Dead City

by James Ponti

  They were 4, 74, 18, 75.

  It was the first Omega code I had learned in training.

  “BEWARE!”

  I Meet the One and Only Cornelius Blackwell

  As we walked back to school, we tried to figure out the meaning of the “beware” message. I suggested the most obvious explanation.

  “Someone’s trying to warn us about something.”

  “Maybe,” Alex said with a shrug. “But what? If they want to warn us, why be so mysterious? Why make us waste time trying to figure it out?”

  Grayson considered this for a moment. “Maybe they want us to waste time,” he reasoned. “Maybe they’re not warning us at all. They’re just trying to distract us from solving the real mystery—the one about the three bodies.”

  “Kind of like an appel,” I said.

  Grayson raised an eyebrow. “What’s an appel?”

  It wasn’t very often that I knew something Grayson didn’t, so I savored the moment.

  “It’s a fencing maneuver,” I explained as I acted it out. “A fake out. You start to make a lunge, but instead of going through with it, you just stomp your lead foot. The motion and noise distract your opponent and create an opening so you can go in for the kill.”

  “That sounds ominous,” Alex said.

  “Worse than that,” offered Natalie. “Because if it is some sort of fake out, it means one of the bad guys knows our code.”

  This troubling possibility quieted us as we thought about what might happen if a zombie could read our code.

  Finally, Grayson broke the silence when we reached the campus. “Well, there is one thing we know for sure.”

  “What’s that?”

  He looked us each in the eye before answering, “That we need to be careful.”

  Natalie nodded. “You’ve got that right. Which is why I’m putting us on the buddy system. Until we know more, we go to and from school in pairs.”

  We all moaned.

  The moans had nothing to do with not wanting to be together. The problem was that according to proper procedure, we would now have to meet up in alternate locations each morning. In my case, this meant I’d have to wake up about forty-five minutes earlier than usual.

  “I don’t want to hear it,” Natalie said. “It’s a safety issue.”

  “You’re right,” Alex agreed. “After school I’ll go with Grayson and help write up our report for the Prime-O.” All our messages to the Prime Omega had to be sent through Grayson’s computer.

  “Meanwhile,” Natalie replied, “Molly and I will head over to the morgue to see if any of those bodies is missing a finger.”

  “Actually,” I said sheepishly, “I have to go to fencing practice first.”

  Natalie gave me a “seriously?” look and the others laughed like they were in on a joke that I didn’t know.

  “I thought fencing was on Thursdays,” she protested.

  “We’ve got some tournaments coming up,” I explained. “Coach Wilkes doubled our practice schedule.”

  Natalie took an exaggerated breath. “I guess that means I’ll go watch Molly dance around with her little sword,” she said as she did a goofy fencing impression. “And then we’ll go to the morgue.”

  “It’s not dancing,” I declared defensively. “It’s combat.”

  “Combat?” she said, having fun with it. “And what type of combat training are you doing today?”

  I waited a moment before answering meekly, “We’re practicing our footwork.”

  Everyone laughed, including me.

  “Sounds like dancing to me,” she called out as we split up and headed toward our fifth-period classes.

  Despite the teasing, I knew they thought it was good for me to be on the fencing team. Not only was I learning how to use a sword, but more important, I was learning battle strategies.

  For example, our footwork lesson that day centered on the in quartata. It’s an evasive maneuver that requires you to step back and turn out of the way while simultaneously moving under your opponent’s blade and into position to make a counterattack. The footwork is really tricky, and I was still running through it in my head after practice as Natalie and I rode the subway to the morgue.

  “As I said,” she joked, “it looks like dancing.”

  I looked down and realized that I wasn’t just doing it in my head. I was actually going through the steps in the aisle of the subway car. “It’s a cool move,” I offered in my defense. “That is, it would be a cool move if I could figure out the footwork.”

  She pointed at my back leg. “You need to step back farther with your left foot, so that you can maintain better balance and counterthrust.”

  I couldn’t believe my ears. I stopped and pointed an accusing finger. “You were on the fencing team?”

  She laughed. “You obviously don’t know my father. I couldn’t just be on the fencing team. I had to have private lessons . . . a personal trainer . . . three weeks in Colorado Springs with the Olympic developmental team.”

  “Wow,” I said, blown away. “How good are you?”

  “Were, past tense,” she answered. “I was good enough to get to the point that I hated every second of it. It finally got to be too much, and I burned out. I quit cold turkey last December. A little Christmas disappointment present for my dad.”

  “How’d he handle it?” I asked.

  “The same way he always handles it when I let him down,” she said with a combination of anger and embarrassment. “He refused to talk about it and ignored me just a little bit more than usual.”

  I had never heard her talk this way.

  “My dad just says ‘Don’t get your eye poked out.’”

  She smiled and looked almost envious. For the first time since I’d met her, it occurred to me that the fabulous life might not always be as fabulous as it looks. I dropped the subject, and we made small talk until we got to the morgue.

  Considering it was after hours, we weren’t sure how we were going to get downstairs and into the freezer to check out the dead bodies. I knew luck was on our side when I saw my favorite security guard working the main desk.

