“You also haven’t told me yet what my new job is.”
“Right. That.” Stony started the cart and they zipped away from the command center, back the way they had come. He raised his voice slightly. “So you know those immigrants back there?” Blunt nodded. Stony said, “Sometime in the next few weeks, one or two of them—usually the smart ones—will disappear.”
“You eat them? No, we taste horrible. Eaten by sharks then. Again, same problem—”
“Blunt, please. Calhoun sends them away, by ship and by helicopter. He says they’re going to Florida for ‘advanced training.’ Computers, logistics, blah blah blah.”
“From your tone—and I’m just guessing here—you don’t believe him.”
Stony laughed again. “They don’t come back, Mr. Blunt. I never talk to them again. I think Calhoun’s building his own team, loyal to him, without my influence.”
“Maybe he’s training astronauts,” Blunt said.
“Please. I need you to help me. I’ve never figured out how you do what you do, how you get through borders, how you avoid the police, especially now when—”
“I look like this. Point taken.”
“Well frankly, yeah. We’re monsters, Mr. Blunt. None of us, except maybe Delia, can move around like you do.”
“And you want me to find out what Calhoun is doing with these people,” Mr. Blunt said. “Where they’re going, what they’re doing.”
“Your mission, should you choose to accept it.”
“Choose?” he said in pretend shock. “I get to choose?”
“Not really.”
A day later, Stony and Commander Calhoun sat in a room of the Commander’s mansion watching a video monitor. The screen showed the interior of an empty room two doors down. The Commander sat with his arms crossed, and his face had turned to stone. It was only when all the visitors and staff were gone that the Commander stopped performing, stopped being the icon. It had taken years before he allowed Stony to see this offstage version.
“Do you think this will work?” Calhoun said.
“I don’t know,” Stony said. “I think she’ll go for it.”
“I meant all of it,” Calhoun said. “The whole plan. Do you think this can possibly work?”
Stony looked up. Calhoun was staring at him, hollow-eyed. His skin was glossy, his teeth perfectly white, but his eyes were ancient and terrified. Calhoun was more afraid of death than anyone he’d ever met. While so many LDs were becoming sleepers, throwing themselves into the abyss, Calhoun was doing everything in his power to pave over it, seal it up. He was going to the stars, damn it. He was going to be immortal. Stony understood this, but sometimes the depth of Calhoun’s fear shook him afresh.
“It’ll work,” Stony said. And now he was performing. Stony the confident, firm leader. The visionary. “Have a little faith,” he said.
“In what?”
There was movement on the screen. Franklin, Calhoun’s breather assistant, came into the frame first, followed by a white woman dressed in pastel yellow and green. “Please sit down, Ms. Stolberg,” Franklin said. He’d positioned himself so that there was only one available seat. “The Commander will be with us in a minute. Can I get you something to drink?”
Gloria Stolberg stood a couple of inches over five feet tall and carried perhaps forty extra pounds on a stout frame. Her red hair—dyed, teased, sprayed—had lost that morning’s battle with the island humidity. She was dressed for the tropics in a light cotton short-sleeved blouse and capri pants that looked like they’d been bought as a matched set at Target. She looked younger than her age.
She was sixty-three years old, one of many facts Stony had memorized. Resident of Passaic, New Jersey. Twice divorced and currently unmarried. Three children and seven grandchildren. Favorite book: Angels Fall, by Nora Roberts.
“I have to tell you,” Gloria said. “I think there’s been a mistake.”
The mistake, Stony thought, was wanting to meet your idol.
Onscreen, Franklin said, “I assure you, the Commander is a huge fan.” Gloria sat in the offered chair, which was well lit from the window, and faced the hidden camera. “Perhaps you’d like a piña colada?” Franklin asked her. “You might as well enjoy the Caribbean.”
