After they cleared the table, after they put the dishes in the dishwasher, Conrad and Denise went outside to sit on the deck. They sat close on the wooden step, staring out at the trees and the dark sky. Neither of them spoke. Conrad hadn’t told her about his talk with Kyle and he didn’t intend to. What he wanted to talk to her about was his discussion with Albert, what it would mean, and how much it would cost, but he kept finding excuses not to start.
He thought about being back in Albert’s office, a quarter mile underneath the earth. He’d asked the scientist how he got around keeping the truth from his wife. Albert said he didn’t have a wife. Okay then, Conrad said, what about his girlfriend. Albert said he didn’t have a girlfriend either. Then it must be easy for you, Conrad told him, not to keep your secrets from anyone, and Albert said no, that wasn’t true, he still did. A silence fell between them, both men watching each other closely, and then Conrad, trying to keep his repulsion down, said, Oh. Albert nodded. Conrad said, But that’s illegal, meaning homosexuality, which, if caught, would mean immediate expiration for both parties involved. And Albert, smiling his stiff smile, said, These days, Conrad, there isn’t much that isn’t.
Now, alone with Denise, it was his wife who broke the silence.
“I’m sorry about earlier. The way I blew up at you, it wasn’t right. I knew what I was getting into when I married you, the whole existence of a Hunter’s wife. But it’s just that Jess keeps putting these ideas in my head, like how you’re never home and how that should hurt me and Kyle and … well, I guess in a way it does.”
“I’m sorry. I wish I could be home more.”
“I know you do. But I shouldn’t have taken my anger out on you like that.”
“Don’t worry about it.”
“But I was acting like a bitch. And I’m not a bitch.”
“Well …”
She slapped him playfully on the arm. “Ha-ha.”
Conrad leaned forward, placed his arms over his knees. “Tell you what. I was supposed to work the next two days so I’d have off for the weekend, but I’ll call into work tomorrow. See if I can take the next couple days off. At least until Kyle’s animation day.”
“You don’t have to do that.”
“But I want to.”
“You just got promoted. You don’t want to make Norman angry.”
“Trust me,” he said, “it’ll be fine,” and while he had told his wife worse lies in the past, he couldn’t help thinking of this one as just another domino added to a long line of dominos.
“How is the new promotion going anyway?”
“Good.”
“It’s a miracle you weren’t there that day. Were you out on patrol?”
“Yeah,” Conrad said, thinking, There’s goes another one.
They sat there for a while in silence, both listening to the dead insects in the trees. Then Denise broke the silence again, talking about Kyle’s animation day party, about everyone she had invited, Kyle’s friends from school, people Denise knew in the neighborhood, and Conrad realized he wasn’t going to get a chance tonight to talk to her about Kyle’s protection.
“Oh yeah,” Denise said, “I almost forgot. Tomorrow I have an appointment with the doctor. Nothing serious, just a standard checkup regarding the pregnancy.”
“What time? I’ll drive you.”
“Actually …”
He had been staring off at the stars above the trees and now looked at his wife, saw her biting her lower lip.
“Actually what?”
“Well, you see I didn’t even think you’d be home. I’m sorry, but you know what kind of a crazy schedule you keep. And so I asked Jess if she could take me …”
“That’s great. Now you can tell Jess her services are no longer needed.”
“But she took the whole day off.”
“Okay, okay. Spend the day with your stupid sister and not with your loving and devoted husband.”
She rolled her eyes at his sarcasm and kissed him on the cheek.
A few minutes later they were ready to go inside. Denise headed in first but Conrad stayed there for an extra minute, staring out at the trees, remembering the way Kyle had come back from retrieving the high pop-up last Saturday afternoon and what he’d said and what all Conrad had learned since then regarding Pandoras and the energy they had trapped inside. He stayed very still and quiet, listening for anything beyond the low serenading of the dead insects, the distant traffic, the hiss of the wind through the trees. There was nothing. When he turned to go back inside, he glanced up at the second floor and stopped.
