Phoenix motioned for Alaia and Darkeem to get up, and he led them through the brush, across the ditch, and into the wooded lot on the other side of the road. Two Psykotics lay in the ditch on the other side, mired in mud and barbed wire, their faces caked in mud and dried blood. Alaia waved Phoenix forward, content to let the two slithering corpses slither indefinitely, and they hurried on through the woodlands, picking their way through trailing vines and reaching branches. The way forward was strenuous, and by the end of the day, they’d gone through all of the Kellogg’s bars and the water. All that Alaia had left was trail mix – but that was good enough.
Just before dark, Darkeem spotted a funeral home situated on a hill, set back off the road in a stand of tall oaks and cedars, just across from an apartment complex. With little energy remaining in their tired bodies, they stopped, took deep breaths, and pushed on and upward through the trees. When they reached the top, they stopped and caught their breaths. The parking lot looked empty except for three cars, all of which were parked up near the entrance.
Alaia started forward from the cedar thicket, with Darkeem at her side. Phoenix stopped them and pulled them back.
“What color was that Toyota we saw a while back?” Phoenix asked.
Alaia considered the question for a moment. “You mean the Corolla? The car with all the fat girls? Wasn’t it red?”
“That’s what I’m asking you.”
Darkeem tugged on Alaia’s shirt. “Mom, I think there’s someone here.”
“You see someone?” Phoenix asked, as he knelt down on the ground and reached for his pistol.
“Over there, to the left – in that field,” Darkeem said.
Before they could assess the threat to their left, they froze, suddenly shaken by a scuffling noise coming up behind them from the woods. The sound of feet on dry leaves they heard, and the snapping of small twigs. Phoenix, Alaia, and Darkeem all turned around at the same time. Five or six infected, with their eyes wide, staring straight in their direction, struggled towards them. The thick growth hindered them. Which group of Psykotics would reach them first was a toss-up.
“Ten on the left, six behind us,” Alaia said.
Phoenix handed her the Glock with the silencer and an extra clip. “Maybe this is a blessing – you know – all these infected.”
“A blessing?”
“These guys can be our warning bells in case anybody healthy comes up here tonight.”
“And what if they get inside the funeral home?”
Phoenix ignored Alaia’s last question. “Up and at ‘em.”
Their sprint from the bushes, something with the umph of a double espresso late at night on an empty stomach, took its fuel from pure, cold fear. How long that fuel would be available, Phoenix dared not ask. But he hoped it continued blowing through his injectors, banging on his pistons, until well after he had led Alaia and Darkeem through the side door of the funeral home.
They left the cover of the forest, now a darker shade of black behind them, running towards the front side of the funeral home. Then they cut left, heading for the cars parked by the side door. At least the cars would be between them and the herd of infected making their way towards them from the left. The obstacles might give Phoenix a bit more time to get the door to the funeral home opened.
As they ran, Phoenix wished the infected persons heading for him would die, all on their own, from something painful, like a moderately immobilizing stroke. Then he wished they had never been born and, because they had been born, he thought of how nice it would have been if, sometime in the past, they’d all gotten drunk and stepped off a busy curb in downtown Nashville during rush hour. But none of that was good enough.
When Phoenix, Alaia, and Darkeem reached the cars, Phoenix took the Glock from Alaia, said something highly inappropriate, and killed an old wrinkled guy who was already missing one arm. He handed the pistol back to Alaia, the acrid smoke drifting up lazily from the silencer.
“I got this,” Alaia said, as she raised it.
Phoenix grabbed the lever on the door to test its strength, and it turned in his hands. “We’re in,” he said, swinging the door open wildly. He looked in, stepped backwards a step, and slowly raised his hands. Alaia and Darkeem saw the same thing Phoenix saw. Four overweight women with bad hair and no makeup, standing in the doorway, aiming equally bad chrome revolvers in their direction.
“If it’s all the same to you,” Alaia said, “I’d prefer to not drop this fine gun down onto the ground.”
