“Listen up, assholes,” Edmund said to the Raiders. He pointed to two of his own guards and said, “These guys here are gonna stick with you while you’re here, make sure no one hassles you, aye? Today you are my friends, so everything is on the house! You two, make sure they have a good time. Take ‘em to The Pink Church, they’ll love it.”
“What’s that?” asked Jax.
“The best whorehouse in the city!” Edmund laughed. “Go on and get laid, get drunk, have a good time. Just don’t start any trouble. Oh, and stay away from the industrial sector. It’s a little sketchy, and that’s where we tend to find zombies.”
“Zombies? Are they slow or—“
“Goddamn it, man! Enough questions!” said Edmund. “I’m not your fucking tour guide, that’s these two! Now go on, my friend Abby and I are going for a ride.”
The Raiders slowly turned to follow the two men that Edmund had designated as their guides, but Hiamovi cast another worried glance at Abby. He’d never met Edmund before, and part of him was sure this was all just an elaborate build-up to an ambush.
But Abby knew Edmund, at least a little bit. She knew how dangerous he could be, but she also knew that sometimes he was simply a jerk, not a murderer. That’s how she saw him right now. She made a subtle hand gesture, letting Hiamovi know she’d be okay, then turned towards Edmund, who put his arm around her shoulders.
“This way to our ride,” he said, pointing towards a motorcycle parked across the street.
Abby inwardly cringed at the idea of riding on a motorcycle with Edmund, but she kept up her façade of friendliness. “Where are we going?”
“To the pier. That’s a great place for a good talk.”
Edmund swept a leg over his motorcycle and sat down, gesturing for Abby to sit behind him.
“Where are the helmets?” Abby asked as she settled into her seat.
Edmund turned to look at Abby, then began to laugh hysterically. “Helmets, she says! Oh yeah, let me get a fuckin’ helmet on or mama will ground me. Good one, lass.”
Abby shook her head and leaned forward into Edmund, wrapping her arms around him as he gunned the engine. With a rib-rattling roar, the motorcycle came to life and Edmund drove them away from the sidewalk.
Without the pre-Crisis levels of traffic in Chicago, the ride to Navy Pier was a quick one. Abby barely had time to collect her thoughts and memories into a coherent storyline for Edmund before he pulled them into a parking spot near the famed pier and turned the engine off.
“Now,” he said as they both dismounted the motorcycle, “I’m dying to hear your story. Start from the top and walk with me.”
Abby took a deep breath, readying herself for an emotional stroll. “Well, after Zach died I was all alone, you see.”
“Again, I’m so sorry,” Edmund interrupted. “I know you forgave me, but I want you to know that I’m indebted to you, aye? If you ever need anything at all, just say the word and I’ll move Heaven and Earth to give you what you want.”
“It’s okay, really,” Abby said. “Anyway, with my dad gone, all I knew was that I had to go west to find safety. With that in mind, I started walking…”
***
“We linked up with some Rangers and were getting ready to scout out the city when your guys picked us up,” Abby said. “And now I’m here with you.”
Abby held her arms out to her sides, indicating their present location of Navy Pier. They’d walked around the pier several times since Abby started telling her story. It took quite a while as Edmund frequently stopped her with questions for clarification, or to rant for a minute about what he would have done if he’d been there with her.
Far from deserted, which is what Abby expected, the pier teemed with life. The carnival rides remained dead, but other activities had taken the place of the pre-Crisis festivities. Abby looked around and saw parlor games, what appeared to be boxing matches, people fishing, and some folks who appeared to be doing nothing more than relaxing in the sun. The museum was apparently still attracting a smattering of visitors despite its less than splendid condition, and across the water Abby saw people enjoying the Ohio Street beach.
“Heck, maybe I should have stayed in the city after all,” Abby said. “How did all this happen? A few years ago this was a zombie-infested wasteland.”
“Aye, it was,” Edmund replied, “and it appears that the time has now come for my story. Walk with me this way.”
He cleared his throat before continuing, and he steered Abby in a different direction, heading south away from the pier along with a small crowd of people who walked in the same direction.
