Cheryl shook her head rapidly. "I wouldn't do that, Lee."
"The fuck you wouldn't. You've always been a whore. Keeping you in this apartment the rest of your life ain't gonna change you, I know that. Hell, I'm family and I've caught you staring at my cock, Cheryl. You don't care where you get it as long as you get it. You'd probably be on the street sucking dead dick if I didn't keep you on a leash. And..." He rubbed his neck, grunting, fished through his jeans for a couple of white pills. "And just like that, I pass out for a few hours and you sneak out. Break all the rules. I take care of you, Cheryl, why do you hate me so much?"
Cheryl didn't have the heart to tell her cousin that he'd been unconscious for a day and a half. Actually, it had less to do with her heart than her nose and the fear of having it shattered again. Even if she was the whore Lee said she was, no man would want her like that. He didn't just make her feel ugly, he slapped her around for good measure. How could he possibly accuse her of being hateful when she stayed for that? She wasn't afraid to fend for herself. She made regular trips to Midtown to get his drugs, didn't she? Lee was the one scared to leave the apartment. He only knew that a man had moved into the next building because he'd seen him from the window. And things had gotten worse since then. Lee wouldn't stop talking about the man - whom Cheryl had never even seen - and how she would almost certainly betray her loving cousin for him.
Loving. She shuddered involuntarily as Lee's glare bored into her. He had his hand down his pants. Lee wasn't a hard one to figure out. She knew what he was about. Why he kept calling her a whore. It had nothing to do with his so-called faith or her lack thereof. When Cheryl looked at him (and she NEVER stared at his crotch) all she saw was an ugly, possessive addict living in another reality. But when he looked at her, it was with dark desire.
"I don't hate you." She forced herself to say. "I didn't go out. Where would I go? I was here. I was watching TV- -"
"Bullshit." Lee turned the recliner to face the television. "My DVD's still in there." One of his pornos. She'd never be caught dead watching that. Cheryl was busted.
Lee smirked at her. His DVDs were all he had left, the rest of his things traded away for drugs. As such he spent a few hours of every day jerking off in his chair, usually while high, and Cheryl would get a beating if she happened to walk into the room. He'd probably sooner trade her away than that smut.
Chewing the white pills from his jeans pocket, Lee swallowed them dry. "So, want to tell another lie, or just tell me who you've been fucking?"
"I didn't do anything. I didn't go anywhere. Why don't you believe me?"
Lee stood up. Trying the guilt card with him had been a mistake.
His eyes clouded over and he gave her a familiar, numb look. Then the backhand sent her sprawling.
Cheryl stayed on the floor while Lee yelled. Her ears were ringing but he was probably berating her for making him raise his hand. Tears stinging her eyes, she briefly considered telling him the truth. Fact of the matter was that Lee was all she had, the only one she could ever turn to - but he'd never buy the truth, not when she was a godless whore.
She'd been raped four months prior while on a run to Midtown. Her attacker had worn a moth-eaten ski mask over his face, held her facedown in the refuse of an alley. Had whispered while he was inside her, "Could kill you where you lay bitch, feed you to the rotters. Kill you." He came on the word KILL and repeated it feverishly, then he melted into shadow and was gone.
Cheryl hadn't known she was pregnant until that very morning, until the miscarriage.
Thank God Lee had been passed out, because she had screamed to wake the dead, even with a rolled-up towel clenched between her teeth as she lay on the bathroom floor. She'd screamed even louder and cried and beat the tiled floor when it was over and she saw it. Transferring the towel from her mouth to between her thighs, she used another one to clean the mess and then wrapped it - him, her? - in a dinosaur blanket. Then she'd gone out to the landfill.
What would Lee say if he knew?
"I knew you weren't just getting fat, bitch. Fucking whore. Rape. Rape! Ha." He'd punctuate every word with his fists. Things would be worse than they'd ever been.
"I..." She mumbled, though still unable to hear, "I heard a noise. A cat. I was just looking for it."
