“It sounds like a good climbing. What’s the top ranking in this thing, two-hundred or so?”
“No! The top position in tennis ranking is number one!”
“Oh boy… Suddenly the dune turned into a mountain.”
“Now, what’s that supposed to mean?”
“No offense, but it seems that you made it to the mezzanine of the Empire State, only the flag you were looking for was hanging on the roof, pardon my lengthy analogy.”
“Ah, come on! It is still a damn good climbing! It’s not easy, you know! Tennis is very competitive! I was kind of half way there!”
“And what happened? Not that I didn’t know.”
“I was already on court, warming up to play the first round of this ATP 500, when all hell broke loose. Suddenly, people started to get sick and turn into those flesh-eating dead fuckers. Even my opponent tried to eat me. I went to my box for help, you know, the place where my coaching team should be, but then I saw my coach and my personal trainer eating my press secretary and my agent, nothing I could do to stop them. I was about to be killed as well. Lucky one of the ball boys had a chef cleaver hidden in his shorts. I don’t know why he was carrying such weapon around, but it was a good thing he did. We cut our way through the dead with the cleaver. That boy pretty much saved my life, a brave little kid. Once outside, we managed to find a bus to take the boy away safely, but it was too crowded for me.”
He lowered his eyes and continued.
“Suddenly, everything was too crowded for me.”
“What about your family?” Lily asked.
“They are in New York. I don’t know if they survived this whole mess, probably not. I got no ways to know now. After that day on the court, I tried to get some help, but everybody was too scared to think of anything else other than their skins. I was let down bad. I got nobody in the end.”
“Hoy! You got me now!”
“And I appreciate it very much!”
He looked at the dismounted hockey stick in her sheath, sitting beside his tennis bag.
“So, I gather you are a hockey player of some sort.” He spoke.
“Actually, I played cricket, but I found out that no other sport gear is more effective in killing walking corpses than a good hockey stick. It chops their heads clean off.”
“So, that’s your main weapon then.”
“Until I find something better, yes.”
“Have you ever considered fire weapons?”
“Nay. They make too much noise and even attract more corpses. And ammunition only goes so far.”
He was finding rather difficult to make conversation with that girl. He then scanned the interior of the truck with his eyes.
“Nice contraption you got here.” He said.
“It gets the job done when you need it, with just a few gallons of diesel.”
“Um, don’t get me wrong or anything, but do you have some kind of speech disorder or something?”
“None that I know of. Why do you ask?”
“It’s just that you talk real funny sometimes.”
“I’m Australian.” She smiled.
“Oh, all right. Sorry about that.”
“Don’t worry. I’ve been getting that a lot since I got here.”
“I can imagine.”
“So what’s your name, mate?”
“Good guess, Mate’s my name.”
She glanced at him.
“You’re kidding, right?”
“Nope, my name is Mate Clarkson, as in Kelly Clarkson.”
“Well, you’d surely make a lot of friends in Australia with a name like that.”
“I guess.”
“Anyway, I’ll call you Clark. Sorry, but from my point of view, mate is already taken.”
“Clark, as in Clark Gable, there’s a nice ring to it.”
“Who’s Kelly Clarkson?”
“Oh, she’s one of the coolest rock stars ever! Her song my life would suck without you is really great! I can only hope she’s not a zombie now.”
“So, that’s how we are calling them, zombies.”
“Do you have a better idea?”
“No. I guess any possible denomination would be equally demeaning. Zombies they are.”
“Anyway, do you think this plague, or whatever they call it, is going on worldwide?”
“I know that at least two countries are affected, United States and Australia. But I guess we can extrapolate it to the whole planet from this.”
“Guess you’re right. And do you think all social classes are affected, I mean, celebrities and all?”
“If a virus is doing all this, they don’t care for bank accounts very much. Actually, if there’s one thing, perhaps the only thing that can bring slobs and celebrities closer together is a terrible disease.”
“Yes, the slobs teaming up with the snobs. What about politicians? Do you think they turned into zombies too?”
“Well, they were zombies before.”
“Got a point there”
“Who’s Clark Gable?”
ACT 3
Hector and Vince were walking down dark alleys, passing by run-down buildings, most of them abandoned. But such situation was not new in that neighborhood, which never knew prosperity, not even when the world was breathing the comfortable breezes of normality.
Technology, new inventions, opportunities and ultimately money seem to never reach certain places, fated to stay the same forever, never mind what happens. In a near apocalypse situation, poor areas don’t change much, only prosper areas are devastated to become poor areas, like the ones they usually choose to ignore. And we are all the same again. Finally, we are one, as we always were.
“Do you think we can trust him?” Vince asked.
“Who?”
“That Phil guy.”
“Never mind. We just share a workplace and some tools with him, nothing more.”
