Dead City

by Sean Platt

  Onscreen, the camera (probably worn by Frank herself, run through stabilization software) showed the backs of several men as the Yosemite group marched through rocks and brush. The mic picked up heavy, adrenaline-filled breathing — likely Alice’s, electronically magnified in post-production to make the segment more gripping. Ian had already watched this part a few times, rewinding over and over with renewed attempts each time to clear his mind and pay attention. He knew what was coming, and when Bobby spoke to one of the hunters beside him, Ian felt his own spike of adrenaline.

  “Relax. They’re not smart enough to form ambushes,” Bobby’s voice said from Ian’s speakers.

  Then there’s commotion up ahead. The camera ducks away as if something is thrown, or shot, or coming hard. The rustle of garments. Someone yells, and the hunters part. For a horrifying two-beat moment, Alice Frank’s camera is at the formation’s point as the men with guns stream to the left and right, raising weapons the camera can only see as flashes of black. She’s unarmed. That’s been established, also for dramatic effect. But there are four (and yes, Ian already paused to count them on an earlier loop) deadheads coming straight for her.

  Heavily decayed. Flesh sloughing from their skulls to reveal dull ivory white.

  Mouths open. Teeth at odd angles. Hands up to grab.

  Coming as fast as biology allows — which, it turns out, can vary quite a bit, depending on which parts of the body Sherman Pope preferentially props up.

  On the video, the ferals coming for Alice are faster than anyone expects. If not for the offscreen rat-a-tat of automatic weapons, she’d have been taken down for sure.

  Ian paused the video and made a note for his later conversation with Raymond Smyth about the fast ferals. Not many people knew how varied the disease’s effects could be, and Alice might have considered the matter when compiling this footage. It was the sort of question she might pick up the phone and dial Ian’s personal number to ask. Or maybe the sort of thing that might be corroborated by evidence on certain stolen drives.

  Copy this, read it, and then delete.

  But no. He’d copied it, but Ian wouldn’t read it. Not unless he had to.

  Ian pulled the drive from his desk and slipped it into a port in his study computer. Rushing felt necessary. Slowing to think might cost him his nerve. And there was no reason to lose his nerve because he was only reading. That in itself wasn’t criminal or duplicitous or disloyal. No matter what he read, he didn’t have to act on it. Acting would be crossing a line. But reading harmed no one, and was sensible, in the interest of staying informed about all he wasn’t doing wrong.

  When Ian dragged his laptop from the desk to his comfortable chair, his hand brushed the touch screen remote. The video resumed, and the room again filled with the sounds of screaming and staccato gunfire.

  Blood spatters the camera’s lens — partially congealed, like a wad of red snot. Because it’s more lump than liquid, it sort of rolls away, and the view quickly returns.

  The camera is up, its vista as much sky and cliffs as eye-level action. Feral deadheads can still be heard to one side or another — growls like animals, thumps when they’re struck by bullets. Deadheads, it turns out, don’t grunt when struck. Grunting is part exhalation, and reanimated corpses don’t breathe.

  Then the worst part of this segment. Alice must sit up as the furor dies down because the camera tilts more earthward and the screen shows a tree-and-rock horizon. The camera catches a sigh in the middle of her still-panicked breaths, but it’s short-lived. Because at the screen’s bottom, there’s something that’s just a head, a shoulder, part of a torso, and an arm. And it’s grabbing Alice’s leg.

  A scream, very near the camera.

  A loud gunshot.

  Faster breaths, like a panting dog.

  And then the camera is pulled away and held as Alice the hunted recovers and becomes Alice the reporter again.

  Bobby Baltimore, smiling. Saying, “Well, that was close.”

  Ian paused the video again then realized divided attention was his enemy and went to turn it off. But between raising the remote and mashing his finger on the power button, he noticed something behind Bobby’s head: a rock formation in the distance with one very large, very tall figure standing on a path around its edge, as if observing the action below.

  The room went dark as the screen flicked off. There was a space of three heartbeats, and then Ian jumped when someone knocked on the door.

  “Come in.”

