The Zombie Room

by R. D. Ronald

  ‘The only way we can get out of this now is if we get some evidence of what’s going on. I was seen outside the restaurant when it blew up; there’s evidence linking those two to the computer shop, and a dead woman under our house. We’re all on the run. Either Jupiter and his crew find us, or eventually we’ll get picked up by the police.’

  ‘A dead woman? What the fuck?’ Sadiq blustered.

  ‘Tazeem’s right. All we have is Tatiana’s folder from the clinic which doesn’t prove anything,’ Mangle said. ‘Undoubtedly they’ll have cleaned up there in case any police searches are forthcoming.’

  ‘Right. And we don’t even know which club The Zombie Room is in. We need you to take us there and get us inside,’ Tazeem said.

  Sadiq shook his head and looked anything but convinced.

  ‘Aren’t you listening?’ Decker asked him. ‘You don’t get to say yes or no. You aren’t in a bargaining position, and from what you’ve said, it looks like you’re close to useless to them now as well.’

  Sadiq looked from Decker down at the floor. He pulled a wrap of cocaine from his pocket and fumbled to unfold it.

  ‘I can get us some IDs. We can alter our appearances to avoid being too obvious, but we still need you to get us in, Sadiq. You know how these people operate,’ Tazeem said.

  Sadiq nodded as he rolled up a note and snorted the remainder of the powder out of the wrap. ‘I can’t stay here, then,’ he stated more than asked.

  ‘No,’ Tazeem confirmed. ‘You’ll have to come with us.’ He turned back to the window and looked down at the street below. ‘Get some things together. You might not be able to come back here for a while.’

  Tazeem had barely finished speaking when the black Mercedes pulled up below and four men got out and ran toward the entrance.

  ‘They’re back,’ Tazeem exclaimed to the others. ‘Four of them just got out of that car. We have to go.’

  The intercom buzzed, announcing their arrival downstairs.

  ‘They won’t be able to break through the door down there in broad daylight,’ Mangle said. ‘There’s too many people around. Just don’t answer it.’

  ‘An old woman downstairs, Mrs Altrecht, she always opens the door if someone buzzes her.’

  ‘Is there another way out?’ Decker asked.

  ‘There’s a fire escape,’ Sadiq said. ‘But the windows onto it are all painted shut.’

  The sound of heavy footsteps running into the stairwell alerted Decker. He withdrew Dr Chu’s pistol from the waistband of his pants.

  ‘Make your way down there,’ he shouted to the others. ‘I’ll slow them down and meet you outside.’

  Tazeem looked around the kitchen for something to aid their escape. He snatched up a small aluminium trash can from under the counter and hurled it at the window. The windowpane burst outwards showering glass fragments, fast food containers and empty beer cans onto the fire escape. Mangle picked up a dirty plate from the sink and began knocking out the remaining shards that clung to the window frame.

  A shot rang out from along the hallway, and Tazeem, Mangle and Sadiq looked to see Decker leaning over the railing and firing off another.

  ‘Hurry up,’ he shouted to them, ‘they’re only two floors down.’

  Tazeem swept away the broken glass scattered on the countertop with a brush of his hand, and climbed out onto the fire escape. Sadiq followed as more gunfire rang out from the stairwell. Mangle climbed up to slide out after them.

  Decker was halfway back along the hall. ‘Get out,’ he yelled, ‘they’re nearly here.’

  Mangle climbed out of the broken window as a shot sliced the air beside his ear. Decker spun and fired back towards the door. Their assailant ducked outside and took cover.

  Crouching low, Decker walked backwards, his eyes fixed on the entrance to the apartment. Two guns angled around the door frame and unloaded blindly in Decker’s direction. He heard the zip and crash of bullets and shattering crockery all around him. Making use of the time they needed to reload, Decker vaulted up onto the counter and slid his legs outside. The two assailants stepped into the hallway and fired.

  Mangle and Tazeem grabbed Decker’s legs and hauled him through the window and onto the fire escape. Instead of righting himself once outside, Decker fell into a crumpled heap. Mangle tried to put his arms around Decker to prevent his fall and they came away slick with blood.

  ‘Fuck, no, they shot him,’ Mangle cried.

