From inside the cage, a pair of zombies pounded at the walls.
Alan waved to them as he passed by. He sat down at a wheeled black swivel stool, turned his attention to the air gap, to the man slumped over in the corner, shirtless, black-haired, and apparently holding his own brutally severed hand.
“Good evening, Jonathan,” Alan said.
The man’s face was like that of a drunk who’d passed out after throwing up his booze. A tribal tattoo wrapped up his left arm and covered his shoulder and chest.
The hand lay, yellowish-gray, in his lap. Attached to protruding radial bone was a black clip with a pair of small batteries.
Jonathan looked up; through cracked lips a hoarse voice, he wheezed, “Fuck you.”
Alan sighed. “I was hoping we could talk. One last time, one last chance for you to tell me about Nasher and where in Foxer he is. You already let slip Julian’s name.”
Jonathan stared at the hand in his lap. His body ached and lacked any strength to muster a show of defiance, and the painkillers fogged his thoughts. He opened his eyes to glance at the stump that was now his right forearm to try to flex his right hand.
“Still getting used to the feeling? The phantom slights, thinking there’s something there, but not?”
Jonathan bit his lip and exhaled loudly through his nose.
“You see, Jonathan, I have a phantom pain, too. Only it’s all around me. Nasher is my phantom, and I want to rid it from my city.”
“And cutting off my hand does that how?”
Alan had ordered Ed, who regularly butchered bodies to feed is dead family, to cut it off. He didn’t blink at the request. “The hand is a separate consequence for touching Sophie inappropriately.”
“The bitch drugged me.” Jonathan paused to take a deep breath and said, louder, “Your bitch drugged me in my bar.”
Alan had dropped Sophie off at The Boot, a blue collar bar in Foxer, with a vial of Benadryl in her purse and a hidden microphone under her blouse, and instructed her to drink with Jonathan and spike his drink. He wrestled with guilt at sending her as an undercover lamb, but he couldn’t risk a female cop being recognized. They had bugged the bar with cameras earlier in the week to sit as a fly on the wall in case things went wrong. Ed and his detectives would sit outside and wait until Sophie sent them a text that the antihistamine had hit him upside the head.
Alan shook his head and tapped his knee, choosing to ignore the outburst. “When they came to pick you up, you were slurring your words, brushing her. You kept repeating ‘Nasher this, Nasher that.’ When you groped her, I had no choice but order the police drag you out and throw you in the back of the car.”
Alan pulled over a cart filled with wires and a computer monitor.
“If I knew she was yours, I never would have sat down with her. We’d each be no worse off.”
“She’s like a daughter to me. I don’t own her. If it’s any consolation, I asked her to talk with you. I had suspicions you knew about Nasher’s operations. You mentioned how he was working to get Julian out of the Mill,” Alan said. He nodded to the severed hand. “I admit my anger at your touching her boiled over and I asked a friend to perform the… surgery.”
Jonathan scratched at his bandaged stump. “Surgery? Fuck. I was bragging, trying to impress her,” he said, his tone shifting, as if to rationalize. “I don’t know anything. I’m just a guy who runs a shitty bar.”
“A shitty bar that doles out bad meth.”
Jonathan cringed.
“We’ve spent a lot of resources responding to poisonings to bad drugs,” Alan continued. “And we traced them back to your bar. Tell me a little about where Nasher spends his time, and I let you out and have the cops forget about the meth for now.” He leaned forward. “And I’ll forgive your transgression against Sophie.”
“And if I don’t? I’m already fucked with just one hand.”
Alan gestured to the dead, still pounding on the glass. “Then the hungry guys behind you get dinner. You see, Jonathan, for this year’s Containment Day celebration, I intend to hang Clyde Nasher and be rid of him. The sooner you tell me, the sooner I can show the city of Greenport that I’m doing my job to keep them safe.”
“Foxer people think you and Caroline are shit.” Jonathan’s words came out hard. “All you care about is the west side and your damn widgets you sell.”
