Cahill occasionally saw other convicts, but he avoided them, and so far, they avoided him. There was a one dude who Cahill was pretty sure lived somewhere around the wreckage of the Renaissance Hotel. He didn’t seem to want any company, either. Cahill followed to where this new guy had disappeared around a corner. The guy was watching and when he saw Cahill, he jogged away, watching over his shoulder to see if Cahill would follow. Cahill stood until the guy had turned the corner.
By the time Cahill got to the apartment where he’d seen the zombie in the dumpster, he was pretty sure that the other guy had gotten behind him and was following him. It irritated him. Dickweed. He thought about not going upstairs, but decided that since the guy wasn’t in sight at the moment, it would give Cahill a chance to disappear. Besides, they hadn’t actually checked out the apartment and there might be something worth scavenging. In Cahill’s months of scavenging, he had never seen a zombie in an apartment, or even any evidence of one, but he always checked carefully. The place was empty, still stinking a little of the contents of the fridge, but the smell was no worse than a lot of places and a lot better than some. Rain had come in where he’d left the kitchen window open, warping the linoleum. He climbed out onto the fire escape and looked down. The dumpster was empty, although still lined with some tattered aluminum foil. He pulled out his binoculars and checked carefully, but he couldn’t really see anything.
He stood for a long time. Truthfully he couldn’t be a hundred percent sure it was a zombie. Maybe it had been a child, some sort of refugee? Hard to imagine any child surviving in the city. No, it had to be a zombie. He considered lighting and tossing the Molotov cocktail and seeing if the zombie came to the alley, but didn’t want to wait it out in this apartment building. Something about this place made him feel vulnerable.
Eventually he rummaged through the apartment. The bedside table held neither handgun nor D batteries, two things high on his scavenger list. He went back down the dark stairwell and stopped well back from the doorway. Out in the middle of the street, in front of the building to his left but visible from where he stood, was an offering. A box with a bottle of whiskey set on it. Like some kind of perverse lemonade stand.
Fucking dickweed.
If the guy had found a handgun, he could be waiting in ambush. Cahill figured there was a good chance he could outlast the guy but he hated waiting in the stairwell. There were no apartments on the first level, just a hallway between two storefronts. Cahill headed back upstairs. The apartment he’d been in before didn’t look out the front of the building. The one that did was locked.
Fuck.
Breaking open the lock would undoubtedly make a hell of a lot of racket. He went back to the first apartment, checked one more time for the zombie, and peed in the empty toilet. He grabbed a pillow from the bed.
Cahill went back downstairs and sat down on the bottom step and wedged the pillow in behind his back. He set up his bottle and his lighter beside him on the step, and his pipe on the other side and settled in to watch. He could at least wait until dark although it wasn’t even mid-morning yet. After awhile he ate his soup—the can opener sounded louder than it probably was.
It was warm midday and Cahill was drowsy warm when the guy finally, nervously, walked out to the box and picked up the whiskey. Cahill sat still in the shadow of the stairwell with his hand on his pipe. As best as he could tell, he was unnoticed. The guy was a tall, skinny black man wearing a brown Cleveland football jersey and a pair of expensive looking, olive-green suit pants. Cahill looked out and watched the guy walk back up the street. After a minute, Cahill followed.
When Cahill got out to the main drag, the guy was walking up Superior towards the center of downtown. Cahill took a firm hold of his pipe.
“Hey,” he said. His voice carried well in the silence.
The guy started and whirled around.
“What the fuck you want?” Cahill asked.
“Bro,” the man said. “Hey, were you hiding back there?” He laughed nervously and held up the bottle. “Peace offering, bro. Just looking to make some peace.”
“What do you want?” Cahill asked.
“Just, you know, wanna talk. Talk to someone who knows the ropes, you know? I just got here and I don’t know what the fuck is going on, bro.”
“This is a fucking penal colony,” Cahill said.
“Yeah,” the guy laughed. “A fucking zombie preserve. I been watching out for them zombies. You look like you been here awhile.”
Cahill hadn’t bothered to shave and last time he’d glanced in a mirror he’d looked like Charles Manson, only bearded and taller. “Lie down with your hands away from your body,” Cahill said.
