The Dead Won't Die

by Joe McKinney

  Brooks said something, but his voice had dropped a note, and Jacob couldn’t hear what was said.

  “But she’s outside, Dr. Brooks. She always comes in the afternoon.”

  Again Brooks said something Jacob couldn’t hear.

  “Okay,” Megan said. “Yes, sir. I’ll tell her.”

  CHAPTER 2

  The setting sun streamed in through the windows, filling Jacob’s room with shafts of light. Fifteen stories below him, and out beyond the beach, the waters of the Gulf of Mexico were a dancing red and golden sheet of molten brass. He looked for the beautiful clipper ships, with their enormous solar sails, he had seen cruising the waters earlier that morning, but the ocean was empty. Only the seagulls wheeled in the fading light.

  Frustrated, he turned away.

  The bed was there, but he didn’t feel like resting. He’d been resting for weeks, and he was going stir-crazy. This damn place, beautiful as it was, had become a sort of holding cell for him. Everybody was so nice. They smiled and they chatted pleasantries with him, but he knew what they were really thinking. They were treating him like a slow child, like someone they had to coddle just so he could make it through his day.

  And, in fact, it had taken a child, a young girl of about nine, to help him work the elevator the first time he’d braved a trip outside his room. Megan, his nurse, had noticed he was gone and quickly located him. She’d shepherded him back to his room with an outward smile, but Jacob picked up on her anxiety just the same. It was then that he began to feel less like a patient, and more like a prisoner.

  He went to the sink and poured himself a glass of water from the tap.

  Which was another thing he was still getting used to.

  Tap water.

  He held the glass up and shook his head in admiration. Just turn a handle and you got clean, drinkable water. So much these people could share. So much.

  And, almost in answer to his thoughts, there was a knock at the door.

  “Who is it?”

  “Jacob, it’s Dr. Brooks. Can we talk please?”

  Jacob set the glass down next to the sink. Brooks, huh? He’d been asking and asking for the man for days, and getting nowhere, and then out of the blue—

  Jacob went to the door and opened it. He left it open without saying a word to Brooks as he walked back to the window.

  “You’re feeling better, I see. No more limping. How are the ribs?”

  Jacob turned away from the window and faced the older man. Darkness had set in over the water anyway, and the beauty of the ocean at dusk had become just a void of empty space. There weren’t even any stars.

  Brooks was dressed in a light gray suit with a white, stiff-collared shirt that hugged the base of his neck like a clerical collar. His close-cropped hair was a smoky gray, almost white, and as he smiled, that winning grin of his deepened the wrinkles at the corners of his mouth.

  “I’m fine,” Jacob said, and turned toward the window. “Been fine for a couple of days.”

  “I know you’ve been asking to see me, and I’m sorry to keep you waiting as I have. Press of business, unfortunately. And, also, I had to wait on the official release from your attending physician before I could come to see you. They wanted you good and rested, I guess, before I started in on you with off icial business.” Brooks favored him with his kind, grandfatherly smile. Then he cleared his throat. “I was hoping we could go over your statement for tomorrow’s hearing. Do you feel up for that, Jacob? I think it’d be a big help.”

  “Where are Kelly Banis and Chelsea Walker?” he asked. “Why can’t I see them?”

  “Jacob, we don’t need to worry about that right now. Our big concern is the hearing. A lot is riding on this. The future relationship of both our communities, in fact. So, please, let’s get you prepared. Now, as I understand it, you were a sort of police officer in your community. Is that right?”

  “I was the chief deputy of the constabulary, yes.”

  Brooks nodded. “Yes, that’s right. Would you prefer if, during the hearing, I addressed you as Chief Deputy Carlton?”

  “I go by Jacob.”