  Bridget poked her head in. He must look odd in here: closed door, lights down to watch the video, now off. The footage had creeped him out the first time; now it was creeping him out even more. Only a small desk lamp and his laptop’s bottled blue glow illuminated the darkness. But he didn’t want to turn that screen back on. Nothing in Frank’s special with Bobby Baltimore could be spun in one direction or the other. People died, were shipped to Yosemite, and were then killed again. The public could see that however they wanted, but Sherman Pope disease was to blame, not Hemisphere.

  Bridget’s red hair swung beside her face. White hallway light streamed around her, giving her a halo.

  “You’re just sitting in here?” she asked.

  “Just doing some work.”

  “I thought you didn’t work in the evenings?”

  I’m not doing anything wrong here.

  Ian sat up and said, “Raymond asked me to watch some special interview show Alice Frank did with Bobby Baltimore.”

  “The guy from the hunting shows?”

  “You know a lot of Bobby Baltimores?”

  Bridget’s lips pinched. “I’m just asking.”

  Ian sighed, glanced at his computer, then covertly pulled the drive and pocketed it again. He closed the laptop and stood from his chair. Leather groaned beneath him.

  Arms around Bridget, Ian said, “I’m sorry. It’s just that Raymond wants me to watch this so we can come up with ways to spin it in our favor. But the video itself is … unnerving.” He exhaled. “I don’t know. It was just such a weird day.”

  “So you said. Anything you want to talk about?”

  “No.”

  A pleased expression was starting to form on Bridget’s face. It fell. “Oh. Okay.”

  “Not like that. I just mean I’ve thought about it enough. I’d rather stop thinking about it.”

  “You make it sound so dire.”

  Ian watched her green eyes. He knew exactly what she was thinking: He was making this nothingness sound dire, and dire at work would sound to Bridget like a threat to his job. They had all they did thanks to Ian’s rapid climb, and they were only able to afford a house in this part of Aberdeen Valley — let alone in the Lion’s Gate development — because of his hefty salary. Bridget wasn’t truly materialistic, but security and stability were her highest values. Status didn’t matter, but the threat of loss bothered her plenty.

  “It’s nothing.” He kissed her. “Promise.”

  Bridget’s eyes flicked sideways, down the hallway.

  “Ana is asleep,” she said.

  Ian’s arms slipped around Bridget’s waist. “You don’t say.”

  “I do say.”

  “Then maybe I should be done with all of this, and Raymond’s errand be damned.”

  “That’s not bedtime watching anyway,” Bridget said.

  “Give me two minutes.”

  Bridget gave him a little smile and walked away while Ian watched her from behind.

  When she was gone, he pulled the small thumb drive from his pocket and slipped it into a hollow behind some books on his study bookshelf. He didn’t need to read what was on it because he wasn’t a fink or a traitor. Whatever Alice Frank thought about his company and Archibald Burgess, it wasn’t true. Whoever was pushing Ian’s buttons was only trying to start problems.

  Ian didn’t have doubts. His faith was rock solid, and he’d never do anything to sway the boat beneath his daughter and the love of his life.

  He turned off the l
amp and left the study. Approaching his bedroom, he saw the ghost of an image.

  A rocky cliff.

  A lone figure on an outcropping, tall and still.

  Watching.

  Waiting.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  HANDLERS

  HOLLY SNEAKED A LOOK AT the ornate clock mounted in her room’s corner. It was nearly eleven here in Aberdeen Valley, which meant it was almost 8 p.m. back in what was left of Los Angeles. Too late for Cyrus to do any of the things he claimed to be doing, anyway, given that everyone he knew at the studios worked a strict nine-to-five.

  Her eyes moved to August’s brown leather bag. Somewhere in there — possibly on a drive, probably on the tablet August had hurriedly re-stowed when Cyrus had come knocking again — were her test results. Some of those tests Holly had known she was taking: the blood draws for sure; the ask-and-answer assessments August had put her through that had come off as practically insulting. But before Cyrus and his team interrupted, August had implied there were even more tests, conducted unseen. She had no idea what they’d be, but paid the man enough to trust him. Maybe he could help people live longer; his clients hadn’t spent enough life under his care to know for sure. Holly would settle for living better, seeing as she was already half-dead.