“Oh no! A Diet Coke would be fine.” When Franklin left, she put her large handbag on the floor next to her, then picked it up again and took out a small black notebook and a pen. They’d taken her camera and cellphone before she’d landed on the island. The Commander wants no photographs, they’d told her. Which wasn’t hard to explain. He was ninety-six years old. The Commander had stopped making public appearances in 1985 and had not spoken to anyone at his corporation, even by phone, since it was sold to R. J. Reynolds in 1992. His family deflected all PR requests.
But in one way—perhaps the most important way, in the eyes of the American public—the Commander never left. His likeness remained stamped on every Calhoun Family Restaurant sign and every box of fishstixs. His hearty voice—“Now that’s a good one!”—was still heard at the end of each ad. He’d become a cartoon, as immortal as his nemesis, Colonel Sanders, or that creepy dead girl, Wendy. Most people thought he’d died years ago, others assumed that he was hooked up on life support on his island, and the rest—mostly those under twenty—had no idea he’d ever been a real person. No wonder he didn’t want pictures—the real-life Commander Calhoun could only damage his image.
Franklin returned with the soft drink, a plate of crackers and cheese, and a bowl of jumbo shrimp. “We have a few minutes before the Commander gets here. I suppose you have a lot of questions.”
“Yes. Why me?”
Franklin smiled. “I told you that he was a fan of your work.”
“He reads romances?”
“Pardon?”
“I mostly write Regency romances. The Consort series? The Chatelaine?”
“No, I’m sorry. I was referring to your other books—”
“The westerns, then. Of course. Men love the westerns. Wagonmaster, The Wagonmaster’s Son—”
“No.”
“True crime?”
“I believe these books involved the living dead.”
“Oh! The zombie detective books!”
Franklin winced. “Yes, those. He’s a very big fan of C. V. Ferris.”
“Those stopped selling in the eighties. I liked writing them, though. They’re mostly dialogue, and the pages just fly by.”
In the room down the hall, Stony put his face in his hands.
Franklin said, “The Commander thought that because you’d expressed an interest in the living dead, and in Deadtown in particular, that you might be interested in writing more about them.”
Comprehension dawned on Gloria’s face. “Oh! I’m afraid I completely misunderstood. I thought he was interested in me writing his biography, but this makes much more sense. I’ve never written a privately commissioned novel before, but I’m sure we can work something out.” She laughed. “He’s already spent thousands of dollars just flying me down here!”
“Ms. Stolberg—”
“Call me Gloria.”
“Gloria. This would be a nonfiction book.”
“About zombies?”
“We prefer the term living dead. Or differently living.”
“We?” Gloria asked.
“The Commander was interested in hiring you because you already seemed to know a great deal about Deadtown.”
Gloria blinked. “I should hope so. I made it up.”
“I mean the real Deadtown.”
She smiled, then shook her head in confusion.
“The prison, ma’am. The maximum-security facility that holds living dead prisoners.”
“That’s an urban myth.”
This, Stony thought, is not happening. “Please, stay here,” he told the Commander. “Let me talk to her.” He marched down the hall. Why would she lie to them? Had the Diggers gotten to her? The Accountants? She obviously knew the truth—the details
were too specific. She knew that the fever passed, that the LDs became conscious again. She’d obviously changed some of the facts—Deadtown was no prison the size of Elkhart, Indiana—but the psychological details were dead on. How the prisoners lived on the edge of despair, how they tried to commit suicide, how they both feared and envied the breathers. She must have had a contact in the community, or maybe with someone on the staff at Deadtown. It was time to drop the masks and misdirection, Stony thought, and tell the truth.
He barged through the door, turned toward the window—and Gloria Stolberg screamed.
Stony walked toward her, arms open. “Please, please. Nobody here’s going to—”
Gloria jumped up from her chair, and the table tipped. Red cocktail sauce splattered across the white carpet. She backed up to the only other exit in the room, a small door. “Get away from me!”
“Ms. Stolberg!” Franklin said.
“Jesus Christ,” Stony said.
