by Evans, John
“Well, I didn’t sign anything.”
He shook his head. “That’s what everyone says. Amazing how the management claims that 250 of you signed it. That means about half the people I see in this building, every day. Why, there’s a better than fifty-fifty chance that you signed it.”
“I didn’t sign it,” Lena said, and got off at her floor. Izhak said nothing.
There were workmen trooping through the hall. They wore windbreakers emblazoned with the logo of “Chambliss Home Security.”
As she progressed toward her unit, Lena saw that the workers were heading that way. In fact, her door was open and an electrician was installing wiring in the threshold.
“Excuse me,” she said, slipping past him into the kitchen/living room area. Workers, tools laid out on the carpet, were installing components in the ceiling.
Slightly disconcerted, Lena transferred her groceries to cupboards and fridge.
Someone suddenly cupped their hands over her eyes and Lena felt an instant of alarm. But she recognized the gentle, familiar touch, and her concern turned to delight.
She covered the strong but delicate fingers with her own. “Let me guess? Is that…. Nicolette Ann Waters?”
“Dammit,” Nic said, releasing her with a broad smile. “What gave me away?”
“I think it was just your irresistible lifeforce,” Lena said, and kissed her. She thought she surprised Nic with the length and intensity of her kiss.
“Wow,” Nic said, afterwards. “Hi honey, I’m home!”
Lena embraced her loving wife. She caught one of the workers watching, not judgmentally but with prurient interest, and whispered, “What’s with this crew?”
“Oh. Building is paying for a security upgrade. I figured, why not?”
“No cameras, I hope?”
“No. Just motion detectors, alarm activation points. Automated 911 connection. If a breach is detected, should be a police response in two minutes.”
Lena nodded. She felt a wave of fatigue hit her. “You should know better than anyone if that’s going to work.”
Nic’s laugh was brittle.
“Better give them fifteen.”
Lena slumped onto the loveseat and switched on the TV. A local anchor read copy in clipped, self-important tones.
“Attorneys for Baldwin argued that he shot Foster out of concern for the neighborhood children and not because of their dispute over property lines—”
Lena changed the channel to CNN. A correspondent on Capitol Hill spoke gravely into the camera.
“The Supreme Court decision does set a clear precedent, Anderson, and I think we’ll see a glut of these cases in the legal system, most ending in acquittal or mistrial.”
Anderson Cooper was listening from the studio. “Is there a feeling on Capitol Hill, Frank, that legislation will be proposed to prevent murderers from misusing the euthanasia defense?”
Lena flipped back to local news.
The anchor droned on. “Smith and Wesson has declared huge fourth quarter profits for the third straight year. Their products are still a favorite of holiday shoppers... ”
Nic sat down beside Lena. “Don’t you think those Sudanese masks I showed you online would look nice on this wall?”
“Only if I can get rid of those bookcases you’ve had since you graduated from UMass.”
They laughed for about a nanosecond. “How was dinner with Winter?” Lena asked.
“Nice, but sad. We got reassigned today. It’s not going to be easy, for either of us.”
Lena felt a note of concern. She knew that Winter and Nic had a nearly symbiotic relationship. A new partner meant new risk.
“God. Are you sure Quarles can’t keep you together?”
“Yeah. He’s the only person who could fight it, and he’s not going to. Already let us go six months over.”
Lena nodded, troubled.
“Hey, baby. It’s going to be okay. Don’t worry about me.”
“Let’s go to bed,” Lena said, suddenly aware of the surreptitious glances from the workmen. “I’m exhausted.”
Nic nodded gratefully. “You ain’t the only one.”
She stepped into the living room and turned on her voice of authority. It was an impressive display.
“All right, gentlemen, clear out,” she said, addressing the room. “I don’t care where you go, but you can’t stay here.”
Lena smiled at that bit of bartender humor. The workmen obediently filed out with their tools. When Nic had closed the door behind the last one, she pressed her back against the door as if against an attack.
