by Brian Keene
He needed to come up with a plan between now and then.
He walked on, the shadows between the trees swallowing him.
From high above, a whippoorwill sang its lonely song.
Jim's grandmother had always said that if you heard a whippoorwill at night, it meant someone close to you was going to die.
The bird sang again, and Jim froze. It was perched directly in front of him.
And it was alive.
It chirped at him, and spread its wings.
"Nice to see I'm not the only one," he whispered. "I wish I had your wings."
The bird took flight, vanishing into the darkness.
He pressed on.
The old man sat on the park bench feeding the pigeons.
Their bloated corpses buzzed around him. Frankie watched from the safety of the restroom as the dead birds devoured him. A pigeon swooped down, one of its eyeballs dangling from the socket, and claimed the old man's left eye in return. Strips of flesh were sheared away by snapping, razored beaks.
The old man did not scream.
He sat in stony silence, seemingly unaware of what was happening. He absentmindedly brushed at the side of his head. The mangled ruins of his right ear stained his white collar.
"Damn skeeters," she heard him mutter. A pigeon darted for the plump offering of his tongue. When the beak clamped and tore off a small morsel of meat, blood flowed into his mouth.
"Fly! Be free!" he flapped his arms as he sat on the bench. The pigeons around him fluttered and circled. No sooner had he slumped back than the birds descended again.
"Fucking nutcase," Frankie muttered, grinding her teeth.
The old man continued to move under the barrage of beaks. He squirmed and laughed, as if he were being tickled.
She started shaking again, though whether from revulsion or withdrawal or fear she could not tell. The jones called to her. The scabs dotting her slender arms itched, and three blunt, cracked fingernails dug at them without hesitation. She needed a fix. She needed some skag. She needed.
That need landed her at here at the Baltimore Zoo. Out of the frying pan and into the fire.
T-Bone and Horn Dawg and the others had to have seen her climb the fence. The question was, would they follow? Would they leave her be, so she could rest in peace?
Rest?
Yes, rest. Rest from the running all over town.
Rest forever. In peace.
Frankie thought she could damn well die here, in a men's bathroom with dead, hungry animals walking around outside, and a gang of pissed-off dope dealers who wanted the bag of dope she now carried. The street value on that particular bag of dope had skyrocketed, because there would be no further bags of dope like it.
Unfortunately, she was down to the last of it. Somehow, she didn't think T-Bone and the rest would be happy to hear that.
The old man was silent now. Cautiously, Frankie peered out the door. His black suit was a pink, quivering mass of exposed muscle and nerve endings. His chest continued to rise and fall. Stubbornly, the life his parents gave him continued with tenacity. It would not quit without a fight.
Death was stronger.
Patient.
She watched him die and wondered how long before he rose again?
Her arms howled. Her gut clenched, and she felt the pang of emptiness there. She dug into her pocket in search of something to take it away.
The last of it.
She cooked up the batch, blotter and spoon, disposable lighter, and she began to lick her cracked lips. Soon, none of these thoughts would matter. Not the old man, the pigeons, T-Bone and the others; not even the baby. What mattered was the greedy, puckered mouth track marks that dotted her arms, like the insistent mouths of newborns, hungrily demanding a nipple.
She tied off. The needle found a good vein. She shot.
Her blood sang sweet harmonies that lulled, pulled her along. A few seconds after, the familiar euphoria hit. The warmth settled in her belly. She felt like she was wrapped in cotton. Her face flushed and pupils constricted, Frankie drifted out of the restroom and above the zoo, floating beyond the ruins of Baltimore and the living world.
Frankie lay in the hospital. The bright lights were harsh on her eyes.
Faces stared impassively; covered in shrouds. Her blood glistened on the doctor's glove.
She was in pain. She was turned inside out and the doctor and nurses didn't understand, or seem to care. They were talking about the morning's news report (a dead man coming back to life?), and she could see it in their eyes, see the thought reflected.
"Just another junkie whore delivering her unwanted baby into the world."
Fuck them. What did she care? They should be impressed! Most heroin users developed spontaneous abortions. She'd been strong enough to carry full-term.
The sooner she was done, the sooner she could take her baby and leave-
(get a fix)
-something tore and as she howled in agony, the doctor said he would have to cut,
"Don't push."
"Fuck you!" she screamed.
Frankie pushed, pushed with everything she had, gnisiehTR4 pushed till her spine felt like it would snap.
Something broke. She felt it, even through the pain. Something small broke, but it changed everything.
"Push!" the doctor urged.
"Make up your fucking mind!" Frankie screamed, but she continued to try.
The agony built to a crescendo, and then the pressure vanished, all at once, and Frankie was crying.
She was the only one.
She heard a nurse mutter: "I'm not surprised."
