by Ivan Turner
"Who is it? Is it Linda?" She was the one that had almost sent Heron over the edge.
Naughton hesitated. "Linda's gone, Anthony. They're all gone."
He breathed and found that it was a breath of relief. Linda was gone. Despite his pity for her and her written plea for mercy, it felt good to have that albatross exorcised from his life. But Naughton had misspoke. They couldn't all be gone.
"It's Zoe, then," Heron said. "If it wasn't Zoe, you wouldn't be beating around the bush."
Zoe had bitten Stemmy. Zoe had started it all for Anthony Heron.
"It's Zoe," Naughton confirmed. "She spoke."
"She what?!" Three heads in the kitchen turned. Two small heads poked out of the living room. "It's fine," Heron told all of the heads. And when they persisted, he emphasized, "It’s fine."
The heads went away.
"It was just a couple of times. The first time was the night Mayfield escaped."
"What did she say?"
"It doesn't matter."
"It matters."
"She didn't say anything about you, if that's what you mean. She didn't say anything about Stemmy. Her memory's in question. She thinks Denise is her mother."
Heron started to laugh. It almost became this shrill, maniacal thing, but he managed to put it down before it went out of control. "What are you going to do?"
"Denise thinks Kraemer is going to have Zoe destroyed."
Good, was Heron's first thought. Good riddance, was his second. But rationale prevailed. He could think of a number of reasons to keep her "alive" as it were. But his only reason for wanting her destroyed was revenge. Even now, Heron wasn't the revenge type. He had better things on which to concentrate his energy.
"Look, Anthony, I really called to say goodbye and wish you good luck. I know you're sick. I know…"
"Lance, get to the point."
Naughton breathed. He was unaccustomed to this kind of sentiment. "Denise thinks she can bring Zoe back to life. Real life. She says that if the brain's intact, there's no reason we can't revive the body."
"That's insane."
"Says you and me, but she's the doctor."
"What does Kraemer think?"
"Well, that's the point isn't it? With everyone distracted by snow and zombies, Denise is in there trying to do it right now. Succeed or fail, Kraemer's going to blow a gasket. It's not even prison that scares me so much as what he'll do to Zoe."
"You talk about her as if she's a person."
"And that's the other point," Naughton responded without missing a beat. "I don't expect you to understand. You have your own reasons for feeling the way you do and you're entitled to them. But Denise has to do this. I think she's trying to save herself as much as she's trying to save Zoe. And I have to stand by her. I've made a commitment to her and now I've made a commitment to that little girl as well."
"So you're going to run?"
"Yeah. We're gonna run. We've got some time before anyone finds their way back here."
Heron didn't know what to say. Earlier that day, he'd been thinking that his relationship with Naughton had come to an end because of his retirement. But this was so much more final. Naughton was actually saying goodbye. That meant that there wouldn't be the possibility of an occasional phone call. When Heron was in hospice, dying of the cancer, Naughton wouldn't come to see him. He would be in another state or another country.
"I hope you can do it," Heron said finally. "I hope you can bring back that little girl."
"I know you do, Anthony. You're a good man and you don't deserve any of the shit that happened to you."
"Yeah, I appreciate that."
"It's been a pleasure."
"Same here. Good luck."
Naughton started to say something but there was some noise in the background and he was cut off. Heron listened for a moment and then hung up the phone. They were done anyway. He stood by the phone for a moment, listening to the silence. It took him a while to process the entire conversation. There was meaning there and he had to dig through all of his own bitterness to find it. When he went back into the kitchen, they all looked away.
"Are you all right?" Alicia asked.
He nodded, taking his seat. "Were you listening?"
"It was hard not to."
"Should we go?" Satya asked suddenly, half rising from his chair.
Heron put his hand out. "No, I don't think so. I'd like it if you would stay."
Satya and Banni didn't really know what to make of the half of the conversation that they'd heard, but Alicia could guess some of the details. She knew who Zoe was. She'd heard Heron say something about bringing a little girl back. He would fill in the details for her later.
"Are you all right, then?" Satya asked.
Heron nodded. "Yes, I am. My friend on the phone called to say goodbye, but I think his reason was more subtle than that. I think he called to give me hope."
***
Yuan called at around 5:30 and told Luco that he'd be delayed. A group of victims had found their way to the hospital and he would be tied up for a couple of hours. Luco said it was okay, but Naughton wasn't happy about it. One way or the other, they would have to leave the hospital before midnight. At least, that was his target time. Anything later and they would be pushing it. If the procedure was delayed for too long, then Zoe wouldn't have any time to recuperate. If she made it. The whole concept sounded ridiculous to Naughton and yet he was already thinking of it as a standard procedure from which they would pull a live little girl.
