The Dishonored Dead: A Zombie Novel

by Swartwood, Robert

  Albert stiff face quickly became somber. He stared hard at Conrad and in a low voice said, “By a major threat I mean a force we have come to call the Ripple Effect.”

  “What’s the Ripple Effect?”

  “I can’t very well show you, at least not in person, but we do have videos documenting the event. We brought in … well, test subjects—”

  The phone on the desk buzzed. Albert, clearly annoyed, sighed and signaled for them to wait. He answered the phone, saying, “Yes?” and listened for a moment, and in that moment something strange happened: his stiff face fell, his body slumped, and the emptiness in his black eyes appeared to be magnified.

  When he hung up the phone a few seconds later, Norman asked what was wrong.

  “It’s your headquarters,” the scientist said, and even in his words there was the sense of rapid decay. “Apparently it has just been bombed.”

  Chapter 10

  At the same moment Conrad and Norman merged onto the Shakespeare Expressway, headed toward the city, Denise opened the basement door at 58 Orchid Lane, reached inside and turned on the light.

  The steps weren’t dangerous, were actually quite sturdy, but she took her time regardless, thinking of the twins. She even placed her hand on her belly, for extra protection in case she fell.

  The basement was unfinished—something she and Conrad had been meaning to take care of ever since they moved in but which they never got around to doing—and she wondered why she never came down here to change things around. It was always on the first and second floors, always rearranging the furniture at least every other week because it was something to do, something to break up the boring monotony of her existence.

  She walked toward the washer and dryer, her hand still on her belly, finding herself walking in an almost waddle. She didn’t know why. She was less than a month along, which meant she wouldn’t be showing for at least another two months, but she remembered how hard it was being pregnant with Kyle, and she wanted to be ready.

  When she reached the washer and dryer, her hand dropped away from her belly.

  Denise looked around the basement, as if someone might be watching her—a ridiculous thought, yes, but one she couldn’t help—and then she stepped close to the wall, right at the corner of the washer.

  She reached into the tiny space between the utility and the concrete.

  At first she couldn’t find what she was looking for and panicked, thinking someone had found it, taken it away, notified the police. That right this moment cops were on their way. They would break down the door and rush down here and find her attempting to retrieve the same very thing that had now cost her her existence.

  She felt around the space some more, knowing that it was there, that it had to be, and when her hand touched the folder, her fingers pinched it and pulled it out.

  Denise paused, waiting for the cops to bust in, but the house remained silent. There was only faint dripping coming from one of the pipes, and nothing else.

  She took the folder over to the basement stairs and lowered herself to the second to last step. She sat there and placed the folder on her lap, staring at the plain glossy cover, knowing just what kind of trouble it held.

  When she did finally open it, she did so slowly, carefully, as if the pages inside were asleep and she didn’t want to wake them. But once she saw the first page—one of her more recent poems—she knew she was being silly, that these pages were even deader than she.

  Denise paged through the papers—there were maybe thirty in all, written over the past decade, what she considered her best—until she came to the one page that was crumpled up. She took this out, set it aside, and closed the folder. She stared at the folder again, thinking about the words inside, about how all those different words by themselves had no meaning, were just words, but how those words put together, in a certain sequence, could get you expired.

  She’d almost told Conrad the truth last night. Not how she sometimes thought about writing more poetry, but how she sometimes actually did it. How she’d sit at the kitchen table, a paper and pencil in front of her, and while the sunlight crept at an imperceptible pace across the room she would attempt imagination.

  Now she took the crumpled poem, one of her very first, and held it up. She read through it twice—both times silently—and then she closed her eyes, shaking her head.

  The water in the pipes continued dripping, and with her eyes still closed she thought about what her existence could have been. How if she hadn’t taken Jess out to the bar that night, if they had gone someplace else, she never would have met Conrad. And if she hadn’t gone up to him, danced with him, kissed him in the parking lot beneath that buzzing neon sign, she might not be sitting on this basement step right now. She might be a nurse as she had planned, maybe even a doctor, but no, here she was a Hunter’s wife, would always be a Hunter’s wife.

  Denise opened her eyes again, stared down at the words. She tried remembering what she was thinking back then, why she would make such a stupid, stupid mistake.

  Yes, at that point she and Conrad had been together six months, and yes, she did like him a lot, was even falling in love with him. But the truth was she hardly knew him at all. Every time she asked questions about his existence he would always change the subject. She didn’t know where he went to school, who his father was, what he did for work. The only thing Conrad did tell her was he never knew his mother, the woman having expired giving animation to him, and this was said in passing, an almost afterthought, at once forgotten.

  And when the truth did come out—about his attending Artemis, about becoming a Hunter—he said he was sorry for having lied to her, but that he loved her and didn’t want to lie to her anymore. He then even gave her the chance to break up with him, saying that he would understand, but she hadn’t, and even now she didn’t know why.

  But no, that was wrong; she did know why.

