The Zombie Plagues (Book 2)

by Sweet, Dell

  Jilly

  Jilly worked at the phish. She had nearly gotten the last user. She only needed the right password to get where she needed to be. And it would come along it always did.

  The way she worked it was simple. She had a list of employees who had the clearance she needed. So she sent them a simple password update form as an e-mail attachment. It required them to enter their current password in order to update to the new password: Simple. Looked official too, just like the real thing. Of course there was no real thing, but they didn't know that. If they took the bait she was in, if not the email would destroy itself in an hour and so it wouldn't end up passed along to some tech guy to look into.

  Most of these people made a little more than minimum wage, and had access to some of the most sensitive information in the world. And, she told herself, let's face it, someone with a basic high school equivalency diploma could enter data into a computer. It was easy. Kids in grade school did every day. It didn't take a genius, which was good as it helped that they were stupid enough to fall for her trick. Her Email alert chimed. She popped the program up in her browser.

  Two returns out of the six. She opened them, both had updated their passwords. She squealed with delight. She would use the one tonight and save the other for the next job like this. She never used a password more than once. One random use usually wouldn't arouse suspicion. Too many uses would: Once and flush it.

  She turned around to another machine, bought up the password window from its icon, and typed in the user name and password; once it was up she changed the password to the new password the user had entered. She repeated the process for the other user that had responded. Within a few seconds both accounts were legit again, only she had an in on both of them.

  She wasn't entering from a website she was entering through a modeled machine. A perfect duplicate of a machine on an intranet in a government building that was out in L.A. somewhere. An intranet was a closed system, except this one wasn't. A tech that worked there had seen to that by hooking a simple emulation board into a LAN circuit card. After the modification the mainframe handled her request as though it were from a machine that was part of the intranet.

  She called up the sets a finger print files and made the changes she had been asked to make. She had no idea who Benjamin Neo was in reality, but in her world he was a customer who paid well and used her often. He had just paid 100 grand for clean fingerprints. His old prints had then been attached to the second name he had given her. She wondered for a second or two what that might mean, then pushed it out of her head. Bad people, good money; but she was not a bad person. She had good karma. Sometimes you had to do bad things, but since the bad people were paying you it was really them that did those bad things, she simply facilitated. She thought about that. She decided she liked it.

  She popped up the window for her word processor and began typing in her thought. She had a whole collection of illuminating thoughts like that. Someday she might publish it, she thought, but then again maybe not: If she did, everyone would be as smart as she was. Know everything she knew. No, she decided. She'd keep her collection to herself. Go and look at it from time to time just to keep it fresh in her head. She clicked save and then turned the window into an icon.

  Bad people, good money, she thought. She sipped at her diet coke and went to work on the next job.

  Northbound I-81

  Ben Neo

  Ben Neo picked up Ed Reiser in Mexico on the way to Watertown. Ed was someone he had developed on his own. Ed thought he had what it took to be a mafia bag man. Ed didn't really know what that was, except what he'd seen in movies. It looked fun. Stimulating and better than that you could make a lot of money.

  Ben had met Ed online. Once they had met a few times, Ben had, had Jilly check him out. Clean. Not so much as a parking ticket. Finger printed when he went into the air force. Honorable discharge: Not the typical guy looking to get into organized crime.

  Ed had been disappointed at first when Ben had told him he wasn't in the mafia and didn't know anyone that was, but he was sure he could find lots of things for Ed to do that would be interesting, fun and make him a lot of money as well.

  He'd taken him with him twice now: Two small drug deals, which probably looked enormous to Ed; a quarter of million in cash on the last one. This would be his biggest deal to date, enough hard stuff to keep a small city high for a few years.

  Ben filled him in on the deal as they drove.

  Watertown

  Thompson Park

  The Cop

  The car rolled to a stop. He was by himself. It was still early, a half hour before he had to be in: The shift-change. He had plenty of time, and at his level it wasn't like he had to punch a time clock. Worse came to worse and everything got badly fucked up he could call in sick at the last minute: There wasn't that much going on; at least not much that would require his input. He had his partner to worry about, but probably only marginally.

  He had parked in the lot and walked down the sidewalk to the lookout area at the park. You could see for miles, which was probably the reason they were meeting here for the deal. They would be able to see in all directions, no one could sneak up on them and there was no place to hide. Even his personal car parked farther up the hill in the empty lot stuck out like a sore thumb. He had pulled it closer to the zoo area so it would look like it belonged to an overnight worker there.

  He tried to decide quickly where they might meet. In the pavilion to the left that capped a set of stone steps descending out of the park, or at the lookout itself which was a circular stone walled area to the right. He decided to bug both places. He could go up to the main parking lot, still be able to pick up the radio signal, be out of sight, yet close enough to get here quickly if he had to: If he was honest with himself he wasn't even sure that this whole deal was going to happen. The same guy who delivered his payoff had put the bug in his ear. Rivals, he supposed; trying to knock each other out of the arena. He only knew there would be a substantial amount of money involved and a large quantity of drugs. The guy who had delivered his envelope for the month had called it a tip.

