“Yes, of course,” the Tycoon said. “I regret we haven’t spent more time together. That’s my fault. When I’m president and you’re vice president, we’ll be working closely. We can make up for lost time.”
“We’ve both been busy since the campaign got started,” the Governor said in a consolatory way. “It’s nobody’s fault. I wonder though, if it would be possible for us to do a little of that this week.”
“A little of what?” the Tycoon asked, confused.
“You know, spend some time together,” he said. “Maybe have you out to Indy. I could show you the governor’s mansion.”
Alarm bells went off in the Tycoon’s head. Alarm bells that warned that he was about to be very, very bored.
“Love the idea,” the Tycoon said. “Love it. But tell you what … You’re sick of this Midwest weather, right? I’ve been here just a few hours, and I’m already sick of it. Let me sweeten the pot. Let’s do it at my place down in Florida. Your family … have they been to Florida before?”
“We went to Disney when the kids were younger,” the Governor said.
“They’ll love my place!” the Tycoon said. “It’s nothing like Disney World. Except for the good parts—the parts your family liked. It has those parts. Golf too. And the weather’s fantastic.”
The Governor nodded carefully. It was clear to the Tycoon that there was something he wasn’t saying.
“I just … As you know, I’m a man of faith.”
Here it comes, the Tycoon thought. (He was not quite sure what “it” was, but knew it would also be boring.)
“I do,” said the Tycoon. “I do know that. That’s why I picked you. One reason, anyway.”
“I hope then, that, in Florida, there’ll be an opportunity for us to speak privately and at length,” the Governor said. “I would never be able to be a part of something that went against my faith or what I believed in. I’d really like to see inside your soul.”
The Governor smiled his winning, game-show-host smile. The one that had gotten him elected to congress and then the governorship. The smile that always worked (on Hoosiers, anyway). The smile that had been honed over a lifetime.
It was at this moment that the Tycoon realized he might truly have a problem.
This man who gave every appearance of being a gentle, pious innocent might actually be one. His determination to move America in the direction of a 1950’s sitcom might be earnest and honest. And such a soul might prove less than malleable when it came to making the kind of policy decisions that would make the United States ripe for takeover by legions of the walking dead.
The Tycoon also noted that it would be difficult to work alongside a man who wanted to see into his soul, because the Tycoon was not entirely sure that he had one. (The question of what a zombie’s inner life might be composed of was an elusive one, even to zombies themselves.)
The Tycoon took a moment to steel his resolve, and to remember all his victories. He had confronted men like the Governor before, and he had always found a way to come out ahead. He had always charmed them. When necessary, he had beaten them.
The Tycoon had just defeated scores of candidates to win his party’s nomination. He could surely do this small, final task, he told himself. Compared to winning the primaries, making some small adjustments to his running-mate should prove—if not a cakewalk—at least within his wheelhouse generally.
The Tycoon liked to say that deals were his art form. He smiled his own winning smile back at the Governor. He had the feeling he was about to make the deal of a lifetime.
THE REPORTER
The first day at the convention site passed quietly for Jessica Smith. After finding the workspace they had been assigned, she and George reviewed assignments for the rest of the week. George remained intent that Jessica should pursue human interest stories with a local angle. How did everyday Clevelanders feel about the convention? What were the issues they cared about? Did either major party candidate seem poised to actually make a difference in their lives?
Local first responders could also be interviewed, George suggested. Did they anticipate a terrorist attack? Would it be homegrown or foreign? Would there be rioting in the streets?
Aware that she was still a cub reporter, Jessica tried her best to read George and to agree with him whenever it seemed appropriate to do so. From what she could tell, George’s chief concern was not that they would find themselves underequipped to cover all of the convention week’s exciting events, but that nothing worth covering would emerge. No “real news.” Just horrible nonsense and puffery.
“I hope you like reporting on freak shows,” George said at one point. “Because that’s what this is going to be.”
Jessica had half-smiled at this, unsure what it meant she should do. (George, for his part, assumed his use of the word “freak” had brushed Jessica’s millennial sensibilities the wrong way. He reminded himself to be more careful of his wording in the future.)
Despite the week’s grim prospects, Jessica reminded herself how lucky she was. It could always be worse. She thought again of poor, overweight Tim Fife. At least he had found a job somewhere.
After sleeping fitfully in a frozen hotel room with a noisy, overactive air conditioner, Jessica rose before dawn to begin her first full day at the convention site with limited hopes and a sense of dread gnawing at her belly. She showered, made up her face, and then returned to the shabby hotel room desk where she had left her laptop charging. That was when she chanced to glance in the direction of the door.
And saw it.
A dull gold envelope—not yellow, but gold—had been slid underneath. Had it been there minutes before when she had wandered to the bathroom in the half-darkness? She could not be certain.
Wondering if it could be a missive from the campaign (or even from the hotel itself), she rose and retrieved it. She examined both sides, but found no logo or imprint. Undoing a clasp and opening the envelope, she found a piece of stationery within. On one side had been scrawled:
Kidd’s Bar
Strongsville
Noon Today
Jessica wondered what to make of this. Was it a joke? A request for a date? A warning of an impending terroristic action, of which the police should be notified immediately?
