The Edger Collection

by David Beem

  Danny swings the shovel—

  Skateboarder and skateboard separate midair.

  The skateboard clacks and zooms across the alkaline desert crust. The Zombie rider lands flat on his back. Danny bends over him, checks his face. Out cold. But—hey.

  “Is that Skateboard Legend Tony Hawk?”

  Leo’s heavy breathing and stomping feet race by. “First rule of Zombieland! Cardio!”

  Danny glances back the way Leo came. A cloud of sand hovers over two dozen more cars screeching to a halt near their wreck. Doors flying open. Zombies clambering out.

  Danny bolts for the abandoned Yugo.

  “BRAINS!” cry the zombies in unison.

  Danny wags his finger at them. “That’s apocryphal!” he yells, then turns tail and runs.

  “IS NOT!”

  Between labored breaths, Danny yells over his shoulder, “Romero’s zombies never ate brains!”

  “WE’RE DIAL Z FOR ZOMBIES ZOMBIES!”

  Leo climbs into the driver’s seat. Danny yanks the creaking passenger-side door open and stuffs himself in, the car rocking back and forth under his added weight. Leo turns the key in the ignition.

  Nothing.

  “Come on! Come on! Come on!” yells Danny.

  Leo dries his palm off on his torn slacks, smearing blood, then tries again—nothing. “Dammit!”

  Fists drum the roof and trunk. Zombie faces mash against the windows. A snarling Tony Hawk climbs onto the hood.

  “Is that Skateboard Legend Tony—?”

  “Come on already!” yells Danny.

  Leo gestures helplessly at the steering wheel. “It’s a friggin’ Yugo. It’s lucky to even be here!”

  Pizza Hut climbs on top of the hood next to Tony Hawk. They bare their teeth and wrinkle their noses.

  “The Romero films are classics!” Danny shakes his fist at them. “Dial Z was a friggin’ spoof, for cryin’ out loud!”

  “OBVIOUSLY, WE’RE SPOOFS TOO!” cry Tony Hawk and Pizza Hut in unison. “WE’RE NOT REALLY UNDEAD CORPSES! DUH!”

  Leo turns the key again. The engine revs.

  Tony Hawk and Pizza Hut exchange alarmed glances.

  “Buckle up!” Leo puts it in gear and lays on the gas, and the zombies roll over the top of the Yugo. Danny, his heart trying to exit through his chest, leans his head back and catches his breath.

  “George Romero must be rolling in his grave,” says Leo, still panting.

  Danny nods. “But if he was a half-decomposed, green-skinned, undead boogeyman, he wouldn’t be eating brains, I can tell you that.”

  Chapter Forty-Five

  The nightmare light casts eerie shadows over Mary’s red-rimmed eyes. She’s as hollowed out on the inside as I am.

  “Are you ready to do it now?” she asks.

  “Don’t,” I reply. “Don’t blame me for this.”

  “We could stop it. Right now.”

  “You don’t know that.” I tromp toward the tree, then turn and tromp for the bench. “Even if I…annihilated your soul,” shudder, press on, “we probably only have minutes in the real world before he knows where we’re hiding. I’ll be on the run in your body. And then I’d have to put my soul into someone else, because he’d find me and know what happened. So I’d be immortal. So what? I’ll have lost you. I’ll have lost everything.”

  “To free everyone!”

  I slam a telepathic wall up between us, and she flinches. I don’t know how I did it, it’s just there. All I know is I can’t stand to feel her in me right now. Her resolve. Her certainty. She’s even thinking about burying my body after we do the deed so Nostradamus doesn’t find it!

  “Your mom said you were the plan,” she says. “She admitted they didn’t have one. It’s time for the nuclear option. Edger, Nostradamus could be here any second. We need to be fast so you can escape. Otherwise, it’s over.”

  “This is over,” I reply, stunned by the enormity of the moment. “Your plan. I can’t do it. I can’t walk this world forever knowing I did that to you.”

  I release the wall, and her sorrow washes into me, making one pool of grief where there were two. We take seats on the bench, I wrap her in a hug, and our two souls seem to hold their breaths. One of us uncertain of how to do what must be done, the other unwilling to do it.