“And we’re ready to pay for the night, too,” Phoenix said. “My class ring. It’s fourteen karat gold with a quarter karat diamond – it’s got to be worth well over fifteen hundred dollars!”
The women lowered their weapons and moved away from the door. Phoenix closed his eyes for a split second, thanking heaven. There was nowhere left to go, not tonight, and he wasn’t about to let Alaia and Darkeem spend the night outside on a cold March evening with those things wandering around out there.
“We thought you were the black guys,” one woman said. She tilted her head forward and saw Darkeem, who was much darker than his mother, and who was unmistakably of African descent. “Not that we have a problem with black guys, like you. I’m talking about the guys in the black suits. We call ‘em black guys.”
It was the moaning of the infected that settled the matter, the gurgling, deep-gut tremors that sounded more like oral flatulence than anything else. For a moment, the women just stood in the doorway, letting their new guests stand on the doorstep. Maybe they needed to size up the new visitors, thinking they didn’t conform to the dress codes of neighbors they’d once known, neighbors who’d never worn military-style clothing nor who carried such huge weapons.
One of the women, a large black woman with an even larger afro and a southern accent reminiscent of the New Orleans bayou culture, smiled at Phoenix. “We can’t leave these people standing out here on the step, now can we?” She put her weapon away and reached out and grabbed Phoenix’s hand and dragged him across the threshold. She held onto his hand a little longer than he liked, squeezing it gently while she led him away from the door. She had gleaming white teeth and a pleasant enough face, if pleasant enough was all you could get; and she reminded him of the woman at his usual morning’s McDonald’s drive-through window who, wearing her shirt unbuttoned at the top, always leaned out of the window too far, spilling his coffee and spilling out of her shirt at the same time. When he’d drive away, he’d look at his purchase; and he’d see that she’d done it again. On the side of his coffee cup was her phone number. Or were those numbers her measurements?
Alaia stepped inside rather quickly, pulling the door to and making sure the panic bar latch snapped tightly into place. She looked at Ms. New Orleans in her expansive yellow tent dress, and then smiled at Phoenix as he tried to release his hand from hers. She walked over to him and said, “Honey, darling, can you take me and your son to the restroom, please?” She leaned forward and kissed him on the lips, long and hard, and then she pulled away. “And I would like to thank all of you for letting us in – but all we need is one night, if that’s okay.”
Ms. New Orleans let go of Phoenix’s hand and smiled, looking around at the other women. “Well, there ain’t no reason we all can’t share, right?” She looked at Phoenix again.
“Yes, we can,” Phoenix said with an awkward grin.
“Now, you can come with me to the kitchen and sit down to an industrial-sized can of Hormel’s Chili and plate full of hot water corn bread,” Ms. New Orleans said. “And if you sit by me, you can have an extra dollop of stew. How’s that?”
Phoenix smiled a crooked, half-hearted smile, and then he looked at Alaia, scratching his head. Alaia raised her eyebrows and smiled flatly.
“Now, if you ain’t hungry,” Ms. New Orleans said, leaning in close to Phoenix, “you ain’t a man. It’s been a long time since I had a man for dinner, and I never knew a one that wasn’t always hungry for something sweet and sou
thern.”
One of the women, younger, tattooed from her ankles up said, “Why don’t we let everyone use the bathroom, wash up, and then we’ll have dinner? I’ll take you guys to the … oh, I’m sorry. I’m Beth, by the way.”
Alaia introduced everyone. “This is Phoenix, my husband, our son, Darkeem, and I’m Alaia. My husband and I are NPD, which is why you see us dressed this way.”
“Glad to meet you,” Beth said. “Follow me and I’ll take you to the shower.”
“Ooh,” Ms. New Orleans said, turning around with her nose to the air. “They ain’t burned yet, but they do need to come out of the oven!” She and the other two women hurried down the short hall and disappeared behind a door.
“You’ll be safe here for the night,” Beth said. “The funeral home sits back off the road and just over the crest of the hill and isn’t really noticeable. People are always passing it when they drive by because they miss the sign.”
