Dead City

by Sean Platt

  “I can get us an extension. Finish the current season. We need to take advantage and film while the weather is good, Bobby.”

  Bobby shook his head. “Three goddamned months surrounded by zombies. That’s enough. I need a break.” Again, his eyes went to the map. And it’s getting inside my head.

  “Two more weeks. Two more weeks on site, and we can have a half year in the can.”

  “Or we could leave then come back to Yosemite later as planned. We need off-site specials, too. You know our viewers like the hide ‘n’ seek shows. It’s one thing to hunt inside a federal preserve. But it’s so much more thrilling when we make them wonder if there are ferals hiding in their garages.”

  “You’re not going to find ferals in Aberdeen Valley, Bobby. Nor, probably, in the surrounding land. It’s too well controlled.”

  Bobby thought. Cindy was right, of course. There were a few ferals everywhere, and despite Panacea’s control and education programs — curl into a ball and yell was the new duck and cover — there would always be idiots who got bitten and ignored the infection, or rednecks who kept too-far-gone friends and family in cages or chains. Ratings were always great for Yosemite shows, but the Reserve felt far off and unreal to most people. Closer-to-home scares glued people to their couches, kept them buying supplies and guns, building fences and installing security lights.

  Still, the idea of staying on a visa extension was appealing. Bobby almost wanted to believe Cindy — to accept that his appointment with August was off anyway and that there was therefore no reason for going home. These days, he lived at Yosemite more than Aberdeen anyway.

  But it only took one look at the map to change his mind. He wanted her to leave so he could finish obsessing. So he could resume searching for patterns, pulling footage from the park’s security feeds and watching hour after hour on 5x speed, waiting for one specific deadhead. It was unhealthy. The expired visa had given him an unarguable deadline to leave, and he didn’t want to hear about possibilities of staying. He’d lose his mind if he did. Bobby needed saving. From himself.

  The ambush had made Cam run, never to return.

  It only made Bobby want to dig in deeper, sure it meant he was closer to finding Golem than ever before.

  Cindy finally noticed Bobby’s marked-up map. She took a step forward, but he swept it away, folding the big thing into a mess.

  “Make sure the pilots are ready, here and in Fresno,” Bobby said. “You can stay if you want, but I’m leaving tomorrow.”

  Cindy looked like she might protest, but then sensibility seemed to descend. Whatever she saw on the news had raised her hackles, but Cindy was smart enough to know that he needed to go. A lot of Bobby’s success came from being half-crazy; it wouldn’t be smart to push him all the way.

  Besides, it’s not like he couldn’t work back in Aberdeen.

  It’s not like he couldn’t watch Yosemite’s security footage from afar.

  Bobby shuffled his map and stood, trying to convince himself that the revelation about August Maughan and Holly Gaynor held no interest.

  August wouldn’t have any thoughts about why some necrotics didn’t act much like necrotics at all.

  Not a chance.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

  FAIL

  THE ROAD BETWEEN HEMISPHERE AND the Sunny Day Trailer Park was mostly flat, but to Danny it felt like a roller coaster.

  He’d left work with a lump in his stomach. The second half of the day had been torture. He’d accomplished nothing, and after ignoring the first of Jordache’s afternoon texts, she’d sent two more. Earlier, he’d been able to put her off, but things had changed. If he replied now, he’d have to either tell her the truth or lie. The gray area was all gone. He wouldn’t be procuring any designer Necrophage in time to keep Jordache from jonesing — let alone the ultra-exclusive PhageX, which he’d never even seen outside of Ian’s high-level inventory access. Officially, PhageX didn’t exist, so far as Danny could tell. It couldn’t be purchased at any price, forged prescription and absurd cost (Danny was willing to pay, if he had to) aside.

  But maybe he could buy some of the more ordinary designs. He’d heard good things about Charm and Strange. Even Twisted seemed intriguing; he and Jordache had laughed over that one and its supposed inhibition-lowering add-ins, and Danny secretly hoped taking such a thing would loosen her enough to get Jordache boarding the Danny Express.

