by Steven Booth
“What the hell is this?” Alex demanded, with false bravado. “Where am I?”
“Shh…” A male voice quite nearby. “If you want me to take the hood off, you will need to control your temper. Agreed?”
At that second, Alex’s interrogation training kicked in, though it had been a decade since he’d endured that brutal SERE instruction. Better late than never. Alex nodded, and the hood was removed. Alex sat perfectly still, devoid of expression, and waited to find out what the hell would happen next. He kept his breathing slow and deep. He let his eyes roam around to study his surroundings in case he got a chance to try to escape.
The room was windowless, with plush chairs placed all around a monstrously large and well-polished wooden table, like a conference room. An oversized monitor dominated one wall, but the screen was dark. The other walls were bare. Alex noted a small security camera high in one corner. He looked up at his host. He blinked away the last of the pepper spray.
An older man, rotund and balding, stood over him. “What’s your name, son?”
“Dragan, Alex.” The answer came automatically. He almost added his old serial number but stopped himself in time. “May I have some water?”
The balding man smiled. He took a decanter from the table and poured some water into a Styrofoam cup. Alex thought the man might untie his hands, but instead he brought the water up to Alex’s lips. Alex drank the water in one gulp, coughing a little as the last of the pepper spray was finally washed down.
“Thank you,” Alex said. He meant it. “May I ask a question?”
“I’m sure you’re curious about what is going on,” the man said, “but for right now, I’ll be asking the questions. Where do you live?”
Alex gave his address. The man made a note in a handheld device.
“What were you doing at Venice Beach this morning?”
“Surfing,” Alex said.
“Did you see anything unusual happen while you were at Venice Beach?”
Alex did a double-take, somehow surprising himself. He thought people only did that in sitcoms. “Excuse me. Did I what?”
“Please don’t make me repeat myself, Alex.”
Alex’s mouth felt dry as sand. What the fuck is going on here? He shivered, for once wishing that he wasn’t shirtless and shoeless. The air conditioning was set too high. Or perhaps they want me feeling cold and anxious? But who is “they”? Why is this happening?
“Yeah, I saw something,” Alex said as calmly as he could. “I saw some woman go nuts on the beach and kill a friend of mine.”
“Tell me about that.”
Alex did his best to recount what had happened. Once he started talking his old training failed him. He shivered in the chill air and babbled along. He said everything and anything. He even talked a little about having been up all night screwing. Said how the waves were uninspiring, and that he’d been stoned and had gotten hungry. One part of his mind told him to shut up, or at least edit himself, but he was too frightened and cold and tired to obey. Finally Alex talked about the crazy lady who had bitten Carlos. How she’d torn his throat out. How Leslie had screamed and the soldiers had come running. When he got to the part about being arrested and pepper-sprayed, the man asked him to stop.
“Is it possible that you are mistaken?”
“About what?”
“About what you thought you saw.”
“Not really,” he said, cautiously. “I’m pretty damn certain my friend Carlos got his throat torn out by that woman.”
“Think hard, Alex. Are you absolutely certain that that is what happened?”
Alex’s anxiety went up about ten notches. Something was very, very wrong here. He felt paranoid and scared he was being asked to do something strange, and he had no idea what it was. The guy was playing some kind of mind game. Alex swallowed bile. He heard a beeping sound. The man took the small handheld computer out of his coat pocket again. He read something on it and nodded. Then he pursed his lips and looked up.
“I’m waiting, Alex,” he said.
Alex tried something else. “I think it might be better if you told me what you think I should believe happened.”
The man smiled. “Very good, Alex.”
Alex smiled, weakly. He nodded, sort of like the two of them were old friends sharing a secret.
The man said, “I understand you were in the Marines, that you saw combat, and that you have been treated for Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder.”
Alex blinked. “Yes.”
The man pursed his lips. “You mentioned being high, and the report I just received confirms that you do a lot of drugs. So here is what I think happened, young man. What I think happened is that you were hallucinating. You imagined most of the terrible events you just described.”