"You better not have given any of our food to a fucking stray." He snapped. "I didn't." She replied. "I couldn't find him...I wouldn't have fed him anyway."
"Goddamn right. I'd skin and eat the little bastard before taking him in. You better feel the same way, Cheryl, because I'm the provider here. I take care of YOU. You don't have a goddamn thing to be giving away to anyone." He dug his toe into her ribs, making her whimper. "Except that filthy cunt."
He left her on the floor and went into his bedroom. She stayed there another hour, just to be safe.
6.
Dirt on Dirt
The signage on the Holy Covenant Community Shelter was illegible, every letter of every word punctuated by bullet holes and smeared with crud. It was just as well, seeing how the shelter didn't have much left to offer. Just a roof and some blankets - there'd been a time when Reverend Palmer was able to convince her charges that such meager provisions were a blessing. Nowadays she could barely say it herself without bitter laughter.
Oates, a bearded black man in his late sixties, was helping her put new boards up over the windows. "Just what are we protecting?" Wheeler asked in his usual manner. "You." Palmer replied.
Wheeler brushed back his shock of white hair and picked at a scab on his chin. "I ain't worth protecting. None of us are. Truth hurts."
"So why don't you kill yourself instead of bitching all day long?" Isabella barked from a cot across the room. The reverend shot her a look. Wheeler shrugged. "Mother Theresa here says that suicide's a sin. I'll go to Hell if I do that. Apparently Hell's something worse than this putrid shithole." All things considered the shelter wasn't in awful shape. Palmer knew that Wheeler just thrived on misery. He was scared to feel a shred of happiness, lest something tear through those boarded-up windows and take it away. Palmer could barely hold her tongue around the man. He never helped to scrounge for supplies, never comforted any of his equally-distraught companions. The world owed Wheeler, always would, and that was that.
Something thumped against the board Palmer was hammering. She cried out and Oates pulled her away, turning his hammer to wield its claw as a weapon. "Whoever's out there, speak up!"
"Patrol Officer!" A young male voice.
It was a common ruse among most cities in the badlands, thieves posing as P.O.s. "Let's see some ID!" Oates shot back.
A laminated card slipped between two of the slats and into Palmer's hands. Michael Weisman, it said. Based in Miami, it said. "Long way from Florida." Oates called, reading over her shoulder.
"Florida's gone. I've been here for months. I just want to check up on you."
"No one checks up on anyone," Wheeler spat. Two other men, J.J. and Yeats, trudged into the room. "What's going on?"
"We got ourselves a P.O. outside." Oates muttered. He peered between the boards. "It's Weisman all right."
"The ID's fake," said Wheeler. "Don't even think about letting him in!"
"Come around to the front." Palmer said to Weisman. As she left the room with Oates she glanced at Wheeler. He stuck his tongue out and flipped her off.
She and Oates cleared the crude barricade from the front entrance and unlocked the door. Weisman was wearing his uniform, though it had clearly seen better days. He patted a pistol strapped to his hip. "How many you got in here?"
"Ten." Palmer extended her hand and introduced herself. "Do you have any food?" Weisman asked. "Medicine? Plumbing?"
"Pipes are fine." Oates slapped Weisman on the shoulder and ushered him in. "You're looking at the Harbor's best plumber. We're getting a nasty soup of ground water and seawater, but I threw together a filtration system."
With sandy brown hair and deep eyes, Weisman was good-looking. Damn goo
d-looking. At fifty-something, swatches of gray among her long blonde locks, Palmer rarely felt attractive nor attracted. But damn. Smiling sweetly at the P.O. she led him into the building. Oates stayed behind to restore the barricade.
"How long have you all been in here?" Weisman asked next. It sounded to Palmer like he was taking mental notes. "Most of us have been here a year or so. We took a young woman and her boy in last week, and that's it."
"Has anyone been assaulted recently?"
"No, not at all."
"And how many of the ten are men?"
"Uh, six."
"And there haven't been any problems."