“That’s right, we don’t him that well. You shouldn’t talk the way you talked in front of him.”
“Now, what’s that supposed to mean? I talk the way I talk. I did this my whole life.”
“Gee, you can be really hardheaded sometimes!”
“That’s how I made my fortune. That’s how we made our fortune. You’re hardheaded too, bro.”
“That’s not what I mean.”
“Then what the heck do you mean?” Hector said impatiently.
“Things are totally different now, can’t you see?! Now the whole world is the same crap! This thing of we are in America, everybody can make a buck if they put their minds on it is over! We have to accept the new situation and adapt to it.”
“Oh, you’re wrong. You’re so wrong. The world is different, but it’s still the same world, with the same people in it. Things change. It’s part of the game.”
“Not like this!”
“It doesn’t matter!”
“Yes, it matters! Did you take a good look outside the city? We came from there for crying out loud! We almost died to get here!”
“Big deal! It’s not very different from the old routine in Hell’s Kitchen. But we made it, didn’t we? Yes, I know that a goddamn virus spread worldwide, turning people into rotting freaks who eat everything in their path and our leaders don’t seem to care, but then we had World War One, Two, Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the freaking plague on the Middle Age, but the world kept on going!”
“Those events you mentioned are nothing compared to this one, but you just can’t accept it.”
“Well, I’m not the accepting kind of guy. There’s always room for industrious folks willing to rebuild and that’s us. And very soon, we’ll be right on top one more time, bro!”
Hector opened his big white smile again, but Vince was uncomfortably looking at all sides, as if waiting for thugs to come any minute.
“Keep your voice down, man!” Vince advised.
Hector’s trademarked large smile was quickly replaced by his also trademarked scary frown.
“I talk as lou
d as I want!” He retorted. “You don’t tell me how to talk! This is still a free country! I won’t hide how I feel!”
“You’re going to get us both killed! You saw what happens to those considered troublemakers!”
“They disappeared, that’s all. Maybe they just went to the beach.”
“You don’t really believe that, do you?”
Hector soothed his expression and faced his brother.
“Jesus.” He said. “When did you turn chicken, man?”
“It’s not that.”
“It is. Where’s my little brother I could always count on? Remember the old neighborhood? All other kids walking the streets, panhandling money they later used to buy drugs, embarrassing their parents, sometimes even following orders from their parents?”
“Yes, I remember.”
“Then, you also remember that mamma dragged our asses to school every morning so we could get some education, while she and sister worked hard to make an honest buck. Daddy let us down bad, but mamma never gave up. And we all helped her, you, me and sister. We never had plenty, but we always had enough. And you were always there for me, man.”
“And I’ll be there for you till the day I die. But this is not the old neighborhood. Mamma and sister got sick, died, resurrected and tried to eat us, and we had to stick knives in their heads. I bet this kind of shit never happened in World War One, Two, Hiroshima, Middle Ages, whatever. Face it, bro. We’re fucked, as in really fucked.”
“Trust me. I’ll get us both out of this one, like I got us out of Hell’s Kitchen.”
They arrived at the construction site.
“Another day, another dollar” Vince said.
They went into the small cabinet to pick up jackets and hats.
“Hi Phil.”
“Hi guys.”
Hector and Vince walked to their respective sidewalk spots and jackhammers, to take up where they left off. But before they could put on their thick gloves, protective ear muffs and glasses, two men in impeccable black suits came to them.
“Excuse me,” The tall one spoke “I’m agent Muldoon and this is agent Dressler, we are from the Center of Refugees. Are you Hector and Vincent Dryland?”
“Last time we checked.” Vince replied.
“What can I do for you, gentlemen?” Hector queried.
“Don’t bother powering up the jackhammers, boys.” Dressler, the short guy, answered. “You’ve just been relocated.”
“What?” Vince asked.
“What do you mean relocated?” Hector asked.
“It means you’re going from this place to another place.” Muldoon responded with irritating arrogance.
“Yes, I realize that, but are you sure this is right? I mean, we’ve been given this job by your people when we first came in here with the other refugees.”
“That’s correct, and now we’re giving you new jobs.” Dressler said also a little too pompous.
“And when are we supposed to start these new jobs?” Vince asked.
“Right now.”
“Right now?! You mean today?!”
“Yes, right now usually means today.”
“Now, you listen to me!” Hector raised his already loud voice. “Can we at least check with Mister Hanson? He’s the foreman.”
“That’s right.” Vince also spoke. “We got a lot of work to do here. We can’t simply leave our posts without telling anybody!”
“I know who Mister Hanson is and I’m telling you everything is in order.” Dressler informed. “You’re coming with us.”
“I’m sorry, but this seems highly irregular to me.” Hector said firmly. “For starters, how can we know you’re really from the Center of Refugees?”