  Chapter Forty-Six

  Back in the beginning, back when I still could’ve said no to Mikey, back when this was just about restoring power to the Eastern Seaboard and me dying without those booster shots, I thought dying to save others seemed like a fair trade. It wasn’t noble. It was the opposite of that. Losing my life didn’t seem like much of a loss because I was wasting it anyway at the Über Dork.

  Mary’s head lifts. She offers the lopsided smile. “There’s only the one human race. That’s what you told me that day in Emerald Plaza.”

  “Pretty corny.”

  “But sincere.”

  “I sincerely wanted to keep seeing you. If I’d turned Mikey down, I’d have gone back to my job in the mall. Guess asking you out and getting rejected like a normal dork might’ve been easier than going through all this, huh?”

  “Hindsight is always twenty-twenty.”

  Her strength pulses around me like an electric blanket. It phases into me, and I push against the weblike barrier of our connection, try to resist, just a little at first, then a lot, but her gentle strength is overwhelming. Our minds spool together like a twist tie, and a tiny sliver of me, the part that’s still solidly me, panics. She’s decided how this is going to end, and there are no trapdoors or secret bookcases leading out.

  Her fingers go between mine, and she leads me to the dead Tree of Life. “I was going to ask you to marry me,” she says. “If this had gone differently. I was gonna be radical and make you take my name. But then I realized I’m more of a Mrs. Bonkovich than a Mrs. Watson.”

  “You know us Bonkoviches. Mysterious and dorky. Always a winning combination.”

  She smiles through fresh tears, and a random thought strikes me.

  “Do sons-in-law to the prime minister of Australia get titles?”

  “First Dork of State, I think.”

  “First Über Dork of State, you mean.”

  “That’s the one.”

  I probe her consciousness. She’s fantasizing how our lives might’ve played out, and the crushing weight in my chest that is her is like a black hole. Australia or California? Would she’ve been the prime minister’s daughter, or continue as she’s been since her reincarnation?

  “Either way,” she says. “As long as we’re together. Oh, and as long as we don’t honeymoon on tropical islands. I’ve had enough of those for a while.”

  “Disney it is.”

  “I was thinking Scotland.”

  “Scotland it is.”

  “I love you, Edger Bonkovich.”

  “I love you, Mary Thomas.”

  I choke down a lump the size of a planet in my throat and give myself over to the feel of her one last time. I don’t want to forget this. The way she thinks. Her childlike outlook on love. Her brutal clarity on bad guys. And beneath it all, a tender heart.

  She focuses on the center of my forehead and, man, it’s getting warm. It’s like all the blood in my body is rushing to that one spot. My panic surges back, but we’re tied together now. One big stew of dread, love, and horror mingling in our stomachs.

  She’s doing it. She’s really doing it.

  I try to resist, but I can barely think. Our resolve is one. And the action isn’t suicidal so much as…sacrificial.

  “There’s only the one human race.” she says, her resolute gaze searching my face. “We’ll save it. Together.”

  Golden bars cross her pupils, and her cheeks glow like they do on the beach.

  The light snaps back.

  “Children!” I blurt randomly. “Boy or girl? One? Two? Twelve?”

  “Yes,” she says, smiling weakly. “Yes to all of it.”

  I lick my lips. “Coast? Mou
ntains? Country?”

  “If we’re together, anywhere. But let’s have seasons. I want our family to have four seasons.”

  “Four seasons it is.”

  The blood rushes again to the center of my forehead. The light extending, images storm down the slopes of my imagination of what could have been. Our children sledding, leaping into a pile of leaves, cliff-diving into a lake. We’re block parents. We’re the big family where all the neighborhood children come to hang out. We feed them. Great big heaping plates of Gran’s golumpki.

  Mary’s smile turns down in the corners, and her cheeks are again awash in the golden light. I push all the love I can into that light. Maybe it won’t hurt her. I can’t—I can’t hurt her like we felt when Nostradamus did it!

  The light falters.

  She grabs my elbows.