  Decker, who was still conscious, reached into his pocket and began to reload the pistol.

  ‘Go on, I’ll hold them up.’

  ‘Don’t be an idiot,’ Tazeem said and tried to haul the bigger man to his feet, the expanding bloodstain beginning to dominate the side of Decker’s shirt. Tazeem looked him in the eye and saw his friend’s acceptance of the situation.

  ‘Latif was a good guy. He really had faith in me, man. You have to make sure they pay for what they did.’

  ‘Come on,’ Sadiq hissed as he began to descend the zigzagging metal stairway.

  Tazeem and Mangle were forced to face the futility of trying to help Decker escape. Mangle began to say something but Decker silenced him by raising the pistol and firing a shot through the broken kitchen window.

  ‘I’m sorry, Decker,’ Mangle said and followed the hastily retreating Sadiq.

  Tazeem bit back his grief and fury and squeezed Decker’s shoulder. He nodded without taking his eyes from the window.

  Two single shots came from above as Tazeem reached the second floor. He looked up but couldn’t see if anyone had been hit. He continued down to the bottom, where Mangle and Sadiq were waiting. Repetitive gunfire sounded from multiple weapons. They fled down an alleyway and into the backstreets of the city.

  12

  Once satisfied that they weren’t being followed, Tazeem directed and Sadiq drove the car he’d just appropriated back to the bungalow. Mangle had sat despondent in the back seat the whole way, and now lay on the couch watching updates on Channel 10 News.

  Tazeem and Sadiq sat at the table, Tazeem asking Sadiq everything he could think of about The Zombie Room. He shared Mangle’s pain at the loss of their friend, but he knew he had to press on if there was to be any hope of bringing down the people who had killed him. He wanted to know the location, layout, number and placement of security guards, number of girls there, when it was open, and any escape routes. Sadiq, who twice stopped for hits of cocaine from another wrap he’d taken out of his pocket, seemed forthcoming, but the information he was able to provide didn’t satisfy Tazeem that they would be able to pull this off. He knew that whatever happened, they’d be relying on a huge slice of good luck.

  They left Mangle in the house, and went to ditch the stolen car and collect Tazeem’s Mercedes from the lock-up. Tazeem stopped outside a pharmacy and Sadiq was sent in to buy hair dye, clippers, razors and scissors. Tazeem was determined to give them the best possible chance of success, and that meant a change in appearance, so made another stop to purchase some new clothes.

  ‘You just missed a Kasey Haugh news report on what happened,’ Mangle informed them on their return. ‘She said it was someone staying in the building who went nuts and started shooting people at random. There are three people dead but they haven’t released any names.’

  ‘At least Decker managed to take out two of the bastards,’ Tazeem said. ‘Whatever the police may or may not know, we still can’t count on their help.’

  ‘Was there any mention of the rest of us?’ Sadiq asked.

  ‘No. The neighbours reported seeing an Asian man living there, but the name they gave wasn’t yours.’

  ‘Didn’t keep it in my name, yeah? I like to keep an information buffer in case anyone comes looking for me,’ Sadiq said, looking pleased with himself.

  Over the next hour Sadiq shaved off his neatly cropped stubble, cut his hair shorter and removed his tell-tale jewellery. Mangle’s hair was cut short and bleached blonde, and Tazeem, who had accrued a few days’ beard growth,
left that untouched but used the clippers to shave his head. It was far from foolproof but it did offer a discernable difference in their appearance.

  It was past 1 a.m. when Tazeem cautiously drove his silver Mercedes along the back roads towards the docks. He kept to a sedate speed. It had been raining and the roads were greasy.

  When they got close, Tazeem made two circuits of the immediate area while Sadiq filled them in further on what he knew. The Club was well out of the way. The Langdown Meat Packing Plant had been closed for purpose ten years earlier. The whole area had suffered from decades of steady decline, and Langdown was just one of many hulking slabs of dead real estate that no one, other than rats and pigeons, had showed much interest in for years. He reckoned a half mile of land, and all of the buildings on it had been bought as a package deal by an investor, but other than a modest casino and night club renovation inside Langdown, the other buildings remained untouched. A ghost town esplanade of boarded-up shops fringed the curve of the river, punctuated by empty parking lots and billboards advertising redundant products. An ebbing flock of seagulls were the only spectators to the desolation.

