Desperate Souls

by Gregory Lamberson

  Halfway up, his heart skipped a beat as the overseer he had shot in the hip limped into view, a trembling sneer on his face as he raised his pistol. Jake froze. He had sworn never to kill another human being again. Eyes locking on the barrel of the overseer’s gun, he brought up his Glock.

  “Drop it!”

  The overseer pivoted on his good leg and swung his gun in the direction of Edgar, who had climbed back up the shaft.

  Jake lowered his aim and fired first. Blood erupted from the overseer’s right hip, and he went down screaming. Hearing clanging footsteps behind him, Jake took the stairs two at a time and met Edgar at the top. He only had to look at Edgar’s fearful expression to know that an army of zombies pursued him.

  With his Glock in one hand, Edgar stepped on the overseer’s wrist and plucked the gun from his hand. He turned around and saw a tide of zombies swarming up the stairs, three wide.

  The overseer said, “You’re dead, you motherfuckers!”

  Jake looked down at the man writhing on the floor. Then he holstered his weapon. “Pick him up.”

  Edgar raised his eyebrows, glanced at the advancing creatures, then holstered his Glock and pocketed the other gun. They encircled the overseer with their arms.

  “What the hell do you think you’re doing?” the overseer said, fear evident in his squealing voice.

  Jake grimaced as they lifted him. “Giving you some face time with your employees. I think they want to unionize.”

  They waited until the closest zombies were four steps below them, then pitched the overseer at them with their combined strength. The man struck them at chest level, knocking them back. The front row of zombies fell into the second row, which fell into the third row, which fell into the fourth. All the undead creatures fell backwards, the overseer screaming the whole time.

  Jake and Edgar traded looks, then ran for the window they had sneaked in through. Jake climbed out first, breathing in the night air and leaping onto the corrugated roof below with an echoing thud. He caught his balance as Edgar landed beside him, and they slid down to the roof’s edge and jumped onto the roof of the construction vehicle waiting below.

  “Promise me something,” Edgar said as they drew their guns.

  “What’s that?” They scrambled down the vehicle’s side.

  “If you make it out of here and I don’t, I want your word that you’ll keep an eye on Martin.”

  They sprinted around the building’s corner, forgetting discretion.

  Jake could not believe what Edgar had just said. “We’re both getting out of here.”

  “Your word!”

  “All right, all right, I promise!”

  They reached the front driveway and came to the locked gates topped with coiled razor wire. Veering left, they vaulted over the lower four-foot fence. Jake passed Edgar as they circled the abandoned gas station. They had to pass the factory’s front gates to reach Edgar’s car, and as they did, the final twelve zombies poured out of the factory and charged the gates, rattling them.

  Jake looked at the corner across the street. The car was two blocks to its right. As he calculated how long it would take to reach it, the other overseer emerged from the factory’s front door, a set of keys jingling in one hand.

  “Son of a bitch,” Edgar said.

  Jake raised his Glock, took careful aim, and fired at the man’s hand. Instead, he hit his thigh, and the man dropped to all fours.

  Just as good, Jake thought.

  “Take the keys!” the overseer said. “Unlock the gate!”

  A single zombie lurched forward, bent over, and took the keys.

  Jake’s eyes widened. “Come on!”

  They sprinted to the corner. As they rounded it, they almost collided with a skeletal figure with bulging eyes.

  Edgar pressed the barrel of his Glock against the cadaverous-looking man’s forehead.

  Jake closed his fingers over his partner’s gun hand. “No! He isn’t one of them. He’s just a scarecrow.”

  “Today,” Edgar said.

  They heard the gates swing open behind them and turned to see the zombies racing into the street. Edgar lowered his Glock and they took off, shoes pounding cracked sidewalk as they passed empty storefronts. Seeing Edgar’s car a block ahead, Jake looked over his shoulder. The zombies sped forward, their faces impassive.

  Jake’s left foot caught in a gaping hole in the sidewalk, and he soared through the air, impacted concrete, and rolled. His Glock slid across the sidewalk. Edgar helped him to his feet. With his left knee throbbing, Jake retrieved his gun and started running again. By the time they reached the Plymouth, their breathing had become ragged.