  The poem—it all came down to the poem. It had inevitably determined what could have been, what might have been, the different paths her existence would have traveled. Had she not shown Conrad her poem, she could have broken up with him with no fear of retribution. But she had worried what he might do to her then, how he might take back his promise and turn her in after all.

  Of course, she knew that he never would have turned her in. That even now, if he were to find out about these poems, he would do nothing. That was just the kind of man he was. He was a great Hunter, yes, but first and foremost he was an even better man. And she loved him, she really did, but still … still, she wondered what could have been.

  She opened her eyes and looked at the poem once more. She went to read the first line aloud this time—she even opened her mouth—when the doorbell rang. It rang once, twice, a third time, and it didn’t stop, just kept ringing, and her initial thought—

  it’s the police, they’re here to get me

  —bounced around in her head.

  Denise jumped to her feet. The folder fell to the floor in the process, a slew of single pages fluttering everywhere. Cursing, she bent and picked them up, stuffed them in the folder, rushed the folder back to its spot behind the washer. She stepped back, looked at the space, wondered if maybe she should just destroy them now.

  But the doorbell kept ringing—ding, ding, ding, ding—and she knew it wasn’t the police, that they would have already broken down the door, searched every room, found her cowering here in the basement, her hands up.

  So it was up the stairs, through the kitchen, down the hallway, and when she looked out the peephole she saw Thomas on the other side, her old neighbor looking frantic as he kept punching the doorbell.

  Unlocking the door, opening it, she barely got out a word before Thomas noticed her face, her posture, and said, “You don’t even know yet, do you?”

  At that very same moment, the downtown section of Olympus was in chaos. It had been a half hour since the bomb went off at Hunter Headquarters, and still there was a large cloud of dust rising past all the res
t of the buildings, catching a breeze and heading uptown. People from blocks around had heard the initial blast, felt the ground shake. Only a minute later was the news broadcast on TV, the Internet, even the radio, and it was as if time had taken a break so everyone could watch for updates.

  Headquarters itself was gone, completely destroyed. All that was left was rubble that could hardly be seen through the heavy pall of smoke and dust. But it wasn’t the only victim of the bomb. The surrounding buildings had also been hit, and while none of them had fallen into a pile of rubble, all their windows had shattered, their exteriors had cracked open, different floors had caught on fire.

  Emergency personnel were everywhere. Police, fire, ambulance—there were cars and trucks parked every which way flashing gray and white lights, uniformed men and women hustling from one side of the street to the next. Some carrying hoses to put out fires, some attempting to dig down in what was left of Headquarters, while others stalked around trying to find and pick up the salvageable pieces and parts of bodies of those who hadn’t been instantly expired in the explosion.

  And among all those people came two more, running up the street from where they’d been forced to park seven blocks away, all the traffic gridlocked. Norman led the way, talking into his mobile phone. Conrad followed a few steps back, not wanting to see the destruction. Not to the place he had called a second home for the past decade, a place where he was just this morning. It had been filled with men who may no longer have trusted him, no longer even wanted him around, but still they were good men, dedicated Hunters—here he thought about Frank, who Norman called a great recruit—and none of them deserved an expiration like this.

  But then they turned the corner, came up the street, and Conrad had no choice but to witness it firsthand:

  A smoldering baby carriage knocked on its side, a woman holding what was left of her child and wailing.

  A man in a business suit gripping his detached left arm in his right hand, walking around in circles as if trying to figure out where that arm was supposed to go.

  Two ambulance workers huddled over a woman whose singed legs were twisted and whose arms were nothing more than stubs, telling her to relax, while the woman asked where Rocky was, where was her grandson?

  Smoke rose from the rubble, sirens blared, people ran about, and Norman shouted into the phone: “We just got here, where are you?”

  Conrad realized then that he didn’t know who Norman was talking to. He then thought for the very first time how he should have called Denise on the drive here but how he missed his chance, how right now she was probably seeing this all on the news and thinking he was buried underneath all that rubble.

  Two figures approached them out of the dust: the police chief and fire chief. The latter was an overweight man stuffed into his fireman’s uniform, the hard hat tipped back on his head. He came right up to them, put his phone away, and said to Norman, “I have nothing good to tell you.”

  “What can you tell me?”

  “For one there are no survivors. And if there are, they’re trapped under all that rubble.”

  More figures approached them then, three this time. They wore their black uniforms but not their masks, and when they reached the group none of the Hunters—Philip, Michael, Kevin—even acknowledged Conrad’s presence.

  Philip shouted, “Sir, it was those fucking pro-zombie extremists.”

  Norman regarded his three Hunters for a moment, just stared at them, and then asked the fire chief, “Have you determined a location yet?”

  “It’s still too early to tell for sure. But based on how the building fell, and the apparent stress of the surrounding concrete, we believe the blast came from either the basement or the subbasement.”

  Sirens screamed all around them, horns blared, people shouted and screamed and cried out, and in Conrad’s mind he heard a faint and distant voice whispering—

  rats

  —and he spoke his first words since coming back to the city.