“As you already know, I unleashed the zombies at the prison. It was always fuckin’ stupid to be keeping them around, anyway. My plan worked almost exactly as I envisioned: zombies got the boss, you took care of Henry, and me and my boys looked like the heroes who killed that fat fuck and led people to safety. I took control of the whole damn operation and never looked back because I always look forward.”
“And that’s exactly what those stupid bastards before me couldn’t do. Raiding that town of yours had been a last stand. We needed the supplies there in the worst way. We got ‘em, and it was enough to keep us going for a bit, but I knew we’d overfished the area, so to speak.”
“You mean you’d killed everyone who had anything worth taking,” Abby said, allowing an edge of derision into her voice.
Edmund shrugged. “Don’t hate the players, hate the game. If I hadn’t, someone else would have.”
“That’s no excuse.”
“Hey, you gonna let me tell my fuckin’ story or what?”
Abby shook her head. Now wasn’t the time for an ethical debate, not when her life and the lives of her friends rested in Edmund’s hands. “Go on,” she said.
“So yeah, I knew we had to change if we wanted to live. So we started civilizing, laying down roots. Some prisoners of ours that survived had farming experience, and we used them to get crops going that spring. We managed to round up some animals too, and got into, uh, what’s it called?”
“Husbandry?”
“Yes, that’s it! Husbandry! We got that going too. So we had crops, we had animals, and living like that worked out for a year or so but everyone was still fuckin’ miserable. We were just kinda hanging on, you know? And since we weren’t raiding anymore, we didn’t have that chance to blow off steam. It got real fuckin’ boring. People were even starting to get a little pissed at ol’ Edmund. So what do I do? I tell everyone we’re gonna retake Chicago!”
“And they liked that idea?” Abby asked.
“Are you kidding me? They ate it up!” Edmund said with a laugh. “They wanted the action, the adrenaline. And we had a whole fuckin’ ton of ammo left over from our raiding days that they were just itching to burn.”
“So we locked and loaded and drove into the city. We shot everything that moved and just like that Chicago belonged to Edmund.”
“It was really that easy?”
“Crazy, isn’t it? We lost a few guys, but we cleared the city even faster than I had imagined. It was the strangest fuckin’ thing though, the zombies didn’t seem as lethal as before.”
Abby nodded her head. “Turns out they can starve just like we can.”
“Wait, you know that already?”
“We came across one that could barely walk.”
“Oh, for fuck’s sake. You stole me fucking thunder,” Edmund said, sounding genuinely upset. “Whatever, fuck you. Yeah, some of these creatures were still dangerous, especially if they cornered your arse, but most of them seemed pretty tame.”
“Did you kill all of them?”
“No, not all. Every once in a while one or two zombies pop up, but nothing we can’t handle.”
“So then you built up the city?”
“Aye. We’ve still got farms going not far outside the city. We’ve actually done better than expected last season and have an emergency stockpile of food now. Back there where my boys dropped you
off, one of the warehouses is full of extra food to last the city weeks.”
“That must be nice to have.”
“Fuckin’ right it is. We also got electricity going again for parts of the city not long ago, and that helped get rid of the boredom. I started radio programs and a printing press, too. The radio programs helped other people find us. Turns out there’s quite a few places that are still pretty damn intact.”
“How do you mean?”
“There’s some fuckers up in Michigan and further north in Canada we do business with, we float some ships between each other on Lake Michigan. We have food and animals to trade, and once I got a steel furnace going again, those Canadians went fucking nuts for it.”
“Then some assholes from down south made their way up here. Turns out little old Cuba missed the whole fuckin’ Crisis! As soon as the shite hit the fan and everyone went west, the Cubans loaded up and rolled into Florida with their military. They seized quite a bit of ground and apparently they’re willing to fight for it.”
“I wonder if Heammawihio knows about that,” Abby said.
“I don’t fuckin’ know, but it could get dicey down there. But hey, I ain’t got no beef with the Cubans. So we trade with them too. Thank God for rivers, eh?”