The black guy squinted at Cahill. “You shittin’ me.”
“How do I know you don’t have a gun?” Cahill asked.
“Bro, I don’t got no gun. I don’t got nothin’ but what you see.”
Cahill waited.
“Listen, I’m just trying to be friendly,” the guy said. “I swear to God, I don’t have anything. How do I know you’re not going to do something to me? You’re a freaky dude—you know that?”
The guy talked for about five minutes, finally talking himself into lying down on his stomach with his arms out. Cahill moved fast, patting him down. The guy wasn’t lying, he didn’t have anything on him.
“Fuck man,” the guy said. “I told you that.” Once he was sure Cahill wasn’t going to do anything to him he talked even more. His name was LaJon Watson and his lawyer had told him there was no way they were going to drop him in the Cleveland Zombie Preserve because the Supreme Court was going to declare it unconstitutional. His lawyer had been saying that right up until the day they put LaJon on the bus, which was when LaJon realized that his lawyer knew shit. LaJon wanted to know if Cahill had seen any zombies and what they were like and how Cahill had stayed alive.
Cahill found it hard to talk. He hadn’t talked to anyone in weeks. Usually someone like LaJon Watson would have driven him nuts, but it was nice to let the tide of talk wash over him while they walked. He wasn’t sure that he wouldn’t regret it, but he took LaJon back to his place. LaJon admired his alarm system. “You gotta show me how to unhook it and hook it back up. Don’t they see it? I mean, has one of them ever hit it?”
“No,” Cahill said. “I don’t think they can see.”
There were scientists studying zombies and sometimes there was zombie stuff on Fox News, but LaJon said he hadn’t paid much attention to all that. He really hadn’t expected to need to know about zombies. In fact, he hadn’t been sure at first that Cahill wasn’t a zombie. Cahill opened cans of Campbell’s Chunky Chicken and Dumplings. LaJon asked if Cahill warmed them over a fire or what. Cahill handed him a can and a spoon.
LaJon wolfed down the soup. LaJon wouldn’t shut up, even while eating. He told Cahill how he’d looked in a bunch of shops, but most of them had been pretty thoroughly looted. He’d looked in an apartment, but the only thing on the shelves in a can was tomato paste and evaporated milk. Although now that he thought about it, maybe he could have made some sort of tomato soup or something. He hadn’t slept in the two days he’d been here and he was going crazy and it was a great fucking thing to have found somebody who could show him the ropes.
LaJon was from Cincinnati. Did Cahill know anybody from Cincinnati? Where had Cahill been doing time? (Auburn.) LaJon didn’t know anybody at Auburn, wasn’t that New York? LaJon had been at Lebanon Correctional. Cahill was a nice dude, if quiet. Who else was around, and was there anyone LaJon could score from? (Cahill said he didn’t know.) What did people use for money here anyway?
“I been thinking,” LaJon said, “about the zombies. I think it’s pollution that’s mutating them like the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.”
Cahill decided it had been a mistake to bring LaJon. He picked up the bottle of whiskey and opened it. He didn’t usually use glasses but got two out of the cupboard and poured them each some whiskey.
LaJon apol
ogized, “I don’t usually talk this much,” he said. “I guess I just fucking figured I was dead when they dropped me here.” He took a big drink of whiskey. “It’s like my mouth can’t stop.”
Cahill poured LaJon more to drink and nursed his own whiskey. Exhaustion and nerves were telling, LaJon was finally slowing down. “You want some frosting?” Cahill asked.
Frosting and whiskey was a better combination than it had any right to be. Particularly for a man who’d thought himself dead. LaJon nodded off.
“Come on,” Cahill said. “It’s going to get stuffy in here.” He got the sleepy drunk up on his feet.
“What?” LaJon said.
“I sleep outside, where it’s cooler.” It was true that the apartment got hot during the day.
“Bro, there’s zombies out there,” LaJon mumbled.
“It’s okay, I’ve got a system,” Cahill said. “I’ll get you downstairs and then I’ll bring down something to sleep on.”