“Thank God they’re gone,” she said with mock relief.
“You’ve still got me to contend with,” Lena said, sidling close for a tender kiss.
Nic’s hand slipped under Lena’s clothes and found its way to her stomach, fingertips caressing her bare skin. The belly betrayed no swelling yet, but it soon would.
She would have to tell Nic that she’d made some big decisions of her own.
#
The armored wheels rolled slowly, just faster than a brisk walk. A powerful engine’s basso growl couldn’t entirely drown out the moans, grunts and occasionally plaintive cries of the living dead. Their shuffling feet slapped the pavement in sufficient numbers for that sound to register with Murphy as well. Even in his haze of pain and despair, he felt their frustrated desire.
From his vantage point, essentially crucified on the wheel lift at the back of the vehicle, Murphy could watch the hungry feeders watching him. They were desperate for his flesh, desperate to rip and bite and tear, although devouring him would only give them the briefest respite. But their biological imperative was strong and he knew they would never give up.
“Too bad, fuckers,” he spat hoarsely. “Till you learn to run!” He cackled at that, again struck by the dark hilarity of his situation.
The bastard had made sixteen incisions on his body, eight above the waist and eight below. The slow trickle of blood from these cuts had him a bit light-headed, but he felt confident that it was coagulating. He wouldn’t bleed out back here, even if he could smell the coppery bouquet of his own spilled plasma as well as the dead could. It had saturated his clothes and still left a trail he could sometimes see glistening in the taillights of the monstrous tank, like the slime left behind by a snail. Its progress was so ploddingly methodical that the comparison felt apt to Murphy.
He chuckled, blood loss making him loopy perhaps. So this is what a snail feels like. He knew he was dead no matter what, unless the stranger fucked up somehow AND Murphy found some reserve within himself from which to draw strength. Two broken arms would be tough to overcome, but he could still kick and head-butt and bite.
For now, though, all he could do was watch the pack of feeders follow them, eternally just a few steps behind. Occasionally shots would ring out and they would pass crumpled, fetid bodies on one side or another. But the driver was doing a masterful job of preventing the dead from heading them off and getting at Murphy from either side of the tank.
His diabolical gambit was working all too well. The ranks of the dead would swell every time he put the siren on for awhile, but none of them could claim the cheese in the trap.
Me, Murphy thought with a crazed giggle. The steak the dogs would never get their jaws on. At least until his abductor decided to stop tormenting them. Until then, he would keep swelling their ranks.
To what end, Murphy didn’t know. Why he was chosen, he didn’t know. Sure, he was road scum like almost everyone else out here. But he didn’t think he was really on the radar of anyone important.
I’m just a scavenger, he thought. And yet he knew he’d been watched, he knew the man in the military helmet and mask must have been monitoring his activities for some time. He’d been chosen.
Murphy figured that word must have gotten out. He knew better than to shit where he ate, but his range wasn’t vast. It was fair to say that for the last year, he’d been a holy terror in Kansas. Peo
ple still needed to run supplies or visit relatives in one stronghold or another. The Interstates were reserved for official use and travel generally discouraged, but state highways and back roads still saw use by the brave or foolish.
Rumors flew about how Murphy was able to afford the homestead he outfitted. Trading machine parts and Army surplus gear, his ostensible means of making a living, didn’t explain everything.
He remembered how easy it seemed, at first. Going out on his ATV, looting abandoned settlements and vehicles either left behind or overrun by feeders. There were worse people out there and he would go to ground when they came by.
But that could only take you so far, and as he got bolder and better at dispatching the living dead, he began to see himself as a predator in his own right. That first family was just asking for it. Holding down a little ranch house with little more than hunting rifles and teens at the trigger! He knew that if he didn’t take them, marauders would. It was simple Darwinism.
Sure, he still dreamt of that girl’s screams as he violated her, doing things he’d always fantasized about but never thought he would, but in the end he only strangled her. She would have fared worse if he hadn’t done her. The same went for the rest of them.