Then something else. Something else still inside the envelope.
Jessica scowled and looked closer. Then reached inside.
She withdrew a photograph of the billionaire tycoon that the party would nominate as its candidate on the final day of the convention. In the photo, he was seated in a well-lit outdoor setting at night. It reminded Jessica of an exterior lounge at a fine (if somewhat garish) hotel. The photo had been taken secretly, and the subject clearly believed himself unobserved. He was wearing a suit with no tie. Before him was a table, set for dinner. There were dishes and plates and glasses of water. And what he was eating was, very clearly, a human hand.
Jessica smiled. Then frowned. Then smiled again.
This was a test. The kind of thing George and the boys did to bust the balls of cub reporters. George had probably planted it in the middle of the night. He would be waiting for her excited call or text about it. Jessica decided she would not even give him the satisfaction of mentioning it during their breakfast meeting.
Jessica continued to dress and gathered her things. Yet as she did so, she could not shake the photo from her mind. Finally ready to begin her day, she checked her watch again and decided there was enough time to give the novelty image a second look. The sun was rising now, and she threw open the hotel room curtains and let the natural light augment the glow from the nearby desk fixture. She held up the photo and looked at it again.
She began to get the feeling that something was not right. Or rather, not wrong.
She was no expert at image alteration, and knew that what did or did not “seem Photoshopped” was not a bar by which a reporter ought to judge anything. Not in the twenty-first century. At the same time, the image did indeed appear ge
nuine. It was, in a way, perfect in its imperfection.
Jessica tried to imagine the scenario under which the photo could have been taken. Had the billionaire been funning at a Halloween party? Had someone placed a hand in front of him as a joke? Had he been eating the shaved hand of some exotic primate?
But no …
That was a human hand. The picture had been taken from a distance, but the detail was there. The fingernails. The hair on the knuckles. A man’s hand. Not a monkey’s.
Jessica pulled up a web browser and did an image search for anything related to the candidate eating a hand. Nothing. Searches for a candidate eating other parts of a human likewise drew a blank. Jessica even searched for photos of the candidate eating dinner, hoping to find the original manipulated image. But this returned only familiar PR pics, all of them staged. (Even so, Jessica carefully inspected the food arrayed on the tables before him. There was not a hand anywhere to be found.)
Something told Jessica that she was about to cross a point of no return. That she needed to stop and get down to breakfast with her boss if she wasn’t serious about this. Time was a-wasting. But that same something in her couldn’t leave it alone.
Jessica next searched the internet for Strongsville and Kidd’s Bar. (She had heard of neither.) These, at least, proved real. Strongsville appeared to be a pleasant suburb. And nothing about Kidd’s Bar seemed sinister, other than a one-and-a-half-star average on Yelp. The reviews mentioned rude bartenders and no TP in the johns, but no cannibal acts.
Jessica picked up the photo and examined it once more in the dawn’s early light. So strange. So thoroughly puzzling. Yet so apparently real.
Abruptly, her side vibrated and she jumped.
Jessica looked at the face of her phone, and immediately picked up.
“Hi George,” she said.
“Everything okay?” he asked. “I had that we were going to meet for breakfast fifteen minutes ago. It’s no problem, but you’re never late to anything. I thought I’d better call.”
“Sure,” said Jessica. “Time just got away from me. Sorry.”
“No worries,” said George. “Are you feeling all right? I don’t want to be nosy … but I can hear something in your voice.”
Now, the moment of truth. Jessica decided that if she was going to fall for a prank like generations of cub reporters had before her, she might as well fall hard.
“Actually …” Jessica began cagily.
“Yes?” said George.
“I’ve got a lead I’d like to follow up, if it’s all right with you. Something … Something that I think might have a good human interest sort of an angle. Like you’ve been talking about. I think it could show what the common folks around here are thinking when it comes to all this convention brouhaha. There’s more, but I’d like to keep it under my hat for the moment. Hopefully, I can surprise you with something good later today.”
“Well …” George began.
Jessica physically winced. She waited for him to make a snide comment about not believing every story that’s literally slipped under your door. (Or perhaps he’d make a pun about how he had to “hand it to her” on this one.)
But instead, George said: “Okay, yeah. That sounds fine. I don’t have anything more important for you at the moment. Will you be going somewhere?”
“Out to a suburb,” Jessica answered warily, still waiting for this to be revealed as a ruse. “I’ll need to take the rental car, but I can be back by early afternoon.”
“All right then, kiddo,” George said. “I’ll catch you then.”
And he hung up.
Jessica lowered her phone and stared at it. She waited for the text that would read: LOL Got You.
But it never came.
Jessica gathered her things and prepared to depart.
THE FAKE NEWSMAN
For all of Tim Fife’s considerable girth, only trace amounts of it could be attributed to alcoholic beverages. He almost never drank. Whenever he went in for a physical, the physician invariably clucked disapprovingly at Tim’s weight, pulse, and blood pressure, yet his liver function was always pronounced “fine.” (Tim did not make checkups a regular habit. This was not out of any real doctor-phobia, but because it was hard to trust mainstream science. Every day it seemed TruthTeller discovered something new or previously overlooked about the benefits of leeches, ear candling, or colloidal silver. Why most physicians chose to ignore these marvels was deeply confusing to him.)
