"Dude, they put you in a body bag and hauled you off to Bellevue. I followed just to make sure they weren't screwing up, but the doctor came out and told me you were dead. He said they didn't know what of, but that you were just dead. They asked me if you had any next of kin and whatnot. I gave 'em your parents' number. Man! I wish I'd have known you weren't really dead. Did they screw up or something? What's going on?"
Paul scribbled hastily. "I don't know. Linda?"
"Linda? Oh, Linda. Right. Naw, I don't think nobody called her. I didn't have her number, but I was gonna go through your cell phone once they released your stuff and call her."
"Don't call Linda," Paul wrote quickly. He thought for a moment and Matt seized that opportunity to offer what might have been the only sound advice he would ever come across.
"Dude, you need to let the doctors look at you and figure out what happened."
It was Paul's turn to blink. That was the sane thing to do, he realized. But something deep in the pit of his gut told him he shouldn't do that. "No," he wrote. "Got to see Linda."
"But Dude, you've only got ten work days until you get your pension. Just see a doctor, huh? Maybe they can help you. And man, whatever that shit is on your face, it looks like it needs some help."
"Not going to last that long," Paul wrote and suddenly he felt like crying. His grandmother had told him that everyone knows right before they're going to die. That was five hours before she died. Paul knew, too. "Got to get to Linda. Tell her I love her."
"Paul, she knows that. Just please get some help."
"Linda has to know. I didn't abandon her."
"Okay, call Linda."
"No."
"Call her. Then go to the hospital."
"No."
Matt sank back in his chair with a worrisome frown. "You're my best friend. My BFF, dude. If anything happens to you…"
Paul growled, frustrated at the slowness of hand writing everything and his own failure to get his message across. He threw back the chair and stood up, hurrying to the little desk under the window. The computer was already on and he opened Notepad and began to type.
"Matt, we've been friends almost our whole lives and I love you like a brother. I know that what you're saying makes sense but I know, deep down in my gut, that something weird and awful happened to me down there. I don't know what that stuff was, but it changed me somehow. I was alive, and then I was dead, now I'm alive again. I don't know what the hell's going on, but I think I might die for good soon and I have to get to Linda. She can't think that I just dumped her, stood her up, whatever. She has to know…"
Matt, who had been reading over his shoulder, interrupted. "Dude, I'll tell her. Seriously. I'll make her understand what happened. But go to the hospital. Please. It's what Linda would want you to do." Tears welled up in Matt's eyes, which made Paul feel like crying, too.
"No," he typed again. "I have to do this. If I'm going to die, I have to see Linda just one more time."
"I'll call her for you. She'll come. She loves you and she'll come. Then you can go to the hospital, huh?" Matt was all-out crying now and it made Paul sad beyond words.
"Nononononono!" Paul typed. "You have been a great friend, and I know you mean well, but I have to do this. Don't blame yourself. Honestly, none of this is your fault. I just have to see Linda. Have to."
Paul stood up and headed down the hall toward his room. Matt followed close on his heels, blubbering and talking a mile a minute.
"Please let me get you some help. Don't do this."
Paul rummaged around in his underwear drawer until he found the thing he was looking for. He held up the small blue velvet box and smiled, then tucked it neatly into his pocket and shut the drawer.
"What if you die on the way there? Huh? You'll never get to see Linda and you'll be dead. Maybe for real this time. If we go to the hospital first, that way you can maybe get some help, then see Linda and maybe live happily ever after. Huh? Doesn't that sound better?"
Paul shook his head and marched back down the hall to the computer.
"Taking the car," he typed furiously. "Tell my parents that I love them." He rose from the chair and headed for the door.
With all the courage he could muster, Matt stepped in front of him. "As your best friend, I cannot let you do this." He waved the cordless phone in front of Paul's face. "I'm calling nine-one-one and I'm getting you some help, whether you like it or not. You'll thank me later." Matt pushed the ON button.
Paul batted one hand in Matt's direction, sending the phone flying across the room. Matt watched it go, his expresion caught between terror and determination.
It was all determination when he turned back to Paul. "I've still got my cell phone. Ha! What do you think about that?"
Paul uttered something of a growl and snatched the phone from Matt's hand. He turned to the doorway again. Within seconds, he was through the door and partway down the hall.
"Fine!" Matt yelled after him. "I'll just wait until you're gone and then call for help. Yea, buddy! I'll report the car stolen. Then they'll catch you and get you to the hospital. I'm not letting you die, man! You hear me? I'm not letting you die!"
Old Mrs. Carter across the hall stuck her head out the door, sporting a moo-moo and a mean expression.
"Sorry, Mrs. Carter," Matt mumbled, lowering his head and ducking back into the apartment. He went to the window then, and watched as Paul pulled out of the parking space far below and out onto the street.
CHAPTER TWO
Paul was a man with a plan. He needed to see Linda, yes, but there were other things that needed doing. Everything Matt had said was true: He needed to see a doctor, should go to the hospital, could easily let Matt call Linda for him. But something drove him – something he couldn't explain – to see Linda in person. Something beyond comprehension told Paul that he wasn't going to last long, and that he had to get to Linda.