  “Fair enough. Well, Jacob, the Executive Council will no doubt start with that as we try to get an understanding of your people and your values. And, just to give you fair warning, you should probably expect some rather direct questions on that from certain members of the council. We don’t have police officers here in Temple. We never have. Our community broke away from a brutal police state during the initial outbreak back in the 2090s. I know you’re too young to remember that time, but it was awful. Our community was, and still is, a peaceful one. Research has always been one of our core values, and the authorities back then forced us to direct that research into finding a cure and finding ways to kill the zombies. We were doctors and chemists and physicists and biologists, and yet we found ourselves forced to create weapons of devastating violence. I’m sorry. I get emotional about it, just thinking of those days. I don’t mean to philosophize, but it was a rough and difficult time. It cost us dearly to break away from that control, and when we finally did, and we came here, we promised ourselves that never again would we be yoked to the burden of police authority. You should know that many on the council still harbor strong emotions on the subject. I want you to prepare yourself for that. That will, almost certainly, be the main point of contention in bringing our people together.”

  “Why won’t you tell me where Kelly Banis and Chelsea Walker are?”

  Brooks let out a long sigh. “Jacob, nobody is trying to keep anything from you. They are safe. They’ll be speaking at the hearing tomorrow, in fact. I think Chelsea is scheduled to go before you, and Kelly Banis immediately after you. Once her testimony is complete, you will all be reunited. You’ll be given free range of Temple. You can go to the beach if you want. You can even ride on one of those clipper ships I hear you like watching so much. Our doors will be open to you.”

  Jacob’s eyes narrowed. “As soon as the hearing’s done?”

  “As soon as the hearing’s done, yes.”

  “And until then, I’m to stay sequestered like a prisoner.”

  “You’re not a prisoner, Jacob.”

  “Really? Is that a fact? I can’t leave my room without causing an alarm. I’m not allowed to see my friends. I’m told I have some mysterious hearing to go to and I’m not even told the charges against me. And now you’re telling me that your Executive Council will be prejudiced against me simply because I’m a cop. Sure sounds like I’m a prisoner.”

  Brooks took a deep breath. He crossed the floor to where Jacob stood and put a hand on his shoulder.

  “You’re not a prisoner,” he said. “And you have friends here, Jacob. I need you to understand that. I want our people to come together.”

  “Yeah, is that a fact?”

  “It is, Jacob. You told me, not ten days ago, that lives could have been saved if only our two communities had come together sooner. I couldn’t have said it better myself. We are in this together. When you die, you will become a zombie. Somebody will have to put you down. When I die, same thing. The same poison runs in both our veins. We are truly in this together.”

  With that, Dr. Brooks turned and went to the door. He waited for Jacob to speak, but when he didn’t, he opened the door and stepped out.

  Before he closed it he said, “You will remember that, won’t you, Jacob? I’m on your side.”

  “Yeah,” Jacob said, turning back to the window. “Yeah, I got it.”

  CHAPTER 3

  “What is it you people don’t understand?” Jacob said. “Haven’t we been through this already? Why do you keep asking me the same thing over and over?”

  He was sitting at one end of a long, oval conference table, surrounded by old men who wore expensive-looking gray suits and dour expressions. This was the Executive Council of the Community of Temple, nearly every one of them a senior scientist in his field.

  Introductions alone had taken forty-five minutes. />
  The hearing started out with all the dignity and fanfare of some sort of state function. Jacob sat through the introductions and the pleasantries, ever mindful of what Lester Brooks, who sat three seats down from him on the right, had said about this meeting deciding the terms of friendship between their two communities.

  Jacob had gone into the meeting with high hopes.

  In the few jaunts he’d taken outside the hospital, he’d seen solar-powered clipper ships out on the ocean and airships bigger than skyscrapers gliding across the sky and electric cars and dozens more wonders he didn’t even have words for yet. This community’s medical knowledge alone could save dozens of lives every year back in Arbella. Jacob himself had been brought back from the brink of death twice now by their medical knowledge.

  But, of course, he was young and strong.

