D

by George Right

  "Tell me please," Tony decided to use the situation, "What is this place? Looks like I've lost my way. Is it Manhattan?"

  "It's Downtown," hoarsely reached from darkness. Logan had a quick thought that the ice cream man is, seemingly, chilled–possibly, from recently eating too much of his own goods.

  "Downtown of Manhattan? " specified Logan. Brooklyn has its own downtown, which, however, is not a bit like what Tony has already seen this night...

  "Downtown of New York," the ice cream man obstinately answered; a low buzz similar to the sound of a working microwave reached Logan's ears. Tony decided not to engage in geographical disputes and asked a more practical question.

  "How I can get from here to Brooklyn?"

  "You can't get anywhere from here except in the morning."

  "And what time is it now?"

  "Midnight."

  Have they all agreed together on the time or what? Tony angrily thought, but aloud he only politely said:

  "I'm afraid your clock is slow."

  "I don't have a clock," the ice cream man objected and rustled with something. "Your hot dog, mister."

  Though Tony was not a prudish adherent of formalities, this vulgar "mister" without a surname began to irritate him. They haven't spoken this way in God knows how many years, he thought. Wasn't he taught to say "sir" when addressing a customer?

  From the dark window (why doesn't he turn on the light?) a plastic bag emerged. Tony, reaching in his pocket for his wallet, remembered his newly gained wisdom of thinking about the literal meaning of words. What if he indeed was going to be fed a piece of dog? Although Koreans and Chinese eat dogs, they also eat insects...

  With some caution he took the parcel. No, inside was apparently quite an ordinary hot dog, warm to the touch and generously covered with ketchup splotching the package from within. Tony, holding his purchase in the left hand, began to roll back the bag neck with the right one–carefully in order not to touch his meal with dirty fingers. Feeling how hungry he indeed was, he brought the hot dog to his open mouth and...

  A moldy smell stopped him. And just in time to understand that the dark red was not ketchup at all. Now Logan saw that the "sausage" sticking out between two halves of a roll was crowned with a dirty chewed nail.

  Tony reflexively flung away the "hot dog," struggling with an emetic spasm which had rolled up his throat. The chubby cut-off finger fell to asphalt separately from the moldy bread. Logan backed away from the truck, but a hand shot the window with surprising quickness and seized his wrist.

  "Hey, mister!" The voice was still hoarse and low, but all melancholic grief had disappeared from it at once–now it was a spiteful hissing. "Who's gonna pay?!"

  But neither the intonation of this voice, nor that he had almost become a cannibal, made Tony stare in mute horror at the hand holding his wrist. The wooden-rigid fingers of the ice cream man were not simply cold–they were literally ice cold. And his hand–it was clearly visible even in the dark–was absolutely white. Not just pale, but white.

  Because it was all covered with hoarfrost.

  Tony, acting reflexively, not rationally, pulled his hand at first upwards, and then sharply and with all his force–downwards, striking his opponent's wrist against the window edge. Subconsciously he expected that it would weaken the ice cream man's grasp, but the effect surpassed expectations. The crunch of breaking bone sounded–and, obviously, not only bone–and then the frosty hand simply severed, still hanging on Logan's wrist like an ice handcuff. There was not any blood, and could not be–only dark frozen shards scattered every which way.

  Tony raced down the street in sheer terror. Raced like a cat with a burning rag tied to its tail by gooder children–only the role of a rag was played by the hand of the frozen corpse dangling on his wrist. There could be no doubt that this hand had been dead before separating from a body, and no rational hypotheses helped any more. Tony shook his arm while running, trying to get rid of the dreadful "bracelet," but the dead fingers held firm. As if they had been frozen in this position, as if he had not seen and felt how they moved, and rather quickly...

