One of the men asked, “Who ordered food?”
Another shook his head. “Not me.”
“Probably from Philip,” said the third. “Let him in.”
The first got up, went to the door, and opened it.
A young Hunter came in, carrying a large paper bag with both hands. He took the bag to one of the desks, sighed as he set it down. “There you go.”
“What is it?”
“I don’t know.” The rookie looked inside, nodded, and said, “But it looks pretty good.”
As the three men approached, the rookie reached into the bag, pulled out a silenced pistol, and shot each man in the head. Before any of them even hit the ground, the rookie hurried to the door to lock and secure it.
Then he headed to the computer monitors, stepping over their expired bodies, and sat down in a chair. He typed a command into the keyboard, brought up the Herculean’s mainframe. He pulled a radio from his pocket, flicked it on, and fingered the toggle switch.
“Harper? We’re good to go.”
• • •
A floor below, in the subbasement, James stood with his arms crossed watching the few Hunters work. Finding the room where all the Pandoras were hidden hadn’t been difficult at all. It was actually getting into that room, using a blowtorch to melt the lock, that was the problem. But eventually they got it off and had the door open, and there were the Pandoras, over a thousand of them, stacked up around the room. For a half hour now James had worn headphones to protect his ears from the intense combined beating, making it impossible for any of the Hunters to communicate with him verbally. It didn’t matter. None of the Hunters even wanted to look at him. They didn’t like taking orders from a living, but he didn’t care. As long as he got this room vacated, those Pandoras put on a truck and taken away, as long as he did everything Philip asked of him, he would have his wish and be the last zombie alive on earth.
• • •
On the very top floor, Kyle had just opened his Pandora. Like every other ten-year-old before him, he had felt the warm tingling in his hands work its way up his arms where it spread through his entire body, down his legs to his toes, even to the very ends of each individual strand of hair on his head, and when he opened his eyes he watched as the black and white and gray receded around him and was filled with color.
His blood had changed from solid and cold, had become moving and warm, just as his heart—what had been dead and docile his entire existence—began to beat. His lungs now working properly, he actually breathed in the air, could smell the repulsive odors left over from all of the dead who had eaten and spent time in this room.
The room—the entire world itself—had suddenly taken on a new dimension. He had become aware of things he was never aware of before: the lingering smells, yes, but also the intricate patterns on the walls and ceiling, the bumps in the carpet, the emptiness of true silence.
He wasn’t aware that the Pandora had dissolved away into nothingness until he glanced back down and noticed he was no longer holding it. He tried to stand up but fell down immediately, his legs never having worked like this before. He lay there on the carpet and lifted first one hand, one leg, until he could feel the blood coursing through them, before he could feel his body begin to adapt. He crawled toward the closest wall, used it for support as he again attempted to stand. When he was on his two feet he held onto the wall with both hands, feeling its texture, the tiny bumps and grooves of what would normally look like a smooth surface.
Kyle was standing like this, staring at the wall, touching it, when the only door to the room opened behind him.
51
When he stepped into the room, Kyle, having turned away from the wall, saw him and immediately took a step back.
Conrad stopped walking. He just stood there. He wasn’t sure what to do, what to say, now that he was actually here with his son. And yes, he could still call Kyle his son, even though the boy was living, even though he had become everything Conrad had been taught to detest and trained to destroy.
“No, Kyle, it’s okay.”
At the sound of his voice, Kyle’s eyes narrowed, his shoulders twitched. It took Conrad only a moment to understand that now Kyle was hearing him through different ears, and that the voice he had become accustomed to since he was a baby was now forgotten.
“Don’t you recognize me?” He ventured to take another step forward, and in doing so watched his son take another step back. “It’s me. Your father.”
The eyes stayed narrowed for another couple of seconds, then became wide. His mouth opened. Kyle said, “Dad ... Dad, is it really you?” and Conrad couldn’t help but hear the fear in his son’s voice.
Conrad continued standing in place, keeping his hands behind his back. He had to keep his hands behind his back because it was the only way to conceal the broadsword.
“Yes, Kyle, it’s really me. How do you feel?”
“Sort of funny.”
“Are you scared?”
Kyle nodded.
“There’s no reason to be scared. I’m your father and I’m not going to let anything hurt you.”
“But you’re—” Kyle swallowed and dropped his eyes.
“What?”
“You’re”—swallowing again, still staring down at the ground—“dead.”
Conrad forced himself to ignore the two-way mirror on his left. He stared straight back at Kyle. “Yes, I’m dead. But I’m still your father, aren’t I?”
Slowly Kyle nodded his head.
“And yes, you’re living. But you’re still my son, aren’t you?”
The reply, barely a whisper: “Yes.”
“Good. Now look at me.”
Kyle raised his eyes.
“Are you afraid of me?”