  Except that now she was on a designer drug a full step more advanced than most people ever saw and two steps higher than the free version that kept Panacea’s New World Order from falling apart.

  Prestige.

  Holly was more curious about that simple word than she could ever remember being. Literally. She’d been infected with Sherman Pope for four years (though even that had only been a number on her ID card until recently, as she’d started to recall much of what she’d forgotten), and in those four years she seemed to have lost the trick of genuine inquiry. In retrospect, it seemed obvious that she’d accepted much that she should’ve been curious enough to question.

  Like giving Cyrus a partial power of attorney.

  Like letting Damon hire her accountant, lawyer, and foreign rights agents.

  Like giving Carly carte blanche to make Holly’s schedule without consulting her, the way Holly’s brother used to make his son’s schedule back when he’d been little.

  And most troublingly, like giving Cyrus cosigning authority on her checking account and credit cards. Why had she done that? She felt like it made sense at the time; Holly seemed to recall having no idea how to subtract one hundred dollars from a thousand, and bringing on someone less damaged would make everything faster. But he could spend without her consent and got a weighty opinion on how she spent. Now that seemed dumb. If not for Panacea regulations to the contrary, Holly would have given Cyrus full control rather than simply enlisting him as an authorized party. Ironically, the much-maligned government had done something in her favor for a change.

  “We have some contracts to discuss,” Cyrus was telling August, who hadn’t budged from the couch.

  “Sure,” August replied.

  “It would bore you.”

  “I’m very interested in show business.” August smiled.

  Cyrus’s eyes went to Damon, who’d perched himself in a ridiculous-looking chair that Holly was sure she’d paid for but didn’t remember agreeing to purchase.

  “It’s confidential stuff.” Damon was big and black, like Holly’s father. Sitting in the odd chair, he seemed likely to break it.

  “Oh, well,” said August. “Then if Holly would like me to go, I’ll go.”

  “She wants you to go.”

  August looked at Holly.

  “Sfay,” Holly said, not bothering to enunciate in front of Cyrus or Damon.

  August looked smugly at Damon.

  “She doesn’t know what she’s saying,” Cyrus said from August’s other side.

  “Sfay,” Holly repeated. She reached for a glass on the table, but her sluggish hand knocked it to the floor, where it spilled water into the carpet’s nap.

  Cyrus rushed to dab the water with a paper towel then looked at August as if to say, See?

  “Sounds to me like she knows just fine,” August said, watching him.

  But Cyrus’s attention had gone to Holly. His expression was intensely patronizing. Holly seemed to remember thinking of Cyrus like a father figure (now that her own dad was dead) and thinking that Damon, who even looked the part, made an excellent backup. But now he looked stupid, with that dumb soul patch under his bottom lip and the gaudy gold chain around his neck.

  “Holly, Honey,” said Cyrus, “we have business to discuss. I know you like Mr. Maughan, but it’s time for him to go. Private stuff.”

  “I dun wan him da go.” Holly felt like she was walking a fine line. Her mouth seemed to have cottoned onto the trick of proper speech, but she didn’t want to show the men she could do it. There was so much in her that she couldn’t articulate, but that frustration shouldn’t prompt her to try. She didn’t even know why. Even before the outbreaks, Hollywood only claimed to like a brainy woman. Dumbing things down wasn’t new.

  Cyrus looked at Damon for help.

  “It can’t hurt to let him stay, if she wants it so much,” Damon said.

  “This is the Tristar thing.”

  Damon laughed. “You don’t need to bother Holly with that.”

  “I need her signature.”

  Holly watched the two men go back and forth. Had they always talked as if she wasn’t there? She wanted to laugh in their faces but kept herself neutral.

  “You don’t have to discuss it to get her signature.”

  August piped up. He’d begun eating peanuts from a crystal bowl, and his words came out between crunches. “This is just my non-Hollywood opinion, but if I’m going to be signing something, I’d like someone to give me the gist.”

  “Nobody asked your opinion,” Cyrus said.

  “In fact, it might even be illegal to ask someone to sign a contract they don’t understand.”

  Cyrus looked at Damon as if to say, This is why I want this asshole out of here.

  “This isn’t any of your business.”

