The man visibly flinches and then stops the car.
“What are you—” I start to say. Then I see.
On the dark street in front of us—by a row of cheap-looking shops selling hair-care products—ten or so zombies are lumbering toward a very old woman with a cane. The woman is wrapped in several layers against the chill and swinging her cane over her head like a battle axe. She is waiting for the zombies.
Our driver springs from his seat and takes an automatic handgun from his pocket. He strides toward the zombies with no hesitation. “No ma’am” he shouts. “It doesn’t have to end like this!” Maria and I look at each other, wondering if we should follow.
The zombies notice him when he’s about fifteen feet away. They are a motley and mottled crew that has obviously fed once already. Their mouths are red with blood. Some look like iced-over cadavers from the lake. Others bear the marks of rot in the ground—a horrible black matter that clings to their bones where healthy flesh should be.
“Hey zombies, what’s up?” he says brightly. And opens fire.
He’s a good shot. Like Maria (and unlike me), he can hit the zombies right in the forehead most of the time. When about half the zombies are returned to the ground, his gun goes “click, click.” He immediately stops and changes clips. The old woman— who has not yet lowered her cane—looks on in wonder. She has been snatched from the jaws of certain death and doesn’t know how to feel about it.
The second clip is in his gun. He continues to fire. The remaining zombies are confused. Some of them charge the shooter, but he backpedals easily and they never much close on him. A couple of his shots miss their mark—at one point, I see an ear fly off and go twirling through the air like a seed pod on its way to the ground—but most of the time he hits home. In less than two minutes, all of the zombies are dead.again.
“You okay, Mrs. Watson?” he asks when the last zombie is still.
The woman nods.
“Where you headed?” he presses. “It’s not safe to be out” “My place is right here,” she says, indicating a nearby apartment building with her cane. “We’ll wait,” he says.
The three of us watch as she shuffles to her doorway, takes out a jangly ring of keys from her purse, and lets herself inside.
“All right then,” she shouts back, and disappears inside the building. Only then does our driver return to the SUV. Maria looks up at him, and I can see from her expression that all that pick-up artist bullshit about women wanting dominant protectors is not actually bullshit at all, and that I have lost her to him for good. As he starts up the SUV and we continue the drive, I console myself with the fact that I still have the story. Still have my Pulitzer, right? And I’m still not dead from zombies.
As we drive, I try to remember who I am. I start to think like a reporter. I need the who, what, when, where, and why.
Start with the who.
“Nice work out there,” I tell our driver. “Say, I didn’t even get your name yet.”
“Oh,” he says. “Sorry. It’s Shawn Michael. Shawn Michael Recinto.”
Leopold Mack
It’s well past midnight when I run into Kurdy Jakes.
I’m making my way back to The Church of Heaven’s God in Christ Lord Jesus as carefully as I can. I try to stick to the side streets and stay in the shadows. Now and then cars whiz past, but it’s impossible to tell if they’re friend or foe. Certainly, I see no police, fire, or emergency vehicles. I glimpse a couple of possible zombies but leave them in the dust.
At one point, I pass Jackson Park Hospital. They’ve got three armed men stationed outside—two of whom are still wearing their stethoscopes. They look like exhausted medical interns and carry expressions of “I never expected being a doctor to be easy, but Jesus Christ...” If any place has generators, it’s a hospital. Keep out the zombies and criminals, and they should be okay. Even if the power grid fails, they’ll be all right for a while. (The local pharmacies—in stark contrast—appear to have been the first hit by drug-seeking looters. I pass no less than four smashed-in Walgreens and CVS stores. The $9-an-hour security guards have long since abandoned their posts, which is the right decision, if you ask me.)
Anyhow, I run into Jakes at the entrance to Valenwood Cemetery. It’s a smaller burying-ground located between two old brownstones. Real estate speculators who don’t know the neighborhood drive by and stop their cars, thinking there might be a swath of undeveloped land to buy. Then they see the few headstones and monuments—displayed in awkward rows like teeth that need dentistry—and get back into their cars and drive away.