  Back home, there was an entire generation of aging heroes of the First Days, of which his mother was a member. They looked on a broken hip as a death sentence. To them, flu season was a killing field. In recent years, his mother’s main social function had been to attend the funerals of people she’d learned to call brothers and sisters. The idea of bringing Temple’s medical knowledge back to Arbella, and using it to restore the lives of his community’s aging heroes and the dozens of people who died from curable diseases and minor injuries every year, was absolutely critical, he realized.

  And so he’d settled into the high-backed leather chair they’d offered him and readied himself for their questions.

  That had been four hours ago.

  Now, he was exhausted. Mad; irritable; so frustrated he wanted to knock the hat off a random stranger’s head; but above all, exhausted.

  Jacob looked around the table, hoping to find at least one encouraging face, but found none. Not even Lester Brooks, who had pointedly refused to meet his gaze even once during the hearing.

  “I think you need to look at this in a more pragmatic sense,” said a man on Jacob’s left. His name was Steve Welch, a thin, tall man with a crane-like neck who spoke like a man accustomed to spending most of his life in front of classroom. He’d been steering the questioning for the last forty-five minutes. “Please. See this our way. Now, you freely admit to shooting a man. A Mr. Nicolas Carroll, I believe you said.”

  “Nick, yes,” Jacob said.

  The older councilman nodded. “You and Ms. Chelsea Walker tell similar stories, up to a point, Mr. Carlton. Apparently this Mr. Carroll was involved in some petty theft back in your community of New Madrid, and you, acting as the town’s first deputy, murdered him for it. That’s it in a nutshell, as I understand your testimony?”

  “I did not murder him,” Jacob said, his voice rising. He had to stop himself, take a mental step back. He took a deep breath, and went on. “I told you. He invaded the homes of at least four young girls and drew pictures of them while they were sleeping. He also took mementos of each break-in. That’s called burglary, Mr. Welch. Burglary is very different from petty theft.”

  Welch reached forward and tapped the surface of his computer tablet. He read the message that popped up there, nodded in agreement, and tapped the tablet again, shutting it down. Then he sat back in his chair, steepled his fingers, and directed his attention once again on Jacob.

  “Continue, please, Mr. Carlton.”

  Jacob’s mouth fell open. He looked from Welch to the others, all of whom sat staring at him, still as vultures studying a dying animal. “Continue with what?” he said. “We’ve been over this already.”

  “You’ve admitted to murdering a man, Mr. Carlton. I want to know why.”

  “I didn’t murder—” Jacob bit off the words before he could finish the sentence. It wouldn’t do any good anyway. They weren’t listening. “Look,” he said, after another deep breath, “I’ve told you. Nick Carroll violated one of Arbella’s most fundamental laws. He stole from another person. I don’t know how you people look on theft, but we see it as one of the worst things a person can do to another person. And even if that wasn’t enough for you, Nick stood back and did nothing while another man was put on trial for the crime. He just stood by while that man was executed for a crime he did not commit.”

  “Yes,” said Welch. “Now, as I understand it, you murdered that man, too.”

  “I didn’t murder him!” Jacob said. “Good God, what is wrong with you people? I told you. Jerry Greider was executed according to our laws.”

  “For a crime he didn’t commit?”

  Jacob started to respond, but the words failed him. He sank back into his chair and stared around the room. Dr. Brooks still wouldn’t meet his gaze. The rest of them were grim, expressionless. They seemed to look on him like he was a member of a different species, like he was something nasty they were going to have to scrape off their shoes.

  How could he make them understand?

  Indeed, how could he make himself understand? That was the real question. He’d killed an innocent man. He’d carried out the order of execution, handed down from the elders of Arbella, based largely on evidence he himself had gathered. He’d been sick to his stomach before and after the execution, but he’d never questioned the rightness of it.

  Until now.

  Now he couldn’t stop thinking of how Jerry Greider must have suffered. Not just at the moment when the bullet punched its way through his skull and into his brain, but during the trial, listening to evidence that spoke so soundly and confidently of his guilt, knowing all the while that the evidence was meant to damn some other man.