Two hours passed very slowly. Luco continued her research and Naughton continued his phone calls. He was preparing their escape, his phone trailing a wire into the wall so it could charge while he did so. At last, she interrupted him to say that it was time to move Zoe. He nodded and put his phone away. They went together to the Zoo. Zoe was still sitting on the bed. Luco still didn't know how she was going to do this. In some measure, she just figured to trust Zoe. As she went for the door locks, Naughton put out a hand to halt her.
"Zoe, can you hear me?" he said into the intercom.
The little girl's head turned and regarded him.
Drawing out his gun, Naughton held it up for her to see. "Do you know what this is?"
She nodded.
"We're going to take you out of your room now and bring you upstairs."
"Oh, good," she said. "I'm hungry."
"I know you're hungry," said Naughton. "But you can't eat right now. Do you understand?"
"But the man tasted so good," she said.
"Zoe, if you try to bite someone, I'm going to use this on you. Do you understand?"
For a moment, she looked into his eyes and he saw emotion there. It was fear. That was good.
Luco opened the door and Zoe got off the bed. They stepped back as she marched out. She didn't look much like a little live girl. Her pallor was so grey, her hair so white. How they were going to get her through the hospital without drawing attention to themselves was a mystery.
"I will be pointing my gun at you the whole time," Naughton said. "If you do anything but what we tell you then I will shoot you."
Zoe didn't say anything.
They marched her out of the Zoo and toward the stairs. As they were going past the offices, Luco spied a heavy sweater sitting on the back of a chair. It was Miriam's sweater. Miriam was a sweet girl from Texas. She'd landed a job as a researcher. Luco ducked in and got the sweater. She put it over Zoe's shoulders and put the hood on. It covered her hair and threw a shadow over her face. Nothing they did could cover the smell.
As they moved through the complex, Zoe marched where they told her to march. She kept her head up and her eyes forward. It seemed as if nothing around her was of any interest to her. Any other child in that sort of a place would have been wild eyed. When they reached the exit, Luco breathed before swiping her card. The doors opened and they moved into the staircase. Every last second had been digitally recorded.
“Don’t talk to anyone,” Na
ughton said when they reached the top of the stairs. “Don’t look at anyone.”
Luco shot him a nasty look but he didn’t notice. He was very wary of the hungry little zombie a few paces ahead of him. After what Todd Mayfield had done, he wasn’t taking any chances.
They moved through the corridors at a slow pace. They had to account for the fact that Zoe was still a zombie and still walked like one. Naughton put his gun away but Zoe didn’t see him do it and didn’t look back. Still, he was ready to tackle her if need be. As they passed into the waiting area for the emergency room, they came close to the one patient waiting. He was a little old man in a long tweed coat and he wrinkled his nose at them. He didn’t know which of them was responsible for the smell, but he was definitely offended. Naughton offered him a casual smile.
Luco pointed them toward the exam room and they made their way quickly there. A couple of the interns were playing bedpan hockey in the open area. They didn’t seem to notice or care about the trio moving through their halls. Once inside the exam room, Naughton pulled out his gun again. Yuan hadn’t arrived yet.
“Sit on the table, Zoe,” Luco said. She made to help her, but Naughton held her back. If Zoe noticed, she didn’t seem to care. She pulled herself onto the table and sat patiently.
Luco looked around them room, taking stock of what they had and what they needed. There was a fair amount of expensive equipment of which she would have to take possession in order to begin. She didn’t want Yuan signing for any of it. She also needed to get the blood. She couldn’t take all O negative because it would get noticed quickly. If they had a trauma, it would be a disaster. Zoe’s blood type had been A positive. It was a common type and there was usually plenty of it in stock. She would take that and hope for the best. It was entirely possible that Luco could redefine Zoe’s blood type. With no blood in her system, there was little chance of a reaction to any blood. But she didn’t want to take any chances.
“Will you be all right while I’m gone?” she asked Naughton.
He nodded.
“I don’t know what I would have done without you.”
Then she was out the door and he was standing there with Zoe. It occurred to him that he could just shoot her. The gunshot probably wouldn’t even put a dent in the normal goings on in the hospital. Then Zoe would be gone and Denise wouldn’t be making this terrible mistake. But it would also violate the trust they had been building over the past several months. If she was determined to walk this path to the end then he was determined to walk it with her.
“Zoe?” he said to her and she looked in his direction. “Do you know who I am?”
"You're the man," she said.
"What man?"
