by Ivan Turner
Sometimes Arrick wondered how the FCC even allowed these commercials to air. It wasn't right for companies to prey on the fears of the citizens in a Hail Mary effort to capitalize.
But life goes on.
Arrick finished his workout, nothing more than treadmill and a few light weights, and headed home. He hated showering at the gym so always waited until he'd reached his flat. For Brooklyn, he didn't do too badly. The teacher's salary was good, especially after eleven years of it. He had two bedrooms, which he didn't need. Arrick was not an accumulator of stuff. The second bedroom, which most people would have used for storage, was set up as a guest room. Malcolm had come to see him a couple of years before and stayed three weeks. That had been a good time and the most use that bedroom had ever gotten. The rest of the apartment had that bachelor look to it. Arrick had a "little bit of taste" as Suzanna put it. There was a tiny foyer in which he had a table and a hat rack. The living room was small also, but that left room for an oversized kitchen and two spacious bedrooms. It was the large kitchen that had drawn him to the flat in the first place. He loved to cook. And he was good at it.
So he started dinner, then got in for a quick shower, dressed himself up in some nice clothing and a nice scent, and called his mother while he waited for Suzanna to arrive.
The conversation with his mother went something like this:
"Yes, mother, I'm coming for the holidays. I already have the tickets and it looks like the planes will be flying; I'll be flying into Heathrow and renting a car. I know it's a long drive but I thought I'd spend a couple of days with Malcolm first. Yes, but he is my brother and I love him even if you don't."
That was a contentious point but Arrick never could let it go by. He loved his mother dearly but resented her for the way she'd always treated Malcolm. Being the favorite son is great if you don't give a damn about your siblings. But if you're the conscientious type, being the favorite son is a sure way to be consumed by guilt.
He was still on the phone with his mother when the doorbell rang.
"I have to go now, mother. My date's here. Yes I'm still dating Suzanna. Yes, she's still very much a bitch. Love to you too, then."
The phone was still in his hand as he answered the door. There stood Suzanna in a tight dress cut to a middling length but with a low neckline. He could tell that she'd gone all out on her hair, too, but the promised rain had come just a bit later than promised.
"Poor thing," Arrick said a bit dryly as he ushered her in and gave her a peck on the lips.
"Don't patronize me," she said. "This is what I get for trying."
"You look wonderful. Shall I fetch you some sweats?"
"Yes, please," she mocked in a fake Scottish accent that sounded more like a cross between a fake British accent and a fake Irish accent.
As he disappeared from the room, she sneezed.
As he returned she sneezed again and cursed along with it.
Grabbing a tissue from the box on the coffee table, she wiped her nose and began to strip. "At least my underwear is dry."
"At least," he agreed, watching her as she pulled off her dress and began to shrug into his sweat pants and t-shirt.
As he tended to the dinner, she went and hung her dress in the bathroom. She dried her hair with one of his big fluffy towels and brushed it out with a hairbrush that a man with his kind of hair had no business owning. Arrick had short hair, brown. Sometimes it was flat but when he did something with it it was a bit spiky.
Dinner was on the small round table outside the kitchen when she finally came out. Her hair had found its regular shape if not the glamorous style that had been decimated by the rain. His grey sweats, cut for a thin man, hugged her hips but hung loosely about her shoulders and calves. Though he was very thin, skinny even, she was small and fit and the style just didn't do her justice. She sat, sincerely trying to find the spark of a decent mood within herself so that she wouldn't completely ruin the evening.
During dinner, Arrick tried a couple of times to start some small conversation but Suzanna's responses were clipped, her aggravation getting the better of her. She ate in almost utter silence, dwelling in her misery, sniffling every once in a while and wiping her nose on her napkin.
"Are you sick?" Arrick asked finally.
She looked up then, her fork raised halfway to her mouth. "I have a cold."
"Oh," he said, dropping his eyes. "At first, I thought it was because you were so wet, but you've been sniffling all through dinner…"
"I have a cold," she repeated. "Is that all right?"
"Of course," he said, surprised by her belligerence.
There was another two minutes of silence.
"Have you seen a doctor?" he asked.
Suzanna dropped her fork to the plate with a loud clatter. "Do you have something you want to say, John?"
He looked at her, lowering the drinking glass he'd just lifted. Arrick was soft spoken but not timid. He recognized the challenge in her voice and was ready to meet that challenge. But Suzanna was no ordinary opponent in such situations and his smarter half told him to proceed with caution.
"If you are sick," he said, enunciating each word so as to dispel his accent. "You should see a doctor."