“Hallucinating.” Alex made it a statement, not a question. He wanted to please the man and get back to his beach shack, but he was uncomfortable with the word. He didn’t care for this turn of events. “Sir, I’m pretty certain that that event was real.”
“No,” said the balding man. “It was not, Alex. At least not the way you remember it. You need to concentrate and regain your grasp on reality before it’s too late. We found traces of amphetamine in your system, along with a heavy dose of THC. These are drugs that can cause psychosis, especially in someone who has already experienced delusions.”
What is this? Reefer madness? he thought, but instead said, “I told you I’d been partying the night before and that I blazed before surfing.”
The man stared back, his face devoid of emotion. “Alex, listen up. This is what happened. There was no crazy woman on that beach. The only person who attacked that poor short order cook was you. You are the one who killed him.”
“No, sir. I did not.” Alex’s heartbeat was racing, and he felt the pounding of blood in his ears.
“It was you, son. You tore your friend Carlos apart with your own bare hands.”
Alex sat up straight. His mind shouted but his voice whispered. “Bullshit!”
The man sighed. “Alex, I’m sorry to tell you this, but given the results of your blood test, the consensus of the doctors here is that you’ve had a severe psychotic break, PTSD from combat, exacerbated by the ingestion of both a hallucinogenic and an amphetamine. It was you all the time, Alex. Your own violent past has come back to haunt you.”
Alex shook his head. His mouth went dry and his heart started to pound. He knew he was very, very fucked right now. “Sir, I didn’t kill anyone.”
“It will be easier to accept with time, son.”
Alex stared at the man. He felt himself sinking into the ground. He swallowed. “So, I’m under arrest for murder? Is that right?”
“Oh, no, no, no,” the man said, smiling widely. “You are not under arrest. Think of this organization as being on your side. We are just protecting you from yourself. You are in good hands here. And I think we have just the place for you.”
The man pressed a button on a small panel on the table next to his elbow.
A metallic voice came from a hidden speaker, very loud. “Yes, Dr. Rubenstein?”
“Orderly, please come help Mr. Dragan to his quarters.”
“On the way.”
Dr. Rubenstein smiled benevolently. “You are a wounded warrior, son. We will make you whole again, I promise. We will look after you. Welcome home, Alex. You will be here with us for as long as it takes.”
Alex didn’t want to piss this man off, especially now, but he felt more afraid than he’d ever been in combat. He was desperate to survive. “You can’t hold me here, and you know that. I have my rights.”
The door opened silently. Two large men dressed in white medical scrubs entered and stood on either side of Alex. The air conditioning came on again and the chill wind made his bare skin ripple. One of the men produced a hypodermic needle as long as a fresh pencil. Alex shook his head, his heart slugging his rub cage like an angry boxer closing in on the end of the round. This couldn’t be happening.
He searched for something brilliant to say, something that would stop them from drugging him senseless. All he could do is repeat his last words. “I have my rights. Sir.”
“Of course you do, son,” said Rubenstein. He smiled kindly.
The man closed in on him. Alex struggled against the powerful grasp of one of the orderlies. The other stabbed him in the thigh with the big needle. Alex groaned in pain as his muscles clenched. The world began to slide sideways.
“Get him ready. I’ll be there shortly.” Rubenstein’s expression was benevolent and cool as the silent orderlies took Alex out of the room. Alex tried to meet his tormentor’s eyes, to say something else, but his tongue felt huge and dry and his mouth wouldn’t work properly. Rubenstein’s smile was far from comforting. In fact, it was strangely smug. That made Alex’s stomach flip over and tie itself into ice-cold knots. This was one hell of a bad trip.
Alex Dragan had gone through the looking glass for real this time.
