War of the Undead (Day One): The Apocalypse Crusade (A Zombie Tale)

by Meredith, Peter

  "You tried." John stood and had to grab the back of his chair as his head went light and his chest constricted. It was only a momentary thing and he took as deep a breath as he could, making a wheezy noise like a shot up bagpipe sitting in a mud puddle. "Y'all have a good evenin'."

  "Wait, I got one more person to call."

  She seemed so distressed that he sat down again, stretching his legs out in front of him. Jaimee wasn't the only one who looked brittle-thin. John's faded jeans hung off him and his ol' work shirt was so baggy he looked like a boy who'd raided his daddy's closet.

  Jes 'bout done in, he thought. An' still no one to watch over Jaimee.

  The thought, the long day of driving, the disease chewing him up and spitting him out had exhausted him. He dropped his chin to his chest, just thinking he would close his eyes for a moment. Thirty minutes later he woke as Dr. Lee, brusque and short, harried to the point of being rude, came in. "This does not constitute an emergency," she said after Mrs. Evans explained the issue. To John she asked, "Where the child's mother?"

  John blinked in slow steady beats as his mind tried to come to grips with being kicked out of a dead sleep. Before he answered Dr. Lee, he glanced into the waiting room to see Jaimee playing with another little girl. The two seemed like a matched set: equal in size, both pale and blonde with coltishly slim legs jutting from their pretty dresses. They looked ready for church.

  John, in his grease-stained Levis might have been a bare step up from a hobo, but he made sure to keep Jaimee properly clothed. He turned back to Dr. Lee and spoke in a flat tone, "She dead. The cancer what got her two years ago."

  Thuy's mouth came open for half a second, expelling nothing but a stunned sound, "Uhhhh...That's...I'm sorry for your loss, but that doesn't change the fact that we can't have extraneous personnel living in the rooms with the patients. We can help you find someone to watch the child. I'm sure there are a few daycare facilities around here. We aren't all that far from the city after all."

  "But he doesn't want to use a..." the admissions nurse started to say.

  Dr. Lee interrupted, "Mrs. Evans, it's a sad truth but sometimes we don't always get what we want."

  "That's 'bout what I thought," John said, getting up. This time he forced himself to ignore the dizziness in his head and the ache in his chest, which made each breath, each second of his life a chore. "Come on Jaimee. We gotta get movin' on."

  She looked disappointed that her playtime was being cut short and at the same time pleasantly surprised. "Did you get fixed already, Daidy?"

  Up close the "twin-ness" between Jaimee and her new friend failed. The little girl smiled up at John, showing a rich man's set of teeth: straight and white--Jaimee's were already yellowing, and she'd be needing braces to close up the gaps in her ranks. The little girl also had perfect hair. It wasn't just cut, it was styled, and framed her face making her look like an angel. Jaimee's blond hair was limp and cut at right angles to box in her face, the limit of John's hair cutting ability.

  The little girl's perfect smile slid away when John said, "I don't think there ain't no cure, darlin'."

  "Mr. Burke!" Dr. Lee hissed as she hurried to catch up to him. "I can assure you there is a cure. But we have rules...the CDC has rules regarding this sort of thing. There are certain toxins involved that may not be healthy for children to be around."

  "What about her?" John pointed at Jaimee's friend.

  Dr. Lee glanced once at Maddy Rothchild. "She's different. That's the granddaughter of Edmund Rothchild, the man who fronted the money for all of this."

  John smirked. "So she rich and so the rules don't apply. Typical."

  "No...no that's not it at all," Thuy replied. She was having trouble grasping how a man, who was clearly in the end stage of cancer could walk away from a cure. It was mind-boggling. "Yes, Mr. Rothchild has a separate facility for his daughter, but Maddy still won't be allowed in the same room. You see we have to take special precautions against any pathogen with a measurement larger than point zero, zero, one micron."

  She thought that was perfectly clear however John's brows came together to form a line across his forehead. "No disrespect, Doc, but you may know spores, an' varusses, an' macra-scopes, an' all, but you sure as hell don't know people. Tellin' me the rich got it better ain't exactly no surprise."

