His eyes opened to a sea of garish crimson light. Head throbbing, limbs paralyzed, he tried to orient himself. Was he lying on his back? The room had no definition, no depth. It was all red. It was hot. He opened his mouth and a tiny croak escaped.
A huge, angular head with colorless eyes lurched into view. Tetch wet himself at the sight.
At the time he was certain that it was the Devil, and at that point he believed he understood what had happened and where he was. Yet he had no strength, no breath, to scream. He could only shake his head from side to side until he lost consciousness.
The next time his eyes opened, he was lying in his own bed, Addison holding his wrist and glancing at a pocket watch in his other hand. He felt thick gauze around his crown. "What happened?"
"You fell down the stairs. Don't you remember?" Addison's tone was dispassionate. "Before I had a chance to explain what you saw in my study - which you wouldn't have seen at all, had you observed the house rules - you practically threw yourself down the staircase. You were actually dead for a time before I managed to revive you."
The mind of thirteen-year-old Tetch was gripped by terror: it HAD been Hell, after all. But why would he be so condemned? Because he was disobedient? Addison stayed at his bedside for a time and lectured him about interrupting important work in forbidden rooms. Tetch resolved to stay out of the doctor's way from that day forward.
Two years later, after he'd murdered Addison, Tetch would discover that the garishly-lit "Hell" was the cellar, and the head he'd seen looming over him but a crude mask carved from wood. He suspected he hadn't been the only child put through that nightmarish routine. The only one, in fact, who probably never saw Addison's "Hell" was young Lily.
Nightfall found Lily slipping down dark corridors in her nightgown, whisper-quiet, bounding down the stairs and out the front door.
Uriel was at the gates with an axe. Keeping to the shadows, Lily stole around the corner of the house. She darted through the grass to the ivy-wrapped fence and peered into the swamp's inky blackness.
There he was, as she'd known he would be; the man in black came forward with a beautiful white horse. He stood silent as the horse bowed its head, and Lily reached through the fence to stroke its muzzle.
"Why aren't you afraid of the dead?" The man finally asked. "Baron makes them be nice," she answered. The horse had black eyes just like its owner. "He won't let them eat if they do bad things. Like one time Bailey bit me, and Baron put a rope around him and tied him to the fence and he had to stay there all week."
"You were bit...?" The man in black knelt and she held out her hand. There was a faint white scar below the thumb. "Didn't you get sick?"
"No. They aren't like the other dead people."
"How?"
Lily shrugged. The man in black studied her hand and her face. He touched her fingers with his, briefly; though his skin was icy cold, Lily felt warm in her chest and she couldn't help smiling at him.
"Do you like it here?" He asked. She nodded quickly. "Then tell me why you cut your wrists." He said. She stared at the ground.
"I'll come back later." The man climbed onto his steed. Lily wanted to ask him if she could ride the horse, just around the house a little, but she knew he'd say no. Despite that, she looked forward to his next visit.
16.
Safer?
"Yeah. You'll be safer with me, at my place."
"I appreciate it Mike, really. But--"
"Cheryl, I understand why it's hard for you to trust me - or anyone for that matter. I really do. And my saying that probably isn't going to ease any tension either, but the simple fact is that if you stay alone in this apartment, you run the risk of being cornered by rotters, looters - maybe friends of your cousin."
"Lee didn't have friends. He didn't even go outside."
"But he had a dealer..."
"Yes."
"Look, I've been sleeping on the floor in my living room. You can have the bedroom, I'll help you move your things in there. And I've installed new locks on all the doors. Nabbed 'em from the hardware store. No one can get into the apartment if I don't want them to. No one will be able to get into your room if you don't want them to."
"It's not so much about trust, Mike. It's just...I don't know. Lee's dead. I've been staying with him since I lost my brother, and I don't even remember how long ago that was. My brother controlled me too - he wasn't mean though, he had the best of intentions - but still I couldn't make a move without him. Then Lee. Nothing I did was right in his eyes, even if it was his own damn idea. I just want to run my own life for a change."
"Makes sense."
"But?"
"But safety in numbers still applies. And I broke your lock when I kicked the door in."
"Nice."
"You're right though. It's your choice. I'm just putting the offer out there. Okay?"
Mike pulled a pistol out and handed it to her. "I assume you know how to use this."
"I do." Cheryl was still reluctant to take it. "The least I can do," he said. "The very least."
"I'll think about it, okay?" She smiled. Mike doubted that, but he smiled back and left.
Meanwhile, the guests staying at the Holy Covenant Community shelter had already worn out their welcome. Oates threw open every cupboard in the kitchen and swore. "When did we run out of everything??"
"There are too many of us here." Reverend Palmer said, leaning against the sink as she filled a pitcher with water. "But I'm not going to ask anyone to leave. I've got no right to decide that one life is worth more or less than another."