  Was the truck pursuing him? Tony ran without looking back, but, anyway, behind him there was neither light of headlights, nor a familiar melody. Possibly, that... that thing could not drive the truck with one hand. Nevertheless, Logan turned at the first opportunity, and having reached the following corner, turned again, already almost convincing himself that he once more had safely escaped the chase.

  But, hardly had he left behind the third crossroads, when his shadow forward in the light of headlights approaching from behind him.

  "The ice cream truck," Tony helplessly thought. "Or the postman with a hatchet. Or the bus. Something or someone has caught up with me..."

  He was absolutely exhausted and had no more energy to run. And how could he escape from a vehicle? The last few times it had been possible to escape because he had found somewhere to dive. But now ahead was only a straight street with closed rows of houses on both sides...

  Tony stopped and turned towards what was overtaking him from behind.

  "My God," he exhaled in the next moment, "At last!"

  A police car was slowly approaching him.

  Logan had no idea what the officers could do about a dead cannibal driving on the streets and how to explain events to the them without being considered a complete loony, but it was not the most important thing. The main thing–for him personally–was that the nightmare would end now. Let those who are obliged by their duty deal with all the problems. He was ready to rush towards the police with open arms, but understood that it was not a good idea. How would a cop react, seeing in the middle of a night street a suspicious person in dirty clothes with a torn off hand on his wrist? It was better to remain on place and to behave as calmly as possible. Otherwise he could get a bullet from his saviors.

  Meanwhile, however, the patrolmen did not seem concerned. The car came nearer without a siren or flashers and without any commands through a loudspeaker. Though, probably, they still simply have not made out the details. Tony stood motionless, stretching his face in the most friendly smile–which, in fact, did not require any special efforts from him.

  "And maybe I am indeed a loony," Tony thought, continuing to smile happily. "And they'll take me away, give me a nice little injection, and the next morning, I'll wake up in a warm cozy mental hospital in the normal world."

  The car slowly approached closer. Tony saw that there was only one cop inside, and he was white. Logan never considered himself a racist, but at this moment he was pleased that in a dodgy situation he would be talking with a person of his own race. Then the car drew up next to him. Tony saw on its doors the familiar abbreviations NYPD and CPR. And... the car passed Tony at the same leisurely speed.

  Tony could not trust his eyes. Didn't the cop see what was dangling from his wrist?! This, after all, was not Halloween night! Or simply had the cop not made it out in the darkness?

  "Hey!" Logan shouted, swinging his hands and running after the car. "Officer! Wait!"

  The car stopped. Tony heard the door lock click, but the policeman did not exit the car. Logan, out of breath, ran up to the front door.

  "Officer... thank God! I understand how what I am going to tell you will sound, but..."

  Words got stuck in his throat.

  For he saw that the letters "CPR" written on the door represented something different than what he was used to. Not "Courtesy - Professionalism - Respect."

  But "Cruelty - Profanity - Rampage."

  The door swung open and the policeman stepped out onto the sidewalk.

  When somebody shoots his own temple, he is actually exposed to a significant danger. The danger is that he will survive. And more often than not, the survivor will suffer consequences that disrupt very different brain activities (not to mention purely cosmetic effects, of little matter to a corpse, but not palatable for a survivor). Professionals dealing with gunshot wounds–including, certainly,
policemen–know this very well. Therefore, when they decide to end it all with the help of a bullet, they select a more reliable way. Shooting not to the temple, but to the mouth, while directing the barrel upwards and slightly back, to the soft palate. This way, the brains are knocked out in the most literal sense that gives an absolute guarantee of resting in peace.

  Or not so absolute.

  Anyway, the condition of policeman who got out of the car refuted this guarantee.