“So you have, like, actual commerce going on?”
“You’re goddamn right I do.”
Abby chewed on her lip, her mind spinning like a top. The surprises just kept coming today, from finding Chicago inhabited, to reuniting with Edmund, and then to learn that they had gone from a bunch of murderous thugs to…a bunch of murderous traders?
“I’ve even stamped me own coins. Check it out,” Edmund continued. He dug into his pocket and fished out four silver coins and a small gold one not much larger than a thumbnail. He handed these to Abby and said, “Here, keep these. We raided some old banks and pawn shops in the city and took all the gold and silver they had. We melted it down, stamped some new coins, and now we’ve got fuckin’ money. So as you can see, Abby, we really don’t need any fuckin’ help from your government.”
“I guess not,” Abby said, not wanting to argue. She slipped the coins into her pocket, then looked around and saw that small crowds of people still walked with them. “Hey, where are we going? Why are all these people following us?”
Edmund laughed and pointed ahead of him. “We’re going to see a show. Best entertainment in the city!”
Abby looked ahead and saw the old football stadium, Soldier Field. It looked like hundreds of people were converging on the arena.
“What kind of show?” she asked.
“The fuckin’ best kind,” Edmund replied. “You’re gonna love it. Come on, you’re with me. We’re going to my personal skybox.”
Chapter Twenty-Four
Abby was glad Edmund took her to his skybox high above the field. Had they sat in the stadium seating with everybody else, the violence on the field would have been far too close for her liking. The grisly sound of combat however found its way to Abby through the single broken window in the skybox. The crowd roared with delight as the three remaining combatants of an original group of ten circled each other, brandishing their swords. The other seven either lay dead on the field or dying on a stretcher on the sidelines.
Edmund was practically giddy, doing little hops on his feet as he stood up by the window, looking down on the field through a small pair of binoculars. He had constantly implored Abby to take a closer look, an offer she ‘graciously’ refused.
Instead, Abby looked around her and took in the surroundings. The skybox in which she stood must have once been the height of luxury for watching a football game, with refrigerators and plenty of countertops to hold a buffet. Pictures on the wall showed men in orange and blue Chicago Bears uniforms over a span of nearly one hundred years. Moving towards the glass and taking a step down led you to a row of luxurious seats from which one could view any on-field activity.
Two men stood guard just outside the room, and they both seemed very annoyed to be missing the action down on the field. Abby would have offered to trade places with them if she didn’t think Edmund would go ballistic. She looked back to him, listening to him shout a warning to his preferred combatant.
The crowd roared again as another fighter was struck down, blood spurting from a thin but fatal laceration across his throat. “Yeah, you fuckin’ got him!” Edmund yelled with delight.
Abby spared a glance towards the field, noting the two remaining men, both bloodied and exhausted. They charged each other just then, and despite her deep misgivings towards the violence she found herself unable to look away. Swords clashed and rang with the sound of steel striking steel, and then again.
The men continued to exchange blows with neither one able to draw blood for several seconds. They appeared evenly matched, but Abby could tell that one of the men was clearly stronger and more skillful than the other. His sword movements were faster, his blows harder, and the other man was on his back foot.
Another blow from the stronger man knocked the other man’s sword out of his hand. He moved in for the kill, but his opponent tangled him up and took him to the ground. The crowd erupted in cheers, jumping to their feet as the man who had been losing now had this one shot to escape the arena with his life. He sat atop the other man in a full mount position, fumbling with the knife attached to his belt as he tried to draw it.
The other man, realizing his long sword was a liability at this point, tossed it aside and grabbed his opponent, seizing him by the throat and arm. With a tremendous heave he pushed the man to the side, rolling him onto his back and now taking the full mount position himself.
Pinning his enemy to the grass by his throat, he ripped the man’s knife away from him and attempted to slam it into his face. But he was blocked as the other man grasped his knife hand, holding the deadly blade at bay.
“Kill! Kill! Kill! Kill!” shouted the crowd, and Edmund joined in the chanting as he clearly favored the man now in position to win the fight.