"Then let me do it." Wheeler stood in the doorway. "That ex-con can go first."
"Shut up, Wheeler."
"You heard him talking to the cop. He's a pervert! None of us know him anyway."
"I barely know your ass," Oates barked, "and I hate you more."
"I'm not leaving." Wheeler said firmly. "I was here 'fore the troops cut and run off. I've been out there gathering food and shit so we can stay alive. But like the Rev said there's too many damn people here now. You know more are on the way, Oates - and I'm not giving this place up just because she can't say no!"
"This is my shelter." Palmer said, her voice barely above a growl. "If you don't like the way I run it, too bad."
"You're running it into the fuckin' ground."
"Then save yourself, Wheeler."
"I ain't the one leaving!!" He stamped his feet like an obstinate child. "You leave, Palmer! Go somewhere where there are still resources to be wasted on goddamn charity! These are the fuckin' badlands, sister! Those soldiers left us high and dry!"
"Then. Save. Yourself."
Oates stepped between the two of them. Though neither had made a move toward the other, threats burned in both of their eyes. Oates had never seen Palmer like this. She was fed up with Wheeler's bullshit, and so was he. "Take a walk." He told Wheeler. The other man snorted in his direction. Oates stood his ground. Wheeler finally groaned and left the doorway.
"Thanks." Palmer set the full pitcher on the counter. Her hands trembled. "What do you think, Oates? Should we leave the Harbor?"
"Hell no."
"He may be a bastard, but he's right about one thing. No matter how many people we have in the shelter, be it ten or two - it won't be long until the city's got no resources left. We're fighting a losing battle."
"Well, Reverend," Oates replied, his voice shaking as much as her hands, "I don't think nothing's gonna change that."
He picked at a splinter on one of the boards covering the kitchen window. "This is the end after all, ain't it?"
Funny, the reverend didn't think about it too much. When Palmer was born there had already been zombies walking the earth. If this plague was the end, THE end, then it was taking its sweet time.
A young woman named London poked her head into the room. "Can I grab that water from you?"
"Of course. Sorry." Palmer handed over the pitcher. Oates rapped his knuckles on the boards. "No, I don't imag
ine I'm gonna find a better place to die than this."
"So you say stay put?"
"That's what I say."
"All right then."
On the other side of the boards, standing outside the broken window, Aidan listened. The words that he recognized wormed into his brain, the rest quickly faded from memory.
He straightened his necktie and walked off down the street at a measured, almost-human pace.
17.
Clown
It pulled itself through an opening in the west wall, jagged bits of fencing flaying open its back, and staggered onto an empty street. Most of its colorful costume still clung to the body, pasted there by grime and by fluids seeping through bloated skin.
The clown stood in the street and looked from side to side. Its red rubber nose was distracting; the clown pulled the nose off and felt most of what was underneath come away with it.
Rouged lips were turning gray and falling off as the clown idly chewed through them. The white grease paint covering its face was hardly whiter than the skin beneath; an orange wig crawling with maggots was stuck to its bald head. Kid gloves stained brown with old blood. Oversized shoes filled now with pus and rot that squeezed out over the laces with each heavy step. The clown stood in the street and looked for food.
Someone was coming now, but he wasn't alive. The clean man in his nice suit gave nary a look to the other zombie as he passed. The clown thought of following him, but a few seconds passed and he couldn't recall what he would be following, and where.
The clown walked down the street. Innards sloshed within its distended belly. A maggot squirming in the rotter's navel dropped past urine-soaked trousers to the ground and was pulverized by a red size 15.
Time passed; the zombie felt what might be a fracture grinding inside one of its legs. Then it heard a voice and stopped. The voice was coming from a nearby building.
Inside that building, inside the shelter, a young woman sat with her son. Kipp had been Wendy's foster child for a decade, and any boundaries created by their legally-defined relationship had been forgotten in short order. Kipp was desperate, not for someone to love him, but for someone he could love. Every day his eyes were alight with what seemed an endless affection. He was sixteen now, probably half that age in an emotional sense - Wendy wasn't qualified to make a diagnosis but she'd known from the beginning he was handicapped.
He was peering through the paper-thin space between slats in a boarded-up window. Wendy sat on a nearby cot fixing one of his worn sneakers.
"The circus!" He said softly, breathlessly. Wendy looked up and he smiled at her. Climbing down from his perch atop a broken radiator, he padded across the community room in his socks.
"Kipp!" Wendy called. "Don't go anywhere we haven't talked about. Especially without your shoes."
He nodded and continued out of the room. London followed Wendy's loving gaze. "He's a sweet boy."
"Yes, he is."
"What did you do before you ended up here?" London asked.
"I was - am - a social worker. I work with a lot of children like Kipp. He's actually helped me a lot with that - he always sees the brighter side."
"I think they've got it better than we do," London said, then blushed. "Sorry, that must've sounded awful."
