by Turner, Ivan
A couple of minutes later, the room was filled with the tinny sound of The Devil Went Down to Georgia. They all looked around for a moment until Deirdre realized what it was.
"Greg," she called. "It's your cell."
He was already coming down the stairs, June in his arms, as she went to retrieve it. As she looked at the caller ID, a dark cloud passed over her face. He knew right away that the screen read Heron. He traded his wife the child for the phone and answered it.
"You promised," she whispered.
"Hello?" he said into the phone, holding up his index finger.
"Mr. Smith?" came a woman's voice. "Is this Greg Smith?"
"Yes, who's this?"
"Thank God. This is Alicia Heron, Anthony's wife."
"Oh," he said. "Is everything all right, Mrs. Heron?"
"No, actually," she said. He heard the choking sound of muffled tears in her voice. "Have you heard from Anthony?"
Now he was really confused. "No, ma'am."
"When I woke up this morning he was gone. He didn't take the car and he didn't take the phone. Where would he go?"
"Maybe he just went for a walk or a run. He runs, right?"
"He's been gone too long. I called the headquarters but they said he wasn't there. He's spoken of you often so I thought you might have heard…"
"I haven't but I'll make a few calls. We'll find him."
"Thank you, Greg. Thank you so much."
"It's not a problem, Mrs. Heron. Keep his phone near you and I'll call you back in a little while."
She thanked him again and hung up.
When he looked up, Deirdre was standing in front of him with her arms folded across her chest. Gwen was standing in the background holding June. June had finally gone to grandma.
"It's not what you think," he said. "The lieutenant's gone missing and his wife is worried. I've got to make some calls."
She didn't say anything, but she didn't lose the dark expression either.
He didn't need this to be public so he took his phone and went up to the bedroom. Where would Heron go? Alicia had said that she had called headquarters, but Greg had the funny idea that was where he'd gone. It was either that or he was wandering around aimlessly. Headquarters was his first call.
Nancy, one of the receptionists, answered gloomily.
"Good morning, Nancy, it's Greg Smith."
"Merry Christmas," she answered with more than a hint of sarcasm. "What are you calling about?"
"Have you seen or heard from the lieutenant this morning?"
"That's weird. His wife called to ask, too."
"I know."
"Then you know that I haven't seen him," she snapped.
"Did you check the basement?" he asked.
She snorted. "Why would he go down there?"
"So you didn't check."
"I can't just run all over the building, you know. I have work to do even if it is Christmas."
"Nancy, I need you to send somebody down to the basement to check if Lieutenant Heron is down there."
"Fine," she huffed.
"If no one's around, go down and check yourself."
"Okay. As soon as I get a minute…"
"No, Nancy. I need you to check right now. Take a five minute break from whatever it is you're doing and go check right now."
"Look, Greg…"
"If I don't hear from you in five minutes, I'm going to call back." It didn't sound like much of a threat, but it did the trick. She acquiesced without further display of attitude and hung up the phone.
Tossing his phone onto the bed, Greg pulled a pair of jeans and a green sweatshirt from his dresser. Then he ran into the bathroom and quickly brushed his teeth and washed his face. It wasn't a shower, but it would have to do. He knew he was going to have to leave the house. What he didn't know was whether or not Deirdre was going to allow him to come back.
The phone was already ringing by the time he came out of the bathroom. Johnny, you rosin up your bow and play your fiddle hard…
"Nancy," he said as he answered it.
"He's down there," she said. She had dropped the attitude from before but now sounded creeped out.
"Is he all right?"
"Yeah, he looks okay. I didn't talk to him, though. He's sitting by that cage where you weirdos put that zombie."
Shit. "All right. Don't disturb him. I'm coming down there and I'll take care of it."
"Take care of what?"
"Nevermind. Thanks, Nancy."
He disconnected before she could say anything else and quickly dialed back Alicia Heron. He told her that he'd found Heron and he was going to go and pick him up and bring him home. Yes, he was all right. No, he didn't know why he'd left. Basically, he'd wanted to ease her mind but not provide speculations about the lieutenant's state of mind.
Coming down the stairs, he caught the others sitting at the breakfast table.
"Are you coming back?" Deirdre asked icily.
