by Keith Taylor
“What, you think you wouldn’t? Fuck you, Tom. Trust me, if you ever saw how they kill up close you’d soon change your mind. It’s easy to be a hero in theory. In real life... well, you find out pretty quick just how brave you really are.”
He pauses for a moment, lifts his drink for a swig then reconsiders. “I got back down to street level on the corner of Silom Road and Rama IV. The underground station was right there, but there was no way I’d head down beneath the streets. Unless there was a train waiting for me on the platform... well, I don’t want to think would have happened if I’d been trapped down there between the platform barriers. Thousands tried to escape that way, and they’re still clearing out the bodies today.”
“I ran across the street towards Lumphini Park, the only real green space in the city. Behind me I could hear the traffic go crazy as people were pulled from their cars. As I reached the park gate I turned to see what was happening, and I really I wish I hadn’t. It’s strange how irrational people become when they’re afraid. I saw people jump into cabs that were snarled up in traffic, yelling at the drivers even as the dead came in through the windows. If only they’d kept running they might have gotten away.”
“Why do you think they did that? Got in the cabs, I mean,” I ask, realizing the pointlessness of the question. Paul looks at me like I’m simple.
“How the fuck should I know? Maybe they thought these things couldn’t open doors. They’d be right, for the most part, but a few dozen of them pounding on a window is just as good. A tuk tuk almost managed to get away, jumping onto the sidewalk and cutting through the crowds, living and dead. If only it hadn’t hit a hydrant it may have made it, too, but it clipped the steel and bounced off into a shop window. The whole thing went up in flames – those things are death traps at the best of times – and I started running again as the shop began to burn. I can’t be sure, but I think that was the start of the fire that tore through all of Silom. I’m damned certain nobody came back to fight it.”
“How did you make it to safety? Wasn’t your apartment in Thonglor?”
“Yep. It was at least five kilometers as the crow flies, and longer through the streets. I ran all the way once I was in the park. Didn’t stop to take a breath. Made a few wrong turns, too. Luckily for me, between Lumphini and Thonglor there weren’t any train lines. It wasn’t until I reached my apartment block that I realized they’d used the trains to overtake me. Some of the wounded from Silom must have made it up to the platform at Sala Daeng. Some may have even made it all the way to Ratchadamri. I know they didn’t turn until they reached the interchange at Siam, ‘cause some of them had switched to the Sukhumvit line before it hit them.”
“God knows what the other passengers must have thought. Most of the wounded, I’m guessing, would have just had broken bones. It was only the ones who were bitten that would have turned. Imagine making it through that hell, escaping onto the train only for your friend to turn in the seat beside you. I don’t like to think about it. All I know for sure is that the trains were running on auto. They kept making their stops even after all the passengers were dead. All along Sukhumvit those fuckers poured out at each station. That’s why Bangkok got out of control so quickly. The bloody trains. Over the streets and underground those bastards outflanked us all, right out into the suburbs. We never had a chance.”
“So why didn’t they stop the trains once word got out?”
“Well that’s the problem. I don’t think word ever really got out. The first most people knew about the outbreak was when it came down their street, through their front door, and the trains just kept running, ferrying the bloodthirsty buggers efficiently around the city. That’s how they were waiting for me when I got back to Thonglor. An hour of sprinting through back streets, two more hours of creeping around, and when I got back to safety I found they’d beat me to it.”
Paul excuses himself once again, waving for a fresh drink as he walks to the toilet. I light up a Marlboro, take a deep drag and frown at my notes. So far his story bears little resemblance to what had been heard on the news. Paul’s official story – the one he’d been spouting on the talk shows every day – was that he’d watched from the flyover as vans sprayed some kind of toxin onto the people on the street below. He’d run down to the street and bravely tried to save as many as he could, killing a terrorist in the process. The body had been recovered by the army, and an investigation of his apartment had found that it had been converted into a lab. The junta had announced that many more such labs had been found across the city, all linked to renters from the Middle East. They’d cited these facts whenever they made a fresh arrest; whenever they confiscated property, deported a foreigner or executed an ‘accomplice’.
When Paul returns I ask him why his story had changed.
“Fuck, what does it matter?” he sighs, lighting another foul smelling cigarette. “I liked the idea of being a hero. When I finally made it out of the city and collapsed at the blockade out at Bang Pakong I was too tired to argue. They told me, you see. They told me I had a choice. Either tell the story they wanted me to tell and live like a king, or try to tell the truth and... and they’d send me back in to the city.”
“So why are you telling me this now? Why did you reach out to me?”
When Paul looks at me it’s with eyes much older than his thirty eight years. His voice sounds like it’s coming from the bottom of a deep pit far underground, and it cracks a little as he speaks. More than anything, he just sounds tired.
“It doesn’t make a difference. They could drop me right back into Silom, and I wouldn’t care. Someone should know the truth, before... Anyway, you want to know the worst part? I didn’t kill a single zombie. Didn’t have it in me. You like to think you’d go all Rambo in that situation. You’d pick up a gun and make a few head shots, at least take a few of them with you before they get you. I just couldn’t do it. The moment I got through the security door in my block I cut the power to the keycard reader and pushed a desk in front of the door to wedge it closed. I could hear people banging on it, trying to get in behind me. They were still alive, I know that from the screaming. I just went up to my apartment on the fourth floor, locked the door and waited until the streets were quiet. Three weeks. All I heard were screams. I didn’t try to find my wife. I called until my battery died, but the calls would never connect. Maybe she survived. Maybe she was one of the folks screaming at the ground floor, trying to get through the door to safety.”
Paul drains his beer in a long gulp, slips another cigarette from his pack and lights it up.
“You always think you’ll be a hero, you know?”
He suddenly rises from his chair, throws a handful of cash on the table and walks out of the bar without another word. I wait for half an hour, but he doesn’t return.
Paul McQueen was found hanged in his apartment several days after this interview was recorded. He left no suicide note.
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