"You mean you're not even in the lab?" Ami asked. Alexx shook her head and shrugged.
Ami sipped her beer. "Anti-retroviral drugs?"
Alexx shrugged. "Rumor is they're useless."
Trips slid Ami her phone and shot a glance at Ichiro. "So, at the airport...were those things, like...dead?"
"Not 'til we killed 'em." Ichiro unwrapped from Alexx and took a swig of his pint. "See, fire don't kill 'em." He tapped his forefinger on his temple. "If the brain's intact then they will come back. That's what gives 'em their marching orders. Their prime directive."
Trips opened his arms wide. "So, what are you saying? That we killed fucked-up people? Or what? I mean, do they have, ya' know, memories and feelings?"
"Jesus, Trips, you sound like those human rights losers surfacing in the People's Republic of Cambridge."
"Hmm," Trips said.
"Cha-yeah, they march on city hall all the time, dude. Zombie rights. Vampire rights. For seriously."
Ami and Trips looked at each other. "Vampires?"
Ichiro nodded. "Yeah, the vamps are total separatists. Live free or die and crap. The governor tried to ship 'em off to the desert, but Vegas said yah, no effin' way. Vampires can pass as humans. Not like the zombies. They can still think, and they can go out in the daylight. It's not how you think. They just, ya' know, live on blood." He took another sip of beer.
Alexx placed a hand on Ami's arm. "It's true, Ami. Human rights activists are insisting that the creatures be treated like humans, but they're not."
Ichiro motioned for another round. "Its total anarchy out there, but I'll tell you, dude, your water filters are selling like hot cakes. Oh, and you're buying." He cracked a huge grin.
Trips lay his head on his arm.
"Dude, it's not like they're human anymore."
"There are even tags popping up for vampire private clubs, like speakeasies. Don't ask me how or where they get their product," Alexx reported.
"Product?" Ami asked.
"Blood, duh." Ichiro said, giving Ami an exasperated look.
Ami and Trips exchanged a glance.
Ichiro sighed. “Look, dude, it’s in degrees, okay? Some zombies — “
Ami corrected, "You mean vampires."
"No, I mean zombies." Ichiro scowled at her, then turned to Trips. "See, some zombies are aggressive but controllable." He turned back to Ami. "And some are just pathetic, like you."
"C'mon, Ich," Trips said, looking weary.
"Yeah, but others want your pasta Faggioli, and how." Ichiro turned to Alexx. "They're working on some drug for 'em. Right babe?"
Alexx shrugged. "The CDC and World Health Organization, but it ain't working. So far as I know, anyway."
Trips bolted up. "So, then what was that at the airport?"
"Zombies!" Ichiro said.
Trips shifted uncomfortably. "That doesn't mean anything."
"The North End, Sand and Gravel, and parts of Cambridge are swarming, heard it over military air."
Trips drummed his fingers, kicking back in his seat. "What?"
"Yeah, channel waveguide modulators," Ichiro said in a "Marvin the Martian" voice.
Trips chuckled.
"I'll have to set it up on your phone, so you can hear it too."
Trips blinked. "Yeah, okay, whatever."
Ichiro turned to Ami. "Oh, yeah! Ami, you're like, freakin' famous, super healer girl. It's all over the message boards now that Snake posted that his leg was fine after you did your reiki healing thing on it," Ichiro chuckled. “He called you the new Florence Nightingale.”
Ami blinked. “So, wait. The mistake at the lab has caused the water supply for all of Cambridge to turn most people that are in contact with it into zombies and vampires?” Ami frowned into her beer. “But not us.” She looked up. “We had it contained, so how’d it get into the water supply?”
Ichiro shrugged. “I don’t know, but yeah. Maybe it depends on genetics, or maybe the virus mutated or somethin’, but anyway no one else is like you. Just you, Trips and Alexx, dude. And Ami, you’re the only one with the freaky healing powers.” Ichiro said, turning to Alexx. “Right babe?”
Alexx nodded. “Yep. She’s the only one.”
Ami felt like she was under a microscope as Alexx studied her. “Stop looking at me like that. It’s not like I wanted it. Besides you and Trips are super strong, I’m not. It’s not just me.”
“Yeah, but it was kind of whacked how fast Snake and I healed after major bike wrecks on account of your laying-on-of-hands, as they say..”
“And me, when I got punched in the nose,” Ichiro added, pointing at his own face.
