by Bobby Adair
Somebody screamed, and then a lot of somebodies did. A handful of yellows ran out of an old furniture store on the left side of the street. Not far behind them, twice their number in feral Whites dashed through the broken glass display windows, coughing and trying to see through the caustic haze.
I didn’t waste a moment. My instructions had been clear. I fired up my pilot light and sprayed a fountain of molten death down the sidewalk, torching the chasing Whites before they realized what was happening.
They shrieked.
They fell.
A few ran on for a car length or two before they tumbled. Didn’t matter. It all ended the same—burning corpses on the concrete.
Disappointed that no cathartic relief came to me through the violence, I turned back to Murphy. “In his perverted way, Bill is trying to save the human race. If he doesn’t find some kind of virus immunity, the child mortality rate will drive normal humans into extinction.”
“What does that have to do with the price of piss in Paris?”
“Salgado told me the genetic problems are linked. He says Bill doesn’t want to cure anybody. He definitely doesn’t want to give anyone eternal youth. He wants to be able to give them something like a flu shot. If you stay in his good graces, you get your annual shot. Your children don’t die, and oh, by-the-way, you live forever.”
That’s when Murphy got it. “As in, indentured to Bill, one year at a time, forever. What an asshole.” He took another moment before he said, “I’m in, dude. Whatever you want to do, I’m in.”
I looked down Houston Avenue, in the direction we’d come from. The jib crew wasn’t yet visible. We had some time to work with. “You’re not gonna like what I have in mind.”
“That’s never stopped you before.”
98
While our yellows filled the street with tear gas and moved on to the next set of buildings, I laid out the briefest version of my plan I could manage. “This is about as good a chance as we’re gonna get.”
“Did you graduate from the Wile E. Coyote School of Project Planning?”
“You’ll have time to whine later. In or out?”
“Already told you, I’m in.”
“Talkers talk, walkers walk.” I ran toward the Whites I’d just torched on the sidewalk. Most were still burning. “Strip.”
Murphy groaned, “You’re not witty.” He came along, anyway.
I glanced up the street again. “We have to be done with this before the jib crew shows up.”
Murphy shed his jacket and tossed it on the sidewalk. I slipped my rig off, following with my jacket, shorts, and boots.
“The boots, too?” Murphy complained.
“I’m not going to ruin them, just blacken them a bit.”
“Just so you know, I’m not doing this shit barefoot.”
“Don’t be a wuss.” With our clothing scattered near the wall, I told Murphy to stand back, and I realized I’d made my first mistake. “Put your boots back on.”
“Jesus, dude. Did you think this plan through?”
“Think of it as a first draft.” I slipped my boots on without tying them. I stepped back from the clothing, aimed my weapon, and shot them with a quick squirt of fire. Not wasting a moment, I ran over and stomped on my flaming jacket and shorts, doing my best to extinguish the flames.
Keeping his hands cupped over his genitals, Murphy did the same. He noticed me looking. “What?”
“Protecting the family jewels?”
“You might want to burn your dick off, but—”
“Now for the icky part.” I knelt by a horribly burned corpse, and dug out a handful of bloody, burned flesh from its back.
Murphy gagged. “That’s just about the most disgusting—”
I smashed the charred gore on my chest and rubbed it around. “Do it, Murphy. Cover yourself.” I pulled another handful and rubbed it on my arms.
With a great deal of reluctance, Murphy went to work.
In moments, we both looked as bad as the burnt bodies on the sidewalk. We dressed in our partially charred clothing. I strapped my flamethrower rig on and slumped onto the sidewalk beside the body of a still-smoldering taint. With my gas mask on, I could watch up the street but not have to worry about anyone from the jib crew seeing my open eyes. Well, open eyes that sometimes blinked and looked around.
Murphy lay close by and dragged a gory corpse over himself. He had a view down the street. “This better work.”
“Have I ever failed you?”
“You do know I know the answer to that, right?”
