Pariah

by Bob Fingerman

  “Idiot!” he barked at the top, realizing he still bore the heavy knapsack.

  As it dropped to the roasted floor Karl fled to the second-floor restrooms in the back. Maybe, like in the movies, there would be some air duct he could climb into that would lead to safety. He slammed into the men’s room—noting for a nanosecond how funny it was that even now he consciously chose it as opposed to the ladies’ room—and scanned the dark chamber, aiming the beam this way and that. Drop ceiling, but no grating, no duct. Typical, typical, typical. Don’t have faith in Eddie and never believe what you see in the movies. Idiot!

  No lock on the entrance door, of course. He opened it and peeked out. The zombies still hadn’t made the mezzanine. There’s got to be a way out of here. Think. But without a floor plan it was just guesswork. The first wave of zombies had made it to the landing. Karl couldn’t see them yet, but he heard them shuffling, moaning, exuding pure need. Did they scent him, like hounds at the hunt? Maybe his odor was masked by the stink of char. His only option was the stall with the bolt lock. If he perched on the toilet and was very quiet, maybe they wouldn’t find him. Cripes. The moans were hungry. Purposeful. Oh Jesus. It sounded like there were a lot of them.

  Tons.

  Tons.

  With a thunderous crash a large portion of the charred floor gave way.

  It’s raining zombies. Hallelujah.

  ______

  “Hey, Eddie,” Alan shouted across the roofs. “Can I tear you away from that for a minute?”

  Eddie glared over at Zotz, then refocused on the struggler on his line. “The fuck do you want? Can’tcha see I’m busy?”

  Alan approached with caution, staying one full rooftop away.

  “Yeah, I can see that you’re busy, but this is important.”

  “It’d better be,” Eddie snapped, cutting the line as it dipped. Stripped to the waist and glistening, Eddie strutted over to Alan. “The Comet hates letting little fishies get away, capisce?”

  “Yeah. Look, Karl’s stranded at the Barnes and Noble on Eighty-sixth, between Second and Third. You wanna go, maybe help him out? According to Mona, he’s kind of busted up.”

  “Figures,” Eddie sneered. “Send a twerp out to do a man’s work, this is what you get.”

  “You’re all heart,” Alan said, involuntarily flinching in preparation for retaliation.

  “Don’t I fuckin’ know it,” Eddie said, removing his bandana and mopping his forehead. “Karl wasn’t eaten or some shit like that, right? How was he busted up?”

  “He fell through a hole in the floor.”

  Eddie laughed. “Fuckin’ testa di merda. So he wasn’t chawed on? Just his own stupidity got his ass broke? Figures. So, was it Mona kept him safe, or the drugs?”

  “I dunno. All I know is what she told me, and she’s a woman of few words.”

  “I heard that. This is good. I wanna put my theory to the test, know what I’m saying? Fuck yeah. I’ll play hero with Tuesday Addams.”

  “Tuesday Addams?”

  “Yeah, the bitch from The Munsters. Christina Ricci played her in the movie, before her titties blew up.”

  “Oh, that Tuesday Addams,” Alan said, thinking, it’s Wednesday, you fucking moron. From The Addams Family? Hello? “Mazel tov. I’ll go tell her.”

  Fuckin’ Jew, Eddie thought as Alan headed back downstairs.

  “The Munsters,” Alan groused. “Christ, I hope they eat that asshole.”

  39

  “You ready?” Alan asked the ever-more Rambo-like Eddie Tommasi.

  “I was born ready,” Eddie said, eliciting smirks from Alan and Ellen. We know something you don’t know their internal singsong rejoinder.

  Still shirtless, but now wearing urban camouflage pants and jump boots, Eddie dropped onto the roof of the DABNEY LOCKSMITH & ALARM van, his posture that of the stalwart hero of every action/adventure movie lensed from the eighties on up: knees bent, arms out and bent at the elbows, large hunting knife in hand. He even wore fingerless gloves.

  Dave was too distraught to see Eddie off. Instead, feeling like an emotional coward, he sequestered himself in his apartment where he cried and began to drink heavily. Although Dabney had shared Dave’s current mindset when Karl set out, he very much wanted to witness Eddie’s departure. If the bastard returned a hero, so much the better, but if he were to get devoured right out of the gate, Dabney didn’t want to miss a single ligament-shredding second of it. “Good luck,” he murmured, toasting with a tumbler of bourbon. He mostly meant it, if only to ensure Karl’s safe return.