  “Think about our family,” she says quickly, and the imagination montage starts in again. Golumpki, block parents, sledding. She projects whatever distractions she thinks I need to get through this. “Our kids! They’re playing, Edger! Can you see them? Playing together? You can never hurt me.”

  The gold bar burns brighter. The red light of my subconscious landscape fades to pitch black.

  An inch, now, from her forehead…

  “I can’t do it,” I whisper, struggling against our twined knot.

  “You can,” she hurries to say. “If you don’t have faith in yourself, trust my faith in you.” She squeezes my arms. “Trust my faith in you! Edger. Repeat it with me. Trust my faith—”

  “—in you,” I finish out loud before collapsing in on my thoughts.

  …Trust my faith in you, trust my faith in you…

  The light blazes in her eyes. Millimeters from her forehead now.

  Don’t touch her with it! I tell myself. Don’t touch her with—

  “Names!” I blurt, and her fingers dig into my biceps. “We need to name them!” The light shrinks back.

  “Edger, do it! Do it!”

  “I can’t do it!”

  “You can! Do it for me!”

  I clench my eyes shut and repeat our mantra. My imagination montage starts up again, this time replaying when Mary and I were down and out in Honduras. The time she told me I kept her in the light… Because she didn’t have faith in herself.

  Trust my faith in you, trust my faith in you…

  Chapter Forty-Seven

  Mary pushes me away at the same time I pull away. I stumble and fall, my jaw clacks, and the golden light snaps into my brain like a rubber band. The subconscious landscape goes dark.

  I grope around for the bench.

  Ankle. Leg. Seat.

  My hands glide over the bench, find Mary’s hip. I scoot onto the seat next to her, and her arms wrap around my neck. I breathe in her clean scent. I feel clear minded again without her iron will messing with me. Or maybe it’s her mantra backfiring that’s strengthening me.

  “I need you,” I say. “We need each other. Otherwise, it’s an awfully lonely world up there.”

  She chuckles. “I underestimated how hard this’d be. You’re the only friend I ever had.”

  “Friends stick together.”

  “Edger, it’s hopeless. There’s no beating him. It doesn’t matter how much you believe in me.”

  “Then stick with me. Take a leap of faith we’ll find a way together.”

  “My brain doesn’t work like that.”

  “That’s okay. Mine does.”

  Tingling energy simmers in our consciousnesses, and we expand beyond the tree and park bench. Light slashes the dark. Our minds press into the world above. Only this time, it isn’t the zombie rebels. This time we’re in a…bunker?

  There are three armored space ninjas. One of them is a woman. One of them is Fabio-sized, and one of them is built like Captain America.

  Who are they? asks Mary, her soul-star hovering beside mine.

  Together, we press against the boundaries of their consciousnesses, which stretch but don’t yield. They’re thicker than they should be. Less porous too.

  They’ve banded together, says Mary.

  Like friends do.

  A puzzle piece locks into place in Mary’s consciousness. Fabio and Caleb.

  And someone new. Mary, they’ve made a closed network!

  Her presence in my head is like a research librarian on Google, the way she’s prying things out of me faster than I can process it myself, faster than I can articulate my hunches.

  You think they’ve taken the superserum? she asks.

  I think we’ve been looking at this problem wrong all along, I reply. Sending me in alone? What for? We’re stronger with friends.

  Our soul-lights swell, and we fade from the Collective Unconscious and return to the waking world.

  Muted robot music. I open my eyes to…more darkness.

  Mary is soft and firm in my arms, her pheromones alleviating the musty smell of wherever we’re standing. Oh, right. We’re beneath the fake bottom of that tent. She scoots her feet and shifts her weight. Her hair tickles my nose as her hand leaves the small of my back.

  “Door,” she says, and I feel around on the wall behind us and find her hand on the handle.

  “Take that leap of faith?” I ask.

  She inhales sharply. Together we pull the handle down, push, then raise our hands against the blinding light.

  Inside are three blurry figures.

  Chapter Forty-Eight

  The three armored space ninjas startle. The Captain America-sized one dashes forward and hauls us in by our elbows.