  “I got this,” I whispered to Natalie as we walked toward him.

  “Good golly, Miss Molly,” Jamaican Bob greeted me. “Wagwan?”

  It had taken me most of one summer to figure out that “Wagwan?” is Jamaican slang for “What’s going on?”

  “Not much,” I said, happy to see him. “What’s going on with you?”

  “Same old,” he said.

  “You remember Natalie, don’t you?”

  He gave me a wounded look. “As if I could forget her. How are you, Natalie?”

  “I have too much homework, but other than that I’m doing great,” she said with an easy smile.

  So far, so good. But normally, this was when Bob would tell one of his famously bad jokes. This time, though, there was no joke. There was just a question.

  “What are you two doing here this time of day?”

  It was more curious than suspicious, but I knew we had to be careful.

  “We came by to see Dr. Hidalgo,” I said, knowing full well that one of Dr. H’s obsessive-compulsive habits was that he always left at precisely 5:45. “Is he still around?”

  “He left about an hour ago,” Bob said, giving me a skeptical look, as though he thought I should know the answer. “Same time as always.”

  “That’s what I figured,” I said, trying to cover. “We’re supposed to pick up something for school, but fencing practice ran long.”

  “Fencing?” he said with a laugh. “You’re taking fencing.”

  “Yeah,” I said, happy that this had distracted him. “I’m on the school team and everything.”

  Now came the tricky part. I had to act like nothing was up, but still get us downstairs by ourselves.

  “Since Dr. H isn’t here, can you escort us to pick it up?” This drew a desperate look from Natalie, but I knew what I was doing. “It’s down in the freezer.”


  That’s why I knew I had him. No way would Bob go near the freezer. Sure enough, he shook his head at the mere suggestion.

  “Why don’t you two just go by yourselves,” he said as he waved us in. “The only way they’re getting me in that room is when they wheel me in.”

  We put our book bags on the X-ray machine and walked through the metal detector. Just when I thought we were clear, he reached over and grabbed me by the wrist.

  My heart jumped, but I tried to stay cool.

  “One thing you should know,” he said.

  “What’s that?” I asked with a gulp.

  “Without you hanging around, it’s been really dead around here.” He let out a booming laugh, and I knew we were golden. Natalie and I both laughed with him as we grabbed our bags and disappeared down the hall.

  “Nice work,” Natalie said as we headed toward the stairs.

  We went down three floors and made it to the door that led to the lab and freezer. I pulled the bottle of vanilla extract out of my backpack and swiped a finger of it under my nose. Natalie did the same.

  “As if this place wasn’t spooky enough during regular business hours,” I said as we entered the lab.

  A row of security lights flickering on the far wall gave the room an eerie green glow. I reached for the main switch, but Natalie stopped me.

  “We don’t want to advertise what we’re doing,” Natalie warned.

  “Good point.” Even in partial darkness, I knew every inch of the lab, inside and out. I went straight to the autopsy room and flicked on a small desk lamp while Natalie headed for the refrigerator.

  “Here’s the guest book,” I said, picking up a ledger that listed the arrival and departure of every corpse that came through the office. I flipped it open to the page with the most recent entries.

  “ ‘Three John Does found on Roosevelt Island,’ ” I read aloud from the book. “They’re in freezer drawers seven, eight, and nine.”

  “And look what I got from the fridge,” Natalie said, holding up a little plastic bag and shaking it.

  “I’m guessing it’s a finger,” I said with a smile.

  “Don’t forget the wedding ring,” she added as we entered the freezer. We walked over to a wall of drawers. They’re numbered from top to bottom, and the three we wanted to check were one on top of the other.

  Natalie grabbed the handle to drawer number seven and turned to me. “I’d like to introduce you to Mr. Cornelius Blackwell.”

  She pulled it open with great dramatic flair. But the moment was ruined when the drawer turned out to be empty. Natalie gave me an “okay, that’s a little strange” expression. She tried the introduction again with drawer number eight.

  “I’d like to introduce you to Mr. Cornelius Blackwell.”

  Drawer number eight was also empty.

  So was nine. It was the Old Marble Cemetery all over again. You expect dead bodies, and then there aren’t any.

  “Are you sure you got those numbers right?” she asked me with an arched eyebrow.

  “I’m positive,” I said. “Check the cards.”

  Next to the handle of each drawer was a card with basic info about that particular body. Sure enough, all three drawers had cards that read “John Doe. Roosevelt Island.”

  Dr. Hidalgo pays close attention to every detail of his morgue. There’s no way three bodies were not where they were supposed to be in the freezer.

  “It just doesn’t make any sense,” Natalie said.

  And it didn’t make any sense . . . until we heard the loud crash coming from the next room.

  Careful What You Wish For

  The crash sounded like a bookcase tumbling over and spilling everything from its shelves. Our first reflex was to freeze, not because we were scared, but because we were the only ones on that floor and we worried that we had somehow caused it to happen. Then we heard another crash, followed by shattering glass, and realized that we weren’t alone after all.

  “Who is that?” I asked, in that way you whisper something you really want to scream.

