by Gary Starta
“You don’t know that. Maybe I’m some new kind of weapon. A new kind of technology…”
“Just shut up or I’ll plug you.”
“Then what are you waiting for?” Burnham believed if the man fired a shot and missed, perhaps he would be scared enough of drawing attention to flee. And in Burnham’s best case scenario, the dealer would really believe he was some kind of biological weapon created by police to protect Ybor City. If so, the dealer would no doubt spread the word of his experience. The cop in Burnham reasoned a bullet was surely worth this risk.
The man cocked the trigger. Burnham’s supercharged hearing caught the tinker of a bullet entering the chamber. He leapt.
Straight up, a rocket launched into space, Burnham propelled himself easily into the air, at least 10 yards above his captor. But the man was not baited to fire.
He held his ground, both hands wrapped about the gun’s butt.
Burnham began to flail his arms, praying he could stay launched in flight long enough to tempt at least one shot. That’s all he would need.
The superman without a cape, the supernatural ex-cop without a brand.
Possibly he could flail his arms enough to allow him to levitate over his nemesis. One simple fall might turn Burnham into a weapon himself if he could fall upon his attacker.
But the man just stood there, teeth gritted; waiting with the patience of a man who vows to take down that noisy mosquito with one swat of a rolled-up newspaper. Burnham could only think: It’s not going to work this time…
A karate chop to the back of his neck broke the dealer’s resolve. His grunt was a reprieve for a superman, bound to adhere to laws of gravity. Burnham descended rapidly, feet hitting the ground the same time Lorelei kicked her right boot into the back of the dealer’s leg. The dealer met pavement before he could discharge an agonized scream, not only for his pain but for the unfortunate turn of events. Contact sent the gun spinning away from him. Lorelei leapt over his body to retrieve it.
Burnham could not tell if the anger in her eyes was for him or the dealer. His involuntary response to her anger: a growl. His body posture resembled a crouching tiger, not a human being.
Burnham read vindication in her eyes. They screamed victory for her argument. He could hear the words echoing back to him from an earlier argument. We’re no better than the scum you hunt. We’re diseased. Despite our skills, we’re subhuman because you must admit, gods don’t growl.
Burnham finally found his voice. “Let’s get out of here.”
Lorelei nodded and ran, leaving Burnham no time to ask for the weapon.
Paranoia gripped him as he charged after her.
I’ve got to catch her. She might just take that gun to do her bidding without me…
His legs screamed with a burning sensation despite his gifts. He would not listen to their pain until he caught up with her. He feared the weapon might have rendered him obsolete. If all she wants to do is take out James in a blaze of glory…a gun might be her salvation…
His feet pounded the ground, hoping to extinguish each word with punctuated foot falls, to stomp away the nagging fear that told him his late-night patrolling might have finally cost him the battle. He might have won the war on the dealers, but if he lost Lorelei, a cop instinct told him he might never catch the originator of the disease. Had he lost sight of the ultimate battle? He sprinted on, chugging breaths. Panic, guilt, morality and vengeance spun in his mind as if on a virtual merry go round, he witnessed their fleeting potential. Nearly crushed by the realization that he might have to surrender morality to achieve his ultimate victory, Burnham pleaded for Lorelei to stop.
She must have heard because approximately three yards later she halted, pivoted on her heels and brandished her newly found weapon at him like it was no more than an extension of her hand.
“Hey, you’re pointing that at me.” Burnham’s brows furrowed with annoyance.
Lorelei’s shifted her weight, dancing on the heels of her boots. “Yeah, I know what I’m doing. I’m finally getting your attention.”
“At the expense of being seen.” Burnham’s eyes drifted upwards, intimating that the buildings that surrounded either side of them were populated.
Burnham continued. “I mean, wasn’t it you who charged my patrolling would draw unwanted attention…?”
Lorelei growled, the gun wavered slightly in her hand. Burnham was unsure if the response was frustration or the hunger. If it were the latter, he could not be sure who was hearing him. Lorelei or the beast within; if it were the beast, he had little doubt of its capability for violence.
