rep, said, “Easy, Sixty-Five.”

  At which point, Tuck pulled out his fiddle and started knocking out licks from the Charlie Daniels Band which got stone silence from some members and uncontrollable laughter from others. When the meeting was ended, Tuck went on his merry way, fiddle in tow, without saying a word. I learned in successive meetings that Tuck very rarely spoke. That when people asked him questions he often knocked off a few chord progressions with his long bow in lieu of speech. The absolutely fucking insane thing was that the union guys not only accepted this as a reply but seemed to understand it like a language.

  “Call for vote on the Astoria situation,” Sammy would say.

  Hands would go up, there’d be some arguing. Then one of the boys would say, “Tuck? You been around the block, what do you think of us combining with #603?”

  Tuck would scrape the strings of his fiddle.

  “Yeah, you’re probably right,” the guy would admit.

  Then somebody else would say, “Tuck brings up a good point. #603 didn’t fine those shitheads for crossing the picket line. What kind of shit is that?”

  It was all lost on me. Then…as the meetings proceeded…I began to understand it myself. You could read into the tone and know if
he was okay with things or pissed off, just clowning around or drawing a line in the sand. Then one day I ended up on a site with Tuck putting up a foundation. I went right up to Sammy the day before and said, “He don’t carry that fiddle on the job, does he?”

  “No, Sixty-Five just likes to toy his union brothers with it.”

  “Why do some of you call him Sixty-Five?”

  Sammy lit a cigarette and said, “Tuck was Marine Recon in Vietnam. He pulled three tours and killed more men than fucking cancer. Got medals like I got freckles. He’s a good guy, loyal as hell, but don’t go pissing him off. He’s sixty-years old and he’s in better shape than any five twenty-year olds. Let’s put it this way. We were working a site up in Bed-Sty. We popped into a local tavern for a cold one on our break. Jamaican bar. Not a single white boy in the place. These three Jamaicans start getting tough. Tuck took ‘em outside by himself. He was the only one who walked back through that door.”

  “But why Sixty-Five?” I said.

  “Oh, that,” Sammy said, blowing out a cloud of smoke. “They were up North somewhere in ‘Nam. Tuck’s platoon got wiped out. When the Marine reaction force got in there, they found sixty-five confirmed kills laying around in the bush. Only about thirty of them had been shot, the others were cut, slashed, chopped. They found Tuck there with a machete and a Marine K-Bar knife, blood right up to his elbows. The VC wanted him alive and they paid the price.”

  I knew about Marine Recon. Marine Force Recon, as they were technically known, were Marine Corps special operations. They were involved in things like long-range reconnaissance, demolitions, commando-style raids, intelligence operations like snatching enemy officers or guerrillas/terrorists, and assassinating the same. They were badass and I knew it. Some of the Marine Recon hunter/killer teams in Vietnam were legendary. During the war, I was stationed for a time at FOB McKenzie in Samarra and there were lots of crazy stories making the rounds about things the special ops people were doing. There was one going around about a Marine Force Recon unit known as the Nightcrawlers that supposedly went out after terror cells in the dead of the night. They’d locate them, then go in and kill everyone on site. I figured it was just another wild tale, then one night I glimpsed a group of men wearing black fatigues and black bandannas that were armed to the teeth climbing into a chopper. When I asked an Air Force Combat Controller who the hell those guys were, he said, “Those are the Nightcrawlers. Now forget you ever saw ‘em.”