The man on his back pushed with everything he had, but he could not get the other man off of him, nor seize the knife. The man on top brought both hands to his blade now and shoved downward, again displaying his superior strength. The man still resisted, but a second shove proved too much as the knife found a home in his eye socket.
Abby shook her head as everyone else in the stadium cheered and whistled their approval. Edmund hopped up and down, laughing and clapping his hands together. “You see that shite, Abby? What a fuckin’ fight that was!”
“I saw, yeah,” Abby replied in a flat tone.
If Edmund caught the dismissive tone, he paid it no mind. Still smiling, he said, “That motherfucker down there, lass? He’s the goddamn man! He only needs to win one more fight for his freedom! He’s totally got it, he can’t be fuckin’ beat.”
“His freedom?” Abby asked, her furrowed brow and arms folded across her chest making her displeasure clear.
“Aye, his freedom. He got busted cheating at cards, and the other guys tried to kill him. Well he fuckin’ killed them instead! Pretty badass, but you know I can’t let a cheater off the hook, so he’s gotta fuckin’ fight until he dies or until he wins his freedom.”
“Is that how justice works around here?”
“Sure! Worked for the Romans, didn’t it?”
“Yeah, two thousand years ago. There’s probably better ways of doing it now, don’t you think?”
“Yeah, but none as fun as this!” Edmund laughed as he pointed towards the field. The victor walked about with outstretched arms, soaking in the praise and adulation coming from the crowd. Edmund gave another cheer before reaching for his beer and taking a drink.
“Wait a second,” Abby said, holding up one hand. “You said you can’t let a cheater off the hook. That’s why he’s down there? Not because he killed someone?”
“Oh yeah, cheating at cards or any kind of gambling is a big fuckin’ no-no around here,” Edmund said, his face showing no s
ign of levity. “That’s why those other guys tried to kill him. Happens all the time, really. If you don’t wanna die, don’t fuckin’ cheat people out of their money.”
“So you can murder someone for cheating and that’s just…allowed?”
“Yes,” Edmund replied curtly as he sat down next to Abby. “I don’t see the big fuckin’ problem. What are you, a cop?”
“I’m sorry, I’m just trying to figure out exactly how things work here in your city,” said Abby with not a little sarcasm in her voice.
“Well, it’s pretty simple: mind your business, look out for yourself, and everything will be fine.”
Abby nodded her head thoughtfully, trying to make sense of all this. “And those guys on the field, are they all prisoners?”
“No, that’s the beauty of it!” Edmund said, smiling again. “You can volunteer to fight if you like. I’d say it’s about a 70-30 ratio of prisoners to volunteers on any day.”
“You actually get volunteers?”
“Abby, lass, there’s a fuckin’ waiting list!” Edmund laughed. His eyebrows arched up as an idea popped into his head. “Hey! How ‘bout you and I go down there? You and me, side by side! We’ll kick some fuckin’ arse!”
“No!” Abby replied, her tone suggesting offense at the offer.
“What? I thought you were like a badass bitch now, a real killer of men. Didn’t you say you’ve killed like twenty people?”
“No. I’m not that kind of girl anymore. David, the man I told you about earlier, was the last person I ever killed. After that I vowed to never take another human life.”
“A vow?” Edmund spoke the words like he was spitting poison out of his mouth. He looked angry, but then he laughed again. “That’s pretty fuckin’ weird, but you do you, Abby Davidson! God fuckin’ knows you earned that right.”
“So show’s over now?”
“Not yet,” Edmund said with a wicked smile. “Time for the main event!”
Abby turned her attention back to the field. The look on Edmund’s face frightened her and a morbid curiosity took hold. Three men, each armed with a knife and a small hammer, stood in the middle of the field in a small circle, facing outwards. The crowd sat silently in stark contrast to their previous behavior. For the first time, Abby noticed that several people armed with M16 rifles lined the front row of seats, all facing the field. If they weren’t meant to be a firing squad, the only explanation for their appearance was—
His Name Was Zach | Book 3 | Their Names Were Many Page 20