  He started again to the lobby doors, but stopped when Thuy cried out, "But there is a cure! You can't walk away from it."

  There were quite a few people in the lobby: two guards at the front desk, trying not to appear as bored as they felt--Chuck Singleton with his back to the far wall where he could keep one eye on the elevators and another on the clock over the guard desk—Dr. Wilson who had stopped in mid-stride to respond to a text sent by his wife, she was unnaturally afraid that he was cheating on her and had texted and called eight times that day--Ms. Robins, chatting with one of the radiologists and wondering if his hair was real or if it was a rug.

  They all stopped and stared at Thuy who only then realized how loud she had been. Her voice had echoed along the pristine white walls and the dust free glass. She'd even been heard down the hall where the secretaries in the admin offices all raised their eyebrows.

  John shook his head. "So you say. People been sellin’ snake oil since Adam and Eve. Iffin there's different rules from one to another then I'm a-guessin' there's gonna be different results, too. An' we both knows who'll end up holdin’ the short end of the stick." He jerked a thumb at his own chest.

  She glared at the insinuation. "You are being obtuse. Clearly, purposely so. And you're being offensive. Perhaps it would be best if you did leave." Her voice carried to every corner of the lobby and now people didn't even pretend not to have heard.

  Dr. Wilson hurried over. "Did I hear someone mention snake oil? I have a case of it out in my car." Over the twenty years he'd been an oncologist, Wilson had developed a soothing presence. It was hard to be upset when he unfurled his broad grin in your direction. Thuy calmed, slightly, still her words were clipped as she explained John's irrational fears.

  "What Mr. Burke is feeling is normal," Wilson said. "Doctors don't seem to realize how many times we are just flat out wrong. I had one patient who'd received sixteen different diagnoses before she found out that she was dying of endocrine pancreatic cancer. Each of her previous doctors were one hundred percent certain of their diagnoses and each was a hundred percent wrong. This affects the patients view, especially those in a terminal situation. It drains the hope out of them."

  "But this time..." Thuy started to say.

  John scoffed, "But this time y'all got it right? Sure." His skepticism was so obvious that even the two little girls, who were now almost an afterthought to the adults, caught it and shared a look.

  "Right or wrong, Mr. Burke, this is your only chance," Thuy said, practically begging now. Yes, she needed him to flesh out her trial, however it was also clear to her that he couldn't last out the month without help. He was so bad off, swaying in place with sweat running from beneath his ball cap that she was on the verge of offering to watch the child during the evening, when little Maddy Rothchild spoke.

  "She can stay with me. We can do a sleepover. It'll be ok, Mr. Burke. We'll just be in the big cabin. It's right nearby to the hospital."

  John had seen the newly built houses on his way in; they didn't seem like cabins to him. Each was twice as large as his house back home and the largest was like a mansion.

  "Asking permission first would've been nice," Ms. Robins said, cocking an eyebrow at Maddy. She wasn't going to argue too much. She had not been looking forward to entertaining Maddy single handily for the entire week. "But since you've offered already, I don't see why we couldn't have a guest. As long as it's ok with Mr. Burke."

  Before John could spit, Jaimee had him by the hand and was begging, "Can I please? I ain't had no sleepovers in forever."

  John wavered both in his mind and in his body. He staggered a little before righting himself. "Well, I don't k
now...I guess it'll be ok. If it ain't all that much of an imposition. And if y'all got the room."

  "We have six bedrooms," Maddy assured him, holding up six little fingers. "And two of them are empty. But I think we should build a fort in the entertainment room. What do you think, Jaimee? We have all sorts of extra blankets."

  The girls fell to planning and John was stuck with the real possibility that he could actually be cured. It was slightly unnerving.

  4

  Chuck Singleton

  Chuck watched the little scene in the lobby with a level of understanding that none of them docs could possibly comprehend.

  They weren't living with death practically hanging on their arm or constantly looking over their shoulder like some over-eager spy. They were able to sneeze without wondering if this was the little cold that would trigger pneumonia and then death.