At that moment, Commander Calhoun stepped in and bellowed, “Ahoy there!”
Gloria spun to face him. Up close, the Commander looked like an unconvincing wax effigy of himself: a shiny mannequin in a naval uniform. She opened her mouth, her head tilted back … and then her knees folded and she crashed onto the floor.
Holy shit, Stony thought. We just killed C.V. Ferris.
But no, not dead. She was breathing, and in a few minutes her eyes fluttered open and she tried to sit up. Stony stepped back out of her line of sight.
“Are you all right, Ms. Stolberg?” Franklin asked. “Have a sip of water.”
“Goddamn! I haven’t seen anyone faint in years,” the Commander said. He was in performance mode again.
She stared at the old man. “You startled me,” she said. “I thought I—” Then she remembered Stony and looked around wildly for him.
Stony lifted a hand tentatively. “I’m so sorry,” he said.
Gloria did not faint again. Franklin helped her from the floor and she managed to get back to her chair without turning her back on Stony or Calhoun.
“I think it’s time for me to leave,” she said. “Now.”
Stony said, “Please, Ms. Stolberg, if you just let me explain—”
“Of course you can leave,” Calhoun said. “Franklin, go bring the car around.”
“No!” she said. “Franklin—stay!”
“You really haven’t met another LD?” Stony asked.
“You’re—both of you are, aren’t you?”
“You can tell?” The Commander sounded hurt.
“But you can talk!” she said.
“Please, Ms. Stolberg,” Stony said. “I know you’ve met some of us. You wrote the Jack Gore books.”
“What does that have to do with anything?”
The Commander said, “It’s the eyes, isn’t it? They said the eyes give it away.”
Stony said, “Because the books are so, so … incredible.”
“Oh.” She pursed her lips. “You’ve read them?”
“I’ve memorized them,” Stony said. “They got me through high school. If it wasn’t for Jack Gore, I don’t know what would have happened to me.”
“I should have worn sunglasses,” the Commander said.
Gloria said, “Both of you”—she pointed to Stony, then the Commander—“sit down over there. Franklin, you’re human, aren’t you?”
“We’re all human,” Stony said.
“Living human,” she said.
“Yes ma’am,” Franklin said.
“Give me your word that you’ll let me return home.”
The Commander drew himself up. “Mrs. Stolberg, as captain of this island, I give you my word.”
“ ‘Cross my heart and hope to burn,’ ” Stony said. “It’s what one of the Stitch Brothers promised, right before he shot Jack.”
“You are a fan,” Gloria said. “Franklin? Your word?”
“I promise,” Franklin said.
“Good. Sit here next to me.”
Franklin looked at the deepening red stain on the carpet as if longing to put down some wet towels, and sat beside her.
“All right then,” Gloria said. “Why don’t you tell me why I’m really here, Commander. You’re not writing a biography, and you’re not commissioning a Deadtown Detective novel. So what is it you want?”
The Commander took his seat. “I defer to Stony. This is his idea.”
Stony sat as well. “It’s a nonfiction book,” he said. “The true story of the living dead in America.”
“And it needs to be on store shelves in nine months,” the Commander said.
“That’s impossible,” Gloria said.
“I know how to move product,” the Commander said.
“Even if you could find a publisher, and get it printed, I have three books to write before June.”
“I can make it worth your while,” the Commander said.
“We need you for this,” Stony said. “The book can’t just be a dry history. It’s got to engage people. It’s got to show everyone what life has been like for us for the past thirty-five years.”
Gloria frowned. “Why nine months? What happens then?”
“We go public,” Stony said. “It will be a multimedia PR campaign. TV, radio, Internet—”
“And celebrities,” the Commander said. “Besides myself, of course. Living celebrities. We believe we can get Bono. It’ll be the Goddamn Super Bowl of publicity events.”
“Your book will be the centerpiece,” Stony said. “No one else will have your access. I’ve already written hundreds of pages of background material. We’ll tell you how we survived, what the government has done to suppress us, how they’ve kept us from talking, and what we can offer the world.”
