Zombies of the Gene Pool

by Sharyn McCrumb

  "The guest was registered as a Mr. Pat Malone," he said carefully. "I believe there was some trouble over his unexpected arrival last night?"

  Geoff cringed. Obviously, the waiters had been gossiping. "His attendance had not been anticipated," he agreed. "Of course, his old friends were delighted to see him."

  This bit of social whitewashing cut no ice with the Mountaineer Lodge. "It was our duty to notify the sheriff as well as the medical authorities," he said solemnly. "I came to notify you so that you could break the news to the folks in your conference."

  Geoffs pallor and expression suggested that he might welcome the medical authorities himself. "We won't have to call off the boat trip, will we?"

  The hotel manager relented. "Probably not," he said. "I expect that it will take them all day to figure out what he died of, and to get all the medical details attended to. If everyone will agree to be available for questioning tomorrow, then I see no reason why you shouldn't go ahead with your plans today. After all, the old gentleman may have simply succumbed to a heart attack."

  Pat Malone didn't get heart attacks, thought Geoff Duke grimly, he gave them.

  Marion didn't know why she had agreed to stay with the body until the authorities arrived. Perhaps it was a tacit acknowledgment that fandom was a family-or at least a tribe-and she felt a sense of loyalty to another of her kind, both of them self-imposed exiles from the clan. Or perhaps it was a lingering respect for one of the legends of science fiction. She wished that she had been given another chance to talk with fandom's stormy petrel, but stranger though he was to her, she could not leave him lying on the cold floor of a rented room with no one to pay him last respects.

  Marion sat on the edge of the double bed, trying to look anywhere but at the shrunken form in the doorway of the bathroom. Irrationally, she felt that it would be an invasion of Pat Malone's privacy to stare at him in his final humiliation, sprawled in vomit on the cold tile floor. But she knew that the body should not be moved, and that no cleaning up could be done because there might have to be an investigation into the death. She also knew that it would be a mistake to touch any of the deceased's possessions in the hotel room, but when boredom and anxiety made her restless she decided that there would be no harm in looking. And if she felt it necessary to pick something up, she could use a tissue to avoid leaving fingerprints. Thus fortified with the tools and rationalization for her actions, Marion began to examine the deceased man's possessions. Above all, she wanted to know where Pat Malone had been between deaths.

  His suitcase sat on top of the low chest of drawers, with its lid propped open against the wall. It was a cheap vinyl bag of medium size, without an identification tag on its handle. Inside it were a couple of shirts and changes of underwear and a worn collection of paperbacks: The Golden Gain, Brendan Surn's latest paperback reprints, and an issue of Fantasy and Science Fiction containing Peter Deddingfield's first (and worst) published short story. These books were bound with a thick rubber band, enclosing a note that read "Get Autographed." Lying loose in the suitcase were a book club edition of Deddingfield's Time Traveler Trilogy and a copy of Pat Malone's only published novel, River of Neptune. On impulse, Marion picked it up with her tissue-shielded hand, wondering if the author had made any notations in his personal copy, but when she flipped through the pages of the yellowed paperback, she found that the pages were unmarked. On impulse she turned to the title page and found an inscription in faded red ink: "To Curtis Phillips, A Slan for All Seasons, from Patrick B. Malone." She looked through the other books, but found no writing of any kind, except a rubber-stamped notation in the front of the Brendan Surn novel: "Used -$1."

  "Why would he have Curtis' copy of his own book?" Marion wondered aloud.

  She patted the clothing in the suitcase to see if there was anything else concealed inside it. Nothing was hidden in the clothes, but a bulge in a side pouch of the luggage revealed a bottle of prescription medicine. "Elavil," the label said, and the pharmacist listed was located in Willow Spring, North Carolina. Most interesting of all was the name of the patient, neatly typed on the prescription label: Richard W. Spivey.

  "Now who the hell is that?" asked Marion, peering at the corpse as if she expected an answer.