  “Just Holly’s,” August clarified.

  “I’m her legal guardian,” Cyrus said, “and that makes it my — ”

  “Bullshit!” Holly blurted.

  All eyes turned to Holly. Slowly, Cyrus looked back at August.

  “In matters of contracts, anyway,” he said, tossing Holly a pacifying look. “I’m her manager. As long as I understand it, she’s — ”

  Cyrus pulled a folded stack of papers from an interior pocket. Holly snatched it mid-sentence.

  “Holly,” he said.

  Holly opened the packet and began reading. Her eyes had trouble focusing these days, but she was able to see the words enough to make sense.

  “Holly, Honey,” Cyrus said, pinching the papers in Holly’s hands. She tried to snarl, turning to pull them away, but her body betrayed her and the snarl left as a low, necrotic growl.

  Damon laughed. “Oh, just let her look, Cyrus.”

  “Yeah, Cyrus,” said August, still eating. “Let her look.”

  But Cyrus grabbed the papers and pulled. He growled back at Holly, “Give.” He yanked them away, nearly giving her a forest of paper cuts, then re-folded and re-pocketed the contract. He glared at August, who was still kicked back, practically laughing. Cyrus turned away, looking Holly right in the eye as if encouraging her to join in.

  “In the morning.” Cyrus looked at August. “You should go, too.”

  “Stay.” Too late, Holly realized she shouldn’t have forced the word’s hard T. But nobody seemed to notice.

  “She wants him to stay,” Damon said.

  “I don’t want him here.”

  “Don’t be shy, guys,” August said. “Just pretend I’m not here.”

  Cyrus looked right at August. “I don’t want you here at all. Ever.”

  “I guess it’s good that it’s not your decision then.”

  “It could be. If I forced it.”
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  Holly wanted to jump in and explain exactly why she wanted August here. How he’d helped her before and how the tests might show (and her gut already showed) he was helping her right now. Holly’s mind was forming solid, cogent arguments, but even if she’d wanted to stop playing dumb for her handlers, she doubted her mouth would let those arguments pass. Thinking seemed to be getting easier, but articulating still seemed daunting. Maybe that was on its way to changing, too.

  Holly put a limp palm on Cyrus’s arm and stared hard at him.

  “Sfay,” she said.

  After a moment, Cyrus rolled his eyes and sighed dramatically. Then he looked at Damon, and the two of them stood, Cyrus locking eyes with August.

  “No fucking her,” Cyrus said firmly then walked out the door with Damon beside him.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  DROPPED CALL

  ALICE’S EYES SNAPPED OPEN. SHE’D been having a dream she’d been playing chess with her neighbor. Kelly had chased her king into a corner, and the game had ended almost before it began. Then Nicole, who’d been beside Alice the entire time, had reached into a candy dish and pulled out a handful of extracted teeth with bloody roots. Nicole said, “Told you.”

  After a moment of waiting for reality’s return, Alice sat up in the darkness. The dream had borne the stamp of veracity, and in her dark bedroom it didn’t want to shake loose on its own. It had the feel of a memory. Or a documentary she’d seen too many times.

  A slow sigh. A glance out the window, showing only darkness and moonlight.

  The clock projected its time onto the ceiling in red numerals. It said it was 6:04 a.m., but Alice didn’t believe it. This was a middle-of-the-night feel if ever she’d had one, with dream skin clinging to her cortex.

  Alice went to the bathroom and splashed water on her face. She looked in the mirror for a few seconds, taking herself in as the tick of her vents dripped upward from the register near the floor. In the basement, there was a HEPA filter attached to the furnace, guaranteed to trap and kill the Sherman Pope virus. Which was a joke because SP had never gone airborne and seemed unlikely to. It’s why the first outbreak, though bad, had been easy enough to contain. Blood-to-blood and saliva-to-blood transmission had remained the disease’s only communicability factor, and they turned out to be shitty ways for a disease to propagate itself. Flu spread because it was airborne, and the bubonic plague had been able to live inside fleas. Sherman Pope’s viability remained exclusive to mammals, and only humans could manifest it. Turned out not getting bitten by someone was easier than Hollywood made it look.