Trips shivered and finished his beer. “Guess, we’re the anomaly in the anomalies. Just hope that’s not the only thing that’s accelerated, like our lifespan.”
Ichiro nodded at Trips. "Don't look so depressed, dude. Your water filters rock."
"Do they work?" Trips asked, looking up.
"Fuck yeah! You should see the figures. It's phenomenal."
Alexx rolled her eyes. "You're such a mercenary."
"You love me for it," Ichiro retorted.
“Hey,” Alexx tilted her chin towards the kitchen doors. “Dewey’s here.”
As the tall redhead in a pale blue plaid shirt, jeans and work boots backed out through the swinging doors with a giant keg, Trips made his escape.
Dewey Daud paused, stuffing his loose red ponytail back under his Bruins cap and then continued to roll the keg backwards zigzagging it from side to side across the wooden floor toward the bar.
Trips circled around Dewey to stand in front of him.
"Heh-hey! If it isn't Ervin Ambrose Kentigern the third, long lost engineer and drummer extraordinaire. You're back! Tell me you killed." Dewey set the keg down, then stuck out a meaty hand out for a shake, pulling Trips into a hug.
"Well, I killed zombies," Trips shrugged, picking up one side of the keg.
"Gettin' here? I'll bet!" Dewey ran his eyes up and down Trips' red Kevlar suit as they shuffled backwards to the bar. He grinned. "Don't you need a mask and a cape?"
"Totally." Trips smirked, "So what's been going on?"
"Well, ya' know. Life goes on," Dewey said, unscrewing the tap-line to affix the new keg.
Trips plopped onto a bar stool. “Why didn't you evacuate?"
Dewey shrugged, testing the line pressure. "Didn't know it would get this crazy. We were in lockdown for maybe a week, but only in certain areas. Didn't extend to the burbs. What'd Ich say?"
"Ichiro is a twit. He and Alexx should have gotten out. I had no idea 'til I was in the air coming home."
"Yeah, but Ami knew." Dewey set a pitcher under the tap and started a pour.
"No, she didn't."
"But she and Alexx-I mean, you... C'mon, she knew."
"I just can't get my head around all this. I need to call my dad."
"If you can get a hold of him."
"Yeah, you're right," Trips said, as Dewey set a foamy pint in front of him. "We were attacked at the airport."
"Zombies, huh?" Dewey asked. Trips nodded, taking a swallow of beer. "No fun. You're okay, though, right? They're wicked slow." Trips nodded and licked the foam from his mouth. "Congress okayed border controls, so no lock down, but business is far from usual. I hear it's not worth petitioning for evac."
"Dewey, they held us at the airport. When we were finally released, Ich came and got us, instead of the little bus to the West Bumble Air Force Base,” Trips said, watching Ichiro and the girls heading toward them.
"S'up?" Ichiro asked playing it cool.
Dewey glanced at Alexx, gave her a half smile, then glanced at Ichiro. “So, we playing Thursday?"
"No. Got canceled on account of zombies." Ichiro shrugged, watching Trips tug at a snarl in his elf-locks.
Dewey dried his hands with a bar towel. "Seen Snake around? I haven't heard from him in a while." He threw the towel aside then leaned on the bar in front of Alexx setting a menu in fron
t of her. “Getcha something?”
Alexx smiled and picked up the menu then Ichiro leaned in closer.
"Yeah, he's fine," Ichiro said, as Dewey set a foamy pint in front of him. "He's with the crew at Herald's Quick Couriers setting up the compound, staying in my office on the couch."
"Oh, yeah, okay." Dewey nodded, scrutinizing Trips. "I think you better get him home. Come stay out at my place in ‘berbia if you want.” He glanced at Alexx. “You won't even know all this is goin' on."
Ami tried to rub Trips' neck, but he shrugged her off. Dewey set another pint of beer in front of him, and he drank deeply as Sandy, The Club's booking agent, a tall blond, sheathed in black leather, slinked towards them.
"Oh, man, look out ‘cause here she comes," Dewey said, swabbing the bar, like he was trying to refinish the wood.
"What?" Trips looked from Dewey to Ami as she stiffened and stepped away. "What?" He spun his barstool around.
Sandy stepped right between his legs, "Hey, stranger. I didn't know you were back," she said, giving him a long hug.