  The ground-floor windows of the red-brick packaging plant had been bricked up, and all higher windows were sealed by steel plates. One thing was clear, nothing got in or out without express authorisation. There was an underground car parking lot, but Tazeem chose to park in the cover of a nearby derelict warehouse.

  They slipped through a hole in the chain-link fence. Mangle pulled at the collar of his hastily-bought suit, which was irritating his neck. Tazeem and Sadiq looked more self-assured in their new attire than he felt, but undoubtedly it was nerves over exactly what they may face, rather than the quality of his clothing, that caused his discomfort.

  After traversing the perimeter, Sadiq strode confidently toward the doorway of The Club, which would once have been a loading bay for trucks and their cargo of meat. No lights shone outside other than a single halogen bulb dimly illuminating a dusky blue oval at the entrance. No grandiose sign announced the name of The Club. No velvet rope. No red carpet. Nothing.

  Sadiq nodded at the doormen and all three walked inside, up a flight of wrought iron stairs, and pulled on the aluminium bar of a fire exit style door. It opened outwards, allowing entry into The Club.

  It looked completely different to any club Mangle had been in before. The floors, tables, bar and square support columns throughout The Club were black, either marble or an expensive wood, polished so intensely that they shone as if wet. It was very loud and very dark, and the casino was part of the same large room. An indirect soft green glow came from lamps mounted on the columns and along the walls. The same undulating green light shone from spotlights and lasers mounted at three points on the ceiling.

  A thick white mist hugged the centre of the floor, around a foot deep. Laser canons would periodically break off from their pulsating display forming a perfect rotating isosceles triangle that floated upon the bed of smoke. The bar staff and croupiers all wore black with the same green triangle logo emblazoned on their shirts, and contact lenses which made their eyes shine an eerie vibrant green.

  Nine or ten middle-aged men sat at a large S-shaped bar on the right-hand side of the room. On the left-hand side were the gaming tables: black jack, roulette, craps and poker. Maybe 20 or so men sat there, Mangle guessed, and he counted only four women in attendance.

  They walked to the bar and Sadiq ordered whisky and cokes. The bar optics glowed with the same green light, the intensity of which was linked into the music. As the bartender walked away to fetch the drinks, a breakdown in the techno track commenced and the bottles began to palpitate. The bartender’s eyes glowed with a hallucinatory felinity that made Mangle feel nervous.

  ‘What do we do now we’re inside?’ Mangle asked Sadiq.

  ‘We wait, and we pray Tazeem’s cards check out OK,’ he replied, running a hand over his freshly shaved chin.

  They picked up the drinks and moved to a table at the rear of the room.

  ‘After we’ve had a few drinks and can be sure your credit cards are holding up, I’ll ask about getting us some extra entertainment,’ Sadiq said, taking a sip from his glass. ‘But we’re gonna have to gamble for a while so they see we’re serious about spending.’

  ‘How much do we have on the cards?’ Mangle asked Tazeem.

  ‘Maybe fifty K. It’s everything that we made through the utility scam. I linked the cash to the IDs I generated for us with a couple of layers of authenticity. If someone really goes digging they’ll see through them, but they should pass a reasonable degree of scrutiny.’

  ‘Right, we hit the tables, yeah?’ Sadiq said.

  ‘You know much about gambling?’ Tazeem asked Mangle.

  ‘Other than a little poker, the only gambling I ever did was driving home after a night out and hoping not to get breathalysed.’

  ‘Great,’ Tazeem muttered. ‘You stick with that, but don’t let the stakes get too high.’

  They went and sat down at the gaming tables, Tazeem and Sadiq at roulette, Mangle at poker.

  There were three other players at Mangle’s table. There was no conversation and they eyed him suspiciously as he took his seat. Mangle gave his card to the dealer who swiped it and gave him the table minimum of 5K in chips. The table was covered with black felt and a green spotlight fired directly onto it from above. The surface of the cards appeared iridescent as the quick-fingered dealer slid them effortlessly across the cloth.