“We don’t have to stay perfectly still or even quiet right now, but as soon as I spot the jib crew—”
“Zed, stop telling me things I already know and start thinking about all the things that could go wrong.”
Murphy was right about that. I didn’t have a plan so much as a beginning for a plan that only existed in general terms—play dead, get the jib crew to haul us to the recycle center, escape, find Jazz and Grace, whack Bill, rescue Steph, and ride off into the sunset. Everything hinged on us being able to get the buzz bolts off without them exploding our heads. The recycle center was the only place I figured that could be done.
“What happens when we get out of New Tejas?” asked Murphy.
“More crazy shit. Probably.”
“Besides reading my mind, do you have any specifics?”
“If you want, we can find a safe place for you and the girls to chill until I get back.”
“Get back? From where?”
I spotted movement down the street. “The jib crew’s coming.”
99
Playing dead was easy back in grade school when the stakes were only giggles and fun. In the real world, jib crews didn’t handle corpses with any care whatsoever. Because of the gore I’d smeared over my skin, I slipped from the grip of the people handling me and hit the sidewalk a little too hard more than once. Luckily, my gas mask muffled my grunts.
They stacked me in the refrigerator trailer of a semi. I took advantage of a moment when none of the jib crew were in the trailer to position myself atop a finished stack of corpses so that I wouldn’t have to spend the rest of the day beneath several hundred pounds of dead meat. When the chill of the truck’s refrigeration unit seeped into my bones, I thought twice about that choice, but it was too late to do anything to change it.
When they finally closed the door and the truck started to roll, I whispered, “Murphy?”
“Let me guess,” he answered, sarcastically loud, “now we wait. Right?”
“Don’t pretend you didn’t understand what was coming.”
“I have somebody’s stinky feet on my face.”
“Could be worse.”
“Are you trying to one-up me?”
“No. I climbed up on top first chance I got.”
Murphy groaned. “You didn’t mention that part of the plan.”
“We were in a hurry. I figured you’d improvise.”
“I didn’t think we were taking stupid risks for the sake of commuter comforts.”
“Is that what we’re doing? Commuting?”
“I think a smart man wouldn’t mock my humor when I’m trying real hard to put myself in a better mood.”
“That commuter joke was some top-shelf funny shit, Murphy. Ha ha.”
“Quiet, Lefty.”
100
The truck had been idling with the back door open for at least a half-hour when I poked my head out of the trailer’s open rear door and realized the jib hut was anything but an actual hut.
“What do you see?” asked Murphy.
I slipped back inside. “It’s some kind of warehouse. Giant place. Maybe an old distribution center for a shipping company.”
“People?”
“Four bays down, they’re unloading a truck. Taints doing the work, rolling bodies on gurneys and in shopping baskets and stuff.”
“Yellows?” asked Murphy. “Normals?”
“Some yellows down ther
e a ways. They’re gabbing. Not paying much attention.” I looked Murphy up and down.
“Uh oh. I hear your gears whirring. What are you thinking?”
I shed my gas mask and the remains of my charred jacket. “Find me something to wipe all this crud off.”
Murphy slipped his jacket off.
“Don’t,” I told him. “You’re gonna be the corpse. I’m going to be one of them.”
“That’ll work.” Murphy started searching the bodies and immediately tore a shirt off one of them.
Peeking outside again, I spotted dozens of unused body carts not far outside our trailer door. I finished wiping myself clean—as in, the worst of the gore was gone, leaving me only grimy with bloody stains on my skin. Wearing only my work shorts and boots, I strolled out of the trailer, crossed the wide concrete floor and grabbed a gurney sitting among several shopping baskets.
“Hey!” shouted someone from farther down the warehouse. “Hey!”
I ignored him and rolled the gurney into the refrigerator truck.
“Trouble?” Murphy whispered.
“Get on. Quick.”
Murphy was reluctant.
“Do it, and then be still.”