  “Do you want me to drive?” Jake said.

  “Fuck you!” Edgar unlocked the car with a remote control, and they climbed inside. As Edgar locked the doors and turned the ignition, Jake secured his seat belt.

  “Hang on,” Edgar said, and the car rocketed forward.

  Jake massaged his injured knee, and his fingers came away dripping with blood. Glancing at the side mirror, he saw that the zombies had run into the street and were chasing them down Garrison Avenue. He watched them shrink as Edgar floored the gas.

  “Zombies,” Edgar said in disbelief as they raced back to Manhattan.

  “Fucking, real-life zombies!”

  “Be glad they didn’t have guns,” Jake said. He kept looking at the mirror, expecting an army of SUVs to appear on the horizon behind them.

  “You knew what they were. You knew what we’d find out here.”

  “I did know what they are, but I didn’t know what we’d find.”

  “Why the hell didn’t you warn me?”

  Jake faced him. “Would you have believed me?”

  Edgar’s silence provided the answer. Finally, he said, “I have to call this in.”

  “What will you say?”

  “I won’t report the zombies, just that stockpile of Black Magic.”

  “If you don’t report the zombies, anyone walking in there could get taken by surprise.”

  “A SNAP unit will be armed …”

  “We left those two overseers alive. Trust me—the zombies are relocating the drugs right now. That warehouse will be deserted again in minutes.”

  “With all the bodies we left behind? Not likely.”

  “This will blow up in your face.”

  “We should go back and blow up that building.”

  “Now you’re making sense.”

  Edgar looked at him. “The scary thing is, I don’t know if you’re joking or not.”

  Neither do I.

  “Those things are all over the city. Walking right out in the open. Pushing Magic. No wonder they stink so bad.”

  Jake considered their next move. “If we want to stop this, we have to go after upper management.”

  “Malachai.”

  “I’d like you to get me everything you can dig up on him.”

  Edgar snorted. “Oh, really? And risk screwing myself in the department? No way I’m letting you drag me down to your level.”

  “Malachai needs to go down first and fast. This has to be done outside the department.”

  “It sounds to me like you’re talking about murder.”

  I don’t do that anymore. “No. I think we should frame him for something else so he goes away for a long time. Maybe someone will do him in prison. Or maybe we uncover his location and give that information to Papa Joe. Let him worry about it.”

  “You’re crazy.”

  “Are you aware of any laws against creating a zombie labor force? Because I see a lot of wiggle room there for any defendant. Besides, if the department screws you, you really can become my partner again. Wasn’t tonight fun?”

  “Fuck you. I saved your ass three times.”

  “Who’s counting?”

  “I am. Why the hell did you chop off that hand?”

  Jake didn’t want to tell Edgar about Laurel yet. “I just thought we might need evidence someday. Something t
he CSU boys can work on if it comes down to that.” Sometimes his own lies impressed him.

  “What are you going to do in the meantime, sleep with it under your pillow?”

  “That’s not a bad idea. I could use the extra buck.”

  “Especially with your client dead.” Edgar’s cell phone issued a series of beeps. He checked the display and answered it. “Go ahead, Maria.”

  Maria. Jake felt glad that he had insisted on Edgar coming alone. There was no need to drag her into this. He listened to her loud, excited voice coming from the phone.

  “What?” Edgar sounded dumbfounded. Maria continued to buzz like a bee. “I’m on my way in from the Bronx right now. I can be there in half an hour or so.” Maria’s buzzing calmed. “Right. Right. See you soon.” He handed the phone to Jake for him to power it down.

  “Trouble?”

  “Brown and Beck are both dead. From the looks of it, Beck overdosed in his apartment, and Brown blew his brains out on the street near his car.”

  Jake felt the blood drain from his face. He recalled how strung out Gary had appeared at One PP, and he could not help remembering the morning after his own fall from grace when he had tasted his gun barrel.

