Among the Living (28 page)

He adjusts his aim and fires at a big guy who is missing part of his head. How the hell do they survive damage like that? Then there are five in the yard, then seven. Angie fires as fast as she can draw a bead on each one. Lester, being only halfway decent at math, runs the numbers in his head and realizes that they can’t fire fast enough to stay ahead of the deaders. Nope, not unless someone shows up with a big Gatling gun or maybe a flamethrower. On the next episode of cooking with the drug dealer, we have a fantastic recipe for Deader Flambé.

“In the house, babe. We can’t stop them here.”

She is in the seat again, leaning forward as she reloads, trying to focus on the magazine and not the yard. She looks up and yells when she sees the deaders swarming. She stands up, knocking over the box of shells and nearly losing the gun as well. Lester takes it from her shaking hand and puts the magazine in his pocket. He grabs as many of the bullets as he can and drops them in the box. He opens the door and ushers her inside.

As he turns to dash inside, the rest of the fence gives and the entire world pours into his yard. The first one reaches the stairs, and instead of giving them the finger, he opens up in bump fire mode again and takes chunks out of the first row. It’s like someone started a chainsaw. Bodies twist and flop under the impact, and for a half-second he thinks of Tony Montoya at the end of Scarface. That’s right, bitches, my little friend has some advice … fucking die! Some drop, but most reel back, recover and keep on coming.

Then he is through the door, and he slams it shut. He rams the deadbolt home and leans against the door, panting.

Now what the fuck are they going to do?

Fever-dream, pain and salvation. The men she has lured to hotel rooms wander into her mind, one after another. They weep and plead for another chance just before she cuts off their cocks. They beg her for mercy just before she forces their own members into their screaming mouths. Then they rise up with blood dribbling from the centers of their waists. Gaping holes that yearn to be filled by the handle of her flogger.

They fall to the ground and worship her, and then they try to eat her.

She wakes with a scream. At least she thinks it’s a scream. Maybe it is one of the victims in her head, perhaps the guy from last night—Walter. What will his wife think when he doesn’t return? What will she say when the police deliver the news that he was found dead in a hotel room? Will she scream or cry, deny it, say it isn’t possible? Will she weep instead and close the door quietly in their faces, then smile, knowing that her vile husband and his obsession with hurting women is over?

Maybe she knows about him; maybe he hides videos on the computer that she knows how to find. Maybe she has seen the emails and stories from girls he met on Craigslist. On the singles sites. Maybe she chooses to ignore them in the interest of keeping peace in the house, of not asking too many questions, perhaps of being afraid of the answers.

Maybe she has a large insurance settlement on her precious Walter and now she is a rich woman. Maybe he is just dead and the wife was a lie. She will never know.

She will never care.

* * *

First things first: coffee, coffee and more coffee. She slams the first cup after splashing it over a handful of ice, then sips the second as she cooks a pair of white bread slices to a dry crisp in her toaster. When they are done, she will slather them in butter and let the bread sit and soak up the greasy mass. She likes to lay out a big pile of raspberry jam and scoop it up with the soggy bread. Later she will make grilled cheese toast and dip it in tomato soup and try not to think about the color of blood.

Once the toast is ready, she will eat the edges first, the crispiest sides, then she will eat the centers, licking melted butter off her fingers as it dribbles down. Third cup poured, she flips through the Seattle Metro and reads the eclectic mix of stories. Then she pops on the TV and turns to the news channels. They are running stories that look just like the crap they ran yesterday. A shooting in Tacoma. Well, what day doesn’t have that? She flips over to a local news station that is playing a mix of local and world news, entertainment, gardening, sports, and even a section on high school athletics. Right now there is a live broadcast featuring a military man behind a desk with a concerned look on his face.

The video quality is poor, as if they are using some old equipment to broadcast or the signal is degraded. The sound comes through, though, and that is all she cares about.

She sits her bruised backside and legs down on the ancient couch and kicks her feet up as she adjusts the volume.

“… and if you have containers, please fill them with water and set them in a cold, dark place for now. If you have stores of food, particularly canned goods, save those for last, eat what you have in your refrigerator first, move on to the freezer, then the canned items if you have to. My people will be around today checking up on the elderly, and delivering food and water to shelters. Remember, folks, if you see a man in military uniform and he calls out to you, please take a moment to identify yourself by stating your name, and you will be free to go. This way we can quickly identify those who are sick and get them the medical attention they need.”

What the hell is this? Are they going to start asking for papers with German accents next?

The Asian reporter stares at him in rapt attention, but when the focus shifts to her, she goes into what Kate likes to think of as robot mode, reading the screen back with a plastic face.

“Going back to our top news story, a sickness has struck some of the citizens of Seattle. It appears to have originated in the Queen Anne district, where a gas leak started several days ago. Although city employees are working around the clock, they have been unable to stop the leak. Those sickened appear disoriented and may become violent. The authorities are asking that you treat them humanely. Those who are ill appear to be in distress. We are asking the people of the city to stay put for now. When everything is under control again, we will bring you more information.”

Kate flies out of her chair as the story repeats. She turns on her aging computer and waits for the Windows XP screen to appear. After what seems like forever, she enters her password and opens a web browser. The little icon in the top right corner spins, and the status bar at the bottom shows one green bar. After a few seconds, she gets the infuriating ‘This page cannot be displayed’ message.

She goes to CNN, MSNBC, and BBC, then tries to open Google and Yahoo, but none of them loads. She checks her router, but she barely understands the thing. She followed a simple guide to set it up, and when everything worked, she left it alone and didn’t bother to go back and read the manuals. There seemed to be no point, since support was just a phone call away.