As soon as Murphy was on, I wheeled him out.
“Stupid, stupid, stupid!” yelled the yellow who marched toward me, pointing at the truck being emptied by the taints. “One is this, stupid, stupid you.” He was clearly one of those Whites who had trouble with full sentences.
I lowered my eyes and rolled Murphy forward.
“Great Lord on heaven, stupid, stupid you.” He slapped the back of my head as I passed.
I didn’t react, except to hurry to join in with the ragged line of taints rolling corpses to wherever they were all going. Breathing a little easier, I passed a pair of loitering yellows who shared a mumbled joke and laughed at me. I ignored them, too. Having successfully herded me back into line, the angry yeller joined them. I sauntered a bit farther before I chanced a look around. The line I followed led to a large, rolling door that separated a section of the warehouse. Smoke wafted out in sweaty clouds before rising to the warehouse’s ceiling high above. I reached down and nudged Murphy’s head so that—through the lenses of the gas mask he still wore—he’d be able to see ahead and understand that whatever lay inside would be our next obstacle.
At the slow pace the line proceeded, it took many long minutes to reach the door.
When the first smoke cloud wafted over me, I realized it wasn’t smoke at all, but steam. That was a bit of a relief.
I stepped through, following the line into a chaos of taints, noisy and busy, hurrying out of and back into clouds of steam in every direction. Some appeared to have the job of stripping the bodies of clothing and gear. Others hosed hot water over the bodies to wash away the filth. Only a few obvious yellows prowled the mess, clickers in hand, buzzing and yelling to prod the taints to stay focused on their work.
An industrious White took hold of Murphy’s gurney and tugged, expecting that I’d let it go.
I didn’t.
He tugged again, so I skipped over the rest of our negotiation and rushed him, giving him a hard shove.
He stumbled back onto another gurney, knocking it to the floor and creating a racket that brought too many eyes in our direction.
With sudden urgency, I pulled Murphy’s gurney into a thick cloud of steam, getting away from the line, hoping to get lost in the pandemonium. When I felt I was safe enough, I tried to blend into a different role. I yanked Murphy’s gas mask off his head, and started on his war jacket, pulling out one arm and then rolling him on his side to pull it out from beneath him. That’s when I noticed a pair of yellows and a normal standing over us.
The normal pointed in the direction of the rolling door. “Go back.”
The yellow stepped around to my side of the gurney and pushed me. “Go. Do.”
I pushed him back, “I’m high yellow, you ignorant taint.”
The yellows in earshot gasped.
The normal stepped over, demanding, “What are you doing in here?” Something about Murphy caught his eye and surprised him. “You’re alive?”
Unfortunately, the normal was an overly cautious man. Before I could think what to say, he had his normal’s forbidden red clicker-zapper in hand.
My bolt buzzed, and kept buzzing, until electricity zapped me to my knees.
When I was able to do something other than hold myself on my hands and knees watching my snot run onto the floor, I turned to see Murphy lying beside me, his gurney toppled over, trying to shake off the effects of the buzz. Around us, as far as I could see into the clouds of steam, taints were down, moaning and trying to understand how they’d screwed up.
The yellow who’d pushed me was babbling gibberish at the floor.
The normal was leaning over Murphy, trying to figure out something he should already have guessed.
I realized that my troubles—and certainly Murphy’s—were about to very quickly multiply out of hand. So, with all the strength and balance I could muster, I pulled my feet beneath me, hopped over Murphy’s gurney, and punched the normal in the crotch, hitting him so hard it lifted him off his feet.
The shock of mashing testicles, when done right, can be a fiercely painful, momentarily debilitating event.
I’d done it right.
The normal’s hands forgot for a moment what they were supposed to be doing and dropped the zapper as he fell. He hit the floor with a slap of wet skin, and the wooden thunk of skull on concrete.