“Freedom from disease,” the Commander said. “Increased life span, space travel—”
“A lot of things,” Stony said, cutting the man off. “The important thing we want to get across is that our people don’t want to harm anyone. In fact, we’ve worked very hard to keep the world safe.”
“Safe? From what?” she asked.
“Well,” Commander Calhoun said. “Us.”
“I don’t think that’s going to earn you any points,” she said.
“It’s like in your books,” Stony said. “You’ve got your good LDs and your bad LDs.”
“And you’re the good ones.”
“Of course!” the Commander said. “Franklin, bring Ms. Stolberg another drink.”
“Another Diet Coke?” Franklin asked.
“And put some rum in it,” she said.
“Now that sounds like C. V. Ferris,” Stony said.
“I don’t think so,” she said. “For this one I’m going to need a whole new pen name.”
“Nonsense!” the Commander said. “No pen names, no masks. We’re all walking into the sunshine, and Gloria Stolberg is coming out with us. I’ll get the contracts.”
The Commander walked out, and Stony and Mrs. Stolberg were alone. She seemed uncomfortable, but he was encouraged that she no longer seemed terrified of him.
This was his chance. Now, however, he was nervous.
He leaned over to her. “I really shouldn’t ask this,” he said. “But I was wondering if you would do me a huge favor.”
She regarded him suspiciously. “Yes?”
“I’m just looking for your honest, professional opinion.”
“About what?” And then: “Oh no.”
“It’s kind of a thriller slash autobiography slash detective novel. See, when you stopped writing the Deadtown Detective books, I thought someone should—”
“Good Lord, you’re writing Jack Gore fan-fic?”
“If you could just take a look at it,” he said, “I’d really appreciate it.”
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
April 2010
Evans City, Pennsylvania
e’d promised himself that he’d never try to see anyone in his family again. And now the promise was on the edge of being broken, a porcelai
n teacup balanced on the arm of a chair—as good as broken already.
Stony sat leaning forward in the passenger seat of a Ford delivery van, parked and lights off, staring out through a foggy and rain-smeared windshield at a stretch of dark road. He hummed some church song his mother used to sing. They’d been hiding out here for nearly an hour. A little ways off from the road was a small brick house, the light from one of its windows gauzy in the heavy rain.
He palmed some of the moisture from the window and rested his arms on the dash. The fogging windshield was the fault of the breather with him in the driver’s seat, a heavily tattooed white woman named Nessa, who was one of Calhoun’s island staff. She was his chauffeur and bodyguard and beard. One of her responsibilities, he was sure, was to report on him to Calhoun. He didn’t hold it against her. She seemed like a nice woman, though she was probably the most boring conversationalist he’d ever met—and he was from Iowa. It was as if the gaudiness of the tattoos removed any need for her to have a personality.
“So …,” she said. When that didn’t spark a response, she said, “Are we going in?”
“Not yet,” he said. Thinking: We’re not going in at all.
“It’s really hard to be in the dark like this,” she said. “You haven’t told me anything. I don’t even know whose safe house this is. It wasn’t on our list.”
“It’s not a safe house,” Stony said. “I’m sorry, I sort of misled you about that.”
“Oh, then …,” she said. Perhaps thirty seconds passed. “Stony, I know you can’t tell me everything, but it’s just that we were supposed to be in Michigan tonight.” They were on a tour of safe houses, traveling by night between cities. Stony’s job was to spread the word about D-day and buck up the troops. Calhoun had been against it, but Stony insisted. Everyone had to be ready, he told the Commander. Everyone had to know that they just needed to hang on until June 1.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “We’re not going to get to Grand Rapids.”
“I know, it’s like seven hours. Six if we don’t make any stops. I don’t think I could stay awake, though.” Stony didn’t say anything. She said, “I’ve never even heard of Evans City.”
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