  While Sarah Ashley was explaining literary auctions to the reporters, Ruben Mistral went out into the hall to confer with his minion. The arrival of the hotel manager had not gone unnoticed by Mistral, even though he gave no sign of it as he rambled on in his reminiscences. The expressions and body language of Geoff and the hotel man had told him that something was amiss, and he had seized the first opportunity to leave center stage and find out what was going on.

  "Pat Malone is dead," said Geoff, in tones suggesting that his chief concern was the possibility of being shouted at for the inconvenience of it.

  Ruben Mistral opened his mouth and then closed it again, wondering just exactly what it was he felt, and, more importantly, what he ought to be feeling. He couldn't even say that he was shocked, because he hadn't really got used to the idea of Pat Malone being alive in the first place. As far as any of them were concerned, Pat Malone had been dead for thirty years. It was no good resurrecting him for an hour, then killing him off again and expecting anyone to be shocked about it. It was a relief that he wouldn't be around to make trouble, of course. Pat had always had a genius for making trouble.

  An instant later he realized that by dying, Pat Malone had caused the maximum amount of trouble imaginable. The tabloid reporters would start grinding out ghost and murder stories, forgetting the time capsule, and even the other papers would dutifully report it, and overshadow the reunion story, because death is more interesting than anything else.

  "Don't worry," said Geoff, misinterpreting his stricken look. "It was a heart attack. I don't believe he suffered."

  "Too bad," growled Mistral.

  "And the hotel manager said that we could go ahead with the day's activities as planned. He has called the sheriff and the medical people, but he thought you might want to make the announcement to the reunion group."

  Ruben Mistral reached an instant decision. "Why?" he said. "It had nothing to do with us."

  "I'm sorry?" said Geoff, expressing not regret but total confusion.

  "We all thought Pat Malone was dead, right? So we didn't mention him in the press releases or the brochures. The press never knew about him at all. So why bring him up now? It will only distract them from the real story. I'll tell the others privately in a few minutes, and instruct them not to discuss it with anyone." Somewhere deep in his consciousness, Bunzie was deploring the unfortunate necessity of having to behave this way, but after all, he told himself, the Lanthanides who are still alive could use the money.

  "Are the boats here yet?" he asked.

  Geoff glanced at his watch. "They should be. Shall I go and check?"

  Mistral nodded. "I'll start herding the group down toward the lake, before any of them can spot an ambulance or a cop. Once we get them out in the boats, everything will be-" He broke off suddenly as a sandy-haired young man in jeans emerged from the conference room. "Not leaving, are you?" he asked heartily.

  "No," said Jay Omega. "I just wondered where Marion was. Excuse me."

  While Sarah Ashley explained terms like "bidding floor" to the more conscientious journalists, the Lanthanides were chatting together, waiting to be summoned for the boat trip. Brendan Surn and Lorien, who had arrived late, helped themselves to coffee and doughnuts and then joined the group in the front row. Jim and Barbara Conyers came up to join them, exchanging pleasantries with Angela Arbroath and passing around pictures of the grandchildren.

  "I think he was hoping they'd have pointed ears," joked Barbara. "The three-year-old can already say the whole thing: Space, the final frontier…"

  Erik Giles consulted his watch. "It's nearly ten. I wonder what happened to Marion. She's going to miss the boat if she isn't careful."

  "She came and got us about twenty minutes ago," said Lor
ien Williams. "Isn't she back yet?"

  "She'll turn up," said George Woodard, who was bored by the troubles of others. "Do you think they'll provide us with Drama-mine for the boat ride?"

  Angela Arbroath smiled. "I don't think there will be much turbulence in shallow water, George. But you might want to stop drinking coffee. There's no place to pee in an open boat."

  "Where is Pat Malone?" asked Barbara Conyers.

  "Maybe he overslept," said Woodard. "He was always completely irresponsible. I, for one, won't miss him."

  "I will," said Angela. "I forgot to ask if he's still married."

  Brendan Surn smiled and patted her arm. "Wouldn't you rather have Pete Deddingfield?" he asked playfully.

  "I'm sure she would," said Lorien hastily. "What a guy!" She didn't want to have to explain again who was dead and who wasn't to Brendan Surn.