"It's not what you think," he said to her. He filled her in on what had happened, this time elaborating a bit by telling her what he thought. "I'll be home in a couple of hours."
She warmed a bit, then got up from the table and gave him a kiss. "You'd better be."
"Greg?" Hank said from the table. "Can I come with you?"
For the first time, he noticed that his father was dressed. His first instinct was to refuse, but the truth was that he couldn't think of a reason why. He wasn't actually going to work. He wasn't going to be doing anything dangerous. Why not spend a couple of hours with the father he hadn't seen in five years?
"Sure, dad," he said. "Glad of the company."
He gave Deirdre another kiss and headed out the door with his father trailing behind. They got into the car and Greg pulled out and started toward the Brooklyn Bridge. Traffic was light. Hopefully, the couple of hours estimate was going to be excessive.
After a few minutes, Hank said. "Thanks for letting me come."
"I figured you didn't want to be stuck home with all of the women."
Hank shrugged. "I'm going to spend time with them anyway while you go to work. I did hope to have some time with you alone, though."
"What's on your mind?"
"I needed to apologize to you, Greg. I know it's hollow after all these years. I know I've thrown away a lot of time over bullshit, but I have to say it. You were right about everything. Dee's as good a woman as there is."
"I appreciate it, dad. It means an awful lot."
Hank stared out at downtown Brooklyn and then the water as they crossed the bridge. "Your mother begged me to let it go, you know. We almost split when you got married because I was too stubborn to accept Dee."
Greg clenched his teeth. "I didn't know that."
"Yeah, I think through all of this, she's probably suffered the most. I mean you had your wife and your kids and she decided to stay with me. She's been working on me through every holiday and damned if she didn't finally break through."
"I'm curious, dad. What finally changed your mind?"
"I think I was breaking for a long time. Football season really did me in every year. I missed us watching the games every Sunday. No matter what, we'd spend Sunday together watching the games. But I guess I really just opened my eyes to the world around me. You know, I grew up in an environment where I was taught that people were supposed to be separate."
"You raised me that way, too."
"Yeah, I did, but my outside influences reinforced the separation. Yours didn't." Hank paused, taking in the majesty of Manhattan. "Anyway, there's all this fighting between the politicians about gay marriage and here I am thinking what's the big deal? I mean, what does it matter to me if two guys or two women want to get married? People should be able to marry who they want."
He stopped talking there for a minute but Greg sensed that he wasn't finished. He waited.
Eventually, Hank let out a short, mirthless laugh. "As if that isn't the most fucking hypocritical thing you've ever heard."
Now Greg laughed.
"Anyway," Hank said. "That was my revelation and I thought that if you ever reached out to me again, I'd be okay with it. Then I realized that it was my responsibility to reach out to you and up to you whether or not it would be okay. So I gave your mom the nod, because I'm too weak to do it myself. I know we won't be able to watch all the football games together anymore, what with you in New York and me in Wisconsin, but we could catch one or two, and we could talk on the phone or use the computer…"
The words stopped coming and when Greg looked over, he could see that his father had buried his face in his hands. He was about to ask him if he was all right when he noticed that those hands were shaking and the body was shuddering. Hank Smith was sobbing. For Greg Smith, it was a very sobering sight.
Finally, through the crying, he heard Hank say, "Oh, God, I'm so sorry, Greg. All these years… I can't believe I was willing to throw away my family. I can't believe it!" His hands came away from his face to pound on the dashboard in anger. Greg had never seen his father like this. Whatever change the old man must have undergone, it had been a big one. There was so much about him that was the same yet there was so much about him that was different. And he never, for a moment, doubted his sincerity. Since the day of his birth, Greg could never remember seeing Hank shed a tear, let alone breaking down. He'd seen his father cope with the deaths of his own parents, of an older sister, and friends he'd made during his military service. He'd weathered hard financial times with rock solid constitution. He'd faced down sickness and unemployment. Hank had stood hard in the forefront of conflicts of all shapes and sizes and he'd beaten them all with a scowl on his face and fire in his eyes.
He looked up, eyes red and pleading. "Greg, can I ever make it up to you?"
Greg smiled, feeling the tears pooling in his own eyes. "Don't sweat it, Dad. You already did."