  The top of his head was gone. The upper part of his skull had been blown away entirely, having left on its place a grinning hole, with everted edges of sharp bone shards to which shreds of hair were stuck. Lower down, whitish lumps of brain, similar to dead slugs, and black gore clots were caught in his remaining hair. The right eye had fallen somewhere inside the skull, leaving a dark pit in its place; the left eye had slid down the cheek and hung on it as a round drop spotted with bloody streaks, still held by a string of nerves stretched from the eye socket. From his nose something hung down like dense bloody snot–probably, also brain remnants. The upper jaw was broken up, and to the right, cracked teeth on bared gums stuck out from under a crooked upper lip. The lower jaw was intact, but powerlessly drooped and slightly rocked when the cop was moving. The chin was wholly covered in blood with small lumps stiffened in it.

  But the uniform and the badge were in perfect order. At least, as much as it was possible to judge in the dark.

  And the handle of a pistol–most likely the very same–stuck out from an unbuttoned holster.

  "E-everything is all right, officer," Tony squeezed out of himself, moving back. But it was too late–the incarnate horror in an uniform stepped towards him. It moved quickly enough, contrary to zombies in movies.

  And then the corpse started talking. It was not very good at it because of the condition of its jaws, so it had to help itself, propping up the lower lip with its left hand. Judging by how dexterously it managed to simulate an articulation, it already had had enough time to adapt to this manner of speech.

  "You have the right to scream," it said, putting its right hand on the holster. "And it can and will be used against you."

  Having heard this version of the Miranda warning, Tony took one more step back. And at the very same time something cold and wet–he felt it even through his trouser leg–touched his leg from behind.

  Tony shouted and jumped aside more than two yards; he had not known before that he was capable of such standing side jumps. But the landing was not so successful–under his foot was some slippery rubbish which caused Logan to fall to hands and one knee and tear his palms against the asphalt. In the next instant he understood that, stepping back, had simply bumped into a leaking fire hydrant. But he understood also something more important: the dead cop twisted his head around awkwardly, seemingly having lost his prey.

  "His eye!" Despite the nightmarish situation, Logan's common sense nevertheless got into gear. "It isn't connected anymore to the eye muscles, therefore, it can look only in one direction. And, to look around, it has to turn its head... or to turn its eye with its fingers..."

  However the policeman, it seemed, had not figured out the last method of seeing and did not notice Tony on the ground. But Logan understood that this would grant him only a short respite. There was no place to hide on this street, so sooner or later this... this thing will manage to see him. And the farther Tony runs, the more likely he is to be seen. He did not know, of course, how accurately the cop in his present condition could shoot... but he had no desire to test it.

  Therefore Tony, with a heroic effort, overcame his instinctive desire to get as far as possible from the cadaver. He rushed on all fours directly at it.

  Several hours before, even in a ghastly dream, the idea of attacking a policeman would not have come to Logan's mind. But then even in a ghastly dream he could not imagine such a policeman... And no act in all his previous life had demanded even a tenth of such boldness–and not at all because it was necessary to overcome a taboo of a law-abiding citizen...

  Tony had flung himself at the cop's boots (they were covered either with dirt or blood), still remaining out of its sight. And then he jumped sharply up right before its face, seized its terrible eye, and pulled with all his might, simultaneously clenching his fist. The sphere of cold slime burst in his hand, like a huge rotten grape.

  Logan immediately jumped back, at the same moment fastidiously shaking the lumps of the squashed eye from his palm. The cop's fingers fumbled at Tony's shirt and scratched his shoulder, but could not hold him. Tony ran down the street towards the nearest crossroads, zigzagging from side to side since he wasn't sure that he wouldn't be targeted by sound. But, apparently the blinded cop tried to get back into the car–probably to call for reinforcements–bumped into the half-open door (Logan heard it slam), and then, unable to find the handle, began to punch the glass.

  Tony turned at the crossroads and realized that he had already been here, but this time he ran in a new direction.

  However, he quickly regretted his choice.

  Ahead, blocking the left sidewalk and half of the narrow street, a garbage truck stood. Stood with extinguished lights, without any signs of life. Very recently, of course, such a sight would not have frightened Logan at all and would hardly have drawn his attention. Well, he would have been surprised that the driver had left the truck turned slantwise across the street, abutting its nose against the building at the left and causing an obstruction for both traffic and pedestrians. Though, here and now, there were neither pedestrians nor traffic...