"You sound surprised, Officer Weisman."
"Mike, please." He stood in the doorway of the community room and returned the questioning stares of its inhabitants. "Any of the men ever leave the shelter?"
"Oates - our resident plumber - he leads supply runs every week. Everyone stays together out there." Palmer touched Weisman's arm and lowered her voice. "Why are you asking these questions?"
"There- -" Weisman was cut off by the appearance of Oates, followed by a tall balding man in a trench coat. Nodding to Weisman, the bald man showed his ID to the reverend. "Senior P.O. Voorhees. We're checking up on Midtown residents now that the military's left us." Voorhees took Weisman's position in the doorway. He made a not-so-subtle display of the firearm beneath his coat. "You're Reverend Palmer?"
"Yes. What is this about? Is this about the supplies we've taken? We only go into abandoned buildings."
"No," Voorhees responded, loud enough for everyone to hear. "It's about a rapist. He's been roaming Midtown for weeks. We think he may have come to the Harbor from out West. My communication with neighboring towns is limited, but there have been similar reports out there." Locking eyes with the sneering Wheeler, Voorhees said, "It ends here."
"Shouldn't y'all be playing escort to Senator Moorecourt right about now?" Wheeler asked. "What does it matter if we're raping and killing each other? There's an honest-to-God statesman gracing the Harbor with his presence!"
Weisman interrupted Voorhees' reply. "The Senator never arrived."
Wheeler groaned. "I knew it. Bastard was never coming."
"Officer Weisman and I are going to want to speak with each of you individually." Voorhees said. "Reverend, would you get everyone together please?"
She nodded reluctantly and headed down a dark hallway. A serial rapist in Midtown? None of the women would be going on supply runs anymore. Oates would have to stay here, he was the toughest...no, no, no. She couldn't let their simple way of life be turned upside-down by this. If she showed fear or weakness it would spread to the others. Except Wheeler - if he saw her limping at the rear of the pack he'd pounce.
She rapped on a restroom door. "Al? Still in there?" Al had been sick for days since she'd discovered he was still using. The restroom floor was a terrible place to detox, but there was nowhere else. Palmer pushed open the door.
Al was sitting in the far corner under the window. The window was broken. It had been intact last night. She moved closer and realized he was dead. The needle was still in his arm.
Reverend Palmer sat down beside the cold body, pulling Al's discarded jacket over his chest, over the needle, closing his bleary eyes. She whispered a prayer. It was a little late, but what the hell.
She left the room and shut the door quietly behind her. Death stood beside Al's corpse. It was not infected, and would not rise again. The dying flame of Al's candle would not swell at the last second with a cold blue light. It was as it should be.
7.
Sly Silver's Brains Taste Like Sugar
Two blocks from the homeless shelter, Club Fetish was similarly boarded-up, windows covered with the splintered remains of tabletops and flooring. The main dance floor was all colored lights, no longer aglow. The light and sound riggings hanging from the ceiling were equally useless and their creaking made those in the club nervous. The bar had been cleaned out long ago and the consequences had clogged every toilet in the joint. The air was musty. It was dark. A tiny giggle escaped from behind the bar.
Jenna O'Connell awoke with a start. The tinny laughter increased in volume. She found an empty bottle at her feet and chucked it over the bar. "Fuck you, Syl!"
Lauren poked Jenna's arm. "Don't let him get to you."
"It's past getting. He's already gotten to me. I hate the prick." Jenna ran her fingernails through her golden hair. Lauren had thick red hair that now reached her waist; she actually looked better than she when they'd first arrived in Jefferson Harbor with their entourage of makeup artists and stagehands. Jenna could feel her hair becoming more brittle by the day. Her eyes ached from straining to see. Her stomach ached from hunger. And there was no longer anyone here to wait on her, no one except that gruesome photographer sitting on the dance floor. What was his name, Duncan? Mark Duncan. Even now he was still playing with his digital camera.