  Once again, Mona created a clearing, then gestured for her companion to follow. With a defiant just-try-to-eat-me thud, Eddie dropped to the asphalt and glared roundly at the frothing skinbags. G’wan, he motioned, chin jutting. Wanna piece o’ me? C’mon. Nothing doing. Buoyed by their reluctance to encroach, Eddie stepped forward, following Mona’s pert, round behind. How long would he follow? Could he take the lead? He felt pumped. Even more pumped than on the roof. This was a major rush. Major.

  Flanked by resentful spectators, the duo soldiered west on the main drag, their progress greeted by hissing and keening. Mona didn’t look back, just straight ahead toward their destination. Eddie didn’t care. She was nothing to talk to. He’d rather divide his focus between the crowd and the cleft of Mona’s ample, perfectly round butt. The seam of her pants emphasized the division between the cheeks. Oh yeah. Betwixt those orbs was pure, sweet honey. How many months had he wasted between Mallon’s flat Irish loaves? Mallon. Dave. His pasty potato-eatin’ keister, two slabs of lightly pimpled pancake, white as Wonder bread but not nearly as appetizing.

  “So, you think Peewee is still alive?” Eddie said, breaking the silence.

  “Huh?”

  “Karl. You think he’s still alive?”

  “Dunno.”

  “He was getting’ kinda weird, there, clutchin’ that Bible kinda tight. You’d of thunk maybe he had God on his side. But maybe not.”

  “Dunno.”

  Dunno. Pfff. Always a pleasure talking to Mona. “You ever see that Ten Commandments movie? ‘Mmmyaaah, where’s yuh messiah, now, see?’ That shit’s funny, right? That’s what I’m gonna say to Karl when we catch up with him. All this . . .” Eddie gestured at the zombies, not that Mona saw, and continued, “I used to go to church, right? I mean, c’mon. Italian from Bensonhurst? Of course I’m Catholic to the bone, because of my moms. But this shit?” Another nod to the undead. “Who could believe in God? So I wanna ask Karl, where’s his messiah now?”

  Nothing. No reply.

  “What? You into God, too? Sorry to offend.”

  “I’m not.”

  “Not sorry or not offended?”

  “I don’t believe in God.”

  Even though they were in agreement, for some reason her response annoyed him. She probably never believed. It’s one thing to lose faith; it’s another never to have had it in the first place. That was kind of arrogant. Eddie didn’t believe in God, but atheists were assholes. Just as smug as born-agains, but colder. Like they were better than everyone else. Better not to talk. Better to just scope that pear-shaped ass. With each footfall one buttock would jiggle, then the other. It was hypnotic. As he allowed himself to be transfixed by Mona’s tush, Eddie started humming, then quietly singing, “I see you baby, shakin’ that ass, shakin’ that ass. . . .” Eddie used to dance like crazy to that song. He’d hit the clubs, make with the gyrations and then bring a hottie or two home for some pelvic mayhem. The more focused his reminiscences the louder his singing.

  “ I see you baby, shakin’ that ass, shakin’ that ass. . . .”

  “What?” Mona stopped walking and turned to face Eddie.

  Woolgathering over, Eddie stared back into Mona’s fish eye.

  “Nothin’,” he said. “Just singin’. Remember that one?” Mona shook her head. “It’s a good one. Groove Armada. That’s whose song it was. Yeah. I used to get kinda nice to that shit.”

  Mona turne
d away and they resumed their trek. The second her back was turned Eddie stuck out his tongue, then embellished the gesture by flicking it back and forth between his splayed middle and index fingers. He’d never been big on cunnilingus, but he wouldn’t mind noshing on the delicacies in Mona’s undies. Not undies. Panties. Maybe she wore a thong. Oh shit. Or a G-string. Daaaamn. Eddie didn’t care. It was all good. And that ass. That fuckin’ ass. As they trudged on, slowly, deliberately, he felt the insistent surge of blood into his groin. Yeah. Like Moses’s fuckin’ staff.

  “I see you baby, shakin’ that ass, shakin’ that ass. . . .”

  Mona sucked her teeth in that gross disapproving way.

  Don’t fuckin’ judge me, bitch, Eddie thought. I’ll fuckin’ rape that ass.

  “I would, too,” he said. “Just try me.”

  “Huh?”