First, though, he needed to go back to that sewer and see for himself exactly what it was that had taken him out. First the sewer, then a hasty exit. He only prayed that he would make it out of town before Matt reported the car stolen and the police caught up to him.
The particular point in the sewer line where he and Matt had been working was in the industrial section and Paul pointed the car in that direction. He drove just fast enough to get there quickly; not fast enough to attract attention and get pulled over. Paul had spent a good portion of his adult life debunking the myths that circulated about the sewers. No, there was no giant alligator. No wild band of mutant humans lived there. There were no toxic waste dumps, no ravenous zombies, and no packs of wild rats with super-human intelligence. As it turned out, he seemed to have been wrong about at least one of those.
He guided the car across the bridge and into the industrial section. He turned his lights off and eased up to the access point near an old abandoned warehouse. There were plenty of those in the city lately, out-sourcing being what it was and all. This particular one had made cleaning solvents for the avionics industry and the military. It, along with several other companies on that block, had ceased operations about five years back.
He kept the headlights off, running dark, pulled up next to a derelict eighteen-wheeler and turned off the engine. As he stepped out of the car, keys in hand, his left leg almost gave out on him. He gasped a bit and put one hand on the door to steady himself, then pulled himself upright.
It had been a long night and his mind – if not his body – was tired. Slowly, he made his way toward the entrance to the sewers, a manhole some forty feet from the back yard of the place. As he went, he toed through some discarded trash which peppered the ground, hoping for a jar with a lid still intact or something like it. Three feet shy of the manhole, he found a small applesauce jar, its lid lying next to it, unbent. He plucked it from its resting place and popped it into his pocket. All he wanted was to get a sample of this stuff and somehow find out what it had done to him.
Manhole covers, by and large, are heav
y things. On work days, Paul and Mark carried pry bars to help lift them. Paul had no pry bar that night, so he had to settle for wedging one finger into the little hole. He braced his feet against the packed dirt and tugged and hauled at it until he had moved it a few inches out of place. Then, with a surly grunt and a small squishing sound, he heaved it over and out of the way.
It was dark down there and Paul didn't have a flashlight tonight. It became painfully obvious to him that he'd jumped into this unprepared, had not clearly thought it all through. Whatever.
He slipped into the hole and let the darkness devour him. Somewhere off in the distance, a woman screamed. Probably a mugging, Paul told himself. He felt his feet touch solid concrete and he let go of the ladder.
A small circle of moonlight shone above him and it made the puddles at his feet sparkle and shimmer with borrowed light. Ahead of him, a deeper, brighter glow emanated from the far end of the tunnel. It was partially obscured by the hill of trash, of course, but Paul could still see it. He shivered.
Armed only with his own meager night vision and a decent center of gravity, Paul shambled toward that blue glow. It emanated from a point only fifty feet or so in front of him and with each step he took, he felt his skin tingle and chill.
He took more care climbing over the trash this time, simply because he couldn't see anything and he feared that a misstep could cause him more injury than he had already suffered.
Once on the other side, the source of that blue glow became evident. A large puddle of liquidy goo covered the floor of the tunnel. Spatters of it had coated the walls and continued to ooze down out of the pipe above. Paul kept close to the right-hand wall, away from the sticky, glowing trail of goo. Cautiously, he made his way to the edge of the puddle, stopping just shy of its edge.
The stuff just soft of sat on the water. It didn't actually float, but rather coated the surface, as if pinning it down, holding it captive. Paul reached into his pocket and pulled out the jar, meaning only to take a small sample of the spill; just enough for testing.
When he placed the jar at the edge of the stuff, taking great care not to let any more of it touch his skin, the blue goop seemed, very literally, to crawl into the jar. The rim had just sunk below the surface of the standing water when the blue stuff lurched forward and rushed in. No water went with it and Paul frowned, wondering whether the goo was alive, or whether his addled brain had simply misinterpreted the physics.
He held the jar up to his face and studied it. It was blue, translucent and thick. No water had entered the jar and so what he had as a sample was pure blue goo. Quickly, he placed the lid on the jar and torqued it as tightly shut as he could. Then he placed the jar back in his pocket and turned to mount the pile of trash and make his way out.
Letting the small circle of moonlight be his guide, Paul headed for the ladder and sweet, fresh air. He had become painfully used to the dank, acrid smell of the sewers, so it never really bothered him. But he remembered Linda's reaction on the few times he had come straight home from work without stopping at the dispatch station to bathe. She'd wrinkled her nose and turned away, pressing one hand to her mouth and shutting her eyes. Not one word had she uttered. She's just pointed at the bathroom and gagged a bit. He'd done it twice early on, and then never again since.
It was no small feat to haul himself up that ladder and out of the hole. For some paranoid reason he couldn't quite fathom, he felt it was absolutely imperative to shut that manhole. Perhaps the goo would escape and infect others. Perhaps it was a sentient sort of thing and would go on a rampage throughout the city.
"Stupid!" Paul grumbled at himself. "You're being stupid."