  He wasn't worried about a setup. They had been working together for almost five years, who was there to set up? He assumed the money he took covered certain people, certain situations. If he was called and asked to lose a piece of evidence, or soft peddle a case he did. It was that simple. Maybe nothing for six months: Maybe two or three small requests in a month; maybe something big every once in a while. He could count those on one hand though: Exactly twice, and he had made happen what they had wanted to happen. No problem.

  So he wasn't worried about a set up, it was a tip; a little something extra. All he had to do was see how it played out, and that was a few hours away. He had the whole day planned out so he could be solo. Mostly bullshit, but it would keep his partner doing something while he did something else. Apart: He would have the freedom to move. To do what he needed to do, whatever that might be. It would start though with getting to work, making an appearance and then getting back up here to wait and listen.

  He placed both bugs. Checked them and then walked back up the hill to his vehicle.

  Lott Road

  Billy Jingo

  Billy Jingo came awake all at once: He had been dozing in front of the television. He had gotten home about two AM from work. He'd picked up beer and cigarettes for the weekend, he didn't work Fridays, that was the beginning of his weekend. He'd debated and then decided to stay up a little while, have a few beers and watch TV. The Canadian station was coming in pretty good and there had been some foreign film on. It was in French, or at least he supposed it was in French. He heard enough French living so close to Canada and he had even been to Canada a few times, so he was pretty sure it was French. He couldn't understand a word of it, but you didn't have to speak French to understand nudity. And there had been a lot of nudity in the film. The film had been about a group of young college girls who kept finding themselves in trouble, or
naked, or both. Somewhere along in there he had fallen asleep.

  The clock said 7:30 AM. The sun was up. The trailer was cold, a litter of empty beer cans and an overflowing ashtray sat on the coffee table in front of the couch.

  He got up, his body stiff. He had run a buffer nearly his entire eight hour shift and his back and shoulders were sore. It would go away, he told himself. It always did. Go to sleep get up tonight and... Well, sit alone and drink beer, watch TV. Whoopee, he told himself. He dropped the beer cans into the bag for empties under the sink. He never bothered to rinse them. He dumped the ashtray and wandered down the hallway to bed.

  Watertown Center

  Shop and Stock

  April Evans

  "Going home?" Alice Chambers asked.

  "Yeah," April agreed. It was early morning, the sun just coming up, shining through the dirty front windows of the store.

  "I could drop you. I know it's not a long walk, but if you wanted a ride, you know," she blushed and her face colored.

  The Shop and Stock was on the main highway nearly directly across from the entrance to Lott road. It was a half mile down the road to the trailer park. Not far. She walked it all the time, including early morning and late evening.

  April's rule of thumb with Alice was not to lead her on. Not to give her false hope. Alice wanted to be with her, it was clear. There had been a time when they had been together, but that was over and had been over for nearly a year. She didn't want her to think that it might start up again. Letting her give her a ride home might make her think that there was hope. It might, and that could hurt her and she didn't want to do that.

  "I think the walk would do me good, besides it's just incentive for me to buy a car," April said.

  "You're saving?" Alice asked. Her face had become sad when April hadn't said yes. Her sad eyes were magnified behind her thick glasses.

  "No, but I hope to be... That's the incentive part. It's just that it costs so much to live..." April stopped, regretting she had said as much as she did.

  "Well they say two can live as cheaply as one," Alice said. Her eyes became hopeful again.

  Sometimes April wondered why she didn't just do it. Almost everyone at work thought she and Alice were an item anyway. Guys at work didn't even hit on her anymore, and occasionally she would catch girls looking at her speculatively, like the new girl, Haley, beautiful: She had some sort of tribal tattoo that covered one arm and disappeared under her sleeve. It peaked out when her shirt lifted enough to bare her stomach, making April wonder where else it went. Dark blue against brown skin. She had been looking at her, wondering about where that tattoo might go one day last week when Haley had caught her. They had both smiled and looked away.

  "You didn't say anything," Alice said.

  "I'm sorry, I zoned out... You know, maybe two can live as cheaply as one... I guess it is something to consider," April said. She had no idea why she had said it except that it was true. She had two guys at the trailer park that were interested. She couldn't stand either one of them, but they were persistent. And she supposed it was only a matter of time before something happened. Probably something she didn't want to happen. She kept an aluminum bat next to the door, but she was a young woman living alone in a bad place. It was probably only a matter of time.

  Alice was smiling up of her. "Are you sure about the walk? It's such a bad place," Alice said, echoing her thoughts.

  "Sure... You're right, Ali. Listen, I have a cold six-pack in my fridge, if it didn't stop working again that is, maybe we could have a couple of beers, unwind from the night," April said. “It's morning, but technically it's night to us.” She laughed.

  Alice positively overflowed. "Sure... I'll... I'll get some chips?" She looked at April as if asking permission. April nodded almost imperceptibly. That was how they had gotten together in high school. Alice asked, April had never said yes, just that tiny little nod, but that had been all that Alice had needed.