Beth started to open a door, but then she stopped. “The shower is in a room just past the embalming area – so, just be prepared. I kinda just look to my right as I walk, and then I don’t have to see the corpses.”
“Corpses?” Alaia asked. “Can’t we go another way?”
“This is it,” Beth said. “Just be glad it’s cold in there and that these people seem to be fresh. But something tells me we’re going to have to remove them at some point – but none of us has the guts to do it.”
Phoenix, Alaia, and Darkeem, with his mother’s hands over his eager eyes, followed Beth across the tiled floor with their eyes glued to the stainless steel tables and sinks running along the wall on the right. Beth suggested they hold their breath, too – not because of any terribly foul odor, not because any of the bodies were in a state of decay, though that might come soon enough; but because of the antiseptic smell of the area – or was that embalming fluid? Beth didn’t know. But she hated the smell nonetheless. The room felt icy – colder, probably, than a February night in Tennessee, and everybody shivered, psychologically and physically, as they passed by three corpses laying on what must have been icy-cold, stainless steel tables.
They came to a door at the end of the embalming area that lead to a small, nicely-furnished room. Alaia took her shower first, followed by Darkeem. Phoenix went last. When they finished bathing and dressing – the hot water was magnificent – they followed Beth back the way they had come, careful to avoid seeing the dead. She led them down a hall and through one of the sitting areas. When they stepped into the kitchen and dining area, the aroma of beef stew and hot cornbread hit them in all the right places. Ms. New Orleans produced a bottle of wine.
Phoenix, Alaia, and Darkeem sat down at the table; and together, with their hosts, they ate, drank, and laughed until every plate had been cleaned.
Chapter 23
Phoenix stood near the front door. He listened to scratching and scuffling sounds, all of them loud enough to be heard through the double pane windows and solid wood double doors. His despair gave way to anger. So much had changed so quickly in just a few days. He had been a decent-enough cop only days ago, doing his job the best he knew how. Now, he found himself worrying about the next bed he’d sleep in, what he would eat, and how he could keep Alaia and her son safe from a virus that had sprouted legs and arms. He wanted more than anything to get to Carson Research Labs and put an end to the darkness for himself and his new family.
And Alaia’s advances. She seemed as aggressive as any woman he could remember – maybe not a June Buckner, ready to do anything for a five-minute relationship, but a June Buckner nonetheless. He hated to think what would happen if he straightened Alaia out on that issue. Or maybe he’d just tell her he needed to go outside and check out the situation. Then he’d give her the slip, the pink one, the one that reminded her that the only person she owned was herself. But the thought passed quickly from his mind. He could love her, couldn’t he? But not maybe not like she had in mind.
He took out his inhaler. The Oblivium went down easy.
But the thought of her and Darkeem being snatched away by the mindless sticks of protein wandering around on the front lawn of the funeral home made him sick. He’d feel better knowing they were safe; and that thought, that feeling, surprised him.
Yes, he’d played to the minds of women before, telling them everything they wanted hear, mostly lies about commitment, and how that he’d been hurt far too often in his short twenty-something years. They’d ask him to come over and he would oblige them. Before first light, he’d be cleaned up and dressed and out the door, never to return.
Funny, he thought. He hadn’t scored with Alaia. But he suddenly realized a commitment he’d made to her and Darkeem. A commitment that had nothing to do with what might happen out there, in the dark, beneath the folds of a sleeping bag, long after the lights had gone out. But something having to do with their lives and safety.
Phoenix walked to the window, pulled the curtain back, and looked out towards the front lawn. He ran his hand through his hair, then felt the stubble on his chin. He’d seen all those infected outside a few minutes earlier. How many he couldn’t tell, but he knew their numbers had increased since the night before. The green lawn of the funeral home now looked like a soccer field with all of the spectators rushing onto the field, only in slow motion.