“Those damn widgets,” Alan said, picking up a remote control box with two joy sticks from the cart, “are this city’s advantage. After the Plague, industries and economies across the country operated at pre-Industrial Revolution levels. You’d think we’d be able to keep factories and all the computers going and get things back up and running pretty quickly. Well, when everything’s gone to shit, destroyed, and the people who can rewire telephone poles are dead, it’s a miracle to get running water running down a city block. Jonathan, Jonathan, with the Mill functioning and Greenport never truly falling to the horde of dead or soulless bands of marauders, these widgets can be sold to rebuild the world.”
“More money for you, not Greenport.”
“Jonathan, everything I do is for Greenport,” Alan said, turning to punch a series of buttons on the cart. Buttons glowed on the pad, and Alan ran his thumbs across the top, tapping the joysticks. “Last chance. Where’s Nasher?”
Jonathan’s eyes fixated to the ceiling.
Alan lifted his controller. “Fine,” he said, and calmly pressed a button.
Jonathan’s severed hand, laying in his lap, began to move.
It stood up.
“What the fuck?” Jonathan screamed, writhing further into the corner, and throwing it off with his thigh. The hand tumbled onto the ground and flipped itself, like five-legged spider, to stand again.
The knuckles of the fingers flexed, breaking the skin at the joints. Its fingers inched forward, back to the folds of Jonathan’s faded black jeans. He huffed and groaned, seeking whatever separation he could create between himself and his possessed hand. Behind him, the zombies snarled and pounded the glass.
“I swear! I don’t know anything. I don’t.”
Alan sat back prodding the joysticks like a video game. “It makes me ill to think you were going to poke your little dick into Sophie.”
The hand circled to the opposite side, and Jonathan leaned to his right. His back slick with sweat, he slipped against the wall, threw out his phantom palm to catch himself and bellowed in pain when he landed on his stump. The hand skittered up his leg and dodged a swing of Jonathan’s other arm. It climbed along his chest and clung to his neck and clamped down. With his left hand he dug his fingers between his throat and right hand and worked to pry it loose. His vision blurred, and the pressure swelled against his trachea. After a gasp he said, “Sister.”
Alan rolled himself over to the glass, so close his knees touched it, as he maneuvered the hand to scurry to the back of Jonathan’s neck.
“Nasher has a sister? How did I not know that?”
Jonathan grinned, still inhaling deep breaths, trying not to think about his former hand now perched on his neck.
“An all-seeing eye can still be blind.”
Alan searched the floor, his thumbs circling the plastic rings at the base of the joysticks. He blocked out the moans of the zombies. None of his intel ever informed him Nasher had a sibling, let alone one who lived in the city. He had been building his network for years and never knew this trivial bit of family before—
Before.
He leaned back and the chair squeaked. “She was here before we installed the network, before we made people register their residency in the city.”
Jonathan cocked his left hand like a gun and fired. “You got it. Molly’s been here the whole time.”
Molly. If that was true, no record of her existed. Alan’s all-seeing eye hadn’t even blinked open yet when she arrived. If the cameras caught her since then, the system would classify her as unidentified and list obvious attributes. He knew what Nasher looked like—b
ig, burned, and ugly, but that wouldn’t help him find Molly. He never expected Jonathan to expose Nasher. Alan only wanted to increase his level of certainty of where to find Nasher within Foxer. The more accurate the location, the sooner his test mission could end. When a defense allows a quarterback too much time under an attack, he scrambles free. Alan needed to locate Nasher as quickly as possible. Jonathan’s abduction wasn’t a complete loss. The drunken conversation with Sophie had revealed Nasher wanted Julian Washington out of the Mill. Alan jailed Julian months ago to stop the counterfeiting, but deemed his freedom an enticing piece of bait. And now he knew Nasher’s sister lived within the Greenport walls.
The zombies pounded inside the cage. Each slam broke their purple and blue skin further apart, leaving fresh splotches of blackened blood against the glass. Yellow teeth gnashed and scraped. Jonathan managed to sit up and steady his breathing. “And no, I don’t know how to find her.”