Valenwood is old and not taking many new applicants from what I hear. (These days, to have someone interred there, you pretty much have to have a family plot . . . which is what Kurdy Jakes has.)
Even if you know about it, you tend to forget about Valenwood.
Kurdy is sitting out front. He has brought a folding chair out onto the sidewalk and is seated—a rifle at the ready—facing into the cemetery. He has also brought a thermos of steaming coffee, which rests next to him on the ground.
I did the service whenTeddy Jakes, his son, was shot in a drive-by. It happened about a year ago. Teddy was out with his friends one summer night and didn’t know one of the friends had insulted a gang member. Teddy was standing in the wrong place at the wrong time. Somebody drove by and popped off twelve shots. Wouldn’t you know, they missed their intended target and got Teddy.
“Kurdy,” I shout. “It’s Pastor Mack”
He looks in my direction. I expect the expression on Kurdy’s face to be somewhere between grim determination and outright horror—he is, after all, watching over the same burying ground where his own son’s interred. Instead, he looks bemused, even slaphappy. (Maybe it’s Irish coffee inside that Thermos.)
“Yo pastor!” he calls back warmly. His smile is broad and gentle.
I saunter over.
Kurdy relaxes in his chair, but doesn’t rise. He looks at ease and convivial, as if I have spotted him fishing in Lake Michigan and not gunning for the undead in a zombie outbreak. He doesn’t feel dangerous . . . but I still wish I had my shotgun.
“So.” I begin awkwardly.
What do you say to a man who is waiting to kill the zombie of his own dead son?
“Beat all, don’t it Pastor?”
“You got that right” I tell him. “I never expected the dead to rise. And they’re not just ‘the dead,’ are they? They’re our own family members over whom we still grieve.”
Kurdy looks left and right, as if I am missing the point.
“Yeah Pastor...” he begins cautiously. “These zombies certainly do pose a curiosity. But I was thinkin’ more along the lines of ol’ Mystian Morph over there.”
“Mystian Morph?” I say. “What’s he got to do with.”
Kurdy indicates the cemetery with a poke of his rifle.
I look into the field of headstones. There are three or four dead zombies splayed here and there, but what catches my attention is a man wielding a meat cleaver and l eaning against a very large monument. He is wearing a suit, and his arms are folded.
“Jesus help us,” I say when I realize what I’m seeing.
Mystian Morph is a local businessman and politician, proud of himself for holding a variety of positions in banking and state government. Most people hadn’t heard of him until he got appointed by the old governor to fill a U.S. Senate seat. Among other things, Morph was famous for spending a small fortune on a fancy mausoleum for himself. (A mausoleum—I now remember—located here inValenwood.) On the wall of the mausoleum is inscribed a list of Morph’s accomplishments, and above them the legend “TRAIL BLAZER.” Which, of course, should be one word, not two.
Most importantly, unlike the zombies stalking through the cemetery grounds, Mystian Morph is very much alive.
“I came here first to watch for my son” says Kurdy quietly. “He come up—just as I thought he might—and I put him back down. I wanted to be the one to do it, y�
��see? When he come out the ground, I looked him hard in the eyes. That wasn’t him anymore. That was some other thing.”
“Amen,” I say with a nod, putting my hand on Kurdy’s shoulder. “You did what had to be done.”
“But no sooner do I finish,” Kurdy continues with a laugh, “than ol’ Mystian Morph shows up with his little cleaver and sets down next to his gravestone.”
“What’s he getting at?” I wonder softly. Morph is well within earshot.
“Hey Mr. Morph!” Kurdy calls out, cupping a hand to his mouth. “What you getting at over there?”
Morph appears not to have heard. I look at Kurdy, who gives me an expression that says”Just wait.”
Then we hear him.
“I’m protecting what’s mine!” Morph nearly screams. “This is my legacy! My legacy! I’m not going to let any damn zombie upset what I’ve worked for.”