  And that man, Jacob had discovered later—too late—was Nick Carroll, his best friend since childhood. Jacob had presented the evidence in the kitchen of a ruined suburban house in North Little Rock. Kelly heard the evidence, and turned to Nick, begging him to deny it.

  Nick hadn’t.

  He couldn’t.

  Jacob and Kelly had exchanged looks, and in that moment they both knew their duty according to the Arbella Code. She’d given him a nod, a death sentence, and Jacob had raised his weapon to Nick’s forehead and pulled the trigger.

  But the funny thing—and not funny as in ha-ha, but funny as in so fucking tragic it was tearing his soul to pieces—was that Jacob felt absolutely no guilt at all about executing Jerry Greider, an innocent man, and absolute horror at the knowledge that he’d killed a guilty man.

  How could he make these men, these vultures, understand that?

  Indeed, how could he make himself understand that?

  There were so many hard questions. It made his head spin.

  “I still don’t understand this code of yours,” Welch said. “Perhaps you could elucidate that for us.”

  Jacob sat up straight in his chair. Nobody had bothered to ask him about the Arbella Code. Maybe they were finally about to make some headway. “It’s the body of laws that govern the way we conduct our lives,” he said. “There are ten guiding principles. The first five define an individual’s relationship to the community, and the second five define an individual’s relationship to his fellow citizens.”

  “Is yours a religious community, Mr. Carlton?”

  The question caught him by surprise. “Uh, no,” said Jacob. “Why do you ask?”

  “That’s the same way the Ten Commandments are laid out,” Welch said with a wry grin. “Replace ‘community’ with ‘God’ and you’ve got a pretty good description of how the Ten Commandments are structured.”

  “Oh,” said Jacob. He’d been studying the Code his entire life, and he’d never heard that.

  “Can you list these guiding principles for us?” Welch looked around the table and traded smiles with the rest of the council. “I’m sure we’d all love to hear them.”

  “I can list them,” Jacob said. “Every schoolkid in Arbella learns them by heart.”

  Welch shared a chuckle with the man next to him, then extended a hand toward Jacob as an invitation. “Please,” he said.

  “Precept one: Arbella is a community of laws, and the law is equally binding on us all.
Precept two: Arbella is your home. You shall do it no harm, or through inaction, allow it to come to harm. Arbella is—”

  Jacob broke off before finishing the third law. Right after he recited the second law, most of the table started laughing. Everybody was smiling. Confused, Jacob looked around the table. There was a young blond man, perhaps thirty years old, sitting next to Lester Brooks. He hadn’t been introduced during the initial roll call, and he hadn’t spoken at all during the questioning. He had a tablet in front of him, and he’d spent most of the meeting typing out messages. He was laughing the hardest.

  “Sounds like your town was founded by Isaac Asimov,” the young man said.

  That brought a fresh round of laughter from everybody.

  Even Lester Brooks.

  “I’m sorry,” Jacob said. “I don’t understand.”

  “Let me guess,” the young man said. “Is the next law that a citizen of Arbella cannot injure a human being, or through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm?”

  “No,” said Jacob, thoroughly confused. “It’s that Arbella is—”

  “Oh wait,” the young man interrupted, “you’ve already violated that one. I guess we can safely say that Arbella is not a community of robots.”

  “Robots?” Jacob said. “Mister, what are you talking about?”

  The young man’s smile suddenly dried up. He turned away from Jacob and made a hurry-it-up gesture to Welch.

  “I think we’ve heard enough,” said Welch, taking the younger man’s cue. “Thank you for your time this morning, Mr. Carlton. You may go now.”

  “What do you mean? I thought we were going to talk about establishing a relationship between our two communities. Your medical knowledge could save—”

  “Thank you, Mr. Carlton.” He rapped his knuckles lightly on the desk. “I declare this session of the Executive Council concluded. We will resume with the next witness after lunch. Mr. Secretary, please record the time for the minutes.”

  “Noted,” said a man at the end of the table.

  “Very good,” said Welch. “See you all back here in two hours.”