  Natalie considered it for a second before a look of realization came over her. She motioned to the empty drawers in front of us. “They’re not dead. . . .” She pointed toward the noise and finished her thought. “They’re undead.”

  Suddenly, it seemed so obvious.

  “I think you’re about to put your combat training to use,” she continued.

  The first thing that came to mind was how frustrated I had been that morning because we hadn’t had any zombie action. I guess you should be careful what you wish for.

  We each took a deep breath and nodded that we were ready. We moved silently from the freezer into the lab. The flickering security lights cast our shadows at odd angles across the examination tables.

  The noise was coming from a small library, where Dr. H kept his medical books and journals. I remembered that the bookcases had locks on them, and it sounded as though someone without a key had decided to unlock them by smashing them to bits.

  “There could be as many as three of them in there,” Natalie reminded me. “They’ve got us outnumbered, but we’ve got surprise on our side.”

  “Surprise . . . and training,” I said, trying to ease the tension and to reassure myself at the same time.

  “And training,” she agreed with a nod.

  “Do we go in?” I asked, motioning toward the library door.

  “No.” She pointed to where she wanted me to stand, a spot about five feet from the door. “We let the fight come to us. We’re going to wait for the door to open and then try to take control of the situation before they even know what hit them.”

  “Got it.”

  “You’re ready for this, I know it,” she reassured me. “But don’t be afraid to ask for help if you need it.”

  “I won’t,” I promised.

  From the sound of things, all the bookcases had now been pulled over, and someone (or up to three different someones) was digging through the rubble. After about thirty seconds the digging stopped, and we heard an inhuman laugh that sent chills down my spine.

  “Brace yourself,” Natalie whispered. “Here it comes.”

  My heart was racing so fast, I had to force myself to take short steady breaths to calm my nerves. A metallic taste filled my mouth as adrenaline rushed through my body.

  The door flew open to reveal a giant man wearing one of the hospital gowns we drape over dead bodies while they await autopsy. The room was too dark to get a good look at him, but his eyes burned orange like coals in a fire, and he didn’t seem the least bit bothered by the large chunks of glass sticking out of his cheek and forearm.

  The light in the library allowed me a full view of the destruction behind him. More important, I could see that no one else was in there. As he stepped through the doorway, he held a book above his head triumphantly and started to call out with some sort of guttural wail.

  I thought back to the appel maneuver from fencing and decided to try a modified version.

  “He’s alone!” I called out to Natalie as I jumped toward him and stomped my foot as loudly as I could.

  He turned to look at me, and was too distracted to see her coming. Natalie ran right at him and delivered three rapid-fire kicks right into the side of his knee, crumpling him to the ground.

  He bellowed and started yelling some sort of zombie gibberish. I didn’t understand it, but I could tell he wasn’t yelling at us.

  He was calling for help.

  His extreme height advantage was gone for as long as he writhed on the floor. It was the perfect chance for Natalie to finish him off with a solid kick to the face. But as she went to do it, she caught a glimmer of the green security light reflecting off the shards of glass in his cheek. She stopped herself midkick in order to keep from cutting up her leg and foot.

  This hesitation bought him enough time to get his bearings and stand up straight. Or at least as straight as you can stand with one of your legs bent at a forty-five-degree
angle to the side.

  He swung a fist and with it an armful of broken glass; Natalie easily ducked it. She countered with a flurry of punches to his stomach that sent him staggering back toward the library.

  Watching her, I was mesmerized. She was amazingly tough and brave. I wondered if her “disappointed” father had any idea of what she was truly capable of.

  I snapped out of it when I heard a crash behind us. I spun around to see another zombie in a hospital gown coming our way. Apparently, this group of undead was all from the supersize side of the menu, because he too was massive. Adding to his intimidating effect was the fact that one half of his head had wild red hair that tentacled in every direction while the other half had been completely shaved in preparation for his autopsy.

  “I’ll take care of this one,” I called out to Natalie.

  “Just remember there’s another one around here somewhere,” she said. “Quick kills are vital.”

  Easier said than done.

  I could hear Natalie and Glass Face fighting behind me as I approached Big Red. I remembered the way Natalie had taunted the Level 3 in the subway station and how much it had frustrated him. I thought I’d give it a try.

  “What’s up with your haircut?” I asked, trying to sound cool and tough like the stars in those action movies my dad watches. “Did the barber have a half-off sale?”

  Okay, so the joke didn’t really work, but in my defense, it was my first day as an action hero. Being able to deliver cool lines in tense situations takes practice. Besides, I didn’t really need to do anything to get him worked up. Turns out he was more than mad enough just at my being there.

  He charged right at me, and I probably should have been more scared than I was. But while he had the size, I had the home-court advantage. This was my lab, and I knew everything in it!

  I calmly grabbed the corner of a gurney, popped the wheel brake with my foot, and spun it around so that it was in front of me like a shopping cart.

  I rammed it right at him as he charged at me, and we collided like two trains coming at each other on the same track. The force of it knocked me back onto my butt and cut him off at the waist so hard, he slammed face-first into the gurney.