“This is your Crimson Queen, Asphyxia Stardust signing off! Think of me when you touch yourselves in the naughty places.”
Max leaned over and shut off the feed. Without turning or acknowledging his presence, she addressed her unwelcome visitor.
“Did you enjoy that?”
Parker felt like a bucket of ice water had been dumped over his head.
“Yeah,” Parker he mumbled. “It was pretty amazing, actually.” Parker stepped into the room as she turned and glared at him.
“I am assuming that you missed the sign on my door that says in bold letters, DO NOT ENTER,” she said in a condescending voice. “Or maybe you can't read?”
“There was no sign,” Parker stuttered. “I swear.”
“Let's pretend for a moment that I believe you didn't just crumple it up and throw it away,” Max said wryly, “the door being closed didn't mean anything to you either?”
“Listen, I'm Travis's roommate,” Parker said awkwardly, not daring to look back for the sign and make himself look stupider. He hadn't even looked. He'd been so excited to have a legitimate excuse to talk to her.
“I thought Travis's roommate was gay,” she said.
“Garrett is,” he said. “I'm the other one, the baseball player.”
“That makes sense,” she said coldly, turning her back on him. She pulled on a robe and lit a cigarette. “Do you pay him to do your homework for you as well? Is that how it works?”
Parker was horrified by how things were going. This wasn't how he imagined his first encounter with Max would go. This was a catastrophe! He felt like the world's biggest moron, but he pushed forward anyway.
Find a way to turn it around, he told himself. You’ll get through this. Don’t crack. What other choice did he have? If he left now he'd regret it, and he knew it.
“Sorry about just barging in,” he said with a genial smile, trying to defuse the situation. What was he thinking, just barging in? He should have known it would upset her. “Thunderdome rules, you know? I would have said something but you were taping and I didn't want to ruin your show. Anyway, I'm Parker.”
“I know who you are now,” she hissed. “The question is, sport, what are you doing here in my apartment, in my room, the holy inner sanctum so to speak? You a fan? A crazed stalker? Because I do know martial arts. That's not just an act.”
Parker tried not to smirk. She weighed less than a hundred and twenty pounds. Clearly the only martial art she'd mastered was a quick tongue. Not to say it wasn't impressively honed to fine razors, it's just Parker doubted she knew much Wing Chun or Drunken Monkey. Most girls with protective fathers got to break boards in grade school Karate. It ended up helping their self-esteem but did little to protect them in a conflict, especially since they usually never made it past yellow belts. Besides, how often in the real world were you assaulted by evil trees out to maim you?
“I wanted to invite you to our big event this weekend,” Parker said, nonplussed. He held out a party flier. “Every Labor Day we throw this killer bash at the Slaughterhouse. I thought you might be interested. Anyway, I was told you were the Zombie Queen of Las Vegas by Travis so I had to make sure you got a personal invitation.”
He was over-explaining, trying way too hard. He felt embarrassed but he couldn't seem to stop it. Words just kept coming out of him.
What is wrong with me, he thought. Get it together. She is going to think you are a fucking spaz.
She looked him up and down, waiting for him to say something else, but he didn't. With one clean motion she jerked the applications out of his hand.
“Give it to me,” she said, even though they were already in her hand. Parker stepped farther into the room, cautiously getting closer to her. As if in response she stormed past him, causing him to follow her. He caught a whiff of her perfume as she went by, felt the heat of her body out from under the hot Kino lights, a prickling of hairs as she swooshed past him. He tried his best to fight back an erection. He was powerless before her and she knew it, she had to know it.
Cold water. Icy cold. Think of something, anything other than her naked body writhing in front of you. Damn!
“You coming or what?”
“Yeah,” he said, turning and following her to the kitchen. She opened up the fridge, got herself a cold beer, but didn't offer him one.
“I’m sure you’re used to getting your way,” she said, “but don't ever walk in on me again, especially when I’m taping a show. Got it?”
“Got it,” he said without hesitation.
“You may go now.”
“Okay,” he added, not making any move to leave despite her suggestion. “It really was a great show, or at least what I saw of it.”
“Neat. I'm super stoked you liked it. I'm late for a thing with one of my professors so please run along now,” she replied, crossing her arms. She had forgotten to take the ears off. Parker fought back a giggle, knowing it would only make things worse.
“Listen,” he said. “I'm sure you're thinking that a frat party isn't really your scene but we might just surprise you. People talk about the Labor Day party all year long and...”
She cut him off before he could finish.
“Oh a frat party? Wow! Why didn't you say that in the first place? I've never been to one of those before? Will there be drugs and underage drinking and unprotected sex and rap music? I saw that in the new version of Footloose and I've been dying to try me some! Golly!”
Parker immediately regretted his attempts to invite her. Every word out of her mouth stung him to the core, but he couldn't leave. It was as if his feet were nailed to the floor of her living room. It was emotional torture beyond anything he'd imagined, like something out of his worst nightmares.
“I live in fucking Thunderdome you idiot,” she spat at him. “God. Get a fucking clue. Do I look like a freshman fuck doll to you? Do I look like some desperate, easy piece of ass you can nail and brag about with all your jock buddies later?”