Kyle stood at his window. He didn’t even notice his father. He stared off at the trees much as Conrad had earlier, only Conrad knew his son was hearing something beyond the insects and the traffic and the wind, something that Kyle and only Kyle could hear.
Denise was in
the bathroom getting ready for bed. Conrad knew he didn’t have much time. He grabbed his mobile phone, dialed, and waited three rings before the call was answered. Then he said, “Dr. Hennessey? What we talked about before, protection for my son? I’ve made my decision.”
When he opened
his eyes he didn’t know where he was at first. He stared up at the ceiling and for some reason thought it was the ceiling of his boyhood bedroom. Somehow he was a child again, lying in his bed, staring at the ceiling and listening to voices downstairs, two voices, his mother’s and his father’s, and there was something else beyond the cracked and muffled voices of his parents, a distant but continuous sound coming from somewhere
outside
the house.
But wait. That couldn’t be right. It couldn’t be his parents because he only had one parent, his mother having expired during child-animation, so whose voices were those downstairs right now?
Conrad blinked. He tilted his head to Denise’s side of the bed and saw it was empty. He reached out a hand as if maybe she was still there but had just become invisible. Nothing.
Voices were in fact coming from downstairs, two distinct female voices, and it took him another moment to realize one was his wife’s, the other his sister-in-law’s.
He tilted his head back on the pillow, stared up at the ceiling. He considered closing his eyes, drifting back to sleep. He had no intentions of getting up, or at least not getting up to go downstairs, not until Denise had left with Jessica.
But he couldn’t just lie here either. He had things to do today. Both things stemmed from his phone call last night. One was a favor asked of him. The other a favor he had no choice but to ask.
The voices continued downstairs. The clock on the bedside table read 9:27.
He sat up and looked back down at his pillow, at the bits of hair and flesh that had fallen off during the night. He shook his head and got to his feet, grabbed some tissues from the box on the nightstand and began picking up each piece of hair and flesh.
Downstairs the voices quieted. Footsteps began. They were headed out of the kitchen toward the front of the house.
Conrad paused. He’d only cleaned half of the pillow so far. He couldn’t let Denise see what was there but figured it was okay, certain now that those footsteps downstairs would lead the two women outside through the front door.
One of those pairs of footsteps did. The other started up the steps.
He took the pillow, flipped it over, hurried toward the bathroom and quietly shut the door. Those footsteps had reached the top of the stairs, now cushioned and almost silenced by the carpet. Conrad dropped the ball of tissues into the toilet, considered reliving himself, but when he heard the bedroom door open he quickly pushed down on the flusher.
When he exited the bathroom moments later, Denise was sitting on the edge of the bed, smiling at him.
“Good morning,” she said.
He smiled at her and kissed her on the forehead. “You and Jessica headed out?”
She nodded. “We should be back in about an hour or two.”
He yawned but said nothing, glanced over at his pillow to make sure he hadn’t missed anything.
Denise said, “Remember after your shower to apply that lotion. Maybe apply it twice.”
He’d forgotten to take the lotion with him when he went to work the past four days, and while that may not have contributed to all the hair and skin he had lost, Denise saw it as the deciding factor.
“I will,” he said, and wondered for the first time how much of his body he had lost during the night.
“Promise?”
“I promise.”
She stood up, started toward the door, but paused. “By the way, did you sleep okay last night? You kept tossing and turning.”
“I slept fine.”
She stood there a moment, as if considering this, then stepped forward, wrapped her arms around him, and kissed him on the lips. When she pulled away, she said, “I love you so much.”
“I love you too.”
“I don’t ever want to lose you.”
“You won’t.”
Outside, Jessica sounded the car horn. Denise rolled her eyes, said, “She is just
so
impatient,” then kissed Conrad once again on the lips and hurried out of the bedroom.
He stood there then, waiting until she had left the house, before moving. He went downstairs, headed for the kitchen, then opened the basement door and started down the steps.
He went directly to the pile of rubber storage containers in the corner. He moved the containers until he came to the black plastic case he’d hidden there earlier in the week. He picked up the case, took it to the washer and dryer, set it on top, and opened it.