Then he thought about how the stuff had crawled into the jar. He flipped the manhole cover onto his back and slid it back into place, listening as the grating sound of metal on metal echoed through the empty industrial district. Then he stood and, as quickly as he could manage, made his way to the car.
He wasn't sure if Matt had actually made good on his threat, but he was willing to bet money that he had. That meant that Paul had to get out of the city as quickly as possible; before the police could spot the car and stop him.
He would worry about taking his sample to the hospital later. For now, all he wanted was to see Linda and feel re-assured that she still loved him, and he was a long way from Los Angeles.
CHAPTER THREE
Paul watched as New York City grew ever smaller in his rear view mirror. Ever since he had left the apartment, he'd waited for those flashing lights to appear in his mirrors. Matt was a good friend and he knew that he was only concerned for his safety. Most people saw Matt as a dolt, a ne'er do well, a waste of oxygen. Most people didn't know Matt. The man had a good heart and he was as loyal as the day was long, but he was rough on the surface, and most people didn't take the time to get to know him.
Matt was the son of an alcoholic and some unknown condom-challenged one night stand. He'd practically raised himself and at the same time had taken care of his mom, until she died of alcohol-related diseases when he was fourteen. After that, Matt had gone into the system for a month, until Paul's parents had completed the paperwork necessary to foster the boy.
Paul hadn't been kidding when he said he thought of Matt as a brother. Together, they had survived some close-calls, pulled some epic pranks, and in general held each other together through everything. He knew Matt blamed himself for not going over the trash pile. He knew Matt was only trying to protect him and help him. Still, he couldn't let anyone, not even Matt, stop him from getting to Linda.
The light of the city glowed brightly in his mirror. Ahead, there were thousands of miles of highway. A sudden thought assaulted Paul's mind and he nearly threw on the brakes. He had no idea how to get to LA.
The car he was driving was only a year old. He and Matt had bought it together. They had invested $5000 of their own savings in it, and then gotten a loan in Paul's name to cover the rest. Paul had paid ahead on it, gotten the loan down to almost nothing. He had intended to give the car to Matt when he left for Cali.
He eased the car off to the side of the road and put it in park. Linda's address was emblazoned on his memory, so he punched it in to the GPS and waited. There was hardly any traffic at this hour and he hoped that Matt hadn't made good on his promise to report the car stolen. If he had, there was nowhere to hide.
The GPS beeped and a map appeared. Paul smiled and pushed the shift lever back into drive. He eased back onto the road then, following the map and shaking his head at the voice. Why did these things always have the most pretentious voice possible?
Paul drove on, sticking to the speed limits and keeping a careful eye out for cops. He felt fairly sure by now that Matt had not called them. He could picture his friend pacing back and forth in the apartment, trying to decide what the right thing to do was. The odds were very good that Matt had continued pacing, probably smoked another fat one, and then fallen asleep without any decision having been reached. Classic Matt.
Paul passed the state line and kept going. A thin slit of sunrise spread across the back window. He would need to stop for gas soon, but for the moment he was good and he kept driving.
Linda felt the vibration of the alarm transfer from the nightstand to the bed to her cheek as it lay on the pillow. That more than the noise of it woke her. She reached out, letting her fingers feel the items on the nightstand – cell phone, bottle of aspirin, book, tissue box – and finally found the alarm. She pressed at several buttons, got it wrong, finally found the right button, and the alarm went silent. The button slapping was why she had to reset her alarm clock every night. She was not a morning person.
She threw back the covers and slipped her feet to the floor immediately. If she didn't do that, she ran the risk of falling back asleep. Her first trip was to the bathroom, where she yawned continuously as she peed, brushed her teeth and washed her face. She hated morning breath, hated it more than anything. Her day just couldn't go on until she had scrubbed it awa
y.
Back to the bed then, where she sat down and pulled the cell phone off its charger. She stopped for a moment while she yawned some more. God, how she wished it was Saturday. The next part of her day had been a ritual since the day she had left New York. No day started or ended properly without her talking to Paul.
Paul. He was thousands of miles away and oh Lord, how she missed him! The look on his face when he first woke up, like he was always surprised she was there. The joy that overtook his eyes when he realized that she was, that she was his, and that would never change. She loved the cute way he had of eating his cereal. He ate it dry with a spoon, then took a swig of milk from a glass after every bite of cereal. He said putting it in milk made it mushy too fast. His way kept it crunchy longer. She wondered to herself if their future children would eat their cereal that way.
Smiling as though her face might split open, she almost squealed with joy as she thought of Paul. He was her love, her buddy, her everything. She had dated other men briefly; rich men, handsome men, brilliant men, handsome men who were rich. But Paul was THE ONE. He wasn't handsome or rich or brilliant, but he was sweet and loving and funny and giving.
She shivered, sighed happily, and rested back on the pillows. Paul was number one on her speed dial. She pushed the button and put the phone to her ear, waiting for his sweet voice.
Paul's phone rang. The sound of it made him jerk the wheel and he nearly cried out. He had seen far too many accidents come from talking on the phone while driving, so he made it a personal rule that he would always pull over before answering. To that end, he steered the car to the breakdown lane and put it in park.
Zombie - A Love Story Page 2
