Wet Work: The Definitive Edition (20 page)

His voice echoed around the room.

“
I am not dead. I AM NOT DEAD!”

No, he wasn’t dead. But he sure as hell wasn’t

(alive)

—
right, either.

Bullet holes dotted his body, and he was sitting buck naked in a morgue room with three corpses, one of which looked…
chewed
…with no idea where he was or how he’d—

(gunfire
—
pain)

gotten here or who

(am I?)

“
I’m Corvino.”

—
yet distant. It didn’t feel like him.

“
I’m…I’m Corvino…Dominic…Corvino. I AM CORVINO!”

The echo slapped his ears.

“
Where am I?”

He didn’t expect the corpses to reply, but then everything was crazy and anything was possible. He was

(dead)

alive!

He was alive with three bullet holes in his body and felt no pain and had no real sense of himself, just a jumble of images—memories from someone else’s life

(my life!)

and nothing made sense and everything was crazy and he was confused and he was scared

(scared)

and no he wasn’t scared he was Corvino and Corvino was never afraid not since he killed Billy.

(who’s Billy?)

and nothing mattered except he was angry and confused and hungry and
—

Hungry.

Cramps gripped his stomach. He groaned.

Hungry.

It felt like his insides were eating themselves, stomach acid corroding stomach lining, tissue cells devouring each other, intestines ignited by a cold white fire, like frozen vodka thrashing through his system.

He retched.

Nothing came up and he realized his mouth was parched as if he’d been wandering a desert where water was only a mirage. A smell insinuated itself into his nose. A ripe, putrid scent that conjured the image of his dead grandmother and the snowbound house in upstate New York. The smell that wafted from her room on the third day, sickly sweet like rotting fruit. Only the smell wasn’t unpleasant. It wasn’t the tantalizing, juicy aroma of a freshly grilled steak, but he could almost taste it, and he started to feel his saliva glands working.

The coil of intestine bulging from the body looked…tasty.

(God, no)

What was he thinking?

Before he realized it, he had started to crawl towards the corpse. The nearer he got, the more appetizing the odor became. A flame-grilled steak danced before his eyes. A big, thick, juicy cheeseburger. Broiled pork chops.

(stop it)

He pulled himself closer, reaching out for the succulent loop of gut.

“
Fuck! No!”

He pushed himself away as his right hand touched the intestine.

Hungry.

“
Fuck…this…shit!”

Corvino slammed his head against the wall, trying to drive away the images of food.

Once.

Whack!

Twice.

Whack!

Three times.

Wha…

Unconsciousness claimed him.

He awoke again. Blood drenched his hands, his chest. He looked at the corpse and gasped.

The opening in the dead cop’s side was bigger, most of the small intestine gone.

(Did I..?)

A scream echoed inside his head then erupted from his mouth, tearing the silence of the morgue as raggedly as the cop’s body had been opened up.

“
What’s happening to me?” He mumbled, starting to emit dry, choking sobs.

Corvino didn’t cry.
He didn’t cry.
Women and children cried. Soldiers didn’t sob, and he was a soldier, he was…

…
nothing.

He felt nothing except confusion. Like Alice had fallen down the rabbit hole and had found an abattoir at the bottom. He was naked, vulnerable. Felt disgust overwhelm him, wanted to puke, wanted to vomit his churning guts. But he couldn’t. He stuck a finger down his throat and retched. Nothing came up. He tried again. Still nothing rose from the rotten depths, and he lay back down on the icy floor, staring up at the fluorescent lights, the whiteness burning into his retinas.

It wasn’t real. None of it. He’d been drugged, pumped full of a powerful hallucinogen and had been plunged into a nightmare maelstrom of horror-movie imagery awash in viscera.

Fight it!

Closing his eyes, he inhaled deeply, counting slowly to ten until his lungs were filled to capacity. Ignoring the emetic smell, he held the breath to the count of five, then exhaled to ten.

Again.

And again.

Thinking of nothing except white light.

He sat up and saw the bodies.

Lang.

(Who?)

He had to find Lang. The Englishman knew.

(What?)

He is standing next to the car in the parking area on the airport approach. He hears his name, turns and hears
—
no, feels
—
-the report of a gun, and in the brief explosion of light catches a glimpse of a familiar face…

The image dissipated as quickly as it had come.

He had to do something. Had to go somewhere.

(Where?)

Reaching out to the wall for support, he struggled to his feet. He shivered. Whether from cold or shock, or both, he didn’t know. Then he shuffled over to the doctor’s body, pulling the naked corpse from the medic’s legs. He lifted the body away from the wall so he could pull off the blood-stained lab coat. He slipped it on, then bent down to unbuckle the doctor’s belt, removing his black pants, slipping them on.

He had to get out of this madhouse, find proper clothing, and discover exactly where the hell he was. He looked at the cop’s shoes. The dead man was a good few inches shorter than he was and the feet were too small. It was barefoot or nothing.

Corvino picked up the M-16, checked the clip—it was half-full—went to the door in the far corner and cracked it.

The corridor on the other side was empty.

He stepped out, leaving the place of his rebirth behind him.

White light bleached the walls, the floors. His bare feet moved silently over the cold floor. Up ahead, a light strobed in its deaththroes, flickering like an effect in a cheap movie. He slowed as he approached a junction. The facility, morgue—whatever it was—was so quiet he could hear the spastic hum of the dying florescent. Corvino flicked his head around the wall, then back.

No one.

No one alive.

He peered around the corner.

The far end of the corridor was strewn with bodies. National Guardsmen. Downed SWAT personnel. Partially clothed civilians.

All dead.

Blood splashes on the walls. Puddles on the ground. The smell of shit, bile and gore made him grimace. A very messy firefight had happened a few hours ago judging by the rich tang of blood.