His father’s broadsword lay inside. Three feet of stainless steel, which had taken almost six thousand zombies’ heads during both his and his father’s times as Hunters. It had been covered many times in living blood, almost all the times except the last. And so now here it lay in this case, never to be used again.
He thought about taking the broadsword out, grasping the hilt in his hand, feeling its familiar weight, but decided to close the case instead. He didn’t know why, but this was just another secret he kept from Denise, one more domino in that long line of dominos. Keeping it hidden from Kyle was obvious of course—if his son knew a Hunter broadsword was in the house, he would just
have
to see it and touch it and use it for practice—but why not tell his wife?
Back upstairs, in the kitchen, he went to the sink and looked out over the backyard. He stood there silent, listening, but all he could hear was the ticking of the clock.
He knew the dead didn’t dream—it was impossible; according to Albert only the living dreamed—but he thought about last night and how he couldn’t sleep. He thought about the woman’s face he’d seen again, the woman who was a stranger but at the same time wasn’t.
He kept standing there. He tried listening as best he could. But all he heard was the clock ticking away, counting off the seconds of his existence.
The temporary Hunter
Headquarters was located just outside the business district of Olympus, on the corner of 238
th
and Lovecraft Streets.
He took the elevator to the fourth floor. Norman had the only office on this level, and his door was open, but Conrad stood there for a long time, watching the captain working at his computer. Eventually, when it was apparent Norman wasn’t going to notice him, he knocked on the side of the door.
Norman looked up, startled. When he saw it was Conrad he did a double take and pushed away from his desk. Standing, he invited Conrad in.
Conrad stepped into the office. He shook Norman’s hand, told him it was good to see him, then sank down into one of the plastic chairs facing the desk.
“Like the new place?” Norman asked.
“Do you?”
Norman gave the office a once-over before shrugging. “It’ll do for now.”
“How long before they get the old headquarters rebuilt?”
“They’re saying a year, but I’m thinking it might be more like two. I doubt I’ll even be around to see it.”
“I saw some of your men on the way in here. Michael and what looked like two rookies.”
“Yes. We got a handful from Artemis.”
“How many?”
Norman hesitated.
“Well?”
“About one hundred.”
Conrad’s mouth dropped.
Norman said, “As it turns out, rookies and senior officers alike were fighting to come here.”
“The men were smoking outside.”
Norman’s face tightened. “Times are changing, Conrad.”
“But the Code—”
“I know what the Code says. You know what the Code says. Each and every one of those men knows what the Code says. But it’s a losing battle. Things … they never stay the same, no matter how hard we want them to. And right now I need to choose my battles wisely. So if my Hunters want to smoke outside in broad daylight in front of the world, then that’s fine.”
“What else are they doing?”
“Nothing major yet. Philip has mentioned something to me about no longer wearing masks, but I never gave him an answer and I’m hoping he forgets all about it.”
“Speaking of Philip,” Conrad said, “I want to apologize again for what happened last week. What happened at Eugene Moss’s house shouldn’t have—”
“I’ll stop you right there. Like I told you before, I understand your hands were more or less tied. I wasn’t expecting you to do anything heroic. And … well, to be honest, Philip came through for the Government. They’re very pleased.”
Conrad thought about being in that house, how after Eugene broke down and told them everything, Philip snapped the boy’s neck, pulled his gun and shot the two remaining children and the mother in the head.
“How so?” he asked.
“For starters, the information Philip obtained has gone a long way in arresting a large number of individuals. None of it’s been in the news, of course, because the Government is being more hush-hush about this than usual. While zombies have always been a threat to the world, these living extremists have become a bigger problem. There’s just so many, and it’s impossible to tell who they are. But the Government is cracking down on this now, and they’re coming down hard. Instant expiration to anyone with any ties at all to an organization of the pro-living. The only one they haven’t expired yet is Eugene Moss, and that’s because they’re waiting for the right time to execute him publicly.”