"Yeah, um, Sandy, you remember my, um, fr-friend, um, girlfriend, er, fiancée, Ami," Trips stammered, grasping for Ami who’d stepped down the line to stand next to Alexx seated at the bar several seats down.
"What? Couldn't hear you over the music," Sandy said, squeezing in between Trips and Ichiro. "You should come up to my office. We need to confer about your... booking fees," she said, moving one of Trips' elf-locks hanging in front of his face. Her violet eyes held Trips’ with a steady gaze. "Dewey, can I get a dark and stormy?"
"Sure, you bet, Sandy," Dewey said, nodding at Ichiro.
"Hey, Sandy, I'm gonna handle the bookings from now on," Ichiro said, as Ami and Alexx retreated to the ladies’ room.
"Yeah? That so Ich?" Sandy asked, breaking eye contact with Trips.
Dewey set Sandy's drink in front of her as he glanced down the end of the bar. He moved quickly toward a man in a tweed jacket. "Get him the fuck outta here!" Dewey yelled, pointing at the exit. The bouncers responded immediately, one pointing a sawed-off shotgun at the back of the man's head.
"We don't serve your kind here!" Dewey said, as they escorted the man to the door.
Trips looked on, astonished then decided to sit in the man's seat. His eyes narrowed as Dewey ambled back down the bar to Ichiro and Sandy. Dewey turned and shot a glance down the end of the bar. "Oh, it's you. What?"
"Didn't know your prejudice against a good tweed ran so deep," Trips said.
Dewey mashed his lips together acknowledging the joke. “It’s got nothing to do with ethnicity, or color, dip-shit."
Trips shrugged. "Prejudice is prejudice."
Dewey shook his head. "You can tell."
Trips cocked an eyebrow watching Sandy as she headed back upstairs to her office.
Dewey crossed back towards Trips. "That was a fucking vampire. He would'a made lunch out of you, and we're not a lunch counter."
Trips glanced at Dewey. “Just looked like a guy, Dew.”
"Son, you are so gonna die out there." Dewey chortled, as he swabbed the bar, studying Trips.
Ichiro sidled up next to Trips then nodded at Dewey. "You can tell by the skin and the eyes," Ichiro said, sipping his beer.
"Not to mention the teeth, jawline, and elongated fingers," Dewey said. "Maybe you didn't notice, but the guy's skin was all waxy and reflective, really pale, and his irises were red. You know the center bit." Dewey poured himself a small stout.
"His irises? Really?" Trips asked, looking at Ichiro. “They were?”
Ichiro nodded. "Some shade of red, pink, whatever. Depends on when they last ate, I think."
Dewey nodded, licking foam from his lips. "How Sandy can be friends with any of them beats the hell out of me. They creep me out."
"Phh, yeah, okay. Sandy. Jesus. I’m ready when you are," Trips said to Ichiro. "I'll be by the video games."
When Ami and Alexx appeared, Alexx gave Trips a hateful glare and a head toss as she headed back to the bar leaving him alone with Ami next to the Centipede machine.
Trips rubbed his temples. "I've had a day. Please don't... I'm sorry."
"I know, but you have to tell her."
"Trust me, I did! I tried. I know."
The four of them exited the dark crowded bar, weapons drawn, and stepped into the eerie stillness enshrouding a bright barren Huntington Avenue. Trips blinked in the midday sunlight and slapped on his wraparounds. "I just want to get home."
Chapter 3: Who Are You, Again?
Ami's mind was spiraling two ideas around like a twin star and the gravity of the situation kept sending her thoughts back to where they'd started. I should be thinking of a way out of Boston, or a way into the lab, but I can't stop thinking about Sandy and Trips and that god-awful hug and the fact that I've accepted a marriage proposal from a guy who, until recently, I've only known from afar.
"You okay, Ami?" Alexx asked, as they climbed the stairs up to the boys' Commonwealth Avenue apartment.
"Yeah, I'm just... my brain is on overload," Ami said as she slid her hand up the banister.
"I know, but it'll pass. Honestly, it's not that bad, but there's a lottery to get out if you want to leave," Alexx offered.
Ami shot her a glance. "I don't want to be a refugee."
"Good song, that." Trips said as he and Ichiro jostled past them with the luggage.
"I'm makin' fud, and today that equals soba," Ichiro said, unlocking the apartment door and grinning at Trips. The two of them shouldered their way through the hall into the living room.