Kyle shook his head, an almost imperceptible motion, and before he realized it Conrad found himself walking forward. He still kept his hands behind his back, getting closer and closer to his son who just stood there and watched him, didn’t even take a half-step back. And while Kyle had admitted he wasn’t afraid of him, Conrad could see it in the boy’s eyes, in his face, in the slight tremor that passed through his body. He had witnessed it before in almost a thousand zombies, so it made sense he would witness it in his own son.
Conrad crouched down in front of Kyle, kept the broadsword in place with his left hand while he brought his right hand out and slowly reached for his son.
Kyle flinched.
“Please,” Conrad said. “I’m not going to hurt you.”
Kyle nodded and bit his lip and said nothing, though he refused to look at his father now that Conrad was so close. Also Kyle was doing something strange with his nose, the nostrils flaring and contracting, and it wasn’t until Conrad touched his son’s shoulder, felt him actually trembling, that he realized Kyle was having trouble stomaching Conrad’s normal decaying stench.
“Dad?” Still not looking at him, staring instead up at the ceiling.
“Yes?”
“What’s going on?”
Conrad didn’t want to answer his son. He didn’t want to tell him how he had been sent in here to kill him. He didn’t want to tell him how this was the only course of action he could take, other than watching Philip torture Kyle to death.
So he said, “Everything’s okay. Do you trust me?”
Kyle nodded again.
“Then please, look at me. How does your heart feel? Can you feel it beating?”
Kyle glanced down at his chest. “I don’t know.”
Conrad held up his right hand. “May I?”
Another slight nod of the head, and Conrad placed his hand on his son’s chest, held it there for a long time. He started counting the beats. He got to twelve when Kyle spoke.
“What’s behind your back?”
Conrad blinked.
“What are you hiding?”
“I’m not hiding anything,” Conrad said and stood up and placed his right hand behind his back again. He grabbed the broadsword and bro
ught the left hand out to show it was empty. A juvenile magic trick, yes, but at this point he didn’t know what else to do.
Kyle said, “You switched hands.”
“No I didn’t.”
“Dad.”
Conrad closed his eyes. “Kyle, do you trust me?”
No answer.
When he opened his eyes, he saw Kyle was now looking at the ground. “Well?”
“What are you doing here?”
“Kyle.”
“You’re here to kill me, aren’t you? You’re a Hunter and that’s what Hunters do. They kill zombies.”
“Kyle,” Conrad said loudly. He crouched back down, placed his left hand on his son’s shoulder. “I love you, okay? I’m not going to let anything bad happen to you. I promise. Now, do you trust me?”
This time the nod was the slightest it had ever been.
“Good,” Conrad said. “Then do me a favor.”
“What?”
“Close your eyes.”
52
Because of the stillness and quiet surrounding the Herculean, the Hunters outside heard them coming. They stopped in their conversations, pulled cigarettes away from their mouths, and all turned in the direction of Marlowe Avenue.
The street was dark and deserted. The only motion was that of the traffic light cycling through.
The sound came closer—the roar of an engine—and then bright lights splashed them as the tractor-trailer swung around the corner. It wasn’t the only tractor-trailer, though; three others appeared down Bradbury, Orwell, and Lewis, just idling there three hundred yards from the building, their engines loud.
Then they moved, all at the same time, the trucks going from first to second to third to fourth. Some of the Hunters managed to throw away their cigarettes and grabbed their assault rifles; they managed to fire off a few rounds. But then all of them were running and diving out of the way as the four trucks smashed into the building’s first floor.
• • •
The door to the Observation Room opened and a man hurried in, saying, “Sir, we have a problem.”
Philip held up a hand. He didn’t look away from the window. Inside the room, Conrad had just placed his hand on his son’s chest.
“This better be important,” Philip said, still not looking at the man.
“It is, sir. We’re being attacked.”
Still not taking his gaze away from the window, Philip pointed at the closest Hunter. “Go handle this,” he said. “And make sure I’m not bothered again.”
• • •
The four tractor-trailers having done their damage, each of their trailer doors opened and out spilled a stream of men and women, all armed, rushing into the destruction. A few more tractor-trailers pulled up around the block, and out of their trailers spilled more men and women. They rushed the building, shooting at the now outnumbered Hunters. They raced over shattered glass and broken cement into the lobby. Harper led them. He waved people forward and talked on his radio with his contact in the Communications Room. “We’re almost there,” he shouted into the radio. Shots rang out everywhere. Smoke was thick. He and forty others hurried toward the elevator banks, and once they got there, they stepped into the cars and pressed the button for the top floor and he said into the radio, “We’re in.”
• • •
Kyle closed his eyes. He didn’t know why. A part of his mind told him he was stupid, that he should not listen to his dad because his dad was dead and a Hunter and that Kyle was living and a zombie and that these two things did not mix. But Kyle told that part of his mind to be quiet. He told it to shut up. He closed his eyes and didn’t open them again, not even when he felt his dad’s hand on his arm, not even when he heard his dad’s cracked voice telling him to walk.