  He couldn’t do it easily, though. He didn’t have personal access, even to samples. Asking the other reps might get him busted and get prying eyes where they shouldn’t be. He could try to buy some but wasn’t sure where — and, again, knew he’d need a prescription. Base Necrophage was like locker room tampons, according to Jordache. Nobody put barriers in front of either because nobody wanted you bleeding all over the place for want of a quarter.

  Gross but apt. True Jordache at her most charming.

  Thinking of Jordache — imagining her yearning and starting to panic — unseated Danny as his workday neared its end. He’d shoved his phone into a desk drawer and forgotten it. Literally. He hadn’t remembered to take it from his desk when he’d left, and now, on the drive, he couldn’t get any of Jordache’s fearful texts if he wanted to.

  When he’d begun driving, Danny’s roller coaster had been at a low. He’d have to tell her he’d failed. There was no other option. She’d have to go on base Phage for at least a day or two or three. She’d be crushed. She claimed that PhageX was more than medicine. She said it was like a fresh start in a bottle. It was as if the drug didn’t merely keep her decay where it stopped. It seemed to have pushed her further back. Elevated her beyond her old station. She was becoming more interested in conversation. Curious about movies and books.

  But as Danny drove, the sinking feeling slowly abated. He began to feel less terrible then actively better. He was making too much of this. He wasn’t taking away something Jordache needed; he was taking away something she wanted. And while Danny would love for his girl to have all she wanted, the distinction remained exactly that. Maybe there was a kind of addiction there, but it was mental, not physical. Her burning need for PhageX, above and beyond the base formulation that would keep her healthy, was all in her head. Jordache would be fine, if she could get over her preconceptions.

  Her attachment to the designer drug was psychosomatic.

  “Holy fuck,” Danny said aloud.

  He hit the car’s brake. The vehicle behind, despite collision avoidance, nearly rear-ended him, swerving around with a long, braying honk.

  Danny turned into the parking lot in front of the white building on Aberdeen’s outskirts — something old enough to be pre-Hemisphere but still safely away from the ghettos and the curious breed of crime unique to the poor infected.

  He had an idea.

  Danny got out, checking his pockets, digging his wallet out from under the avalanche of in-car garbage.

  He knew what he needed to do. And if he was lucky, he could probably get away clean.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

  SKIN DISTRICT

  ALICE WATCHED THE SKYLINE DARKEN in the distance. She kept her engine running. The engine was a next-gen hybrid and barely purred, mostly drawing juice at a low idle rather than torque from a loud engine. Still, the vehicle’s little sounds were a comfort, making her feel like she could floor it and be gone in a shot if she needed to.

  The thought itself was tinged with liberal guilt. Alice had parked on a slight rise, in what passed for a low-rent park, and the surrounding area was mostly clear in all directions. Nobody — and nothing — could come for her without being seen, and that was doubly true because Alice had parked under a large halogen streetlight. Still, the idea that she’d taken precautions (the open parking spot, the light, the running engine) felt wrong. Alice Frank was supposed to be a crusader for human rights — even if the definition of human had changed in recent years. She was supposed to be fighting for the little guys on the bottom rung, casting a skeptical eye at the big boy
s. Alice had covered little other than Hemisphere since the first big outbreaks, since Bakersfield, since Rip Daddy had mutated into the far more troublesome Sherman Pope. That was supposed to make disenfranchised people of all stripes (but especially necrotics) her peeps. And, in theory, she should be their peeps, too.

  And yet here she was, in the most densely necrotic part of town, her windows up, doors locked, engine running, jittering like a scared little white girl in the middle of the inner city.

  She forced herself to lower her window. She’d see anyone before they could do anything to her anyway, and if she was politically incorrectly frightened of necrotic criminals, she had even less to worry about. In this part of town, victims often had real advantages over gunmen. It was hard for all but the newest necrotics to use firearms at all, they weren’t usually fast, and you couldn’t understand them anyway when they said, Gif me aww jor muddy, or I’ll thute.