"Do you think I've got it, John?" she mocked, waving her hands and wriggling her fingers. "Do you think I'm going to turn into a zombie!"
"Don't be ridiculous," he said, although that was exactly what he was thinking.
"I've got a cold. People get colds during flu season and they'll still get them now."
"Mmm," he agreed. "Although it never hurts to be sure."
Another clatter of silver told him that she had decided to start eating again and then just as quickly decided against it. "I don't have to take this." She stood from the table and went to the bathroom.
Arrick looked up as she passed and waited in silence until she came back carrying her dress. Tossing it onto the sofa she went and slipped on her shoes. The heels looked ridiculous with the sweat suit.
"Are you going?" he asked.
She shot him a cold look. "I'd better," she said. "Otherwise you might report me to the zombie police."
"Suzanna, you're overreacting."
She said something profane as she pulled on her coat. The thing of it was that he wasn't trying all that hard to get her to stay. He did say it once. Please stay. But she could hear the lack of conviction in his voice. He was just like all of the rest of the frightened masses. What was probably dominating his thoughts was their earlier kiss hello. He was probably wondering whether or not he'd gotten sick from it. He was probably terrified that he, too, was going to turn into a zombie.
He was all of those things and more. And when Suzanna stormed out of his apartment, cancelling this and all future dates, Arrick's mind was on the trip he was going to make to the store for an armload of cleaning supplies and a bottle of Head Shot.
***
BY the time she reached the street, Suzanna was already having second thoughts about her outburst. It wasn't John's fault that he was a paranoid weenie. And, to be perfectly honest, part of the reason she'd become so upset was because in the deepest darkest parts of her own consciousness, that little head cold scared the hell out of her. She supposed it was just like anything else. If you read a novel about a plague, you're likely to get sick while reading it. If you hear about the plague on the news, well so much the better. She knew she should see a doctor. Like John said, just to be sure. But Suzanna came from a long line of people who had gotten screwed by doing the right thing. Just to be sure. She'd rather go the zombie route than end up as somebody's lab rat.
But she hadn't had to have taken it out on John. She didn't mean to be a bitch. She didn't really want to be a bitch. It was just part of her aggressive nature. And that aggressiveness was intentional and necessary, a defense against her own insecurities. As a young girl, too many people had taken advantage of sweet little Suzanna. One day, at the age of fourteen, while she was doing something she was not
proud of and did not like to think about, she opened her eyes and her mind and became a totally different person. That guy, whose name was blurred by time and emotional shielding, had been most unfortunate for having witnessed her transformation.
But the layer of toughness didn't mean she didn't want what other people wanted and had. Suzanna wanted a good man and a family. She was young and in no rush, but that didn't mean she should throw away opportunities when they came along. And John was an opportunity. He was the kind of guy every girl says she wants but on which she doesn't bother to take the chance. He was kind and sensitive. He was patient with her, partly she knew because she was so attractive. It was something for him to be seen in public with Suzanna. She elevated him well beyond what would normally be considered in his league. But that was just on the surface and she knew it. The girl that married John Arrick would be safe and secure and lucky. But Suzanna was too screwed up to remember that most of the time.
Part of the problem was that John wasn't very exciting. Sure, he knew how to spend some money. He took her to all sorts of places and when she went to his place for dinner, the food was good, the movie was her choice, and the rest of the night was, well, satisfying at least. But not exciting. That was where Larry had come in.
At first, they'd just been workout partners. But there's something about a workout that gets the juices flowing and the pheromones flying. Larry was bored. There's nothing like a man who's spent ten years in a mundane marriage. He's got all this pent up sexual energy and all of these crazy ideas that he wants to try out. Suzanna could smell Larry a mile away. He worked out to alleviate stress and expend some energy. His wife was a corporate liaison, whatever that meant. She flew from country to country. She'd barely had enough time for their daughter let alone for him. So Larry went to the gym and hooked up with Suzanna. Just for workouts. But as they became more comfortable and familiar, they stopped being shy about putting their hands on each other. During the workout. Then one day, when his wife was overseas and his daughter was in preschool or daycare or college or whatever, he'd invited himself back to her apartment and she couldn't say no.
Being with Larry was very different from being with John. John was comfortable and, again, satisfying. Like a good meal. Larry was that triple chocolate molten lava eruption you had for dessert. They didn't do it all the time. Not after every workout. But enough so that it had become regular. And as it had gone on, Suzanna had become both more addicted to him and more guilt ridden over her infidelity to John. Not that she and John were married or even exclusive. But she knew that she was lying by omission. She wondered how Larry had felt.
Poor dead Larry.