“No,” he said, barely above a whisper. His eyes were burning. He could feel his face flush red with humiliation but he couldn't make himself leave.
Why am I still here? He wondered to himself. Why can't I just tell her to fuck off and march out with my head held high?
Worse still he could feel his erection steadily creeping onward in his jeans. If he got any harder she was sure to notice. He couldn't stop it. He couldn't tear his eyes away from her breasts, her mouth, her jutting hips. If she noticed it she would surely degrade him for it as well. That would be more than he could handle. With every lacerating word she unleashed he felt the urge grow in him to grab her and kiss her as hard as he could, to throw her to the ground, to bend her to his will. It was overwhelming.
“No thanks,” she jeered. “I'm not interested in hearing all about 'the big game' but I’m sure you won't have any trouble finding a willing victim, seeing as how you're the sports hero on campus and all. Good luck with that.”
Her fingers lingered in front of her face as she sarcastically made air quotes to drive her point home.
“Now just wait a minute,” Parker protested, but she wasn't having any of it. She leaned forward and screamed at him.
“Get the fuck out of my house you fuck! Now!”
Parker stared at her in protest. She laughed and shook her head in disbelief as he tried to regain his composure. Was he dreaming? Because it felt like he was in a nightmare. His mouth was bone dry and his feet didn't seem to want to cooperate. Everything had gone wrong, but still he wasn't willing to give up. He was out of ideas. There was no way to salvage this. It was over before it had begun. He'd lost, and worse still, she hated him for some reason.
At last, he managed to move. He shook his head as he turned and walked out. She slammed the door behind him and called him a string of foul names, making sure she was loud enough for him to hear her as he walked away. A few eyes poked out of windows the disappeared back into their own world.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Gunn
er sat in total disbelief. By any standards it had been one hell of a day. First he'd witnessed two of his men murdered, then he'd be handcuffed and detained for stopping the sicko responsible. The cops had cinched the cuffs on plenty tight and sat him in the back of the car for over an hour before asking him his side of the story. They ran the serial number on his HK and bagged it as evidence. Evidence! Evidence of what? Heroism? It was as if the whole world had gone crazy.
The woman who'd been attacked was taken away in an ambulance to be treated. Even in a state of shock she'd managed to let them know that Gunner was the good guy, that he'd saved her from being murdered, that the man who attacked her had charged at him, and that Gunner reacted only after warning him several times. He'd heard several officers scoff at this remark, mumbling about the state of the body when they arrived. Unloading into the guy's head might not have been the best plan, but it sure as hell felt good. The coroner showed up and bagged the perp to take him off to the morgue, scooping up all the pieces he could manage to get into the plastic after taking countless pictures. Now he had two dickhead cops grilling him like he was a damned accomplice. They didn't look old enough to buy beer at a whore house but that didn't stop them from passing judgment on him with every word he spoke. Fuckers. They'd been giving him a hard time for about ten minutes and quite frankly he was starting to lose his patience.
“So you're telling us that you came down here and found him trying to rape a female coworker?”
“Who said anything about rape?” Gunner didn't understand why they were being so difficult. “He was clearly trying to eat her!”
“Sir the suspect was obviously intoxicated on some kind of mind altering substance,” the first officer replied. “The fact that he was naked points to either bath salts or PCP. We won't know until we get the report back.”
“In any case,” the second officer jumped in, “it's clear from his behavior that his motive was rape, not murder.”
“I found him chewing on her like she was a side of fresh venison,” Gunner spat back. “You tell me what that's about.”
“Can you tell us again, why were you in the parking lot?”
“After I left Torres and Ramirez I knew I didn't have much time,” Gunner said. “I knew if I was gonna get the bastard who killed my men I'd have to move fast. It was a process of elimination really. All the fucking scientists and business people were locked up in their buildings, that only left down here.”
“I'm sorry,” the first officer said, not looking sorry at all with the disbelieving smile spreading across his face. “Did you say he killed your men?”
“Well yeah,” Gunner said.
“Where was this?”
“Up in the middle of the office grounds, near the fun zone” Gunner said. “I watched Torres die. That's when I ran down and found him here attacking that woman.”
The officers exchanged looks.
“You don't believe me?”
“We don't have any reports of the suspect killing anyone,” the second officer said.
“Just ask anyone,” Gunner said. “How do you think they died?”
“We didn't find any bodies,” the second officer said.
“We have reports of you running through the business park chasing some college kids with your gun out,” the first officer said.
“What about the blood?” Gunner smiled at them. “How do you explain all that blood?”
“What blood?”
“He tore out their throats,” Gunner insisted. “I left them shivering in a pool of their own blood. Tell me you didn't see that mess? It was like something you'd see in Fallujah.”
“Sir,” the officer said, “in deference to your service to this country and the fact that you did manage to prevent the suspect from further harming your coworker...”
“By means of excessive and totally unwarranted force,” the second officer managed to interject.
“...we're going to let you go for now.”