  The thought made Alice give a shameful, nervous laugh. The park was deserted, and her own snicker seemed to echo back as if off the wall of a handball court. Hearing it, thinking of necrotics playing handball, Alice laughed again. The new laugh echoed back harder in the twilight, and finally her bones seemed to chill. She pressed her lips tight.

  Headlights appeared in the distance. Alice swallowed, gripped her steering wheel despite that ever-present guilt, and steeled herself. As the sky darkened and the sounds of night in the so-called Skin District started to chatter, an empty park wasn’t a place a healthy lady wanted to be alone. She’d flee if this wasn’t the person she’d come here to meet.

  She couldn’t see the car’s cab until the headlights were eclipsed by her own car’s body. But then she saw the face inside and relaxed: a man in his thirties, face stubbled, hair combed in a way that was perhaps overly neat. He had bright-blue eyes just like the few photos she’d found online, and despite the circumstances, he managed a small, attractive smile in greeting.

  His window went down. The two cars paused side by side with their fronts in opposite directions, open windows lined up.

  “Did you have any trouble finding the place?” Alice asked.

  Ian shook his head. “No. It came up in my GPS. I saw your headlights when I came in on the main service road. The gate was closed, but there was room to drive around on the grass.”

  Alice nodded. “I didn’t know they closed it. I’ve only been here in the daytime.”

  He swallowed. His Adam’s apple bobbed as Alice watched his profile. He didn’t want to say it any more than Alice had wanted to admit it to herself, but he was scared shitless. Maybe even more frightened than he’d sounded on the phone when he, for a change, had dialed her number.

  “What made you call me?” she asked. He’d been so guarded on the line. Alice felt the same most of the time, but it was strange to see paranoia from someone who lived in Lion’s Gate. Ian wore suits to work and probably pulled in around a half-million dollars a year. Alice was used to speaking like her phones were bugged because they probably were. But Ian worked for Hemisphere. Strange that he’d suddenly become afraid they’d overhear him.

  “Something is going on. I don’t know what it is, but it’s something.”

  Alice wanted to make a sarcastic remark, but now wasn’t the time. He was here. He’d made contact. For now, she’d handle him with kid gloves if it kept him talking, grateful that her absurdly priced scrambler would destroy the dialogue for anyone who might be listening in.

  “Did you learn something that … that changed your mind about talking to me?”

  “Someone’s watching my house. I’ve been … called in.”

  “When we were talking earlier. It sounded like someone grabbed you.”

  Ian nodded.

  “Why? Where did they take you?”

  Ian’s eyes flicked around the park. “Not here.”

  “Why not?” Alice looked toward the road, the direction Ian had come from. “Were you followed?”

  “I don’t know. I’ve never been followed before. This isn’t something I’m used to. It’s not something I goddamn deserve!”

  Alice let it go. She could see fear, frustration, anger. Ian wasn’t acting like a normal source. He was acting reluctant, as if he’d been dragged here. As if he didn’t particularly want to talk but found her to be the least of his pressing evils.

  “It’s safe here. Nobody can hear.”

  “It looks bad. What would I be doing in this part of town?”

  “Checking in on all the good Hemisphere is doing.”

  Ian shot her a look.

  “Sorry. I make jokes when I’m nervous. You want to go somewhere else, we’ll go somewhere else. No problem.”

  Ian was still looking around. In the distance was a playground that looked a bit sad in the daylight but managed to look menacing in the dark. It was all plastic, all padded, all totally necrotic safe for the little dead children. The city had erected the park two years ago as a grand gesture then forgotten it. Locals had taken it over, some good, some bad. This section had grown decrepit in just two years but was the safest of the lot. There were hideaways among the wooded sections where people traded lost body parts. Not for use. Just for fun.

  “No. It’s fine. I’m just … I don’t like any of this. I didn’t ask for it.”