She continued shifting on her heels. Burnham felt his heart race. The stance indicated she was sizing up her prey.
A bolt of lightning distracted her. The trailing boom of thunder sent her scurrying away from him…again. A fleeing animal, armed and loaded, fled down the alleyway.
Great, the chase is back on… The beast without a badge followed her.
He pursued her for three more blocks until torrential rain soaked their clothing and blinded their eyes.
“Okay, Lorelei. Can we call a truce?” Burnham’s voice was no more than blather to Lorelei. Her hunger was subsiding but she kept a taut grip on her gun and her eyes were ablaze. He repeated himself. She shook her head. He doubted the reaction was to the rain, they were fully drenched by now. He had to hope his voice was reaching her, somehow.
“Okay, okay.” She whisper screamed at him. Lorelei was back. Burnham allowed a dopey grin to overtake him.
“Yeah, this must be fuckin" funny to you, Burnham. Maybe you even dreamt about this; your ultimate game of cat and mouse. Well, I guess you won…at the expense of nearly costing us everything.”
His face fell slack. He wasn’t quite sure what she was referencing. Had she been inferring the dealer might have injured him beyond repair or had he pushed her hunger to the brink, enabling her to draw a weapon upon him?
Knowing Lorelei, it was probably both. What else could he resort to when dealing with an angry woman? Asking Lorelei to surrender the weapon might only incite her further so he reached for humor instead of the gun.
“Yeah, but you sure look pretty when you’re soaked to the skin.”
She absently rotated the gun around her index finger, eyes trained on the pouring heavens. As if imitating the downpour, she chose to finally release herself, not with anger, but with laughter.
“See. My ex always said my bad sense of humor was infectious.”
“I’m not laughing at your joke, Burnham.” She paused to emit a few more breathy rasps of laughter. “I’m laughing at how a civilian with a few drops of rain on her side can beat a supernaturally charged vice cop.”
“I wouldn’t say you beat me. And you do have at least one supernatural enhancement on your side as well.”
“Let’s see…” She tapped a finger over her left eye. “I saved your ass from the drug dealer. Eluded you through countless alleyways, and I’m the one standing here with the gun. But none of these accomplishments were supernatural. I don’t see how my sight gave me any advantage.”
“But how the hell did you follow me? I passed you on rooftop during my patrol. The last time I checked, you couldn’t leap tall buildings with a single bound.”
“You’re right, I can’t jump buildings. It must have been my supernatural stubbornness. I wasn’t about to let you get blown away and destroy my plan.” She her head droop as if some puppeteer had suddenly cut a string. “There, I said it. No hero here. Only a woman hell bent on keeping a promise. “She raised her eyes to him. They held no threat that Burnham could see. He swore he could feel her regret.
“Okay. That still doesn’t explain how you arrived in time to save me.”
“As I said, my stubbornness gave me the will to jump onto a bus. Fortunately, it turned down a nearby side street allowing me the perfect opportuni
ty to sneak up on your would-be attacker. I used the scumbag junkie as a landing pad when I hopped off the bus. At least he was good for something.”
“Hey, we agree to disagree on this one. He’s just unfortunate. The real scumbag is the dealers, remember that.”
“I wasn’t the one who chose to get bit.” The gun was up and pointed. Possibly at some intangible target she desired to dump her angst upon. Burnham wished the toxicity welled up in her would dissipate like sand from an hourglass. But if her poison could be eviscerated, Burnham thought, it would surely come with a price tag. She waved the gun, swallowed hard and spoke.
“The junkies can always throw away their crack pipes. I can’t see them as victims like you do. They had a choice not to become addicts.”
“What about compassion? I can still feel for those who’ve made mistakes. There are other motives for my perceived madness.” Burnham recalled how the religious lady cast judgmental eyes upon him, believing he was a junkie. He had walked in their shoes if only for a moment. He wished Lorelei could understand.