The TV stays on in the background, but they just repeat the story over and over again.

She knows enough to reset the computer’s router and reboot everything. They always say to leave stuff off for thirty seconds, but no power is no power in her book, so she boots everything after barely a second and gets the same result.

She throws on her robe, belts it in the front, walks across the hall and bangs on Bob’s door. There is silence for a good minute before the eyehole goes dark. Then the door pops open, and there he is in the same robe as last night, hair disheveled and beard scruffier than ever.

“Nice shoes,” he smirks at her feet. They are encased in her favorite oversized Sylvester the cat slippers. They are huge, black and have big ears poking out the top. She got them as a gag gift from an old friend and just never got around to giving them up. They are warm and comfortable and make her feel young. She would have killed for a pair of these in her youth—well, maybe ‘killed’ is the wrong word, since she didn’t come into that particular interest until a few years later.

“Yes they are. If you have Tweety ones, I’ll chase you around.”

“Hmm, let me check.” He chuckles. “Anyway.” He smiles. “Net down?”

She nods.

“Yep, me too. Wanna come in?”

“What the hell is going on out there, Bob? You’re a smart guy; you always have things figured out. So what are they talking about on the news?”

“The mysterious illness, you mean? No idea. I mean, they aren’t saying much. Well, they are saying a lot, but it’s a lot about nothing.”

“Huh?”

“Okay, look at it this way. They are going on about what to do, how to get by, what to store. They warn about what to look for, avoid the violent ones. It goes on for a long time, but they aren’t talking about what caused it. Well, they say a gas leak, but who the hell goes insane from smelling gas? Even the major radio stations are running national news and making mention of what’s happening here, but there’s an emphasis on staying put, riding it out. For Christ’s sake, it’s Saturday. Half the city should be heading out for the day, but do you hear cars on the road?”

“I haven’t been out yet.” She spreads her arms wide as if he hasn’t noticed she is still in her fucking bathrobe and ridiculous slippers.

“Okay, how many airplanes have you heard fly overhead in the last fifteen or twenty minutes?”

“None, but I usually don’t hear … “ and then she realizes how quiet it has been. “Wait, I heard some traffic choppers earlier.”

“Those were military: black helicopters with weapons mounted on the bottom. There is some serious shit going down.”

“Do you have one of those radios, the meat one … erm, HAM?”

“A HAM radio? You must think I am really fucking pathetic.” He grins.

“Cell phone!” She snaps her fingers. She will call the bookstore and see if they’re open today.

“Doesn’t work. I tried mine already, and all I get is a fast busy signal, like the last time we had an earthquake and the lines were overwhelmed.”

“That’s strange.”

“You think so, Captain Obvious? We have cell towers on just about every building. You couldn’t get away from a cell phone if you tried. I would be willing to bet that other providers are having the same problem. I have Verizon, how about you?”

“AT and T of course—iPhone.” She smiles.

“So try it.”

Kate heads back to her apartment and retrieves her cell phone from her purse. She autodials the shop, but it just rings. Then she tries her favorite pizza joint and gets a fast busy. She doesn’t have a land line anymore, so she tries one more number.

“You have reached 911 emergency. Please stay on the line and someone will be with you shortly. We apologize for the inconvenience.”

After a minute of the message repeating itself and Bob’s eyes staring into hers, the line goes dead. She shrugs. “I guess 911 is too busy to take calls right now.”

Screaming outside preempts whatever she was going to say next. Bob moves through his apartment to the sliding glass door on his patio. She is hot on his heels. Kate has been in his apartment before, but she still feels like an intruder. He has decent furnishings. His couch is newer and pale brown leather. A matching lazy boy chair seems to be the centerpiece. It sits five or six feet from a big flat panel television mounted on the wall. There are a bunch of wires all over the place, because he may have every gaming console known to man.

He also has a good-sized computer desk covered with discs and parts. There are several cases on the floor, and some of them are open, revealing hard drives and fans of all shapes, sizes and colors.

He slides the drapes open, and they both crowd around the door. On the street below, a girl backs away from a pair of men who are … Is that blood on their shirts?

The girl turns to run, but one of the men pounces, moving fast as a cat. He grabs her by the hair, and they both tumble to the ground. Bob rips the door open and is on the deck in a heartbeat.

“Hey asshole, what the fuck?” he yells, and there is some east coast attitude in the voice. Kate has never asked him where he is from, but she is betting on New York now.

The guy stares up at him, and the other one actually hisses in their direction. Kate thinks about the gun he showed her the night before, but a feeling of helplessness washes over her, as she has never used one before. Now if she were on the street with her swords, it would be a different story.

“Identify yourself!” a voice shouts, and two soldiers dressed in green fatigues round the corner with guns drawn. One fires into the air, probably a warning shot, but the second guy just tries to stare them down. The first attacker has collapsed on the woman, who is not small; she rolls over and tries to fend him off. Being that she outweighs him by about fifty pounds, it seems likely she will succeed.

The man tries to bite her, but she presses her forearm against his throat.

“Help!” she screams as the guy continues snapping at her. He is in a frenzy like a dog. The other guy moves in and reaches down to grasp her foot. He drags her off the first man and then across the ground with her kicking the entire time. He is a slight kid, maybe sixteen years old, and Kate wonders how he can be so strong.

“Hey asshole, let her go!” Bob calls out again, but he obviously feels like she does. Helpless. He turns to look Kate in the eye, and she sees pain there, as though he were the one being assaulted. Must be nice to have feelings. A heart.