  “You’re doing the right thing.”

  Ian’s eyes became momentarily hard, shadowed under the reflected glow from the overhead light. “I’m doing the only thing I can. I’m not trying to be noble. To be honest, I’m not convinced you’re not behind more of it than you’re admitting.”

  Alice decided her best chance was to attack the accusation head on. “Understandable. But you called. You came. So you must believe me on some level. What changed your mind?”

  “I saw that it wasn’t you staking out my house. It was men. Two of them.”

  “Maybe they’re my cohorts.”

  “They have Panacea plates.”

  “Panacea?”

  “You know who else has Panacea plates, just for the permissions?”

  “You think the people outside your house are Hemisphere?”

  “One or the other. But not just anyone at Hemisphere. I have normal North Carolina plates. But I’ve seen the lines blur before.”

  Alice had heard rumors that confirmed what Ian was implying — that Hemisphere and Panacea worked together more closely than was commonly accepted — but it seemed too early in their relationship to be too bold.

  “Why do you think they’re watching you?”

  Ian half scowled. “I don’t know.” Then he told her a story very like her own: an anonymous source who gave hints but never any real information, nudges from this direction and that without any real help, even a response from Archibald Burgess himself that made Ian’s paranoia about being stalked feel valid. To Alice, Ian sounded like a pawn. He seemed to be suspecting Hemisphere plenty, but ironically the company seemed to have caused his suspicions itself. The Ian Keys she’d researched and tried to call earlier had sounded like a Boy Scout, loyal to the end. Now he sounded like a jilted lover. Someone whose dutiful affections had been upended one too many times.

  “I think the same person has been leading me,” Alice said then gave him her own history, from the anonymous packet at her door to the way her phone had rung, finding herself voice to voice with Ian as if she’d placed the call herself.

  But that reminded her of something, too.

  “BioFuse,” Alice said.

  Ian’s head flicked toward her.

  “I got a message while we were talking. It said, ‘Ask him about BioFuse.’”

  Ian’s eyebrows scrunched together. “What about it?”

  “I don’t know. I got a pamphlet. A product brochure. And I looked it up online. Seems like it was one of Hemisphere’s earliest drugs, discontinued around the time Sherman Pope hit. Does that ring any bells?”

  Ian shrugged. “It’s like you said. It was one of the lines Archibald believed in most. If not for the outbreak, we’d pr
obably be in the BioFuse business today.”

  “Curing Alzheimer’s,” said Alice. She’d had a grandmother who’d died mostly demented, unable to remember her own husband. Nana had gone before BioFuse would have hit prime time, but it felt like a worthy line of research to Alice, for other people’s sake. Maybe designer Necrophage (and international distribution of base Necrophage, just in case) was more lucrative than their dropped line, but letting it go felt almost offensive.

  “It was one of a suite of drugs. Alzheimer’s, yes. But there were others.”

  “Were the others discontinued?” Alice asked.

  “I don’t know. I’d have to check.”

  “Why was BioFuse discontinued?”

  “I don’t know. It’s a company legend, but I don’t know the details.”

  “Was it distributed? Did people take it, I mean?”

  “Oh, sure. A lot of people, I think.”

  “Wasn’t it profitable?”

  “I assume it was, but again, I’d need to ask.”

  “But other drugs like it remain in production?”

  Ian nodded.

  “Why just cut the one?”

  “I don’t know a lot of details.”

  “How did it work. Do you know? Was it a … ” Alice fluttered, wondering why she’d asked. She didn’t know the types of pharmaceuticals or what to do with any information he gave her. She was recording on the sly via the digital recorder in her pocket and could analyze anything said afterward (all of this was off the record anyway), but asking-wise, she was at a total loss. “A beta-blocker or something?” she finished, wondering why it could possibly matter. “What did it do to help Alzheimer’s patients?”

  “I don’t know. I’m not a chemist.”

  “You must know something.”

  “I’m an executive. I work in an office. When I ask too many science questions, people look at me funny.”