  Alice hurried off now and April told herself she wasn't building her hopes up to dash them. She was sick of the trailer park: Sick of her life right now. Before she ended up with one of those clowns on either side of her, she would move back in with Alice. She shocked herself with the admission, but then she realized it was the truth. Maybe it was the truth she had been hiding from herself, but it was the truth.

  Alice came back blooming. A totally different woman than the shy, unassuming person she normally was. She walked close to her as they left the store. She could see Alice wanted to slip her arm through hers, so April did it herself. She just slipped her arm through hers as they walked across the parking lot to Alice's car.

  Alice seemed to be in shock, but a happy kind of shock. April was surprised, but it lifted her mood too.

  Route 81 rest-stop

  Watertown

  Danny and Daryl

  "Who would really know?" Daryl asked. "I mean really, Danny?"

  They were stopped at a rest area a few miles outside of Watertown New York. The trunk was open and they had looked through what was there. It was far more than they had thought, far more than Carlos had led them to believe. Neither of them knew how much, but they had a good idea. They had already made small holes in four of the bricks and discovered they were dealing with both cocaine and heroin. And since the holes had been there they had taken a bit of each. Only a little: Nothing that would be missed, probably, but that had been three or four hours ago at another rest area when the curiosity had gotten the best of them. That and their withdrawals after a two week crack binge and the little that they had taken was gone.

  Now they were trying to decide if they took a few full bricks whether they would be missed. There were eight bricks of coke, and six of heroin in the black duffel bag. That was a tight fit. They had purchased a cheap foam plastic cooler just outside of Rochester and filled it with beer and packages of lunch meat and cheese. They had purchased bread and other stuff for the long trip. Thinking all those weeks of not eating right would catch up to them and they'd be starving. And they would've been except they had gotten right back into the coke. They were numb again. Hunger was on the back burner once more. All their bodies craved were more cocaine and maybe some heroin to chase it.

  Daryl pulled the zipper on the blue duffel bag and opened it.

  "What the fuck are you doing?" Danny asked.

  "You know goddamn good and well what I'm doing," he said. He reached in and took one of each brick.

  "Holy Jesus," Danny said. "You're crazy. They'll kill us."

  Daryl licked his lips. "Maybe... But... Maybe we can blame that on the other guys. You know, they got the shit! They played with it. Our word against theirs, right?"

  "Christ," Danny said. His hands shook slightly, but then harder. Before he could stop himself he reached into the duffel bag and pulled out two more bricks, one of each. Daryl’s eyes bugged.

  "I don't know, man. That is a lot. Two is enough," he said.

  "To get killed over?" Danny asked. "Fuck that! If it's gonna get us in the shit and we gotta lie our way out of it we might as well make it worth it," he said. He looked at the untouched ice chest, popped off the foam cover and plunged the bricks down into the ice. Daryl took a small chunk of the cocaine, sealed the brick back up and plunged both of his bricks into the ice chest too. They piled up the errant ice cubes and arranged the packages of meat and cheese to hide the bricks underneath them, breathing hard as they did: On the verge of panic.

  “You can see the foil,” Danny said.

  Daryl grabbed the plastic bag that the lunch meat had come in, fished out the bricks and wrapped them up tightly in the plastic. The bag was white and blended much better under the ice this time.

  "Can tell, not really," Daryl said. He had already sniffed some coke. Danny wasn't far behind.

  "Looks fine," Danny agreed. "Let's go."

  They both reached up to slam the trunk lid down, scaring the hell out of each other as they did. They laughed nervously and then got back into the car.<
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  "Alright, I'm getting on top of it now, man... It's gonna be all right," Daryl said.

  "Yeah... Yeah," Danny agreed as he started the car.

  Watertown

  Thompson Park

  Ben Neo

  "This is a really big deal, Ed. As in a million plus, you see?" Ben asked.

  "Sure," Ed said. "I get it. Well, you mean a million plus as in more than a million dollars?" he asked.

  Ben laughed. "Yeah, more than a million, Ed: These guys, well, I don't know these guys. They're really just hired flunkies. Pick up the stuff; drive it from point A to point B, that kind of thing. They're probably not professionals. So we'll have to make up for that by maintaining our own professional standards, Ed. We'll just be cold: Aloof, removed. No laughing if they crack a joke. No small talk at all." He handed Ed one of the flat black 9 mm guns. The one he had shoved under the front seat.

  Ed looked it over. "Grips broken?" he asked. He fingered the tape that wound around them.

  "No," Ben told him. "That's friction tape, stops them from getting prints... Most of the time at least. It's what I call a throw away gun. Cheap, doctored up with tape in case I do have to toss it and I don't have time to wipe it. Ground down serial number. Here's a spare clip." He handed him a clip. "The one in that gun is full, and there's one in the chamber. I do that by putting one in the chamber then ejecting the clip and replacing that one in the clip. Then put the clip back in. Sometimes an extra bullet can mean a lot. All you need to do is flick off the safety, aim and shoot... You got that, Ed?" Ben asked.