Mercy killing.
But the motherfucker hauling his carcass along, using him as zombie bait, this was a predator who was higher on the food chain. Murphy didn’t even hear him, let alone see him, until it was too late. One moment he was tucked into his little roadside blind, waiting for unwary travelers on the road, and the next he had an incendiary grenade rolling at his feet.
He scrambled out before the boom set his spider-hole ablaze, whipping out his old but reliable uzi. Of course he didn’t need to notice the red laserlight on him. He clocked the guy, posted in a tree like some special ops sniper, rifle aimed. Target zeroed.
“Drop the Israeli iron,” the man said in an amplified voice. It was metallic, soulless, inhuman. He was using some kind of built-in mic because both hands were on the rifle, unwavering, but his voice was more than loud enough to hear over the crackling flames.
“All right bro, no problem,” Murphy said, tossing the uzi and putting his hands up. “You National Guard, Army regular or what?”
“I want you to pretend you’re a rug. Right now,” the sniper instructed.
Murphy knew the guy had him dead to rights. He was hoping this was official business, precautionary measures before a little Q & A. Couldn’t be too careful these days. And he felt better having a spring-loaded combat knife as an ace up his sleeve (literally). So he complied.
It didn’t take long for the man to descend from his little aerie and circle around behind, but Murphy anticipated the zip-tie angling for his wrist. He popped the knife and slashed at where he knew ankles would be.
The blade cut only air. Maybe the guy saw Murphy’s elbow tense and maybe he was just that cobra-quick. But he hopped over the swing, jumped again and one combat boot landed solidly on Murphy’s elbow, pinning the knife arm to the ground. Hands tightened on Murphy’s wrist and twisted mercilessly. It was so sharp and sudden that the horrible pop told Murphy what had happened before the white-hot pain hit.
“Sorry Murphy, from here on out I’ll be doing the hurtin’.”
Before he knew what was coming, Murphy’s other arm was broken too.
The cuts came later, once he was chained to the tow-truck rig on the back of the squatty, heavily plated vehicle. The masked man methodically bared Murphy’s arms and legs, slicing him with an impossibly sharp tactical knife.
“Please bro,” he begged. “Can we make some kind of a deal? I’ve got lots of stuff—”
Rather than saying “shut up,” or anything at all, the large dude (he was at least twice Murphy’s size, and Murphy considered himself of average build) simply rammed the butt of the knife into his cheekbone, shattering it.
Murphy lost consciousness then. When he came to they were moving, and the harsh droning of the air raid siren was shattering the stillness of the wild. Summoning all feeders within earshot.
That was five, maybe six hours ago. Murphy felt weak, drained by blood loss and the trauma of multiple injuries, but his heart was still pumping.
Dawn was near. The first rosy trickles of color on the horizon and the lightening sky revealed more details of the dirt road they were on. Murphy figured they were heading south, out of his hunting zone and into unfamiliar territory.
Now there was a main group of 40, maybe 50 feeders doggedly pursuing their prize. They’d left many slower ones behind but in the dawn’s light, he could still see them in the distance. Not giving up. There was no quit in a corpse. So the real herd here numbered in the hundreds.
Murphy had a feeling he wasn’t the only one about to have a very bad day.
CHAPTER FIVE
THE LAST DAY OF THE REST OF YOUR LIFE
MORNING DAWNED PALE and rosy in the Pacific Northwest. Sluggish clouds drifted in an overcast sky.
A procession of cars trickled westward on a state highway. The road divided rows of modest houses from a swathe of forested hills, draped in cold mist. The air was perfectly still.
On the outskirts of the high ground, a THERE IS NO CURE billboard loomed over a small graveyard. Though its monuments were crumbling and mossy, traditional images of willows, funeral urns and angels endured.
Behind the wrought-iron bars of the rear fence was a stucco house. A raven alit on the fence, cawed, and cast a beady eye toward the kitchen window.