He needed a couple of minutes with Alaia, who was back in the kitchen rustling up lunch. Everyone had overslept, pleasantly, and they had skipped breakfast altogether. As he turned around to go to Alaia, he heard a creaking noise, a noise that started slowly, became louder, and increased with a pop or two, like the vinyl siding on the side of his apartment creaked when the sun hit it. He turned back and looked at the door. It bowed inward just a bit, but it would never burst open. In fact, it could never be forced. The door, which was code compliant, opened outwards. The jamb would hold. Phoenix checked the panic bars, convincing himself they were firmly engaged, and he headed to the kitchen.
He walked through the hall to his right, turned left, and headed through the large, eerily-lit chapel. The lighting struck him like a bolt of half-hearted, uninspired lightning. And the pinkish glow of those flat-topped little lamps, two at either end of a closed casket, cast an aura of color reminiscent of Porky Pig’s complexion on old acetate film. People brought death to this room and that was bad enough, he thought. Then he chuckled, remembering rooms in better homes he once thought might have been rooms to die for. But this chapel, lit the way it was with that subdued lighting, frosted with pink, was a room to die from.
For no particular reason, Phoenix walked over to the casket sitting at the front of the chapel. Maybe Ms. New Orleans and her friends, out of respect, had closed it – something they were capable of doing because they all seemed to be decent enough. Or maybe it had occurred to them that the person lying there might wake up and climb out.
The casket, light brown with darker edges and corners, looked like middle-of-the-road quality. It reminded him of the boxes they used for officers killed in the line of duty. Never luxuriant, as a rule, but definitely not low end. And why did it matter anyway?
Phoenix touched the coffin lid, and he thought of a recently-waxed car. He slid his fingers under the coffin lid and tried to raise it, but it didn’t budge. Silently, in his heart, he thanked heaven the lid was locked into place. But, as he turned away to head for the kitchen, he saw a hand crank sitting on the table next to the coffin. He picked it up and inserted it into a hole in the coffin. He turned it one way, and it refused to move. He cranked it the other way, and it turned until it stopped. He set the hand crank down and slowly lifted the lid, stopping just as he felt his finger slip in between the lid and the coffin. He shook his head and allowed the lid to drop back into place, much like someone dropping the lid on a freezer.
Phoenix walked back through the chapel and left through a door at the rear, forgetting that he’d even attempted to open the casket. He turned left and walked along the wide main hall, heading back towards the kitchen
area where he could hear Ms. New Orleans and Alaia laughing.
The sound of scratching and bumping, Psyke-Virused Nashvillians no doubt, came from the right, at the end of another long hall that terminated at another set of double doors. Phoenix didn’t miss a beat when he turned into the hall and checked out the situation. The two doors, both wooden – why anybody would use fine, mahogany doors at the rear of a funeral home he couldn’t guess – seemed to be flexing inward. He checked the panic bars. The doors felt secured, but---
And Phoenix, right then and there, knew the funeral home, far from being a place of refuge, had now become a tomb about to be vandalized by grave robbers – or was it the other way around?
He raced back down the hall and came to the next door on his right, opened it, and flipped on the light switch. The coffin store – that’s what Ms. New Orleans called it – with its many coffins opened up for display, was also accessible from the outside by a door that, unlike the others, opened inward. Phoenix hurried over to it. This door was a residential-grade door, metal over a wooden frame filled with Styrofoam insulation. This door belonged on a house, not on a business. He’d seen officers batter these kinds of doors down with barely a half-swing from their rams. He put his ear to the door. Nothing. Not a sound.
Phoenix left the coffin store and hurried back towards the kitchen. When he got there, his eyes hit the large serving tray, a silver-plated thing, sitting on the table, stacked with sandwiches. The bright white, overhead fluorescents seemed too bright after his little tour through the halls of death, and he looked down for a second. Ms. New Orleans and her friends still had on the same clothes, but the odor he remembered from the day before didn’t carry the same punch – maybe they’d run them through the washing machine in the utility room, something he wish he would’ve done with his own. Now he’d be the one bringing the fumes to the table.
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