Lorelei seemed to ignore him, eyes cast upward. The rain had substantially lightened. But when she answered, she spoke volumes.
“If you ask me, this is about you, somehow. Not about them. Not about empathy.” She waved the gun toward the surrounding buildings. “Ultimately, you’re patrolling out of some personal need. I just can’t see what that is.”
“Damn, you’d have made one hell of a department shrink.” Burnham slinked against a wall for support. Eyes squinted, he said, “I don’t know why I’m feeling so compromised. Maybe the drugs are affecting my abilities, dampening them like the hunger…”
“Stop trying to divert the subject, Burnham. You find it hard to admit a woman kicked your ass.” She paused to laugh. Burnham enjoyed her breathy, cynically laced mirth. It was infectious and seductive, not to mention a nice distraction from the painful reality that he was the living dead. If his ex had that kind of laugh, they might still be together. Well, maybe if she agreed to be a reanimate. The thought made Burnham chuckle.
“Stop chuckling chucklehead and explain. You claimed I analyzed you. But you need to clarify. If there’s another motive, I don’t know what that is.”
“My motive for patrolling goes beyond being a cop. I let you think that because I couldn’t face the real reason. In a way, you are right. We are indeed blasphemous, creatures born from some demented agenda. I can’t tell you the hunger makes me feel human. But I can tell you I have enough humanity in me to recognize this. This is what gives me hope to continue. My mind may be diseased but it’s still my own. I can fight not to be an animal. But that’s not enough for me.”
She holstered the gun in her pocket.
“You should make sure the safety’s on before you pocket it.”
“Already did, father. Now, you were saying.” Her hands rested on her hips, demanding.
“I have failed God. I killed my friend Comiskey. And I can’t reason it away with self-defense. Nor can I reason that Comiskey wasn’t himself when I plugged two bullets into his brain.”
Burnham slid down the wall to find himself seated on a pile of cardboard. “I don’t know what I’d do if it wasn’t for cardboard furniture.”
Lorelei smiled with genuine understanding, the hunger gone from her eyes, her complexion less pallid than a minute earlier. She squatted down beside him.
“I get it. It’s like those zombie flicks where they say Joe isn’t really Joe anymore. But that isn’t true. We are still ourselves, maybe it is infinitesimal in nature; but I know I’m still myself as well. It’s the reason why I won’t endanger my child. So, looks like we can finally agree on that point.”
Burnham groaned. “I wish I could record you.”
“Don’t plan on buying china anytime soon, Burnham. All I’m saying is that we still exist at the core, but in the end, I don’t think it matters. I’m not a God-fearing lady. I don’t feel the guilt you do. But I understand you now. You’re repenting, or trying to find absolution for killing your friend by patrolling the streets. I can save you the bother. You won’t find forgiveness on the streets of Ybor City.”
“Yes, but humans always have to try. So back to my point; we are still ourselves by nature. No freak in" drug is going to alter that. I don’t care what kind of junkie they’re trying to turn us into. I will resist.”
“But your resistance is self-destructive, not to mention selfish. You put our plan at jeopardy each and every time you patrol.” She patted the gun in her pocket. “Need I remind you?”
“I understand. But I feel, as a cop-not a sinner-that my patrolling will somehow help us reach our goal.”
“Oh. Not that lord works in mysterious ways mumbo jumbo.”
“When did you become so cynical, Lorelei; you gave birth to a child. She’s one of God’s miracles.”
“But what kind of God put me in such desperate circumstance in the first place? Did your God ever help me to pay a single bill? Why didn’t he or she intervene if they foresaw what was coming?”
“The same reason this God didn’t stop the rat bastard who unleashed this disease upon us. They call it free will.”
“Well, I have the free will to leave your sorry ass. Remember that.” She turned her head away from him, but not enough that he could not see her eyes. They were glaring.
“Lorelei, that single gun isn’t going to enable you to take out James. You’ll only get yourself killed.”