When Tim did drink alcohol, it was usually a sip of wine during the holidays while visiting extended family. He almost never drank in bars. He certainly never drank in bars before noon.
And so it was with considerable awkwardness that he sat at the back table in the only truly shabby tavern in this otherwise well-maintained suburb of Cleveland. In front of him was a ginger ale for which he had been charged five dollars. You could buy two two-liters of ginger ale for that much, he thought to himself. Why did people come to these places?
Tim was not the only person inside the tavern at this hour, which was much to his relief. The bar was at least partly designed for overnight shift workers who might get off at seven or eight in the morning. Consequently, many of the men riding the barstools were feeling little pain as the noon hour neared. Tim watched them. They did not return his glances. Only the bartender gazed over from time to time, sizing up the hefty, neckbearded newcomer, and wondering if he ought to be out and about in a brace like that.
Tim stirred his ginger ale and waited. The bar was an old building with a tin roof, so his smartphone got very little reception. He could not browse the web or even check his email.
A few moments later, she walked in.
Tim was struck dumb with awkwardness and surprise. Perhaps she would not see him. He had taken a table in the darkest corner he could find, but as Jessica Smith stood in the entrance of the dark bar—holding the door open as she surveyed the grim interior—the natural light invaded every corner. It lit up Tim’s neck brace like an incandescent lion’s mane. It was one of the first places her eyes went.
Jessica’s face registered surprise, confusion, and then anger. Her face fell into a scowl. She looked back out to the parking lot for a moment, as if contemplating departure. Instead, she shook her head and stalked over.
She looked like a cross mother, annoyed at having been called by the school to pick up a misbehaving son.
“Is this your idea of a joke?” Jessica said. “I have an important job with real responsibilities, Tim. I’d like to keep that job, if it’s okay with you.”
She hovered above his table, glowering down at him.
“Jessica, please …” Tim said.
Some of the men on the barstools glanced over and smiled. A few put their hands over their mouths and whispered, wondering what there could be between a woman like that and a man like him. Tim could feel himself turning red.
“I should have known this was more of your stupid celebrity political bullshit,” Jessica continued, her hand fishing in her bag. “I just don’t know why you thought it was okay to use it to waste my time.”
Jessica tossed something onto the filthy barroom table. Tim looked down. It was a dull gold envelope. He had no idea what it was or what it meant.
Before he could ask about the envelope, a strange gnarled hand reached down and grasped it. Tim hurriedly glanced up and saw that the hand belonged to a man—probably in his late seventies—sporting a plaid shirt and a navy blue baseball cap with VIETNAM VETERAN stitched across the front in gold thread. The stranger had the face of the kind of men who had been telling Tim for his entire life to straighten up, fly right, and/or take a lap. Tim prepared for the reprimand that would surely follow. For a stern voice to ask them what in the hell their problem was, and to advise them to “Take it outside.”
Instead, the mysterious man said: “Good, you’re both here. Now we can begin.”
The three of them sat together around the barroom table. When they spoke, it was in quiet, co
nfidential tones.
“So … you’re KEKLord69?” Tim whispered.
The man appeared to belong to that final generation proud of its unwillingness to use technology. And yet the man nodded vigorously to confirm that this was indeed his handle.
“You can call me Francis, though,” the man said.
“And you’re the one with indisputable evidence about the—”
Francis cut him off.
“About the thing in my email,” Francis said, talking over him. “Yes. That. That precisely.”
“And so, why is she here?” asked Tim.
“Yeah, why am I here?” said Jessica. “And what the hell is with that photo? Did you put it under my door?”
Francis smiled and glanced to the side evasively, to indicate that he almost certainly had. It did not seem impossible. At a political convention, an older man in a veteran’s hat could basically go anywhere.
Tim’s eyes went back and forth between Francis and Jessica, not entirely understanding.
“Maybe you should show him?” Francis said.
“What?” Tim said. “Show me what?”
Jessica slid the golden envelope across the table. Tim picked it up, opened it, and carefully extracted the photograph inside.
“This is from the same photoset!” he said in astonishment. “It’s from the same group of photos you sent over email, Francis. Except … except you didn’t send this one. And now I think I understand why. Goodness gracious! It’s the clearest of the bunch.”
The photo of the Tycoon chowing down on a human hand stunned Tim so much that he dropped the photo back to the table. Francis quickly gathered it up and placed it back inside the envelope.
Tim’s surprise swiftly turned to envy and anger.
“Wait … why did you think you could send that to her, and not to me?” he asked defensively. “I work for TruthTeller. She’s the one with the fake news media! With the outlet backed by corrupt, globalist-funded—”
“I know, I know,” said Francis. “That’s why I had to give her that photo—all but hand-deliver it. With TruthTeller, I knew you would believe me at my word. The photo in that envelope has never been uploaded to a computer. It’s never been emailed. And it’s only been printed out the once. I don’t need to tell you the kind of people that would want to prevent something like that from coming to light. And what they would do to ensure that it didn’t.”
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