Whether he deserved it or not, I staggered over and kicked him in the head, hoping to knock him unconscious long enough for Murphy and me to escape. I snagged the red clicker-zapper and grabbed Murphy by his half-on, half-off battle jacket. “We gotta go, bro.”
101
Taints yowled as I hurried through the steam, not knowing where I was going, just that I needed to get away from the scene of the crime.
Murphy grabbed me by the arm and pulled me to a stop. He leaned in close enough for only me to hear. “I’ll bet they take the bolts off in here somewhere.”
It didn’t much matter that he was likely right, we were in steam-filled space the size of a Walmart, with a thousand taints, and twice that many bodies. I pointed in a random direction. “You go that way. I’ll go this way. Holler if you find something.”
“Holler?”
“What have we got to lose?” I hurried off, wanting to run, but not. My balance was barely sufficient to keep me upright while walking.
Rude taints bumped me as they pushed past, going this way and that.
Looking over my shoulder to see what I could see behind me, I plowed into a gurney, falling over with a clatter of metal, and pissing off the White who’d been rolling it.
Shoving the taint away as I stood back up, I realized the body, now at my feet, was naked and clean. More importantly—maybe—it lay across a wide, blue line painted on the floor. Following the line into mist, I saw other taints pushing gurneys along it, both in the same direction. I took a chance that the line was the order in the chaos and hollered, “Murphy, follow the blue line on the floor.”
“On it,” he called back, though I couldn’t guess from how far away.
Faint voices shouting from somewhere told me yellows were coming.
Our time was running short.
Hoping my blue-line guess would turn into something, I ran, shoving taints out of my way who were trudging through their lazy duties, and only serving to slow me down.
Unexpectedly, though it was the something I was searching for, the entire floor turned blue.
Looking up, the first yellow I spotted held a bent tool that he was slipping beneath the puck on the skull of a dead taint. As loud as I could, I shouted for Murphy, and before I’d be able to talk myself out of it, pressed the button on my click-zapper. My skull buzzed. The yellows in the mist around me stiffened. Then the electricity came on and dropped me out of reality.
102
&nbs
p; I was puking when Murphy grabbed my arm and all but carried me through the steam. All around, taints and yellows wailed and heaved. Somewhere in the vague distance of the thick air, angry voices shouted.
By the time I was able to walk unassisted, we were in a cold storage room among endless stacks of corpses, all headless, handless, foot-free, and stiff. I had no clue how we’d gotten there. Murphy planted me on my ass behind a stack of jibs.
He draped one of his big hands over the top of my skull. “Be still.” I felt the cold metal of the tool slide under my puck, felt skin tear, and blood flow. He jiggled the tool until it seated in place. He torqued it, with a loud snap. “There. I think that does it.” He slipped the tool out and held it up for me to see.
I reached up. The puck was still on my head.
“It’s a two-step operation. You have to deactivate it, and then unscrew it. Can you do me without blowing my head apart?”
Still feeling out the dimensions of the bolt on my head, I asked, “Will it still buzz?”
“I’ll take ‘Shit I Don’t Know’ for a thousand, Alex.” Murphy tapped the tool against his puck. “Can you do me, or not?”
With some effort, I climbed to my knees as Murphy sat down. He handed me the tool, a flat piece of metal, bent and slotted in a peculiar way.
“Slide it under,” he told me, “until it snaps into place. Don’t worry about the blood.”
Holding Murphy’s head still with my shaking hand, I shoved the tool beneath his puck. Indeed, skin tore, blood seeped out.
“Jiggle it,” he told me, flinching from the pain.
I did, and the tool snapped into place.
“Turn it.”
“What?”
“The arrow,” Murphy ran his fingers blindly over the flat tool to where an arrow had been stamped in. “Turn it that way until it clicks.”
I did, and it clicked.
He relaxed.
“Can we take them off?” I asked.
“No time. We have to hope this deactivated them.” Murphy jumped to his feet. “We need to get out of here and do it now. Can you stand? Can you run?”