  He folded the first two hands before the flop, losing few chips. The next four or five hands were kind. After a half-hour Mangle decided to take a break and see how Tazeem and Sadiq were getting on. He gathered up his chips and accepted the dealer’s offer of a carry case.

  Sadiq’s eyes were wide and glittered unnaturally. Mangle guessed his whisky had been topped up with a cocaine chaser. Tazeem hunched over expectantly at the table and then slumped back into his seat as the roulette ball fell into place.

  ‘Have you had any luck?’ Mangle asked.

  ‘Sadiq wiped out and I’m down about 10k,’ Tazeem informed him. Sadiq sniffed and shrugged his shoulders. ‘How much you got in there?’ he asked nodding at the case.

  Mangle put it down beside Tazeem who rifled through the chips.

  ‘There must be almost eighty thousand,’ Tazeem exclaimed. ‘If we’re gonna get anywhere here tonight we’re gonna have to put our resources behind you, Mangle.’

  ‘Steady on,’ he protested. ‘I had a lucky run but that’s not to say I still won’t lose the lot.

  ‘We can’t come back and try another time, hoping for more luck. You’re just gonna have to do the best you can.’

  Sadiq got up and walked back towards the bar. Tazeem turned back to the table and slid a stack of chips onto the board. Mangle knew his poker skill wouldn’t win out, but maybe if he lost spectacularly enough then that may be enough to highlight them as big spenders and get them further access to The Zombie Room. He returned to the same seat at the poker table and took his chips out of the carry case.

  ‘You’ve decided to lose them after all?’ the man opposite asked with a wry smile. He looked to be in his fifties, had a full head of hair, as white as cotton, brushed neatly behind his ears. His eyes were shrewd and observant and he wore a dark grey suit that was elegant yet conservative, with a dark blue cravat.

  ‘No, I just decided I hadn’t won enough yet for tonight,’ Mangle said, and hoped the cocky smile he attempted looked more natural than it felt.

  The man laughed and Mangle relaxed a little. Maybe he would be able to pull this off after all.

  ‘Dyson Steiger,’ the white haired man said and extended his perfectly manicured hand to Mangle.

  ‘Eric Lowell,’ Mangle lied, using the name on his fake ID and credit card, and shook the proffered hand.

  ‘Alright, enough chat, Eric Lowell, let us play.’

  Mangle managed to accrue another pile of chips over the following dozen hands. The other two player
s at the table were becoming a little worse for wear, and their chips were going down as fast as their blood alcohol level went up. Steiger appeared equally as aware of this, and also harvested his fair share of the spoils. A few hands more and one of them decided to go all in, and made a magnanimous gesture of pushing his remaining chips into the centre of the table. Mangle was holding nothing worthwhile so folded. Steiger took a few moments to assess, but his eyes were focused more on Mangle than on his opponent, and Mangle was feeling uncomfortable.

  ‘Call,’ he announced and pushed his own chips forward.

  The last player folded and the cards were turned. Steiger held the better hand by some margin, and didn’t look at all surprised to discover so. The bankrupted player offered up a few empty clichés as he withdrew from the table and walked unsteadily back to the bar.

  Both sides of The Club had filled up now. There was a queue to be served at the bar and a few women were dancing in the smoky centre of the room. A couple of times Tazeem had pumped the air with his fist, apparently jubilant at a win, but that hadn’t happened for a while and now he was even more slouched in his seat than earlier. The remaining player next to Steiger had an elbow on the table and his chin cupped in the palm of his hand. His eyes were heavily hooded.

  ‘I hope we aren’t keeping you from something important,’ Steiger said to him.

  After a few seconds the man realised he was being addressed and turned to face Steiger.

  ‘What?’

  ‘You seem barely able to contain your excitement, friend. Positively brimming with kinetic energy.’

  ‘Hmmph,’ the man remarked, unable to think up a witty comeback of his own when he realised this was an attempt by Steiger to rattle him.

  The next hand was dealt, and after less than a moment’s contemplation the other player went all in, leaned back on his chair and folded his arms. Mangle looked at his own cards again. He had a strong hand. Steiger watched and studied every movement of hand and eye Mangle made.

  ‘Call,’ Mangle announced, consciously stopping himself from wiping his brow.