  “The janitor,” he said, and at once all eyes were on him.

  Chapter 11

  They set up a link in the back of one of the police trucks. Four computer screens were spread out before them, running through the recorded feed from the Hunter Headquarters’ surveillance videos. A police technician clicked through each one, accelerating the time, until they came to a good view of the janitor.

  Standing with Norman and Philip and the police chief behind the technician’s chair, Conrad recognized the man’s glasses, his full beard, and said, “That’s him.”

  The technician played with the video. Once he managed to find a good angle, he used the cursor to box out the face, saved it, and transferred it over to the worldwide database.

  Thirteen seconds. That was how long it took before a match came back, and when it did the police chief muttered, “Shit.”

  Philip had been cracking his knuckles this entire time, but now stopped. “He’s a fucking cop?”

  “Conrad,” Norman said slowly, “are you certain this is the man you saw?”

  Conrad stared at the monitor. The man wasn’t wearing glasses in this picture, and he didn’t have a beard, but the small face and angular nose were just right. The information on the screen listed his name as Eugene Moss. It said he was a police sergeant in the 27th Precinct. It said he was married with three children and lived on the other side of Olympus, on Romero Street which was right in the middle of what was considered the Ward.

  “Yes,” he answered.

  The street was deserted. They pulled up to the house, the four of them, and without a word stepped out of the Humvee. They did not wear their uniforms. They did not carry their broadswords. They only had the automatic pistols the police had given them and nothing else.

  The police chief left the truck to speak to the SWAT team leader and a few of his men. Conrad continued staring at the screen, at Eugene Moss’s face.

  Philip said, “That’s his address, right?”

  “Don’t even think about it,” Norman said. “This is a police matter now.”

  “The fuck it is.”

  Michael and Kevin hurried around the block to the back alley. Philip didn’t even look at Conrad as he headed toward the row house and started up the steps.

  The police chief returned.

  “The men I sent to your head janitor’s apartment? They confirmed the place was broken into, that your janitor has been expired.”

  Norman closed his eyes, touched his fingers to his temple.

  Philip said, “So what are we going to do about this fucker?”

  “We,” Norman said, “are not going to do anything. This is a police matter now. They will take care of it.”

  “Norman?” the police chief said. “I’m doing my best to keep a lid on this for the time being. I don’t want Moss tipped off that we know. And right now I have my best people heading over to his place. But they don’t have to be the ones that bring him in.”

  On the porch were gray and black plastic construction trucks, a gray football, a wooden bat, all evidence of Eugene Moss’s children. Philip kicked the football aside, stood back and raised his foot. It took three solid kicks before the door cracked, and then Philip shoved his way inside, his gun already raised, shouting at Eugene Moss to drop his weapons, to get on the ground, that everyone should get on the motherfucking ground.

  “Absolutely not,” Norman said. “I appreciate the offer, but our job is and has always been to deal with the living. It’s not to deal with the dead that fight for the rights of the living.”

  Philip punched the side of the van. Through gritted teeth he said, “Forgive me, sir, but don’t you care about the men that have just been lost?”

  “Of course I do, Lieutenant. That’s all I’ve thought about. But first and foremost I am a Hunter, and just like you and Conrad I have sworn to uphold the Hunter Code to—”

  “Fuck the Code. That thing was written over a thousand years ago. Times have changed. And the more we fuck around here, the
more chance Moss has to escape.”

  Philip had advanced on the captain, leaving only a foot or two between them, but Norman held his ground. Staring back into Philip’s face, he said, “I will not give you permission to do this.”

  “I’m sorry, sir, but this is something that needs to be done.” Philip stepped around Norman, headed toward the rear door. “If you’re not going to do anything about it, I will.”

  Stairs ahead of him, the existing room on his left, a couch and recliner and TV, gray potted plants, and he heard a child yelling, a woman screaming, a dog barking; he heard footsteps farther back in the house, heard Philip still shouting and then glass breaking as Michael and Kevin broke down the backdoor, the thunder of their boots on the linoleum.

  Norman did not move, did not turn in the slightest. He stood with his arms at his side, his hands balled into fists.

  “Stop,” Norman said.

  Philip stopped walking.

  “For the record, you do not have my permission to do this. But if you must go, do me one favor.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Take Conrad with you.”

  “Sir,” Philip said, “I really don’t think that would be the best course of action right now.”

  “I don’t care what you think, Lieutenant.” Norman kept his back to Philip. “If you do this, you must take Conrad along. That’s an order.”

  He hurried into the kitchen and found everyone there, Moss and his wife and children, a boy and girl, kneeling on the ground, the wife and children crying, a gray retriever barking. Philip shouted, “Did you really think you’d get away with it? Huh? Did you?” and kicked Eugene Moss in the stomach, kicked him a second time, and when the man’s wife screamed for him to stop, Philip used the butt of his pistol to smack her across the face.