  “Nothing.” He fingered his necklace of zombie ears, ruminating on punishing that ass. But first things first: Karl needed some rescuing—the little wuss—so The Comet was on it. The zombie ears felt like suede. Or did they? Maybe it was his fingertips. His mouth tasted like the inside of his socks, the texture of his inside cheeks rough like terry cloth. And dry. So dry. Unlike Karl, Eddie had packed a canteen, and drank from it. As the water sluiced down his throat he remembered something from junior high.

  “The brain’s fuckin’ weird,” Eddie said to the back of Mona’s head. He trotted forward and stood by her side as he continued. “You know? Like, I was just thirsty, right? So I guzzle some agua and what comes back to me? This fuckin’ book from when I was a kid, with this little baby Mexican or Indian. But I remembered his name: Coyotito. ’Cause as I was guzzling I remembered this line from the book, something about Coyotito’s little tongue lapping thirstily or greedily or some such gay-ass shit. I can’t remember what book, but I fuckin’ hated that kid and was glad when he got capped. That book sucked, but I remember some of it. ’Cept its name.”

  “The Pearl.”

  “Yeah. Fuck yeah, The Pearl. Holy shit, I can’t believe you knew that. That book sucked, am I right?”

  “Mm-hmm.”

  Eddie grinned thinking about that little brat taking lead in the cabeza. The more he thought about it the more that flooded back to him. In zombie movies head shots took care of everything. He looked at the throng as it held itself back, fighting its hardwired desire to tear the two of them to shreds. Eddie finger-popped an imaginary gun at them, each a rotting Coyotito just begging for a bullet-salad sandwich.

  “And you know what else? Wow, it’s all coming back. That big Baby Huey retard and his little pal. Or was that a different book? Petting rabbits an’ shit. Same guy, though, right? The writer?”

  “Steinbeck.”

  “Yeeeeaaah. Him. Dude, he sucked.”

  “Mm-hmm.”

  “Steinbeck. Was he a fuckin’ Jew? Is that Jewish?”

  “Dunno.”

  “Sounds Jewy. No offense, I mean if you’re a Jew. Jews are all right.”

  “I’m not.”

  “Not offended or not Jewish?”

  “Neither.”

  “Cool.”

  Eddie’s mouth still felt like felt, dry and scabrous. The water didn’t help. He was sweating like a pig. Did pigs sweat? Isn’t that why they rolled around in their own filth, because they couldn’t sweat to cool off? And dogs. Dogs panted because they couldn’t sweat. Did any animal sweat? Sweating was sweet. Eddie wanted something sweet. A bomb pop would be the bomb, but Mister Softee had stopped making his rounds. Mister Softee, with his friendly waffle-cone face and whippy-do vanilla swirl bouffant.

  “Try as he might he can never get hard / his name is Mister Softeeee!” Eddie sang to the tune of the old ice cream trucks’ clarion. “Deedle-ee-deedle-ee-dee-dee-dee-de-dum-de-dum-de-dum-dummm. Remember that?”

  Mona shrugged.

  “Your loss, honey. Mister Softee was the shit.” Eddie polished off the water. Didn’t concern him. He’d pick up a bottle or five on the way home. “Yo, I’ve gotta take a leak. You mind?”

  Mona shrugged, looking away. Eddie unzipped, aimed at the zombies nearby, and doused them. As they stood there and took it, Eddie grinned and shouted, “S’matta, your mamas never told you to come in from the rain?” No response. Not even wrath. Between the zombies and Mona . . . He shook off the last few droplets and tucked himself away.

  “There’s a whole lotta shit we could steal out here in the world. Fuck, it ain’t even stealin’ no more. It’s just taking. Scavenging. It’s practically our patriotic duty.”

  Mona shrugged.

  The fuckin’ cooze was really chafing Eddie’s balls with her attitude. Was that all this was? Attitude? A woman shouldn’t ever come off attitudinal to a man. Even Eddie’s mom had agreed on that point, and when the occasion called for it, she didn’t protest a slap across the chops from Pops. Was that what this Mona bitch was begging for? Women liked it rough from time to time. Just a fact of nature. Eddie let himself lag just a little behind her again. He preferred her ass to her face, anyway. Plus, quiet from the ass is a virtue, especially on a woman. No one loves a gassy broad.

  The Barnes & Noble loomed on the left.

  “About time,” Eddie said. “We go in, find the little jerk. If he’s crippled I guess I’ll have to carry his worthless ass home. That’ll be great.”

  A glint of light caught Eddie’s eye as they stepped toward the broken window. As Mona stepped over the verge, Eddie stooped over to investigate the shiny object: a new-looking satin-finished stainless Smith & Wesson 9mm. He felt that surge of arousal again. With Mona’s back still turned he surreptitiously slipped it into his pants pocket, fighting the urge to empty the clip into several nearby gristle puppets.