"I'm going to call it as 5:17p.m.," the doctor replied.
"My baby," Frankie pleaded through dry and crusted lips. "What's wrong with my baby?
The nurse walked away with her baby- "MY BABY!"
The nurse turned and stared. She said nothing, but Frankie knew. She knew.
Dead.
Stillborn.
Then the needle pricked her arm. Finally, the blessed needle...
The nurse vanished out the door, along with her baby.
Frankie closed her eyes, just for a moment. They jarred open when, out in the hallway, her dead baby cried and the nurses screamed.
The screaming continued when Frankie awoke. She'd nodded. Usually she was out for three to four hours, and she was unsure as to the time. It was dark now, and she shivered against the cold bathroom stall.
The scream had come from outside. It took her a moment to get her bearings. The listlessness still clung to her limbs.
Tingling from a combination of heroin and fear, she crept to the door and peaked outside.
The old man was moving again-
-and Marquon had found him.
More terrible shrieks poured forth from the gangster's gaping mouth as the old man reached into his belly and pulled forth a prize, ropy and wet. He thrashed, legs and arms flailing wildly as the zombie dug deeper. Marquon's Tec-9 lay discarded, forgotten in the grass. Something inside him popped, and ran through the clawed fingers like Play-Doh.
Marquon grew silent.
Frankie slid down the wall, panic eradicating the remains of the high.
If Marquon had made it in, that meant the others were here too.
They were inside the zoo with all the other beasts.
As if on cue, she heard distant gunfire, followed by a shout. Marquon's cell phone began to ring.
She didn't believe what happened next. She was sure it was the dregs of the smack.
The old man picked up the cell phone, stared at it, and then spoke.
"Send more..."
It turned off the phone with one gore-streaked hand, and then resumed eating.
On hands and knees, Frankie crawled into the nearest stall. She reached into the stained porcelain, splashing water on her grubby face. Then she stood, trying to think.
She heard voices now, much closer. Voices she recognized.
"Damn, G! Check that shit out."
>
Horn Dawg.
"Mother-fucking Marquon. I told that nigga to watch his ass. Now look at him."
T-Bone.
"Hey, look at this. Dessert! I'll be right with you gentlemen."
The zombie.
Their reply was a volley of gunshots, followed by more ringing. At first, Frankie thought it was in her ears, but dimly she realized it was another cell phone.
"Yo," T-Bone snapped, cutting the chime off abruptly. "Whassup?"
Silence, and then "You stupid mother fuckers! Wha'chu mean he let it out of its fucking cage? Shit, did he think the bitch was gonna hide in there wit it?"
Frankie resumed watch at the door, in time to see TBone viciously jamming the phone into his pocket. The zombie lay in a bullet-ridden pile at his feet.
"Who that is?" inquired Horn Dawg.
"Fucking C. He said Willie let the damn lion out of its cage. Thought that ho' might be hiding inside. Stupid mother fucker shot the lock off."
"Yo, maybe we should forget about all this," Horn Dawg replied, his face turning ashen. "A fucking lion on the loose? Naaayo. I don't think so."
"Man, fuck that lion," T-Bone spat. "And fuck you too. We ain't leaving until we find her. And put a bullet in Marquon's head. We don't need him getting' back up and trying to eat a brother."
Horn Dawg complied with a single shot. He looked at T-Bone.
"Did C say whether that lion was alive or dead?"
"What the fuck you think, nigga? They been stuck in those cages for how long now. You think it was still alive? And I'll tell you something else. Fucking C is on fucking crack. He say the lion be talking to him and shit!""
The sudden growl from the bushes beyond the fountain was deep and rumbling, a symphony of perfect bestial rage. Then the foliage parted and it padded into the moonlight, the king of the jungle.
The king was dead. Long live the king.
The lion grinned.
It broke into a run and the two gangsters fled for sanctuary.
Frankie's sanctuary.
She dashed into a stall, slamming the door shut and pulling her feet up just as the outside door crashed open.
"Shoot the fucker," Horn Dawg screamed. "Nail that sumbitch!"
Instead, T-Bone shoved the door closed and braced his shoulder against it.
"I can't shoot it, nigga! My clip's empty. That's why I had you shoot Marquon! Now drag that trash can over here and put it in front of the door!"
"Man, ain't no damn trash can gonna stop no dead lion," Horn Dawg said as he slid the trash can into place. "I jus' hope he's too big to fit through the door. Otherwise, we're fucked."
"That bitch-that ho is fucked if I catch her stinkin' junkie ass.
Gettin' me into this shit-"
A scratch at the door silenced them. Frankie stood on the bowl in the locked stall, her breath locked tight in her chest. If the thing got in here, it would not stop with TBone and Horn Dawg. If she moved, and alerted them to her presence, the lion would be a blessing. Of that she was certain, and the certainty expelled through her pores in thick sweat as she realized that she was going to die.