CHAPTER ONE
SANTA MONICA, CALIFORNIA
Sheriff Penny Miller killed the engine of the Harley ElectraGlide. As she walked it into the parking spot, she looked around the public garage off Fourth Street in Santa Monica. The wide concrete shell and its long, dark shadows seemed to press down on her. Miller sniffed the air and searched the premises with her eyes. Not a zombie in sight. She still hadn’t been able to get used to things being so… normal. She took off her helmet and shook out her red hair. It was now longer than regulation length, much longer than she was comfortable with, but she hadn’t had a chance to get it cut since they’d left Las Vegas. She couldn’t afford any luxuries right now. A haircut wasn’t gas, food or extra ammunition. So once again Miller just settled for untangling her hair with a highly questionable brush she’d discovered on the sink at a rest stop just outside of Flagstaff.
Her lover Scratch, sitting on the seat behind her, reached up to remove his own helmet. He grunted low and deep as he moved his torso. After being shot in the shoulder by a high-powered rifle several weeks back, the ex-biker was a bit stiff but healing rapidly. He could already raise his left arm above the shoulder. They were lucky the bullet had been a through-and-through, but with the state of the world and their finances, some decent physical therapy was out of the question. They had been on the run for weeks… or was it months now? Neither of them knew Southern California very well, though Miller had once visited. They’d been stunned to discover that the zombie plague was considered an urban legend this far west. It had taken them a while to adjust, but they’d learned never to raise the subject. People just assumed they were strung out on meth and imagining things.
Miller let Scratch struggle with the helmet on his own. Her big, busily tattooed friend was a proud specimen. As much as he loved Miller, and she knew in her bones that he did, Scratch wasn’t the kind of man who would accept help from her, at least not with something as simple as removing his cover. She let her eyes continue to search the garage and the hulking parked cars. No danger in sight. Nothing bad had happened lately, but her body still remained on high alert, searching for any sign of the living dead.
Miller studied the far corner of the parking garage. A cat moved, weaving around the vehicles, tail raised high in greeting.
Miller dismounted the bike and removed the key from the ignition. She looked around at all the multi-colored cars packed into the parking garage on a Saturday morning. Many were freshly washed, some brand new. California was a different world. How could something undead and slobbering be about to ambush them from behind a clean SUV with a family sticker on the back window? Nonetheless, Miller stiffened and her hands trembled as if seeking a weapon. Miller shook off the sensation of dread. Hell, they hadn’t seen a genuine zombie since Albuquerque, although that didn’t mean that she was about to stop looking for them anytime soon. Miller wasn’t a coward, not by a country mile. She knew her duty was to protect others. But it was difficult to know what to do next, since nothing violent had happened for so damned long. She found herself tensed up, irritable, and just… waiting.
Scratch managed to remove his helmet. He got off the bike and secured his and Miller’s helmets to the back of the Harley. He took off his sunglasses and smiled down at Miller. Miller loved his craggy face, his stubble and long hair. She winked back. His smile sagged when she slipped the Springfield XD compact .45 into her waistband and covered it with her jacket.
“I thought we talked about that, Penny,” Scratch said, pointing to the bulge at her back. “You’re not sheriff here. They don’t realize what happened in Nevada. If you get caught with that thing, we’re both butt-fucked.”
“Then let’s not get ourselves caught.” Miller smiled back, but her eyes showed exhaustion. “You know, I find it weirdly amusing that you’re suddenly the one advocating following the law, Scratch.”
“The law’s got some uses.”
“Wow, even for you?”
They started walking, headed toward a patch of daylight streaming through the concrete walls. Scratch snorted. “It makes law-abiding folks predictable, and then that makes it safer for us criminal types to break the law. Besides, we don’t need any trouble, not if we’re going to stay off the Army’s radar. This ain’t a war zone. Right now, the authorities are a bigger threat than the zombies. I’ll tell you what, if you start waving that pistol around, things will get very unpredictable very fast. Remember what went down back in Phoenix?”
Miller darkened. “Yes.” She paused and considered her next words carefully. “That guy could have been a zombie.”