"No, no, I think you're right," Wendy replied, "and we could probably stand to learn a thing or two."
At the shelter's front entrance, Kipp quietly moved the barricade back.
The clown stood out front now, listening intently. Its gloved hands tightened into hungry fists. A young boy's laugh floated through the door.
The door cracked ever so slightly and the boy peered out. The clown stood still, waiting to see what would happen.
Opening the door just enough to get his skinny body through, the boy came out, stood and smiled broadly. He was waiting too.
The clown opened its mouth. Its painted smile split like a wound to reveal the remnants of decayed teeth. It reached for him.
The boy screamed. He threw himself at the door, not thinking to try and squeeze through the space he'd made, his frail body useless against the barricade. The clown fumbled at his shoulders. Its hands were broken and numb. Carefully, it stooped so that it could reach the boy with its open mouth.
A woman's hand thrust out and slapped at him. "KIPP!!" The woman shrieked. The boy grabbed her arm, sobbing, and buried his face against the door. Other voices now. The clown was desperate. It grabbed a mouthful of the child's hair between its teeth and pulled back.
A man thrust a metal spike out, some length of pipe, spearing the clown's eye and sending the rotter stumbling back. The same man tore the door all the way open and grabbed the boy. The clown struggled with the pipe. It couldn't see straight, couldn't steady itself. Feeling was leaving its legs. It twisted the pipe around inside its brain and moaned.
Wendy seized Kipp from Shipley's arms, backing away from the door. The others crowded in to restore the barricade. Shipley stood silent, watching the child and his mother.
"Wait!" Came a cry from outside. "What the fuck??" Wheeler snapped. Oates shoved him aside and pried the door back. "Hey!"
There were three people, two women and a man, running across the street from Liberty Auto. The clown spun around and lunged at them. The blonde caved the rotter's face in with a brick.
Against Wheeler's mad protests, Oates opened the door wide and waved them over. The clown lay on its back, fists clenched. Watery discharge pooled around its mutilated skull, the pipe sputtered dark chunks - still the thing lived.
Oates slammed the door behind the newcomers.
Far from the writhing clown, far from Jefferson Harbor's last pocket of humanity, Baron Tetch listened to Aidan's slurred words and nodded. "All right, I understand. Go downstairs."
Uriel was at the study door. Tetch pointed at him. "Do you remember how to use the rifle?"
The afterdead responded with a blank stare. Sighing, Tetch rose from his desk. "Let me show you again."
It was time to take the city.
18.
Mouths to Feed
Mike's radio, strapped to his belt, squawked as he was helping Cheryl carry a few boxes up to his apartment. He'd scarcely returned home and locked his door when he heard her knock upon it. Setting the box in his arms on the living room floor, Mike spoke into the radio. "Come back?"
"Weisman. What's your 20?"
"I'm home."
"Good. Grab something flammable. I've got - wait for it - a damn clown thrashing around outside Holy Covenant. Need some help torching him."
Mike acknowledged the request and went to peer beneath his sink. "I've got to leave you here for just a few minutes, Cheryl. You gonna be okay?"
"I should be." She eyed the eight locks installed in the door and smiled wryly. Laughing, Mike grabbed a bottle from under the sink. "Go ahead and get settled in the bedroom. I've got the only set of keys so don't go and get yourself locked out. I'll make you some copies at the hardware store in a little bit."
"Mike?"
"Yeah."
"Thanks."
She touched his hand timidly, a true sign of gratitude, reaching outside a claustrophobic, barely-existent comfort zone to make contact. He nodded and headed out the door.
When Mike arrived at the shelter, the front doors were open and Reverend Palmer was arguing with one of the bums, Wheeler. Voorhees stood by, gun in hand, watching the streets.
Mike ignored the confrontation and emptied his bottle's contents onto the ridiculous zombie lying there. It swiped blindly at his feet, to which he responded by coolly snapping its fingers under his boot.
"You got a light?" He asked Voorhees. The bald man nodded and fished through his trench coat for his matches.
"Three more??" Wheeler bellowed. "You just let them walk right on in here after what happened?!"
"They stopped the damn rotter, Wheeler!"
"That retarded kid is the reason the rotter was a problem in the first place! Too many strangers running
around this goddamn place!"
"All right, Mister Wheeler." Voorhees said. "We've heard enough."
"You can't tell me what to say or do! You can't push me around because I'm homeless! We're ALL homeless! I don't care where you're squatting, it's not yours! This isn't even a city anymore!"
"You want to bring more of them?" Mike snapped. He pointed to the clown. Voorhees struck a match and held it over the moving corpse. "If that's what you want to do, Wheeler, just keep throwing your tantrum."
It was like he didn't even hear them. "Don't burn that here!" Wheeler cried. "Not right in front of the fuckin' building!"
Empire Page 7