Alan snapped his attention back to his captive and twisted the controls on the remote. The hand squeezed on the nerve in Jonathan’s shoulder. He yelped and tipped to his right and attempted to catch himself with his phantom hand, but instead, he fell, his head slamming against the side wall.
“Missing a hand will do that,” Alan said. “I wasn’t really counting on you to lead me to Nasher.” Alan listened to Jonathan’s labored breathing while each squeeze of the hand triggered a gasp of pain. “And while the tidbit about Molly is good, I have a bona fide insurance plan who’s very real, and will walk right to him. Thank you for reminding me of Julian the other night.”
“Does this mean I get to leave now?”
Alan maneuvered the hand down Jonathan’s body and across the floor and placed the remote back in the stand and stood. “In due time, you’ll leave. Rest up until then.”
“You’re still an asshole,” Jonathan said.
Alan waved without looking back. He exited the lab, and strolled down the old hospital corridor, considering two options for killing Jonathan: Either enough time would pass and the mixture of oxygen to carbon dioxide would suffocate him in the air gap, or Alan could remotely trigger the inside door. He didn’t care either way. Suffocating Jonathan to sleep came across as a humane thing to do, as the guy had suffered much already—kidnapped from his neighborhood bar, losing a hand that then crushed his neck. Asphyxiation would be mercy and less of a mess to clean up. Letting the door slide open and feeding the zombies would provide for only a few minutes of entertainment.
Alan returned to the Command Center. “Sophie,” he said.
“Yes?” Sophie said, swiveling around in her chair.
Alan sat down next to her. White eighteen wheelers scrolled across video feeds on the large monitor. “So the trucks left?”
“They’re making their way to Foxer. The last one should be leaving in thirty-seven minutes.” She swiveled back to her keyboard. “Would you like a status of all the trucks en route?”
“No, that’s all right.”
“I flagged the report you requested, and the video of when the two hostiles were dumped in the alley.”
Alan tilted his head and twisted his lips. “Really? They were dead when they were put there?”
She tapped a keyboard one-handed and brought up a series of still images. A figure in a baseball cap, brown shirt, and pants stood frozen in the frames. A bandana with a skull on it covered the figure’s face.
“Excellent work. I presume he doesn’t fit a registered profile?”
“No, and the clothes and mask don’t help us either.”
“I’ll have to think on this, or ask Ed about it.” Alan typed a series of key strokes. Video of Jonathan trapped in the air gap appeared along the wall.
“Sophie, what did you think of Jonathan?”
She shrugged and turned towards him. “He was okay, I guess.”
“Was he funny? Nice? Mean? Did he have any personality?”
“Kind of. I laughed a few times at some of his stories. He talked a lot about how he used to be a long-distance runner in high school and college.”
“Those days are over.”
“And how during the Plague people would always send him running because he was the fastest to get around the zombies.”
“Do you think he was the fastest?”
“He’s still alive, isn’t he?”
“Fair point. Did you like him?” Alan leaned forward and looked her in the eye. She returned a faint smile, but her green eyes stared through him.
“He was okay. I didn’t dislike him, but he did keep touching my shoulders and legs, and that made me very uncomfortable.”
Alan looked at the woman and braced her shoulders. In a normal world, Sophie would be a young woman juggling college and a retail job and social obligations; in this world, she was something else.
He sensed she wasn’t whole. Alan wasn’t a shrink, and he knew there were demons of her experience he’d never exorcise. Today, she was twenty. Her birthday was the only personal detail she had revealed about herself, and the only day she expressed any flickers of joy. For her last birthday, he gifted her a silver necklace with a tear drop amethyst pendent, in a nod to her birth month.
But she never shared anything about family, or friends, or how she survived up until that day he discovered her. She had grown since then, taking a curious interest in his electronics and burgeoning computer system to bring Greenport back online. The skittish movements had turned into a quick and quiet demeanor. Silence grew to soft sentences. And in time, her aversion to being touch faded, even if she never initiated.
He rubbed her shoulders. “I’m sorry I asked you to meet Jonathan. Meeting him was one attempt to get to Nasher. For you to meet him, and allow me to bring him back so I could question him, that was brave of you.”