  With Eddie away on his mercy mission—hard to fathom the word “mercy” in context with Eddie, but there it was—and Dave sequestered for the duration of his beau’s absence, Dabney comfortably resumed his station on the roof. With their so-called “flynchin’ ” activities on hold the roof felt safe again, even with the dismembered corpses of their last haul still lying in a heap three buildings away. Though it was evident they were beyond locomotion, Dabney maintained his distance. Why tempt fate? he thought. Even deeply soused he possessed some sense. More than he could say for the happy fishermen. It was quiet the way Dabney liked it. Just the light flutter of a breeze riffling through a torn sheet hung nearby, and the occasional moan from the street below. Not even flies buzzing around.

  Dabney lit a cigarette from the tip of the one he’d just finished and felt decadent. In his days as a breadwinner he savored cigarettes and put some time between them. Last he was paying for this particular vice, coffin nails were going for nearly ten bucks a pack over the counter. He’d started buying from the Native Americans via the Internet for roughly half that price, but still, even at five he didn’t blow through them like they cost nothing. Now they did, so what the hell. Live a little, even if the living he was doing was sure to accelerate dying. He poured himself two fingers of bourbon and swished them around the glass to aerate the hooch. Fancy. Sophisticated. And again, it was “the good stuff.” He felt very James Bond. Or Shaft. Somebody debonair. That’s why he wasn’t just swigging out of the bottle.

  He drank the two fingers and then poured another two.

  How long had it been since Karl and Mona had gone out? How long since Mona and Eddie? Eight or ten fingers later—at least two hands’ worth—Dabney shakily put down the bottle and straddled the low dividing wall.

  “Giddyup,” he slurred, wiping some boozy spittle from his stubbly chin. He dug his heels into the puckered tar paper and slapped the curved top of the wall. “Git along little dogies.” He thought of Woody Strode and began to tear up. Woody was long gone. Everything he cared about was.

  Once upon a time his wife had called him “adorable.”

  Once upon a time small children had called him “Daddy.”

  Once upon a time he’d been his own boss.

  Clumsily, Dabney hoisted h
is ass off the divider and loped putty limbed across the rooftop toward the pile of cadavers. He tripped over the second wall and fell, his numbed palms scraped raw on impact. He pulled himself off the ground and continued north, the mutilated corpses drawing him nearer. It was foolish, but pixilated from the booze, his curiosity won out. By the time he reached those dear, dead friends he was dog tired and dropped his leaden keister into Eddie’s ersatz fighting chair. It felt good. Better than the wall.

  “Damn,” he said, assessing the ruined carrion. These were not the fearsome cannibals they’d been down below. This was a sad mess of humanity, retired. In death it was hard to tell male from female, black from white from Asian from whatever. One of the fractured heads looked maybe sort of Negroid. But the skin was so excavated and overcooked it stymied easy identification. It was obvious Eddie was a total racist, so did hauling in a brother bring him extra pleasure or were all zombies created equal? Dabney sniggered as he contemplated those two crazy white boys snaring undead brothers.

  So stupid.

  He reached out for the bottle but had left it three roofs behind.

  So stupid.

  He fell asleep, the hot sun baking his marinated brains.

  40

  “You know we’re completely nuts for having let Eddie escort Mona.”

  “Mona escorted Eddie.”

  “Whatever, Alan,” Ellen snapped. “Don’t nitpick. Eddie’s on a wild tear all hopped up on Mona’s mystery meds. He was trouble before, now he’s flat-out dangerous.”

  Alan couldn’t argue that point. He looked out the window. It hadn’t even been an hour since they’d left to rescue Karl, but anxiety was peaking. Ellen was right and Alan cursed himself for his cowardice.

  “She might be immune to those things,” Ellen said, “but she’s not immune to a Neanderthal like Tommasi. We’re idiots. And now there’s nothing we can do about it.”

  She joined Alan at the window and put an arm around his waist, the first tender contact they’d shared in ages. That touch, that small embrace, rattled Alan even more than Ellen’s words. Though he made no sound, she felt something in his manner change. She looked at his face and caressed his cheek. She tilted her head back and he responded with a kiss that lasted for long, restorative minutes. For all their sexual encounters, this was the first time either of them felt real love for the other. When their lips disengaged they both stared down at the crowd below.