Really?—I think to myself. He’s out here like this so that zombies don’t overturn his misspelled headstone and its list of middling accomplishments?
“Ain’t like he Martin Luther King,” Kurdy quietly offers from the side of his mouth, evidently thinking along the same lines that I am.
“Yeah,” I reply with a chuckle. “Seems like Martin Luther King was Martin Luther King. Mystian Morph feels more like a yes-man and corrupt Illinois politician who accidentally lucked his way up the ladder . . . and then spent all his money to buy a giant gravestone.”
Kurdy laughs in agreement.
“Pastor, I think you hit the nail on the head.”
Yet, there he stands. Insane. Implacable. Determined to protect his “trail blazing” for future generations to see. Illinois’s own Ozymandias.
“I can’t just let him die,” Jakes declares. “You see a person this crazy...this pitiful and insane...you got to help them. It’s the Christian thing to do.”
Again Jakes reads my thoughts. My shameful thoughts. Namely, that a zombie apocalypse would be a good time to let a man like Mystian Morph get what he deserved. That letting him die might be the first step to setting things right again. (Bad pastor. Bad pastor. Bad pastor.)
“Doesn’t Mystian have a wife?” I ask, remembering this important fact.
“Heh,” says Kurdy. “He sure do. Who you think brought me this coffee? It’s good, too. You want a sip?” I politely decline.
“He ain’t doin’ shit with that meat-cutter,” Kurdy continues. “I shot three zombies so far rose up and come after him. So far. I sure wish he’d leave. But just you watch . . . he’ll stay, and soon there’ll be another.”
Kurdy cups his hands to his mouth again.
“You need to get yourself on out of there, Mr. Morph! You need to go home to your wife.”
Morph mumbles back something under his breath. The only word I catch is “legacy.”
“You’re a good man” I tell Kurdy. “Here I was worried about you having to see your son again. and you’re trying to save the life of somebody that . . . well . . . most folks wouldn’t put first on their list at a time like this.”
Kurdy shakes his head and looks at the ground.
“Losing a son is hard,” he says softly. “After that, a bunch of damn zombies ain’t nothing.”
Maria Ramirez
Okay, so do I need to tell you that sometimes a girl likes the wrong kind of man? Because sometimes a girl likes the wrong kind of man.
And people try to make it like we don’t know. Like the guy has been all.deceptive. Like we’re all innocent, and we’ve been tricked into following a man who is no damn good for us. But please, we know he is no damn good for us. We just want him anyway.
That was the kind of vibe I got from Shawn Michael.
I could tell a mile away that something was up with this dude. My creeper-senses were tingling, sure. But other parts of me were tingling too. That was the problem. And the way he jumped out of the car and shot up those zombies like out of an action movie? Hot damn.
Let’s just say a girl wants what a girl wants.
By the time the SUV pulls up to the front ofthe HaroldWashington Cultural Center, I am already undressing Shawn Michael with my eyes. (His body is unreal. Like a sculpture from olden-times or something.) But I’m still getting, you know, the creep-factor. The way he shot those zombies tells me he done things with a gun before. Probably, the best-case scenario is former military. As for the worst-case.well.I’m not excited to think about it.
The Cultural Center—like Mack’s church—has apparently become a rallying place. It’s a large, modern building with an indoor theatre that has twice as many seats as The Church of Heaven’s God in Christ Lord Jesus. Also, there just isn’t much else in the surrounding neighborhood. If you were looking for a gathering place, you’d probably go here.
This part of Bronzeville is desolate and bare—and just plain boring, if you don’t find the possibility of being mugged “i nteresting,” which I don’t. A few years ago, the city tried to clean up and fix this neighborhood. They started with an official decree designating it a “Blues District” because it had had blues bars in it fifty years before. It was in all the papers. They put up fancy streetlights with silhouettes of blues musicians on them and built this giant cultural center. It was supposed to convince people from other parts of the city to come down and spend money and turn a swath of payday loan stores and fried fish shacks into respectable businesses. Maybe actual blues clubs. It didn’t work.