  “I’m going to drop you off and report to the scene. This is going to be one long assed night for me.”

  Not for me, Jake thought. I’m crashing as soon as I get inside my office.

  Edgar let Jake off in front of his building and sped toward the FDR Drive. Jake gazed at Laurel’s storefront, debating whether or not to wake her and give her the zombie’s hand.

  It can wait, he decided, looking up and down the street at shadowy couples shuffling along, then at the Tower. At least he couldn’t blame his current situation on Tower’s corporate royalty.

  Taking out his keys, he unlocked the front door, passed through the vestibule, and punched in his security code. Traces of salt remained scattered at each threshold. His footsteps echoed in the lobby as he crossed the polished floor. He tried to focus on the elevator, but the stairway kept drawing his attention, and he felt a slight numbness in his knees and fingertips.

  Fear, he thought. How many of those things had he and Edgar put down? Scores of them, close to a hundred. And they had kept coming after them.

  How many of them are there? And how the hell had a street punk like Malachai discovered how to create his undead army and Black Magic? He thumbed the call button and the elevator door slid open. Boarding the elevator, he pressed the button for his floor, and the door closed once more.

  So tired. It had been an exhausting twenty-four hours. He just wanted to crawl into bed and stop thinking. But what had happened to Gary and Frank? They had been assigned to the same task force as Edgar and Maria, investigating Black Magic and the Machete Massacres. Had they stumbled onto Malachai’s operation as well? He knew them to be opportunists at best and criminals at worst. Perhaps they had attempted to blackmail the drug dealer …

  The elevator door opened, and he stared at the dark hallway, a single light illuminating the path to his front door.

  Nope. No zombies here.

  Had the salt deterred them, or had they simply not returned for him? He contemplated relocating until he had dealt with this situation. Running to his door, he jammed his keys into their respective locks. Inside the reception area, he flicked on the lights, slammed the door, and entered a second code into this alarm pad.

  He peeled off his jacket, took a Diet Coke from the refrigerator, and entered his office. He flipped on the light switch, crossed the office to the safe, crouched down, and manipulated the combination dials. The heavy door swung open, and, anxious to rid himself of his extra five fingers, he removed the severed hand and shoved it into the lower compartment.

  Then he felt a peculiar sensation: a breeze on the back of his neck, almost too slight to notice. Rising, he faced the window behind his desk and became aware of the traffic sounds outside, louder than usual for this time of night. He crept toward the desk and stared at the blinds. Certain that he had closed and locked the window before leaving the office, he narrowed his eyes. The blinds moved ever so much. And a shadow moved over the blinds.

  With his heart racing, Jake turned around just as the source of that shadow lunged at him: not a zombie but a scarecrow with snarling features. Jake flinched as AK raised a knife and drove the long blade down toward him with deadly precision. Jake managed to snare AK’s wrist, slowing the knife’s descent. He reached for his Glock, then realized he needed both hands to take the knife away, so he seized AK’s forearm in a two-on-one hold.

  AK surprised him by setting his other hand around the knife’s handle, doubling the power and momentum behind its trajectory. Caught off guard, Jake fell back and sprawled across the desktop. AK leaned over him, putting all his weight behind the knife.

  Sweat beaded on Jake’s forehead and stung his eyes as the blade inched closer and closer to his face. The metal tip went out of focus, and AK drove it straight into Jake’s left eye.

  EIGHTEEN

  Jake screamed in agony as the long blade penetrated his eyeball. He continued to resist AK’s momentum with both hands, which saved his life. The blade’s tip cut into the nerves behind his eye, which multiplied the searing pain. As AK leaned his body against the knife, Jake focused his undamaged eye on AK’s knuckles, six inches above his face.

  The blade disappeared from the peripheral vision of his right eye, and AK’s face trembled with effort, sweat beading on his brow and saliva dripping from his yellow teeth. The drug addict looked as bad as the zombies, and Jake supposed that his former snitch and shakedown victim would become a dead thing in another day or two. He already reeked like death.