“He was a fucking street mime. And not even a very good one.”
Miller relaxed enough to turn up the corners of her mouth. “Are there any good ones?”
Scratch grinned. “Beats me. Now hear this. We have reentered the world. The war is over, Penny. Hell, these folks don’t even know it ever happened. They think there was some kind of reactor accident in Nevada and that everything else that folks say is mass hysteria and liberal propaganda. We have to be careful as a virgin with a vibrator. We’re not in Flat Rock anymore.”
They reached the stairs leading up to the sidewalk. Someone went by on a skateboard and Miller froze. She jumped at the noise, her stomach tightening, and almost reached for the pistol. She fought to keep the fear off her face. “So?”
“So not everyone who walks around looking weird and spaced out is one of the undead, you know. Not here in tinsel town, anyway. Could just be somebody’s agent. Shit fire, girl, I just thank my lucky stars this ain’t Halloween weekend. Let’s leave the weapons locked up for now.”
“I don’t want to talk about this, Scratch. I’m keeping the pistol. Got that?”
He put up his palms and sighed deeply. She could see she had won this round. “You’re the boss, Sheriff.” Scratch looked in his pockets and pulled out a handful of change. “Okay, we have six dollars and thirty-five cents. That ain’t enough for a used latte that’s been run through a movie star, not around here, let alone lunch for the both of us. And if we want to sleep in a bed and not under another freeway, we’ll need at least a few hundred. Are you sure this friend of yours will come through?”
“Max is a good man,” Miller said. “If he says he’ll come through, I believe him.”
“I hope you’re right, ‘cuz you won’t let me steal, and if he drops the ball we’re going to have to get real jobs. Without a minimum wage in effect anymore and them unemployment riots in Texas, finding a job can be a hell of a lot harder than panhandling.”
“When we get to the point of panhandling, I promise we can renegotiate the stealing thing.”
“Fair enough.”
“Right now, let’s see what Max can come up with. Terrill Lee and him went way back. You know how that goes.”
“After you, Penny.”
Miller walked towards the stairwell. In a few seconds, she was already headed down the steps. Scratch had to jog to catch up with her. The steps curved and they arrived at ground level. A wire mesh covered one w
all, with vines and plants climbing the side of the building. Outside a few people were strolling. Scratch passed Miller and beat her to the exit. He opened the stairwell door for her, like an old-style gentleman, and she brushed past him with her head held high.
They emerged into the hot sunlight and cool shadows of Santa Monica. Miller oriented herself. They were standing in an alleyway that led out to Arizona Avenue, about half a block east of Third Street Promenade. The sky was clear and the morning sun was high in the south, with a warm and comforting breeze to complete the triad.
When the word triad crossed her mind, Miller flinched. She shook off the memory of how the zombies had somehow started working together in threes. It was eerie that they were now able to cooperate with each other as a team. That radical shift had been horrifying to behold.
The zombies were a bigger and… stranger threat than anything Miller had ever experienced. And as long as they were in North America, the danger would be there. She and Scratch had come to California to refuel and rest while it was still mostly zombie free. They wanted to regain their strength and find some financial resources. Miller was starting with her ex-husband Terrill Lee’s old friend, the guy called Max. Miller didn’t know how she was going to do it, but she would get Scratch the hell out of California soon, maybe fly them both to Hawaii or even Guam. Miller wanted to go somewhere the zombies hadn’t yet reached, and where they could stay safe for a long time. She was sick of killing.
Miller let the sun stroke her face. Though it was still officially winter, this was perfect California weather.
Miller turned west towards the beach. Scratch walked next to her, arms swinging, chest puffed out like the bad-assed biker he was. He was obviously working to intimidate any men on the street who tried to check out his woman. She smiled at the conceit. It was silly, but it made her feel good. She liked how protective Scratch had become. For one thing, it meant that maybe, for a few moments, she didn’t have to be the one in charge. That was a relief.