“Don't even think about leaving town buddy.”
“What?”
“I'm going to recommend that you get yourself checked out,” the first officer continued, ignoring the taunts his partner was leveling at Gunner. “Do you have someone you can talk to, maybe at the VA hospital?”
“Is this some kind of joke?” Gunner's head was spinning now. “There are two dead bodies up there, two men I worked with who were taken out by that psycho.”
“Often times in situations like this it's easy to get confused, or to go into shock,” said the officer. “Or to experience vivid flashbacks and hallucinations.”
“You're lucky we showed up when we did pal,” the second officer said. “Otherwise who knows who you might have hurt.”
“Very funny, idiots,” Gunner said, regaining a sense of himself. This was some kind of prank. He knew that now. They were fucking with him. It wasn't particularly clever. “How do you explain the blood on my clothes? I got that kneeling down next to Torres. That man I shot had just eaten off most of his face!”
Gunner cocked his head slightly, fighting the rising sense of anger that was growing in him. He'd put his life on the line and once again no one seemed to be taking him seriously. They were treating him like a criminal!
“Your supervisor wants a word with you before you go,” the first officer said, ignoring the question. “You can collect your weapon at the station after we've cleared it and written up the incident report. Should take about a week.”
“They got to you,” Gunner said, the realization suddenly dawning on him. It all made sense now. Whatever had happened up there, whatever had caused that man to go hog wild, it had to do with the work the scientists were doing in the labs. One of the designer bugs they'd been making, one of the biological weapons had gotten loose. Zymetech was cleaning it up as fast as they could. They'd gotten to the police and hushed them up. That's why they needed to speak to him before he left. They needed to silence him. For a brief moment Gunner wondered if this had anything to do with that burning ship he'd seen on television earlier. In his experience these kinds of things were generally connected.
“Who got to us?” The second officer smiled wider but the first officer shook his head to discourage him. They were egging him on, trying to make him feel small and dumb. Gunner wasn't going to let that happen.
“You know who.”
“I have no idea what you're talking about,” the first officer said. “You are free to go now.”
“I wanna hear this,” the second officer said with a leer. “Go on.”
Gunner sighed. For a moment he considered not launching into it all again. Did it even matter? It wasn't like they were going to get it anyway, right? No. They wouldn't, but that wasn't the point. What mattered is that you never let them silence your truth. If anyone had earned the right to speak and be heard, it was him.
“There are too many of us,” Gunner said. “War and disease and natural disasters aren't enough to handle population control anymore. The world is just growing too fast.”
The first officer loudly coughed, intentionally interrupting him. Gunner ignored him and continued.
“They need a way to slow it down, reset the clock, so to speak. They need something new to wipe out millions of people at once, something that will leave their resources intact, like a fast acting biological agent.”
“Why would they want to do that?”
“Because,” Gunner said, matter-of-factly, “they can't control our birth rate but they can control our death rate. It's the only answer that makes sense, if you think about it.”
“Sounds pretty cold, if you ask me,” the second officer hissed at him. “And more than a little paranoid.”
They are doing it again, Gunner thought. They were making him sound crazy when he wasn't.
“Come on,” Gunner barked. “Think about it! These people have been behind every major catastrophe since the dawn of time. They know the only way to keep control is to keep us in the dark, to leave us guessing.”
Neither officer spoke. It was too late. He had lost them and he knew it. Why was it so hard to convince people of the truth? Why wouldn't anyone listen to him? It made him so angry, he could barely see straight.
“You know,” the second officer said, “We talked to several of your coworkers before taking your statement. I think what they say about you is right.”
Gunner cocked his head to the side, cracking his neck in the process. He knew what was coming next, but he took the bait anyway.
“Oh yeah? What's that?”
“That you’re dangerous,” he said, his eyes locked dead-on with Gunner. “They say you are anti-social and affected, that you behave inappropriately, that you often over react to simple things, and that you've lost touch with reality. Are you aware that others hold this opinion of you? Is this how you want to spend the rest of your life, being treated like a mentally deranged lunatic people are afraid might go off at any moment? They think you're a ticking time bomb and well, I'm gonna have to agree with them after what I've heard here today.”
Gunner didn't hesitate. If this punk kid wanted a lesson in respect, he was going to give him one he would never forget. Gunner lunged forward and grabbed the second officer by the shirt, pulling the kid's surprised face toward his gritted teeth.
“You want a piece of me?!”
The first officer stumbled forward and easily separated them with his huge hands.
“Knock it off, now!”
The second officer tumbled back, almost falling over. His face was flushed with anger and humiliation. Gunner could see him formulating a revenge plan, his eyes rapidly shifting back and forth. He wished they hadn't taken his gun away. For all he knew the man could be one of their agents, a pawn in their game.
“Get a spit mask on this freak now!” The second officer wasn't smiling anymore. “I don't give a shit if he served a hundred tours and killed Bin Laden with his bare hands. I want him taken in and held for observation!”
“Are you one of them?” Gunner's voice was deadly calm now.
Both officers looked genuinely confused.
The Rising Dead Page 7