Inside, a small TV glowed from the counter, which was cluttered with toast crumbs and a breakfast-littered plate. “Meet the Press” was on and the guest was a former White House Chief of Staff, a man who resigned in disgrace earlier in the year.
“There is no coherent strategy for combating the virus,” the droopy-eyed, burnt-out looking man said. “The administration is simply trying to maintain the status quo, which people have learned to accept rather than aggressively seeking any solutions.”
“Let me draw your attention to something you told the New York Times in April of last year….” David Gregory said as a quotation appeared on the screen.
Darla King passed in and out of the kitchen, paying little attention to the TV. A pretty brunette in a blue running suit and yellow headphones, Darla was more involved in the hip-hop music on her iPod. She took a last sip of orange juice and fished light gloves from a drawer.
Darla ran three miles every other day. Her favorite route took her on a loop through the hills, a quietly scenic course. That was her plan this morning.
Something outside caught Darla’s eye and she paused at the kitchen window. On the sidewalk, a girl in an oversized plaid coat took a running slide across a patch of ice. A beaming, blond-headed boy watched from the other side.
Darla winced when the girl lost her balance at the end of the slide, her feet flying out from under her. But the boy dashed forward to catch his friend, sister, whoever she was to him.
The children looked up at the faint but booming sound of a gunshot, just a few blocks away. It was immediately answered by two more, in a different register. A smaller caliber, in fact. POP! POP!
A plump woman Darla guessed must be their mother appeared on the porch of the nearest house. She beckoned to them and the little ones obediently ran home. The woman cut a worried glance down the street, toward the Safeway store from which the gunshots came.
“There they go again!” Darla’s father called from the bathroom. “Got your gun, honey?”
The sound of shots being fired was not terribly uncommon in any populated area; it was merely a reminder to be wary.
Darla glanced at her right ankle. A tiny .22 caliber gun was Velcroed just above her pink Nike shoe.
“Thanks, Dad,” she replied in singsong. “I’m twenty-three years old, but I guess I don’t know how to take care of myself.”
While Darla was polishing off her pre-run Gatorade inside, she didn’t see a sporty, silver Acura weave erratically down the street. It sides
wiped an old truck parked at the curb and the driver’s side panel crunched.
Moments later, Darla left her house and ran down the driveway at a brisk pace. She started off down the sidewalk toward the hills.
Unknowingly, she was heading in the same direction as the Acura.
She noted a fragmented reflector on the pavement as she passed the truck but thought nothing of it. A new dent on the neighbor’s old heap was no cause for alarm.
Her breath pluming in the crisp air, Darla ran confidently ahead. She knew this route like the back of her hand. The two-lane road was bracketed by towering evergreen trees as it wound along the slope of the hill. There was a nice view as she reached the summit and entered the forest.
Were it not for her music, Darla might have detected a wail of sirens rushing toward the Safeway, but their sound was blotted by canopies of branches reaching over the road from both sides. The farther from civilization she went, the closer the woods crept to the road.
A murder of crows watched her passage avidly, harsh caws more knowing than frightened. The only other sounds were Darla’s faintly audible music and her regular breathing.
She turned a bend and suddenly came upon the Acura. It was stopped at the side of the road, turned at an odd angle. The rear wheels were at least six inches into the road and the nose angled into a ditch.
More troubling was the fact that both doors were wide open with no one in the car.
Darla slowed, giving it a wide berth. She glanced around. When she killed her music, the sudden shift from jangling chords to nature’s stillness was jarring.
Darla glanced in passing at the Acura’s interior. She gasped. The white upholstery was spattered with blood. Quite a bit had pooled in the driver’s seat.
Darla turned and started, at a trot, back down the road toward home. She pulled a slim, miniature digital phone from her inside pocket and pressed a red button. After an agonizing pause, the display flashed “911 EMERGENCY” and a reassuring dialing sound began.