  Ruben Mistral emerged from the crowd of reporters just then, looking grave. "Before we head down to the boats, I need a word with you," he said, pitching his voice to a discreet undertone. "What's wrong?" gasped Angela, taking a mental tally of who was present.

  Mistral looked faintly disapproving, as if he were anticipating hysterics. "Just a little bad news," he murmured. "But the important thing is that we must not discuss this with any of the media people present."

  "Who died?" asked Jim Conyers.

  Mistral winced at the plain speaking. "It's Pat Malone, I'm afraid. He wasn't looking too well last night. Heart attack, I imagine. It's something we have to face when we get to be our age. But you know how reporters are. We wouldn't want to distract them from the real story, would we?" He looked sharply at George Woodard, traditionally the weak link in the chain. "After all, if we make a fuss, it could diminish the importance and the monetary value of our time capsule. Not to mention the possibility of our being detained by the police for questioning."

  The Lanthanides looked at each other nervously. Finally Jim Conyers said, "I don't see any harm in keeping quiet about this for the time being. It isn't obstructing justice to refrain from mentioning a death to a bunch of reporters and book editors."

  "Exactly!" nodded Mistral, visibly relieved.

  "None of their business," said George Woodard.

  Angela Arbroath was pale, and her eyes were red-rimmed. "I suppose you know best," she murmured. "But it was natural causes?"

  "Sure," said Mistral. "What else could it be?"

  "Marion, what are you doing in here?"

  When Marion hadn't reappeared at the briefing, Jay Omega had gone in search of her. He had checked the coffee shop and the lobby without success, and finally he decided to look in the room to see if she had been taken ill. As he made his way along the second-floor hallway toward their room he had noticed an open door, and when he glanced inside he saw Marion Farley, gazing out the window at the barren expanse of red clay between the pine-topped slopes. She did not turn to face him until he had repeated the question.

  When Marion stood up, he could see that she looked ill.

  "Are you all right?"

  She pointed toward the bathroom. "Pat Malone," she said grimly. "He's dead again."

  He looked in the direction she pointed, and for the first time he noticed the blue-robed body sprawled partly inside the bathroom. Jay looked from Marion to the corpse and back again, half expecting everyone to burst out laughing and say "Gotcha!," but the look on Marion's face was solemn and strained, and he was forced to believe that it was true. As he came toward her, he became aware of the smell, and this convinced him beyond any doubt that there had indeed been a death.

  "What happened?"

  Marion shrugged. "He was like this when I found him. I checked to make sure that he was dead-no pulse-and other than that, I left him alone. The maid was with me when I found him, and she saw to it that the authorities were called. I'm sorry I didn't come back, but I couldn't leave him. I kept thinking to myself, This guy wrote River of Neptune. I know that doesn't make him anything extraordinary, but-well, to me it does. I'm an English professor. I'm a fan." There was a catch in her voice. "I even wanted to get his autograph."

  Jay put his arms around her. "Far be it from me to talk you out of revering writers," said the author of Bimbos of the Death Sun. "But there really isn't anything that you can do here."

  "I know, Jay. I said I would stay until someone came for the body, though. You understand, don't you?"

  Jay sat down in the armchair by the window and motioned for her to sit on the bed. "I'll keep you company," he said. "We'll make it a two-person wake. It's too bad about the old fellow. I think he was looking forward to this. Wonder where he's been all these years."

  "I wonder who he's been all these years," said Marion. She told Jay about the medicine bottle issued to someone other than Pat Malone.

  Jay looked puzzled. "An alias? That seems strange. I wonder how the police are going to notify his next of kin."

  Marion looked sadly at the crumpled figure in the doorway. "I wonder if he has any," she said.

  "Didn't that old fanzine of yours say that he had been married?"

  "Thirty years ago," said Marion. She gasped. "I wonder if she knows he isn't dead. I mean, he is, but I wonder if she knew that he didn't die in 1958."

  Jay Omega shrugged. "Won't the police handle all that?"