When Abby had told her about Larry, Suzanna had all but revealed their affair. To her surprise, she'd found that she was ashamed. Suzanna DeForest ashamed of something. Well, many things. She was ashamed of carrying on an affair with a married man. She was ashamed of doing so while involved herself. She was ashamed because her first thought had been that his death had solved both of her problems. There was no more Larry to feed her addiction and no more addiction to cause her guilt. Unfortunately, his death had also come with an emotional crisis. What Suzanna had learned from the experience was that she didn't really like herself. The woman that had grown out of that downtrodden girl had focused so much on becoming not just strong but stronger than everyone else that she had forgotten all about cultivating her heart. And it was that misguided, overblown strength that forced her to walk on even when she wanted to go back. It was that strength that whispered in her ear, telling her that John didn’t even really want her there. But as she descended into the subway stairwell, feeling cold and miserable surrounded by the fall night and John's clothing, her strength abandoned her and she began to cry.
***
CULPH went in first. Culph was always elected to go in first. It was the way he wanted it and, frankly, the way everyone else wanted it also. The call had come in about eight minutes before. Some time during the night there had been a struggle. A super had gone missing. Now there were strange noises from the basement storage rooms. Despite the media slowdown concerning zombies, the police were still getting a flood of calls. The calls were so numerous that they could hardly keep up. There weren't that many men on the team, although Heron was scouting for new people every day. Fortunately, most every call that came in was a false alarm. That's not to say that there wasn't real police work to be done, just not zombie police work. Culph was beginning to resent it.
Dressed to the nines, Culph felt invincible. Overheated but invincible. He was covered from head to toe in kevlar navy blues. There was a mask and goggles over his face and a hat with ear flaps under a helmet. His belt held twice the equipment of a patrol officer, including a second set of handcuffs, a mallet, and extra ammunition for his rifle. The gloves were bulky, but not so bulky that his fingers weren't nimble on the trigger. He felt like something out of GI Joe. And for all it was worth, he'd probably find some doped up teenager with the body of the missing super.
The radio in his ear buzzed a test and he responded.
"Police," he called into the gloom. Al Henry came in behind him and flipped on the lights. That was as far as Henry would go. He wasn't dressed for the op.
The lighting was decent, illuminating a short set of wooden stairs which led to a dusty floor. Shelves stood in neat rows throughout the room. They were filled with clearly labeled boxes of fuses, light bulbs, light switches, pens, pencils, beef jerky… All of the necessities of a Manhattan apartment building.
Culph called out a second warning and then moved deeper into the basement. Whatever strange noises the caller had heard, they were now silent. Culph waited and listened but there was nothing. Breathing deeply, calm in spite of himself, he proceeded forward, checking the shelves and the corners. It was probably rats.
Then he heard it. It was the sick flow of air through dead lungs. He'd heard it once before. Two days after the incident at Sisters of Charity, two days after he'd been made second in command of the zombie task force, two days after his world and his personality had utterly transformed, he had taken his first call. He'd been in charge, Heron having been in surgery for his lung cancer. He'd fielded the call without a plan and without experience and he'd been damned lucky not to get bitten. But that sound, the sound of them "breathing"… It was like nothing he'd ever heard before. It caused them to moan and their larynxes reverberated with the passage of air. They uttered this mournful sound that his ears and his brain had found offensive. To Francis Culph, it sounded as if the zombie was mocking life.
Rose had mouthed off to him that night and he'd damned sure let her have it.
At this point, he didn't necessarily like himself. There were aspects of his personality that had always been understated but were now coming to the fore. Police work, he believed, was a gift from the devil. He loved the work, craved the danger, even though there rarely ever was any. Emotionally, though, it had left him rigid, like a piece of glass that teeters on the edge of a precipice. He'd needed that fall. He'd needed that break. And the job given to him by Naughton and Heron had presented him with that opportunity. But now that he'd shattered himself, he didn't know where to turn so that he could put all of the pieces back together. He couldn't wind down and the cost had been high. What would he one day become?
He saw the zombie before he smelled it. That was one of the drawbacks of the protective clothing. With his nose covered, he couldn't really smell anything except from up close. He should have been able to detect it as soon as he opened the door. Al should have been able to smell it, too, but was probably too scared to smell anything past his own sweat. The zombie was pinned underneath a shelving unit. Most of the boxes had toppled off and scattered around it and the unit itself didn't look that heavy. It was one of those industrial steel jobs that you can fasten together by putting screws into any one of a thousand different holes. They were light and sturdy. The zombie had its foot hooked into one of the shelves. The ankle may have been broken but it
didn't matter. It was just enough to keep the thing from wriggling away.