He walked. He walked eight steps and then stopped when his dad made him stop. Then he just stood there, his eyes still closed. He didn’t know why, but there was something about this new kind of darkness he was able to create that he didn’t like. So he opened his eyes, just a little. A mirror was in front of him, and through the narrow slits of his eyelids he could see himself standing in front of his dad, his dead dad whose face was peeling, whose eyes were black, and whose stink caused something in Kyle’s stomach to churn. And what was this now, coming from behind his dad’s back? A broadsword, just like the ones on TV, the ones in the movies, the ones from his video games. The one his dad had used countless times to kill zombies.
He wanted to open his eyes again but his dad said, “Trust me, son,” and so he kept them closed, not knowing why, only knowing that he was once dead and he never wanted to be dead again.
• • •
Harper watched the numbers light up as they rose into the air. He said into the radio, “Ten more floors.”
• • •
Conrad stared down at his son’s head. He ignored the mirror. He had placed himself over to the left of it, right where Philip had been standing before, knowing that the man was standing there now. And bringing Kyle even closer would force Philip to be right in front of them, Conrad remembering the Hunter General leaning his head against the glass.
He whispered, “Trust me, son,” and raised the sword.
• • •
Philip leaned forward. He started to smile. But before the smile could become full, the door opened again and a Hunter shouted, “Sir, they’re coming up!”
Philip leaned back. He looked away from the window when the glass suddenly shattered. It rained all around and when he looked back Conrad was on the other side, holding his broadsword pointed at Philip, having not taken his son’s head but rather sliced into the two-way mirror.
Philip glared at him, started to reach for his broadsword, but before he could move, the lights went out. An alarm sounded. And immediately there was shouting and gunfire.
• • •
Wearing night-vision glasses, they invaded the top floor of the Herculean. They had come, over forty of them, taking four different elevators. In the dark they saw Hunters that could not see them. Harper didn’t have to give orders to his people. His people knew what to do. Find Philip. Find him and expire him.
• • •
A moment passed where Philip stood motionless in the dark, glaring back at where he knew Conrad was, listening to the blaring alarm and the gunfire beyond.
Then he shouted to the Hunter who had just burst through the door. Philip asked for a gun. One was placed in his hand.
“Didn’t I say I didn’t want to be bothered again?”
Before the Hunter could respond, Philip placed the gun to that Hunter’s head. He pulled the trigger. Then he turned back to deal with Conrad but the gunfire was nearing, getting louder.
Cursing, he hurried out into the dark to fight with his men.
• • •
Now Kyle’s eyes were open but still he saw darkness. He was on the floor, his dad on top of him. His dad said, “Are you okay? Are you hurt?”
Kyle coughed. “What happened?”
Conrad didn’t answer. Instead he rolled off Kyle, felt around for the dropped broadsword. When he found it, he whispered, “Can you walk?”
Kyle found this a strange question, but he nodded anyway and then said, “Yes.”
Conrad stood up and pulled Kyle to his feet.
“I’m going to use my sword to get rid of the rest of that glass. Then I’m going to climb into that room. I want you to follow me. Do you think you can do that?”
• • •
After three minutes, Harper shouted, “Now!” and waited a moment for everyone to tear off their night-vision glasses. Then he radioed down to his contact, who restored the lights.
Expired Hunters lay around the floor amid plaster and glass, as well as some of Harper’s people. Harper ignored these. He didn’t want to know how many of his people he would lose tonight.
He continued his search for Philip.
He came around the corner with some of his men. When a door opened, he stopped and was abo
ut to shoot when he saw it was Conrad and a living child.
“Hold!” Harper shouted. He motioned for the half dozen people with him to continue on. When they rounded the corner, starting up a new cacophony of gunfire, he shouted to Conrad, “Fate brings us together again.”
“Is that a good thing?”
“Time will tell. Have you seen Philip?”
“A few minutes ago. I tried to take him down.”
Harper smiled. “Good for you.” He glanced at the living child. “I take it this is your son.”
Conrad nodded.
Harper held out his gloved hand to the boy. “I’m Harper.”
The boy just stared at the hand, his bottom lip trembling.
Conrad said, “Where’s Gabriel?”
“Three floors down. That’s where all the prisoners are being held. My people are there now.”
“Can you watch my son?”
“I’m not a babysitter, Conrad.”
“I’ll be right back,” he said, and took off down the hallway.
• • •
At that moment Harper’s man in the Communications Room was under attack. He had locked the door and barred it with a desk. The Hunters had already destroyed the lock with their gunfire but found the desk an obstacle. Now they were pushing, pushing, and the young rookie knew that soon the door would give in. But he couldn’t let that happen. Not yet. There was still more Harper needed done, more to the plan that—
Land of the Dead Page 29