***
The building where the Zombie Unit of the Police Force kept its headquarters was as empty as it was ever going to be. There were three guards on duty at the front desk. They had a small TV hidden underneath, but they were all alert as soon as the Smiths walked through the doors.
"Morning," one of them said and Greg responded in kind, taking out his identification and indicating that his father should do so as well.
The guard took both cards and looked at them. "Are you on duty today, sir?"
Greg shook his head. "I heard that Lieutenant Heron had come down and I need to see him."
The guard looked in the book and confirmed that Heron had signed in. "All right, sir."
They moved through the metal detectors and toward the elevators. Greg pushed the button and then turned to his father. "I don't know that you want to come down with me."
"I'll be fine," Hank said, defensively.
Greg shook his head. "It's not like that, dad. We've got a zombie down there. If you've never seen one, well, it'll give you nightmares. It's not like the movies. They're dead people and they've got this look in their eyes that no actor could ever hope to imitate. And they make a sound that no microphone can capture. And they smell, dad."
Hank hesitated a moment, not sure what to do. "Are you sure?"
Greg nodded. "I won't be long."
The elevator arrived and Greg stepped on. Hank didn't follow and the door closed between them.
There were no exercises going on down there on Christmas Day. There was a squad up in the office, probably hanging out and drinking non-alcoholic eggnog. But the basement was deserted except for Linda in her cage and Heron just outside of it. The lieutenant hadn't bothered to turn on all the lights. How he could sit in the presence of the zombie with the darkness around him baffled Greg. He'd have been searching the shadows for the monsters that weren't there. Still, one row of lights was on so it wasn't completely dark. Greg walked forward until he was standing beside Heron. For a while, he didn't say anything and Heron didn't acknowledge his presence. Ultimately, though, he lost their game of verbal chicken.
"What are you doing here, Lieutenant?"
Heron didn't look up. "I went out for a run this morning and realized that it was Christmas."
Greg nodded. "Shouldn't you be at home with your family?"
"She shouldn't be alone on Christmas," Heron said, nodding toward Linda.
"And your family?"
Heron looked up at the younger man. His eyes were drawn and his face had paled a bit. "I don't feel comfortable with them anymore, Greg. This is my world, now."
If those words had come from anyone but Anthony Heron, he'd have laughed. The melodrama was just too much. But Heron's psyche was fragile.
"That's a choice you make," he said. "Is that the way you want it to be?"
"I don't know. Do you think, maybe I should take her home?"
Greg opened his mouth to answer before realizing that he hadn't understood the question. "Wait. Who?"
"Linda," Heron answered, exasperated. "Do you think I should bring her to meet my family?"
That was an unsettling thought. "No. I think that's a terrible idea. I think Linda needs to go where she'll be with others like her."
"You mean Arthur Conroy. You mean the Zoo. I couldn't allow that. I promised I'd protect her."
Greg reached down and took Heron by the arm. He lifted the man to his feet and forced him to turn away from Linda. "She's dead. What else could happen to her?"
"She's different, Greg. You know that. You brought me to her."
It was true. Greg had seen that she was different from other zombies and alerted his superior of the development. He'd been loyal to a fault, even when Heron had made the unusual request of having her sent to headquarters instead of Arthur Conroy. But he was now regretting those decisions. "Lieutenant, do you even understand what's happening to you?"
Heron laughed, but he didn't answer.
Greg pulled Heron toward the elevator. "I'm going to take you home, now."
Heron looked back but he didn't resist. They didn't speak as they waited for the elevator. Heron bounced nervously on his feet. He kept looking back toward Linda. She remained in her cage, as docile as ever. Her face was angled toward them but her eyes saw nothing. Greg thought to go and shut the lights, but didn't. Even he couldn't bear to just leave her in the dark.
As the two men stepped into the elevator and the door closed behind them, Heron breathed a sigh of relief.
"I don't," he said.
"What?"
"I don't understand what's happening to me. How is it that I can be more comfortable with them than I am with my own family? My God, Greg, do you have any idea how much I hate them. After what happened to Stemmy and to Shawn and all of the people who've been infected and…"
"I'm no head shrinker, lieutenant, but I'm sure you're spending too much time here and not enough time at home. Maybe your brain's just adjusting. Or, maybe you just want to see something in them that just isn't there. Maybe Dr. Luco's right."