  The short space ninja next to him swaggers forward and places his fists on his hips. “The Bunker Buster. At your service.” His voice booms through the voice changer.

  “Fabio?” I ask, squinting through light-induced tears.

  The third space ninja lays her hand on Bunker Buster’s chest. “Sweetie, I’m not sure that’s such a good, um, superhero name.”

  A blurry commotion ensues. Scuffing supersuit armor, shoulders pressing in. The door latches. An elbow budging across my back, my hip bumping Mary’s.

  My vision adjusts, and a trippy déjà vu settles over me. Weird being inside the bunker we saw in the Collective Unconscious, like a dream come to life. Mary gapes and takes in the room like it’s just as weird for her. The bunker is maybe eighteen feet by eighteen feet. One table. A low ceiling, a buzzing lightbulb, stocked shelves, and a second door in the corner. The three superpeople stare at us in silence. I feel around Mary’s leg for her hand, and her fingers lace into mine. I point with my other hand at Captain America.

  “Caleb.” I point at Bunker Buster next. “Fabio.” And the last one? “I’m not sure we’ve met.” I hold my hand out for the woman. Her right hand crosses to her left, grabs her superhero ring and twists. Black-and-chrome goo bubbles over her arms, torso, and legs, over her matted-down hair, eyelids, cheeks—

  A faint hiss like a simmering teakettle fills the room. Caleb and Fabio are bubbling now too. Huh. I never noticed the suit coming off or on as having a sound before. Maybe because it’s three suits at once? Or maybe it’s because I’m usually the one wearing it. Once all suits are all sucked back into their respective rings, it’s smiles all the way around the room.

  “Anna,” says the woman, and I realize my hand is still out for shaking when she takes it and finishes the introduction. She’s Korean-American, I think, going by her roundish eyes, a bit taller than Fabio. Young face. She releases my hand and immediately sticks it out again. “You must be Mary.”

  “It’s so great to meet you.” Mary laughs, her face lighting up as she takes in Caleb and Fabio. “You’re all okay!”

  Fabio stands up straight and beams a big bearded smile back at her. He drapes his arm over Anna’s shoulder, and they grin at each other.

  “Whoa-ho!” I arch my eyebrow and grin at them. “Thar be romance in this here bunker?”

  “Thar be,” they say in unison, while also wagging their eyebrows in unison. They exchange dumbfounded lo
oks.

  “Babe?” says Fabio.

  “Babe?” says Anna.

  His gaze breaks away to meet mine. “Pookie Pie and I are always finishing each other’s sentences. And that’s not just because of our superpowers. Edge, I don’t mean to brag, but… I think we’re soul mates.”

  Anna loops her arm in his and strokes it. “Aw-aw. Babe, that’s so sweet. I think that too.”

  “Soundproof and telepathy-proof bunker, bro,” says Caleb, like none of that just happened. Mary scoots past him to reach the table and open a black box. Blue light shines out, lighting up her face. She snaps it shut and slaps her hand over her mouth. Her lashes sweep up.

  “Is this what I think it is?”

  Caleb bites his bottom lip and nods. “You can read all about it.” He tips his head toward a file box on the floor. Mary pulls back the chair at the table, sits, and removes the lid. I hurry to the black box, flip the latch, open it—

  Inside are five beakers filled with a glowing blue liquid.

  In front of those is a gray foam carrying tray with three empty slots, all in a row, and at the end of that row are two black-and-chrome rings sitting inside identical slots to the other three.

  “This is where you got the rings,” I say. “Superserum. Did you…?”

  “We’ve been reading about it since your mom brought us down here, bro.”

  “Looks like the rebels put their faith in our animal friends,” says Fabio, using a swaggering tone. “And artificial intelligence.”

  My brain sparks and stalls.

  “Edger,” says Mary, reading from the file. “It says here your mom and dad had this bunker built before they split up.”

  My head ticks back. “Split up?”

  “Naw. Not like that, bro.”

  “They knew they had to separate their work,” says Anna. “Independent development. Your mom applied your work on artificial intelligence on a small group of animals here in our camp.”

  “My work? From Notre Dame? Guys, what’re you talking about?”