Oh, God, why did she have to run out of junk? Why like this? She could not die like this-why couldn't she die happy? Why couldn't she die high?
The toilet was cold under her feet.
The lion spoke, each word punctuated by a growl, as vocal cords that had never formed words before began to do so now.
The words were in no language Frankie had ever heard-nor anybody on the planet had probably ever heard. It was like something inside the lion was trying to speak-as if it were borrowing the animal's vocal chords for its own purpose. But a lion's tongue wasn't designed for speech.
Was it?
"Motherfucker," T-Bone whispered as the lion scratched at the door again, this time more insistent.
"Damn yo, we need to get the fuck out of here, like, with a fuckin' quickness."
"Well," T-Bone shouted, "start lookin' for a fucking way!"
The scratching was furious now, as were the growls of rage, and the terrible, mangled words between them. The garbage can vibrated and shook as the lion's paws batted the other side of the door. Frankie heard them run past her stall, and try to climb up to the window on the other side.
It was set high in the wall, so T-Bone was standing on Horn-Dawg's shoulders to reach it. She heard the smash of glass as his pistol butt crashed into the pane.
Frankie willed every cell in her body to silence, to stillness. If she betrayed her presence here, she was dead.
At least T-Bone was out of bullets. She might have a chance. A slim one, but it beat squatting on top of the toilet as a dead lion forced its way into the bathroom, or getting caught by T-Bone and Horn Dawg.
She held her breath because if she gave her position away right now by drawing air, that would be the last breath she ever took. She had to wait until the lion got in.
T-Bone cleared the glass out of his way, and started to pull himself up as the bathroom door crashed open. Horn-Dawg screamed. T-Bone scrambled to the window ledge.
"Pull me up, nigga! Pull me up!" Horn Dawg yelled. Frankie heard him trying to climb the slick tiled wall. His shoes scraped uselessly against it. Then Frankie heard a thud. T-Bone pulled himself through the window.
"You fucking piece o'-" Horn Dawg never finished before the lion's jaws snapped his spine.
Frankie closed her eyes, tried to ignore the sounds of the lion eating, tried to ignore the smacking, ripping sounds. There was another sound too. Smaller, hidden beneath the symphony of carnage. A constant, incessant buzzing. It took her a moment and then she realized it was the flies living beneath the dead lion's skin.
The stench was horrible, a cloying miasma of wet fur and decaying flesh that made the urinals in the far corner pleasant by comparison.
Leaping from her crouch, she shoved the stall door open as her feet hit the ground. All sound had stopped, save for her harsh, ragged breathing, amplified by the tile. The lion turned its tattered mane slowly toward her, roaring on mute. T-Bone screamed something from his vantage point at the window, but this too was silenced.
The lion turned, faced her. Bits of Horn-Dawg dangled from its blackened gums. Hunger flashed within its sunken eyes. Dead muscles, free of rigor mortis, coiled like steel cable as it prepared to leap.
Frankie grasped at the door handle, kicking out desperately at the trash can that the lion had knocked aside. She pushed hard, but the door didn't budge. Whimpering, she slammed against it with her shoulder.
Still, the door didn't move.
The sounds were rushing back now, growing louder. The lion roared, a dry, desiccated rasp that lost none of its ferocity. The carrion stench filled the room.
"You dumb bitch," T-Bone cackled from the window. "Can't chu' read the sign? That's it for your ass!"
Frankie glanced above her head.
PULL the grimy sign screamed at her.
Frankie yanked the handle.
The lion sprang.
Then she was out the door and into night. The air was foul and unmoving.
It was the sweetest air she ever breathed. Filling her lungs deep, she ran.
Behind her, the bathrooms shuddered on their foundation as the door swung shut and the lion slammed against it. More clawing sounds from inside. The lion roared, trapped.
Frankie walked backward, her senses hyperaware. The sound of the lion's rage, the dry papery rustle of leaves in the bushes; each sound electrified her spine with dread. She felt like a field mouse knowing an owl was watching from a tree branch, or a snake from its subterranean pit.
She felt the ground beneath her left foot change: from the bathroom's concrete path to the asphalt-paved walkway leading through the zoo. In the distance, TBone shouted into his cell phone for reinforcements.
Two monkeys, long dead, reached for her through the bars of a cage to her left, and that was all the incentive she needed to keep running.
Better to be dead than the living dea
d.
A stagnant breeze ruffled her greasy hair, carrying with it another distant sound. The sound of a baby crying.
She came to a low, flat building on her left. She pulled a door open, and stepped inside. Something wet crunched under her foot.