“I guess that’s part of my grand design, Burnham. And I can accept it, as long as I take down James.” Her eyes caught Burnham’s just as she said „take down. "
“I don’t know how you can leave your daughter. The bond between mother and daughter…”
“Quit it, Burnham. Stop the psychoanalyzing. Your guilt trip won’t work. I think guilt trips only work on your kind.”
“What kind is that?”
“Believers… You’re a believer, Burnham. And your beliefs are putting us in jeopardy.
“Look Burnham, whatever has been unleashed, must now be stopped, for the populations" concern. You see, I do care about my child. I want her to grow up in a normal world. That’s why I’m going to sacrifice myself for her.”
“I think you have a lot more faith than you let on. If you believe people can be saved, then you have hope. And where there’s hope, there’s faith.”
“You’ve got to watch out for unbridled faith, Burnham. Look at the zealot who knocked down the pope a few years back. I’d say she had enough faith for the both of us.”
“I need you Lorelei, not only to avenge yourself with James; but to stick around and help me get the ultimate perpetrator; whoever’s extorting him.”
“Then we need a plan. I’m sorry, I don’t equate vice patrolling as a plan.”
“I agree with you to a point. I’m not going to promise to stop patrolling.”
“Why don’t you amp up the patrolling then? What good is scaring the dealers? You have the hunger; the means to kill the bastards.”
“No, I couldn’t Lorelei. You might say it is part of my quest for absolution. If I ever harm or kill someone because of what I’ve become, I need you to promise me that you will take that gun and put me down like I did to Comiskey. Besides, if I turn them into what I’ve become, I only empower them.”
“Huh. Empowered huh? That’s what I am…” Her eyes sized up the barrel of the gun, still glaring, full of a hunger Burnham couldn’t quite identify. “So, you’re going to trust me with gun?”
“Who is trying to change the subject now?”
“Not me. Just reaffirming my ownership of the gun, besides it is my religion of sorts. In guns, I trust.”
“Then you’ll do it. Put me down?”
“It depends on the circumstance. If you kill someone after we accomplish our mission, I might consider it.” Burnham rolled his eyes. “Then it looks l
ike I’ll have to be extra careful not to harm any of our Arrivals.”
“Speaking of plans, you said you might have one.” Lorelei arched an eyebrow.
“We can’t be taking rain shower baths anymore if we’re attempting to retain our humanity. I think we have to establish a base of operations before we can establish a tactical plan.”
“A base of operations…? Who has been sleeping in your brain, Mr. Bear?”
Burnham chuckled at the quip. He got it right away. She was referring to Goldilocks. It reminded him of his friend Finch. Never one to hold his tongue, he could always depend upon the barkeeper/comic to set him straight. Not only that, Finch was his best bud. His slight smile transformed to a bitter frown. He demanded his newly altered brain to think like a cop. Cut the emotional crap.
“I think we need to take a risk to establish that base. I think we need to take that risk tonight before I can reconsider.”
Burnham explained they would attempt to contact Finch when he closed the bar he worked at.
“If we go now, we might be able to catch him. But it’s going to be a good two-mile jaunt.”
“Don’t look at me super cop. This girl will find a way to leap tall buildings if it means a soft bed, change of clothing and a mirror.”
Burnham staggered to his feet with Lorelei’s assistance. He tapped her shoulder before delivering a joke in his most deadpan voice.
“Now what kind of talk is that for the living dead?”
And Lorelei, speaking in a mocking dead pan tone quipped back.
“Hang in there, Burnham. Maybe your super abilities will fix your pathetic humor yet. God knows why this comedian Finch didn’t.”
Chapter 12
A tear welled in David Finch’s eye as he poured a shot of Jack Daniels into the customer’s glass. The barkeeper/comedian didn’t even know the first name of his last customer of the evening. Whoever he was, he always wore a blue jacket and never failed to push the boundaries of last call. He even endured Finch’s trip down memory lane, a melancholy rant about the loss of his friend, Officer Derek Burnham.