Lauren had been the band's drummer, and Jenna the singer. They hadn't known the rest of the band that well; this whole thing had been cobbled together at the last second as a morale-booster for the troops out here. The troops that had pulled out the day Jenna arrived.
And Duncan. What the hell was he following the tour for? The only publications that got any attention were sensationalist rags about the zombies. They were mostly full of bullshit about religious prophecies and supposed cures, alongside Duncan's daring close-up images of shambling undead. So why document a rock tour? She put the question to him. Duncan's eyes lit up at the attention.
"People are getting tired of zombie stories," he said, dry throat croaking a bit. "They want to see people living. They want to pretend that celebrity tabloid trash still matters in their world."
"Is that what this is?" Jenna gestured around the shadowy room. "Tabloid trash? The life of a celebrity? Everything's a fucking zombie story."
Duncan put the camera down and stretched his legs. Before he could begin opining on his so-called career, club owner Sylvester Silver vaulted over the bar, slipped in something and smacked his head on the floor. "God DAMN." He muttered.
"Are you high?" Jenna asked. Rhetorical question. Silver said something unintelligible but surely vulgar in response. He got up and stumbled around a bit. "Z!"
He was whining for Zaharchuk, his dealer. The greasy little sleaze hadn't been here in days. In fact, Jenna had reminded Silver of that fact on several occasions. "Z!" He cried again. A leather vest and pants barely clinging to his emaciated body, he staggered toward one of the windows. "Oh, shit," Duncan said.
Jenna got up, slapping Lauren's hand away, and chased after Silver. The man grabbed at the boards covering the window. "Fuck this! I'm leaving! Fuck this place!" Jenna grabbed his shoulder and he swatted at her. "Fuck YOU! You never played one fucking lick! Bitch!"
Duncan joined her behind Silver. "Get away from the window, man."
"I don't want to live here!" Syl bellowed, and he began choking on tears, or snot, or both. Jenna rolled her eyes and punched him in the back of the head.
He caught her in the mouth with an elbow. She went flying and, just as she'd dreaded, Duncan ran to her. "Stop him!" She snapped. Silver tore a board from the window. "I'm out- -"
A hand came through and took hold of his ear. Syl immediately exploded into hysterics. A second hand grabbed the vest, and blood streamed down his neck as several ear piercings were tugged through cartilage. Syl beat weakly on the two arms, which obviously belonged to the same body, and he howled as his head was pulled out into the open.
Jenna and Duncan ran back and grabbed the waist of his pants. If he wasn't bitten - it wasn't too late- -
Outside, Syl felt hair being torn from his scalp and threw his head back, banging against the boards. He was stuck. He was looking into the yellow eyes of an undead. Then his head was forced back down and teeth dug into the skin behind his ear.
"Let go!" Jenna yelled. Duncan did, watching silently while Syl Silver's legs kicked and his shrieks became gar
bled. He fell back into the room. Sans head.
Duncan puked on the ragged stump of Silver's neck. Jenna spun away, Lauren catching her, both screaming. An old man stared through the window, gnawing on the severed head's cheek, then he sent his fist crashing into the remaining boards.
"Christ!" Duncan spat bile and grabbed a nearby barstool. "We've gotta cover it back up!" Jenna thought he'd take a shot at the zombie, but instead he shattered the stool over the bar. Good thinking. Attacking the zombie was pointless. Better to fix the window before more showed up. She busted a second stool and told Lauren to find the hammer and nails in Syl's office.
Duncan brought the seat of the first stool down on the undead's prying fingers. Jenna joined him. "Lauren!!"
"Coming!" Lauren dropped the box of nails halfway across the room. "Just grab some! Hurry!" Jenna yelled. She felt her feet dragging through Syl's spreading blood and steeled herself against vomiting. Lauren drove a tenpenny nail through the seat of Duncan's barstool. Through the tiny gap between the two seats, Jenna could see that the zombie was no longer interested in the window. He thrust a hand into Silver's head through the open throat and yanked out a handful of tissue. The undead walked away from the club, chewing.
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