  AK released his grip on the knife handle with his left hand and seized Jake’s throat. Then he twisted the knife back and forth, rotating the blade clockwise and counterclockwise, churning Jake’s ruptured eyeball in its socket.

  The intense pain Jake experienced radiated from his butchered nerves. He knew there was no saving that eye, but after everything he had faced and conquered in his life, he did not intend to lie down and die for a foe as inconsequential as AK without putting up a fight. Taking an immense chance, he released AK’s wrist with his right hand, which he closed into a fist, and pounded the side of his attacker’s head.

  AK twisted his head away, and when he looked back at Jake, he removed his left hand from around Jake’s throat and tried to claw at Jake’s remaining eye.

  No! Not that eye, too!

  Desperation drove Jake into frantic action. Putting all his weight on the back of his head, he bridged on his neck and turned his face away, protecting his surviving eye from AK’s rancid fingers. The movement caused AK’s knife to scrape against fresh nerves, and he screamed again.

  Upside down, his right eye glimpsed an object that had been knocked over in the struggle: the Maltese Falcon reproduction that Edgar had given him. He grabbed for the stone bird but discovered that his depth perception had been crippled. His hand floundered around the reproduction until his fingers finally closed around its neck. Turning back toward AK—which drove the blade even deeper into his eye socket—he swung the statue over his head and brought it crashing down on top of AK’s, braining the man with a terrific cracking sound.

  AK turned rigid, his eyes rolled up, and blood erupted from his oily scalp as he collapsed to the floor, leaving the knife protruding from Jake’s eye.

  Whimpering, Jake sat up, his right hand hovering around the blade, but he was afraid to touch it. Summoning his courage, he gripped the knife’s handle. Even that little bit of movement sent shock waves of pain through his brain. He sucked in his breath and jerked the knife out of his head, praying that his eyeball remained intact but knowing that could not possibly be the case.

  The knife came free without the ruptured eyeball skewered on its end like a shish kebab, and Jake immediately cupped his left hand over the socket. Clear liquid oozed out between his fingers, followed by clear jelly, then blood that seep
ed into the other fluids.

  Looking down at AK’s corpse, blood spooling on the Oriental rug, he kicked the dead man in the ribs. “You piece of shit!” He kicked the corpse again.

  Still holding the knife, he resisted the temptation to stab AK in the chest until nothing remained of it.

  Instead, he dropped the knife on the rug and staggered into the bathroom. Clicking on the light, he stepped before the sink and gazed in horror at his face. AK’s knife had turned Jake’s eyelid into a miniature mouth through which his head threatened to vomit the remains of his decimated eyeball. The blood-water-jelly mixture continued to ooze out of the two slits in his lid, carrying with it chunks of the white of his eye, which resembled pieces of a hard-boiled egg. His face collapsed into a defeated expression, and tears rolled out of his right eye. Covering his left eye again, he gritted his teeth, his face scarlet as he wept.

  How the hell did I get myself into this?

  Wiping snot from his nose, he washed his hands in the sink one at a time.

  It doesn’t matter. I’ll make Malachai pay for this.

  Jake popped four Tylenols into his mouth and washed them down with Diet Coke. In his bedroom, he snatched a pair of clean underwear from his top bureau drawer. Balling it in his left hand, he pressed the fabric against his eye, producing a fresh wave of pain and an extended groan. Then he picked up his cell phone and pressed autodial.

  “Yeah?” Edgar said on the other end.

  Pain throbbed in Jake’s head. “Where are you?”

  “I’m almost on the Fifty-ninth Street Bridge.”

  “I need you to turn around and come back here.”

  “I take it you’re drinking again or worse.”

  I could use a stiff drink. Or something better. “This is no joke. But it is a matter of life and death. I can’t say more over the phone.”

  Seconds passed before Edgar answered. “I’m on my way.”

  Returning to his office, Jake sank onto the sofa. The entire left side of his head ached. What had Malachai’s people promised AK in exchange for his services?

  As much Black Magic as one junkie could possibly want. Enough to make him climb a fire escape and through a fourth-story window.