  Chuck felt like he spent every day with a cartoon piano hanging over his head suspended by an unraveling length of rope. When you lived like that it made little things huge and giant things small. He could see what that sick fellow valued and it wasn't his own fish-belly white skin, neither. It was the little girl and who would take care of her in the here and now.

  For Chuck the big thing was seeing Stephanie Glowitz smile one more time. He was sure that when death punched his ticket he would miss icy beer on a summer's evening after work, and the feel of a woman's breast as he ran his hand up her shirt when she weren't wearin' no bra, and he knew he would miss all those Friday nights he got shit-faced with his friends down at Black-eye Pete's, but he knew what he'd miss most of all was Stephanie's smile.

  He was tall and lean with a strong jaw and wide shoulders--there had been plenty of women before Stephanie, but there had never been that instantaneous connection before. Whenever he looked her way, he felt something he would've been embarrassed to admit to the good 'ol boys back home: he was in love.

  This was why he had taken up residency in a little beach motel in Point Pleasant, New Jersey. Though Steph lived ten minutes away they'd only seen each other three times in those fourteen days and two of those times were under the unpleasant glare of Winnie Glowitz who was always hovering around her daughter, setting a new standard in over-protectiveness.

  It was also why he had hung about in the lobby of the hospital all day long. He'd been the first patient to check in at a minute after nine that morning and since then he'd kept a long vigil, watching as hundreds of people came in and out of the little hospital. Of all those people, thirty-seven truly caught his eye. He could spot others of his kind easily. It wasn't just that they were frail and sickly, it was also because they were the only ones who wore their fear so openly.

  Most people who came in through the gleaming lobby doors marveled at the newness and the opulence of everything like they were stepping into one of them fancy New York hotels.

  Not so the patients. Most of them cowered as if the building was about to fall on them. They didn't pause to gaze up at the marble walls adorned with renaissance prints; they didn't look at the gilded sconces and fixtures or the intricate tile that matched the soft squares of carpet. Instead, in a hunched posture, they scurried through security, holding their x-rays and body scans close to their chests as if afraid someone would possibly want to steal them. They eventually went in to see Mrs. Evans, whose make-up, hair, and overall appearance slowly degraded throughout that long day.

  From all outward appearances, Chuck had not changed a lick. He had come in wearing the fanciest boots in his arsenal, comfy, faded denim jeans and a white shirt that he'd rolled to his elbows. He had foregone the cowboy hat that he generally wore because Mrs. Glowitz always looked at it with her lip curled and a tint of disgust in her eyes.

  He waited and watched all for the chance to be smiled at by the girl in the pink acorn cap. He had a long wait. She came in just after one in the afternoon and she was different than all the rest. Her eyes swept the lobby not in awe or barely concealed fear, but in hope. She hoped to see him, he knew it.

  And she had smiled.

  "Worth it," Chuck had said, under his breath.

  When Winnie Glowitz wasn't looking, Steph pointed at the floor, meaning: Wait here! And he had for the next four hours, and again it was worth it.

  During the middle of John Burke's confrontation with Dr. Lee, when the sun was threatening to clock out for the day, the elevator dinged pleasantly and from it strode Winnie Glowitz, alone. She looked neither left nor right, though somehow she was able to instinctively shun the unsightly Mr. Burke as she headed out the doors.

  Chuck's heart began to pick up in speed as the minutes ticked slowly. Every time the elevators let out its merry "ding" Chuck stood up straighter and ran a hand through his brown hair. Four times the elevator chimed and four times he was disappointed, slumping back against the wall. After the fifth, Stephanie came rushing out into the lobby.

  She had no idea what color the squares of carpet were or how many cherubs had been painted into the artwork, or anything else about the lobby, she only saw Charles Ryland Singleton. Unlike the other patients she had met that day, he wasn't pale and spindly. Yes, he was thin, thinner even than when she had first met him, but he didn't look brittle like the others...like how she felt. He looked tough like a strip of jerky or a knot of gristle. He was also tanned from living on the beach and he was so tall and handsome she caught herself staring.

  "Sorry, I thought my mom would never...leave..." Her words seized up in her throat as he reached out and took her hand. With calm assurance he started heading for the lobby doors. "Where are we going?"