  Now Logan trusted no municipal motor vehicles anymore.

  However the danger behind him was more real, and there was no way to turn anyway, so Tony continued to run forward. During the next few seconds, he understood that the garbage truck had been abandoned long ago. Its body, once white, was eaten with rust, its cab gaped with the blackness of broken windows, and tires hung on rims like the rotten flesh on bones of a corpse. More surprising was that nobody had moved this wreck out of the way... however, this did not surprise Logan now. And then he saw that, before turning into garbage itself, the truck had spilled its contents out onto the road. Black plastic bags lay behind it on the street and on the right sidewalk. One bag still hung down behind from the truck. The appeal not to litter on a door–one of the few places on the truck body where the paint had escaped the effects of corrosion–looked in this surrounding especially incongruous.

  And having run yet some yards more, Tony understood that these were not the usual garbage bags.

  They were twice as long as normal and each was bound by rough ropes from outside. And the outlines of the things inside resembled human bodies.

  Logan stopped so sharply that he almost fell. And at the same moment he heard the sound of a police siren behind.

  In despair he rushed forward again. The only possible path was through the black bags. Logan hoped that he could jump over them, but in one place they lay too densely, and he had to step his unshod right foot on one of them. Under his foot something soft squelched and the bag made an unpleasant sound, similar to an exhalation of a choking asthmatic. Two more jumps–and Tony darted to the left, trying to hide from a probable pursuit from behind the garbage truck.

  And understood that he tried in vain.

  Ahead, the street came to a dead end at the brick wall of some huge uninhabited structure–either warehouse or factory. On both sides of the street there were only closed doors of offices and shops. There was no place to run anymore.

  But that was not what filled Tony with the greatest horror. He was struck dumb looking not at the wall blocking his way, but above and behind it.

  The fog was vanishing, its muslin thinned and torn like a decaying shroud. And, appearing from gloom, over a wall, over jagged silhouettes of roofs behind it, over all Downtown there rose two giant pillars of Twin Towers, their windows glowing in dim, unsteady crimson light.

  The sound of the siren again howling behind Tony jarred him out of hi
s stupor. His eyes feverishly swept around. Under the truck? No time to hide in its bed... maybe in the cab–but he wouldn't be well concealed there... But, having darted a glance towards the cab, Logan saw that the truck nose not simply abutted its right corner against a wall, but had pushed through the glass storefront of some shop. And to the right, behind the glass, motionless figures stood and stared straight at Logan.

  But Tony wasn't frightened, since he understood at once that they were mannequins. The idea of standing among them was born instantly. During his university days, he and a fellow student once had had a lot of fun in Madame Tussaud's New York museum. In a dimly lit room representing a party, where wax figures were not lined up along walls, but settled down in easy poses around the room near visitors, the young men had posed motionlessly. When some visitors began to photograph them, the students suddenly moved and enjoyed the reaction. Probably, this trick would work now, too–the creatures pursuing Tony wouldn't guess that he stood right before their very eyes. His clothes were not in the proper condition to look like those on a mannequin, but inside the shop it was much darker than in the museum. But the shop door, naturally, was closed. Would it be possible to squeeze through the broken glass storefront, between the garbage truck cab and the rapaciously grinning splinters of glass?

  But there was no time to reflect further. He did not hear the siren any more, but the shimmer of police car lights already lit up the street, shining feebly from under the truck. Tony darted to the store's front window and had time to notice that the broken glass had a thick layer of dust. However, it was no wonder, considering the aged condition of the truck... And only thanks to this dust was Tony able to discern in the dark the sharp glass tooth ready to rip his throat. A wider splinter lower down was ready to stick into his belly, leaving no chance of climbing in through the narrow gap without damaging his intestines.