He assumed he was on a basement level, since there weren’t any windows, and as he crept stealthily towards the bodies he could see an elevator up ahead. It looked like the Guardsmen and SWAT boys had been trying to contain the civilians, their bodies strewn in a semicircle around the elevator. Some of the bodies had been
attacked
. One of the civilians’ heads was buried in a SWAT guy’s throat. They could have been dead lovers. Except the civilian had ripped out the SWAT guy’s throat before taking a bullet in the back of the head. Pulped brain peppered with skull fragments decorated the wall above the bodies. Skin and esophageal cartilage bulged from the civilian’s clenched mouth. Corvino grimaced in disgust.

What the fuck was going on?

It didn’t matter. He just wanted to get the hell out.

The clothes he was wearing were inadequate. Bare feet on tarmac wouldn’t do. He checked the bodies of the soldiers for one whose size matched his.

The third body, that of a SWAT member who’d taken a bullet to the throat, was close enough.

Corvino stripped, donning the dead man’s uniform, squeezing his feet into combat boots a size too small. He checked the dead man’s ammo belt.

Almost full.

Satisfied he was ready for any immediate situation, he pressed the elevator button.

The doors opened. He entered.

Ready to face whatever awaited above him.

Junkies down in Brooklyn are going crazy;

They’re laughing just like howling dogs in the street

Policemen are hiding behind the skirts of little girls;

Their eyes have turned the color of frozen meat…

—
Blue Oyster Cult

—
| — | —

THE WHITE HOUSE.

WEDNESDAY, MAY 31

7:42 A.M.

The President contemplated the cup of coffee before him. He didn’t want any more. He’d drunk six cups over the last three hours, and his nerves were beginning to hum like high-tension wires. Not that he needed caffeine stimulation anyway; his nervous system was on overdrive because all goddamn hell had broken loose over the past two days and the country was in one huge mess the like of which he never could have imagined in a million years.

Sweet Jesus, the dead are up and walking around. Talking—well, some of them—killing people:
no, damn well eating them.
Those freshly interred in Arlington Cemetery had clawed their way out of the ground and had wandered off, following their own rotting agendas. America and a large part of the world was turning into a real-life horror movie scenario. The unthinkable had happened, which meant he could forget about a quiet weekend playing golf in Kennebunkport.
That’s if we make it through to the weekend.

He gazed out the window of his office at the lush green grass of the White House lawn. It all looked so peaceful, so normal, apart from a ribbon of black smoke drifting south across the cerulean sky, the result of a major fire burning in the ghettos of the north east corner of the city.

“
Oh, God, what are we going to do?” The question was directed as much at himself as at the Almighty. But if He were listening, He offered no answer.

The President stood up and crossed the plushly carpeted office to admire the lawn, so verdant, so
alive
under the bright, clean sunlight. Other than the smudge of smoke drifting across the city and the faint whisper of hysterical sirens in the distance, the day could almost pass for a normal one.

“
Hah,” he muttered, placing the coffee cup on the window sill. Normal.
Right.
In just over fifteen minutes the public address he’d recorded last night would be transmitted on every television network and radio station across the country. By 6 P.M. America would function under martial law. Ten hours would give the population who’d already left for work a chance to get home from their offices and factories without getting shot. Because that’s what it came down to: anyone on the streets after that time was a moving target. Judging from the reports flooding in at a constant rate, if they couldn’t contain the situation within forty-eight hours, by the end of the week a shit-storm of unprecedented proportions was going to hit the fan like a moose with the runs.

Someone knocked at the door.

“Come in,” he said, downing the dregs of his coffee.

James Goldberg, his aide, peered around the door like a timid child.

“Come on in, for God’s sake.”

Goldberg entered.

He’s tired, nervous
, the President thought.
Damn it, we all are.
“Yes?”

The aide coughed. “More bad news.”

“
Well?”

“
The latest report from the Centers for Disease Control just came in.” Goldberg placed a thick sheath of papers on the President’s desk.

“
You expect me to read that?” the President snapped. “Give me the short version.”

“
It’s not conclusive because they don’t have enough data, but it looks like we have an epidemic on our hands.”

“
Of what?” The President crossed to the desk. He put down his coffee cup and sat in his leather chair.

“
Of…everything. The common cold, the flu, measles—you name it. Any virus or disease you can think of. Whatever someone has, they’re dying of it within twelve hours. According to the information the CDC has gathered in the last twenty-four hours, hospital admissions are up one-hundred-twenty-percent in most metropolitan areas.”

First the living dead, now this, the President thought. Maybe it was time to join the First Lady at Iron Mountain.

BROOKLYN.

7:59 A.M.

Sandy was in the kitchen sipping a glass of orange juice when Roger called out from the living room.

Jared sat on the floor beside the couch playing with his dinosaur diorama, oblivious to his father watching Bryant Gumbel on
The Today Show
. Roger’s expression was grave.

“
An unscheduled Presidential address,” he said, clutching his coffee cup.

The anchorwoman looked ashen beneath her makeup and the TV studio lights.

“
And now to the White House for the President’s announcement,” she said, her efficient manner weighted with barely concealed emotion.

Sandy sat next to Roger as the picture cut to an exterior shot of the White House with the flag blowing lazily against the clear blue sky. The President appeared on the screen as the picture dissolved into an interior of the Oval Office. He was seated, and looked frail, his expression as stony as any of his predecessors peering out from Mount Rushmore.

“
My fellow Americans, we live in troubled times,” he began, his inflection dripping with his hallmark school-principal inflections.

He paused, as if choked with emotion.

He looks ill, Sandy thought. Despite the early morning warmth—the temperature outside was already in the low seventies—a chill touched her back.