  "I was hopin' to buy you dinner," he said in his rough accent. "I've been hopin' for going on three weeks now."

  She'd been around her mother for so long that instant arguments popped in her head: But that isn't allowed. But we'll get in trouble. But we're in the middle of farm town, New York. She bit the questions back and allowed him to lead her outside.

  The sun was setting, turning the tips of the western trees gold. Again it was the little things that seemed so important and they both stopped and stared. How many more of these will I see? Chuck asked himself. Next to him, Stephanie shivered in spite of the warm evening. "You want me to fetch a jacket for you?"

  She was thin and her flesh had tented up around a thousand goose bumps, but she shook her head. The shiver hadn't been from the temperature. Her thoughts had run down the same line his had; if this new drug didn't work she'd be counting her remaining sunsets on her fingers and toes very soon.

  "No, I'm..."

  "What are you two doing out here?" Dr. Lee demanded, interrupting Stephanie. She was fast-marching from crisis to crisis as she had all day and naturally assumed the worst upon seeing two of her patients outside the walls of her hospital. "You aren't thinking about leaving, are you?"

  "No ma'am," Chuck said. "Just thinking about gettin' us a bite to eat. Proper food that is. I'm just 'bout sick of hospital food."

  Thuy arched an eyebrow at this. The cancer trial was her baby and she knew practically everything concerning it and that included her test subjects. She knew Chuck Singleton hadn't spent one night in a hospital since he'd been diagnosed. She also knew that he'd been instrumental in talking Stephanie Glowitz into coming on board. And it didn't take much of her natural genius to see that the pair wasn't just going for a "bite to eat."

  "No alcohol," she said, with a stern glare. "And no drugs. And no eating after ten." She also wanted to add: And be back before midnight! But she already knew she sounded like a mother hen.

  "Yes, ma'am," Chuck said, suppressing a grin. "I'll get her home safe and sound." He tugged Stephanie away, leaving Dr. Lee standing there looking exhausted. The pair headed for the Toyota Camry that Chuck had rented for the week. It wouldn’t get much use beyond this first date but he didn't care, his horizons had shrunk to the immediate future. "You like ribs?" he asked as he opened her door. It was a purely perfunctory question for two reasons: One-who on God's green earth didn't like ribs? Two-th
ere really was only one restaurant within ten miles of the remote hospital and it happened to be called Rib-King.

  Stephanie enjoyed the ribs and the slaw, but, even more, she enjoyed Chuck's company, laughing at his jokes and how he talked, especially when he played it up for the waitress so that she kept saying, "Come again?"

  She was tired by the end of the meal, but very happy. "I'm not quite ready to go back," she said when they climbed into the Toyota.

  "Me neither."

  The hospital held a certain finality to it that she wanted to hold off as long as possible. Going back meant there was only the trial to look forward to. Yes, she would be able to see Chuck during the course of the week, but what sort of shape would she be in? The chemo had left her sicker than a dog, her hair falling out, her skin checkered with nasty sores and blotches. What would a fungus do to her? Would her teeth go? Would it rot her gums or her lady parts?

  Despite saying he didn't want to go back, Chuck started the engine and began driving. They did not go far, only to the edge of the little town where he pulled into the parking lot of a roadside motel.

  "Chuck, I don't know if I'm ready." She wasn't a virgin or a prude by any stretch of the imagination, however she wanted something more from him than a romp on a well-used bed.

  "I don't know if I'm ready neither," he said. His face had a pink glow from the neon sign canted on the motel roof. The light made him look healthy, but he, too, was feeling close on run-down. "I don't know what I'm supposed to be ready for cuz I ain't exactly sure what's going to happen in there, but I figger it'll be whatever we both want. Nothing more."

  Liar! Her mother's voice echoed in her mind. Winnie Glowitz thought Chuck was a fake. She thought he was phony from top to bottom: the beat up cowboy hat, the down-home manners, the rugged good looks, all of it. She looked at him and all she saw was a slick operator who played up his country twang to charm her daughter when she was at her lowest.