  "I don't know," said Marion. "If it was natural causes, they might not try too hard. And it might take them weeks or months. Damn it, I want to know who Pat Malone was for the last thirty years! I wonder if he had any ties in fandom!"

  "I brought my portable computer," said Jay diffidently.

  "Of course you did. You never go anywhere without it!" snapped Marion. "So what? Are you going to compose the eulogy?"

  "No, but I may be able to find out some things about Pat Malone in a hurry. You remember Joel Schumann?"

  "An engineering student of yours? Sort of."

  "He gave me a phone number that might be helpful. Joel is known around the department as the Napoleon of hackers."

  Marion looked interested. "An FBI of nerds! It might work. When can you start?"

  "This evening after the boat trip," said Jay. "The rates go down at five."

  Chapter 11

  Ever a Stormy Petrel Unto Us

  – Francis Towner Laney's epitaph in fandom. (The term is used

  figuratively for one whose coming always portends trouble.)

  At ten forty-three in the morning, a gaggle of rubber-booted literary tourists waddled down the red clay slopes of Breedlove Lake and clumped onto the concrete boat ramp, which now stopped two hundred yards from the water's edge. Above them towered hillsides of clay and rubble, once submerged beneath the lake and now forming a desolate canyon beneath the pine-topped hills surrounding it.

  Beside the boat ramp, a rocky mountain stream bubbled down the hillside, headed for the distant lake water. Before the drawdown the stream had been swallowed by the expanse of Breed-love Lake, existing only as a current within the reservoir, but now it had been freed to course through its own eroded canyon, through seasons of silt, as it cut its way to the muddy waters of the great Watauga, pulsing again through the heart of the valley.

  The concrete of the boat ramp ended twenty feet down the slope, succeeded by a flat graveled plain that might once have been a road. Another hundred yards on-and thirty feet down, had there been a lake-the road fell away into a series of curving rock ridges, spiraling down to a shelf of brown clay that was the new shoreline. Except for deep gullies that had trapped the ebbing lake water, the valley was visible again, and once more the Watauga River, artery of the region, was a discernable confluence, kept within its banks by the release of its overflow through the sluice gates of the TVA dam.

  Three boats waited in the shallows of the river. Two of them were outboard motorboats, capable of ferrying five passengers and operated by leathery good old boys in windbreakers and fishing caps. Obviously, they had hired out their private vessels for the day's expedition for a little excitement and some easy
money. The third craft was the large, flat-bottomed sightseeing boat on loan from the Breedlove Marina, which, with its red awning, and its Tennessee flag flying, would hold twenty passengers. It was used by the marina for its regularly scheduled tours of the lake area, a particularly popular outing during the warm months of early autumn, when the changing leaves on the oaks and maples turned the surrounding mountains into bands of flame and gold.

  Geoff Duke led the party of editors and journalists aboard the sightseeing boat, and Ruben Mistral motioned for the Lanthanides and their guests to climb into the motorboats to begin their quest for the time capsule on Dugger's farm. Mistral, now sporting a gold-braided captain's hat, mounted the newer-looking motor-boat that was obviously intended to be the flagship of the expedition. He was joined by Brendan Surn and Lorien, and Jim and Barbara Conyers, all of whom looked as if they were attending a funeral. Mistral patted Conyers' shoulder, and smiled encouragingly at the others, but he received only tentative smiles for his efforts. Jay Omega and Marion Farley, who had made a belated appearance at the point of embarkation, joined Erik Giles, Angela Arbroath, and George Woodard in the second outboard.

  When everyone was comfortably seated and, at the helmsmen's insistence, corseted with orange life preservers, Ruben Mistral gave the signal for the boats to cast off, and the journey began. One by one the vessels glided out into the channel of the amber-colored river, heading upstream toward the sunken village of Wall Hollow and the farms beyond it. In the second craft, the boatman, who had introduced himself as Dub, admitted to Marion that this was his first stint as a lake guide, but he allowed as how he was a lifelong resident of the area and was willing to make conversation if anybody had a mind to ask him anything.