LaJon wanted to sleep where he was and, for a moment, his eyes narrowed to slits and something scary was in his face.
“I’m going to be there, too,” Cahill said. “I wouldn’t do anything to put myself in danger.”
LaJon allowed himself to be half-carried downstairs. Cahill was worried when he had to unhook the alarm system. He propped LaJon up against the wall and told him. “Just a moment.” If LaJon slid down the wall and passed out, he’d be hell to get downstairs. But the lanky black guy stood there long enough for Cahill to get the alarm stuff out of the way. He was starting to sober up a little. Cahill got him down to the street.
“I’ll get the rest of the whiskey,” Cahill said.
“What the fuck you playing at?” LaJon muttered.
Cahill took the stairs two at a time in the dark. He grabbed pillows, blankets, and the whiskey bottle and went back down to the sidewalk. He handed LaJon the whiskey bottle. “It’s not so hot out here,” he said, although it was on the sidewalk with the sunlight.
LaJon eyed him drunkenly.
Cahill went back upstairs and came down with a bunch of couch cushions. He made a kind of bed and got LaJon to sit on it. “We’re okay in the day,” he said. “Zombies don’t like the light. I sleep in the day. I’ll get us upstairs before night.”
LaJon shook his head, took another slug of whiskey, and lay back on the cushions. “I feel sick,” he said.
Cahill thought the motherfucker was going to throw up, but instead LaJon was snoring.
Cahill sat for a bit, planning and watching the street. After a bit, he went back to his apartment. When he found something good scavenging, he squirreled it away. He came downstairs with duct tape. He taped LaJon’s ankles together. Then his wrists. Then he sat LaJon up. LaJon opened his eyes, said, “What the fuck?” drunkenly. Cahill taped LaJon’s arms to his sides, right at his elbows, running the tape all the way around his torso. LaJon started to struggle, but Cahill was methodical and patient, and he used the whole roll of tape to secure LaJon’s arms. From shoulders to waist, LaJon was a duct tape mummy.
LaJon swore at him, colorfully then monotonously.
Cahill left him there and went looking. He found an upright dolly at a bar, and brought it back. It didn’t do so well where the pavement was uneven, but he didn’t think he could carry LaJon far and if he was going to build a fire, he didn’t want it to be close to his place, where zombies could pin him in his apartment. LaJon was still where he left him, although when he saw Cahill, he went into a frenzy of struggling. Cahill let him struggle. He lay the dolly down and rolled LaJon onto it. LaJon fought like anything, so in the end, Cahill went back upstairs and got another roll of duck tape and duck taped LaJon to the dolly. That was harder than duct taping LaJon the first time, because LaJon was scared and pissed now. When Cahill finally pulled the dolly up LaJon struggled so hard that the dolly was unmanageable, which pissed Cahill off so much he just let go.
LaJon went over, and without hands to stop himself, face planted on the sidewalk. That stilled him. Cahill pulled the dolly upright then. LaJon’s face was a bloody mess and it looked like he might have broken a couple of teeth. He was conscious, but stunned. Cahill started pushing the dolly and LaJon threw up.
It took a couple of hours to get six blocks. LaJon was sober and silent by the time Cahill decided he’d gone far enough.
Cahill sat down, sweating, and used his T-shirt to wipe his face.
“You a bug,” LaJon said.
Bug was prison slang for someone crazy. LaJon said it with certainty.
“Just my fucking luck. Kind of luck I had all my life. I find one guy alive in this fucking place and he a bug.” LaJon spat. “What are you gonna do to me?”
Cahill was so tired of LaJon that he considered going back to his place and leaving LaJon here. Instead, he found a door and pried it open with a tire iron. It had been an office building and the second floor was fronted with glass. He had a hell of a time finding a set of service stairs that opened from the outside on the first floor. He found some chairs and dragged them downstairs. Then he emptied file cabinets, piling the papers around the chairs. LaJon watched him, getting more anxious.
When it looked like he’d get a decent fire going, he put LaJon next to it. The blood had dried on LaJon’s face and he’d bruised up a bit. It was evening.
Cahill set fire to the papers and stood, waiting for them to catch. Burnt paper drifted up, raised by the fire.