"See ya' in a little bit," Alexx said as she slipped past Ami heading for Ichiro's bedroom.
Ami nodded, turning down the long corridor crowded with hanging bicycles. She swallowed. Having spent most of two years as Ichiro's friend, girlfriend, and now ex, it was strange to see Alexx head into Ichiro's bedroom, and stranger still to stand in front of the yellow biohazard sign on Trips' bedroom door. I've never actually been in your bedroom.
She cracked the door open and peeked in. So, there's a reason you always come to my place other than my ex-boyfriend lives down the hall. The room was musty and there was nowhere to stand, let alone sit, except for a stool behind an electronic drum kit and a hooded lounge chair draped with blankets and clothes. A sopping wet, broken down Victorian settee explained the horrendous smell, but most pointedly, there was no bed.
Trips bustled in past her, dropping his courier bag on top of tools and circuit boards strewn on the workbench. "Och, I forgot to close the windows," he said, knocking clothes off the broken-down furniture into rainwater puddling on the warped floorboards. He sucked air through his teeth as he moved soggy books, papers, and computer components off the settee. Then he laughed, "I'm sorry, it's a pit in here. I'm not used to company."
"That's pretty obvious." Ami stepped over a red Hood milk crate as she edged farther into the room.
"Yeah, well..." Trips muscled one of the three whiteboards marked with formulas out of the way.
"Like your room in Scotland, except there's crap everywhere," Ami gestured at the electronic equipment, tools, and bicycle parts cluttering all the surfaces, including the floor.
"Yeah, yeah, I know. Let me deal with this."
"What is this thing?" Ami thumbed her hand at the gold emblem with lightning bolts emblazoned on the side of the giant lounge chair. She read it aloud, "'Cerebrex' by 'Dr. Nakamatz.' Whoever that is. You sleep in a chair?"
"Yeah, but I've got an air mattress. Just go take a shower," Trips said, herding some clothes into a pile.
"Alexx could use a pair of those," Ami said, scanning the assortment of jeans tangled at Trips feet.
"Yeah, okay. Unzip?" Trips asked, turning so she could reach the back of his Kevlar armor. Ami unzipped him as he plucked a blue flannel shirt off a hanger, and handed it to her, smiling shyly. "For a robe?"
Ami recognized it immediately as the shirt he'd worn the first time they'd kissed, but her mind flashed to si
tting in Trips’ lap in Alexx’s car. You caught me looking at you after you’d been hit by a taxi and still you drummed for Chum.
A prickle of heat crossed her face as she took the shirt from him.
Trips combed her hair to one side and nuzzled her ear, as he unzipped her. "Go shower. I'll take care of this."
She snuggled closer. "I'm sorry I'm being bitchy. I'm just tired." His breath on her ear was enticing, but so was a hot shower.
* * *
After getting cleaned up, Ami entered the living room wearing Trips' flannel shirt and a towel wrapped around her head like a turban. Trips, Ichiro, and Alexx were watching the news and slurping down noodles.
"That's total crap! You can't enhance an infection," Alexx snorted, flipping through the channels. "And they're so wrong! Anti-retroviral are not 'protecting the community.'"
"Well, even if they were, they don't have enough drugs." Ichiro sucked up another hunk of noodles.
Ami served herself a bowl of soba from the pot on the stove. "What do you mean 'enhance an infection'?"
Alexx swallowed and put the remote on the table. Ichiro picked it up and started clicking through the channels. Alexx shrugged. "I don't know. It's preposterous. They're saying, like, cross-referencing antibodies is making it worse. How can it be worse? They're freaking dead already."
"Wait, go back, that's the Square," Ami said, taking the chair next to Trips. "Turn it up."
The camera work showed a shaky scene of zombies getting blown to bits by a close-range firing squad in front of the campus bookstore. They cut to a reporter at the scene. "One of several helicopters has just dropped the second wave of troops here in Cambridge. They're running through Harvard Square with their rifles up and ready to secure the perimeter. In fact, one of the peacekeepers is standing only twenty feet from where I am. More will arrive throughout the day."
"What are they doing, Jack?" asked the anchorwoman.
They showed scenes of zombies clawing at the camera and troops running through the streets. "They've created containment areas, but their overall mission is to fan out to sweep and secure Cambridge and Boston, as necessary."
Boston Under Siege (Book 1): Virus: Page 2