The neighborhood stayed lousy and barren. No tourists came. One blues club opened, but it burned down under suspicious circumstances. An ex-alderman was brought in to run the Cultural Center. She gave her kids jobs there and mismanaged it to near-death before they finally wrested it away from her. These days, it’s only open a few days a week. Mostly, it hosts community events, traveling shows, and second-rate standup comedians.
Tonight though, Chris Rock might as well be headlining.
Cars are parked up and down the block, and the Cultural Center is lit up in all its glory. People stand all around the building—some armed, some not. There are even a couple of uniformed police, praise Jesus. In a few places, dead zombies have been piled together—not giant stacks or anything, but groups of two or three. Around the periphery of this outpost of civilization, men with drawn weapons patrol at the edges of the darkness.
For the first time since seeing that Slayer-shirt zombie in the parking garage, I start to calm down. I start to feel like somehow things are going to work out. I’m with a big strong man who has taken me to a place that almost looks like civilization, a place with people who know where my father and mother and sister are. It’s not perfect, but I’m well aware that it’s more than I should hope for in a zombie outbreak. More than a lot of people will get tonight.
This feeling washes over me. Thankful. That’s it. I’m feeling really, really thankful.
Shawn Michael tries to find a parking spot that doesn’t block somebody in. (He’s so considerate.) Ben sits quietly, looking around. Actually, he looks unhappy. He has this expression on his face like he’s just smelled something bad. I think he can sense that he’s just been outmanned. That a real, take-charge dude is now present.
Shawn Michael pulls to a halt in the parking lot of a restaurant across the street from the Cultural Center.
“I’m gonna go let them know I’ve found you,” Shawn Michael says. Then, like an afterthought, he adds, “I’ll check to see if they’ve gotten in touch with your father yet. I mean, maybe he’s there already. If he’s not, I’ll see that they drive you to his location.”
SLAM goes the door. Shawn Michael runs toward the brightly lit Cultural Center, waving at the men with guns. They recognize him and wave back, mostly in a way that seems deferent.
A protector. A leader. The guy they look to to handle shit in a crisis.
Yes you are, Mr. Shawn Michael. Yes indeed you are. Oh my God, can you please just fuck me right now? Then out of nowhere, Ben says, “We have to get out of here. We have to leave before he gets back!” Fuck
ing spoilsport. “What are you talking about?”
Ben’s face is a mask of terror. For some reason, it makes me think of a little kid being taken in to get his first shot. Like everything, everywhere in the doctor’s office could hurt him. It’s that pure, paranoid terror you don’t often see in adults. Especially not in grown-ass men.
“We need to go,” he insists, opening his door. “C’mon.”
“No! What’s wrong with you? They know where my dad is. He might even be inside.”
“These are the same men from the cemetery where they were burning the bodies,” Ben says, whispering now that the car door is open.
“What.. .all these people?” I ask.
“No, but some of the ones standing outside with the guns definitely are,” Ben replies. “You weren’t looking into the graveyard, okay? You didn’t see them. I did—and I’m telling you, these are some of the same guys who were trying to kill us.”
“Ben, they know where my dad is,” I insist. “My mother and sister are with my dad. They’re all I care about right now. See how it works?”
“Maria, this feels really bad to me,” Ben says, making one final pitch. (He’s appealing to my feelings. Trying to get me to make a “heart” decision and not a “head” one. [What he doesn’t know is that there’s another part of my body making a pretty strong case that I should stay around and try to get some time alone with Shawn Michael.])
“Well it feels the opposite to me,” I tell him. “All these people are here. There’s cops, even. It feels totally safe. The men with guns are just keeping the zombies away, which frankly I’m sick of doing myself.”
Ben pauses and looks at me for a moment. Looks me up and down. But it’s not creepy. It’s kind of sad. I realize he is saying goodbye.
He exits the SUV, closes the door without a word, and races madly into the night.
Ben Bennington
Gah!
Out of the frying pan and into to the fire. Is that the expression? That certainly feels right. My God! My fucking God!
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