LaJon squinted at the fire, then at Cahill. “You gonna burn me?”
Cahill went in the building and settled upstairs where he could watch.
LaJon must have figured that Cahill wasn’t going to burn him. Then he began to worry about zombies. Cahill watched him start twisting around, trying to look around. The dolly rocked and LaJon realized that if he wasn’t careful, the dolly would go over again and he’d faceplant and not be able to see.
Cahill gambled that the zombies wouldn’t be there right away, and found a soda machine in the hallway. He broke it open with his tire iron and got himself a couple of Cokes and then went back to watch it get dark. The zombies weren’t there yet. He opened a warm Coke and settled in a desk chair from one of the offices—much more comfortable than the cubicle chairs. He opened a jar of peanut butter and ate it with a spoon.
It came so fast that he didn’t see it until it was at the fire. LaJon saw it before he did and went rigid with fear. The fire was between LaJon and the zombie.
It just stood there, not watching the fire, but standing there. Not “looking” at LaJon, either. Cahill leaned forward. He tried to read its body language. It had been a man, overweight, maybe middle-aged, but now it was predatory and gracile. It didn’t seem to do any normal things. It was moving and it stopped. Once stopped, it was still. An object rather than an animal. Like the ones that had come to the mattress fire, it didn’t seem to need to shift its weight. After a few minutes, another one came from the same direction and stopped, looking at the fire. It had once been a man, too. It still wore glasses. Would there be a third? Did they come in threes? Cahill imagined a zombie family. Little triplets of zombies, all apparently oblivious of each other. Maybe the zombie he’d seen was still in the zombie den? He had never figured out where the zombies stayed.
LaJon was still and silent with terror, but the zombies didn’t seem to know or care that he was there. They just stood, slightly askew and indifferent. Was it the fire? Would they notice LaJon when the fire died down?
Then there was a third one, but it came from the other side of the fire, the same side LaJon was on so there was no fire between it and LaJon. Cahill saw it before LaJon did, and from its directed lope he was sure it was aware of LaJon. LaJon saw it just before it got to him. His mouth opened wide and it was on him, hands and teeth. LaJon was clearly screaming, although behind the glass of the office building, Cahill couldn’t hear him.
Cahill was watching the other zombies. They didn’t react to the noise at all. Even when there was blood all over, they didn’t seem to sense
anything. Cahill reflected, not for the first time, that it actually took people a lot longer to die than it did on television or in the movies. He noted that the one that had mauled and eventually killed LaJon did not seem to prefer brains. Sometime in the night, the fire died down enough that the zombies on the wrong side of the fire seemed to sense the body of LaJon, and in an instant, they were feeding. The first one, apparently sated, just stood, indifferent. Two more showed up in the hours before dawn and fed in the dim red of the embers of the fire. When they finally left, almost two days later, there was nothing but broken bones and scattered teeth.
Cahill lay low for a while after that, feeling exhausted. It was hot during the day and the empty city baked. But after a few days, he went out and found another perch and lit another fire. Four zombies came to that fire, despite the fact it was smaller than his first two. They had all been women. He still had his picture of the toothy blonde from the loft, and after masturbating, he looked out at the zombie women, blank-white eyes and indifferent bodies, and wondered if the toothy blonde had been evacuated or if she might show up at one of his fires. None of the women at the fire appeared to be her, although it wasn’t always easy to tell. One was clearly wearing the remnants of office clothes, but the other three were blue jean types and all four had such rat’s nests of hair that he wasn’t sure if their hair was short or long.
A couple of times he encountered zombies while scavenging. Both times his Molotov cocktails worked, catching fire. He didn’t set the zombies on fire, just threw the bottle so that the fire was between him and the zombie. He watched them stop, then he backed away, fast. He set up another blind in an apartment and, over the course of a week, built a scaffolding and a kind of block and tackle arrangement. Then he started hanging around where the bus dropped people off, far enough back that the guys patrolling the gate didn’t start shooting or something. He’d scoured up some bottles of water and used them to shave and clean up a bit.
The Year's Best Dark Fantasy and Horror Page 16