“I don’t think I made myself clear, boys.” Muldoon retorted. “This is not a request.”
Muldoon and Dressler drew stun guns from their jackets pockets and hit the brothers in the waist, not giving them time to make a single move. Electricity seized their nervous systems and they fell cold on the hard ground, paralyzed.
As if coming from nowhere, two other men in black suits came and helped Muldoon and Dressler carrying the petrified brothers to a van parked across the street. Burning rubber, the vehicle disappeared down the avenue in a matter of seconds.
After watching the whole scene, Phil dropped his welder and wiped the sweat from his forehead with the back of his hand.
“There goes two more.”
ACT 4
Lily and Clark kept on going. The sunset horizon before them would be a very romantic and comforting view if it wasn’t for the fact their world was slowly becoming a catwalk for living cadavers.
“We’ll have to stop for some diesel soon.” She informed.
“No problem. I can pick up some snacks while you fill it up.”
“Just be careful not to become a snack.”
He smiled.
“I didn’t catch your name.” Clark pointed out.
“You’re right, sorry about that. My name is Lily Master.”
“Lily?!”
“Yes, as in Lily Allen.”
“Or in Apocalily! Hot dang, I knew I had seen you before! You’re the kindergarten hero, the one who saved all the children! That was really something!”
“Oh, I can see you’re into newspapers too.”
“What’s left of them anyway. And you were not only on the papers, but mainly on the web. When you left the kindergarten carrying that paraplegic girl on your shoulder, a teenager also filmed you with his cell phone and he uploaded it to YouTube. The video got more than seven million hits in five minutes.”
“Then, it’s a good thing all communication means are going down because of the plague. They could at least pay me one dollar for each page-view of this YouTube video.”
“Well, I don’t think money will do us much good in the not so distant future.”
He faced her and said:
“Is it me or you’re not proud of what you did?”
“I’m not.”
“Why? That was great, the bravest feat I’ve ever seen! Ten minutes and hundreds of children were spared from a horrible death! I’m kind of honored to ride with you.”
“Then don’t be so honored.”
“For God sake, why not?”
“Because it’s not fair with the real heroes.”
“I don’t understand.”
“For starters, cops died trying to save those children, but their faces didn't show on the news. Nobody gave them nicknames! Nobody gave them any name.
“Yes, but the fact you saved people in the end made their effort count. They didn’t die in vain.”
“You’re awfully misinformed, boykie.”
“I don’t think so. It was all there, in the papers and the web.”
“First, it wasn’t a kindergarten, it was an elementary school! Second, I spent a good fifteen minutes trapped in that hell, not ten!”
“Well, fifteen minutes is how long fame lasts, according to some.”
“And my fame should’ve stopped right there, according to me.”
“If I had done such thing, I’d be walking on cloud nine right now!”
“Fine, do you want to know why I did it, how things happened? I tell you. I was riding my rig, depressed and bitter. I had just lost my dad to this plague and life had lost all meaning. Then I saw this school coming. I noticed all the fuss of course, the police cordon, the press, folks screaming, I knew there were people in danger. Do you want to know what I thought of all that?”
“Yes!”
“Too bad, I thought. That’s right, I was planning to just pass by and overlook the whole mess because I got enough problems. How brave is that? But my truck broke down. Yes, that’s why I stopped, my freaking car stalled on me! The engine overheated or something. One more headache for me! I went into the school because I got nothing else to live for, secretly hoping I died in there, putting an end to my miserable existence. Some hero, huh?”
“Well, the outcome was the same.
And to me, you’re still a hero.”
“I’m a fraud with a bad radiator.”
“So sorry Lily, but I don’t believe you went into that school just because you got nothing better to do with your life. I have this feeling you did all that because you are a great person.”
“I don’t care what you believe.”
An uncomfortable silence followed. Clark broke it:
“Who fixed your truck in the end?”
“The father of the paraplegic girl happened to be a mechanic and he got some spare cables.”
“Good. It’s the least he could do.”
Lily shook her head.
“Then I tried to hit the road, but the bloody press was all over my rig, the flashes of their cameras blinding me. But I didn’t talk to them, wasn’t in the mood. Later, one damned reporter found out my name and I guess his editor came up with this silly Apocalily thing, a combination of the word apocalypse with my name Lily, such a stupid playing with words.”
“Maybe, but I bet this event changed your life.”
“In a way, it did.”
“Have you been on the road since then?”
“Even before that.”
“Why are you wearing those fingerless gloves?”
“Because I don’t like to get my hands dirty. See, I’m no hero after all.”
“Then why they are fingerless?”
“Because I especially like to keep my palms clean.”
“You don’t talk much about you and your past, do you?”
Apocalily Series (Book 1): The Sunshine Dame of Doom Page 2