"The man who tastes good. I'm hungry"
She giggled a little bit. It was an unsettling sound because it was almost as if she didn’t really know how to laugh. She was doing it from a memory that didn’t seem as if it was quite her own. Naughton shivered.
“What’s your name?” he asked her.
“Zoe,” she said, the emotion gone. “What’s your name?”
“Lance.”
She giggled again. It sounded a bit more natural this time.
“Is that a funny name?”
She nodded.
“Where do you live?”
“Are you a policeman?”
He was startled by the question but answered it anyway.
She then rattled off a Brooklyn address and completed it with a phone number. Of course, she had been taught that she should tell a policeman her address and phone number whenever she was lost. She was lost now. Very, very lost.
Kevin Yuan came through the door, slipping inside and shutting it quickly behind him. When he saw Naughton, he did a double-take. Then he looked at Zoe and forgot all about Naughton. Like anyone who works in an ER, Yuan had seen enough zombies and infected people that it didn't really affect him anymore. But Zoe was a legend at Arthur Conroy. She was the first. He stared at her reverently.
"Don't get too close," Naughton said to him. He'd been moving closer unconsciously. "She's hungry."
Yuan didn't say anything. In fact, he and Naughton didn't exchange any other words as they waited. Zoe sat on the table, looking from one to the other every once in a while but not really exhibiting any interest in their attitudes or what they were doing. She didn't seem frightened by the gun anymore but she still respected its meaning. She didn't try to move from the table.
A few minutes later, Luco reappeared with two carts. One was a crash cart, complete with a defibrillator and IV bags and phials of whatever drugs they pumped into someone when trying to revive that person. The other one carried a piece of equipment Naughton didn’t recognize. With barely an acknowledgement to Yuan, Luco began setting up the equipment around the table. Zoe watched her but still didn't move and didn't show any signs of emotion.
When everything was prepared, Luco turned to the little girl. "I need for you to lay down, Zoe."
"You need to restrain her," Naughton said.
"Lance…"
"You need to restrain her, Denise. If something goes wrong…"
"I agree," said Yuan. "We can't take a chance on her biting one of us or escaping."
Huffing, Luco acquiesced. She went around the table, first buckling the cuffs over Zoe's ankles and then her hands. Throughout the process, Zoe didn't complain or attempt to escape. Her eyes fell upon Naughton and his gun a few times. She looked very hungrily at Luco's hands when she was doing her wrists.
"And the head," Naughton said.
"Lance, it's too much."
"The head," he repeated.
She thought he was being overly cautious. She also knew that, under other circumstances, she would have argued with him. But she recognized that she was focused on beginning the procedure while his focus was on her safety. So she restrained Zoe's head, being very careful of the very close teeth.
Naughton put his gun away. "I need to make a few more phone calls. I'll be just outside the door."
Luco nodded and then began setting up the needles as he left.
Outside the room, Naughton leaned up against the wall and wished for a cigarette for the first time in fifteen years. At this point in his life it was an unprecedented craving. If it weren't for the fact that he didn't have any cigarettes and he didn't want to leave the exam room unguarded, he might have given in. The craving for the smokes made him think of Anthony Heron. After tonight he would be severing ties with everyone he knew except for Denise. That was okay with him. He was friendly with a lot of people but friends with no one. He didn't hang out with the guys at the bar, nor did he have anyone over to watch the game every once in a while. There was no weekly poker game. But there was Heron. It had been a long time since they'd seen each other socially. It had been a long time since they were truly friends. But after tonight, they would never speak again. Naughton would be on the run and Heron… How long would there be an Anthony Heron?
Without really knowing what he wanted to say, he turned on his phone and made the call. It rang in his ear for a moment before Heron answered. Naughton's first thought was to ask after the family. There in the hospital it was easy to forget that zombies were wandering the city eating people. How did he even know the Herons were safe? But Anthony confirmed it. They were home and they were safe. There was some awkward conversation following, which was thankfully interrupted by a nurse trying to get into the exam room. Naughton took out his badge and sent her away. She didn't want to go, but he wasn't taking no for an answer. His biggest worry was that she would come back with someone else he would have to dismiss. The higher up she went, the harder it would be for him to get rid of visitors. Mostly he was worried about Kevin Yuan. The young doctor's involvement in this had to remain a secret.
Back on the phone with Heron, he began telling him about Zoe and what they were doing. He didn't really want to. It hadn't been part of his plan. But he wanted to say goodbye and couldn't without an explanation. So out it came. Their con
versation was winding down when he heard some commotion from inside the room. Forgetting all about Heron and what he was doing, Naughton drew his weapon and entered.