Her eyes focused, “It was?”
“Yes.” He kissed her forehead. “And I thank you for your courage to do that.”
Sophie bowed her head and smiled, her cheeks blushing. “You’re welcome. I did want to help more than just sitting here at the computers all day.” She looked up, a small shimmer in her eyes. “It was good to get out.”
Alan entered a series of keyboard commands, convinced of his decision of what to do with Jonathan.
Alan watched on the screen as the door of the cage in the lab slid open, and Jonathan fell backwards into the feverish grasps of two starved zombies. Hands clawed at his face and shoulders, scraping and tearing at his flesh. He let out a deep breath as if he’d finished a difficult task and took satisfaction in its completion, while Sophie flinched, but never turned away from the screen. Alan didn’t notice the color drain from her cheeks and her eyes unfocused, staring past the monitor.
Chapter 7
Inside The Aviary, Paul swirled the last of his beer and wrapped his arm around Karen. Their booth crowded with Jane, Thomas, and Thomas’s girlfriend, Maria, while Jane’s girlfriend, Deanna, performed sultry versions of Ella Fitzgerald songs with a five-piece jazz band. Red and purple stained glass light fixtures hung in the shape of bird cages, and amber-colored bowls nested candles at each table. The crowd buzzed with chatter, larger than normal due to Containment Day celebrations.
Three years ago, after nearly five years of constant struggles with hordes of undead, what remained of functioning government across the globe had made a declaration: The threat was contained. Containment Day. Nations began to coordinate tactics, to share resources and intelligence to neutralize the undead. Critical infrastructure, power plants, water treatment facilities, and stable law enforcement returned first. Food supply and commerce followed, and eventually everyday escapes like The Aviary reopened to the public.
Fred, an old marine drill sergeant, worked as the ZMT’s armorer, cleaning and keeping track of their weapons. Fred also operated shortwave ham radios, and shared with Paul rumors of remote villages in Africa, southeast Asia, and South America getting napalm carpet bombed in the following weeks of Containment Day. If it occurred, Paul saw no outcry or protests. M
ost people were weary of surviving in ways not too far from those in the Middle Ages. Perhaps in time, historians would determine what could have been done, but for now, safety of the human race trumped the millions at the margins of civilization.
Paul contemplated his drink, unable to connect to the revelry buzzing throughout the room. His shoulder remained sore, and his cheeks felt warm. Feverish? Or was it the packed booth and beer? The possibility of infection stirred scenarios pooling in his mind. Would he collapse here in the bar and a waitress would kill him with a steak knife? Would he stumble walking back to his apartment and a random bystander would shoot him with their orange safety gun? Would he turn in the middle of the night and bite into Karen’s throat?
All evening, Karen’s outgoing, conversational personality interacted only when spoken to; she half-heartedly laughed at jokes and stories. Even as they sat next to each other, she leaned away from Paul, rarely looking at him or touching him. Jane talked rapidly with Thomas and Maria while Deanna sang.
“Jane, thank you so much for hosting us tonight,” Maria said. She was three years older than Thomas, had round cheeks and a bubbly laugh. She’d curled her long black hair for the evening, and her purple eye liner matched her purple and black dress. A pair of black droplet earrings glinted in the subdued light. “We’ve been here once or twice, but never in a booth.”
“Thank Deanna,” Jane said, tapping Maria’s martini glass. “She’s almost done with her set. She always closes with ‘Reaching for the Moon.’ Stay a little bit more and say hello.”
Thomas reached around to Maria’s shoulder. “I think we can do that. It’s not often we get to meet one of Greenport’s celebrities.”
Deanna traveled throughout the city, performing at different clubs and bars, singing soul, Motown, and 1980s power ballads. Ella Fitzgerald nights at The Aviary drew a dedicated following to watch her strut in front of her backing band in a form-hugging lace and velvet dress, and to hear her sing “Mack the Knife,” “A Tisket a Tasket,” and “Lullaby of Birdland.”
Survivor Response Page 6